Chapter II: Part 2

He lived till the evening, and seldom spoke save to call upon God to release him. I had found an opportunity to tell him that he was ill of the cholera, and explained how it happened that the horrible distemper was on board, for I was absolutely sure we had brought it with us in that parcel of books; but his anguish was so keen, his death so close then, that I cannot be sure he understood me. He died shortly after seven o'clock, and I have since learned that that time is one of the critical hours in cholera.

When the captain was dead I went to the mate, and advised him to cast the body overboard at once. He called to some of the hands. They brought the body out just as the poor fellow had died, and, securing a weight to the feet, they lifted the corpse over the rail, and dropped it. No burial was read. We were all too panic-stricken for reverence. We got rid of the body quickly, the men handling the thing as though they felt the death in it stealing into them through their fingers--hoping and praying that with it the cholera would go. It was almost dark when this hurried funeral was ended. I stood beside the mate, looking around the sea for a shadow of wind in any quarter. The boatswain, who had been one of the men that handled the body, came up to us.

"Ain't there nothing to be done with that corpus out there?" he exclaimed, pointing with a square hand to the raft. "The men are agreed that there'll come no wind whilst that there dead blackie keeps afloat. And ain't he enough to make a disease of the hatmosphere itself, from horizon to horizon?"

I waited for the mate to answer. He said gloomily, "I'm of the poor captain's mind. You'll need to make something fast to the body to sink it. Who's to handle it? I'll ask no man to do what I wouldn't do myself, and rat me if I'd do that!"

"We brought the poison aboard by visiting the raft, bo'sw'n," said I. "Best leave the thing alone. The corpse is too far off to corrupt the air, as you suppose; though the imagination's nigh as bad as the reality," said I, spitting.

"If there's any of them game to sink the thing, may they do it?" said the boatswain. "For if ther's ne'er a breeze of wind to come while it's there--"

"Chaw!" said the mate. "But try 'em, if you will. They may take the boat when the moon's up, should there come no wind first."

An hour later the steward told me that two of the sailors were seized with cramps and convulsions. After this no more was said about taking the boat and sinking the body. The mate went into the forecastle. On his return, he begged me to go and look at the men.

"Better make sure that it's cholera with them too, sir," said he. "You know the signs;" and, folding his arms, he leaned against the bulwarks in a posture of profound dejection.

I went forward and descended the forescuttle, and found myself in a small cave. The heat was over-powering; there was no air to pass through the little hatch; the place was dimly lighted by an evil-smelling lamp hanging under a beam but, poor as the illumination was, I could see by it, and when I looked at the men and spoke to them, I saw how it was, and came away sick at heart, and half dead with the hot foul air of the forecastle, and in deepest distress of mind, moreover, through perceiving that the two men had formed a part of the crew of the boat when we visited the raft.

One died at six o'clock next morning, and the other at noon; but before this second man was dead three others had been attacked, and one of them was the mate. And still never a breath of air stirred the silver surface of the sea.

The mate was a strong man, and his fear of death made the conflict dreadful to behold. I was paralyzed at first by the suddenness of the thing and the tremendous character of our calamity, and, never doubting that I must speedily prove a victim as being one who had gone in the boat, I cast myself down upon a sofa in the cabin and there sat, waiting for the first signal of pain, sometimes praying, or striving to pray, and seeking hard to accustom my mind to the fate I regarded as inevitable. But a keen and biting sense of my cowardice came to my rescue. I sprang to my feet and went to the mate's berth, and nursed him till he died, which was shortly before midnight of the day of his seizure--so swift and sure was the poison we had brought from the raft. He was dropped over the side, and a few hours later he was followed by three others. I cannot be sure of my figures: it was a time of delirium, and I recall some details of it with difficulty, but I am pretty sure that by the morning of the fourth day of our falling in with the accursed raft the ship's company had been reduced to the boatswain and five men, making, with myself, seven survivors of fifteen souls who had sailed from Calcutta.

It was some time about the middle of the fifth day--two men were lying stricken in the forecastle--the boatswain and a couple of seamen came aft to the quarter-deck where I was standing. The wheel was deserted: no man had grasped it since the captain's death; indeed, there was nothing to be done at the helm. The ocean floated in liquid glass; the smell of frying paint, bubbled into cinders by the roasting rays, rose like the stench of a second plague to the nostrils. The boatswain and his companions had been drinking; no doubt they had broached the rum casks below. They had never entered the cabin to my knowledge nor do I believe they got their liquor from there. The boatswain carried a heavy weight of some sort, bound in canvas, with a long lanyard attached to it. He flung the parcel into the quarter-boat, and roared out--

"If that don't drag the blistered cuss out of sight I'll show the fired carcass the road myself. Cholera or no cholera, here goes!"

"What are you going to do?" said I.

"Do?" he cried; "why sink that there plague out of it, so as to give us a chance of a breeze. Ain't this hell's delight? What's a-going to blow us clear whilst _he_ keeps watch?" And he nodded with a fierce drunken gesture toward the raft.

"You'll have to handle the body to sink it," said I. "You're well men, now; keep well, won't you? The two who are going may be next taken."

The three of them roared out drunkenly together, so muddling their speech with oaths that I did not understand them. I walked aft, not liking their savage looks. Shouting and cursing plentifully, they lowered the boat, got into her by descending the falls, and shoved off for the raft. They drew alongside the bamboo contrivance, and I looked to see the boat capsize, so wildly did they sway her in their wrath and drink as they fastened the weight to the foot of the body. They then sank the corpse and with the loom of their oars, hammered at the raft till the bamboos were scattered like a sheaf of walking-sticks cut adrift. They now returned to the barque, clambered aboard, and hoisted the boat.

The two sick men in the forecastle were at this time looked after by a seaman named Archer. I have said it was the fifth day of the calm; of the ship's company the boatswain and five men were living, but two were dying and that, not counting me, left three as yet well and able to get about.

This man Archer, when the boatswain and his companions went forward, came out of the forecastle, and drank at the scuttle-butt in the waist. He walked unsteadily, with that effort after stateliness which is peculiar to tipsy sailors; his eyes wandered, and he found some difficulty in hitting the bunghole with the dipper. Yet he was a civil sort of man when sober; I had occasionally chatted with him during his tricks at the wheel; and, feeling the need of some one to talk to about our frightful situation, I walked up to him, and asked him how the sick men did.

"Dying fast," he answered, steadying himself by leaning against the scuttle-butt, "and a-ravin' like screetch owls."

"What's to be done, Archer?"

"Oh, God alone He knows!" answered the man, and here he put his knuckles into his eyes, and began to cry and sob.

"Is it possible that this calm can last much longer?"

"It may last six weeks," he answered, whimpering. "Down here, when the wind's drawed away by the sun, it may take six weeks afore it comes on to a blow. Six weeks of calm down here ain't thought nothen of," and here he burst out blubbering again.

"Where do you get your liquor from?" said I.

"Oh, don't talk of it!" he replied, with a maudlin shake of the head.

"Drinking'll not help you," said I; "you'll be all the likelier to catch the malady for drinking. This is a sort of time, I should think, when a man most wants his senses. A breeze may come, and we ought to decide where to steer the barque to. The vessel's under all plain sail, too, and here we are, four men and a useless passenger, should it come on to blow suddenly--

"We didn't sign on under you," he interrupted, with a tipsy scowl, "and as ye ain't no good either as a sailor or doctor, you can keep your blooming sarmons to yourself till they're asked for."

I had now not only to fear the cholera but to dread the men. My mental distress was beyond all power of words to convey: I wonder it did not quickly drive me crazy and hurry me overboard. I lurked in the cabin to be out of sight of the fellows, and all the while my imagination was tormenting me with first pangs of the cholera, and every minute I was believing I had the mortal malady. Sometimes I would creep up the companion steps and cautiously peer around, and always I beheld the same dead, faint blue surface of the sea stretching like an ocean in a dream into the faint indefinable distances. But shocking as that calm was to me, I very well knew there was nothing wonderful or preternatural in it. Our forefoot five days before had struck the equatorial zone called the Doldrums, and at a period of the year when a fortnight or even a month of atmospheric lifelessness might be as confidently looked for as the rising and setting of the sun.

At nine o'clock that night I was sitting at the cabin table with biscuit and a little weak brandy and water before me, when I was hailed by some one at the open skylight above. It was black night, though the sky was glorious with stars: the moon did not rise till after eleven. I had lighted the cabin lamp, and the sheen of it was upon the face of Archer.

"The two men are dead and gone," said he, "and now the bo'sun and Bill are down. There's Jim dead drunk in his hammock. I can't stand the cries of sick men. What with liquor and pain, the air below suffocates me. Let me come aft, sir, and keep along with you. I'm sober now. Oh, Christ, have mercy upon me! It's my turn next, ain't it?"

I passed a glass of brandy to him through the skylight, then joined him on deck, and told him that the two dead bodies must be thrown overboard, and the sick men looked to. For some time he refused to go forward with me, saying that he was already poisoned and deadly sick, and a dying man, and that I had no right to expect that one dying man should wait upon another. However, I was determined to turn the dead out of the ship in any case, for in freeing the vessel of the remains of the victims might lie my salvation. He consented to help me at last, and we went into the forecastle and between us got the bodies out of their bunks, and dropped them, weighted, over the rail. The boatswain and the other men lay groaning and writhing and crying for water; cursing at intervals. A coil of black smoke went up from the lamp flame to the blackened beam under which the light was burning. The atmosphere was horrible. I bade Archer help me to carry a couple of mattresses on to the forecastle, and we got the sick men through the hatch, and they lay there in the coolness with plenty of cold water beside them and a heaven of stars above, instead of a low-pitched ceiling of grimy beam and plank dark with processions of cockroaches, and dim with the smoke of the stinking slush lamp.

All this occupied us till about half-past ten. When I went aft I was seized with nausea, and, sinking upon the skylight, dabbled my brow in the dew betwixt the lifted lids for the refreshment of the moisture. I believed that my time had come, and that this sickness was the cholera. Archer followed me, and seeing me in a posture of torment, as he supposed, concluded that I was a dead man. He flung himself upon the deck with a groan, and lay motionless, crying out at intervals, "God, have mercy! God, have mercy!" and that was all.

In about half an hour's time the sensation of sickness passed. I went below for some brandy, swallowed half a glass, and returned with a dram for Archer, but the man had either swooned or fallen asleep, and I let him lie. I had my senses perfectly, but felt shockingly weak in body, and I could think of nothing consolatory to diminish my exquisite distress of mind. Indeed, the capacity of realization grew unendurably poignant. I imagined too well, I figured too clearly. I pictured myself as lying dead upon the deck of the barque, found a corpse by some passing vessel after many days; and so I dreamt, often breaking away from my horrible imaginations with moans and starts, then pacing the deck to rid me of the nightmare hag of thought till I was in a fever, then cooling my head by laying my cheek upon the dew-covered skylight.

By-and-by the moon rose, and I sat watching it. In half an hour she was a bright light in the east, and the shaft of silver that slept under her stretched to the barque's side. It was just then that one of the two sick men on the forecastle sent up a yell. The dreadful note rang through the vessel, and dropped back to the deck in an echo from the canvas. A moment after I saw a figure get on to the forecastle-rail and spring overboard. I heard the splash of his body, and, bounding over to Archer, who lay on the deck, I pulled and hauled at him, roaring out that one of the sick men had jumped overboard, and then rushed forward and looked over into the water in the place where the man had leapt, but saw nothing, not even a ripple.

I turned and peered close at the man who lay on the forecastle, and discovered that the fellow who had jumped was the boatswain. I went again to the rail to look, and lifted a coil of rope from a pin, ready to fling the fakes to the man, should he rise. The moonlight was streaming along the ocean on this side of the ship, and now, when I leaned over the rail for the second time, I saw a figure close under the bows. I stared a minute or two, the colour of the body blended with the gloom, yet the moonlight was upon him too, and then it was that after looking awhile, and observing the thing to lie motionless, I perceived that it was the body that had been upon the raft! No doubt the extreme horror raised in me by the sight of the poisonous thing beheld in that light and under such conditions crazed me. I have recollection of laughing wildly, and defying the dark floating shape in insane language. I remember that I shook my fist and spat at it, and that I turned to seek for something to hurl at the body, and it may have been that in the instant of turning, my senses left me, for after this I can recall no more.

The sequel to this tragic and extraordinary experience will be found in the following statement, made by the people of the ship _Forfarshire_, from Calcutta to Liverpool:--"August 29, 1857. When in latitude 2° 15' N. and longitude 79° 40' E. we sighted a barque under all plain sail, apparently abandoned. The breeze was very scanty, and though we immediately shifted our helm for her on judging that she was in distress, it took us all the morning to approach her within hailing distance. Everything was deserted, and there were no signs of anything living in her. We sent a boat in charge of the second officer, who returned and informed us that the barque was the _Justitia_, of London. We knew that she was from Calcutta, for we had seen her lying in the river. The second officer stated that there were three dead bodies aboard, one in a hammock in the forecastle, a second on a mattress on the forecastle, and a third against the coamings of the main-hatch; there was also a fourth man lying at the heel of the port cathead--he did not seem to be dead. On this Dr. Davison was requested to visit the barque, and he was put aboard by the second officer. He returned quickly with one of the men, whom he instantly ordered to be stripped and put into a warm bath, and his clothes thrown overboard. He said that the dead showed unmistakable signs of having died from cholera. We proceeded, not deeming it prudent to have anything further to do with the ill-fated craft. The person we had rescued remained insensible for two days; his recovery was then slow, but sure, thanks to the skilful treatment of Dr. Davison. He informed us that his name was Thomas Barron, and that he was a passenger on board the _Justitia_ for Capetown. He was the travelling representative of a large Birmingham firm. The barque had on the preceding Friday fallen in with a raft bearing a dead body. A boat was sent to bring away a parcel from the raft's mast, and it is supposed that the contents of the parcel communicated the cholera. There were fifteen souls when the vessel left Calcutta, and all perished except the passenger, Thomas Barron."

III

THE KITE*

MAJOR-GENERAL E. D. SWINTON, D. S. O.

*This story, which was first printed in June, 1906, is here reproduced by permission of the author.

"Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire."--(Ecclesiastes.)

I

Three dirty and breathless soldiers scrambled painfully through a gap in the hedge on the brow of the rounded slope of the hill and, taking out their maps and field-glasses, lay down prone on their stomachs. So dirty were they that it was hard to realize that they were officers. Placing both elbows squarely on the ground, to counteract the unsteadiness of hand caused by their heaving bodies, their thumbs were soon busily twisting the focussing-screws as they directed their glasses on to a large patch of scrub away below, some three miles to the west. On a rise in this rough country a long line of intermittent flashes could be seen with the naked eye.

The hedge stretched for some distance along the brow of the hill. About one hundred yards behind, and parallel to it, between hazel hedges, ran a country road. This--hardly more than a lane--was, to the south of this point, sunken, but just here was flush with the ground. On the near side of it, immediately behind where the officers were lying, was an open gate, and close to this gate a young poplar tree, against which was propped a motor-bicycle. In the lane itself were a motor-cyclist and a couple of orderlies, the latter dismounted and holding the horses of the party. Down below, in the direction in which the three were gazing, stretched a peaceful panorama of undulating country, fading into bluish heat-haze in the distance. The different crops gave a many-hued appearance to the landscape, the richer colour of the uncut hay alternating with the still crude green of the young grain and the reddish purple of the beetroot fields. The few fleecy clouds floating lazily in the sky here and there cast vague shadows, which slowly moved over hill and dale. The white walls and shining roofs of the homesteads dotted about stood out gleaming in the sunlight, and these, with the patches of woodland, caught the eye and assisted in some estimation of distance, otherwise impossible upon the variegated background with its network of hedges.

It was an almost perfect day in early June. Yet, in spite of the brilliant sunshine, there was an oppressive sultriness in the air which gave more than a hint of a coming storm.

Far off, in the same positions they had occupied all day, hung three war-balloons, motionless in the still air. They were of a curious shape, and as the sun glistened on their distended skins they had the appearance of three monstrous and bloated yellow caterpillars. Upon the youngest of the three men under the hedge they had a disquieting effect of oppression. He felt that they were the eyes of the enemy--as indeed they were--and was uneasy under their silent gaze; at times he even imagined that those menacing eyes could read not only his actions, but his very thoughts and desires.

Though the elements seemed at peace, there was clear evidence that man was not, for here and there could be seen the angry glow of a conflagration with its pall of black smoke. In places the dirty-white dust-clouds betrayed the movement of masses, though the masses were not visible, while over certain spots thick clusters of smoke-puffs, suddenly breaking out like signal flags from the halliards of a ship, showed where shrapnel shell were raining down destruction. These puffs were of different colours--the majority pure white, but others were of a purple and magenta hue as violet as aniline dyes. An occasional bright flash, followed by a dull detonation and an upshooting trefoil of black smoke, marked the fall of high-explosive shell. From the clamour that filled the air, one might have imagined that the whole countryside formed one large shipyard or boilermaker's shop, so metallic was the sound of musketry close at hand. Every moment this body of sound was stabbed by the nearer rifle-shots which rang out separately, and broken by the occasional throb of machine-guns, the mechanical beat of pom-poms, and the booming of artillery. But to an ear used to the noise of battles, there was one fresh sound--that of the quick-firing field-guns; for as they seized some fleeting occasion to pour out their squalls of shell, individual shots could not be distinguished in the continuous roar.

Notwithstanding this din in the air, it was difficult to see any signs of life. Of the work of man there was ample evidence; but of man himself--save those on the hill--there was no trace. Had a curious observer, however, walked some way down the bellying slope of the hill, he would have seen the backs of a long line of infantry digging for dear life near the bottom.

From all this turmoil down below, the little group at the top of the hill seemed strangely detached. No shell flew screeching over their heads, no bullet sang near them--they gazed on undisturbed. At last one put down his glasses and sat up with a grunt.

"We've been looking at the wrong place all along. We've been watching their flashes and bluff trenches on that rise. The guns are using flameless powder, and are a good deal closer--more to the left of the rough. I can just make them out, but cannot see how many there are."

"I can't see anything except the flashes which appear just where the trenches are," replied a second.

"Yes, of course, that's their game! D'you see that red and white farm?"

"Yes."

"Above that there's some water."

"Yes."

"Above that, still more to the left, on that hump covered with--"

"Yes, yes, I have them now; I should say there was more than one battery. They don't seem to be entrenched, either; but it is hard to tell on that background."

"There are more like twenty guns there," continued the first. "You may be certain they're entrenched--they're no fools. They have shown the dummies and hidden the real emplacements, which would not require much work on such a place as that--an ideal spot for guns."

"And so is this," added the third, the youngest of the three. "If it were not for their balloons, we could get a whole brigade up here unseen all the way, and suddenly open fire from behind this hedge. Even if they are entrenched, we could enfilade them and give them a bad time--enough to keep them quiet. If they're not, Lord help them, once we start!" He chuckled softly, and muttered fervently to himself, "Yes, Lord help them!" He was a Gunner.

He stared for a minute at the nearest balloon, silently and in deep thought, then taking off his hat, began absently to mop his head. Suddenly he stopped quite still, his head turned to one side as if listening.

"My God! it is rising!"

The two gazed at him in blank amaze, and, startled, at once seized their repeating-pistols.

"The wind, I mean--the wind. I feel it on my damp head!"

They still looked blank.

"Don't you see? If the wind only rises, down go those cursed balloons, and then--" There was no need to finish the sentence. The others jumped to their feet; one sucked his finger and held it up; the other picked a puff-ball and threw it in the air; all watched it gently wafted up the hill.

"Yes, look over there; that's more than haze--it's cloud!"

Toward the west there was now a low bank of gray cloud stretched across the horizon, against which the intermittent flashes showed bright.

"Whistle up the cyclist!" snapped out the eldest of the three, sitting down with notebook and pencil.

As the cyclist came up, he said, "Take this as quick as possible to the General of the 10th Division: he must be found; but if on the way you get near the officer commanding the Corps Artillery, show it to him and say I want him to read it."

After a minute they heard, as they got up, the snort of the motor breasting a rise on their left, and after three minutes there was nothing but the reek of petrol to show that any one had been on that hilltop.

They had gone and no one had noticed two small scoops in the ground--one under the hedge and the other farther along near the road--where ranging shell had fallen.

II

The wind has risen with the coming storm, and, above, the white clouds begin to chase each other across the blue sky. Out in the open and on the hilltops the trees are stricken by gusts of wind which rob the hawthorns of the last of their bloom. In the sheltered valleys there is peace and quiet, and under the lee of the hill the sultriness of the whole morning seems to have been concentrated.

The artillery brigade has now been waiting some time in that hollow lane between the high banks covered with wildflowers. Long enough to breathe the panting gun-teams, and for some of the gunners to dismount and pluck dog-roses, which they have stuck in their hats.

The still air in this little heat-trap, heavy with the smell of horses and the overpowering scent of May-blossom strewn on the ground, combined with the drowsy buzzing of the bumblebees--the gentle murmur of a hot summer's day--has a somnolent effect on all except the animals, as they stand there zigzagged across the lane, the guns and limbers slewed to ease the strain. They present a succession of shiny quivering skins, and tails switching in a vain endeavour to drive off the hovering swarms of flies who divided their attention between the backs of the men and the horses. Though there is no conversation, for the men--here and there chewing a biscuit or taking a sparing drink from their water-bottles--are all tired, yet there is a general air of pleasurable expectancy, for the nature of their present errand is now known to all. It is their first experience of active service, and the event now awaited is to be their baptism of fire. In the minds of the more serious, a slight though vague feeling of apprehension--running like the coloured thread through the lay of a rope--adds zest to their suppressed excitement, for many and wonderful have been the yarns going the round of the barrack-rooms as to the powers of the enemy's quick-firing artillery. Here a more phlegmatic man has lit his pipe and wastefully thrown the match away, to burn to the end among the nettles on the bank--a thing which alone is sufficient to show that these are the early days of operations.

How the sun's rays pour down between the trees! How mercilessly they betray, even through the cloud of dust still hanging in the air, a hint of the more unpleasant side of war! The weary and lathered horses, the red and strained faces of the men, their peeled noses, the little runnels made in the grime on their cheeks by the perspiration as it streams down, the purple sweat-patches in the greenish-yellow uniform. Now and again, as if maliciously to accentuate the contrast between its dainty self and the crowd of men and animals sweating below, a pale butterfly flits aimlessly in and out of the shadows--sometimes nearly, but never quite, settling on a horse or gun.

The windings of the lane only permit a view of some hundred yards of its length at one time; but even this short distance offers an impressive sight. It is apparent, in spite of the dust and dirt, that the greater number of these men--some still on their horses, some standing, and some stretched out on the shady side of the road--are seasoned and in the prime of life; no mere boys, but men in the best sense of the word, sturdy and full-set. Even for gunners they are a fine lot; and during this lull preceding the coming storm, the sight of this little collection of splendid men and horses raises thoughts as to whether any other army in the world can produce their equal. Both men and animals are the last word in continuous training and scientific preparation applied to picked material. Not only are they good to look upon, but good to act. From the showy prettiness of a tournament driving competition to the serious business of getting on to the target, they excel; for here at this moment is collected the smartest brigade of field-artillery in the army--and that means, as they think, the smartest brigade in the world: they are armed also with the best guns in the world. There stand the guns one after another slewed across the narrow road, almost blocking it with their length. Wicked they look in their dusty greenish paint, with an occasional glint of steel where it has been scraped off. Even to the uninitiated these quick-firers have a more venomous appearance than the simple old guns; for, with their long, low-hung bodies peering mysteriously from behind their shields, they look like monstrous grasshoppers crouching on a hill. Ugly and venomous looking, they are the pride of their owners. Though he may not talk much about it, never has there been a true gunner who did not love his weapon and thrill with the idea of using it.

To those, now a little thoughtful on account of the legends concerning the enemy's wonderful quick-firing artillery, the sight of their own, whose powers they have so often tested on the practice-ground, is reassuring. They have the best gun ever invented, and at speed of ranging and accuracy of fire they are unequalled. What more? Are they not going to catch the enemy unawares? And to be caught unawares by a squall of shrapnel from modern quick-firers means extinction.

To the officers, the exact nature of the present task is known, and the possibilities of the occasion better appreciated--for though as yet without personal experience in war, they know to what a pitch all the nations have brought their quick-firing artillery, and what is expected from its "_rafales_," "_tir rapide_," "_schnell feuer_"--call it what you will--upon an exposed and unsuspecting enemy. They are standing alongside the horses, one feeling his animal's legs, another loosening a girth, but the majority cheerfully talking in little groups.

At last the dreary wait is over, a flag flickers from one hill to the other. "The enemy's balloons are down." With a sigh of relief the order is passed, and the brigade moves on, slowly at first, then breaking into a trot, for its destination is still some way off, and time, tide, and the chances for quick-firing artillery wait for no man.

The message has come down from the youngest of the three officers who were making the reconnaissance under the hedge two hours ago. For the past hour he has been watching those malignant balloons from that same spot, and whistling for the wind. As the wind has risen, so have his spirits. It is a difficult thing to gauge the height of an object in the air, and several times he has thought that the balloon nearest the enemy's guns seems lower than it was, only to find out he is wrong.

The cloud-bank to the west grows larger, and as its ragged edge creeps up over the blue sky, the dark background shows up the glistening balloons the more brilliantly. The two farthest off are coming down--there is no doubt about it--and at last the nearer one seems lower. Yes--it is! Down, down it sinks. When it is quite close to the ground he waves to a signaller behind the road, who passes on the message, and so back it goes to the waiting brigade.

He crawls behind the hedge for a moment to watch the range-takers, who have been up here for the past half-hour and have taken and checked and rechecked the distance to the enemy's guns. Some men with tools also, who have uprooted the gate-posts, and widened some openings from the lane on to the hilltop, are now cutting little windows through the hedge on the brow. A few officers arrive ahead of the batteries, and to these he points out their positions and the target and range.

All is ready, and the head of the column is even now jangling up the hill.

III

The same landscape as watched by the three under the hedge, but viewed from the other side. In the foreground, half hidden among the patches of gorse on a gentle slope, is a long irregular line of perhaps twenty guns. It is difficult even at this short distance to count their number, for they are dotted about here and there amongst the clumps of cover. Though of a grayer hue, they have a strong family resemblance to those others resting in the little lane on the hillside. By each is a water-bucket, the purpose of which is shown by the damp earth round the gun, and the absence of dust. Alongside also are little shelter-pits dug for the gun detachments, the bright yellow of the freshly turned earth artfully concealed with pieces of bush. The guns, the limbers, and the very horses themselves--over there in the rear--are embowered in greenery. The incongruous Jack-in-the-Green appearance thus given to these engines of destruction seems at first ill-timed foolery. It strikes a jarring note, as does laughter in the presence of death. Overhead, to one side of the line of guns, a huge yellow balloon sways in the rising wind and strains at the cable which slants away down to a small collection of wagons in a convenient hollow.

To the general din of battle all round is periodically added the roar of some of the guns in the line as a target worthy of a "_rafale_" of shell is found. The paroxysms of noise indulged in at intervals by these quick-firers are the only sign they give of their action, for they neither belch out flame nor kick up dust. Each fresh outburst seems to call up an echo from the direction of some absurdly ill-concealed earthworks about half a mile to the rear. The enemy are shooting badly. Few shells fall near the guns, though many pass over with a shriek to burst in the neighbourhood of those conspicuous earthworks, whose parapet must be a very shell trap, so continuous are the explosions on it. An occasional heavy shell rumbles up from the South, and, passing over with the noise of an electric tram, detonates in a fountain of yellow earth near the same target.

Near the focus of these explosions are a number of men sitting at the bottom of deep holes, and from their occupation it appears that not all the explosions so close to them are caused by hostile shell. They are busily employed in setting off flash bombs just outside their yellow parapet whenever their own artillery fires. And as two more shrapnel from different directions whistle high above the much-decorated guns, and burst over the pits, it is clear that the latter are the targets aimed at.

This is the method in the madness of these troglodytes in their pits and of the other stage effects.

Some little way from his guns is a dried-up saturnine sort of man, dirty and anything but smart--the commander of the artillery. He is talking to a staff-officer, with occasional pauses as he stoops to gaze through a telescope mounted on a tripod, not to the southeast, in which direction his guns are firing, but toward the hills to the east. Close by sits another officer at a field telephone in a hole in the ground; such work is at the present moment too important for an orderly. From the instrument a cable, sagging from one bush to another in loops, leads toward the wagons near the balloon anchorage: this cable is the nerve leading from the eye up aloft to the nerve centre below. A few soldiers are sitting about. Not only do these men wear a different uniform from those other gunners now perspiring on that hillside, but they are unmistakably of a different race.

The Commander again takes a long look toward the hills where something seems to excite his apprehension, for he converses earnestly with the staff-officer, and the two look more than once toward a poplar tree the top half of which is visible above that hill on the East. The wind increases.

The distant balloons are already gradually descending, and a message shortly comes down from the observer above that it is too windy to remain up. The word is given, and slowly the great mass is hauled down to the depression near the wagons, where it is practically hidden, its approach to the ground being the occasion of special attentions from the enemy. Here, like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, it is seized by many hands and bound. Hardly has it nestled, with much heaving of billowy sides, into its hollow, when the eye is attracted by something dancing up and down among the brushwood close to it. It is an oblong framework, partially covered with dirty gray canvas, which has commenced to make sundry abortive little swoops up into the air, ending in abrupt dives down again to earth. Finally this weird kite--for kite it is--makes up its mind and sails steadily upward to the tune of its whining cable-drum. Up, up it goes, holding well in the strong breeze till it becomes a mere speck in the sky. Another kite follows, then another, and again one more, threaded on the same cable, till with the combined pull it is stretched as taut as a piano wire, and hums in the breeze like the weather mainstay of a racing yacht.

The Commander walks over to the starting-point of the kites, where, sitting near an exaggerated clothes-basket, is a young officer. He is unshaven, his face is pale and drawn, and he appears worn out as he sips slowly from the cup of his flask, but as his senior approaches, he rises, salutes, and listens attentively to his somewhat lengthy instructions. He is an exceptionally slight man, and his general air of fatigue is explained by the fact that he has been observing from the balloon for the past three hours; the dark rings under his eyes show where the constant strain has most told. In spite of this he is again to go up in the kite, not because there is none other capable, but because the advantage of having up aloft a pair of eyes that already know the lie of the country is at the present juncture of greater importance than the fatigue of any man.

As the Commander concludes his harangue, a shell bursts on the ground close to him, covering him with sand. He does not pause to shake the sand off, but finishes his sentence: "Of course it is a chance, but they may not notice you go up against this cloudy background, and may be tempted to take up that position by seeing the balloon go down. If they do, well--" and he looks toward his guns and smiles thoughtfully.

The younger man nods, takes one more pull at his flask, feels if both pairs of field-glasses are hanging round his neck--he carries two--straps a telephone receiver and mouthpiece round his head, and climbs into the clothes-basket which is held by the men. The basket is attached to the rigid kite cable by runners. After the gear is tried, another large kite, which is harnessed to his prosaic-looking chariot, is thrown into the air. Making one or two ineffectual dives, it catches the wind and begins to pull. Slowly at first the observer rises, then faster as the great wings above him catch more of the breeze. Now they feel it, and up he sails like a pantomime stormfiend, to the accompanying moan of the wire vibrating in the wind. In a few moments he is a stationary spot far up on the slanting wire.

How insignificant in contrast to the great bulk of the balloon does the whole collection of kites appear--yet--the eye is there.

IV

The commanding officer goes back to his station by the telephone, and waits. Prrrrrt, grumbles the instrument, and this time it is he himself who takes the receiver. He listens attentively, for it is difficult to hear along an aerial line, and there is much repetition before he finally replies "All right!" to his subordinate up above. A word to a staff-officer, who at once waves to some one near the guns. Then ensues much activity. Within three minutes every muzzle has been switched round by hand so as to face the hills on the East, at half a right angle from its former direction. The gun-layers at once start laying at the range obtained by those few shots fired some hours back, and buckets are emptied on the ground, but no effort is made to dig shelters, for they will be unnecessary. The exposure of and loss to be caused by the new position is ignored. When all are at their stations ready to open fire, a whistle sounds.

The suppressed excitement is catching. That the Commander himself is not unaffected is shown from the manner in which he ostentatiously, and with almost too great deliberation, selects a cigar from his case and begins chewing the end of it....

"Prrrrrt," rattles the telephone: the Commander drops the chewed cigar and listens.

"Are you ready?" gurgles down the wire.

"Yes."

"The head of their column is not far off the poplar tree."

A pause.

* * * * * * *

Meanwhile, on the hilltop, the watcher has again sat down. Now there is nothing to watch in the sky, he sets himself to study the enemy's guns, amongst which he seems vaguely to discover some movement. Can they have suspected anything? As he sweeps his glass carelessly across the gray cloud toward its terrestrial object, something--a midge probably--in the upper corner of the object-glass catches his eye. He puts down the glass and rubs the lens with his handkerchief. He looks again. The midge is still there. He looks directly at it--it is a collection of midges. Good God! These are no midges--they are a covey of war kites high up in the sky! Yes, and there is the observer hanging some distance below, who must have seen all!

By this time two or three guns have turned out of the lane and are unlimbering.

He rises and tries to shout--it is too late.

* * * * * * *

"Now they're turning out of the road, through three or four gaps, to come into action--now two guns have left the road--hullo!--are you there?" continues the thin metallic voice down the wire.

"Yes."

"Let them have it."

The Commander, from his lowly position, looks up and nods to a signaller standing up on a mound; the latter drops his flag.

The air is split by the noise of the whole line of guns as they open rapid fire. It is like the report of one piece prolonged into a continuous long note.

Upon the brow of that hill of doom, hiding the sky-line for perhaps 400 yards to the right of the now obscured poplar, appears a crown of magenta-coloured smoke, out of which a succession of light flashes sparkle.

* * * * * * *

By those up on that hill is heard a faint roar in the distance, followed by a whistling sound, and the air above--all round--is full of crackling reports, shouts, oaths, and groans. Bullets tear the earth on all sides, and the steel gun-shields ring out like gongs under their blows. Everything except the dreadful sounds becomes blurred in the puffs of acrid, tinted smoke which the wind drives across the hilltop.

* * * * * * *

In a minute, automatically, the fire ceases--a long period for quick-firing guns which pour out fifteen shells a minute, and much ammunition, but this is an opportunity given by the gods.

The Commander puts the telephone to his lips:

"Hullo!--is that enough?"

"Wait a minute. My God! It is."

V

Not one return shot has been fired.

The smoke is dissipated by the wind as soon as the squall of shell ceases, and the scene of the butchery stands revealed.

Behind the hedge are three guns unharmed except for splintered wood. Their green tint is all mottled with oval patches of shining silver, plated by the metal of the glancing bullets. Men are lying about singly, nearly all wounded in the head, and nearly all dead. A few who still crouch paralyzed behind the shields seem unhurt. Horses lie tied together by their harness in kicking, screaming bunches. At the gateway is a tangle of capsized gun, limber, man, and beast, which entirely blocks that part of the lane.

This is an _abattoir_ better undescribed in detail--a medley of dead and dying men and animals, and of vehicles jammed into a solid mass. At intervals guns lie upturned or wedged across. The mass still struggles and heaves. Here and there drivers have half succeeded in driving their guns up the bank, in a gallant attempt to get out of the shambles, with the result that the horses lie dead on the top, and the guns lie overturned in the hollow. A few unharmed and dazed officers and men still shout orders and shove and push at the guns. There, where an ammunition wagon, hit direct by a shell, has exploded, is a cleared space. Branches and twigs are splintered in all directions, and the shrapnel balls have stripped the leaves from the trees and scattered a sparse shower of green over their handiwork.

Though at least one of the shells has not burst exactly, for on its back, under the hedge on the brow of the hill, lies the headless body of the young gunner officer--the glasses still in his left hand, a handkerchief in the right--yet, as the small voice had squeaked down the telephone wire 5000 yards away--it _is_ enough!

IV

SUPERDIRIGIBLE "GAMMA-I"*

BY DONN BYRNE

*Reprinted by permission of the author and of Charles Scribner's Sons.

The lights of Dunkirk slipped rearward, vibrating like a lantern at a ship's stern. They became a vague yellow splotch, like a hazy harvest moon; they became a dim halo, and narrowed down to an orange pin-point, like a smoker's match in a fog. Ypres showed southward in a pale aureole. Afar off the guns of Flanders thundered like drums.

Meriwell, as he leaned over the middle car of the dirigible, lowering his masked head to the wind, watched the black country skim by as if it were being pulled along by a rope. A spring wind cut past like a hurricane, and in it Meriwell could taste the sharp tang of gunpowder mingled with the scent of April flowers. Ypres flashed by beneath them and Cambrai rose like a star. The noise of the artillery discharges came nearer. It took on the heavy, booming tones of a March sea beating hollowly on cliffs.

"We're coming near the firing-line," Meriwell said to himself. "We ought to be rising now."

He glanced across to where the steersman stood cowled and rigid at his wheel, his slim, tall form suggested more than defined by the hooded electric lights. Beside him poring over compass and map, his pale lawyer's face showing up like that of a hunting-bird, was the navigating lieutenant. In the shadows, leaning over the edge of the car, as a captain leans over his flying bridge, was the flight commander, old Colonel Sanderson. Meriwell glanced surreptitiously at his square-cut, tow-like beard and bowed engineer's shoulders. They seemed to droop more than ever to-night.

"Poor old skipper!" Meriwell muttered sympathetically.

The guns of the firing-line crashed into the air with heavy, shattering blasts. In the distance there showed the faint shadows of lights. Green shadows, that were lyddite; and infinitesimal pin-points of yellow, that were the flashes of rifles; and the pretty orange of shrapnel; and the blinding white of magnesium flares.

"Eighteen degrees up," the navigating lieutenant ordered. He watched his plumb-line while the steersman heaved on his switch. "Easy! Steady! Right-o!"

The floor of the car tilted like the deck of a steamer rising to the swell. The huge dirigible nosed her way upward like a mounting dragon-fly. They passed through a fleece of cloud that touched them caressingly like soft fingers. The noise of battle beneath them faded into a vibrating bass chord. The propellers purred like giant cats.

"She answered like a blood mare," said the navigator, pride ringing in his voice.

"If only my guns and bombs go as well as your planes," Meriwell told him, "I'll be satisfied."

"They will, never fear," the navigator laughed.