by H. G. Wells
CHAPTER XXV
THE COMING OF THE AEROPLANES
Two men in pale blue were lying in the irregular line that stretchedalong the edge of the captured Roehampton stage from end to end, graspingtheir carbines and peering into the shadows of the stage called WimbledonPark. Now and then they spoke to one another. They spoke the mutilatedEnglish of their class and period. The fire of the Ostrogites haddwindled and ceased, and few of the enemy had been seen for some time.But the echoes of the fight that was going on now far below in the lowergalleries of that stage, came every now and then between the staccato ofshots from the popular side. One of these men was describing to the otherhow he had seen a man down below there dodge behind a girder, and hadaimed at a guess and hit him cleanly as he dodged too far. "He's downthere still," said the marksman. "See that little patch. Yes. Betweenthose bars."
A few yards behind them lay a dead stranger, face upward to the sky, withthe blue canvas of his jacket smouldering in a circle about the neatbullet hole on his chest. Close beside him a wounded man, with a legswathed about, sat with an expressionless face and watched the progressof that burning. Behind them, athwart the carrier lay the capturedmonoplane.
"I can't see him _now_," said the second man in a tone of provocation.
The marksman became foul-mouthed and high-voiced in his earnestendeavour to make things plain. And suddenly, interrupting him, came anoisy shouting from the substage.
"What's going on now?" he said, and raised himself on one arm to surveythe stairheads in the central groove of the stage. A number of bluefigures were coming up these, and swarming across the stage.
"We don't want all these fools," said his friend. "They only crowd up andspoil shots. What are they after?"
"Ssh!--they're shouting something."
The two men listened. The new-comers had crowded densely about themachine. Three Ward Leaders, conspicuous by their black mantles andbadges, clambered into the body and appeared above it. The rank and fileflung themselves upon the vans, gripping hold of the edges, until theentire outline of the thing was manned, in some places three deep. One ofthe marksmen knelt up. "They're putting it on the carrier--that's whatthey're after."
He rose to his feet, his friend rose also. "What's the good?" said hisfriend. "We've got no aeronauts."
"That's what they're doing anyhow." He looked at his rifle, looked at thestruggling crowd, and suddenly turned to the wounded man. "Mind these,mate," he said, handing his carbine and cartridge belt; and in a momenthe was running towards the monoplane. For a quarter of an hour he waslugging, thrusting, shouting and heeding shouts, and then the thing wasdone, and he stood with a multitude of others cheering their ownachievement. By this time he knew, what indeed everyone in the city knew,that the Master, raw learner though he was, intended to fly this machinehimself, was coming even now to take control of it, would let no otherman attempt it.
"He who takes the greatest danger, he who bears the heaviest burden,that man is King," so the Master was reported to have spoken. And even asthis man cheered, and while the beads of sweat still chased one anotherfrom the disorder of his hair, he heard the thunder of a greater tumult,and in fitful snatches the beat and impulse of the revolutionary song. Hesaw through a gap in the people that a thick stream of heads still pouredup the stairway. "The Master is coming," shouted voices, "the Master iscoming," and the crowd about him grew denser and denser. He began tothrust himself towards the central groove. "The Master is coming!" "TheSleeper, the Master!" "God and the Master!" roared the voices.
And suddenly quite close to him were the black uniforms of therevolutionary guard, and for the first and last time in his life he sawGraham, saw him quite nearly. A tall, dark man in a flowing black robe hewas, with a white, resolute face and eyes fixed steadfastly before him; aman who for all the little things about him had neither ears nor eyes northoughts....
For all his days that man remembered the passing of Graham's bloodlessface. In a moment it had gone and he was fighting in the swaying crowd. Alad weeping with terror thrust against him, pressing towards thestairways, yelling "Clear for the start, you fools!" The bell thatcleared the flying stage became a loud unmelodious clanging.
With that clanging in his ears Graham drew near the monoplane, marchedinto the shadow of its tilting wing. He became aware that a number ofpeople about him were offering to accompany him, and waved their offersaside. He wanted to think how one started the engine. The bell clangedfaster and faster, and the feet of the retreating people roared fasterand louder. The man in yellow was assisting him to mount through the ribsof the body. He clambered into the aeronaut's place, fixing himself verycarefully and deliberately. What was it? The man in yellow was pointingto two small flying machines driving upward in the southern sky. No doubtthey were looking for the coming aeroplanes. That--presently--the thingto do now was to start. Things were being shouted at him, questions,warnings. They bothered him. He wanted to think about the machine, torecall every item of his previous experience. He waved the people fromhim, saw the man in yellow dropping off through the ribs, saw the crowdcleft down the line of the girders by his gesture.
For a moment he was motionless, staring at the levers, the wheel by whichthe engine shifted, and all the delicate appliances of which he knew solittle. His eye caught a spirit level with the bubble towards him, and heremembered something, spent a dozen seconds in swinging the engineforward until the bubble floated in the centre of the tube. He noted thatthe people were not shouting, knew they watched his deliberation. Abullet smashed on the bar above his head. Who fired? Was the line clearof people? He stood up to see and sat down again.
In another second the propeller was spinning and he was rushing down theguides. He gripped the wheel and swung the engine back to lift the stem.Then it was the people shouted. In a moment he was throbbing with thequiver of the engine, and the shouts dwindled swiftly behind, rushed downto silence. The wind whistled over the edges of the screen, and the worldsank away from him very swiftly.
Throb, throb, throb--throb, throb, throb; up he drove. He fanciedhimself free of all excitement, felt cool and deliberate. He lifted thestem still more, opened one valve on his left wing and swept round andup. He looked down with a steady head, and up. One of the Ostrogitemonoplanes was driving across his course, so that he drove obliquelytowards it and would pass below it at a steep angle. Its littleaeronauts were peering down at him. What did they mean to do? His mindbecame active. One, he saw held a weapon pointing, seemed prepared tofire. What did they think he meant to do? In a moment he understoodtheir tactics, and his resolution was taken. His momentary lethargy waspast. He opened two more valves to his left, swung round, end on to thishostile machine, closed his valves, and shot straight at it, stem andwind-screen shielding him from the shot. They tilted a little as if toclear him. He flung up his stem.
Throb, throb, throb--pause--throb, throb--he set his teeth, his face intoan involuntary grimace, and crash! He struck it! He struck upward beneaththe nearer wing.
Very slowly the wing of his antagonist seemed to broaden as the impetusof his blow turned it up. He saw the full breadth of it and then it sliddownward out of his sight.
He felt his stem going down, his hands tightened on the levers, whirledand rammed the engine back. He felt the jerk of a clearance, the nose ofthe machine jerked upward steeply, and for a moment he seemed to belying on his back. The machine was reeling and staggering, it seemed tobe dancing on its screw. He made a huge effort, hung for a moment on thelevers, and slowly the engine came forward again. He was driving upwardbut no longer so steeply. He gasped for a moment and flung himself at thelevers again. The wind whistled about him. One further effort and he wasalmost level. He could breathe. He turned his head for the first time tosee what had become of his antagonists. Turned back to the levers for amoment and looked again. For a moment he could have believed they wereannihilated. And then he saw between the two stages to the east was achasm, and down this something, a slender edge, fell swiftly andvanished,
as a sixpence falls down a crack.
At first he did not understand, and then a wild joy possessed him. Heshouted at the top of his voice, an inarticulate shout, and drove higherand higher up the sky. Throb, throb, throb, pause, throb, throb, throb."Where was the other?" he thought. "They too--." As he looked round theempty heavens he had a momentary fear that this second machine had risenabove him, and then he saw it alighting on the Norwood stage. They hadmeant shooting. To risk being rammed headlong two thousand feet in theair was beyond their latter-day courage....
For a little while he circled, then swooped in a steep descent towardsthe westward stage. Throb throb throb, throb throb throb. The twilightwas creeping on apace, the smoke from the Streatham stage that had beenso dense and dark, was now a pillar of fire, and all the laced curves ofthe moving ways and the translucent roofs and domes and the chasmsbetween the buildings were glowing softly now, lit by the temperedradiance of the electric light that the glare of the day overpowered. Thethree efficient stages that the Ostrogites held--for Wimbledon Park wasuseless because of the fire from Roehampton, and Streatham was afurnace--were glowing with guide lights for the coming aeroplanes. As heswept over the Roehampton stage he saw the dark masses of the peoplethereon. He heard a clap of frantic cheering, heard a bullet from theWimbledon Park stage tweet through the air, and went beating up above theSurrey wastes. He felt a breath of wind from the southwest, and liftedhis westward wing as he had learnt to do, and so drove upward heelinginto the rare swift upper air. Whirr, whirr, whirr.
Up he drove and up, to that pulsating rhythm, until the country beneathwas blue and indistinct, and London spread like a little map traced inlight, like the mere model of a city near the brim of the horizon. Thesouthwest was a sky of sapphire over the shadowy rim of the world, andever as he drove upward the multitude of stars increased.
And behold! In the southward, low down and glittering swiftly nearer,were two little patches of nebulous light. And then two more, and then aglow of swiftly driving shapes. Presently he could count them. There werefour and twenty. The first fleet of aeroplanes had come! Beyond appeareda yet greater glow.
He swept round in a half circle, staring at this advancing fleet. It flewin a wedge-like shape, a triangular flight of gigantic phosphorescentshapes sweeping nearer through the lower air. He made a swift calculationof their pace, and spun the little wheel that brought the engine forward.He touched a lever and the throbbing effort of the engine ceased. Hebegan to fall, fell swifter and swifter. He aimed at the apex of thewedge. He dropped like a stone through the whistling air. It seemedscarce a second from that soaring moment before he struck the foremostaeroplane.
No man of all that black multitude saw the coming of his fate, no manamong them dreamt of the hawk that struck downward upon him out of thesky. Those who were not limp in the agonies of air-sickness, were craningtheir black necks and staring to see the filmy city that was rising outof the haze, the rich and splendid city to which "Massa Boss" had broughttheir obedient muscles. Bright teeth gleamed and the glossy faces shone.They had heard of Paris. They knew they were to have lordly times amongthe poor white trash.
Suddenly Graham hit them.
He had aimed at the body of the aeroplane, but at the very last instant abetter idea had flashed into his mind. He twisted about and struck nearthe edge of the starboard wing with all his accumulated weight. He wasjerked back as he struck. His prow went gliding across its smooth expansetowards the rim. He felt the forward rush of the huge fabric sweeping himand his monoplane along with it, and for a moment that seemed an age hecould not tell what was happening. He heard a thousand throats yelling,and perceived that his machine was balanced on the edge of the giganticfloat, and driving down, down; glanced over his shoulder and saw thebackbone of the aeroplane and the opposite float swaying up. He had avision through the ribs of sliding chairs, staring faces, and handsclutching at the tilting guide bars. The fenestrations in the furtherfloat flashed open as the aeronaut tried to right her. Beyond, he saw asecond aeroplane leaping steeply to escape the whirl of its heelingfellow. The broad area of swaying wings seemed to jerk upward. He felt hehad dropped clear, that the monstrous fabric, clean overturned, hung likea sloping wall above him.
He did not clearly understand that he had struck the side float of theaeroplane and slipped off, but he perceived that he was flying free onthe down glide and rapidly nearing earth. What had he done? His heartthrobbed like a noisy engine in his throat and for a perilous instant hecould not move his levers because of the paralysis of his hands. Hewrenched the levers to throw his engine back, fought for two secondsagainst the weight of it, felt himself righting, driving horizontally,set the engine beating again.
He looked upward and saw two aeroplanes glide shouting far overhead,looked back, and saw the main body of the fleet opening out and rushingupward and outward; saw the one he had struck fall edgewise on and strikelike a gigantic knife-blade along the wind-wheels below it.
He put down his stern and looked again. He drove up heedless of hisdirection as he watched. He saw the wind-vanes give, saw the huge fabricstrike the earth, saw its downward vanes crumple with the weight of itsdescent, and then the whole mass turned over and smashed, upside down,upon the sloping wheels. Then from the heaving wreckage a thin tongue ofwhite fire licked up towards the zenith. He was aware of a huge massflying through the air towards him, and turned upwards just in time toescape the charge--if it was a charge--of a second aeroplane. It whirledby below, sucked him down a fathom, and nearly turned him over in thegust of its close passage.
He became aware of three others rushing towards him, aware of the urgentnecessity of beating above them. Aeroplanes were all about him, circlingwildly to avoid him, as it seemed. They drove past him, above, below,eastward and westward. Far away to the westward was the sound of acollision, and two falling flares. Far away to the southward a secondsquadron was coming. Steadily he beat upward. Presently all theaeroplanes were below him, but for a moment he doubted the height he hadof them, and did not swoop again. And then he came down upon a secondvictim and all its load of soldiers saw him coming. The big machineheeled and swayed as the fear-maddened men scrambled to the stern fortheir weapons. A score of bullets sung through the air, and there flasheda star in the thick glass wind-screen that protected him. The aeroplaneslowed and dropped to foil his stroke, and dropped too low. Just in timehe saw the wind-wheels of Bromley hill rushing up towards him, and spunabout and up as the aeroplane he had chased crashed among them. All itsvoices wove into a felt of yelling. The great fabric seemed to bestanding on end for a second among the heeling and splintering vans, andthen it flew to pieces. Huge splinters came flying through the air, itsengines burst like shells. A hot rush of flame shot overhead into thedarkling sky.
"_Two_!" he cried, with a bomb from overhead bursting as it fell, andforthwith he was beating up again. A glorious exhilaration possessed himnow, a giant activity. His troubles about humanity, about his inadequacy,were gone for ever. He was a man in battle rejoicing in his power.Aeroplanes seemed radiating from him in every direction, intent only uponavoiding him, the yelling of their packed passengers came in short gustsas they swept by. He chose his third quarry, struck hastily and did butturn it on edge. It escaped him, to smash against the tall cliff ofLondon wall. Flying from that impact he skimmed the darkling ground sonearly he could see a frightened rabbit bolting up a slope. He jerked upsteeply, and found himself driving over south London with the air abouthim vacant. To the right of him a wild riot of signal rockets from theOstrogites banged tumultuously in the sky. To the south the wreckage ofhalf a dozen air ships flamed, and east and west and north they fledbefore him. They drove away to the east and north, and went about in thesouth, for they could not pause in the air. In their present confusionany attempt at evolution would have meant disastrous collisions.
He passed two hundred feet or so above the Roehampton stage. It was blackwith people and noisy with their frantic shouting. But why was theWimbledon Park stage black and
cheering, too? The smoke and flame ofStreatham now hid the three further stages. He curved about and rose tosee them and the northern quarters. First came the square masses ofShooter's Hill into sight, from behind the smoke, lit and orderly withthe aeroplane that had landed and its disembarking negroes. Then cameBlackheath, and then under the corner of the reek the Norwood stage. OnBlackheath no aeroplane had landed. Norwood was covered by a swarm oflittle figures running to and fro in a passionate confusion. Why?Abruptly he understood. The stubborn defence of the flying stages wasover, the people were pouring into the under-ways of these laststrongholds of Ostrog's usurpation. And then, from far away on thenorthern border of the city, full of glorious import to him, came asound, a signal, a note of triumph, the leaden thud of a gun. His lipsfell apart, his face was disturbed with emotion.
He drew an immense breath. "They win," he shouted to the empty air; "thepeople win!" The sound of a second gun came like an answer. And then hesaw the monoplane on Blackheath was running down its guides to launch. Itlifted clean and rose. It shot up into the air, driving straightsouthward and away from him.
In an instant it came to him what this meant. It must needs be Ostrogin flight. He shouted and dropped towards it. He had the momentum ofhis elevation and fell slanting down the air and very swiftly. It rosesteeply at his approach. He allowed for its velocity and drovestraight upon it.
It suddenly became a mere flat edge, and behold! he was past it, anddriving headlong down with all the force of his futile blow.
He was furiously angry. He reeled the engine back along its shaft andwent circling up. He saw Ostrog's machine beating up a spiral beforehim. He rose straight towards it, won above it by virtue of the impetusof his swoop and by the advantage and weight of a man. He droppedheadlong--dropped and missed again! As he rushed past he saw the face ofOstrog's aeronaut confident and cool and in Ostrog's attitude a wincingresolution. Ostrog was looking steadfastly away from him--to the south.He realized with a gleam of wrath how bungling his flight must be. Belowhe saw the Croydon hills. He jerked upward and once more he gained onhis enemy.
He glanced over his shoulder and his attention was arrested. Theeastward stage, the one on Shooter's Hill, appeared to lift; a flashchanging to a tall grey shape, a cowled figure of smoke and dust, jerkedinto the air. For a moment this cowled figure stood motionless, droppinghuge masses of metal from its shoulders, and then it began to uncoil adense head of smoke. The people had blown it up, aeroplane and all! Assuddenly a second flash and grey shape sprang up from the Norwood stage.And even as he stared at this came a dead report; and the air wave of thefirst explosion struck him. He was flung up and sideways.
For a moment his monoplane fell nearly edgewise with her nose down, andseemed to hesitate whether to overset altogether. He stood on hiswind-shield, wrenching the wheel that swayed up over his head. And thenthe shock of the second explosion took his machine sideways.
He found himself clinging to one of the ribs of his machine, and theair was blowing past him and _upward_. He seemed to be hanging quitestill in the air, with the wind blowing up past him. It occurred to himthat he was falling. Then he was sure that he was falling. He could notlook down.
He found himself recapitulating with incredible swiftness all that hadhappened since his awakening, the days of doubt, the days of Empire, andat last the tumultuous discovery of Ostrog's calculated treachery.
The vision had a quality of utter unreality. Who was he? Why was heholding so tightly with his hands? Why could he not let go? In sucha fall as this countless dreams have ended. But in a moment hewould wake....
His thoughts ran swifter and swifter. He wondered if he should see Helenagain. It seemed so unreasonable that he should not see her again. It_must_ be a dream! Yet surely he would meet her. She at least was real.She was real. He would wake and meet her.
Although he could not look at it, he was suddenly aware that the earthwas very near.
THE END.
