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The War in the Air Chapter 10 Parts 3-5 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter ten, Parts three, four, and five 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 William Tomko. War
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  Speaker 1: in the Air by H. G. Wells, Chapter ten, Parts three,
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  Speaker 1: four and five. Part three. So Bert fell on his
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  Speaker 1: feet again and sat eating cold meat and good bread
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  Speaker 1: and mustard, and drinking very good beer, and telling, in
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  Speaker 1: the roughest outline, and with the omissions and inaccuracies of
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  Speaker 1: statement natural to his type of mind, the simple story
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  Speaker 1: of his adventures. He told how he and a gentleman
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  Speaker 1: friend had been visiting the seaside for their health, How
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  Speaker 1: a chep came along in a balloon and fell out
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  Speaker 1: as he fell in, How he had drifted to Franconia,
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  Speaker 1: How the Germans had seemed to mistake him for some
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  Speaker 1: one and had took him prisoner and brought him to
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  Speaker 1: New York, How he had been to Labrador and back,
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  Speaker 1: how he had got to go to Island and found
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  Speaker 1: himself there alone. He omitted the matter of the Prince
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  Speaker 1: and the Butteridge aspect of the affair, not out of
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  Speaker 1: any deep deceitfulness, but because he felt the inadequacy of
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  Speaker 1: his narrative powers, he wanted everything to seem easy and
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  Speaker 1: natural and correct, to present himself as a trustworthy and
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  Speaker 1: understandable Englishman in a sound, mediocre position, to whom refreshments
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  Speaker 1: and accommodation might be given with freedom and confidence. When
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  Speaker 1: his fragmentary story came to New York at the Battle
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  Speaker 1: of Niagara, they suddenly produced newspapers which had been lying
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  Speaker 1: about on the table, and began to check him and
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  Speaker 1: question him. By these vehement accounts, it became evident to
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  Speaker 1: him that his descent had revived and roused to flames again.
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  Speaker 1: A discussion a topic that had been burning continuously, that
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  Speaker 1: had smoldered only through sheer exhaustion and material during the
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  Speaker 1: temporary diversion of that gramophone, A discussion that had drawn
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  Speaker 1: these men together rifle in hand the one supreme topic
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  Speaker 1: of the whole world, the war and the methods of
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  Speaker 1: the war. He found any question of his personality and
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  Speaker 1: his personal adventures falling into the background, found himself taken
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  Speaker 1: for granted and no more than a source of information.
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  Speaker 1: The ordinary affairs of life, the buying and selling of
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  Speaker 1: everyday necessities, the cultivation of the ground, the tending of beasts,
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  Speaker 1: was going on, as it were, by force of routine,
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  Speaker 1: as the common duties of life go on in a
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  Speaker 1: house whose master lives under the knife of sub supreme operation.
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  Speaker 1: The overruling interest was furnished by those great asiatic airships
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  Speaker 1: that when up upon incalculable missions across the sky, the
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  Speaker 1: crimson clad swordsman who might come fluttering down demanding petrol
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  Speaker 1: or food or news, these men were asking. All the
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  Speaker 1: continent was asking, what are we to do? What can
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  Speaker 1: we try? How can we get at them? Bert fell
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  Speaker 1: into his place as an item, ceased even in his
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  Speaker 1: own thoughts, to be a central and independent thing. After
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  Speaker 1: he had eaten and drunken his fill, and sighed and stretched,
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  Speaker 1: and told them how good the food seemed to him,
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  Speaker 1: he lit a cigarette they gave him, and led the way,
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  Speaker 1: with some doubts and trouble, to the flying machine. Amidst
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  Speaker 1: the larches, it became manifest that the gaunt young man,
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  Speaker 1: whose name it seemed was Laurier, was a leader both
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  Speaker 1: by position and natural aptitude. He knew the names and
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  Speaker 1: characters and capabilities of all the men who were with him,
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  Speaker 1: and he set them to work at once with vigor
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  Speaker 1: and effect to secure this precious instrument of war. They
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  Speaker 1: got the thing down to the ground, deliberately and carefully,
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  Speaker 1: filling a couple of trees in the process, and they
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  Speaker 1: built a wide flat roof of timbers and tree boughs
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  Speaker 1: to guard their precious find against its chance discovery by
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  Speaker 1: any passing asiatics. Long before evening they had an engineer
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  Speaker 1: from the next township at work upon it, and they
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  Speaker 1: were casting lots among the seventeen picked men who wanted
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  Speaker 1: to take it for its first flight. And Bert found
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  Speaker 1: his kitten and carried it back to Logan's store and
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  Speaker 1: handed it with earnest admonition to Missus Logan. And it
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  Speaker 1: was reassuringly clear to him that in Missus Logan, both
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  Speaker 1: he and the kitten had found a congenial soul. Laurier
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  Speaker 1: was not only a masterful person and a wealthy property
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  Speaker 1: owner and employer. He was president Bert learned with Awe
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  Speaker 1: of the Tanuda Canning Corporation, but he was popular and
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  Speaker 1: skilled in the arts of popularity. In the evening, quite
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  Speaker 1: a crowd of men gathered at the store and talked
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  Speaker 1: of the flying machine, and of the war that was
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  Speaker 1: tearing the world to pieces. And presently came a man
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  Speaker 1: on a bicycle with an ill printed newspaper of a
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  Speaker 1: single sheet, which acted like fuel in the blazing furnace
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  Speaker 1: of talk. It was nearly all American news. The old
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  Speaker 1: fashioned cables had fallen into disuse for some years, and
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  Speaker 1: the Marconi stations across the ocean and along the Atlantic
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  Speaker 1: coast line seemed to have furnished particularly tempting points of attack.
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  Speaker 1: But such news, it was Bert sat in the background,
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  Speaker 1: for by this time they had gaged his personal quality
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  Speaker 1: pretty completely. Listening before his staggering mind passed strange, vast
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  Speaker 1: images as they talked of great issues at a crisis
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  Speaker 1: of nations, in tumultuous march of continents, overthrown of famine
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  Speaker 1: and destruction beyond measure. Ever and again, in spite of
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  Speaker 1: his efforts to suppress them, certain personal impressions would scamper
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  Speaker 1: across the weltering confusion, the horrible mess of the exploded prints,
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  Speaker 1: the Chinese aeronaut upside down, the limping and bandaged bird
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  Speaker 1: faced officer blundering along in miserable and hopeless flight. They
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  Speaker 1: spoke of fire and massacre, of cruelties and counter cruelties,
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  Speaker 1: of things that had been done to harmless asiatics by
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  Speaker 1: race mad men, of the wholesale burning and smashing up
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  Speaker 1: of towns, railway junctions, bridges of whole populations in hiding
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  Speaker 1: and exodus. Every ship they've got is in the Pacific,
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  Speaker 1: he heard one man exclaim. Since the fighting began, they
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  Speaker 1: can't have landed on the Pacific slope less than a
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  Speaker 1: million men. They've come to stay in these states, and
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  Speaker 1: they will, living or dead, slowly, broadly, invincibly. There grew
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  Speaker 1: upon Bert's mind realization of the immense tragedy of humanity
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  Speaker 1: into which his life was flowing, the appalling and universal
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  Speaker 1: nature of the epoch that had arrived, the conception of
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  Speaker 1: an end to security and order and habit. The whole
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  Speaker 1: world was at war, and it could not get back
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  Speaker 1: to peace. It might never recover peace. He had thought
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  Speaker 1: the things he had seen had been exceptional, conclusive things,
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  Speaker 1: that the besieging of New York and the Battle of
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  Speaker 1: the Atlantic were epoch making events between long years of security,
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  Speaker 1: and they had been but the first warning impacts of
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  Speaker 1: universal cataclysm. Each day, destruction and hate and disaster grew,
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  Speaker 1: the fissures widened between man and man. New regions of
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  Speaker 1: the fabric of civilization crumbled and gave way. Below, the
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  Speaker 1: armies grew, and the people perished. Above, the airships and
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  Speaker 1: aeroplanes fought and fled, reigning destruction. It is difficult, perhaps
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  Speaker 1: for the broad minded and long perspective reader, to understand
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  Speaker 1: how incredible the breaking down of the scientific civilization seemed
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  Speaker 1: to those who actually lived at this time, who in
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  Speaker 1: their own persons went down in that debacle. Progress had marched,
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  Speaker 1: as it seemed invincible, about the earth, never now to
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  Speaker 1: rest again. For three hundred years and more, the long,
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  Speaker 1: steadily accelerated diastily of europeanized civilization had been in progress.
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  Speaker 1: Towns had been multiplying, populations, increasing values, rising new countries,
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  Speaker 1: developing thought, literature, knowledge, unfolding and spreading. It seemed but
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  Speaker 1: a part of the process that every year the instruments
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  Speaker 1: of war were vaster and more powerful, and that armies
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  Speaker 1: and explosives outgrew all other growing things. Three hundred years
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  Speaker 1: of diastely, and then came the swift and unexpected cistily,
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  Speaker 1: like the closing of a fists. They could not understand
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  Speaker 1: it was cistily, they could not think of it as
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  Speaker 1: anything but a jolt, a hitch, a mere oscillatory indication
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  Speaker 1: of the swiftness of their progress. Collapse, though it happened,
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  Speaker 1: all about them remained incredible. Presently some falling mass smote
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  Speaker 1: them down, or the ground opened beneath their feet. They
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  Speaker 1: died incredulous. These men in the store made a minute,
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  Speaker 1: remote group. Under this immense canopy of disaster. They turned
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  Speaker 1: from one little aspect to another. What chiefly concerned them
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  Speaker 1: was defense against Asiatic raiders swooping for petrol or to
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  Speaker 1: destroy weapons or communications. Everywhere. Levies were being formed at
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  Speaker 1: that time to defend the plant of the railroads day
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  Speaker 1: and night, in the hope that communication would speedily be restored.
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  Speaker 1: The land war was still far away. A man with
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  Speaker 1: a flat voice distinguished himself by a display of knowledge
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  Speaker 1: and cunning. He told them all with confidence, just what
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  Speaker 1: had been wrong with the German drakenflagger and the American aeroplanes.
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  Speaker 1: Just what advantage the Japanese flyers possessed. He launched out
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  Speaker 1: into a romantic description of the butterridge machine and riveted
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  Speaker 1: Bert's attention. I see that, said Bert, and was smitten
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  Speaker 1: silent by a thought. The man with a flat voice
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  Speaker 1: talked on without heeding him, of the strange irony of
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  Speaker 1: Butteridge's death. At that Bert had a little twinge of
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  Speaker 1: relief he would never meet Butteridge again. It appeared Butteridge
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  Speaker 1: had died suddenly, very suddenly, and his secret sir perished
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  Speaker 1: with him. When they came to look for the parts,
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  Speaker 1: none could find them. He had hidden them all too well.
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  Speaker 1: But couldn't he tell, asked the man in the straw hat.
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  Speaker 1: Did he die so suddenly as that struck down, sir,
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  Speaker 1: rage and apoplexy at a place called Dymchurch in England.
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  Speaker 1: And that's right, said Lourier. I remember a page about
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  Speaker 1: it in the Sunday American at the time. They said
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  Speaker 1: it was a German spy had stolen his balloon. Well, Sir,
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  Speaker 1: said the flat voiced man. That fit of apoplexy at
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  Speaker 1: Dymchurch was the worst thing, absolutely, the worst thing that
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  Speaker 1: ever happened to the world. For if it had not
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  Speaker 1: been for the death of mister Butteridge, no one knows
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  Speaker 1: a secret, not a soul. It's gone. His balloon, it appears,
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  Speaker 1: was lost at sea, with all the plans. Down it went,
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  Speaker 1: and they went with it. Pause With machines such as
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  Speaker 1: he made, we could fight these asiatic flyers on more
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  Speaker 1: than equal terms. We could outfly and beat down those
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  Speaker 1: scarlet humming birds wherever they appeared. But it's gone. It's gone,
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  Speaker 1: and there's no time to reinvent it. Now. We got
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  Speaker 1: to fight with what we got, and the odds are
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  Speaker 1: against us. That won't stop us fightin no, but just
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  Speaker 1: think of it. Bert was trembling violently. He cleared his
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  Speaker 1: throat hoarsely. I say, he said, Look here, I nobody
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  Speaker 1: regarded him. The man with a flat voice was opening
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  Speaker 1: a new branch of the subject. I allow he began.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Bert became violently excited. He stood up. He made calling
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  Speaker 1: motions with his hands. I say, he exclaimed, mister Laurier,
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  Speaker 1: look here, I want about that Butteridge machine. Mister Laurier,
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  Speaker 1: sitting on an adjacent table with a magnificent gesture, arrested
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  Speaker 1: the discourse of the flat voiced man. What's he saying?
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  Speaker 1: Said he? Then the whole company realized that something was
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  Speaker 1: happening to Bert. Either he was suffocating or going mad.
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  Speaker 1: He was spluttering. Look here, I say, hold on a
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  Speaker 1: bit and trembling, and eagerly unbuttoning himself. He tore open
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  Speaker 1: his collar and opened vest and shirt. He plunged into
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  Speaker 1: his interior, and for an instant it seemed he was
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  Speaker 1: plucking forth his liver. Then, as he struggled with buttons
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  Speaker 1: on his shoulder, they perceived this flattened horror was in
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  Speaker 1: fact a terribly dirty flannel chest protector. In another moment, Bert,
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  Speaker 1: in a state of irregular des collettage, was standing over
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  Speaker 1: the table displaying a sheaf of papers. These, he gasped,
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  Speaker 1: these are the plans you know, mister Butteridge, his machine.
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  Speaker 1: What died? I was the chap that went off in
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  Speaker 1: that balloon. For some seconds, everyone was silent. They stared
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  Speaker 1: from these papers to Bert's white face and blazing eyes,
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  Speaker 1: and back to the papers on the table. Nobody moved.
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  Speaker 1: Then the man with a flat voice spoke, Irony, he said,
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  Speaker 1: with a note of satisfaction, real right down, Irony, when
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  Speaker 1: it's too late to think of making him any more.
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  Speaker 1: Part four. They would all no doubt have been eager
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  Speaker 1: to hear Bert's story over again. But it was at
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  Speaker 1: this point that Laurier showed his quality. No, sir, he said,
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  Speaker 1: and slid from off his table. He impounded the dispersing
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  Speaker 1: butter ridge plans with one comprehensive sweep of his arm,
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  Speaker 1: rescuing them even from the expository finger marks of the
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  Speaker 1: man with a flat voice, and handed them to Bert.
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  Speaker 1: Put these back, he said, where you had em? We
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  Speaker 1: have a journey before us. Bert took them. Why, said
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  Speaker 1: the man in the straw hat. Why, sir, we are
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  Speaker 1: going to find the president of these states and give
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  Speaker 1: these plans over to him. I decline to believe, sir,
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  Speaker 1: we are too late. Where is the president? Asked Bert weakly.
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  Speaker 1: In that pause that followed, logan said Laurier, disregarding that
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  Speaker 1: feeble inquiry, you must help us in this. It seemed
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  Speaker 1: only a matter of a few minutes before Bert and
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  Speaker 1: Laurier and the store keeper were examining a number of
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: bicycles that were stowed in the hinder room of the store.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Bert didn't like any of them very much. They had
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: wood rims, and an experience of wood rims in the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: English climate had taught him to hate them. That, however,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and one or two other objections to an immediate start
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  Speaker 1: were overruled by Laurier. But where is the President, Bert repeated,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: as they stood behind Logan while he pumped up a
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  Speaker 1: deflated tire. Laurier looked down on him. He is reported
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  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood of Albany, out towards the Berkshire Hills.
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  Speaker 1: He is moving from place to place and as far
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: as he can, organizing the defense by telegraph and telephones.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: The Asiatic air Fleet is trying to locate him. When
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: they think they have located the seat of government, they
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: throw bombs. This inconvenience is him, But so far they
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: have not come within ten miles of him. The Asiatic
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: air Fleet is at present scattered all over the Eastern States,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: seeking out and destroying gas works and whatever seems conducive
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: to the building of airships or the transport of troops.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Our retaliatory measures are slight in the extreme, but with
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: these machines, Sir, this ride of ours will count among
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the historical rides of the world. He came near to
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: striking an attitude. We shan't get to him to night,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: asked Bert. No, sir, said Laurier. We shall have to
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: ride some days, sure, and suppose we can't get a
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: lift on a train or anything. No, sir, there's been
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: no transit by Tanuda for three days. It is no
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: good waiting. We shall have to get on as well
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  Speaker 1: as we can startin now, starting now, But how about
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: we shan't be able to do much to night. May
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: as well ride till we're fagged and sleep, then so
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: much clear gain. Our road is eastward, of course, began
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Bert with memories of the dawn upon Goat Island, and
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: left his sentence unfinished. He gave his attention to the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: more scientific packing of the chest protector, for several of
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the plants flapped beyond his vest. Part five. For a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: week Bert led a life of mixed sensations. Amidst these,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: fatigue and the legs predominated. Mostly. He rode, rode with
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  Speaker 1: Lauriers back inexorably ahead through a land like a larger England,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: with bigger hills and wider valleys, larger fields, wider roads,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: fewer hedges, and wooden houses with commodious Piazzas he rode,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Laurier made inquiries, Laurier chose the turnings. Laurier doubted. Laurier decided,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: now it seemed they were in telephonic touch with the President.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Now something had happened, and he was lost again, but
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: all always they had to go on, and always Bert rowed.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: A tire was deflated. Still he rode, He grew saddle sore.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Lawyer declared that unimportant Asiatic flying ships passed overhead. The
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: two cyclists made a dash for cover until the sky
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: was clear. Once a red Asiatic flying machine came fluttering
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: after them, so low they could distinguish the aeronaut's head.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: He followed them for a mile. Now they came to
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: regions of panic, now to regions of destruction. Here people
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: were fighting for food. Here they seemed hardly stirred from
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the countryside routine. They spent a day in a deserted
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: and damaged Albany. The Asiatics had descended and cut every
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: wire and made a cinder heap of the junction, and
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: our travelers pushed on eastward. They passed a hundred half
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: heated incidents, and always Bert was toiling after Lawyer's indefatigable back.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Things struck apon Bert's attention and perplexed him, and then
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: he passed on with unanswered questionings fading from his mind.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: He saw a large house on fire on a hillside
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: to the right, and no man heeding it. They came
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: to a narrow railroad bridge, and presently to a mono
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: rail train standing in the track on its safety feet.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: It was a remarkably sumptuous train, the last word Transcontinental Express,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: and the passengers were all playing cards or sleeping or
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: preparing a picnic meal on a grassy slope near at hand.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: They had been there six days. At one point ten
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: dark complexioned men were hanging in a string from the
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: trees along the roadside. Bert wondered why. At one peaceful
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: looking village, where they stopped off to get Bert's tire
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: mended and found beer and biscuits, they were approached by
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: an extremely dirty little boy without boots, who spoke as
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: follows days and hanging a chink in close woods, hanging
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: a chinaman, said Laurier, Sure dur sleute scot him rubber
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: under railroad shreds. Oh, those guys done waste cartridges days,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: hung him, and he pulled his legs. Day's doing alder
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: chinks they can find that way. They ain't takin no risks.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Alder chinks they can find. Neither Bert nor Laurier made
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: any reply, and presently, after a little skillful expectoration, the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: young gentleman was attracted by the appearance of two of
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: his friends down the road and shuffled off, whooping weirdly.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: That afternoon they almost ran over a man, shot through
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the body and partly decomposed, lying near the middle of
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the road, just outside Albany. He must have been lying
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: there for some days. Beyond Albany, they came upon a
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: motor car with a tire burst and a young woman
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: sitting absolutely passive beside side the driver's seat. An old
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: man was under the car trying to effect some impossible repairs. Beyond,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: sitting with a rifle across his knees, with his back
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: to the car and staring into the woods, was a
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: young man. The old man crawled out at their approach, and,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: still on all fours, accosted Bert and Laurier. The car
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: had broken down over night. The old man said he
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: could not understand what was wrong, but he was trying
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: to puzzle it out. Neither he nor his son in
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: law had any mechanical aptitude. They had been assured this
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: was a fool proof car. It was dangerous to have
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: to stop in this place. The party had been attacked
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: by tramps and had had to fight it was known
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: they had provisions. He mentioned a great name in the
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: world of finance. Would Laurier and Bert stop and help him,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: he proposed, at first, hopefully, then urgently, at last, in
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: tears and terror, No, said Laurier, inexorable, we must go on.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: We have something more than a woman to save. We
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: have to save America. The girl never stirred, and once
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: they passed a madman singing, And at last they found
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the President hiding in a small saloon upon the outskirts
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: of a place called Pinkerville on the Hudson, and gave
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the plans of the Butteridge machine into his hands. End
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: of Chapter ten, Parts three, four and five. Recording by
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: William tom Coe