Hartmann, the Anarchist; Or, The Doom of the Great City by E. Douglas Fawcett (ebook reader online TXT) 📖

“THUS RETURNS HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST.”

147But this spectacle, grievous of its kind, was as nothing to the other. With eyes riveted now to the massacre, I saw frantic women trodden down by men; huge clearings made by the shells and instantly filled up; house-fronts crushing horses and vehicles as they fell; fires bursting out on all sides, to devour what they listed, and terrified police struggling wildly and helplessly in the heart of the press. The roar of the guns was continuous, and every missile found its billet. Was I in Pandemonium? I saw Burnett, black with grime, hounding his comrades on to the slaughter. I heard the roar of Schwartz’s bombs, and the roar of the burning and falling houses. Huge circles of flame raved beneath us, and shot up their feverish and scorching breath. The Attila, drunk with slaughter, was careering in continually fresh tracts, spreading havoc and desolation everywhere. 148To compare her to a wolf in a flock of helpless sheep is idle—the sheep could at least butt, the victims below could not approach, and after some time, indeed, owing to the smoke, could not even see us.

The morning passed in horror, but the story of the afternoon and evening is wilder yet. The sky, overcast with clouds and black with uprolling smoke-wreaths, lay like a strangely spotted pall over the blazing district. Around and within Westminster enmity could do no more. Shortly before two o’clock the Attila drew off. With the screws working powerfully she climbed upwards into the heavens, and buried in the cloud-masses gave London a momentary respite. Hartmann wished not to fatigue the crew, being anxious to reserve their energies for the attack on the City. His aim was to pierce the ventricle of the heart of civilization, that heart which pumps the blood of capital everywhere, through the arteries of Russia, of Australia, of India, just as through the capillaries of fur companies in North America, planting enterprises in Ecuador, and trading steamers on African rivers. “Paralyze this heart,” he has said, “and you paralyze credit and the mechanism of finance almost universally.” The result already known to history proved too well that he was right; 149but my task is not to play the historian, but simply to tell my tale as one who has trod the Attila.

The interval of respite was not long, but during the whole time we kept well veiled within the angry zone of clouds. Burnett came up to speak to me, but I received him coldly enough. Schwartz was “surprised that I had no compliment” for him when “even the captain” was pleased. He remarked that the slaughter had been prodigious, that the Houses of Parliament were wrecked, and the flames were carrying everything before them. Nero fiddling over Rome was respectable compared with this monster; but to attack him would have been fatal, as I should have at once been shot or thrown overboard. Hartmann remained invisible, he was still at his post in the conning-tower.

Towards three o’clock I noticed the men hurrying hastily to their posts. The assault was shortly to begin. Slowly we emerged from the cloud-rack, wheeling ever in great circles above the luckless quarry below. A queer accident delayed us. I was standing by the citadel when I heard a sharp crack, followed by a sensation of rapid sinking. The shaft of the main screw had broken, and we were rushing downwards like a parachute. Everything for the moment was in confusion and more than one cheek 150paled, but a master-hand was in the conning-tower. Without even handling the sand levers, Hartmann set the auxiliary screws rotating at a high speed. At once the fall was checked, and the Attila rose once more into the clouds. After an hour’s delay the shaft was temporarily repaired, and arrangements were made to replace it, if necessary, with a spare one. Luckily for the aëronef these shafts were extremely short, so that two spare ones could always be kept in hand without undue demand for stowage room. The present mishap was not at all serious, as between the repaired shaft and the spare ones there was little, if anything, to choose. The only “lucky” thing was that the snap had not taken place too close to the stern. In this case the screw-blades might have torn away the stern-plating and irretrievably damaged themselves at the same time.

The Attila now began to re-descend, working all three screws at once. We were evidently not unexpected, for I made out soldiery in the streets, and several detachments of artillery. How they expected to wing us I really do not know, for a moving aëronef hurling forcite and dynamite missiles is neither an easy nor a pleasant target. The height at which we were must also be borne in mind. I suppose I am within the mark when I say that our descent stopped 151at the half-mile limit. There was no delay this time. The first and second bombs fell on the Tower, reducing it half to ruins; they were of the largest kind, and terribly effective instruments. Meanwhile the quick-firing guns played havoc at all points of the compass. But the worst was to come. As we rode over the heart of the City—that sanctum of capital, where the Bank of England, many other banks of scarcely less brilliant fame, the Royal Exchange, Stock Exchange, with credit companies, insurance offices, and discount houses innumerable lie herded—the bombs fell in a tempest, shattering fabric after fabric, and uprooting their very foundations. There was a constant roar of explosions, and the loss of life must have been something terrible. Burnett was in his element. Handling his gun like a practised marksman, he riddled St. Paul’s and its neighbourhood, the crash of the infalling dome rising even above the explosions around it. But for him, at least, there was retribution. Hitherto, bating rifle-fire, we had escaped being hit, the motion and height of the Attila were in our favour. South London enjoyed the downfall of the shells launched against us. But, as fate would have it, a volley of grape-shot struck us. From the sides of the aëronef they rebounded, steel armour would have been more easily 152pierced, but a stray one found a billet. Burnett was gazing over the side through the smoke at the wreckage when a ball holed his throat. He fell back with a gurgle. I ran up, and saw the man was failing—the blood was spurting from his carotid like jets from a siphon. In less than a minute he was dead.

His fate was deserved, and I felt no ray of sympathy, for by this time I was dead to all feelings except those of helpless hatred for the anarchists, and horror at the hideous slaughter below. Before this horror every former sympathy with Hartmann and his crew had withered. Could I have killed Hartmann at that moment I would gladly have paid the price for it. But his day of reckoning was to come.

153

THE DEATH OF BURNETT.

155 CHAPTER XII.
HOW I LEFT THE ‘ATTILA.’

The death of Burnett drove the crew to frenzy, their curses were not those of men but of fiends. The shock of surprise—the fury that one blow of their despised victims should have told—goaded them into the mood of Molochs. Instantly the news flew to Hartmann, who returned a welcome answer. The yells around me were broken by a burst of laughter.

“What is it?” I asked, fearful of some new horror, full as the measure of crime now seemed.

“Wait and you will see!” was all the reply I got.

The Attila began to move at a high speed, and four of the men rushed down on to the lower deck. Quicker! quicker! quicker!—there was no doubt of it, we were swooping on the City like a falcon. I was at the rail in a moment, and, careless of uprushing shot and shell, bent over the side in a fever. 156Though beyond the zone of flames, a simoom blast swept the vessel, and puffs of inky smoke spangled with sparks rendered breathing a torment. But the Attila swerved not an iota. Down we swept like a hurricane over the yelling maddened throngs massed in Farringdon Street. Suddenly I heard a sharp cry:

“Stand off!” I had hardly time to draw back when a column of flames shot up the side, reddening the very bar I had been clutching.

“Let go!”—a crash, the column vanished, and a stream of fire like a comet’s tail drew out instantaneously in the wake of the Attila. It was the petroleum. The first tank had been lighted, its contents shot over the shrieking wretches below! For full fifty to sixty yards the blaze filled the roadway, and the mob, lapped in flame, were writhing and wrestling within it. A fiendish revenge was glutted. Suddenly I was hurled violently to the deck as the bow rose sharply. The Attila, buoyed by her aëroplane, shot once more aslant to her old higher level, firing her guns continuously as she ascended. Sick and surfeited with horror I remained lying some time where I was. But the end was yet to come.

157

POURING DOWN LIQUID FIRE.

158By this time the night was pressing on rapidly, but what a night! I rose up and staggered to the stern—anything to be away from these wretches. The 159hum of the great screw-blades reached me, and I looked over and yearned that they might fail us. We were now circling over Fleet Street and the neighbourhood of the Strand. The fires lighted at Westminster in the morning were carrying all before them, and a crimson yellow rim stretched all the way from Whitehall to Victoria. On our flank the City was blazing, and a roaring tumult of flames was undulating in every direction from this centre. And now for the first time I saw that others than ourselves were hurrying on the incendiary work below. There were visible blazing circles in South London over the water, blazing circles far away in North London, and blazing circles scattered throughout the West End. The delegates had kept their faith. The great metropolis seemed doomed. I shuddered to think what the mob might do in their despair. The West End was even now probably being looted, and the worst passions would toll its death-knell. I thought of my telegram, and found some relief in the belief that Lena at least was out of danger.

Suddenly I shook with terror. I had never asked Hartmann whether the letter and the telegram form had been handed to the delegate. Racing back to the citadel, I appealed to one of my guards. Could 160a message be sent to the captain? Certainly. The reply came back in about ten minutes. It was to the effect that they had been handed to Burnett for one of the French delegates. Had