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The War in the Air Chapter 5 Parts 1-3 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter five, Parts one, two, and three of War in
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  Speaker 1: the Air. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Teresa Sheridan. War
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  Speaker 1: in the Air by H. G. Wells. Chapter five, Parts one,
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  Speaker 1: two and three. Chapter five The Battle of the North Atlantic,
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  Speaker 1: Part one. The Prince Karl Albert had made a profound
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  Speaker 1: impression upon Burt. He was quite the most terrifying person
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  Speaker 1: Bert had ever encountered. He filled the small way's soul
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  Speaker 1: with passionate, dread and antipathy. For a long time, Bert
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  Speaker 1: sat alone in Kurt's cabin, doing nothing, and not venturing
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  Speaker 1: even to open the door, lest he should be by
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  Speaker 1: that much nearer that appalling presence. So it came about
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  Speaker 1: that he was probably the last person on board to
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  Speaker 1: hear the news that wireless telegraphy was bringing to the
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  Speaker 1: airship in throbs and fragments of a great naval battle
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  Speaker 1: in progress in mid Atlantic. He learnt it at last
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  Speaker 1: from Kurt. Kurt came in with a general air of
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  Speaker 1: ignoring Bert, but muttering to himself in English. Nevertheless, stupendous
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  Speaker 1: Bert heard him say. Here, he said, get off this locker,
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  Speaker 1: and he proceeded to route out two books and a
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  Speaker 1: case of maps. He spread them on the folding table
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  Speaker 1: and stood regarding them for a time. His Germanic discipline
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  Speaker 1: struggled with his English informality, in his natural kindliness and talkativeness,
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  Speaker 1: and at last lost. They're at it small ways, he said,
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  Speaker 1: at what sir said Bert, broken and respectful fighting the
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  Speaker 1: American North Atlantic Squadron, and pretty nearly the whole of
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  Speaker 1: our fleet, our eastern crews has had a grueling and
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  Speaker 1: is sinking, and their miles standish. She's one of their biggest,
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  Speaker 1: has sunk with all hands torpedoes. I suppose she was
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  Speaker 1: a bigger ship than the Carl de Grosse, but five
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  Speaker 1: or six years older. Gods, I wish we could see it, smallways,
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  Speaker 1: a square fight in blue water, guns or nothing, and
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  Speaker 1: all of em steaming ahead. He spread his maps. He
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  Speaker 1: had to talk, and so he delivered a lecture on
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  Speaker 1: the naval situation to Bert. Here it is, he said,
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  Speaker 1: latitude thirty degrees fifty minutes north, longitude thirty degrees fifty
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  Speaker 1: minutes west. It's a good day off us anyhow, And
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  Speaker 1: they're all going south west by south at full pelt,
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  Speaker 1: as hard as they can go. We shan't see a
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  Speaker 1: bit of it. Worse luck, not a sniff, we shan't
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  Speaker 1: get Part two. The naval situation in the North Atlantic
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  Speaker 1: at that time was a peculiar one. The United States
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  Speaker 1: was by far the stronger of the two powers upon
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  Speaker 1: the sea, but the bulk of the American fleet was
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  Speaker 1: still in the Pacific. It was in the direction of
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  Speaker 1: Asia that war had been most feared, for the situation
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  Speaker 1: between Asiatic and White had become unusually violent and dangerous,
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  Speaker 1: and the Japanese government had shown itself quite unprecedentally difficult.
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  Speaker 1: The German attack therefore found half the American strength at Manila,
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  Speaker 1: and what was called the Second Fleet strung out across
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  Speaker 1: the Pacific in wireless contact between the Asiatics station in
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  Speaker 1: San Francisco. The North Atlantic Squadron was the sole American
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  Speaker 1: force on her eastern shore. It was returning from a
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  Speaker 1: friendly visit to France and Spain and was pumping oil
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  Speaker 1: fuel from tenders in mid Atlantic. For most of its
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  Speaker 1: ships were steamships. When the international situation became acute, it
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  Speaker 1: was made up of four battleships and five armored cruisers,
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  Speaker 1: ranking almost with battleships, not one of which was of
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  Speaker 1: a later date than nineteen thirteen. The Americans had indeed
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  Speaker 1: grown so accustomed to the idea that Great Britain could
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  Speaker 1: be trusted to keep the peace of the Atlantic that
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  Speaker 1: a naval attack on the Eastern seaboard found them unprepared
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  Speaker 1: even in their imaginations. But long before the declaration of war, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: on whit Monday, the whole German fleet of eighteen battleships,
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  Speaker 1: with a flotilla of fuel tenders and converted liners containing
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  Speaker 1: stores to be used in support of the air fleet,
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  Speaker 1: had passed through the Straits of Dover and headed boldly
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  Speaker 1: for New York. Not only did these German battleships outnumber
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  Speaker 1: the Americans two to one, but they were more heavily
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  Speaker 1: armed and more modern in construction, seven of them having
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  Speaker 1: high explosive engines built of Charlottenburg steel, and all carrying
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  Speaker 1: Charlottenburg steel guns. The fleets came into contact on Wednesday,
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  Speaker 1: before any actual declaration of war. The Americans had strung
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  Speaker 1: out in the modern fashion at distances of thirty miles
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  Speaker 1: or so, and were steaming to keep themselves between the
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  Speaker 1: Germans and either the Eastern States or Panama. Because vital
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  Speaker 1: as it was to defend the seaboard cities and particularly
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  Speaker 1: New York, it was still more vital to save the
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  Speaker 1: canal from any attack that might prevent the return of
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  Speaker 1: the main fleet from the Pacific. No doubt, said Kurt,
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  Speaker 1: this was now making records across that ocean. Unless the
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  Speaker 1: Japanese have had the same idea as the Germans, it
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  Speaker 1: was obviously beyond human possibility that the American North Atlantic
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  Speaker 1: Fleet could hope to meet and defeat the German But
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  Speaker 1: on the other hand, with luck, it might fight a
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  Speaker 1: delaying action and inflict such damage as to greatly weaken
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  Speaker 1: the attack upon the coast defenses. Its duty, indeed, was
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  Speaker 1: not victory but devotion, the severest task in the world. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: the submarine defenses of New York, Panama and the other
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  Speaker 1: more vital points could be put in some sort of order.
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  Speaker 1: This was the naval situation, and until Wednesday in Witweek,
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  Speaker 1: it was the only situation the American people had realized.
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  Speaker 1: It was then they heard for the first time of
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  Speaker 1: the real scale of the Dornhoff Aeronautic Park and the
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  Speaker 1: possibility of an attack coming upon them, not only by
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  Speaker 1: sea but by air. But it is curious that so
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  Speaker 1: discredited were the newspapers of that period, that a large
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  Speaker 1: majority of New Yorkers, for example, did not believe the
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  Speaker 1: most copious and circumstantial accounts of the German air fleet
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  Speaker 1: until it was actually in sight of New York. Kurt's
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  Speaker 1: talk was half siloquy. He stood with a map on
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  Speaker 1: Mercader's projection before him, swaying to the swinging of the ship,
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  Speaker 1: and talking of guns and tonnage of ships and their
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  Speaker 1: build and powers, and speed, of strategic points and bases
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  Speaker 1: of operation. A certain shyness that reduced him to the
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  Speaker 1: status of a listener at the officer's table no longer
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  Speaker 1: silenced him. Berts stood by, saying very little, but watching
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  Speaker 1: Kurt's finger on the map. They've been saying things like
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  Speaker 1: this in the papers for a long time, he remarked.
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  Speaker 1: Fancy it coming real. Kurt had a detailed knowledge of
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  Speaker 1: the miles Standish. She used to be a crack ship
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  Speaker 1: for gunnery, held the record. I wonder if we beat
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  Speaker 1: her shooting, or how I wish I was in it.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder which of our ships beat her. Maybe she
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  Speaker 1: got a shell in her engines. It's a running fight.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder what the barbarossa is doing, He went on,
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  Speaker 1: she's my old ship, not a first raider, but good stuff.
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  Speaker 1: I bet she's got a shot or two home by now.
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  Speaker 1: If old Schneider's up to form, just think of it.
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  Speaker 1: There they are whacking away at each other, great guns,
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  Speaker 1: going shells, exploding magazines, bursting ironwork, flying about like straw
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  Speaker 1: in a gale. All we've been dreaming of for years.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose we shall fly right away to New York,
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  Speaker 1: just as though it wasn't anything at all. I suppose
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  Speaker 1: we shall reckon. We aren't wanted down there. It's no
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  Speaker 1: more than a covering fight on our side. All those
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  Speaker 1: tenders and short ships of ours are going on southwest
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  Speaker 1: by west to New York to make a floating depot
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  Speaker 1: for us. See he dabbed his forefinger on the map.
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  Speaker 1: Here we are, our train of stores goes there, our
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  Speaker 1: battleship's elbow. The Americans out of our way. There. When
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  Speaker 1: Bert went down to the men's mess room to get
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  Speaker 1: his evening ration, hardly anyone took notice of him, except
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  Speaker 1: just to point him out. For an instant everyone was
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  Speaker 1: talking of the battle, suggesting, contradicting at times, until the
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  Speaker 1: petty officers hushed them. It rose to a great uproar,
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  Speaker 1: a new bulletin. But what it said he did not gather,
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  Speaker 1: except that it concerned the Barbarossa. Some of the men
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  Speaker 1: stared at him, and he heard the name of Booda
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  Speaker 1: rage several times, but no one molested him, and there
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  Speaker 1: was no difficulty about his soup and bread. When his
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  Speaker 1: turn at the end of the queue came. He had
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  Speaker 1: feared that there might be no ration for him, and
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  Speaker 1: if so, he did not know what he would have done. Afterwards,
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  Speaker 1: he ventured out upon the little hanging gallery with the
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  Speaker 1: solitary sentinel. The weather was still fine, but the wind
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  Speaker 1: was rising and the rolling swing of the airship increasing.
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  Speaker 1: He clutched the rail tightly and felt rather giddy. They
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  Speaker 1: were now out of sight of land and over blue water,
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  Speaker 1: rising and falling in great masses. A dingy old brigantine
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  Speaker 1: under the British flag, rose and plunged amid the broad
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  Speaker 1: blue waves, the only ship inside. Part three. In the evening,
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  Speaker 1: it began to blow in the airship to roll like
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  Speaker 1: a porpoise, as it swung through the air. Kurt said
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  Speaker 1: that several of the men were seasick, but the motion
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  Speaker 1: did not inconvenience Bert, whose luck it was to be
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  Speaker 1: of that mysterious gastric disposition which constitutes a good sailor.
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  Speaker 1: He slept well, but in the small hours the light
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  Speaker 1: awoke him, and he found Kurt staggering about in search
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  Speaker 1: of something. He found it at last in the locker
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  Speaker 1: and held it in his hand unsteadily, a compass. Then
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  Speaker 1: he compared his map. We've changed our direction, he said,
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  Speaker 1: and come into the wind. I can't make it out.
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  Speaker 1: We've turned away from New York to the south, almost
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  Speaker 1: as if we were going to take a hand. He
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  Speaker 1: continued talking to himself for some time. Day came wet
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  Speaker 1: and windy. The window was bedewed externally and they could
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  Speaker 1: see nothing through it. It was also very cold, and
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  Speaker 1: Bert decided to keep rolled up in his blankets on
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  Speaker 1: the locker until the bugle summoned him to his morning ration.
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  Speaker 1: That consumed. He went out on the little gallery, but
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  Speaker 1: he could see nothing but eddying clouds driving headlong by,
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  Speaker 1: and the dim outlines of the nearer airships only at
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  Speaker 1: rare intervals could he get a glimpse of gray sea
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  Speaker 1: through the pouring cloud drift. Later in the morning, the
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  Speaker 1: Vaterland changed altitude and soared up suddenly in a high,
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  Speaker 1: clear sky, going, Kurt said, to a height of nearly
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  Speaker 1: thirteen thousand feet. Bert was in his cabin and chanced
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  Speaker 1: to see the dew vanish from the window and caught
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  Speaker 1: the gleam of sunlight outside. He looked out and saw
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  Speaker 1: once more that sunlit cloud floor he had seen first
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  Speaker 1: from the balloon, and the ships of the German air
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  Speaker 1: fleet rise one by one from the white as fish
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  Speaker 1: might rise and become visible from deep water. He stared
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  Speaker 1: for a moment, and then ran out to the little
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  Speaker 1: gallery to see this wonder better. Below was cloudland and storm,
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  Speaker 1: a great drift of tumbled weather going hard away to
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  Speaker 1: the northeast, and the air about him was clear and
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  Speaker 1: cold and serene, save for the faintest chill breeze and
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  Speaker 1: a rare drifting snowflake. Throb throb, throb throb went the
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  Speaker 1: engines in the stillness. That huge herd of airships rising
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  Speaker 1: one after another, had an effect of strange, portentous monsters
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  Speaker 1: breaking into an altogether unfamiliar world. Either there was no
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  Speaker 1: news of the naval battle that morning, or the Prince
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  Speaker 1: kept to himself whatever came until past midday. Then the
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  Speaker 1: bulletins came, with a rush, bulletins that made the lieutenant
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  Speaker 1: wild with excitement. Barbarossa disabled and sinking, he cried, got
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  Speaker 1: im himmel der alt Barbarossa, aber welch ein bravar krieger.
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  Speaker 1: He walked about the swinging cabin, and for a time
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  Speaker 1: he was wholly German. Then he became English again. Think
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  Speaker 1: of it, small Ways, the old ship we kept so
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  Speaker 1: clean and tidy, all smashed about, and the iron flying
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  Speaker 1: about in fragments, and the chaps one knew got flying
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  Speaker 1: about too, scalding water, squirting fire, and smash smash of
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  Speaker 1: the guns they smash when you're near, like everything bursting
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  Speaker 1: to pieces. Wool won't stop it nothing, And me up here,
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  Speaker 1: so near and so far der alt Barbarossa, any other ships,
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  Speaker 1: asked smallways. Presently, God, Yes, we've lost the Carl de Grosse,
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  Speaker 1: our best and biggest, run down in the night by
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  Speaker 1: a British liner that plundered into the fighting in trying
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  Speaker 1: to blunder out. They're fighting in a gale, the liners
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  Speaker 1: afloat with her nose broken, sagging about. There never was
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  Speaker 1: such a battle, never before, good ships and good men
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  Speaker 1: on both sides, and a storm, and the night and
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  Speaker 1: the dawn, and all in the open ocean, full steam ahead,
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  Speaker 1: no stabbing, no submarines, guns and shooting. Half our ships
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  Speaker 1: we don't hear of anymore because their masts are shot away.
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  Speaker 1: Latitude thirty degrees forty minutes north, longitude forty degrees thirty
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  Speaker 1: minutes west. Where's that he routed out his map again
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  Speaker 1: and stared at it with eyes that did not see
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  Speaker 1: dur All Barbarossa. I can't get it out of my head.
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  Speaker 1: With shells in her engine room and the fires flying
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  Speaker 1: out of her furnaces, and the stokers and engineers scalded
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  Speaker 1: and dead men. I've messed with small ways men, I've
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  Speaker 1: talked too close, and they've had their day at last,
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  Speaker 1: And it wasn't all luck for them. Disabled in sinking.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose everybody can't have all the luck in battle.
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  Speaker 1: Poor old Schneider. I bet he gave them something back.
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  Speaker 1: So it was the news of the battle came filtering
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  Speaker 1: through to them all that morning. The Americans had lost
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  Speaker 1: a second ship, name unknown. The Herman had been damaged.
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  Speaker 1: In covering the Barbarossa. Kurt fretted like an imprisoned animal
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  Speaker 1: about the airship, now going up to the forward gallery
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  Speaker 1: under the eagle, now down into the swinging gallery. Now
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  Speaker 1: pouring over his maps, he infected small ways with the
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  Speaker 1: scents of the immediacy of this battle that was going
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  Speaker 1: on just over the curve of the earth. But when
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  Speaker 1: Bert went down to the gallery, the world was empty
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  Speaker 1: and still, a clear, inky blue sky above and a
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  Speaker 1: rippled vane of still thin sunlit cyrus below, through which
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  Speaker 1: one saw a racing drift of rain cloud, and never
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  Speaker 1: a glimpse of sea. Throb throb, throb throb. Went the engines,
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  Speaker 1: and the long undulating wedge of airships hurried after the
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  Speaker 1: flagship like a flight of swans after their leader. Save
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  Speaker 1: for the quiver of the engines, it was as noiseless
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  Speaker 1: as a dream. And down there, somewhere in the wind
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  Speaker 1: and rain, guns roared, shells crashed home, and after the
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  Speaker 1: old manner of warfare, men toiled and died. End of
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  Speaker 1: Chapter five, Parts one, two, and three. Recording by Teresa
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  Speaker 1: Sheridan