Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The War in the Air Chapter 7 Parts 4-6
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- 0:00Speaker 1: Chapter seven, Parts four, five, and six of War in
- 0:04Speaker 1: the Air. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
- 0:08Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
- 0:13Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Fred de Berdinus.
- 0:19Speaker 1: War in the Air by H. G. Wells, Chapter seven,
- 0:23Speaker 1: Parts four, five and six, Part four. By means of
- 0:29Speaker 1: a folding chair which was still in its place behind
- 0:31Speaker 1: the door, they got to the window and looked out
- 0:34Speaker 1: in turn and contemplated a sparsely wooded country below, with
- 0:38Speaker 1: no railways nor roads, and only occasional signs of habitation.
- 0:43Speaker 1: Then a bugle sounded, and Kurt interpreted it as a
- 0:46Speaker 1: summons to food. They got through the door and clambered
- 0:49Speaker 1: with some difficulty up the nearly vertical passage, holding on
- 0:52Speaker 1: desperately with toes and finger tips to the ventilating perforations
- 0:56Speaker 1: in its floor. The mess stewards had found their fire
- 1:00Speaker 1: less heating arrangements intact, and there was hot cocoa for
- 1:03Speaker 1: the officers and hot soup for the men. Burt's sense
- 1:07Speaker 1: of the queerness of this experience was so keen that
- 1:09Speaker 1: it blotted out any fear he might have felt. Indeed,
- 1:13Speaker 1: he was far more interested now than afraid. He seemed
- 1:16Speaker 1: to have touched down to the bottom of fear and
- 1:19Speaker 1: abandonment over night. He was growing accustomed to the idea
- 1:23Speaker 1: that he would probably be killed presently, that this strange
- 1:26Speaker 1: voyage in the air was in all probability his death journey.
- 1:30Speaker 1: No human being can keep permanently afraid. Fear goes at
- 1:34Speaker 1: last to the back of one's mind. Accepted and shelved
- 1:37Speaker 1: and done with, he squatted over his soup, sopping it
- 1:41Speaker 1: up with his bread, and contemplated his comrades. They were
- 1:44Speaker 1: all rather yellow and dirty, with four day beards, and
- 1:47Speaker 1: they grouped themselves in the tired, unpremeditated manner of men
- 1:51Speaker 1: on a wreck. They talked little. The situation perplexed them
- 1:55Speaker 1: beyond any suggestion of ideas. Three had been heard in
- 1:59Speaker 1: the pitching up of the ship during the fight, and
- 2:01Speaker 1: one had a bandaged bullet wound. It was incredible that
- 2:05Speaker 1: this little band of men had committed murder and massacre
- 2:07Speaker 1: on a scale beyond precedent. None of them, who squatted
- 2:11Speaker 1: on the sloping gast, padded partition soup mug in hand,
- 2:14Speaker 1: seemed really guilty of anything. Of the sort seemed really
- 2:17Speaker 1: capable of hurting a dog wantonly they were all so
- 2:21Speaker 1: manifestly built for homely chalets on the solid earth, and
- 2:24Speaker 1: carefully tilled fields, and blond wives and cheery merrymaking. The
- 2:29Speaker 1: red faced, sturdy man with light eyelashes, who had brought
- 2:32Speaker 1: the first news of the air battle to the men's mess,
- 2:35Speaker 1: had finished his soup, and, with an expression of maternal solicitude,
- 2:39Speaker 1: was readjusting the bandages of a youngster whose arm had
- 2:42Speaker 1: been sprained. Bert was crumbling the last of his bread
- 2:46Speaker 1: into the last of his soup, eking it out as
- 2:48Speaker 1: long as possible, when suddenly he became aware that every
- 2:51Speaker 1: one was looking at a pair of feet that were
- 2:53Speaker 1: dangling across the down turned open doorway. Kurt appeared and
- 2:58Speaker 1: squatted across the hinge. In some mysterious way, he had
- 3:01Speaker 1: shaved his face and smoothed down his light golden hair.
- 3:05Speaker 1: He looked extraordinarily cherubic. There, Prince, he said. A second
- 3:10Speaker 1: pair of boots followed, making wide and magnificent gestures in
- 3:14Speaker 1: their attempts to feel the door frame. Kurt guided them
- 3:17Speaker 1: to a foothold, and the Prince shaved and brushed and
- 3:20Speaker 1: bees waxed and clean and big and terrible, slid down
- 3:24Speaker 1: into position astride of the door. All the men and
- 3:27Speaker 1: Bert also stood up and saluted. The Prince surveyed them
- 3:32Speaker 1: with the gesture of a man whose sight a steed.
- 3:35Speaker 1: The head of the capitain appeared beside him. Then Bert
- 3:38Speaker 1: had a terrible moment. The blue blaze of the Prince's
- 3:41Speaker 1: eye fell upon him. The great finger pointed, a question
- 3:45Speaker 1: was asked, Kurt intervened with explanations, so said the Prince,
- 3:50Speaker 1: and Bert was disposed of. Then the Prince addressed the
- 3:54Speaker 1: men in short heroic sentences, steadying himself on the hinge
- 3:57Speaker 1: with one hand and waving the other in a fine
- 4:00Speaker 1: variety of gesture. What he said Bert could not tell,
- 4:03Speaker 1: but he perceived that their demeanor changed. Their backs stiffened,
- 4:08Speaker 1: they began to punctuate the Prince's discourse with cries of approval.
- 4:12Speaker 1: At the end, their leader burst into song, and all
- 4:14Speaker 1: the men with him, I infestobourg is unzo goat. They
- 4:17Speaker 1: chanted in deep, strong tones, with an immense moral uplifting.
- 4:21Speaker 1: It was glaringly inappropriate in a damaged, half overturned and
- 4:25Speaker 1: sinking airship, which had been disabled and blown out of
- 4:29Speaker 1: action after inflicting the cruelest bombardment in the world's history.
- 4:33Speaker 1: But it was immensely stirring. Nevertheless, Bert was deeply moved.
- 4:38Speaker 1: He could not sing any of the words of Luther's
- 4:40Speaker 1: great hymn, but he opened his mouth and emitted loud,
- 4:43Speaker 1: deep and partially harmonious notes. Far below, this deep chanting
- 4:48Speaker 1: struck on the ears of a little camp of Christianized
- 4:51Speaker 1: half breeds who were lumbering. They were breakfasting, but they
- 4:54Speaker 1: rushed out cheerfully, quite prepared for the Second Advent. They
- 4:59Speaker 1: stared at the sh shattered and twisted Fotterland driving before
- 5:02Speaker 1: the gale, amazed beyond words. In so many respects it
- 5:06Speaker 1: was like their idea of the Second Advent, And then
- 5:09Speaker 1: again in so many respects it wasn't. They stared at
- 5:13Speaker 1: its passage, all stricken and perplexed, beyond their power of words.
- 5:17Speaker 1: The hymn ceased. Then, after a long interval, a voice
- 5:21Speaker 1: came out of heaven. But is disblaze He a gulged
- 5:24Speaker 1: itself that they made no answer. Indeed they did not understand,
- 5:29Speaker 1: though the question repeated itself, and at last the monster
- 5:33Speaker 1: drove away northward over a crest of pine woods, and
- 5:36Speaker 1: was no more seen. They fell into a hot and
- 5:39Speaker 1: long disputation. The hymn ended, the Prince's legs dangled up
- 5:44Speaker 1: the passage again, and every one was briskly prepared for
- 5:47Speaker 1: heroic exertion and triumphant acts. Small ways cried Kurt, come here.
- 5:54Speaker 1: Part five. Then Bert, under Kurt's direction, had his first
- 5:59Speaker 1: experience of the work of an air sailor. The immediate
- 6:02Speaker 1: task before the captain of the Fottland was a very
- 6:05Speaker 1: simple one. He had to keep afloat the wind. Though
- 6:09Speaker 1: it had fallen from its earlier violence, was still blowing
- 6:12Speaker 1: strongly enough to render the grounding of so clumsy a
- 6:14Speaker 1: mass extremely dangerous. Even if it had been desirable for
- 6:18Speaker 1: the Prince to land in inhabited country and so risk capture,
- 6:23Speaker 1: it was necessary to keep the airship up until the
- 6:25Speaker 1: wind fell, and then, if possible, to descend in some
- 6:28Speaker 1: lonely district of the territory where it would be a
- 6:31Speaker 1: chance of repair or rescue by some searching consort. In
- 6:36Speaker 1: order to do this, weight had to be dropped, and
- 6:38Speaker 1: Kurt was detailed with a dozen men to climb down
- 6:41Speaker 1: among the wreckage of the deflated air chambers and cut
- 6:44Speaker 1: the stuff clear, portion by portion. As the airship sank,
- 6:48Speaker 1: so Bert, armed with a sharp cutlass, found himself clambering
- 6:52Speaker 1: about upon netting four thousand feet up in the air,
- 6:55Speaker 1: trying to understand Kurt when he spoke in English, and
- 6:58Speaker 1: to define him when he used German. It was giddy work,
- 7:02Speaker 1: but not nearly so giddy as a rather overnourished reader
- 7:05Speaker 1: sitting in a warm room might imagine. Bert found it
- 7:09Speaker 1: quite possible to look down and contemplate the wild Subarctic
- 7:12Speaker 1: landscape below, now devoid of any sign of habitation, a
- 7:17Speaker 1: land of rocky cliffs and cascades and broad, swirling, desolate rivers,
- 7:21Speaker 1: and of trees and thickets that grew more stunted and
- 7:24Speaker 1: scrubby as the day wore on. Here and there on
- 7:27Speaker 1: the hills were patches and pockets of snow, and over
- 7:31Speaker 1: all this he worked, hacking away at the tough and
- 7:34Speaker 1: slippery oiled silk and clinging stoutly to the netting. Presently
- 7:38Speaker 1: they cleared and dropped the tangle of bent steel rods
- 7:41Speaker 1: and wires from the frame, and a big chunk of
- 7:44Speaker 1: silk bladder that was trying the airship flew up at once.
- 7:48Speaker 1: As this loose hamper parted, it seemed almost as though
- 7:52Speaker 1: they were dropping all Canada. The stuff spread out in
- 7:55Speaker 1: the air and floated down, and hit and twisted up
- 7:58Speaker 1: in a nasty fashion on the lip of a gorge.
- 8:01Speaker 1: Bert clung like a frozen monkey to his ropes and
- 8:03Speaker 1: did not move a muscle for five minutes. But there
- 8:07Speaker 1: was something very exhilarating he found in his dangerous work,
- 8:10Speaker 1: And above everything else, there was the sense of fellowship.
- 8:14Speaker 1: He was no longer an isolated and distrustful stranger among
- 8:17Speaker 1: these others. He had now a common object with them.
- 8:22Speaker 1: He worked with a friendly rivalry to get through with
- 8:24Speaker 1: his share before them, and he developed a great respect
- 8:28Speaker 1: and affection for Kurt, which had hitherto been only latent
- 8:31Speaker 1: in him. Kurt, with a job to direct, was altogether admirable.
- 8:36Speaker 1: He was resourceful, helpful, considerate, swift. He seemed to be everywhere.
- 8:41Speaker 1: One forgot his pinkness, his light, cheerfulness of manner. Directly
- 8:45Speaker 1: one had trouble, he was at hand with sound and
- 8:48Speaker 1: confidente advice. He was like an elder brother to his men.
- 8:53Speaker 1: All together they cleared three considerable chunks of wreckage, and
- 8:56Speaker 1: then Bert was glad to clamber up into the cabins
- 8:59Speaker 1: again and give place to a second squad. He and
- 9:03Speaker 1: his companions were given hot coffee, and indeed even gloved
- 9:06Speaker 1: as they were, the job had been a cold one.
- 9:09Speaker 1: They sat drinking it and regarding each other with satisfaction.
- 9:13Speaker 1: One man spoke to Bert amiably in German, and Bert
- 9:16Speaker 1: nodded and smiled through Kurt, Bert, whose ankles were almost frozen,
- 9:21Speaker 1: succeeded in getting a pair of top boots from one
- 9:24Speaker 1: of the disabled men. In the afternoon, the wind abated greatly,
- 9:28Speaker 1: and small, infrequent snowflakes came drifting by. Snow also spread
- 9:33Speaker 1: more abundantly below, and the only trees were clumps of
- 9:36Speaker 1: pine and spruce in the lower valleys. Kurt went with
- 9:40Speaker 1: three men into the still intact gas chambers, let out
- 9:43Speaker 1: a certain quantity of gas from them, and prepared a
- 9:46Speaker 1: series of ripping panels for the descent. Also, the residue
- 9:50Speaker 1: of the bombs and explosives in the magazine were thrown
- 9:53Speaker 1: overboard and fell, detonating loudly in the wilderness below. And
- 9:58Speaker 1: about four o'clock in the afternoon, upon on a wide
- 10:00Speaker 1: and rocky plain within sight of snow crested cliffs. The
- 10:04Speaker 1: Fottland ripped and grounded. It was necessarily a difficult and
- 10:08Speaker 1: violent affair, for the Fottland had not been planned for
- 10:11Speaker 1: the necessities of a balloon. The captain got one panel
- 10:15Speaker 1: ripped too soon and the others not soon enough. She
- 10:19Speaker 1: dropped heavily, bounced clumsily, and smashed the hanging gallery into
- 10:23Speaker 1: the forepart, mortally injuring von Vintterfeldt, and then came down
- 10:27Speaker 1: in a collapsing heap. After dragging for some moments, the
- 10:31Speaker 1: forward shield and its machine gun tumbled in upon the
- 10:34Speaker 1: things below. Two men were hurt badly, one got a
- 10:37Speaker 1: broken leg and one was internally injured by flying rods
- 10:41Speaker 1: and wires, and Bert was pinned for a time under
- 10:43Speaker 1: the side, when at last he got clear and could
- 10:47Speaker 1: take a view of the situation. The great black eagle
- 10:49Speaker 1: that had started so splendidly from Franconia six evenings ago,
- 10:53Speaker 1: sprawled deflated over the cabins of the airship and the
- 10:57Speaker 1: frost bitten rocks of this desolate place, and looked the
- 11:00Speaker 1: most unfortunate bird as though some one had caught it
- 11:03Speaker 1: and wrung its neck and cast it aside. Several of
- 11:07Speaker 1: the crew of the airship were standing about in silence,
- 11:10Speaker 1: contemplating their wreckage and the empty wilderness into which they
- 11:13Speaker 1: had fallen. Others were busy under the impromptu tent made
- 11:17Speaker 1: by the empty gas chambers. The Prince had gone a
- 11:20Speaker 1: little way off and was scrutinizing the distant heights through
- 11:23Speaker 1: his field glass. They had the appearance of old sea cliffs.
- 11:27Speaker 1: Here and there were small clumps of conifers, and in
- 11:30Speaker 1: two places tall cascades. The nearer ground was strewn with
- 11:34Speaker 1: glaciated boulders and supported nothing but a stunted alpine vegetation
- 11:39Speaker 1: of compact, clustering stems and stalkless flowers. No river was visible,
- 11:44Speaker 1: but the air was full of the Russian babble of
- 11:46Speaker 1: a torrent. Close at hand, a bleaque and biting wind
- 11:49Speaker 1: was blowing. Ever and again a snowflake drifted past. The springless,
- 11:54Speaker 1: frozen earth under Bert's feet felt strangely dead and heavy.
- 11:57Speaker 1: After the buoyant airship Part six. So it came about
- 12:04Speaker 1: that that great and powerful Prince Carl Albert was for
- 12:08Speaker 1: a time thrust out of the stupendous conflict. He chiefly
- 12:11Speaker 1: had been instrumental in provoking the chances of battle, and
- 12:15Speaker 1: the weather conspired to maroon him in Labrador, and there
- 12:19Speaker 1: he raged for six long days, while war and wonder
- 12:23Speaker 1: swept the world. Nation rose against nation, an air fleet
- 12:27Speaker 1: grappled air fleet, cities blazed, and men died in multitudes.
- 12:32Speaker 1: But in Labrador one might have dreamt that, except for
- 12:35Speaker 1: a little noise of hammering, the world was at peace.
- 12:39Speaker 1: There the encampment lay, from a distance to cabins, covered
- 12:42Speaker 1: over with the silk of the balloon part looked like
- 12:45Speaker 1: a gypsy's tent on a rather exceptional scale, and all
- 12:49Speaker 1: the available hands were busy in building out of the
- 12:51Speaker 1: steel of the framework a mast from which the foughtland's
- 12:54Speaker 1: electricians might hang the long conductors of the apparatus for
- 12:58Speaker 1: wireless telegraphy that was to link the Prince to the
- 13:01Speaker 1: world again. There were times when it seemed that they
- 13:04Speaker 1: would never rig that mast from the outset. The party
- 13:08Speaker 1: suffered hardship. They were not too abundantly provisioned, and they
- 13:12Speaker 1: were put on short rations. And for all the thick
- 13:15Speaker 1: garments they had, they were but ill equipped against the
- 13:19Speaker 1: piercing wind and inhospitable violence of this wilderness. The first
- 13:24Speaker 1: night was spent in darkness and without fires. The engines
- 13:27Speaker 1: that had supplied power were smashed and dropped far away
- 13:31Speaker 1: to the south, and there was never a match among
- 13:33Speaker 1: the company. It had been death to carry matches. All
- 13:37Speaker 1: the explosives had been thrown out of the magazine, and
- 13:39Speaker 1: it was only towards morning that the bird faced man
- 13:42Speaker 1: whose cabin bird had taken in the beginning, confessed to
- 13:45Speaker 1: a brace of dueling pistols and cartridges with which a
- 13:48Speaker 1: fire could be started. Afterwards, the lockers of the machine
- 13:52Speaker 1: gun were found to contain a supply of unused ammunition.
- 13:57Speaker 1: The night was a distressing one and seemed almost interminable.
- 14:01Speaker 1: Hardly anyone slept. There were seven wounded men aboard, and
- 14:05Speaker 1: von Vintefel's head had been injured, and he was shivering
- 14:08Speaker 1: an in delirium, struggling with his attendant and shouting strange
- 14:12Speaker 1: things about the burning of New York. The men crept
- 14:15Speaker 1: together in the mess room in a darkling, wrapped in
- 14:18Speaker 1: what they could find, and drank coco from the fireless
- 14:21Speaker 1: heaters and listened to his cries. In the morning, the
- 14:25Speaker 1: Prince made them a speech about destiny, and the God
- 14:28Speaker 1: of his fathers, and the pleasure and glory of giving
- 14:31Speaker 1: one's life for his dynasty, and a number of similar
- 14:34Speaker 1: considerations that might otherwise have been neglected. In that bleak wilderness.
- 14:39Speaker 1: The men cheered without enthusiasm, and far away a wolf howled.
- 14:45Speaker 1: Then they set to work, and for a week they
- 14:47Speaker 1: toiled to put up a mast of steel and hang
- 14:50Speaker 1: from it a gridiron of copper wires two hundred feet
- 14:53Speaker 1: by twelve. The theme of all that time was work, work,
- 14:57Speaker 1: continually straining and toilsome work, and all the rest was grim,
- 15:01Speaker 1: hardship and evil chances, save for a certain wild splendor
- 15:05Speaker 1: in the sunset and sunrise in the torrents, and drifting
- 15:08Speaker 1: weather in the wilderness about them, they built and tended
- 15:12Speaker 1: a ring of perpetual fires. Gangs roamed for brushwood and
- 15:16Speaker 1: met with wolves, and the wounded men and their beds
- 15:19Speaker 1: were brought out from the airship cabins and put in
- 15:21Speaker 1: shelters about the fires. There, Old von winterfeldt raved and
- 15:26Speaker 1: became quiet and presently dyed, and three of the other
- 15:30Speaker 1: wounded sickened for want of good food, while their fellows mended.
- 15:35Speaker 1: These things happened, as it were, in the wings. The
- 15:38Speaker 1: central facts before Bert's consciousness were always firstly the perpetual toil,
- 15:43Speaker 1: the holding and lifting and lugging at heavy and clumsy masses,
- 15:47Speaker 1: the tedious filing and winding of wires, And secondly the Prince,
- 15:52Speaker 1: urgent and threatening. Whenever a man relaxed, he would stand
- 15:56Speaker 1: over them and point over their heads southward into the
- 15:59Speaker 1: empty sky. The world there, he said in German, is
- 16:03Speaker 1: waiting for us fifty centuries come to their consummation. Bert
- 16:08Speaker 1: did not understand the words, but he read the gesture.
- 16:12Speaker 1: Several times, the Prince grew angry, once with a man
- 16:15Speaker 1: who was working slowly, once with a man who stole
- 16:17Speaker 1: a comrade's ration. The first he scolded and set to
- 16:21Speaker 1: a more tedious task. The second he struck in the
- 16:24Speaker 1: face and ill used. He did no work himself. There
- 16:27Speaker 1: was a clear space near the fires, in which he
- 16:30Speaker 1: would walk up and down, sometimes for two hours, together
- 16:33Speaker 1: with arms folded, muttering to himself of patience and his destiny.
- 16:38Speaker 1: At times these mutterings broke out into rhetoric, into shouts
- 16:41Speaker 1: and gestures that would arrest the workers. They would stare
- 16:45Speaker 1: at him until they perceived that his blue eyes glared
- 16:47Speaker 1: and his waving hand addressed itself always to the southward hills.
- 16:52Speaker 1: On Sunday, the work ceased for half an hour, and
- 16:55Speaker 1: the Prince preached on faith and God's friendship for David.
- 16:58Speaker 1: And afterwards they all sank i infestorburg is unzergot in
- 17:04Speaker 1: an improvised hovel ley van vintefeldt, and all one morning
- 17:08Speaker 1: he raved of the greatness of Germany. Brute unt eisen,
- 17:12Speaker 1: he shouted, and then, as if in devision veldt politik
- 17:16Speaker 1: ha ha, then he would explain complicated questions of polity
- 17:19Speaker 1: to imaginary hearers in low, wily tones. The other sick
- 17:24Speaker 1: man kept still listening to him. Bert's distracted attention would
- 17:29Speaker 1: be recalled by Kurt small ways take that end. So slowly,
- 17:34Speaker 1: tediously the great mast was rigged and hoisted foot by
- 17:38Speaker 1: foot into place. The electricians had contrived a catchment pool
- 17:43Speaker 1: and a wheel in the torrent close at hand for
- 17:45Speaker 1: the little Mouelhausen dynamo, with its terminal volute used by
- 17:49Speaker 1: the telegraphists, was quite adaptable to water driving. And on
- 17:53Speaker 1: the sixth day in the evening, the apparatus was in
- 17:56Speaker 1: working order and the Prince was calling weakly, indeed, but
- 18:00Speaker 1: calling to his air fleet across the empty spaces of
- 18:02Speaker 1: the world. For a time he called, unheeded. The effect
- 18:06Speaker 1: of that evening was to linger long in Bert's memory.
- 18:10Speaker 1: A red fire spluttered and blazed close by the electricians
- 18:13Speaker 1: at their work, and red gleams ran up the vertical
- 18:16Speaker 1: steel mast and threads of copper wire towards the zenith.
- 18:20Speaker 1: The Prince sat on a rock close by, with his
- 18:23Speaker 1: chin on his hand, waiting Beyond and to the northward
- 18:27Speaker 1: was the cairn that covered von Wintefeldt, surmounted by a
- 18:30Speaker 1: cross of steel, and from among the tumbled rocks in
- 18:33Speaker 1: the distance, the eyes of a wolf gleamed redly. On
- 18:36Speaker 1: the other hand was the wreckage of the great airship,
- 18:39Speaker 1: and the men bivouacked about a second ruddy flare. They
- 18:42Speaker 1: were all keeping very still, as if waiting to hear
- 18:45Speaker 1: what news might presently be given them. Far away, across
- 18:49Speaker 1: many hundreds of miles of desolation, other wireless masts would
- 18:53Speaker 1: be clicking and snapping and waking into responsive vibration. Perhaps
- 18:58Speaker 1: they were not. Perhaps those throbs upon the ethers wasted
- 19:01Speaker 1: themselves upon a regardless world. When the men spoke, they
- 19:05Speaker 1: spoke in low tones. Now and then a bird shrieked remotely,
- 19:10Speaker 1: and once a wolf howled. All these things were set
- 19:13Speaker 1: in the immense, cold spaciousness of the wild. End of
- 19:17Speaker 1: Chapter seven, Parts four, five, and six. Recording by fred
- 19:21Speaker 1: Di Beredinus