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The Battle of the North Atlantic6
The deep impression of helplessly drowning men that Bert had brought from the actual fight in the Atlantic mixed itself up inextricably with that of the lordly figure of Prince Karl Albert gesturing aside the dead body of the Vaterland sailor. Hitherto he had rather liked the idea of war as being a jolly, smashing, exciting affair, something like a Bank Holiday rag on a large scale, and on the whole agreeable and exhilarating. Now he knew it a little better.
The next day there was added to his growing disillusionment a third ugly impression, trivial indeed to describe, a mere necessary everyday incident of a state of war, but very distressing to his urbanised imagination. One writes "urbanised" to express the distinctive gentleness of the period. It was quite peculiar to the crowded townsmen of that time, and different altogether from the normal experience of any preceding age, that they never saw anything killed, never encountered, save through the mitigating media of book or picture, the fact of lethal violence that underlies all life. Three times in his existence, and three times only, had Bert seen a dead human being, and he had never assisted at the killing of anything bigger than a new-born kitten.
The incident that gave him his third shock was the execution of one of the men on the Adler for carrying a box of matches. The case was a flagrant one. The man had forgotten he had it upon him when coming aboard. Ample notice had been given to every one of the gravity of this offence, and notices appeared at numerous points all over the airships. The man`s defence was that he had grown so used to the notices and had been so preoccupied with his work that he hadn`t applied them to himself; he pleaded, in his defence, what is indeed in military affairs another serious crime, inadvertency. He was tried by his captain, and the sentence confirmed by wireless telegraphy by the Prince, and it was decided to make his death an example to the whole fleet. "The Germans," the Prince declared, "hadn`t crossed the Atlantic to go wool gathering." And in order that this lesson in discipline and obedience might be visible to every one, it was determined not to electrocute or drown but hang the offender.
Accordingly the air-fleet came clustering round the flagship like carp in a pond at feeding time. The Adler hung at the zenith immediately alongside the flagship. The whole crew of the Vaterland assembled upon the hanging gallery; the crews of the other airships manned the air-chambers, that is to say, clambered up the outer netting to the upper sides. The officers appeared upon the machine-gun platforms. Bert thought it an altogether stupendous sight, looking down, as he was, upon the entire fleet. Far off below two steamers on the rippled blue water, one British and the other flying the American flag, seemed the minutest objects, and marked the scale. They were immensely distant. Bert stood on the gallery, curious to see the execution, but uncomfortable, because that terrible blond Prince was within a dozen feet of him, glaring terribly, with his arms folded, and his heels together in military fashion.
They hung the man from the Adler. They gave him sixty feet of rope, so, that he should hang and dangle in the sight of all evil-doers who might be hiding matches or contemplating any kindred disobedience. Bert saw the man standing, a living, reluctant man, no doubt scared and rebellious enough in his heart, but outwardly erect and obedient, on the lower gallery of the Adler about a hundred yards away. Then they had thrust him overboard.
Down he fell, hands and feet extending, until with a jerk he was at the end of the rope. Then he ought to have died and swung edifyingly, but instead a more terrible thing happened; his head came right off, and down the body went spinning to the sea, feeble, grotesque, fantastic, with the head racing it in its fall.
"Ugh!" said Bert, clutching the rail before him, and a sympathetic grunt came from several of the men beside him.
"So!" said the Prince, stiffer and sterner, glared for some seconds, then turned to the gang way up into the airship.
For a long time Bert remained clinging to the railing of the gallery. He was almost physically sick with the horror of this trifling incident. He found it far more dreadful than the battle. He was indeed a very degenerate, latter-day, civilised person.
Late that afternoon Kurt came into the cabin and found him curled up on his locker, and looking very white and miserable. Kurt had also lost something of his pristine freshness.
"Sea-sick?" he asked.
"No!"
"We ought to reach New York this evening. There`s a good breeze coming up under our tails. Then we shall see things."
Bert did not answer.
Kurt opened out folding chair and table, and rustled for a time with his maps. Then he fell thinking darkly. He roused himself presently, and looked at his companion. "What`s the matter?" he said.
"Nothing!"
Kurt stared threateningly. "What`s the matter?"
"I saw them kill that chap. I saw that flying-machine man hit the funnels of the big ironclad. I saw that dead chap in the passage. I seen too much smashing and killing lately. That`s the matter. I don`t like it. I didn`t know war was this sort of thing. I`m a civilian. I don`t like it"
_I_ don`t like it," said Kurt. "By Jove, no!"
"I`ve read about war, and all that, but when you see it it`s different. And I`m gettin` giddy. I`m gettin` giddy. I didn`t mind a bit being up in that balloon at first, but all this looking down and floating over things and smashing up people, it`s getting on my nerves. See?"
"It`ll have to get off again...."
Kurt thought. "You`re not the only one. The men are all getting strung up. The flying--that`s just flying. Naturally it makes one a little swimmy in the head at first. As for the killing, we`ve got to be blooded; that`s all. We`re tame, civilised men. And we`ve got to get blooded. I suppose there`s not a dozen men on the ship who`ve really seen bloodshed. Nice, quiet, law-abiding Germans they`ve been so far.... Here they are--in for it. They`re a bit squeamy now, but you wait till they`ve got their hands in."
He reflected. "Everybody`s getting a bit strung up," he said.
He turned again to his maps. Bert sat crumpled up in the corner, apparently heedless of him. For some time both kept silence.
"What did the Prince want to go and `ang that chap for?" asked Bert, suddenly.
"That was all right," said Kurt, "that was all right. QUITE right. Here were the orders, plain as the nose on your face, and here was that fool going about with matches--"
"Gaw! I shan`t forget that bit in a `urry," said Bert irrelevantly.
Kurt did not answer him. He was measuring their distance from New York and speculating. "Wonder what the American aeroplanes are like?" he said. "Something like our drachenflieger.... We shall know by this time to- morrow.... I wonder what we shall know? I wonder. Suppose, after all, they put up a fight.... Rum sort of fight!"
He whistled softly and mused. Presently he fretted out of the cabin, and later Bert found him in the twilight upon the swinging platform, staring ahead, and speculating about the things that might happen on the morrow. Clouds veiled the sea again, and the long straggling wedge of air-ships rising and falling as they flew seemed like a flock of strange new births in a Chaos that had neither earth nor water but only mist and sky.
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