Hartmann, the Anarchist 7 – Fawcett · Verses Across
Literature · Precursors of Science Fiction
Hartmann, the Anarchist 7The Captain of the ‘attila’
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Literature · Precursors of Science Fiction
Hartmann, the Anarchist 7
The Captain of the ‘attila’
FawcettEnglish
Ten years had not rolled away for nothing; still the face which looked into mine vividly recalled my glimpse into the album in the little villa at Islington. Seated before a writing-desk, studded with knobs of electric bells and heaped with maps and instruments, sat a bushy-bearded man with straight piercing glance and a forehead physiognomists would have envied. There was the same independent look, the same cruel hardness that had stamped the mien of the youth, but the old impetuous air had given way to a cold inflexible sedateness, far more appropriate to the dread master of the Attila. As I advanced into the room, he rose, a grand specimen of manhood, standing full six feet three inches in his shoes. He shook hands more warmly than I had expected, and motioned me tacitly to a seat.
“You have heard about my mischance,” I began tentatively. “I had hoped to meet you for an hour or so, but fear I have outstayed my welcome.”
I felt he was weighing me in the balance.
“I know probably more of that mischance than you do. Those luckless detectives were certainly embarrassing, but, after all, they afforded us an incident. Of course, you can understand why we were bound not to leave you. And now that you are restored to vigour, are you sorry that you have seen the Attila?”
“On the contrary, I am lost in wonder. But look, sir, at the cost of my privilege. These unfortunate men you refer to, haunt me, and the purpose of this vessel, I must tell you, fairly appals me.”
He listened approvingly. A man in his position can well afford to be tolerant.
“Oh, the men—such incidents must be looked for. Do generals dissolve into tears when two hostile sentries have to be shot? Do they shrink from the wholesale slaughter which every campaign entails? Nonsense, sir, nonsense!”
“But your war is not against this or that army or nation, but against civilization as a whole.” I was determined to take the bull by the horns at the outset. “You can scarcely justify that on those lines.”
“Easily enough. The victory in view is the regeneration of man, the cost will be some thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of lives, the assailants are our small but legitimate army. We can say that our friends below are sincerely devoted to us and to our objects; most of the ordinary soldiers of your princes have to be drummed into the ranks either by want or the law. As to the cost, look back on history. How many wars in those annals have been waged for the service of mankind? On how many massacres has one ray of utility shone? Now you must admit that our ideal is a worthy one even if unattainable. At the worst we can shed no more blood than did a Tamerlane or a Napoleon.”
“Certainly the ideal is a grand one, and might, if reliable, be worth the outlay. But how many of your crew appreciate its beauty? Most, I will venture, love destruction for its own sake. Is Schwartz a reformer? Is Thomas?”
“My crew are enthusiasts, Mr. Stanley; nay, if you like, fiends of destruction. Every man is selected by myself. Every man is an outlaw from society, and most have shed blood. They burn to revenge on society the evils which they have received, or, given the appropriate occasion, would receive from it. In this way I secure resolute, fiery, and unflinching soldiers. But do not mistake my meaning. I know how to use these soldiers.”
“I understand.”
“Regard me according to Addison’s simile, as the angel who guides the whirlwind. Look on these men—well, as you will. They are like the creatures generated in decaying bodies. They are the maggots of civilization, the harvest of the dragons’ teeth sown in past centuries, the Frankenstein’s monsters of civilization which are born to hate their father. You have read Milton, of course. Do you recall the passage about Sin and the birth of Death who gnaws his wretched parent’s vitals? It is the Sin of this industrial age which has bred the crew of this death-dealing Attila.”
“But are all these men here morally rotten? The man Schwartz, they call your ‘shadow,’ is he a type?”
“Not at all. Your friend Burnett (who has just startled the Kensington notables) seems sound. He is a madman of the more reputable sort. There is another like him with us, a German of the name of Brandt, a philosopher recruited from the ranks of the Berlin socialists.”
“May I ask you two important questions?”
“Say on.”
“The world says you were once a mere fanatical destroyer. Have you changed your creed?”
“You refer to my old days. Yes, you are right. I was then a pessimist, and despaired of everything around me.”
“And you became an anarchist——”
“To revenge myself on the race which produced and then wearied me. I had no tutor but Schwartz, a faithful fellow, but a mere iconoclast. Our idea was simple enough. We were to raze, raze, raze, and let the future look to itself. Our mistake was in dreaming even of moderate success. Immunity from the police was impossible. But those wasted days are past.”
He smiled ironically and bent his gaze on the wall, devouring, as it seemed, some specially pleasurable object. Following its direction, I became aware of a splendid sketch of the Attila, which constituted the sole æsthetic appanage of this singular sanctum. What a contrast it must have awakened between his present power and the abjectness of the fugitive of ten years back!
“One more question. How do you propose to conquer, now you have the Attila?”
“I cannot say much as yet. But, understand, the day when the first bomb falls will witness outbreaks in every great city in Europe. We have some 12,000 adherents in London, many more in Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere—they will stir the tumult below. London is my objective to start with. During the tempests of bombs, the anarchists below will fire the streets in all directions, rouse up the populace, and let loose pandemonium upon earth. In the confusion due to our attack, order and precautions will be impossible.”
“You horrify me. And the object?”
“Is, as I repeat, to wreck civilization. If you are interested, Brandt will probably attract you. He lectures to-morrow on the upper deck. We are Rousseaus who advocate a return to a simpler life.”
“But how is the new order to take shape? How educe system from chaos?”
“We want no more ‘systems,’ or ‘constitutions’—we shall have anarchy. Men will effect all by voluntary association, and abjure the foulness of the modern wage-slavery and city-mechanisms.”
“But can you expect the more brutal classes to thrive under this system? Will they not rather degenerate into savagery?”
“You forget the Attila will still sail the breeze, and she will then have her fleet of consorts.”
“What! you do not propose, then, to leave anarchy unseasoned?”
“Not at once—the transition would be far too severe. Some supervision must necessarily be exercised, but, as a rule, it will never be more than nominal.”
“Your ideal, captain, amazes me. But the prospect, I admit, is splendid. Were you to succeed, I say at once that the return would well repay the outlay. I am a socialist, you know, but I have felt how selfishness and the risks of reaction hampered all our most promising plans. The egotism of democrats is voracious. It is the curse of our movement. But this scheme of supervised anarchy, well, in some ways it is magnificent—still it is only a theory.”
“The Attila was once ‘only a theory,’” rejoined Hartmann. “One word, now, Mr. Stanley. I ask you neither to join us nor to agree with us. You are your own master, and should you dislike this tour, say the word and at nightfall you shall be landed in France. If you elect to stay, well and good. I am your debtor. Don’t look surprised, for you have been a good friend to my mother, and least of all men I forget debts. I only ask you to observe silence respecting our conversations, and never to interfere in anything you see in progress. Which is it to be?”
“I elect to stay. I can do no good by leaving, and by staying I court an absolutely unique experience. Believe me, too, captain, I am not insensible to what you have said. Between the anarchist Schwartz and yourself yawns an abyss.”
“Good.”
“One thing, captain. Could I find means to despatch a letter—a letter to a lady?” I added, as I saw his eyebrows rise slightly.
“Certainly, if you conform to the rules voluntarily agreed upon. You are not one of us—you will not, therefore, object to the letter being read. I will spare you undue annoyance by formally glancing over it.”
“The rule is reasonable enough, captain, and requires no defence.”
“It shall be given to one of the delegates when we touch land in Switzerland. A convention of importance is to be held there. But, come, I will take you round the Attila,” and striding by me he passed out of the study.
“What was that land visible just now, captain?” I asked, as we reached one of the stairways that led down into the vessel.
“Holland. The course has since been altered; we find the clouds are lifting, and not wishing to run too high are making off towards the English Channel. To-night we shall cross France, steering above Havre along the channel of the Seine, over Paris, Dijon, the Saone, and the Jura mountains into Switzerland. I had intended to go to Berne, but have been forced to change my plans. We shall stop over a forest not far from Lake Leman, where some fifty delegates will meet us. After that we return to London.”
“For war?”
“For war.”
Down into the depths of the Attila we went, the spiral stair running down a deep and seemingly interminable well. On reaching the bottom my conductor turned off into a passage brightly lit up with the electric light. A rumble and thud of machinery broke on the ear, and in a few seconds we stood in the engine-room of the Attila. My readers are aware of the wonderful advances in electricity made in the early part of the twentieth century, and I need not, therefore, recapitulate them here. In the mechanism of this engine-room there was nothing specially peculiar, but the appropriation of the best modern inventions left nothing to be desired. Electricity, according to the newly introduced method, being generated directly from coal, the force at the disposal of the aëronaut was colossal, and, what was even more expedient, obtained for a trifling outlay of fuel. A short but very thick shaft, revolving with great speed, led, I was told, to a screw without, and by the sides of this monster two others of far humbler dimensions were resting idly on their rollers.
I was now able to solve the riddle of the Attila’s flight. The buoyancy of the vessel was that of an inclined plane driven rapidly through the air by a screw, a device first prominently brought into notice by the nineteenth-century experiments of Maxim. The Attila, albeit light, was, of course, under normal conditions, greatly heavier than the quantity of air she displaced—indispensable condition, indeed, of any real mastery over the subtle element she dwelt in. The balloon is a mere toy at the mercy of the gale and its gas—the Attila seemed wholly indifferent to both. But, desirous of probing the problem to the bottom, I put Hartmann the question—
“What would happen supposing that shaft broke, or the machinery somehow got out of order?”
“Well, we should fall.”
“Fall?”
“Yes, but very gradually at first, so long as our speed was fairly well maintained. The aëroplane, as you know, will only buoy us up on the condition that we move, and that pretty quickly. Still, there are always the two spare steering screws to fall back upon.”
“But what if they stopped as well?”
“It’s most unlikely that they would stop. The three shafts are worked independently. But if they did, the sand-valves would have to be opened.”
“The sand-valves?”
“Yes. You have doubtless been surprised at the huge size of the Attila. Well the main parts of the upper and middle portions of her hull are nothing more nor less than a succession of gas-meters—of compartments filled with hydrogen introduced at a high temperature, so as to yield the maximum amount of buoyancy. Below these compartments again lie the sand reservoirs. When these latter are three parts full their natural effect is to keep the Attila at about the level of the sea, supposing, that is to say, the screws are completely stopped. If your so-much-dreaded event was to happen, the watch in the conning-tower would simply shift the sand-levers, a quantity of ballast would be released, and we should at once begin to rise. We can thus regulate our weight at will. The secret of it all is the marvellous lightness of these walls. I am not free to tell you to what discovery that lightness is due, but you may test and analyze as much as you like, on the off chance of a correct guess.”
“It’s all superb!” was my enthusiastic comment. “But how about an ordinary complete descent to earth?”
“A very simple matter. From the outer gallery the Attila looks as if her bottom was gently curved, terminating in the customary orthodox keel. That is what the upper lines suggest. But three feet below the level at which we stand lies a flat projecting bottom studded underneath with springs resting on the axles of wheels. I wish to touch land. I press certain knobs and this, that, perhaps all three screws, ease off, run down, or may be reversed. The Attila then sweeps onward much after the fashion of an albatross with outspread motionless wings. Steering is easy—a ‘ting’ in the engine-room sets this or that side screw shaft rotating. Slowly—perhaps fast—she falls, then faster and faster. Meanwhile I stand by the sand-levers—I pull this and the stern rises, we swoop down like a hawk; I pull that, the bow rises, the impetus thus gained carries the Attila in a noble curve aloft. Finally she hovers over the ground, and, opening a hydrogen valve, I adjust her descent delicately, so as to spare the springs.”
“But you must lose a great deal of hydrogen in this manner.”
“Not so much as you would think. And, besides, the loss is of no moment. We carry an immense quantity of the gas compressed in tubes at a pressure of many thousand pounds to the square inch. What loss there is can therefore always be made good at intervals. You will have a chance of watching our procedure very shortly, as we ‘sand up’ and replenish three or four gas-reservoirs at a sand-dune not very far distant.”
We passed through the gaily-lit passage back to the well, where for fifty feet above us the long stair curled upward to the citadel.
“These side walls,” observed Hartmann, “with those constituting the outer skin of the Attila, bound the huge gas compartments I mentioned. They are independent, so that serious accidents are impossible. In the cavities and corridors between them lie the cabins and quarters of the crew, the courts enclosed by which you must have noticed from the upper deck. All these courts open on to the outer gallery, and communicate by the deck with the common room. To the centre divisions of the ship, the engine-room, and the conning-tower, no one has access except with my leave. This,” and he opened a small carefully guarded door, “is the magazine.”
He pressed a button, and the gleam of a vacuum lamp pierced the darkness. Half awestruck I stepped within.
“There is nothing to see now. We have to be so cautious. Stay! look here.” He seized a ring and lifted a trap in the floor. I started back, for it opened into a well some three feet deep and then into the aërial abyss below!
“That well will vomit disaster one day.”
He let down the trap, and we left the gloomy chamber.
“The Attila, you see, Mr. Stanley, combines the advantages of the bird and the balloon, of the aëronef and the aërostat. It has been my dream from boyhood, and at last, after infinite pains, it is realized. Still, even for me it is but a means to an end. But you will admit it is not a bad one.”
We ascended the stairway and stepped on to the upper deck. Some twenty men were assembled, and they respectfully saluted my companion.
“Comrades,” he said, “my friend Stanley comes among you. Though he is not yet one of us, he may be. His devotion to the cause of Labour is his passport. Take him and treat him as our guest.”
He bowed to me and retired into his citadel. The crew crowded eagerly round me with a warmth wholly unlooked for. The terrible captain had evidently not spoken in vain. During the next half-hour I was escorted round their quarters in state. Naturally I volunteered my services for the necessary work of the vessel, but somewhat to my surprise was firmly asked to desist. A guest, they said, could not be expected to conform to their habits at once, and two of the objectors were urgent in entreating me to accept their services. In the end I was vanquished, not entirely to my regret, and the first day of my sojourn on the Attila passed pleasantly enough. Would that all the others had passed in a like manner, for in that case I should have to describe an Elysium instead of an Inferno!
