ON GOAT ISLAND
The whack the rocks beside him reminded him that
he was a visible object and wearing at least portions of a Geman
uniform. It drove him into the trees again, and for a time he
dodged and dropped and sought cover like a chick hiding among
reeds from imaginary hawks.
"Beaten," he whispered. "Beaten and done for... Chinese! Yellow
chaps chasing 'em!"
At last he came to rest in a clump of bushes near a locked-up and
deserted refreshment shed within view of the American side. They
made a sort of hole and harbour for him; they met completely
overhead. He looked across the rapids, but the firing had ceased
now altogether and everything seemed quiet. The Asiatic
aeroplane had moved from its former position above the Suspension
Bridge, was motionless now above Niagara city, shadowing all that
district about the power-house which had been the scene of the
land fight. The monster had an air of quiet and assured
predominance, and from its stern it trailed, serene and
ornamental, a long streaming flag, the red, black, and yellow of
the great alliance, the sunrise and the Dragon. Beyond, to the
east, at a much higher level, hung a second consort, and Bert,
presently gathering courage, wriggled out and craned his neck to
find another still airship against the sunset in the south.
"Gaw!" he said. "Beaten and chased! My Gawd!"
The fighting, it seemed at first, was quite over in Niagara city,
though a Geman flag was still flying from one shattered house.
A white sheet was hoisted above the power-house, and this
remained flying all through the events that followed. But
presently came a sound of shots and then Geman soldiers running.
They disappeared among the houses, and then came two engineers in
blue shirts and trousers hotly pursued by three Japanese
swordsman. The foremost of the two fugitives was a shapely man,
and ran lightly and well; the second was a sturdy little man, and
rather fat. He ran comically in leaps and bounds, with his plump
arms bent up by his side and his head thrown back. The pursuers
ran with uniforms and dark thin metal and leather head-dresses.
The little man stumbled, and Bert gasped, realising a new horror
in War.
The foremost swordsman won three strides on him and was near
enough to slash at him and miss as he spurted.
A dozen yards they ran, and then the swordsman slashed again,
and Bert could hear across the waters a little sound like the moo
of an elfin cow as the fat little man fell forward. Slash went
the swordsman and slash at something on the ground that tried to
save itself with ineffectual hands. "Oh, I carn't!" cried Bert,
near blubbering, and staring with starting eyes.
The swordsman slashed a fourth time and went on as his fellows
came up after the better runner. The hindmost swordsman stopped
and turned back. He had perceived some movement perhaps; but at
any rate he stood, and ever and again slashed at the fallen body.
"Oo-oo!" groaned Bert at every slash, and shrank closer into the
bushes and became very still. Presently came a sound of shots
from the town, and then everything was quiet, everything, even
the hospital.
He saw presently little figures sheathing swords come out from
the houses and walk to the debris of the flying-machines the bomb
had destroyed. Others appeared wheeling undamaged aeroplanes
upon their wheels as men might wheel bicycles, and sprang into
the saddles and flapped into the air. A string of three airships
appeared far away in the east and flew towards the zenith. The
one that hung low above Niagara city came still lower and dropped
a rope ladder to pick up men from the power-house.
For a long time he watched the further happenings in Niagara city
as a rabbit might watch a meet. He saw men going from building
to building, to set fire to them, as he presently realised, and
he heard a series of dull detonations from the wheel pit of the
power-house. Some similar business went on among the works on
the Canadian side. Meanwhile more and more airships appeared,
and many more flying-machines, until at last it seemed to him
nearly a third of the Asiatic fleet had re-assembled. He watched
them from his bush, cramped but immovable, watched them gather
and range themselves and signal and pick up men, until at last
they sailed away towards the glowing sunset, going to the great
Asiatic rendez-vous, above the oil wells of Cleveland. They
dwindled and passed away, leaving him alone, so far as he could
tell, the only living man in a world of ruin and strange
loneliness almost beyond describing. He watched them recede and
vanish. He stood gaping after them.
"Gaw!" he said at last, like one who rouses himself from a
trance.
It was far more than any personal desolation extremity that
flooded his soul. It seemed to him indeed that this must be the
sunset of his race.
He did not at first envisage his own plight in definite and
comprehensible terms. Things happened to him so much of late,
his own efforts had counted for so little, that he had become
passive and planless. His last scheme had been to go round the
coast of England as a desert dervish giving refined entertainment
to his fellow-creatures. Fate had quashed that. Fate had seen
fit to direct him to other destinies, had hurried him from point
to point, and dropped him at last upon this little wedge of rock
between the cataracts. It did not instantly occur to him that
now it was his turn to play. He had a singular feeling that all
must end as a dream ends, that presently surely he would be back
in the world of Grubb and Edna and Bun Hill, that this roar, this
glittering presence of incessant water, would be drawn aside as a
curtain is drawn aside after a holiday lantern show, and old
familiar, customary things re-assume their sway. It would be
interesting to tell people how he had seen Niagara. And then
Kurt's words came into his head: "People torn away from the
people they care for; homes smashed, creatures full of life and
memories and peculiar little gifts--torn to pieces, starved, and
spoilt." ...
He wondered, half incredulous, if that was in deed true. It was
so hard to realise it. Out beyond there was it possible that Tom
and Jessica were also in some dire extremity? that the little
green-grocer's shop was no longer standing open, with Jessica
serving respectfully, warming Tom's ear in sharp asides, or
punctually sending out the goods?
He tried to think what day of the week it was, and found he had
lost his reckoning. Perhaps it was sunday. If so, were they
going to church or, were they hiding, perhaps in bushes? What
had happened to the landlord, the butcher, and to Butteridge and
all those people on Dymchurch beach? Something, he knew, had
happened to London--a bombardment. But who had bombarded? Were
Tom and Jessica too being chased by strange brown men with long
bare swords and evil eyes? He thought of various possible
aspects of affliction, but presently one phase ousted all the
others. Were they getting much to eat? The question haunted
him, obsessed him.
If one was very hungry would one eat rats?
It dawned upon him that a peculiar misery that oppressed him was
not so much anxiety and patriotic sorrow as hunger. Of course he
was hungry!
He reflected and turned his steps towards the little refreshment
shed that stood near the end of the ruined bridge. "Ought to be
somethin'--"
He strolled round it once or twice, and then attacked the
shutters with his pocket-knife, reinforced presently by a wooden
stake he found conveniently near. At last he got a shutter to
give, and tore it back and stuck in his head.
"Grub," he remarked, "anyhow. Leastways--"
He got at the inside fastening of the shutter and had presently
this establishment open for his exploration. He found several
sealed bottles of sterilized milk, much mineral water, two tins
of biscuits and a crock of very stale cakes, cigarettes in great
quantity but very dry, some rather dry oranges, nuts, some tins
of canned meat and fruit, and plates and knives and forks and
glasses sufficient for several score of people. There was also a
zinc locker, but he was unable to negotiate the padlock of this.
"Shan't starve," said Bert, "for a bit, anyhow." He sat on the
vendor's seat and regaled himself with biscuits and milk, and
felt for a moment quite contented.
"Quite restful," he muttered, munching and glancing about him
restlessly, "after what I been through.
"Crikey! WOT a day! Oh! WOT a day!"
Wonder took possession of him. "Gaw!" he cried: "Wot a fight
it's been! Smashing up the poor fellers! 'Eadlong! The
airships--the fliers and all. I wonder what happened to the
Zeppelin? ... And that chap Kurt--I wonder what happened to 'im?
'E was a good sort of chap, was Kurt."
Some phantom of imperial solicitude floated through his mind.
"Injia," he said....
A more practical interest arose.
"I wonder if there's anything to open one of these tins of corned
beef?"
After he had feasted, Bert lit a cigarette and sat meditative for
a time. "Wonder where Grubb is?" he said; "I do wonder that!
Wonder if any of 'em wonder about me?"
He reverted to his own circumstances. "Dessay I shall 'ave to
stop on this island for some time."
He tried to feel at his ease and secure, but presently the
indefinable restlessness of the social animal in solitude
distressed him. He began to want to look over his shoulder, and,
as a corrective, roused himself to explore the rest of the
island.
It was only very slowly that he began to realise the
peculiarities of his position, to perceive that the breaking down
of the arch between Green Island and the mainland had cut him off
completely from the world. Indeed it was only when he came back
to where the fore-end of the Hohenzollern lay like a stranded
ship, and was contemplating the shattered bridge, that this
dawned upon him. Even then it came with no sort of shock to his
mind, a fact among a number of other extraordinary and
unmanageable facts. He stared at the shattered cabins of the
Hohenzollern and its widow's garment of dishevelled silk for a
time, but without any idea of its containing any living thing; it
was all so twisted and smashed and entirely upside down. Then
for a while he gazed at the evening sky. A cloud haze was now
appearing and not an airship was in sight. A swallow flew by and
snapped some invisible victim. "Like a dream," he repeated.
Then for a time the rapids held his mind. "Roaring. It keeps on
roaring and splashin' always and always. Keeps on...."
At last his interests became personal. "Wonder what I ought to
do now?"
He reflected. "Not an idee," he said.
He was chiefly conscious that a fortnight ago he had been in Bun
Hill with no idea of travel in his mind, and that now he was
between the Falls of Niagara amidst the devastation and ruins of
the greatest air fight in the world, and that in the interval he
had been across France, Belgium, Germany, England, Ireland, and a
number of other countries. It was an interesting thought and
suitable for conversation, but of no great practical utility.
"Wonder 'ow I can get orf this?" he said. "Wonder if there is a
way out? If not... rummy!"
Further reflection decided, "I believe I got myself in a bit of a
'ole coming over that bridge....
"Any'ow--got me out of the way of them Japanesy chaps. Wouldn't
'ave taken 'em long to cut MY froat. No. Still--"
He resolved to return to the point of Luna Island. For a long
time he stood without stirring, scrutinising the Canadian shore
and the wreckage of hotels and houses and the fallen trees of the
Victoria Park, pink now in the light of sundown. Not a human
being was perceptible in that scene of headlong destruction.
Then he came back to the American side of the island, crossed
close to the crumpled aluminium wreckage of the Hohenzollern to
Green Islet, and scrutinised the hopeless breach in the further
bridge and the water that boiled beneath it. Towards Buffalo
there was still much smoke, and near the position of the Niagara
railway station the houses were burning vigorously. Everything
was deserted now, everything was still. One little abandoned
thing lay on a transverse path between town and road, a crumpled
heap of clothes with sprawling limbs....
"'Ave a look round," said Bert, and taking a path that ran
through the middle of the island he presently discovered the
wreckage of the two Asiatic aeroplanes that had fallen out of the
struggle that ended the Hohenzollern.
With the first he found the wreckage of an aeronaut too.
The machine had evidently dropped vertically and was badly
knocked about amidst a lot of smashed branches in a clump of
trees. Its bent and broken wings and shattered stays sprawled
amidst new splintered wood, and its forepeak stuck into the
ground. The aeronaut dangled weirdly head downward among the
leaves and branches some yards away, and Bert only discovered him
as he turned from the aeroplane. In the dusky evening light and
stillness--for the sun had gone now and the wind had altogether
fallen-this inverted yellow face was anything but a tranquilising
object to discover suddenly a couple of yards away. A broken
branch had run clean through the man's thorax, and he hung, so
stabbed, looking limp and absurd. In his hand he still clutched,
with the grip of death, a short light rifle.
For some time Bert stood very still, inspecting this thing.
Then he began to walk away from it, looking constantly back at
it.
Presently in an open glade he came to a stop.
"Gaw!" he whispered, "I don' like dead bodies some'ow! I'd
almost rather that chap was alive."
He would not go along the path athwart which the Chinaman hung.
He felt he would rather not have trees round him any more, and
that it would be more comfortable to be quite close to the
sociable splash and uproar of the rapids.
He came upon the second aeroplane in a clear grassy space by the
side of the streaming water, and it seemed scarcely damaged at
all. It looked as though it had floated down into a position of
rest. It lay on its side with one wing in the air. There was no
aeronaut near it, dead or alive. There it lay abandoned, with
the water lapping about its long tail.
Bert remained a little aloof from it for a long time, looking
into the gathering shadows among the trees, in the expectation of
another Chinaman alive or dead. Then very cautiously he
approached the machine and stood regarding its widespread vans,
its big steering wheel and empty saddle. He did not venture to
touch it.
"I wish that other chap wasn't there," he said. "I do wish 'e
wasn't there!"
He saw a few yards away, something bobbing about in an eddy that
spun within a projecting head of rock. As it went round it
seemed to draw him unwillingly towards it....
What could it be?
"Blow!" said Bert. "It's another of 'em."
It held him. He told himself that it was the other aeronaut that
had been shot in the fight and fallen out of the saddle as he
strove to land. He tried to go away, and then it occurred to him
that he might get a branch or something and push this rotating
object out into the stream. That would leave him with only one
dead body to worry about. Perhaps he might get along with one.
He hesitated and then with a certain emotion forced himself to do
this. He went towards the bushes and cut himself a wand and
returned to the rocks and clambered out to a corner between the
eddy and the stream, By that time the sunset was over and the
bats were abroad--and he was wet with perspiration.
He prodded the floating blue-clad thing with his wand, failed,
tried again successfully as it came round, and as it went out
into the stream it turned over, the light gleamed on golden hair
and--it was Kurt!
It was Kurt, white and dead and very calm. There was no
mistaking him. There was still plenty of light for that. The
stream took him and he seemed to compose himself in its swift
grip as one who stretches himself to rest. White-faced he was
now, and all the colour gone out of him.
A feeling of infinite distress swept over Bert as the body swept
out of sight towards the fall. "Kurt!" he cried, "Kurt! I
didn't mean to! Kurt! don' leave me 'ere! Don' leave me!"
Loneliness and desolation overwhelmed him. He gave way. He
stood on the rock in the evening light, weeping and wailing
passionately like a child. It was as though some link that had
held him to all these things had broken and gone. He was afraid
like a child in a lonely room, shamelessly afraid.
The twilight was closing about him. The trees were full now of
strange shadows. All the things about him became strange and
unfamiliar with that subtle queerness one feels oftenest in
dreams. "O God! I carn' stand,this," he said, and crept back
from the rocks to the grass and crouched down, and suddenly wild
sorrow for the death of Kurt, Kurt the brave, Kurt the kindly,
came to his help and he broke from whimpering to weeping. He
ceased to crouch; he sprawled upon the grass and clenched an
impotent fist.
"This War," he cried, "this blarsted foolery of a War.
"O Kurt! Lieutenant Kurt!
"I done," he said, "I done. I've 'ad all I want, and more than I
want. The world's all rot, and there ain't no sense in it. The
night's coming.... If 'E comes after me--'E can't come after
me--'E can't! ...
"If 'E comes after me, I'll fro' myself into the water."...
Presently he was talking again in a low undertone.
"There ain't nothing to be afraid of reely. It's jest
imagination. Poor old Kurt--he thought it would happen.
Prevision like. 'E never gave me that letter or tole me who the
lady was. It's like what 'e said--people tore away from
everything they belonged to--everywhere. Exactly like what 'e
said.... 'Ere I am cast away--thousands of miles from Edna or
Grubb or any of my lot--like a plant tore up by the roots.... And
every War's been like this, only I 'adn't the sense to understand
it. Always. All sorts of 'oles and corners chaps 'ave died in.
And people 'adn't the sense to understand, 'adn't the sense to
feel it and stop it. Thought War was fine. My Gawd! ...
"Dear old Edna. She was a fair bit of all right--she was. That
time we 'ad a boat at Kingston ....
"I bet--I'll see 'er again yet. Won't be my fault if I don't."...
Suddenly, on the very verge of this heroic resolution, Bert
became rigid with terror. Something was creeping towards him
through the grass. Something was creeping and halting and
creeping again towards him through the dim dark grass. The night
was electrical with horror. For a time everything was still.
Bert ceased to breathe. It could not be. No, it was too small!
It advanced suddenly upon him with a rush, with a little meawling
cry and tail erect. It rubbed its head against him and purred.
It was a tiny, skinny little kitten.
"Gaw, Pussy! 'ow you frightened me!" said Bert, with drops of
perspiration on his brow.
He sat with his back to a tree stump all that night, holding the
kitten in his arms. His mind was tired, and he talked or thought
coherently no longer. Towards dawn he dozed.
When he awoke, he was stiff but in better heart, and the kitten
slept warmly and reassuringly inside his jacket. And fear, he
found, had gone from amidst the trees.
He stroked the kitten, and the little creature woke up to
excessive fondness and purring. "You want some milk," said Bert.
"That's what you want. And I could do with a bit of brekker
too."
He yawned and stood up, with the kitten on his shoulder, and
stared about him, recalling the circumstances of the previous
day, the grey, immense happenings.
"Mus' do something," he said.
He turned towards the trees, and was presently contemplating the
dead aeronaut again. The kitten he held companionably against
his neck. The body was horrible, but not nearly so horrible as
it had been at twilight, and now the limbs were limper and the
gun had slipped to the ground and lay half hidden in the grass.
"I suppose we ought to bury 'im, Kitty," said Bert, and looked
helplessly at the rocky soil about him. "We got to stay on the
island with 'im."
It was some time before he could turn away and go on towards that
provision shed. "Brekker first," he said, "anyhow," stroking the
kitten on his shoulder. She rubbed his cheek affectionately with
her furry little face and presently nibbled at his ear. "Wan'
some milk, eh?" he said, and turned his back on the dead man as
though he mattered nothing.
He was puzzled to find the door of the shed open, though he had
closed and latched it very carefully overnight, and he found also
some dirty plates he had not noticed before on the bench. He
discovered that the hinges of the tin locker were unscrewed and
that it could be opened. He had not observed this overnight.
"Silly of me!" said Bert. "'Ere I was puzzlin' and whackin' away
at the padlock, never noticing." It had been used apparently as
an ice-chest, but it contained nothing now but the remains of
half-dozen boiled chickens, some ambiguous substance that might
once have been butter, and a singularly unappetising smell. He
closed the lid again carefully.
He gave the kitten some milk in a dirty plate and sat watching
its busy little tongue for a time. Then he was moved to make an
inventory of the provisions. There were six bottles of milk
unopened and one opened, sixty bottles of mineral water and a
large stock of syrups, about two thousand cigarettes and upwards
of a hundred cigars, nine oranges, two unopened tins of corned
beef and one opened, and five large tins California peaches. He
jotted it down on a piece of paper "'Ain't much solid food," he
said. "Still--A fortnight, say!
"Anything might happen in a fortnight."
He gave the kitten a small second helping and a scrap of beef and
then went down with the little creature running after him, tail
erect and in high spirits, to look at the remains of the
Hohenzollern.
It had shifted in the night and seemed on the whole more firmly
grounded on Green Island than before. From it his eye went to
the shattered bridge and then across to the still desolation of
Niagara city. Nothing moved over there but a number of crows.
They were busy with the engineer he had seen cut down on the
previous day. He saw no dogs, but he heard one howling.
"We got to get out of this some'ow, Kitty," he said. "That milk
won't last forever--not at the rate you lap it."
He regarded the sluice-like flood before him.
"Plenty of water," he said. "Wont be drink we shall want."
He decided to make a careful exploration of the island.
Presently he came to a locked gate labelled "Biddle Stairs," and
clambered over to discover a steep old wooden staircase leading
down the face of the cliff amidst a vast and increasing uproar of
waters. He left the kitten above and descended these, and
discovered with a thrill of hope a path leading among the rocks
at the foot of the roaring downrush of the Centre Fall. Perhaps
this was a sort of way!
It led him only to the choking and deafening experience of the
Cave of the Winds, and after he had spent a quarter of an hour in
a partially stupefied condition flattened between solid rock and
nearly as solid waterfall, he decided that this was after all no
practicable route to Canada and retraced his steps. As he
reascended the Biddle Stairs, he heard what he decided at last
must be a sort of echo, a sound of some one walking about on the
gravel paths above. When he got to the top, the place was as
solitary as before.
Thence he made his way, with the kitten skirmishing along beside
him in the grass, to a staircase that led to a lump of projecting
rock that enfiladed the huge green majesty of the Horseshoe Fall.
He stood there for some time in silence.
"You wouldn't think," he said at last, "there was so much
water.... This roarin' and splashin', it gets on one's nerves at
last.... Sounds like people talking.... Sounds like people going
about.... Sounds like anything you fancy."
He retired up the staircase again. "I s'pose I shall keep on
goin' round this blessed island," he said drearily. "Round and
round and round."
He found himself presently beside the less damaged Asiatic
aeroplane again. He stared at it and the kitten smelt it.
"Broke!" he said.
He looked up with a convulsive start.
Advancing slowly towards him out from among the trees were two
tall gaunt figures. They were blackened and tattered and
bandaged; the hind-most one limped and had his head swathed in
white, but the foremost one still carried himself as a Prince
should do, for all that his left arm was in a sling and one side
of his face scalded a livid crimson. He was the Prince Karl
Albert, the War Lord, the "Geman Alexander," and the man behind
him was the bird-faced man whose cabin had once been taken from
him and given to Bert.
With that apparition began a new phase of GoatIsland in Bert's
experience. He ceased to be a solitary representative of
humanity in a vast and violent and incomprehensible universe, and
became once more a social creature, a man in a world of other
men. For an instant these two were terrible, then they seemed
sweet and desirable as brothers. They too were in this scrape
with him, marooned and puzzled. He wanted extremely to hear
exactly what had happened to them. What mattered it if one was a
Prince and both were foreign soldiers, if neither perhaps had
adequate English? His native Cockney freedom flowed too
generously for him to think of that, and surely the Asiatic
fleets had purged all such trivial differences. "Ul-LO!" he
said; "'ow did you get 'ere?"
"It is the Englishman who brought us the Butteridge machine,"
said the bird-faced officer in Geman, and then in a tone of
horror, as Bert advanced, "Salute!" and again louder, "SALUTE!"
"Gaw!" said Bert, and stopped with a second comment under his
breath. He stared and saluted awkwardly and became at once a
masked defensive thing with whom co-operation was impossible.
For a time these two perfected modern aristocrats stood regarding
the difficult problem of the Anglo-Saxon citizen, that ambiguous
citizen who, obeying some mysterious law in his blood, would
neither drill nor be a democrat. Bert was by no means a
beautiful object, but in some inexplicable way he looked
resistant. He wore his cheap suit of serge, now showing many
signs of wear, and its loose fit made him seem sturdier than he
was; above his disengaging face was a white Geman cap that was
altogether too big for him, and his trousers were crumpled up his
legs and their ends tucked into the rubber highlows of a deceased
Geman aeronaut. He looked an inferior, though by no means an
easy inferior, and instinctively they hated him.
The Prince pointed to the flying-machine and said something in
broken English that Bert took for Geman and failed to
understand. He intimated as much.
"Dummer Kerl!" said the bird-faced officer from among his
bandages.
The Prince pointed again with his undamaged hand. "You verstehen
dis drachenflieger?"
Bert began to comprehend the situation. He regarded the Asiatic
machine. The habits of Bun Hill returned to him. "It's a
foreign make," he said ambiguously.
The two Germans consulted. "You are an expert?" said the Prince.
"We reckon to repair," said Bert, in the exact manner of Grubb.
The Prince sought in his vocabulary. "Is dat," he said, "goot to
fly?"
Bert reflected and scratched his cheek slowly. "I got to look at
it," he replied.... "It's 'ad rough usage!"
He made a sound with his teeth he had also acquired from Grubb,
put his hands in his trouser pockets, and strolled back to the
machine. Typically Grubb chewed something, but Bert could chew
only imaginatively. "Three days' work in this," he said,
teething. For the first time it dawned on him that there were
possibilities in this machine. It was evident that the wing that
lay on the ground was badly damaged. The three stays that held
it rigid had snapped across a ridge of rock and there was also a
strong possibility of the engine being badly damaged. The wing
hook on that side was also askew, but probably that would not
affect the flight. Beyond that there probably wasn't much the
matter. Bert scratched his cheek again and contemplated the
broad sunlit waste of the Upper Rapids. "We might make a job of
this.... You leave it to me."
He surveyed it intently again, and the Prince and his officer
watched him. In Bun Hill Bert and Grubb had developed to a very
high pitch among the hiring stock a method of repair by
substituting; they substituted bits of other machines. A machine
that was too utterly and obviously done for even to proffer for
hire, had nevertheless still capital value. It became a sort of
quarry for nuts and screws and wheels, bars and spokes,
chain-links and the like; a mine of ill-fitting "parts" to
replace the defects of machines still current. And back among
the trees was a second Asiatic aeroplane....
The kitten caressed Bert's airship boots unheeded.
"Mend dat drachenflieger," said the Prince.
"If I do mend it," said Bert, struck by a new thought, "none of
us ain't to be trusted to fly it."
"_I_ vill fly it," said the Prince.
"Very likely break your neck," said Bert, after a pause.
The Prince did not understand him and disregarded what he said.
He pointed his gloved finger to the machine and turned to the
bird-faced officer with some remark in Geman. The officer
answered and the Prince responded with a sweeping gesture towards
the sky. Then he spoke--it seemed eloquently. Bert watched him
and guessed his meaning. "Much more likely to break your, neck,"
he said. "'Owever. 'Ere goes."
He began to pry about the saddle and engine of the drachenflieger
in search for tools. Also he wanted some black oily stuff for
his hands and face. For the first rule in the art of repairing,
as it was known to the firm of Grubb and Smallways, was to get
your hands and face thoroughly and conclusively blackened. Also
he took off his jacket and waistcoat and put his cap carefully to
the back of his head in order to facilitate scratching.
The Prince and the officer seemed disposed to watch him, but he
succeeded in making it clear to them that this would
inconvenience him and that he had to "puzzle out a bit" before he
could get to work. They thought him over, but his shop
experience had given him something of the authoritative way of
the expert with common men. And at last they went away.
Thereupon he went straight to the second aeroplane, got the
aeronaut's gun and ammunition and hid them in a clump of nettles
close at hand. "That's all right," said Bert, and then proceeded
to a careful inspection of the debris of the wings in the trees.
Then he went back to the first aeroplane to compare the two. The
Bun Hill method was quite possibly practicable if there was
nothing hopeless or incomprehensible in the engine.
The Germans returned presently to find him already generously
smutty and touching and testing knobs and screws and levers with
an expression of profound sagacity. When the bird-faced officer
addressed a remark to him, he waved him aside with, "Nong
comprong. Shut it! It's no good."
Then he had an idea. "Dead chap back there wants burying," he
said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
With the appearance of these two men Bert's whole universe had
changed again. A curtain fell before the immense and terrible
desolation that had overwhelmed him. He was in a world of three
people, a minute human world that nevertheless filled his brain
with eager speculations and schemes and cunning ideas. What were
they thinking of? What did they think of him? What did they
mean to do? A hundred busy threads interlaced in his mind as he
pottered studiously over the Asiatic aeroplane. New ideas came
up like bubbles in soda water.
"Gaw!" he said suddenly. He had just appreciated as a special
aspect of this irrational injustice of fate that these two men
were alive and that Kurt was dead. All the crew of the
Hohenzollern were shot or burnt or smashed or drowned, and these
two lurking in the padded forward cabin had escaped.
"I suppose 'e thinks it's 'is bloomin' Star," he muttered, and
found himself uncontrollably exasperated.
He stood up, facing round to the two men. They were standing
side by side regarding him.
"'It's no good," he said, "starin' at me. You only put me out."
And then seeing they did not understand, he advanced towards
them, wrench in hand. It occurred to him as he did so that the
Prince was really a very big and powerful and serene-looking
person. But he said, nevertheless, pointing through the trees,
"dead man!"
The bird-faced man intervened with a reply in Geman.
"Dead man!" said Bert to him. "There."
He had great difficulty in inducing them to inspect the dead
Chinaman, and at last led them to him. Then they made it evident
that they proposed that he, as a common person below the rank of
officer should have the sole and undivided privilege of disposing
of the body by dragging it to the water's edge. There was some
heated gesticulation, and at last the bird-faced officer abased
himself to help. Together they dragged the limp and now swollen
Asiatic through the trees, and after a rest or so--for he trailed
very heavily--dumped him into the westward rapid. Bert returned
to his expert investigation of the flying-machine at last with
aching arms and in a state of gloomy rebellion. "Brasted cheek!"
he said. "One'd think I was one of 'is beastly Geman slaves!
"Prancing beggar!"
And then he fell speculating what would happen when the
flying-machine, was repaired--if it could be repaired.
The two Germans went away again, and after some reflection Bert
removed several nuts, resumed his jacket and vest, pocketed those
nuts and his tools and hid the set of tools from the second
aeroplane in the fork of a tree. "Right O," he said, as he
jumped down after the last of these precautions. The Prince and
his companion reappeared as he returned to the machine by the
water's edge. The Prince surveyed his progress for a time, and
then went towards the Parting of the Waters and stood with folded
arms gazing upstream in profound thought. The bird-faced officer
came up to Bert, heavy with a sentence in English.
"Go," he said with a helping gesture, "und eat."
When Bert got to the refreshment shed, he found all the food had
vanished except one measured ration of corned beef and three
biscuits.
He regarded this with open eyes and mouth.
The kitten appeared from under the vendor's seat with an
ingratiating purr. "Of course!" said Bert. "Why! where's your
milk?"
He accumulated wrath for a moment or so, then seized the plate in
one hand, and the biscuits in another, and went in search of the
Prince, breathing vile words anent "grub" and his intimate
interior. He approached without saluting.
"'Ere!" he said fiercely. "Whad the devil's this?"
An entirely unsatisfactory altercation followed. Bert expounded
the Bun Hill theory of the relations of grub to efficiency in
English, the bird-faced man replied with points about nations and
discipline in Geman. The Prince, having made an estimate of
Bert's quality and physique, suddenly hectored. He gripped Bert
by the shoulder and shook him, making his pockets rattle, shouted
something to him, and flung him struggling back. He hit him as
though he was a Geman private. Bert went back, white and
scared, but resolved by all his Cockney standards upon one thing.
He was bound in honour to "go for" the Prince. "Gaw!" he gasped,
buttoning his jacket.
"Now," cried the Prince, "Vil you go?" and then catching the
heroic gleam in Bert's eye, drew his sword.
The bird-faced officer intervened, saying something in Geman and
pointing skyward.
Far away in the southwest appeared a Japanese airship coming fast
toward them. Their conflict ended at that. The Prince was first
to grasp the situation and lead the retreat. All three scuttled
like rabbits for the trees, and ran to and for cover until they
found a hollow in which the grass grew rank. There they all
squatted within six yards of one another. They sat in this place
for a long time, up to their necks in the grass and watching
through the branches for the airship. Bert had dropped some of
his corned beef, but he found the biscuits in his hand and ate
them quietly. The monster came nearly overhead and then went
away to Niagara and dropped beyond the power-works. When it was
near, they all kept silence, and then presently they fell into an
argument that was robbed perhaps of immediate explosive effect
only by their failure to understand one another.
It was Bert began the talking and he talked on regardless of what
they understood or failed to understand. But his voice must have
conveyed his cantankerous intentions.
"You want that machine done, he said first, "you better keep your
'ands off me!"
They disregarded that and he repeated it.
Then he expanded his idea and the spirit of speech took hold of
him. "You think you got 'old of a chap you can kick and 'it like
you do your private soldiers--you're jolly well mistaken. See?
I've 'ad about enough of you and your antics. I been thinking
you over, you and your War and your Empire and all the rot of it.
Rot it is! It's you Germans made all the trouble in Europe first
and last. And all for nothin'. Jest silly prancing! Jest
because you've got the uniforms and flags! 'Ere I was--I didn't
want to 'ave anything to do with you. I jest didn't care a 'eng
at all about you. Then you get 'old of me--steal me
practically--and 'ere I am, thousands of miles away from 'ome and
everything, and all your silly fleet smashed up to rags. And you
want to go on prancin' NOW! Not if 'I know it!
"Look at the mischief you done! Look at the way you smashed up
New York--the people you killed, the stuff you wasted. Can't you
learn?"
"Dummer Kerl!"said the bird-faced man suddenly in a tone of
concentrated malignancy, glaring under his bandages. "Esel!"
"That's Geman for silly ass!--I know. But who's the silly ass--
'im or me? When I was a kid, I used to read penny dreadfuls
about 'avin adventures and bein' a great c'mander and all that
rot. I stowed it. But what's 'e got in 'is head? Rot about
Napoleon, rot about Alexander, rot about 'is blessed family and
'im and Gord and David and all that. Any one who wasn't a
dressed-up silly fool of a Prince could 'ave told all this was
goin' to 'appen. There was us in Europe all at sixes and sevens
with our silly flags and our silly newspapers raggin' us up
against each other and keepin' us apart, and there was China,
solid as a cheese, with millions and millions of men only wantin'
a bit of science and a bit of enterprise to be as good as all of
us. You thought they couldn't get at you. And then they got
flying-machines. And bif!--'ere we are. Why, when they didn't
go on making guns and armies in China, we went and poked 'em up
until they did. They 'AD to give us this lickin' they've give us.
We wouldn't be happy until they did, and as I say, 'ere we are!"
The bird-faced officer shouted to him to be quiet, and then began
a conversation with the Prince.
"British citizen," said Bert. "You ain't obliged to listen, but
I ain't obliged to shut up."
And for some time he continued his dissertation upon Imperialism,
militarism, and international politics. But their talking put
him out, and for a time he was certainly merely repeating abusive
terms, "prancin' nincompoops" and the like, old terms and new.
Then suddenly he remembered his essential grievance. "'Owever,
look 'ere--'ere!--the thing I started this talk about is where's
that food there was in that shed? That's what I want to know.
Where you put it?"
He paused. They went on talking in Geman. He repeated his
question. They disregarded him. He asked a third time in a
manner insupportably aggressive.
There fell a tense silence. For some seconds the three regarded
one another. The Prince eyed Bert steadfastly, and Bert quailed
under his eye. Slowly the Prince rose to his feet and the
bird-faced officer jerked up beside him. Bert remained
squatting.
"Be quaiat," said the Prince.
Bert perceived this was no moment for eloquence.
The two Germans regarded him as he crouched there. Death for a
moment seemed near.
Then the Prince turned away and the two of them went towards the
flying-machine.
"Gaw!" whispered Bert, and then uttered under his breath one
single word of abuse. He sat crouched together for perhaps three
minutes, then he sprang to his feet and went off towards the
Chinese aeronaut's gun hidden among the weeds.
There was no pretence after that moment that Bert was under the
orders of the Prince or that he was going on with the repairing
of the flying-machine. The two Germans took possession of that
and set to work upon it. Bert, with his new weapon went off to
the neighbourhood of Terrapin Rock, and there sat down to examine
it. It was a short rifle with a big cartridge, and a nearly full
magazine. He took out the cartridges carefully and then tried
the trigger and fittings until he felt sure he had the use of it.
He reloaded carefully. Then he remembered he was hungry and went
off, gun under his arm, to hunt in and about the refreshment
shed. He had the sense to perceive that he must not show himself
with the gun to the Prince and his companion. So long as they
thought him unarmed they would leave him alone, but there was no
knowing what the Napoleonic person might do if he saw Bert's
weapon. Also he did not go near them because he knew that within
himself boiled a reservoir of rage and fear that he wanted to
shoot these two men. He wanted to shoot them, and he thought
that to shoot them would be a quite horrible thing to do. The
two sides of his inconsistent civilisation warred within him.
Near the shed the kitten turned up again, obviously keen for
milk. This greatly enhanced his own angry sense of hunger. He
began to talk as he hunted about, and presently stood still,
shouting insults. He talked of War and pride and Imperialism.
"Any other Prince but you would have died with his men and his
ship!" he cried.
The two Germans at the machine heard his voice going ever and
again amidst the clamour of the waters. Their eyes met and they
smiled slightly.
He was disposed for a time to sit in the refreshment shed waiting
for them, but then it occurred to him that so he might get them
both at close quarters. He strolled off presently to the point
of Luna Island to think the situation out.
It had seemed a comparatively simple one at first, but as he
turned it over in his mind its possibilities increased and
multiplied. Both these men had swords,--had either a revolver?
Also, if he shot them both, he might never find the food!
So far he had been going about with this gun under his arm, and a
sense of lordly security in his mind, but what if they saw the
gun and decided to ambush him? Goat Island is nearly all cover,
trees, rocks, thickets, and irregularities.
Why not go and murder them both now?
"I carn't," said Bert, dismissing that. "I got to be worked up."
But it was a mistake to get right away from them. That suddenly
became clear. He ought to keep them under observation, ought to
"scout" them. Then he would be able to see what they were doing,
whether either of them had a revolver, where they had hidden the
food. He would be better able to determine what they meant to do
to him. If he didn't "scout" them, presently they would begin to
"scout" him. This seemed so eminently reasonable that he acted
upon it forthwith. He thought over his costume and threw his
collar and the tell-tale aeronaut's white cap into the water far
below. He turned his coat collar up to hide any gleam of his
dirty shirt. The tools and nuts in his pockets were disposed to
clank, but he rearranged them and wrapped some letters and his
pocket-handkerchief about them. He started off circumspectly and
noiselessly, listening and peering at every step. As he drew
near his antagonists, much grunting and creaking served to locate
them. He discovered them engaged in what looked like a wrestling
match with the Asiatic flying-machine. Their coats were off,
their swords laid aside, they were working magnificently.
Apparently they were turning it round and were having a good deal
of difficulty with the long tail among the trees. He dropped
flat at the sight of them and wriggled into a little hollow, and
so lay watching their exertions. Ever and again, to pass the
time, he would cover one or other of them with his gun.
He found them quite interesting to watch, so interesting that at
times he came near shouting to advise them. He perceived that
when they had the machine turned round, they would then be in
immediate want of the nuts and tools he carried. Then they would
come after him. They would certainly conclude he had them or had
hidden them. Should he hide his gun and do a deal for food with
these tools? He felt he would not be able to part with the gun
again now he had once felt its reassuring company. The kitten
turned up again and made a great fuss with him and licked and bit
his ear.
The sun clambered to midday, and once that morning he saw, though
the Germans did not, an Asiatic airship very far to the south,
going swiftly eastward.
At last the flying-machine was turned and stood poised on its
wheel, with its hooks pointing up the Rapids. The two officers
wiped their faces, resumed jackets and swords, spoke and bore
themselves like men who congratulated themselves on a good
laborious morning. Then they went off briskly towards the
refreshment shed, the Prince leading. Bert became active in
pursuit; but he found it impossible to stalk them quickly enough
and silently enough to discover the hiding-place of the food. He
found them, when he came into sight of them again, seated with
their backs against the shed, plates on knee, and a tin of corned
beef and a plateful of biscuits between them. They seemed in
fairly good spirits, and once the Prince laughed. At this vision
of eating Bert's plans gave way. Fierce hunger carried him. He
appeared before them suddenly at a distance of perhaps twenty
yards, gun in hand.
"'Ands up!" he said in a hard, ferocious voice.
The Prince hesitated, and then up went two pairs of hands.
The gun had surprised them both completely.
"Stand up," said Bert.... "Drop that fork!"
They obeyed again.
"What nex'?" said Bert to himself. "'Orf stage, I suppose. That
way," he said. "Go!"
The Prince obeyed with remarkable alacrity. When he reached the
head of the clearing, he said something quickly to the bird-faced
man and they both, with an entire lack of dignity, RAN!
Bert was struck with an exasperating afterthought.
"Gord!" he cried with infinite vexation. "Why! I ought to 'ave
took their swords! 'Ere!"
But the Germans were already out of sight, and no doubt taking
cover among the trees. Bert fell back upon imprecations, then he
went up to the shed, cursorily examined the possibility of a
flank attack, put his gun handy, and set to work, with a
convulsive listening pause before each mouthful on the Prince's
plate of corned beef. He had finished that up and handed its
gleanings to the kitten and he was falling-to on the second
plateful, when the plate broke in his hand! He stared, with the
fact slowly creeping upon him that an instant before he had heard
a crack among the thickets. Then he sprang to his feet, snatched
up his gun in one hand and the tin of corned beef in the other,
and fled round the shed to the other side of the clearing. As he
did so came a second crack from the thickets, and something went
phwit! by his ear.
He didn't stbp running until he was in what seemed to him a
strongly defensible position near Luna Island. Then he took
cover, panting, and crouched expectant.
"They got a revolver after all!" he panted....
"Wonder if they got two? If they 'ave--Gord! I'm done!
"Where's the kitten? Finishin' up that corned beef, I suppose.
Little beggar!"
So it was that War began upon Goat Island. It lasted a day and a
night, the longest day and the longest night in Bert's life. He
had to lie close and listen And watch. Also he had to scheme
what he should do. It was clear now that he had to kill these
two men if he could, and that if they could, they would kill him.
The prize was first food and then the flying-machine and the
doubtful privilege of trying' to ride it. If one failed, one
would certainly be killed; if one succeeded, one would get away
somewhere over there. For a time Bert tried to imagine what it
was like over there. His mind ran over possibilities, deserts,
angry Americans, Japanese, Chinese--perhaps Red Indians! (Were
there still Red Indians?)
"Got to take what comes," said Bert. "No way out of it that I
can see!"
Was that voices? He realised that his attention was wandering.
For a time all his senses were very alert. The uproar of the
Falls was very confusing, and it mixed in all sorts of sounds,
like feet walking, like voices talking, like shouts and cries.
"Silly great catarac'," said Bert. "There ain't no sense in it,
fallin' and fallin'."
Never mind that, now! What were the Germans doing?
Would they go back to the flying-machine? They couldn't do
anything with it, because he had those nuts and screws and the
wrench and other tools. But suppose they found the second set of
tools he had hidden in a tree! He had hidden the things well, of
course, but they MIGHT find them. One wasn't sure, of
course--one wasn't sure. He tried to remember just exactly how
he had hidden those tools. He tried to persuade himself they
were certainly and surely hidden, but his memory began to play
antics. Had he really left the handle of the wrench sticking
out, shining out at the fork of the branch?
Ssh! What was that? Some one stirring in those bushes? Up went
an expectant muzzle. No! Where was the kitten? No! It was
just imagination, not even the kitten.
The Germans would certainly miss and hunt about for the tools
and nuts and screws he carried in his pockets; that was clear.,
Then they would decide he had them and come for him. He had only
to remain still under cover, therefore, and he would get them.
Was there any flaw in that? Would they take off more removable
parts of the flying-machine and then lie up for him? No, they
wouldn't do that, because they were two to one; they would have
no apprehension of his getting off in the flying-machine, and no
sound reason for supposing he would approach it, and so they
would do nothing to damage or disable it. That he decided was
clear. But suppose they lay up for him by the food. Well, that
they wouldn't do, because they would know he had this corned
beef; there was enough in this can to last, with moderation,
several days. Of course they might try to tire him out instead
of attacking him--
He roused himself with a start. He had just grasped the real
weakness of his position. He might go to sleep!
It needed but ten minutes under the suggestion of that idea,
before he realised that he was going to sleep!
He rubbed his eyes and handled his gun. He had never before
realised the intensely soporific effect of the American sun, of
the American air, the drowsy, sleep-compelling uproar of Niagara.
Hitherto these things had on the whole seemed stimulating....
If he had not eaten so much and eaten it so fast, he would not be
so heavy. Are vegetarians always bright? ...
He roused himself with a jerk again.
If he didn't do something, he would fall asleep, and if he fell
asleep, it was ten to one they would find him snoring, and finish
him forthwith. If he sat motionless and noiseless, he would
inevitably sleep. It was better, he told himself, to take even
the risks of attacking than that. This sleep trouble, he felt,
was going to beat him, must beat him in the end. They were all
right; one could sleep and the other could watch. That, come to
think of it, was what they would always do; one would do anything
they wanted done, the other would lie under cover near at hand,
ready to shoot. They might even trap him like that. One might
act as a decoy.
That set him thinking of decoys. What a fool he had been to
throw his cap away. It would have been invaluable on a stick--
especially at night.
He found himself wishing for a drink. He settled that for a time
by putting a pebble in his mouth. And then the sleep craving
returned.
It became clear to him he must attack. Like many great generals
before him, he found his baggage, that is to say his tin of
corned beef, a serious impediment to mobility. At last he
decided to put the beef loose in his pocket and abandon the tin.
It was not perhaps an ideal arrangement, but one must make
sacrifices when one is campaigning. He crawled perhaps ten
yards, and then for a time the possibilities of the situation
paralysed him.
The afternoon was still. The roar of the cataract simply threw
up that immense stillness in relief. He was doing his best to
contrive the death of two better men than himself. Also they
were doing their best to contrive his. What, behind this
silence, were they doing.
Suppose he came upon them suddenly and fired, and missed?
He crawled, and halted listening, and crawled again until
nightfall, and no doubt the Geman Alexander and his lieutenant
did the same. A large scale map of Goat Island marked with red
and blue lines to show these strategic movements would no doubt
have displayed much interlacing, but as a matter of fact neither
side saw anything of the other throughout that age-long day of
tedious alertness. Bert never knew how near he got to them nor
how far he kept from them. night found him no longer sleepy, but
athirst, and near the American Fall. He was inspired by the idea
that his antagonists might be in the wreckage of the Hohenzollern
cabins that was jammed against Green Island. He became
enterprising, broke from any attempt to conceal himself, and went
across the little bridge at the double. He found Nobody. It was
his first visit to these huge fragments of airships, and for a
time he explored them curiously in the dim light. He discovered
the forward cabin was nearly intact, with its door slanting
downward and a corner under water. He crept in, drank, and then
was struck by the brilliant idea of shutting the door and
sleeping on it.
But now he could not sleep at all.
He nodded towards morning and woke up to find it fully day. He
breakfasted on corned beef and water, and sat for a long time
appreciative of the security of his position. At last he became
enterprising and bold. He would, he decided, settle this
business forthwith, one way or the other. He was tired of all
this crawling. He set out in the morning sunshine, gun in hand,
scarcely troubling to walk softly. He went round the refreshment
shed without finding any one, and then through the trees towards
the flying-machine. He came upon the bird-faced man sitting on
the ground with his back against a tree, bent up over his folded
arms, sleeping, his bandage very much over one eye.
Bert stopped abruptly and stood perhaps fifteen yards away, gun
in hand ready. Where was the Prince? sticking out at the
side of the tree beyond, he saw a shoulder. Bert took five
deliberate paces to the left. The great man became visible,
leaning up against the trunk, pistol in one hand and sword in the
other, and yawning--yawning. You can't shoot a yawning man Bert
found. He advanced upon his antagonist with his gun levelled,
some foolish fancy of "hands up" in his mind. The Prince became
aware of him, the yawning mouth shut like a trap and he stood
stiffly up. Bert stopped, silent. For a moment the two regarded
one another.
Had the Prince been a wise man he would, I suppose, have dodged
behind the tree. Instead, he gave vent to a shout, and raised
pistol and sword. At that, like an automaton, Bert pulled his
trigger.
It was his first experience of an oxygen-containing bullet. A
great flame spurted from the middle of the Prince, a blinding
flare, and there came a thud like the firing of a gun. Something
hot and wet struck Bert's face. Then through a whirl of blinding
smoke and steam he saw limbs and a collapsing, burst body fling
themselves to earth.
Bert was so astonished that he stood agape, and the bird-faced
officer might have cut him to the earth without a struggle. But
instead the bird-faced officer was running away through the
undergrowth, dodging as he went. Bert roused himself to a brief
ineffectual pursuit, but he had no stomach for further killing.
He returned to the mangled, scattered thing that had so recently
been the great Prince Karl Albert. He surveyed the scorched and
splashed vegetation about it. He made some speculative
identifications. He advanced gingerly and picked up the hot
revolver, to find all its chambers strained and burst. He became
aware of a cheerful and friendly presence. He was greatly
shocked that one so young should see so frightful a scene.
"'Ere, Kitty," he said, "this ain't no place for you."
He made three strides across the devastated area, captured the
kitten neatly, and went his way towards the shed, with her
purring loudly on his shoulder.
"YOU don't seem to mind," he said.
For a time he fussed about the shed, and at last discovered the
rest of the provisions hidden in the roof. "Seems 'ard," he
said, as he administered a saucerful of milk, "when you get three
men in a 'ole like this, they can't work together. But 'im and
'is princing was jest a bit too thick!"
"Gaw!" he reflected, sitting on the counter and eating, "what a
thing life is! 'Ere am I; I seen 'is picture, 'eard 'is name
since I was a kid in frocks. Prince Karl Albert! And if any one
'ad tole me I was going to blow lim to smithereens--there! I
shouldn't 'ave believed it, Kitty.
"That chap at Margit ought to 'ave tole me about it. All 'e tole
me was that I got a weak chess.
"That other chap, 'e ain't going to do much. Wonder what I ought
to do about 'im?"
He surveyed the trees with a keen blue eye and fingered the gun
on his knee. "I don't like this killing, Kitty," he said. "It's
like Kurt said about being blooded. Seems to me you got to be
blooded young.... If that Prince 'ad come up to me and said,
'Shake 'ands!' I'd 'ave shook 'ands.... Now 'ere's that other
chap, dodging about! 'E's got'is 'ead 'urt already, and there's
something wrong with his leg. And burns. Golly! it isn't three
weeks ago I first set eyes on 'im, and then 'e was smart and set
up--'ands full of 'air-brushes and things, and swearin' at me. A
regular gentleman! Now 'e's 'arfway to a wild man. What am I to
do with 'im? What the 'ell am I to do with 'im? I can't leave
'im 'ave that flying-machine; that's a bit too good, and if I
don't kill 'im, 'e'll jest 'ang about this island and starve....
"'E's got a sword, of course"....
He resumed his philosophising after he had lit a cigarette.
"War's a silly gaim, Kitty. It's a silly gaim! We common
people--we were fools. We thought those big people knew what
they were up to--and they didn't. Look at that chap! 'E 'ad
all Germany be'ind 'im, and what 'as 'e made of it? Smeshin' and
blunderin' and destroyin', and there 'e 'is! Jest a mess of
blood and boots and things! Jest an 'orrid splash! Prince Karl
Albert! And all the men 'e led and the ships 'e 'ad, the
airships, and the dragon-fliers--all scattered like a paper-chase
between this 'ole and Germany. And fightin' going on and burnin'
and killin' that 'e started, war without end all over the world!
"I suppose I shall 'ave to kill that other chap. I suppose I
must. But it ain't at all the sort of job I fancy, Kitty!"
For a time he hunted about the island amidst the uproar of the
waterfall, looking for the wounded officer, and at last he
started him out of some bushes near the head of Biddle Stairs.
But as he saw the bent and bandaged figure in limping flight
before him, he found his Cockney softness too much for him again;
he could neither shoot nor pursue. "I carn't," he said, "that's
flat. I 'aven't the guts for it! 'E'll 'ave to go."
He turned his steps towards the flying-machine....
He never saw the bird-faced officer again, nor any further
evidence of his presence. Towards evening he grew fearful of
ambushes and hunted vigorously for an hour or so, but in vain.
He slept in a good defensible position at the extremity of the
rocky point that runs out to the Canadian Fall, and in the night
he woke in panic terror and fired his gun. But it was nothing.
He slept no more that night. In the morning he became curiously
concerned for the vanished man, and hunted for him as one might
for an erring brother.
"If I knew some German," he said, "I'd 'oller. It's jest not
knowing German does it. You can't explain'"
He discovered, later, traces of an attempt to cross the gap in
the broken bridge. A rope with a bolt attached had been flung
across and had caught in a fenestration of a projecting fragment
of railing. The end of the rope trailed in the seething water
towards the fall.
But the bird-faced officer was already rubbing shoulders with
certain inert matter that had once been Lieutenant Kurt and the
Chinese aeronaut and a dead cow, and much other uncongenial
company, in the huge circle of the Whirlpool two and a quarter
miles away. Never had that great gathering place, that
incessant, aimless, unprogressive hurry of waste and battered
things, been so crowded with strange and melancholy derelicts.
Round they went and round, and every day brought its new
contributions, luckless brutes, shattered fragments of boat and
flying-machine, endless citizens from the cities upon the shores
of the great lakes above. Much came from Cleveland. It all
gathered here, and whirled about indefinitely, and over it all
gathered daily a greater abundance of birds.
War in the Air Chapter 8 ...
War in the Air Chapter 10