The Dirigibles of Death (7 page)

It would be at least four days before he could arrive, but the time would not be entirely wasted by any means. Although we did not know the secrets of the ray, for we dared not permit Johnson to divulge them over the telephone or by any other form of message that might be intercepted, yet the mechanical portions of the device were obvious, and orders had been issued for every available factory to commence immediately the production of such parts of the apparatus as could be duplicated, and to work night and day to full capacity.

By the time Johnson arrived we had a stupendous supply of the devices completed and all ready and waiting for the installation of the ray-producing materials. Fortunately there was an abundant supply of the necessary chemicals and minerals on hand, and two days after Johnson reached England the first of the ray machines were being set up. These were located in Devon and Sussex, for by checking up on matters we had ascertained that the majority of attacks had been made in these two counties. Here I might mention the rather curious fact, though easily explainable, that not a single one of the ships had ever landed in or near a large town or a city. Of course, it was evident that one of the damnable things landing in a city would instantly be discovered and that its occupants would have practically no chance of living long enough to do any material damage. But it served to prove most conclusively that the dirigibles were not dropped, hit or miss, on England, but were guided or controlled from a distance with such nicety and precision that out of the hundreds that had landed, no error had been made; no two had dropped in or even near the same spot, and, as I said, none had descended on a town or for that matter in a densely populated area.

In one way this made the installation of our destructive ray machine easier, but on the other hand, it made the work more difficult, a seemingly paradoxical statement to be sure, but plain enough when one comes to think of it. As we could feel reasonably certain that none of the things would descend near the large cities or in their suburbs, we could leave such areas unprotected. In fact, as General Brassington pointed out, to bring down or to explode such of the ships as might be passing over a city en route elsewhere would be highly dangerous to the city and its inhabitants. On the other hand, the fact that no two ever landed in the same spot made it impossible for us to foresee where the next ones would appear.

Of course, this problem was a problem only during those few days when our supply of ray machines was limited. But within a very short time we had so many thousands of the devices that a complete screen of invisible rays was spread over the entire southern half of England, and nightly the whole country was illuminated by the glare of exploding dirigibles in the sky and the detonations sounded like a barrage of heavy gunfire. And the fact that the things continued blindly to run into our destructive ray-screen proved that even if the fiends who were sending them could plot out their prospective landing places with such nicety, they had no means of ascertaining whether or not the ships reached their destinations. So successful and complete was the protection afforded by the Johnson ray, that we were enabled to trust to the devices to protect southern England, and turned all attentions and concentrated all efforts upon the northern, eastern and western shores, upon Wales and Ireland and finally upon Scotland.

But despite the tremendous success of the rays and their inestimable value as a protection to our country and our people, still it did not get at the root of the matter, the question of whence came the damnable black dirigibles with their frightful cargoes, the solution of the mystery of the identity of the enemy who had resorted to the diabolical plan of destroying a nation. I mentioned this to Sir Kenyon one day and asserted that, in my opinion, more energetic steps should be taken to determine who was our invisible and unknown enemy.

For a time he remained silent, deep in thought, pondering on the matter, his bushy brows drawn together, his fingers tapping on the desk before him.

Finally he glanced up, smiled and lit a cigar. "Possibly, Major Leighton, you are not fully cognizant of all that transpires in my department," he observed. "In fact," he continued, "I should consider I had completely failed in my duty and in the trust reposed in me if you, or anyone else, knew all or even a small portion of what took place in the department under my supervision. But I am now in a position to assure you that we are very near the point of descending upon the arch-enemy—or better, the arch-fiend—who has brought this dire calamity upon England, but which, thanks to God and our loyal people and—yes, I must not forget them—those two remarkable young Americans, Nash and Johnson, has not succeeded to the extent our enemy expected, and which, I trust, will soon be nullified completely.

"Try and think, Major, what enemy it could be. What enemy have we who could have put this horrible idea into practice? What enemy has reason to wish to reduce our man-power, to so disrupt our organization at home that we could not defend our possessions, much less dream of sending expeditionary forces elsewhere, could not even fulfill international pledges as allies nor give heed to matters transpiring overseas? What country possesses helium gas? What enemy could secure thousands, tens of thousands of negroes for his hellish purpose? Use a process of elimination and see if you cannot answer some of those questions, Major Leighton."

I racked my brains. "Obviously it is a tropical country whence the ships come," I replied. "Evidently some spot inhabited by a tremendous negroid population. Only two localities on earth, as far as known, possess helium gas in any quantities—the United States and— my God, Sir Kenyon—Andaya! But—but that's impossible! Andaya is a tiny state—it's hidden in the wilds of Africa and it possesses no great cities, no facilities for making such complicated machines in such countless numbers. To do that would require a great and powerful country, a great government—one of the Powers. And besides, Andaya is not an enemy—not at war with England."

Sir Kenyon smiled. "In the game of policies and politics there are endless wheels within wheels," he informed me. "Andaya, to be sure, is a tiny principality, a buffer state, as we might say, with limited resources and, as you say, tucked away in the heart of Africa. But you forget—or perhaps I should say, you don't know, that back of Andaya is one of the greatest, most powerful of the world's Powers; that that Power is and always has been an enemy of our country, and that it would gain immeasurably by our destruction—even by reducing our status to a point where we would no longer be of value as an ally to another Power, that hitherto has been the wall that has protected us from becoming involved in open warfare with the first-mentioned Power. Can't you see that if, by machinations and promises, this Power could induce Andaya to fall in with its diabolical plan to injure, to destroy us, that its way would be cleared for a declaration of hostilities? And can you not see that—in case suspicion were directed at the great Power, we could not possibly prove that it had any hand in the affair? Its statesmen could and would deny all knowledge of the events. The entire blame would be thrown upon Andaya, and even if we wiped Andaya completely off the map, no one would greatly object. Besides, Andaya has its own personal grudge against us. Do you not remember that, five years ago, we used drastic measures to suppress the beastly slave trade that was the most lucrative source of income for the country? The greatest factor in that slave trade, the man who was the head of it all, who practically controlled it and who had amassed an incredible fortune from it, is the nominal ruler of Andaya and—what is more significant, he is a native of the country I hinted at,"

"My God!" I exclaimed. "Then it must be Andaya! But why haven't you crushed the damnable place, taken possession of it and put a stop to these accursed attacks long ago?"

Sir Kenyon smiled condescendingly. "We had to be positive of our deductions and suspicions," he explained. "And to send properly equipped and competent spies to Andaya, and to receive their reports, requires time. You, as an officer of our Air Force will undoubtedly think: why not send planes and see what is going on? But you forget that at the first sign of a plane the Andayans would have become suspicious, and it is reasonable to assume that if they are capable of producing radio-propelled and directed aircraft that travel faster than our fastest planes, they undoubtedly possess air vessels that could overtake and destroy any planes we possess. Moreover, our government desired to get at the bottom of it, to secure evidence of the master mind of the underhanded attacks, and to be in a position to take drastic measures that for all time would prevent the suspected Power from carrying out its dreams of dominating Europe and—eventually—the world. But the end is very near. Within the next twenty-four hours, I expect to hear that Andaya is in the hands of the British troops and that the Power that ever since the World War has been a menace to the peace of the world, will be trembling and cringing in the face of the demands of England and the United States."

By Gen. Sir Edward Brassington, Bart.

I have perused with a great deal of interest the various accounts of the sequence of events that transpired during those black weeks when England appeared to be at the mercy of an unknown, inhuman and dastardly foe intent upon destroying our population by the most diabolical means ever devised by man. In the main, the statements by Doctor Grayson, by Major Leighton, by Inspector Maidstone and the others are so accurate, so concise and yet so comprehensive that I can discover nothing omitted that is of any real interest or consequence. But in reading over the extraordinary statement of James—no, "Jimmy"—Nash, I have found more amusement than I have ever obtained from a perusal of my beloved Punch. Never, 'pon my word, have I met such an extraordinary young man. And the statement he has written is so typical of himself that I would not, for worlds, alter a single word or line. Really, he has been a revelation. In the first instance, I had always pictured the American of his type—that is the—er, well, I might say, flippant young type—as only too willing to toot his own tooter, to aggrandize himself, so to speak. But Jimmy, by Jove, is the most modest and retiring chap I ever came across. Why, the young scalawag doesn't even mention that he was knighted, that he and his partner, as he called him— Johnson, no, Sir Robert Johnson, were given such an ovation as England seldom bestows upon any man, that they were the idols of the Empire, that they were received by His Majesty and showered with every possible honor. And, really, I chuckle to myself even now, as I think of it, when, in order to express in some manner the obligation that England felt towards him, I, as his most intimate acquaintance and mentor, was requested to inquire what position he would care to accept, what do you suppose the extraordinary chap said? He wanted the appointment as Court Photographer, by Jove! And he got it.

Of course it is unnecessary to state that Johnson's process of television is now in universal use and has brought both its inventor and Sir James Nash immense fortunes. Neither is it essential that I should recall the events that followed closely upon the successful establishment of the Johnson ray screen over afflicted England. But before closing I feel that I must pay some tribute to Doctor Grayson, now Sir Gregory Grayson, Bart., to whose knowledge of tropical diseases and unremitting, self-sacrificing labors and tireless efforts, half of England's population owes its life and health today. Thanks to the antitoxin he produced, and to others he discovered and distributed, very few persons were seriously affected with the terrible maladies which those Andayans had thought to spread throughout England.

I do not think—I have not the exact figures available —that two hundred persons altogether became infected with any of the diseases to such an extent that lasting ill effects followed; and I know positively that not fifty cases of insanity or death resulted.

Taken altogether, the casualties resulting from the attacks were far under what might have been expected. To be sure the total number of deaths amounted to more than fifty thousand, but despite the appalling figure, economically—that is in proportion to the entire population—the loss of human lives was insignificant.

But, most gratifying of all, neither England nor any other country need ever fear a repetition of the disaster that threatened us. Andaya is now a British dependency, the Power that—as was conclusively proved was behind the conspiracy—is no longer in a position to interfere with any other nation, but is, to all intents and purposes, under the control of the United States and Great Britain, and even if some other fiend should attempt to repeat the Andayans' example, Johnson's rays would render such efforts utterly impotent.

THE END

Alpheus Hyatt Verrill, known as Hyatt Verrill, (1871-1954) was an American archaeologist, explorer, inventor, illustrator and author. He was the son of Addison Emery Verrill (1839–1926), the first professor of zoology at Yale University. Hyatt Verrill wrote on a wide variety of topics, including natural history, travel, radio and whaling. He participated in a number of archaeological expeditions to the West Indies, South, and Central America. He travelled extensively throughout the West Indies, and all of the Americas, North, Central and South. Theodore Roosevelt stated: "It was my friend Verrill here, who really put the West Indies on the map.” During 1896 he served as natural history editor of Webster's International Dictionary., and he illustrated many of his own writings as well. During 1902 Verrill invented the autochrome process of natural-color photography. Among his writings are many science fiction works including twenty six published in 'Amazing Stories' pulp magazines.

We hope that you found this ebook easy to read and free of errors. If you had any problems with the content or readability, however, please report these issues to our editors at www.estarbooks.com, and our dedicated team will use this feedback to improve our products in the future. Thank you for your business and happy reading!