The Wreck of a World/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
Within the Council Chamber the panic was hardly less than without. Most of the members evinced an uneasy desire to get away, till at length Councillor Wenderman of the dry-goods store moved that the Council be adjourned sine die. A general murmur of assent followed; Councillor Bewlas, the chemist, seconded, and the Mayor was about to declare the meeting closed, when I sprang to my feet and in a few hasty words begged the Council to reconsider matters. It appeared to me so disgraceful to abandon hearth and home without a blow, that scarce knowing what I did I undertook that if the Mayor would call out the Militia I would lead them against the enemy. The idea of resistance had it seems occurred to no one, but being broached, the Council or some of their number thought it might be worth trying. I obtained the necessary authorisation, sent the bugler round the streets, and in half an hour was in uniform and at the head of a body of two hundred stout youths upon whom I thought I could rely. We had also two field guns to which I attached great importance, there being a detachment of Artillery attached to our Militia battalion. With me were also three subalterns, one of them being William Gell, who had recently become engaged to my daughter. With this little force of armed intelligent men we need not despair, I thought, of conflict even with monsters.
My first anxiety was to obtain news of the enemy. With this view I sent out detached parties of mounted men with instructions to reconnoitre in every direction within a radius of twenty miles. The day was yet young, and the dreary hours of the scouts' absence were devoted to drilling and organizing my little force. Desirous as I was to recall what discipline I might to these carpet soldiers I was yet more anxious to occupy their minds and prevent them from brooding on the terrors they were about to encounter. As the afternoon wore on some of the exploring parties began to drop in, all bringing the same sad tale of unhappy groups of fugitives fleeing from their homes, but of the enemy no sign. It was five o'clock when authentic information arrived. A party of four commanded by young Gell had followed up the course of the river, the other scouts having preferred to take any other direction, and when about twelve miles above the city had come upon the machines, advancing in a line that appeared to be five miles in length, and steaming their hardest. Gell and his companions had galloped back, but reckoned that the foe could not be more than three or four miles behind them.
No time was to be lost. I paraded the men and briefly addressed them. Their fathers, I said, both in the old country and at home, had ever fought bravely, but never so desperately as when their homes and families were at stake. Now was the time to show they were no degenerate sons of such sires. Who doubted that a man with his intelligent power and many-sided craft was more than a match for any machine, or any number of machines? One bold stand would sweep the whole brood from the face of the earth.
The men answered with a cheer, and we marched out of the town across the bridge, which I had secretly prepared to blow up in case of a reverse, and formed up in the plain beyond. No tactics were possible where the inequality in force was so outrageous. But we hastily threw up a breastwork, more for concealment than for any real protection, placed our two guns in the centre with the horses and ammunition in the rear, and lay down to await the foe.
We had not to wait long. Already the smoke from a thousand funnels darkened the sky to the north-west, and the confused hum as of a distant cataract announced his approach. Then a dark cloud gathered in the horizon, broken by flashes of light, and rolled towards us, growing in length and blackness, and reminding me forcibly of a sandstorm I once witnessed in the African desert. It was an awful sight, sufficient to try the nerves of more practised soldiers than those under my command.
I repeated my orders. Whatever their other defects my troops were all marksmen, and the chilled steel projectiles from their powerful rifles were sufficient to pierce boiler plating at short range. But it was on my Artillery that I placed my chief reliance. The odds were extreme, but with the rapid fire attainable by our guns, and their great range, I trusted to destroy a considerable number of the first comers and make a rampart of their corpses.
I turned once more to the men. "Now men," said I, "reserve your fire. Let the guns do the work till the enemy is within 500 yards, then each of you pick off his machine, and drive his bullet well into the centre of the boiler."
I turned my back on them and mounted the rampart, and with glass to my eye scanned intently the advancing host. Gell was beside me and we watched in silence. We could detect the outlines of the engines, though they were still some three miles off, (Gell's party had over-estimated their speed) and could see that many of them were of varied form, and furnished with appliances different to anything we had seen before, but each no doubt for its own deadly purpose. How long we gazed I know not, but the enemy seemed to be advancing less rapidly though no less steadily than before; both of us however continued to peer through our glasses until I judged the nearest machines were about two miles off, at which range our shot should tell with effect, when I motioned to my companion and said, "Now!"
A deep-voiced oath from Gell made me turn sharply round. Where were the men? Not one left in the position where I had placed them. Poor cowards! Taking advantage of our long and anxious watch, they had silently slunk away, man by man, dropped their arms, and now were running in utter panic across the bridge that protected the town. Yes, and the officers too. I promised myself that if ever I got hold of those wretches it would not be my fault if they were not tried by drum-head court-martial, backed against a wall, and shot by a file of their own men, too good a fate for such curs.
I believe I turned white with passion, but was too utterly angry to give vent to any oath or invective. On the contrary I looked at my comrade and said icily, "Dear me, Gell, it is a great pity for you to stay here. Pray run away, if you wish to. Don't mind me. I should run too, only I have got a stitch in the side, or the toothache, or something, and must wait for my nurse and perambulator."
"For God's sake, sir," said Gell, "don't talk like that. What do you think best to do? Those miserable fellows have left us, and we can't do much alone, but I am loth to go without having a bang at the monsters."
"If that is your mind, Gell, as it is exactly what I mean to do myself, in God's name let us do our little best. Mind, don't waste a shot."
The guns were already loaded, and thanks to their exquisite mechanism were worked as easily, if not as quickly, by one man as ten. We trained them carefully on the two foremost engines, I gave the word, and we fired simultaneously. Two explosions followed, as the boilers of the two machines blew up together. They were total wrecks, and not only so, but their débris had considerably damaged the economy of their neighbours. Hastily reloading, we demolished two more with our second discharge. The third round I missed my machine, the fourth and fifth Gell missed his. By this time the uninjured machines had approached within two furlongs, and were closing in on us. A sixth and last discharge brought two more to the ground and then I said, "We can do no more."
With our own hands we had destroyed nine of the foe, and had our proper gunners remained and shot with moderate coolness they might have fired ten or twelve times as fast, before the riflemen took up the ball. Indeed the partial success of two unaided men proved to me beyond a doubt that a little courage and steadiness must have won a decisive victory. For the guns should have destroyed ninety or a hundred, the marksmen would have accounted for at least a hundred more, and with two hundred huge locomotives encumbering the ground with their wrecks, the remainder if not daunted by their loss (supposing they had any sense to appreciate the fact) could never have approached our narrow front except singly, when they would have been destroyed in detail.
This was, however, no time to consider what might have been. Lighting the time fuse of a shell I left it beneath the ammunition wagon, which done we ran at our best pace towards the bridge. As we ran we heard our mine explode behind us, and were gratified to find that it was not without effect, for a boiler-plate and funnel-head fell unpleasantly near us a moment later.
Reaching the bridge head we were surprised to see a woman's figure at the other end making frantic signs to us to go back. What could this mean? The engines were still pursuing, and I was about to proceed in spite of the warning figure when Gell touched my arm—"It is Aurelia," he said.
My girl Aurelia, though I say it, was one of a thousand. I had not a very high opinion of the generality of her sex, or of my own either for that matter, in sudden crises of danger, but I never knew her lose her courage or coolness of head, and felt sure that if she signed me back it was for some good and sufficient reason, though what I could not guess. So I paused.
Well for me that I did so. For with a crash and a roar the central portion of the bridge between us and her suddenly mounted to the sky in a cloud of smoke and flame. The poltroons of Jefferson City had filled up the measure of their cowardice. Too fearful to fight for themselves they had thought it no shame to sacrifice the two men who alone had stood between them and the impending doom.
I should like to have witnessed that last meeting of the council, at which the decision to blow up the bridge was taken. After the flight of my militia the whole city crowded the housetops to see this great sight—the conflict of two men with a thousand monsters. From their coigns of vantage they could see the shots fired, and engine after engine fall, but the main host still continuing its advance. Suddenly the rumour spread, whence none knew, that the bridge was to be blown up. It came to my daughter's ears, who at once rushed down into the street, and penetrated into the sanctuary of the council chamber, to find the fatal order already issued. It appears that my engineer, the man who had placed the mine at my orders, had made the base proposal to the council, which had grasped at it eagerly.
"Is it true," said Aurelia to the Mayor, "that you have decided to blow up the bridge?"
"Wall," said the Mayor, "I guess we thought it advisable to save the town"
"And are you aware, sir, that my father and my"—she choked—"and Lieutenant Gell, the only two men who have dared to strike a blow for their country, their city, their families, aye, and for you, are still on the other side?"
The wretched man muttered, but made no attempt to deny.
"Go!" said Aurelia, striding with flashing eye towards his seat, "you will never sit in that chair again. The city of which you are the appointed ruler has been betrayed by your cowardice. Yes, gentlemen, for you are all in the same boat. I say that as long as you live you will be branded by all honest men and women, aye, and by your own wives and children, as cowards and traitors. And don't think you will save your own precious lives. You will fall by the fate you are so eager to escape, and leave behind you a name that will shame your sons to bear. Go!"
And they obeyed. The Mayor rose and feebly squeaked,—"The meeting is adjourned." As each passed out he was addressed by Aurelia in a few scathing words and issued from the hall like a whipped puppy. When the last was gone and she was left alone, she suddenly bethought herself of the danger we might incur by delay, rushed to the bridge, and arrived just in time to save us from the death prepared for us not by a remorseless foe, but by our friends.
Meanwhile, we were standing on the further bank, a great gap yawning between us and safety. The engines were bearing down on us fast. What was to be done?
"Gell," said I, "you must swim across. You can do it. The river is wide, and you know I can't swim twenty yards."
"God strike me dead if I leave you," he replied.
"You must," I replied. "Give my love to Aurelia. There must be one man left, if only to protect her. Your hand, William. There is no other way."
"No other way? But there is! See yonder."
I looked. A boat manned by one person, and that a girl, was making its painful way across the swift current. Borne onward for a few yards, then whirled round by an eddy, and ever and anon seemingly on the point of swamping, it yet forged through the boiling waters until it gained the smooth shallows under our bank. Need I say that the pilot was my brave Aurelia?
We leapt on board, only just in time to escape the rush of the foremost engine. Gell, who had picked up a rifle, aimed at the monster, fired, and sent the bullet only too truly into the boiler. For there issued from the shot-hole, just as it exploded, such a jet of boiling water and steam as to scald us severely even fifty yards away.
We took the oars, and the intrepid girl whose strength and nerve had been so sorely tried sank in the stern sheets. A few minutes more and we landed in safety among the crowds of our fellow citizens who had flocked to our welcome. But we could feel little kindness, though much pity, for the ignoble men, who too cowardly to defend themselves had been so ready to sacrifice their defenders, and received their congratulations in silence, and with eyes fixed on the ground, as we walked up the thronging street. At last a little girl of about seven years put her small hand in mine, and said, simply: "Thank you, sir, so much!"
I lifted her in my arms and kissed her,—she was one of a Sunday-school class of my daughter's—and said: "Bless you, dear; at all events you did not blow up the bridge behind us, or desert your post." And the cheers and congratulations ceased, as the citizens realised how little we were deceived by their double-faced treachery, and how ill we appreciated thanks and praise from such as they.
Poor creatures as they were, it was needful to save them if might be from their own pusillanimity. The night passed quietly, but at dawn the streets were filled with an unquiet throng. The machines, still unable to cross the river, were drawn up in an imposing rank miles long on the further side. Behind this we could see others engaged in foraging for fuel or taking in water. They appeared to be in no mind to desert the prize that was separated from them by no more than seven hundred yards of water. Now, more than ever, I regretted the loss of our guns. Had we still possessed them we might have destroyed one after another without the slightest danger to ourselves, until they had chosen to move elsewhere. Our rifles would do little harm at this range. We tried a few shots, but without effect.
To calm the general nervousness, I determined to get together a meeting of the Town Council. First we called upon the Mayor, but found he had fled, whither was not known, but it was supposed by boat. Going to the houses of the other councillors we were met by the same intelligence. Pretty shepherds these, to quit their flock at the approach of danger!
At all events I would not desert these poor helpless sheep while I could be of any use to them. Mounting the steps of the Council Hall, I took off my hat and motioned for silence.
"Citizens," I said, "we are met in the presence of a great and terrible danger. I have to announce that your chosen magistrates, the Mayor and Councillors, have deserted their posts and run away in the night. Well, if they were afraid, we are well rid of them. Better they should be out of the city than here to paralyse all efforts for the safety of the citizens. But there is no time for forms and ceremonies. If there is any man among you who thinks it is in him to save his fellow-townsfolk, in God's name let him come forward and let us make him our leader, our dictator, and promise to obey him to the death."
I paused. Uncertain murmurs from the crowd, and much talking in knots.
"This," I resumed, "is our only chance. Is there none among you who, for the sake of the mothers, the wives, and the children, will take upon him this office?"
I paused again. From various quarters of the throng came cries of "You,—you,—you."
"Fellow citizens," said I once more, "am I to understand that you wish me to be your leader in this crisis?"
Loud and general cries of "Ay— — — — —ay— — — — — —yes— — — — —you're the man."
"It is a great responsibility. But I will undertake it on one condition. Will you all swear to obey me in all I may order, and that cheerfully and willingly, and persuade or compel all others to obey me too?"
A great roar of assent followed.
"All those who are willing to obey me and will swear so to do, hold up their hands."
I believe there was not a hand in the market-place kept down.
"Those who are NOT willing to obey me, hold up their hands."
Not one.
"Citizens," said I for the last time, "you have unanimously chosen me your leader and dictator to meet the present peril. God only knows whether I shall be permitted to rescue you, or whether we are fated all to perish together. I may be compelled to do things that seem harsh or unjust, but remember that you have sworn to obey. And for my part I swear that as long as you will obey me I will never desert you. Now, go all of you to your homes, and provide everything you need for a journey; clothes, provisions, cooking gear, and all else. We know not how soon we may be obliged to march!"
I stepped back among the granite columns of the portico and passed into the lonely Council-chamber while the crowd dispersed. My next action was one which would have been ridiculed by most of my fellow citizens, but which, writing for posterity, I need not be ashamed to confess here. I walked into the Cathedral church of the Episcopalians, and there, before the sculptured figure of Him who died to save His fellow-men, I prayed long and earnestly to the Father of us all that I might be granted wisdom and strength to guide these poor folks through the strange perils which had fallen like a judgment upon a careless age. They ate, they drank, they married and gave in marriage, they boasted a power and civilization such as the world had never seen, a modern psalmist might have said, 'Ye are gods' (as many of their writers practically did say), their prosperity seemed beyond the reach of all calamity—when suddenly, as a bolt from the blue, a new and horrible danger, wrought by the hand of man himself, had come to threaten the whole race with extinction. Will it even yet eventuate in such an issue?