by H. G. Wells
CHAPTER XXIV
WHILE THE AEROPLANES WERE COMING
The man in yellow was beside them. Neither had noted his coming. He wassaying that the south-west wards were marching. "I never expected it sosoon," he cried. "They have done wonders. You must send them a word tohelp them on their way."
Graham stared at him absent-mindedly. Then with a start he returned tohis previous preoccupation about the flying stages.
"Yes," he said. "That is good, that is good." He weighed a message. "Tellthem;--well done South West."
He turned his eyes to Helen Wotton again. His face expressed his strugglebetween conflicting ideas. "We must capture the flying stages," heexplained. "Unless we can do that they will land negroes. At all costs wemust prevent that."
He felt even as he spoke that this was not what had been in his mindbefore the interruption. He saw a touch of surprise in her eyes. Sheseemed about to speak and a shrill bell drowned her voice.
It occurred to Graham that she expected him to lead these marchingpeople, that that was the thing he had to do. He made the offer abruptly.He addressed the man in yellow, but he spoke to her. He saw her facerespond. "Here I am doing nothing," he said.
"It is impossible," protested the man in yellow. "It is a fight in awarren. Your place is here."
He explained elaborately. He motioned towards the room where Graham mustwait, he insisted no other course was possible. "We must know where youare," he said. "At any moment a crisis may arise needing your presenceand decision."
A picture had drifted through his mind of such a vast dramatic struggleas the masses in the ruins had suggested. But here was no spectacularbattle-field such as he imagined. Instead was seclusion--and suspense. Itwas only as the afternoon wore on that he pieced together a truer pictureof the fight that was raging, inaudibly and invisibly, within four milesof him, beneath the Roehampton stage. A strange and unprecedented contestit was, a battle that was a hundred thousand little battles, a battle ina sponge of ways and channels, fought out of sight of sky or sun underthe electric glare, fought out in a vast confusion by multitudesuntrained in arms, led chiefly by acclamation, multitudes dulled bymindless labour and enervated by the tradition of two hundred years ofservile security against multitudes demoralised by lives of venialprivilege and sensual indulgence. They had no artillery, nodifferentiation into this force or that; the only weapon on either sidewas the little green metal carbine, whose secret manufacture and suddendistribution in enormous quantities had been one of Ostrog's culminatingmoves against the Council. Few had had any experience with this weapon,many had never discharged one, many who carried it came unprovided withammunition; never was wilder firing in the history of warfare. It was abattle of amateurs, a hideous experimental warfare, armed riotersfighting armed rioters, armed rioters swept forward by the words and furyof a song, by the tramping sympathy of their numbers, pouring incountless myriads towards the smaller ways, the disabled lifts, thegalleries slippery with blood, the halls and passages choked with smoke,beneath the flying stages, to learn there when retreat was hopeless theancient mysteries of warfare. And overhead save for a few sharpshootersupon the roof spaces and for a few bands and threads of vapour thatmultiplied and darkened towards the evening, the day was a clearserenity. Ostrog it seems had no bombs at command and in all the earlierphases of the battle the flying machines played no part. Not the smallestcloud was there to break the empty brilliance of the sky. It seemed asthough it held itself vacant until the aeroplanes should come.
Ever and again there was news of these, drawing nearer, from this Spanishtown and then that, and presently from France. But of the new guns thatOstrog had made and which were known to be in the city came no news inspite of Graham's urgency, nor any report of successes from the densefelt of fighting strands about the flying stages. Section after sectionof the Labour-Societies reported itself assembled, reported itselfmarching, and vanished from knowledge into the labyrinth of that warfare.What was happening there? Even the busy ward leaders did not know. Inspite of the opening and closing of doors, the hasty messengers, theringing of bells and the perpetual clitter-clack of recording implements,Graham felt isolated, strangely inactive, inoperative.
His isolation seemed at times the strangest, the most unexpected of allthe things that had happened since his awakening. It had something ofthe quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams. A tumult, thestupendous realisation of a world struggle between Ostrog and himself,and then this confined quiet little room with its mouthpieces and bellsand broken mirror!
Now the door would be closed and Graham and Helen were alone together;they seemed sharply marked off then from all the unprecedented worldstorm that rushed together without, vividly aware of one another, onlyconcerned with one another. Then the door would open again, messengerswould enter, or a sharp bell would stab their quiet privacy, and it waslike a window in a well built brightly lit house flung open suddenly to ahurricane. The dark hurry and tumult, the stress and vehemence of thebattle rushed in and overwhelmed them. They were no longer persons butmere spectators, mere impressions of a tremendous convulsion. They becameunreal even to themselves, miniatures of personality, indescribablysmall, and the two antagonistic realities, the only realities in beingwere first the city, that throbbed and roared yonder in a belated frenzyof defence and secondly the aeroplanes hurling inexorably towards themover the round shoulder of the world.
There came a sudden stir outside, a running to and fro, and cries. Thegirl stood up, speechless, incredulous.
Metallic voices were shouting "Victory!" Yes it was "Victory!"
Bursting through the curtains appeared the man in yellow, startled anddishevelled with excitement, "Victory," he cried, "victory! The peopleare winning. Ostrog's people have collapsed."
She rose. "Victory?"
"What do you mean?" asked Graham. "Tell me! _What_?"
"We have driven them out of the under galleries at Norwood, Streatham isafire and burning wildly, and Roehampton is ours. _Ours_!--and we havetaken the monoplane that lay thereon."
A shrill bell rang. An agitated grey-headed man appeared from the room ofthe Ward Leaders. "It is all over," he cried.
"What matters it now that we have Roehampton? The aeroplanes have beensighted at Boulogne!"
"The Channel!" said the man in yellow. He calculated swiftly."Half an hour."
"They still have three of the flying stages," said the old man.
"Those guns?" cried Graham.
"We cannot mount them--in half an hour."
"Do you mean they are found?"
"Too late," said the old man.
"If we could stop them another hour!" cried the man in yellow.
"Nothing can stop them now," said the old man. "They have near a hundredaeroplanes in the first fleet."
"Another hour?" asked Graham.
"To be so near!" said the Ward Leader. "Now that we have foundthose guns. To be so near--. If once we could get them out upon theroof spaces."
"How long would that take?" asked Graham suddenly.
"An hour--certainly."
"Too late," cried the Ward Leader, "too late."
"_Is_ it too late?" said Graham. "Even now--. An hour!"
He had suddenly perceived a possibility. He tried to speak calmly, buthis face was white. "There is are chance. You said there was amonoplane--?"
"On the Roehampton stage, Sire."
"Smashed?"
"No. It is lying crossways to the carrier. It might be got upon theguides--easily. But there is no aeronaut--."
Graham glanced at the two men and then at Helen. He spoke after a longpause. "_We_ have no aeronauts?"
"None."
He turned suddenly to Helen. His decision was made. "I must do it."
"Do what?"
"Go to this flying stage--to this machine."
"What do you mean?"
"I am an aeronaut. After all--. Those days for which you reproached mewere not altogether wasted."
He turned to the
old man in yellow. "Tell them to put it upon theguides."
The man in yellow hesitated.
"What do you mean to do?" cried Helen.
"This monoplane--it is a chance--."
"You don't mean--?"
"To fight--yes. To fight in the air. I have thought before--. A bigaeroplane is a clumsy thing. A resolute man--!"
"But--never since flying began--" cried the man in yellow.
"There has been no need. But now the time has come. Tell them now--sendthem my message--to put it upon the guides. I see now something to do. Isee now why I am here!"
The old man dumbly interrogated the man in yellow nodded, andhurried out.
Helen made a step towards Graham. Her face was white. "But, Sire!--Howcan one fight? You will be killed."
"Perhaps. Yet, not to do it--or to let some one else attempt it--."
"You will be killed," she repeated.
"I've said my word. Do you not see? It may save--London!"
He stopped, he could speak no more, he swept the alternative aside by agesture, and they stood looking at one another.
They were both clear that he must go. There was no step back from thesetowering heroisms.
Her eyes brimmed with tears. She came towards him with a curious movementof her hands, as though she felt her way and could not see; she seizedhis hand and kissed it.
"To wake," she cried, "for this!"
He held her clumsily for a moment, and kissed the hair of her bowed head,and then thrust her away, and turned towards the man in yellow.
He could not speak. The gesture of his arm said "Onward."
