The War in the Air

ns had realised the price their waiting game must cost, and struck with all the strength they had, if

and rain. They came from the yards of Washington and Philadelphia, full tilt in two squadro

flames. All the airships rolled and staggered, bursts of hailstorm bore them down and forced them to fight their way up again; the air had become bitterly cold. The Prince was on the point of issuing orders to drop earthward and trail copper lightn

dipping his bread into his soup and was biting off big mouthfuls. His legs were wide apart, and he leant against the partition in order to steady himself amidst the pitching and oscillation of the airship. The men about him looked tired and depressed; a few talk

shock of the altered tone, though he could not understand a word that was said. The announcement was followed by a pause, and then a great outcry of questions and suggestions. Even the air-si

me suddenness fou

said, though h

engaged in some new feat of atmospheric Jiu-Jitsu. He drew his blanket closer about him, clutching with one straining hand. He found himself tossing in a wet twilight, with nothing to be seen but mist pouring past him. Above

hip wallowing along like a porpoise, and also working up. Presently the clouds swallowed her again for a time, and then she came back to sight as a dark and whale-like monster, amidst streaming weath

ow

rd. It was a German drachenflieger. The thing was going so fast he had but an instant apprehension of the dark figur

" sai

the rail for dear life. "Bang!" came a vast impact out of the zenith, followed by another huge roll, and all about him the tumbled clouds flashed red

righted again and brought back the gallery floor to his feet. He began to make his way cautiously towards the ladde

me, all about him, enveloping him, engulfing him, immense and overwhelming, a quiver

plosion the universe seemed to be s

th double up-tilted wings and the screw ahead, and the men were in a boat-like body netted over. From this very light long body, magazine guns projected on either side. One thing that was strikingly odd and wonderful in that moment of revelation was that the left upper wing was burning downward with a reddish, smoky flame. But this was not the most wond

ings, a picture a little blurred

eemed a part of it, so that it is hard to say whether

y report and a thin small sound of voices tha

nd cold and terrified beyond measure, and now more than a little air-sick. It seemed to him that the strength had gone out of his knees and hand

for hours. Below, above, around him were gulfs, monstrous gulfs of howling wind and eddies of dark, whirling snowflakes, and he was protected from it all by a lit

past them in the void. He wanted to get into the passage! He wanted to get into the passage! He wanted to get into the passage! Would the arm by which he was clinging hold out

s disposition was evidently to rattle him about and then throw him out again. He hung on with the convulsive clutch of inst

e was in

ping one side and sometimes the other. The lid shut upon him with a click. He did not care then what was happening any more. He did not care who fought who, or what bullets were fired or explosions occurred. He did not care if presently he was shot or smashed to pieces. He was full of f

r weather, nor of the duel she fought with two circling aeroplanes, how they shot her rear-most ch

sinking swiftly, with the American aeroplane entangled with her smashed propeller, and the Americans trying to scramble aboard. It signified nothing to Bert. To him it conveyed itself simply as veheme

ly and absolutely. The Vaterland was no longer fighting the gale; her smashed and exploded engines throbbed no more; she

appened to the airship, nor what had happened to the battle. For a long time he lay waiting apprehensively for th

and of riding bicycles in an extremely perilous manner through the upper air amidst a pyrotechnic display of crackers and Bengal lights--to the great annoyance of a sort of composite person made up of the Prince and Mr. Butt

nd he was sure the vision he had had of the destruction of a magnificent city, a city quite

alled, anxiou

in of ideas. He lifted up his hands and feet, and met an inflexible resistance. He was in a coffin, he thought! He had been buried alive! He

magined coffin gave way, and he was flying out into daylight. Then he was rolling abou

nd with an aluminium diver's helmet over his knee, staring at him with a severe expression, and rubbing his downy unshaven chin. They were both on a slanting floor of crimson padding, and

"jumping out of that locker when I was certain you had g

up?" ask

ship is up. Most oth

ere a b

re w

o w

s I mean--were too busy most of them to trouble about us, and the wind blew us--Heaven knows where the wind IS blowing us. It b

he

hen we get down on the earth again we

at's be

ledge--and a jolly bleak, empty

n't we righ

no answer

Gaw! that was 'orrible. Guns going off! Things explodin'! Clouds and 'ail. Pitching and

htning flashes. I never saw one of those American aeroplanes. Just saw the shots flicker through the chambers and sent off men for the tears. We caught fire a bit--not much

d Bert. "I didn't notice

riving through the air like a common aerostat, at the mercy of the elements, almost due north--probably to the North Pole. We don't know what aeroplanes the Americans have, or anything at all about it. Very likely we have finished 'em up. One fouled us, one was struck by lightning, some of the men saw a third upset, apparently just for fun. They were going cheap anyhow. Also we've lost most of our drachenflieger. They just skated off into the night. No stability in 'em. That's all. We don't know if we've won or lost. We don't know if we're at war with the British Empire yet or at peace. Consequently, we daren't get

any grub?"

knows!"

will wake up presently and start doing things with tremendous vigour.... I've taken a fancy to you. It's the English strain in me. You're a rum little chap. I shan't like seeing you whizz down the air.... You'd better make yourself useful, Smallways. I think I shall requisition you for my squad. You'll have to work, you know, and be in

asional signs of habitation. Then a bugle sounded, and Kurt interpreted it as a summons to food. They got through the door and clambered with some difficulty up the nearly vertical passage, holding on desperatel

er his soup, sopping it up with his bread, and contemplated his comrades. They were all rather yellow and dirty, with four-day beards, and they grouped themselves in the tired, unpremeditated manner of men on a wreck. They talked little. The situation perplexed them beyond any suggestion of ideas. Three had been hurt in the pitching up of the ship during the fight, and one had a bandaged bullet wound. It was incredible that this little band of men had committed murder and massacre on a scale beyond precedent. None of them who squatted on

ry one was looking at a pair of feet that were dangling across the downturned open doorway. Kurt appeared and squatted across the hinge. In

frame. Kurt guided them to a foothold, and the Prince, shaved and brushed and beeswaxed and clean and big

ture of a man who site a steed. The h

Prince's eye fell upon him, the great finger pointed, a

rince, and Bert

ourse with cries of approval. At the end their leader burst into song and all the men with him. "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott," they chanted in deep, strong tones, with an immense moral uplifting. It was glaringly inappropriate in a damaged, half-overturned, and sinking airship, which had been disabl

nt. They stared at the shattered and twisted Vaterland driving before the gale, amazed beyond words. In so many respects it was like their idea of the Second Advent, and then again in so many respects it w

hey did not understand, thoug

ver a crest of pine woods and was no more seen

ain, and every one was briskly prepared for heroic exertion

tion, had his first experienc

ntry, and so risk capture. It was necessary to keep the airship up until the wind fell and then, if possible, to descend in some lonely district of the Territory where there would be a chance of repair or rescue by some searching consort. In order to do this weight had to be dropped, and Kurt was detailed with a dozen men to

that grew more stunted and scrubby as the day wore on. Here and there on the hills were patches and pockets of snow. And over all this he worked, hacking away at the tough and slippery oiled silk and clinging stoutly to the netting. Presently they cleared and dropped a tangle of bent steel rods and wires from the frame, and a big chunk of si

th them, he worked with a friendly rivalry to get through with his share before them. And he developed a great respect and affection for Kurt, which had hitherto been only latent in him. Kurt with a job to direct was altogether admirable; he w

ions were given hot coffee, and indeed, even gloved as they were, the job had been a cold one. They sat drinking it and regarding each other with satisfaction. One man spoke t

with three men into the still intact gas-chambers, let out a certain quantity of gas from them, and prepared a series of ripping panels for the descent. Also the residue of the bombs and explosives in the magazine

. When at last he got clear and could take a view of the situation, the great black eagle that had started so splendidly from Franconia six evenings ago, sprawled deflated over the cabins of the airship and the frost-bitten rocks of this desolate place and looked a most unfortunate bird--as though some one had caught it and wrung its neck and cast it aside. Several of the crew of the airship were standing about in silence, contemplating the wreckage and the empty wilderness into which they had fallen. Others were busy under the imromptu tent made by the empty gas-chambers. The Prince had gone a little way off a

s of battle and the weather conspired to maroon him in Labrador, and there he raged for six long days, while war and wonder swept the world. Nation rose against nation and air

seemed they would never rig that mast. From the outset the party suffered hardship. They were not too abundantly provisioned, and they were put on short rations, and for all the thick garments they had, they were but ill-equipped against the piercing wind and inhospitable violence of this wilderness. The first night was spent in darkness and without fires. The engines that had supplied power were smashed and dropped far away to th

hings about the burning of New York. The men crept together in the mess-room in the darkling, wrapped in what they could find and drank cocoa from the fireless heaters and listened to his cries. In the morning the Prince made them a speech about Destiny, an

ened for want of good food, while their fellows mended. These things happened, as it were, in the wings; the central facts before Bert's consciousness were always firstly the perpetual toil, the holding and lifting, and lugging at heavy and clumsy masses, the tedious filing and winding of wires, and secondly, the Prince, urgent and threatening whenever a man relaxed. He would stand over them, and point over their heads, southward into the empty sky. "The world there," he said in German, "is waiting for us! Fifty Centuries come to their Consummation." Bert did not understand the words, but he read the gesture. Several times the Prince grew angry; once with a man who was working slowly, once with a man who stole a comrad

n, as if in derision, "Welt-Politik--ha, ha!" Then he would explain complicated questions of polity to imaginary hearers, in low, wily ton

nd--for the little Mulhausen dynamo with its turbinal volute used by the telegraphists was quite adaptable to water driving, and on the sixth day in the evening the app

surmounted by a cross of steel, and from among the tumbled rocks in the distance the eyes of a wolf gleamed redly. On the other hand was the wreckage of the great airship and the men bivouacked about a second ruddy flare. They were all keeping very still, as if waiting to hear what news might presently be given them. Far away, across many hundreds of miles of desolation,

mates. It was only far on in the night that the weary telegraphist got an answe

breakfast, amidst a grea

guist, waving his cocoa in an illustra

ard into the dawn.

nd Paris. Chapan hass burn San Francisco. We haf mate a camp at Niagara. Dat is whad they are t

" sai

e linguist, dri

'ave they? Like

a bomba

about a place called Clap

noding," said

and presently he saw Kurt standing alone, hands behind him, and looking at one of the distant wate

ng. "I was just thinking I would like to see that water

what they're saying, sir. Woul

ng the Graf Zeppelin for us. She'll be here by the morning, and we ought to be at Niagara--or eternal smash--withi

ssi

well.

ed the way across the rocks t

an escort; then as they passed out of the atmosphere o

eginning. Our start's been like firing a magazine. Every country was hiding flying-machines. They're fighting in the air all over Europe--all over the world. The Japanese and Chinese have joined in. That's the great fact. That's the supreme fact. They've pounced into our little quarrels.... The Yellow Peril was a peril after all! They've got thousands of airshi

ch to London, s

n know

o more fo

rld's gone to pieces. There's no way out of it, no way back. Here we are! We're like mice caught in a house on fire, we're like cattle overtaken by a flood. Presently we shall be picked up, and back we shall go into the fightin

ht," said Bert, af

didn't know it before, but this morning, a

Ow

l you

COULD y

kno

being

being

for a time they walked in s

, wars and earthquakes, that sweep across all the decency of life. It's just as though I had woke up to it all for the first time. Every night since we were at New York I've dreamt of it.... And it's always been so--it's the way of life. People are torn away from the people they care for; homes are smashed, creatures ful

ime, and then he dropped out

beside a rivulet. There a quantity of delicate little pink flowers caught

d half turned.

flower," said Bert

e if you want

ile Kurt stood

ays wants to pick

othing to

n, without talkin

ich the view of the waterfall opened out. The

see," he explained. "It isn't v

e wh

waterfall

n abruptly. "Got a

those flowers, I suppose.--

wa

T! E

ions to play about. This was a girl. But all that's past for ever. It's hard to

id Bert, "you'll

rt with decis

-a broad waterfall down towards Innertkirchen. That's why I came here this morning. We slipped away and had half a d

we done things like that. Flowers.

to see her and hear her voice again before I die. Where is she?... Look here, Smallways,

r again all ri

he things they will ever do. Gott! Smallways, what a muddle and confusion life has always been--the battles and massacres and disasters, the hates and harsh acts, the murders and sweatings, the lynchings and cheatings. This morning I am tired of it all, as though I'd just found it out for the first time. I HAVE found it out. When a man is tired of life, I suppose it is time for him to die. I've lost heart, and death is ove

rench at Casablanca, is going on everywhere. Everywhere! Down in South America even they are fighting among themselves! No place is safe--no place is at peace. There is no place where a woman and h