The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  Her three propellers had been so shattered and twisted, and her stern had been so much damaged by the explosion of the shell, that it was impossible for her to move a yard horizontally by her own power, and hence she was drifting to the westward at the rate of about twelve miles an hour before the breeze that had brought the unlucky mist, under cover of which her consort had escaped.

  The War-Hawk with her two searchlights had, of course, been sighted by the anarchists before she sighted them. It is hardly necessary to say that she was as absolutely at her mercy as a balloon would have been-more so, in fact; for an uninjured balloon would probably have, by this time, outsoared the War-Hawk and sought safety in the upper regions of the air. As it was, all the available force of her partially injured engines just sufficed to keep her afloat, and that was all.

  The War-Hawk's head-light flashed straight down upon her, and, half-blinded by the rays, her crew looked up, and saw the two forward guns with their muzzles depressed and converging upon them. Then they looked down at the dark earth lying below them, as it were, at the bottom of a gulf more than three thousand feet deep. A shot that crippled their lifting fans would send them headlong to death and destruction. A shell bursting in the hull of their ship would explode their magazine and scatter them and their craft in fragments through the air. It was no wonder that, under the circumstances, the courage which was equal to the destruction of defenceless towns or the blowing up of ocean liners swiftly degenerated into panic. There was one chance left, and that was surrender, and they took it. A white flag fluttered from a flagstaff astern.

  "Ah!" said Mr. Austen as soon as he made it out. "They seem to think discretion is the better part of valour."

  "Which means," said Sir Harry, "that they prefer hanging to being blown to bits. Of course we can't give them any other terms."

  "Certainly not," said Mr. Austen. "Still, I would much rather hand them over to the proper authorities, if we can do so safely, than kill them ourselves in cold blood. And, besides, the moral effect would be very much greater. We'll go down and see what they have to say. I don't think they'll try any treachery with these two guns trained on them. It wouldn't pay."

  Then he sent a message to the engine-room, and the War-Hawk sank slowly down, still keeping her guns trained on the anarchists, until only a hundred yards separated the two vessels.

  "Will you do the shouting, please? Your lungs are a good deal better than mine."

  "Oh yes, with pleasure," replied Sir Harry. "Though it's the first time I've been on speaking terms with these gentry."

  So saying, he threw open a slide in the forward part of the conning-tower, and sang out, as though he had been hailing a ship from the deck of his yacht-

  "Air-ship, ahoy! Who are you, and does that white flag mean surrender?"

  A little thick-set man, standing on the hull and holding on to the after-mast with one hand, made an expressive gesture with the other, and replied in a high, shrill voice and a strong German accent-

  "Dis is der air-ship Vengeur, and ve are vat you call anarchists. Ja, ve surrender! By tam, dere is noding else to do!"

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  PRISONERS OF WAR.

  THE irony of fate!" exclaimed Mr. Austen, as the reply floated up out of the depths. "To think that our first prize of war should be the poor old Volante, as we meant to call her - the ship that we all spent so much thought and labour over in Utopia, and which I so fondly fancied was going to enable us to compel all the nations of the world to keep the peace- and here we meet her in our first battle!"

  "Yes, queer enough certainly," laughed Sir Harry somewhat bitterly. "That's just how the Fates seem to delight in making fools of us." Then he turned to the open slide and sang out again in reply to the anarchists' hail, "I suppose you know that surrender means being taken to Newcastle and handed over to the police?"

  "Dat is vat I suppose it does mean," came the answer. "It's not likely you are going to be kind enough to gif us a free passage to some safe blace, and set us at liberty. Ve know dat you can blow us into blazes and little bits if you like, and so ve vould rader go and see de police."

  If Sir Harry had been a good deal closer than he was, he would have heard Franz Hartog- whom the reader will already have recognised in the commander of the crippled air-ship - mutter to himself in conclusion, "Dere is some chance to get avay from de police, but, by de beard of Gambrinus, dere is none to get avay from dose guns!"

  "All right," replied Sir Harry. "How many men have you got on board?"

  "Dere are eight besides mineself"

  "Send them all up on deck, and look sharp about it," said Sir Harry. "Now, Mr. Austen," he continued, "it won't do to give those chaps any chance of treachery, and if you'll leave this business to me, I think I have a plan that will make it impossible."

  "With pleasure," said Mr. Austen. "You do just as you think best, and I'll keep an eye on them from here in case they do attempt any tricks."

  "Thanks. Then will you bring the War-Hawk right over her, and lower her to about thirty feet above her?"

  So saying, he left the conning-tower, called the crew together, leaving a man stationed at each of the forward guns, and briefly explained what he was going to do. Two long rope-ladders were then dropped through two slides in the lower part of the gun-room of the War-Hawk, which sank slowly down until their ends touched the deck of the Vengeur, so that they hung clear between her after lifting fan and the one in front of it. The two forward guns were now useless, so Sir Harry called the men from them, and told them to load two of the vertical bomb-tubes. Then he went to one of the slides and called down to the Vengeur, whose crew were now standing by the masts on the narrow deck.

  "Are you all on deck?"

  "Ja, ve are all here, except de man at der engines. Do you vant us to come up de ladder?"

  "Yes, but only one by one. If you're the captain, come up first by the starboard ladder. No nonsense, mind! Our bomb-tubes are loaded, and the moment I even think you are up to any tricks, I'll blow you to pieces. Up you come, now!"

  There was no choice save between obedience and destruction, and so Franz turned to his men and said-

  "You hear dat, boys? De game is up for de present, so don't try any tricks. Ve may be able to fool de police, but ve can't argue mit dose bombs, so behave yourselves."

  Then, growling Teutonic oaths under his breath, he clambered slowly up the ladder, Markham, of course, putting a little extra power into the lifting fans to counteract the extra weight. The moment that he got up to the slide, he was seized and unceremoniously dragged through. Then he was tied hand and foot, and meanwhile one of the War-Hawk's men climbed down the other ladder and took his place on the Vengeur's deck. The moment he got there, he whipped a couple of revolvers out of his belt and covered the anarchists. Then Sir Harry called out again-

  "Now then, next man, up you come!"

  The second anarchist at once commenced the ascent to captivity. As he went up, another "War-Hawk" went down, and so the two crews exchanged places, until five of the anarchists,including Hartog, were lying bound in the gun-room, and five of the War-Hawk's men were on board the Vengeur. These speedily tied up the remainder of her crew, and then took charge of her engines. Then a rope was passed down from the stern of the War-Hawk and made fast to the Vengeur's bow, and when all was ready, Sir Harry went back to the conning-tower.

  "Very neatly done indeed, Sir Harry," said Mr. Austen. "This will be a very pleasant little surprise to the good people in Newcastle. By the way, have you learned whether or not Renault was on board any of the ships?"

  "No, I haven't," laughed Sir Harry. "I tried to get it out of that little brute of a German, who- would you believe it?- is Franz Hartog, the man who stole the Russian torpedo-boat, and turned her into the Destroyer, but he cursed me by all his gods, and told me to find out for myself. Still, I believe he was on that one that escaped, because when I indulged in a little politic romance, and told him we had blown her to pieces, he let out a gasp of ge
nuine disgust which there was no mistaking."

  "And so he's Franz Hartog, is he?" said Mr. Austen, lifting his eyebrows. "Then, if that's so, whether Renault has got away or not, we can congratulate ourselves on having made the next important capture to him. I expect by this time Herr Franz is pretty sorry that he didn't stick to sea piracy instead of taking to the air."

  "Yes," laughed Sir Harry. "He is about the most disgusted man I ever saw."

  "All right for towing now, Mr. Austen," came a message from the engine-room, as Sir Harry ceased speaking.

  "Very well," he replied down the tube. "Go slowly at first, and quicken up gradually. Don't bring too much strain on the rope at once."

  Then the War-Hawk's propellers began to revolve, and she moved away to the eastward, with her captive in tow, at an increasing speed that gradually quickened up to fifty miles an hour. A little over an hour's towing brought the lights of Newcastle once more beneath them.

  A long blur of darkness to the north-east marked the position of Jesmond Dene and Armstrong Park. Sir Harry knew the topography of Newcastle perfectly, and under his guidance the two air-ships crossed the town unseen, above the clouds of smoke that were rising from the conflagrations, and dropped like shadows on to the open space between the clump of trees and the old watch-tower overlooking the now deserted valley of Armstrong Park.

  It was now after ten o'clock at night, but the fire brigades were still working hard in extinguishing the fires which had been started by the anarchist fire-shells, and nearly the whole population was out in the streets in a state of excitement, bordering on panic, waiting for the air-ship to reappear in the skies and complete her work by bringing the doom of central London upon Newcastle.

  As Sir Harry was personally acquainted both with the Mayor and Captain Nicholls, the chief of police, he thought it would be better for him to go personally to explain the strange occurrences which had brought them with their prisoners to the town. As soon, therefore, as the air-ships touched ground, he landed and went to the gate-lodge, where a brief explanation and a sovereign quickly secured his exit.

  Crossing "Sir William's Bridge," he was lucky enough to be overtaken by an unoccupied cab, and in this he drove straight to the police station in Pilgrim Street, where he found the Mayor in consultation with the Chief Constable, discussing plans for obtaining protection for the town in case the panic in the streets should degenerate into riot. His card secured his immediate admission to the chief's private room, for his connection with the Aerial Navigation Syndicate was well known, and in addition to this, his personal influence in the county, and his acquaintance with the Mayor, made him doubly welcome at such a moment.

  "Good evening, Sir Harry!" said the Mayor, rising from his seat when he entered, and holding out his hand. "We were talking about you only a moment ago. I suppose you know we are in terrible trouble? The anarchists have been bombarding the town from one of their air-ships. When is your Syndicate going to get its fleet afloat and hunt these scoundrels from the air? And where have you come from, by the way? Have you dropped from the clouds?"

  "That is just exactly what I have done," laughed Sir Harry, as he shook hands with him and the chief of police. "I have just come down in one of those very ships; and, what's more, I've brought an anarchist ship with me, and all her crew prisoners of war; so all you have got to do is to send out the prison van to Armstrong Park, and bring them home and lock them up."

  The Mayor and Captain Nicholls stared at him for a moment in blank astonishment. He had told his startling tidings in as matter-of-fact a voice as if he had been asking them to dinner, and it took some time for them to grasp the full meaning of what he said. Then the Mayor found his voice again, and exclaimed-

  "What! You have captured the air-ship and brought the scoundrels on board her prisoners into Armstrong Park? I thought the age of miracles was past, but if you've done that, it isn't, and the thanks of the two towns will be yours, for you have done them the greatest service that anyone could do them. As you can see for yourself, the scoundrels have set Newcastle and Gateshead on fire in about a dozen places, besides wrecking twenty or thirty buildings with their shells."

  "Stop a moment," said Sir Harry, "I haven't fully explained myself yet. I am sorry to say we have not captured the particular airship that did the damage. You'll scarcely believe me, but she has got clear away, although we were floating over her at the very time she was firing on the town. We did not fire on her, because, you see, if we had done so, every shot that missed her would have struck you; while, if we had hit her, she would have come down, with about a ton of explosives on board, and levelled half Newcastle with the ground."

  "I see! I see!" said the Mayor. "Of course you couldn't. But which air-ship is it that you've captured?"

  "There were three of them," replied Sir Harry. "They came to attack us this evening on one of the Farne Islands, on which we built the ship I have come in, but we just managed to give them the slip. We have destroyed one, captured another, and, as I say, the one that fired on you has escaped. But I'll tell you something else we've done. We've caught Franz Hartog, that brute of a German engineer who stole the torpedo-destroyer from Elbing, and committed all those horrors on the Atlantic. So you'll have quite a distinguished prisoner, you see."

  "That's glorious news, isn't it?" exclaimed the Mayor, turning to the chief of police. "I needn't say I hope you'll hold him tight when you get him."

  "There's no fear of that," was the reply. "If walls and doors will hold them, they won't slip through my fingers, I can tell you. But now, Sir Harry, I suppose you want them fetched at once?" continued the captain. "So, with your Worship's permission, I'll get out the van, and have a guard of mounted men ready to go with it."

  "Very well," said the Mayor. "It will be better not to lose any time about it, for it will pacify the people wonderfully when they know we have got them under lock and key. And now, Sir Harry, while they're getting ready, sit down and tell me this wonderful story over again."

  In a quarter of an hour the chief returned to say that the van was ready, and that the Mayor's carriage was waiting to take him and Sir Harry to the Park. The two vehicles rattled away up Pilgrim Street towards Jesmond Road, with their escort trotting on either side of them, to part the crowd that filled the great thoroughfare, and within an hour Franz Hartog and the crew of the Vengeur were safely stowed away in the compartments of the prison van, and on their way back to the cells.

  The news of the capture spread like wildfire through the towns, and was immediately telegraphed all over the country, to be reproduced, with unexpected effects, as events proved, in all the morning papers.

  The good people of Newcastle would fain have lionised Sir Harry, and made a public spectacle of his marvellous craft; but, as the War-Hawk was already overdue at Lundy, he declined even the Mayor's invitation to sleep at his house, and, as soon as he had seen the anarchists safely within the grim, black walls of the gaol in Carliol Square, be returned to the Park, and the War-Hawk, with the Vengeur still in tow, rose into the air, amidst a mighty roar of cheers from the thousands who had gathered on the great viaduct and about the Park gates to catch a glimpse of the now famous vessel. She flashed farewell with her searchlights, and sped away up into the clouds en route for Lundy Island.

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  MAX TO THE RESCUE.

  THE next morning the whole country was ringing with the fame of the War-Hawk and her exploits. The reaction from the horror and panic induced by the merciless revenge which Renault had taken upon London, to the cheering certainty that, after all, the world was not to be given over unresisting to the fury of its worst enemies, and that at last the Syndicate had brought into existence a power capable of successfully disputing the empire of the air with them, sent the nation almost wild with delight.

  Of course the newspapers published voluminous accounts, necessarily imaginative, of the aerial combats between the War-Hawk and the anarchist vessels, and more reliable, if no less highly coloure
d narratives of her coming with her prisoners of war to Newcastle. Once more Sir Harry's portrait appeared in all the illustrated periodicals, together with alleged pictures of his wonderful vessel, which represented her under a variety of forms, from that of a flying torpedo-boat to that of a gigantic bird with screw propellers instead of a tail.

  Once more the whole nation was talking about nothing but the anarchists, and the Syndicate, and the hostile fleets of air-ships, which the popular imagination multiplied until they were numerous enough to have shaken the heavens and devastated the earth in their conflicts.

  All this was perfectly natural, and indeed inevitable, and yet, as events speedily proved, it was the very worst thing that could possibly have happened. Three days passed without any of the air-ships belonging to either side having made a sign of their existence. The Vengeur had been taken to Lundy Island, and placed for repairs on the slips on which the Volante had been put together, after which both the Volante and the War-Hawk had vanished to destinations unknown to any but the directors of the Syndicate.