The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  Then, on the early morning of the fourth day after Hartog and his shipmates had been placed in durance vile, Newcastle woke up to find itself placarded, just as London had been, with the ominous red posters, which demanded the immediate and unconditional release of the prisoners, under pain of aerial bombardment.

  The message from the enemy was brief and to the point. By ten o'clock Hartog and his companions were to be put on board a steam launch and taken ten miles out to sea, where they would be picked up by an air-ship. If a white flag was not hoisted over the police station to show that this had been done, the bombardment would begin at half-past ten.

  There was no doubt this time as to whether the threats would be fulfilled or not. The experience of London conclusively showed what the fate of Newcastle would be if the order was disobeyed. The feeling of relief that had been enjoyed since the capture of the Vengeur instantly gave place to panic again.

  The Mayor at once telegraphed to the offices of the Syndicate and to the Home Office, imploring assistance and the protection of the aerial fleet which was believed to be in existence. Of course, the Government could do nothing- it had no engine of warfare at its disposal that could cope for an instant with the anarchist air-ships; and Mr. Maxim telegraphed back in the name of the Syndicate, saying that the only two available vessels were beyond the reach of communications, and reminding the authorities that, having taken no precautions to ensure secrecy, they could only expect the anarchists would be informed of what had happened by the newspapers, and would naturally do as they had done.

  With this cold comfort Newcastle was obliged to be content. The authorities were confronted with what was in sober truth a very terrible dilemma. On the one hand, there was the dignity of the law to be vindicated; and on the other, there was a practically impossible penalty to be paid for doing so. To yield meant to confess before all the world that the forces of anarchy were superior to those of civilisation and order, and so, to all intents and purposes, held the world for the time being at their mercy; while to resist meant to consign one of the wealthiest and most populous towns of the kingdom to destruction and carnage horrible beyond all description.

  What had happened a few nights before, terrible and all as it had been, would be as nothing to what was now threatened, for the placard distinctly stated that the town would be bombarded by a fleet of twenty air-ships, that they would destroy friend with foe, and that if Hartog and his companions died, their tomb would be the ruins of Newcastle and Gateshead.

  What was to be done? At half-past eight, the Mayor, in an agony of perplexity, telegraphed to the Home Office for precise instructions. He said that the prisoners had been before the magistrates two days previously, had been formally committed for trial, and were now lying in the town gaol awaiting the assizes. In an hour the reply came back, to the effect that the law was to take its course at all hazards. The moment this decision became known, the population of the two towns revolted en masse, and turned out into the streets, vowing that the prisoners should be released if they pulled the gaol down with their own hands to do it.

  The psychological moment had arrived, and the habit of respect for the law suddenly succumbed to the irresistible terror which affected everyone in precisely the same way. All had lives and homes to lose, most had families and property as well. The rich man feared for his mansion just as the artisan feared for his cottage. Rich and poor were, for the moment, united in the presence of an impending fate, which would make no distinctions of class or fortune.

  The elementary idea upon which all law is founded- the preservation of life, peace, and property- was suddenly inverted. To obey the law meant to lose everything that the law was supposed to safeguard. In other words, a power stronger than the law had sprung into existence and annulled it at a stroke.

  There was no time for demonstrations or speech-making or discussion. The Watch Committee of the Town Council had been sitting since seven o'clock. The streets were full of angry and excited multitudes, animated by a single purpose, and the town authorities were speedily made aware of what that purpose was.

  Considering the terrible and unparalleled position in which he was placed, the Mayor acted with wonderful coolness and discretion. Staunch respecter of the law as he was, he clearly saw, as the moment for making a final decision grew rapidly nearer, that to obey the law was to defeat it. Half a dozen troops of lancers and as many companies of infantry, with the whole police force, had so far sufficed to keep the crowd clear of the police station and the gaol; but he knew that the moment the first shell fell from the sky, it would be the signal for panic, universal and ungovernable, in the midst of which the military and civil forces would be helpless, even if, by some miracle, they were not infected by it.

  Therefore, after a brief discussion with his colleagues, he telegraphed back to the Home Office to say that the town was practically in revolt, and that, unless the Government could furnish him with the means of protecting life and property and upholding the authority of the law, he would be compelled to take the responsibility of releasing the prisoners.

  This message was despatched at a quarter to ten, but the Mayor had determined not to obey the summons of the anarchists until the very last moment- until, in fact, their air-ships appeared in the sky in fulfilment of their threat.

  All but official telegraphic communication between Newcastle and London bad been stopped. In five minutes the message was being read off to the Home Secretary. In ten more two other messages were being flashed back to Newcastle.

  One was to the colonel commanding the troops in the town, ordering him to bring the prisoners by special train to London at all hazards, and directing him to acquaint the Mayor with his instructions. The other was to the senior captain of the coast defence squadron stationed in the Tyne, ordering him to close the river until the prisoners were on their way to London.

  By a quarter-past ten the town was practically under martial law. The Mayor bowed to circumstances, ended the sitting of the Town Council, and retired to his private room to await the issue of events he could not longer control. The colonel in command of the troops made his way with a strong guard to the gaol, and requested the governor to have the prisoners at once removed to the station, where a special train was already being made up.

  The excitement of the populace had now risen to the pitch of frenzy, but the knowledge that the magazine rifles of the infantry and the carbines of the cavalry were loaded with ball cartridge, prevented any actual outbreak for the time being. Just as the half-hour sounded from the tower of St. Nicholas, the gates of the gaol opened, and the prison van came out from the deep archway under the first entrance tower.

  The same moment a mighty roar of terror went up from the throats of the hundreds of thousands of people filling the Manors, Erick Street, Croft Street, and all the approaches to Carliol Square, save Worswick Street and the space in front of the gaol gateway, which were kept clear by the police and the soldiers, and thousands of hands were pointed upwards to the sky. From a score of points all round the town the dreaded air-ships were rapidly approaching.

  They stopped at a height of about fifteen hundred feet, plainly in view of everyone against the clear sky. One of them, flying a plain blood-red flag from her flagstaff astern, swept down swiftly in the direction of the gaol, and stopped five hundred feet from the ground and about seven hundred yards in a straight line from the gates where the guard was drawn up round the prison van. The moment she came to a standstill, the colonel raised his sword and ordered his men to fire on her.

  The rifles went up with mechanical precision, but before a trigger could be pulled, three streams of fire spouted from the air-ship's broadside, and a storm of Maxim bullets was poured into the broad open space in front of the gaol.

  Horses and men went down under it in huddled heaps to the ground. The colonel was almost the first man to fall, and before the withering hail had been raining down for five minutes, there was neither man nor horse left alive within fifty yards of the p
rison van.

  The crowds that had been watching for its departure surged back, screaming with terror, and treading its weaker members under foot in its mad rush for shelter from the bullets of the terrible machine guns. At the same moment, the other air-ships opened a converging fire of shells from twenty points upon the devoted town and the crowds who thronged the streets.

  Instantly the prisoners were forgotten, and all control was at an end. Buildings were collapsing in every direction under the frightful energy of the explosives rained upon them, and hurricanes of bullets were sweeping along the streets. In the midst of the indescribable panic which now reigned supreme, the air-ship with the red flag ran forward and dropped to within fifty feet of the ground close by the prison van. She was the Revanche, Renault's new flagship, and the same craft which had so narrowly escaped destruction by the War-Hawk four days before.

  Her fore and aft guns sent shell after shell down the Manors and into the ends of Worswick Street and Erick Street, until she floated over a solitude cumbered with ruins and strewn with hundreds of corpses. Then a rope ladder dropped to the ground from one of her ports, a couple of men descended, went to the van, and took the keys from the corpse of a policeman lying by the step, rapidly opened the doors, and brought the handcuffed prisoners out.

  They were all there, Hartog and the eight men who had been so ignominiously captured on board the Vengeur. Their handcuffs were speedily unlocked, and as soon as his hands were free, Franz ran towards the air-ship, crying-

  "Ach, mein lieber Max! I knew you vould come for us. I fought you vere not de man to run avay and leave your friendt in trouble. How did you know dat ve vere in de van?"

  !I guessed it, my friend," replied Max, who was leaning out of one of the port-holes laughing at the comical figure presented by the little German in his unwonted excitement. "My glasses showed me the soldiers round it, and I felt pretty sure that they wouldn't honour anyone but you with a military escort."

  "Ah, ja! and vere is dat escort now?" chuckled Franz, looking round with an evil grin at the mangled and riddled corpses of the unhappy redcoats. "I vonder ven dese fools vill learn dat dey can only fight air-ships mit air-ships?"

  "Well, you ought to be able to teach them," laughed Max in reply. "How the deuce did you let yourselves get taken prisoners like a lot of tame pigeons?"

  "Mein friendt, if you had had one of dose shells bursting among your propellers and blowing holes in your stern like ve had, I don't tink you vould have been able to run avay quite as fast as you did," snapped Franz, and the retort was so smartly turned that Max himself could not help joining in the laugh that it raised against him.

  "I fought and ran away so as I could fight another day," he said, when the laugh had died away. "And it's a precious good job for you that I did. But come along, we can't stop here talking all day. Up you come, all of you! We are missing half the fun. Stand by, there, to put more power on to the fans," he continued, turning towards the interior of the ship, and as the released prisoners climbed one by one up the ladder, the lifting fans revolved faster and faster, and as soon as the last had got on board, the Revanche rose slowly into the air, her propellers spun round until she was moving at a speed of sixty miles an hour, and the added weight, supported by the air-planes, was no longer felt.

  As soon as he was on a level with the other ships, Max visited them one after the other, until he had distributed the late crew of the Vengeur among eight of them. Meanwhile the bombardment had been kept up by the whole fleet with pitiless vigour.

  When he had transferred the last of the Vengeur's men, he said to Franz, whom he had kept on board the Revanche with him-

  "I think that's lesson enough for them for the present. The next time we ask them to oblige us, perhaps they will be a little more civil about it. We've got a better use for our ammunition than this. François, hoist the signal to cease firing, and then the one for the fleet to collect."

  "Vat for is dat?" asked Franz, with a look of undisguised disappointment. "Vat better use could you have for your ammunition dan burning dose rats out down dere? Mein Gott, see vat blazes! Dere von't be half de town left by evening. I don't see how you can find a finer game dan dis."

  "Can't I?" laughed Max. "You wait till we get on the other side of the North Sea, and you'll see. I had news last night that the French and Russian fleets are going to break the British blockade of the Sound to-night, and I don't see why we shouldn't have a share of the fun. You see, they'll be battering each other to pieces on the water, and as we love one of them just about as much as the other, we'll just get above them and-"

  "And make a tree-cornered fight of it, and smash dem all up mit a fine and generous impartiality!" interrupted Franz, bringing his hands together with a sounding clap. "Friendt Max, you are a genius! Dat vill be someting like sport. Dis is no better as burning haystacks beside it. Let us go at vonce, in case dey begin before ve come."

  CHAPTER XXX.

  THE BATTLE OF THE SOUND.

  AS it was extremely unlikely that the Russian fleet would attempt to break the blockade of the Sound until it had the advantage of the darkness, Max decided to economise his motor-fuel, and keep a speed of only fifty miles an hour across the German ocean. It was, therefore, close on eleven o'clock at night when the fleet arrived over what was to be the scene of action.

  It was a dark, moonless, and somewhat cloudy night, but, as the ships sank through the clouds, their crews could distinctly make out the two irregular shores of the Sound, with their twinkling lights and the illuminated clusters which mark the position of the towns along them. To the north of Kronborg, in the triangular opening between Hogenaes on the Swedish and Gilleleie on the Danish shore, was massed the main body of the British fleet.

  Although Germany and Denmark had not yet declared war, their Governments had intimated to Russia that any attempt to violate the neutrality of the Sound, or to force the passages between the southern islands of Denmark, would be considered as an act of war. The southern approaches to the exits from the Baltic were, therefore, patrolled by a powerful German fleet, with Kiel and the Holstein Canal as its base; while the Danish fleet, supported by the land fortifications, barred the way to the Sound, and the Grön Sound, which forms the channel between the islands of Falster and Zealand, and the entrance to the Great Belt.

  Thus the Russian fleet, strong as it was, would have been hopelessly outnumbered but for two facts. A French squadron of eight battle-ships, sixteen cruisers, and thirty-five torpedo-boats had forced the passage of the Straits of Dover four days previously, under cover of a general attack on the English Channel ports, and had placed the British blockading squadron between two fires, just as the Russians would be if they once steamed into the Sound.

  This was the first fact, and was by this time known to all Europe. The second fact had been kept a profound secret, confined to the Tsar and half a dozen of his most trusted engineers, who commanded a body of a hundred picked volunteers, sworn to secrecy, and chosen exclusively from the noblest families of Russia. For over five years the Russian engineering staff had been steadily experimenting in the directions of a solution of the problem of aerostation, and about six months before the outbreak of the war their efforts had been crowned with success, and a fleet of navigable aerostats had been secretly constructed far away from public observation, on one of the Tsar's private estates in the wilderness of the Urals.

  The inactivity on the part of the Russian fleet in the Baltic, which had excited so much surprise, was in reality due to the necessity of waiting until the aerostats could cooperate with the battle-ships in forcing the passage of the Sound. No fewer than a hundred of these new engines of war had been built by the Russian Government, and fifty of them were to take part in the struggle for the command of the narrow sea, a battle which, as the event proved, was destined to be entirely unparalleled in the history of naval warfare.

  Max had given the captains of his fleet strict and ample instructions as to their course of action, and of
these the first was to keep carefully out of sight until night fell, and not to fire a shot on any account until they received a signal from him. A few minutes before eleven, Max and Hartog were in the conning-tower of the Revanche, floating about three thousand feet above the island of Moen, intently watching sea and land with their glasses through the white rifts in the clouds which now lay some five or six hundred feet below them.

  They had already seen the French, German, Danish, and British fleets, and formed a pretty correct idea of the general plan of the action, and now they were waiting, like those on sea and land, but with very different feelings, for the appearance of the Russian fleet, whose arrival would give the signal for the work of death and destruction to begin. All of a sudden Hartog gave a loud grunt of astonishment, and very nearly dropped his glasses. Max, who was accustomed to these exclamations of his, took no notice until he caught him by the arm, and, pointing down to a rift in the clouds to the northward, said in a voice husky with excitement-