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The War in the Air Chapter 5 Part 4 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter five, Part four of War in the Air. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by Teresa Sheridan. War in the
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  Speaker 1: Air by H. G. Wells, Chapter five, Part four, the
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  Speaker 1: Battle of the North Atlantic. As the afternoon wore on,
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  Speaker 1: the lower weather abated and the sea became intermittently visible again,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the air fleet dropped slowly to the middle air, and
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  Speaker 1: towards sunset they had a glimpse of the disabled Barbarossa
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  Speaker 1: far away to the east. Smallways heard men hurrying along
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  Speaker 1: the passage and was drawn out to the gallery, where
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  Speaker 1: he found nearly a dozen officers collected and scrutinizing the
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  Speaker 1: helpless ruins of the battleship through field glasses. Two other
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  Speaker 1: vessels stood by her, one an exhausted petrol tank very
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  Speaker 1: high out of the water, and the other a converted liner.
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  Speaker 1: Kurt was at the end of the gallery, a little
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  Speaker 1: apart from the others. Got he said, at last, lowering
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  Speaker 1: his binocular. It is like seeing an old friend with
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  Speaker 1: his nose cut off, waiting to be finished. Dr Barbarossa.
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  Speaker 1: With a sudden impulse, he handed his glass to Bert,
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  Speaker 1: who had peered beneath his hands, ignored by everyone, seeing
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  Speaker 1: the three ships merely as three brown, black lines upon
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  Speaker 1: the sea. Never had Bert seen the like of that magnified,
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  Speaker 1: slightly hazy image before. It was not simply a battered
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  Speaker 1: ironclad that wallowed helpless. It was a mangled ironclad. It
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  Speaker 1: seemed wonderful she still floated. Her powerful in Djinns had
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  Speaker 1: been her ruin. In the long chase of the night.
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  Speaker 1: She had gotten out of line with her consorts and
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: nipped in between the Susquehanna and the Kansas City. They
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  Speaker 1: discovered her proximity, dropped back until she was nearly broadside
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  Speaker 1: on to the former battleship, and signaled up the Theodore
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  Speaker 1: Roosevelt and the Little Monitor. As dawn broke, she had
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  Speaker 1: found herself hostess of a circle. The fight had not
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  Speaker 1: lasted five minutes before the appearance of the Herman to
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  Speaker 1: the east, and immediately after of the first Bismarck in
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  Speaker 1: the west, forced the Americans to leave her. But in
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  Speaker 1: that time they had smashed her iron to rags. They
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  Speaker 1: had vented the accumulated tensions of their hard day's retreat.
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  Speaker 1: Upon her. As Bert saw her, she seemed a mere
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  Speaker 1: metal worker's fantasy of frozen metal rhythings. He could not
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  Speaker 1: tell part from part of her, except by its position.
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  Speaker 1: Got murmured Kurt, taking the glasses Bert restored to him
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  Speaker 1: got de Warren, Albrecht der Goot, Albrecht, under Alt, Zimmermann
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  Speaker 1: and von Rosen. Long after the Barbarossa had been swallowed
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  Speaker 1: up in the twilight and distance, he remained on the gallery,
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  Speaker 1: peering through his glasses, And when he came back to
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  Speaker 1: his cabin, he was unusually silent and thoughtful. This is
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  Speaker 1: a rough game, small Ways, he said, at last, this
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  Speaker 1: war is a rough game. Somehow one sees it different
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  Speaker 1: after a thing like that. Many men there were worked
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  Speaker 1: to make that barbarossa, and there were men in it.
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  Speaker 1: One does not meet the like of them every day. Albrecht.
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  Speaker 1: There was a man named Albrecht, played the zither and improvised.
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  Speaker 1: I keep on wondering what has happened to him? He
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  Speaker 1: and I we were very close friends. After the German fashion.
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  Speaker 1: Small Ways woke the next night to discover the cabin
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  Speaker 1: in darkness, a draft blowing through it, and Kurt talking
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  Speaker 1: to himself in German. He could see him dimly by
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  Speaker 1: the window, which he had unscrewed and opened, Peering down
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  Speaker 1: that cold, clear, attenuated light, which is not so much
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  Speaker 1: light as a going of darkness, which cast inky shadows
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  Speaker 1: and so often heralds. The dawn in the high air
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  Speaker 1: was on his face. What's the row? Said Bert? Shut up,
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  Speaker 1: said the lieutenant, can't you hear? Into the stillness came
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  Speaker 1: the repeated heavy thud of guns, one, two, a pause,
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  Speaker 1: then three in quick succession. Gaw, said Bert, guns, and
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  Speaker 1: was instantly at the lieutenant's side. The airship was still
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  Speaker 1: very high, and the sea below was masked by a
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  Speaker 1: thin veil of clouds. The wind had fallen, and Bert,
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  Speaker 1: following Kurt's pointed finger, saw dimly through the colorless veil,
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  Speaker 1: first a red glow, then a quick red flash, and then,
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  Speaker 1: at a distance from it another They were, it seemed,
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  Speaker 1: for a while, silent flashes, and seconds after, when one
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  Speaker 1: had ceased to expect them, came the belated thuds, thud, thud.
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  Speaker 1: Kurt spoke in German. Very quickly a bugle call rang
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  Speaker 1: through the airship. Kurt sprang to his feet, saying something
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  Speaker 1: in an excited tone, still using German, and went to
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  Speaker 1: the door. I say, what's up, cried Bert, what's that?
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  Speaker 1: The lieutenant stopped for an instant in the doorway, dark
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  Speaker 1: against a light passage. You stay where you are, small ways,
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  Speaker 1: you keep there and do nothing. We're going into action,
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  Speaker 1: he explained, and vanished. Bert's heart began to beat rapidly.
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  Speaker 1: He felt himself poised over the fighting vessels far below.
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  Speaker 1: In a moment, were they to drop like a hawk
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  Speaker 1: striking a bird? Gaw, he whispered at last, in awe
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  Speaker 1: stricken tones, thud, thud. He discovered far away a second
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  Speaker 1: ruddy flare, flashing guns back at the first. He perceived
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  Speaker 1: some difference on the Vaterland for which he could not account,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and then he realized that the engines had slowed to
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  Speaker 1: an almost inaudible beat. He stuck his head out of
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  Speaker 1: the window it was a tight fit, and saw in
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  Speaker 1: the bleak air the other airship slowed down to a
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: scarcely perceptible motion. A second bugle sounded was taken up
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  Speaker 1: faintly from ship to ship. Out went the lights. The
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  Speaker 1: fleet became dim, dark bulks against an intense blue sky
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  Speaker 1: that still retained an occasional star for a long time.
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  Speaker 1: They hung for an interminable time, it seemed to him,
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  Speaker 1: and then began the sound of air being pumped into
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  Speaker 1: the balloonette, and slowly, slowly, the Vaterland sank down towards
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  Speaker 1: the clouds. He craned his neck, but he could not
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  Speaker 1: see if the rest of the fleet was following them.
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  Speaker 1: The overhang of the gas chambers intervened. There was something
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  Speaker 1: that stirred his imagination deeply. In that stealthy, noiseless descent,
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  Speaker 1: the obscurity deepened. For a time, the last fading star
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  Speaker 1: on the horizon vanished, and he felt the cold presence
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  Speaker 1: of cloud. Then suddenly the globe beneath assumed distinct outlines
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  Speaker 1: became flames, and the Vaterland ceased to descend and hung observant,
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  Speaker 1: and it would seem unobserved, just beneath a drifting stratum
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  Speaker 1: of cloud, a thousand feet perhaps over the battle below.
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  Speaker 1: In the night, struggling naval battle and retreat had entered
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  Speaker 1: upon a new phase. The Americans had drawn together the
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  Speaker 1: ends of the flying line skillfully and dexterously, until at
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  Speaker 1: last it was a column, and well to the south
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  Speaker 1: of the lax sweeping pursuit of the Germans. Then, in
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  Speaker 1: the darkness before the dawn, they had come about and
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  Speaker 1: steamed northward in close order, with the idea of passing
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  Speaker 1: through the German battle line and falling upon the flotilla
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  Speaker 1: that was making for New York in support of the
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  Speaker 1: German air fleet. Much had altered since the first contact
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  Speaker 1: of the fleets. By this time, the American Admiral O'Connor
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  Speaker 1: was fully informed of the existence of the airships, and
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  Speaker 1: he was no longer vitally concerned for Panama, since the
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  Speaker 1: submarine flotilla was reported arrived there from Key West, and
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  Speaker 1: the Delaware and Abraham Lincoln, two powerful and entirely modern ships,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: were already at Rio Grande on the Pacific side of
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  Speaker 1: the canal. His maneuver was, however, delayed by a boiler
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  Speaker 1: explosion on board the Susquehanna, and Dawn found the ship
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  Speaker 1: in sight of, and indeed so close to, the Bremen
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  Speaker 1: and Weimar that they instantly engaged. There was no alternative
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  Speaker 1: to her abandonment but a fleet engagement. O'Connor chose the
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  Speaker 1: latter course. It was, by no means a hopeless fight.
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  Speaker 1: The Germans, though much more numerous and powerful than the Americans,
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  Speaker 1: were in a dispersed line measuring nearly forty five miles
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  Speaker 1: from end to end, and there were many chances that
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  Speaker 1: before they could gather in for the fight, the column
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  Speaker 1: of seven Americans would have ripped them from end to end.
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  Speaker 1: The day broke dim and overcast, and neither the Bremen
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  Speaker 1: nor the Weimar realized they had to deal with more
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  Speaker 1: than the Susquehanna until the whole column drew out from
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  Speaker 1: behind her at a distance of a mile or less
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  Speaker 1: and bore down on them. This was the position of
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  Speaker 1: affairs when the Vaterland appeared in the sky. The red
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  Speaker 1: glow Bert had seen through the column of clouds came
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  Speaker 1: from the luckless Susquehanna. She lay almost immediately below, burning
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  Speaker 1: fore and aft, but still fighting two of her guns,
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  Speaker 1: and steaming slowly southward. The Bremen and the Weimar, both
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  Speaker 1: hit in several places, were going west by south and
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  Speaker 1: away from her. The American fleet, headed by the Theodore Roosevelt,
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  Speaker 1: was crossing behind them, pounding them in succession, steaming in
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  Speaker 1: between them and the big modern first Bismarck, which was
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  Speaker 1: coming up from the west to Bert. However, the names
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  Speaker 1: of all these ships were unknown, and for a considerable time, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: misled by the direction in which the combatants were moving,
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  Speaker 1: he imagined the Germans to be Americans, and the Americans Germans.
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  Speaker 1: He saw what appeared to him to be a column
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  Speaker 1: of six battleships pursuing three others, who were supported by
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  Speaker 1: a newcomer, until the fact that the Bremer and Weimar
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  Speaker 1: were firing into the Susquehanna upset his calculations. Then for
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  Speaker 1: a time he was hopelessly at a loss. The noise
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  Speaker 1: of the guns too confused him. They no longer seemed
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  Speaker 1: to boom. They went whack whack, whack, whack, and each
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  Speaker 1: faint flash made his heart jump in anticipation of the
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  Speaker 1: instant impact. He saw these ironclads, too, not in profile
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  Speaker 1: as he was accustomed to see ironclads in pictures, but
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  Speaker 1: in plan and curiously foreshortened. For the most part, they
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  Speaker 1: presented empty decks and their little knots of men sheltered
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  Speaker 1: behind steel bulwarks. The long, agitated noses of their big guns,
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  Speaker 1: jetting thin transparent flashes, and the broadside activity of the
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: quick fires were the chief facts in this bird's eye view.
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  Speaker 1: The Americans, being steam turbine ships, had from two to
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  Speaker 1: four blast funnels each. The Germans lay lower in the water,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: having explosive engines, which now for some reason made an
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: unwonted muttering roar. Because of their steam propulsion. The American
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: ships were larger and with a more graceful outline. He
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  Speaker 1: saw all these foreshortened ships rolling considerably and fighting their
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  Speaker 1: guns over a sea of huge low waves, and under
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  Speaker 1: the cold, explicit light of dawn. The whole spectacle waved
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  Speaker 1: slowly with the law long rhythmic rising and beat of
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  Speaker 1: the airship. At first, only the Vaterland of all the
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  Speaker 1: flying fleet appeared upon the scene below. She hovered high
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  Speaker 1: over the Theodore Roosevelt, keeping pace with the full speed
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  Speaker 1: of that ship. From that ship, she must have been
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: intermittently visible through the drifting clouds. The rest of the
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: German fleet remained above the cloud canopy at a height
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  Speaker 1: of six or seven thousand feet, communicating with the flagship
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  Speaker 1: by wireless telegraphy, but risking no exposure to the artillery below.
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  Speaker 1: It is doubtful at what particular time the unlucky Americans
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  Speaker 1: realized the presence of this new factor in the fight.
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  Speaker 1: No account now survives of their experience. We have to
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  Speaker 1: imagine as well as we can what it must have
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  Speaker 1: been to a battled, strained sails suddenly glancing upward to
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  Speaker 1: discover that huge, long, silent shape overhead, faster than any battleship,
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  Speaker 1: and trailing now from its hinder quarter a big German flag. Presently,
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  Speaker 1: as the sky cleared, more of such ships appeared in
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  Speaker 1: the blue through the dissolving clouds, and more, all disdainfully
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  Speaker 1: free of guns or armor, all flying fast to keep
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  Speaker 1: pace with the running fight below. From first to last,
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  Speaker 1: no gun whatever was fired at the Vaterland, and only
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  Speaker 1: a few rifle shots. It was a mere adverse stroke
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  Speaker 1: of chance that she had a man killed aboard her,
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  Speaker 1: Nor did she take any direct share in the fight.
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  Speaker 1: Until the end. She flew above the doomed American fleet,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: while the Prince, by wireless telegraphy, directed the movements of
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  Speaker 1: her consorts. Meanwhile, the Vogelstern and Prussen, each with half
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  Speaker 1: a dozen draken flagger in tow, went full speed ahead,
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  Speaker 1: and then dropped through the clouds, perhaps five miles ahead
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  Speaker 1: of the Americans. The Theodore Roosevelt let fly at once
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  Speaker 1: with the big guns in her forward barbe it, but
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the shells burst far below the Vogelstern, and forthwith a
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: dozen single men drachenflagor were swooping down to make their attack. Bert,
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  Speaker 1: craning his neck through the cabin porthole, saw the whole
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: of that incident, that first encounter of aeroplane and ironclad.
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  Speaker 1: He saw the Queer German dragon Flagger, with their wide
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: flat wings and square boxed shaped heads, Their wheeled bodies
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  Speaker 1: and their single man riders soared down the air like
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  Speaker 1: a flight of birds. Gaw, he said. One to the right,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: pitched extravavagantly, shot steeply up into the air, burst with
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: a loud report, and flamed down into the sea. Another
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: plunged nose forward into the water and seemed to fly
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  Speaker 1: to pieces as it hit the waves. He saw little
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: men on the deck of the Theodore Roosevelt below, men
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  Speaker 1: foreshortened in plan into mere heads and feet, running out
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  Speaker 1: preparing to shoot at the others. Then the foremost flying
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  Speaker 1: machine was rushing between Bert and the American's deck, and
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: then bang came the thunder of its bomb, flung neatly
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  Speaker 1: at the forward barbette and a thin little crackling of
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: rifle shots. In reply, Whack, whack, whack went the quick
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  Speaker 1: firing guns of the American's battery, and smash came an
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: answering shell from the first Bismarck. Then a second and
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  Speaker 1: third flying machine passed between Bert and the American ironclad,
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  Speaker 1: dropping bombs also, and a fourth, its rider, hit by
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  Speaker 1: a bullet, reeled down and dashed itself to pieces and
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: exploded between the shot torn funnels, blowing them apart. Bert
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: had a momentary glimpse of a little black creature jumping
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  Speaker 1: from the crumpling frame of the flying machine, hitting the
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  Speaker 1: funnel and falling limply, to be instantly caught and driven
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  Speaker 1: to nothingness by the blaze and rush of the explosion.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Smash came a vast explosion in the forward part of
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the flagship, and a huge piece of metal work seemed
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  Speaker 1: to lift out of her and dump itself into the sea,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: dropping men and leaving a gap into which a prompt
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: drakenflagger planted a faring bomb. And then for an instant
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Bert perceived only too clearly in the growing pitiless light,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: a number of minute convulsively active anima coola scorched and
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: struggling in the Theodore Roosevelt's foaming wake. What were they not? Men?
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Surely not men? Those drowning, mangled little creatures tore with
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: their clutching fingers at Bert's soul. Oh gord, He gried,
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  Speaker 1: oh gord, almost whimpering. He looked again, and they had gone,
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  Speaker 1: And the black stem of the Andrew Jackson, a little
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: disfigured by the sinking Bremen's last shot, was parting the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: water that had swallowed them into two neatly symmetrical waves.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: For some moments, sheer, blank horror blinded Bert to the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: destruction below. Then, with an immense rushing sound, bearing as
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: it were, a struggling volley of crashing minor explosions on
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: its back, the Susquehanna, three miles and more now to
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the east, blew up and vanished abruptly in a boiling,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: steaming welter. For a moment, nothing was to be seen
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: but tumbled water. And then there came belching up from below,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: with immense sculping noises, eructations of steam and air and petrol,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and fragments of canvas and woodwork and men that made
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: a distinct pause in the fight. It seemed a long
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: pause to Bert, he found himself looking for the dragonfler.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: The flattened ruin of one was floating a beam of
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the monitor. The rest had passed, dropping bombs down the
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: American column. Several were in the water and apparently uninjured,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: and three or four were still in the air and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: coming round now in a wide circle to return to
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: their mother airships. The American ironclads were no longer in
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: column formation. The Theodore Roosevelt, badly damaged, had turned to
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the southeast, and the Andrew Jackson, greatly battered but uninjured
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: in any fighting part, was passing between her and the
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: still fresh and vigorous First Bismarck to intercept and meet
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the latter's fire away. To the west, the Hermann and
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the Germanicus had appeared and were coming into action. In
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the pause after the Susquehanna's disaster, Bert became aware of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: a trivial sound like the noise of an ill, greased,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: ill hung door that falls ajar, the sound of the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: men in the First Bismarck cheering, and in that pause
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: in the uproar to the sun rose the dark waters
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: became luminously blue, and a torrent of golden light eradicated.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: The world came like a sudden smile in the scene
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: of hate and terror. The cloud veil had vanished, as
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: if by magic, and the whole immensity of the German
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: air fleet was revealed in the sky. The air fleet
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: stooping now upon its prey, Whack bang, whack bang. The
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: guns resumed, but alroonclads were not built to fight the Zenith,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: and the only hits the Americans scored were a few
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: lucky chances in a generally ineffectual rifle fire. Their column
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: was now badly broken, The Susquehanna had gone, the Theodore
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Reosevelt had fallen astern out of the line, with her
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: forward guns disabled, in a heap of wreckage, and the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Monitor was in some grave trouble. These two had ceased
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  Speaker 1: fire altogether, and so had the Bremen and Weimar, all
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: four ships lying within shot of each other in an
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: involuntary truce, and with their respective flag still displayed. Only
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: four American ships, now, with the Andrew Jackson leading, kept
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: to the southeasterly course, and the first Bismarck, the Herman,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: and the Germanicus steamed parallel to them and drew ahead
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: of them, fighting heavily. The vaderland rose slowly in the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: air in preparation for the concluding act of the drama,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: then falling into place one behind the other. A string
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: of dozen airships dropped with unhurrying swiftness down the air
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: in pursuit of the American fleet. They kept at a
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: height of two thousand feet or more until they were
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: over and a little in advance of the rearmost Ironclad,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: and then stooped swiftly down into a fountain of bullets, and,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: going just a little faster than the ship below, pelted
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: her thinly protected decks with bombs until they became sheets
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: of detonating flame. So the airships passed one after the
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: other along the American column as it sought to keep
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: up its fight with the first Bismarck, the Herman, and
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: the Germanicus, and each airship added to the destruction and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: confusion its predecessor had made. The American gun fire ceased
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: except for a few heroic shots, but they still steamed
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: on obstinately, unsubdued, bloody, battered, and wrathfully resistant, spitting bullets
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: at the airships and unmercifully pounded by the German ironclads,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: but now Bert had but intermittent glimpses of them between
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the nearer bulks of the airships that assailed them. It
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: struck Bert suddenly that the whole battle was receding and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: growing small and thus thunderously noisy. The Vaterland was rising
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: in the air steadily and silently, until the impact of
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the guns no longer smote upon the heart, but came
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: to the ear, dulled by distance, until the four silence
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: ships to the eastward were little distant things, but were
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: therefore Bert now could only see three of those, floating
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: blackened and smoking rafts of ruin against the sun. But
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the Bremen had two boats out. The Theodore Roosevelt was
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: also dropping boats to where the drift of minute objects struggled,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: rising and falling on the big broad Atlantic waves. The
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Vaterland was no longer following the fight. The whole of
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: that hurrying tumult drove away to the southeastward, growing smaller
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and less audible as it passed. One of the airships
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: lay on the water, burning a remote, monstrous fount of flames,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: and far in the southwest appeared first one and then
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: three other German ironclads, hurrying in support of their consorts.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter five, Part four. Recording by Teresa Sheridan,