The complete works, p.107
The Complete Works, page 107
"What's going on now," he said, and raised himself on one arm to stare at the stairheads in the central groove of the stage. A number of blue figures were
coming up these, and swarming across the stage to the aeropile.
"We don't want all these fools," said his friend.
"They only crowd up and spoil shots. What are they after? "
"Ssh!--they're shouting something."
The two men listened. The swarming new-comers
had crowded densely about the aeropile. Three Ward
Leaders, conspicuous by their black mantles and
badges, clambered into the body and appeared above
it. The rank and file flung themselves upon the vans, gripping hold of the edges, until the entire outline of the thing was manned, in some places three deep. One of the marksmen knelt up. "They're putting it on the carrier--that's what they're after."
He rose to his feet, his friend rose also. "What's the good? " said his friend. "We've got no aeronauts."
"That's what they're doing anyhow." He looked at his rifle, looked at the struggling crowd, and suddenly turning to the wounded man. "Mind these, mate," he said, handing his carbine and cartridge belt; and in a moment he was running towards the aeropile. For a
quarter of an hour he was a perspiring Titan, lugging, thrusting, shouting and heeding shouts, and then the thing was done, and he stood with a multitude of
others cheering their own achievement. By this time
he knew, what indeed everyone in the city knew, that the Master, raw learner though he was, intended to fly this machine himself, was coming even now to take
control of it, would let no other man 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 as this
man cheered, and while the beads of sweat still
chased one another from 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. He saw through a gap in the people that a thick stream of heads still poured up the stairway. "The Master is coming," shouted voices, "the Master is coming," and the crowd about him grew denser and denser. He began to thrust himself towards the
central groove. "The Master is coming!" "The Sleeper, the Master!" "God and the Master!" roared the Voices.
And suddenly quite close to him were the black uniforms o f the revolutionary guard, and for the first and
last time in his life he saw Graham, saw him quite
nearly. A tall, dark man in a flowing black robe, with a white, resolute face and eyes fixed steadfastly before him; a man who for all the little things about him
held neither ears nor eyes nor thoughts. . . . For
all his days that man remembered the passing of
Graham's bloodless face. In a moment it had gone and he was fighting in the swaying crowd. A lad weeping
with terror thrust against him, pressing towards
the stairways, yelling "Clear for the aeropile!" The bell that clears the flying stage became a loud
unmelodious clanging.
With that clanging in his ears Graham drew near
the aeropile, marched into the shadow of its tilting wing. He became aware that a number of people
about him were offering to accompany him, and waved
their offers aside. He wanted to think how one
started the engine. The bell clanged faster and faster, and the feet of the retreating people roared faster and louder. The man in yellow was assisting him to mount through the ribs of the body. He clambered into the
aeronaut's place, fixing himself very carefully and
deliberately. What was it? The man in yellow was
pointing to two aeropiles driving upward in the
southern sky. No doubt they were looking for the coming aeroplanes. That--presently--the thing to do now
was to start. Things were being shouted at him,
questions, warnings. They bothered him. He wanted to think about the aeropile, to recall every item of his previous experience. He waved the people from him,
saw the man in yellow dropping off through the ribs, saw the crowd cleft down the line of the girders by his gesture.
For a moment he was motionless, staring at the
levers, the wheel by which the engine shifted, and all the delicate appliances of which he knew so little. His eye caught a spirit level with the bubble towards him, and he remembered something, spent a dozen seconds
in swinging the engine forward until the bubble floated in the centre of the tube. He noted that the people
were not shouting, knew they watched his deliberation.
A bullet smashed on the bar above his head. Who
fired? Was the line clear of people? He stood up to
see and sat down again.
In another second the propeller was spinning, and
he was rushing down the guides. 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 the quiver of the engine, and the shouts dwindled swiftly behind, rushed down to silence.
The wind whistled over the edges of the screen, and
the world sank away from him very swiftly.
Throb, throb, throb--throb, throb, throb; up he
drove. He fancied himself free of all excitement, felt cool and deliberate. He lifted the stem still more,
opened one valve on his left wing and swept round and up. He looked down with a steady head, and up. One
of the Ostrogite aeropiles was driving across his course, so that he drove obliquely towards it and would pass below it at a steep angle. Its little aeronauts were peering down at him. What did they mean to do?
His mind became active. One, he saw held a weapon
pointing, seemed prepared to fire. What did they
think he meant to do? In a moment he understood
their tactics, and his resolution was taken. His
momentary lethargy was past. He opened two more
valves to his left, swung round, end on to this hostile machine, closed his valves, and shot straight at it, stem and wind-screen shielding him from the shot. They
tilted a little as if to clear him. He flung up his stem.
Throb, throb, throb--pause--throb, throb--
he set his teeth, his face into an involuntary grimace, and crash! He struck it! He struck upward beneath
the nearer wing.
Very slowly the wing of his antagonist seemed to
broaden as the impetus of his blow turned it up. He
saw the full breadth of it and then it slid downward out of his sight.
He felt his stem going down, his hands tightened on
the levers, whirled and rammed the engine back. He
felt the jerk of a clearance, the nose of the machine jerked upward steeply, and for a moment he seemed
to be Iying on his back. The machine was reeling and staggering, it seemed to be dancing on its screw. He made a huge effort, hung for a moment on the levers, and slowly the engine came forward again. He
was driving upward but no longer so steeply. He
gasped for a moment and flung himself at the
levers again. The wind whistled about him. One
further effort and he was almost level. He could
breathe. He turned his head for the first time to see what had become of his antagonists. Turned back to
the levers for a moment and looked again. For a
moment he could have believed they were annihilated.
And then he saw between the two stages to the east
was a chasm, and down this something, a slender edge, fell swiftly and vanished, as a sixpence falls down a crack.
At first he did not understand, and then a wild joy
possessed him. He shouted at the top of his voice, an inarticulate shout, and drove higher and higher up the sky. Throb, throb, throb, pause, throb, throb, throb.
"Where was the other aeropile?" he thought. "They too--." As he looked round the empty heavens he had a momentary fear that this machine had risen
above him, and then he saw it alighting on the
Norwood stage. They had meant shooting. To risk being rammed headlong two thousand feet in the air was
beyond their latter-day courage. The combat was
declined.
For a little while he circled, then swooped in a steep descent towards the westward stage. Throb throb
throb, throb throb throb. The twilight was creeping
on apace, the smoke from the Streatham stage that had been so dense and dark, was now a pillar of fire, and all the laced curves of the moving ways and the
translucent roofs and domes and the chasms between the buildings were glowing softly now, lit by the tempered radiance of the electric light that the glare of the way overpowered. The three efficient stages that the Ostrogites held--for Wimbledon Park was useless
because of the fire from Roehampton, and Streatham
was a furnace--were glowing with guide lights for
the coming aeroplanes. As he swept over the Roehampton stage he saw the dark masses of the people
thereon. He heard a clap of frantic cheering, heard a bullet from the Wimbledon Park stage tweet through
the air, and went beating up above the Surrey wastes.
He felt a breath of wind from the south-west, and
lifted his westward wing as he had learnt to do, and so drove upward heeling into the rare swift upper air.
Throb throb throb--throb throb throb.
Up he drove and up, to that pulsating rhythm, until
the country beneath was blue and indistinct, and London spread like a little map traced in light, like the
mere model of a city near the brim of the horizon.
The south-west was a sky of sapphire over the
shadowy rim of the world, and ever 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 a nebulous glow of swiftly driving shapes. Presently he
could count them. There were four and twenty. The
first fleet of aeroplanes had come! Beyond appeared
a yet greater glow.
He swept round in a half circle, staring at this advancing fleet. It flew in a wedge-like shape, a triangular flight of gigantic phosphorescent shapes sweeping
nearer through the lower air. He made a swift calculation of their pace, and spun the little wheel
that brought the engine forward. He touched
a lever and the throbbing effort of the engine
ceased. He began to fall, fell swifter and swifter. He aimed at the apex of the wedge. He dropped like a
stone through the whistling air. It seemed scarce a
second from that soaring moment before he struck the foremost aeroplane.
No man of all that black multitude saw the coming
of his fate, no man among them dreamt of the hawk
that struck downward upon him out of the sky. Those
who were not limp in the agonies of air-sickness, were craning their black necks and staring to see the filmy city that was rising out of the haze, the rich and
splendid city to which "Massa Boss" had brought their obedient muscles. Bright teeth gleamed and the glossy faces shone. They had heard of Paris. They
knew they were to have lordly times among the "poor white" trash. And suddenly Graham struck them.
He had aimed at the body of the aeroplane, but at
the very last instant a better idea had flashed into his mind. He twisted about and struck near the edge of
the starboard wing with all his accumulated weight.
He was jerked back as he struck. His prow went
gliding across its smooth expanse towards the rim.
He felt the forward rush of the huge fabric sweeping him and his aeropile along with it, and for a moment that seemed an age he could not tell what was happening.
He heard a thousand throats yelling, and
perceived that his machine was balanced on the edge
of the gigantic float, and driving down, down; glanced over his shoulder and saw the backbone of the
aeroplane and the opposite float swaying up. He had
a vision through the ribs of sliding chairs, staring faces, and hands clutching at the tilting guide bars.
The fenestrations in the further float flashed open as the aeronaut tried to right her. Beyond, he saw a
second aeroplane leaping steeply to escape the whirl of its heeling fellow. The broad area of swaying
wings seemed to jerk upward. He felt his aeropile
had dropped clear, that the monstrous fabric, clean
overturned, hung like a sloping wall above him.
He did not clearly understand that he had struck
the side float of the aeroplane and slipped off, but he perceived that he was flying free on the down glide
and rapidly nearing earth. What had he done? His
heart throbbed like a noisy engine in his throat and for a perilous instant he could not move his levers
because of the paralysis of his hands. He wrenched
the levers to throw his engine back, fought for two
seconds against 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 rushing upward and . .
outward; saw the one he had struck fall edgewise on
and strike like a gigantic knife-blade along the windwheels below it.
He put down his stern and looked again. He drove
up heedless of his direction as he watched. He saw
the wind-vanes give, saw the huge fabric strike the
earth, saw its downward vans crumple with the weight of its descent, and then the whole mass turned over
and smashed, upside down, upon the sloping wheels.
Throb, throb, throb, pause. Suddenly from the heaving wreckage a thin tongue of white fire licked up
towards the zenith. And then he was aware of a
huge mass flying through the air towards him, and
turned upwards just in time to escape the charge--if it was a charge--of a second aeroplane. It whirled
by below, sucked him down a fathom, and nearly
turned him over in the gust of its close passage.
He became aware of three others rushing towards
him, aware of the urgent necessity of beating above
them. Aeroplanes were all about him, circling wildly to avoid him, as it seemed. They drove past him,
above, below, eastward and westward. Far away to
the westward was the sound of a collision, and two
falling flares. Far away to the southward a second
squadron was coming. Steadily he beat upward.
Presently all the aeroplanes were below him, but for a moment he doubted the height he had of them, and did not swoop again. And then he came down upon a
second victim and all its load of soldiers saw him coming.
The big machine heeled and swayed as the fear maddened men scrambled to the stern for their
weapons. A score of bullets sung through the air, and there flashed a star in the thick glass wind-screen
that protected him. The aeroplane slowed and
dropped to foil his stroke, and dropped too low. Just in time he saw the wind-wheels of Bromley hill rushing up towards him, and spun about and up as the
aeroplane he had chased crashed among them. All its
voices wove into a felt of yelling. The great fabric seemed to be standing on end for a second among the
heeling and splintering vans, and then it flew to pieces.
Huge splinters came flying through the air, its engines burst like shells. A hot rush of flame shot overhead into the darkling sky.
"__Two!__" he cried, with a bomb from overhead bursting as it fell, and forthwith he was beating up again.
A glorious exhilaration possessed him now, a giant
activity. His troubles about humanity, about his
inadaquacy, were gone for ever. He was a man in battle rejoicing in his power. Aeroplanes seemed radiating
from him in every direction, intent only upon avoiding him, the yelling of their packed passengers came in
short gusts as they swept by. He chose his third
quarry, struck hastily and did but turn it on edge. It escaped him, to smash against the tall cliff of London wall. FIying from that impact he skimmed the darkling ground so nearly he could see a frightened rabbit
bolting up a slope. He jerked up steeply, and found
himself driving over south London with the air about him vacant. To the right of him a wild riot of signal rockets from the Ostrogites banged tumultuously in
the sky. To the south the wreckage of half a dozen
air ships flamed, and east and west and north the air ships fled before him. They drove away to the east
and north, and went about in the south, for they could not pause in the air. In their present confusion any attempt at evolution would have meant disastrous
collisions. He could scarcely realize the thing he had done. In every quarter aeroplanes were receding.
They were receding. They dwindled smaller and
smaller. They were in flight!
He passed two hundred feet or so above the Roehampton stage. It was black with people and noisy
with their frantic shouting. But why was the Wimbledon Park stage black and cheering, too? The
smoke and flame of Streatham now hid the three further stages. He curved about and rose to see them
