The Warlord of the Air Read online

  One of the cargo handlers had left a baling hook in a packing case and, as I moved into the hold, I caught my shirt against it, ripping it right across the back. It wasn’t serious and I carried on with my job until the captain noticed what had happened.

  “You’ll get your back sunburned, if you’re not careful,” he said. “You’d better go and change, Mr. Bastable.”

  “If you think so, sir.” I let one of our riggers keep an eye on the cargo and went back through the main passage between the holds and climbed the companion-way up to the bridge and from there to my cabin. It was stinking hot in the little passage and all the doors of the cabins were open. For the first time, I got a clear look at the passengers as I passed. I couldn’t stop and gape at them, though it took a considerable effort of will not to do so. I went into my own cabin and closed the door.

  I was shaking as I sat down on the lower bunk and slowly removed the folded newspaper from my pocket. I had seen a man and a woman in the passenger cabin. The woman I had not recognised, but the face of the man was all too familiar. I opened the newspaper and looked again at the photographs of the anarchists wanted in connection with the attempt on Sir George Brown’s life. My brain seething with a hundred different thoughts I looked hard at one of the photographs. There was no doubt about it. The tall, handsome man I had seen in the cabin was Count Rudolph von Dutchke the notorious anarchist and assassin!

  Tears came into my eyes as the implications of this revelation dawned on me.

  The kindly old airship skipper who had impressed me so much as a man of character and integrity, into whose hands I had so willingly put my fate, was himself at very least a Socialist sympathiser!

  I was overwhelmed by a profound sense of betrayal. How could I have misjudged someone so badly?

  I should, of course, contact the authorities and warn them at once. But how could I leave the ship without arousing suspicion? Doubtless all the officers and every member of the crew were of the same desperate persuasion as their captain. It was unlikely that I would reach the police in Jerusalem alive. And yet it was my duty to try.

  Time must have passed rapidly while I carried on this debate with myself for, suddenly, I felt the ship lurch and I realised that we had already let slip from the mooring mast.

  I was aloft, helpless now to do anything, in a ship full of dangerous and fanatical men who would certainly stop at nothing to silence me if they realised I suspected them.

  With a groan I buried my head in my hands.

  What a fool I had been to trust Dempsey—evidently, now, one of the same gang! I put it down to the fact that I had been badly disorientated after giving in my resignation.

  The door opened suddenly and I jumped nervously. It was Barry. He was smiling. I looked at him in horror. How could he disguise his true nature so well?

  “What’s the matter, old chap?” he asked blandly. “Touch of the sun? The old man sent me to see if you were all right.”

  “Who—?” I spoke with great effort. “The—the passengers—why are they aboard?” I wanted to hear him give me an answer which would prove his and Captain Korzeniowski’s innocence.

  He looked at me in surprise for a moment and then said: “What—them across the passage? Why they’re just old friends of the skipper’s. He’s doing them a favour.”

  “A favour?”

  That’s right. Look here, you’d better lie down for a bit. You should have worn a hat, you know. Would you like a drop of something strong to pull you round?” He moved towards his locker.

  How could he act so casually? I could only suppose that a life led so long beyond the bounds of the Law created an attitude of indifference both to the suffering caused to others and the corruption in one’s own soul.

  What chance had I against such men as Barry?

  Book Three

  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

  THE TABLES TURNED

  ENTER THE WARLORD OF THE AIR-AND EXIT THE TEMPORAL EXCURSIONIST....

  Chapter I

  General O. T. Shaw

  AS I LAY there in the cabin thinking back over the events of the past few days, I realised how Cornelius Dempsey, and later his compatriots in crime, had come to believe I was one of them. Seen from their perspective, my attack on Reagan had been an attack on the kind of authority he represented. Several hints had been dropped and, in misinterpreting them, I had allowed myself to be sucked into this appalling situation.

  ‘We are both outcasts, in our way,’ Captain Korzeniowski had said. Only now was I aware of the significance of those words! He thought me as desperate a character as himself! A Socialist! An Anarchist, even!

  But then it began to dawn on me that I was in the perfect position to win back my honour—for every disgrace to be forgotten—to ensure that I was reinstated in the service I loved.

  For they did not suspect me. They thought me one of themselves, still. If I could somehow seize control of the ship and force it to turn back to the British Air Port, I could then deliver the lot of them to the police. I should become a hero (not that I wanted honours for their own sake) and almost certainly I would be asked to rejoin my regiment. And then in my mind’s eye I saw Captain Korzeniowski’s face, his steady eyes, and I felt a dreadful pang. Was I to deliver this man into captivity? A man who had befriended me? A man who seemed so decent on the surface?

  I hardened my heart. That was why he had managed to remain at liberty for so long—because he seemed so decent. He was a devil. Doubtless he had deceived many others in his long career of anarchy and crime, fooling them as he had fooled me.

  I stood up, moving stiffly as if under the power of a mesmerist. I walked to Barry’s locker where I knew he kept a large service revolver. I opened the locker. I took out the revolver and made sure that it was loaded. I tucked it into my belt and put on my jacket so that the gun was hidden.

  Then I sat down again and tried to make a plan.

  Our next port of call was Kandahar in Afghanistan. Although nominally allied to Britain, Afghanistan was notoriously fickle in her loyalties. In Kandahar there were Russians, Germans, Turks and Frenchmen, all conspiring to win that mountainous state to their side, all playing what Mr Kipling calls the Great Game of politics and intrigue. Even if I was able to leave the ship, there was no certainty that I should find a sympathetic ear in Kandahar. What then? Force the ship to turn back to Jerusalem? There were difficulties there, too. No, I must wait until we had let slip from Kandahar airpark and were on our way to the third port of call—Lahore, in British India.

  So, until Kandahar was behind us, I must continue to try to act normally. Reluctantly, I replaced Barry’s revolver in his locker. I drew a deep breath, tried to relax my features, and went up onto the bridge.

  How I managed to deceive my new ‘friends’ I shall never know. I carried out my normal duties over the next few days and was as efficient as ever. Only in conversation with Korzeniowski, Barry or the others did I have difficulty. I simply could not bring, myself to speak casually with them. They thought that I was still suffering some slight effects from the sun and were sympathetic. If I had not discovered them for what they were, I should have believed that their concern was genuine. Perhaps it was genuine—but they thought they were concerned for the well-being of one of their own.

  Kandahar was reached—a walled city of bleak stone buildings which had not changed since my own day—and then we had left it. The tension within me increased. Again I availed myself of Barry’s revolver. I checked the charts assiduously, waiting for the moment when we had crossed the border and arrived in India (which was now, of course, completely under British rule). Within a day we should be in Lahore. Feigning sickness, once more, I remained in my cabin and in my mind sketched out the final details of my plan.

  I had ensured that none of the crew members nor the officers carried weapons as a rule. My plan depended on this fact.

  The hours ticked by. We were due to moor at Lahore at noon. At eleven o’clock I left my cabin and went on to
the bridge.

  Captain Korzeniowski was standing with his back to the door, staring down through wisps of cloud at the brown, sun-beaten plains drifting past below us. Barry was at the computer, working out the best path of approach to Lahore airpark. The telephone operator was bent over his apparatus. Height and Steering Coxes were studying their controls. Nobody saw me as I entered silently and drew the revolver from my belt, holding it behind my back..

  “Everything clear for Lahore?” I said.

  Barry looked up, frowning. “Hello, Bastable. Feeling better?”

  “Absolutely top-hole,” I said. There was a funny note to my voice which even I heard.

  Barry’s frown darkened. “Splendid,” he said. “If you feel like resting a bit longer. There’s three quarters of an hour at least before we moor...”

  “I’m fine. I just wanted to make sure we do get to Lahore.”

  Korzeniowski turned, smiling. “Why shouldn’t we? Have you seen something in your tea-cup?”

  “Not my tea-cup.... I’m afraid you’ve been under a misapprehension about me, captain.”

  “Have I?” He raised his eyebrows and continued to puff on his pipe. His coolness maddened me. I revealed the gun in my hand. I cocked the hammer. “Yes,” he said, without changing his tone or his expression. “I think you may be right. More than a touch of the sun, mm?”

  “Nothing to do with the sun, captain. I trusted you—trusted you all. I suppose it isn’t your fault—after all, you thought I was one of you. Temperamentally, at least’, to quote your friend Dempsey. But I’m not. I made the mistake of thinking you decent men—and you made the mistake of thinking me a villain like yourselves. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “Very.” Still Korzeniowski’s demeanour did not alter. But Barry was looking startled, glancing first at my face and then at the captain’s, as if he thought we had both gone mad.

  “You know what I’m talking about, of course,” I said to Korzeniowski.

  “I must admit I’m not sure, Bastable. If you want my frank opinion, I think you’re having a fit of some kind. I hope you don’t intend to hurt anyone.”

  “I’m extremely rational,” I said. “I have discovered what you and your crew are, captain. I mean to take this ship to Lahore—the military section of the airpark—and there deliver it and you up to the authorities.”

  “For smuggling, perhaps?”

  “No, captain—for treason. You pointed out to me that you were a British subject. For harbouring wanted criminals—your two passengers. Dutchke and the girl.

  You see, I know who they are. And I know what you are—anarchist sympathisers, at best. At worst, well...”

  “I see that I did misjudge you, my boy.” Korzeniowski removed the pipe from his mouth. “I did not want you to find out about our passengers because I wanted you to share no part of the burden—in case we were caught. My sympathies do, in fact, lie with people like Count Dutchke and Miss Persson—she is the count’s lady friend. They are what I think of as moderate radicals. You think they had something to do with the bombings?”

  “The newspapers do. The police do.”

  “That is because they will brand everyone with the same iron,” Korzeniowski said. “As you doubtless do.”

  “You can’t talk your way out of this, captain.” My hand had begun to shake and for a moment I felt a weakening of my resolve. “I know you for the hypocrite you are.”

  Korzeniowski shrugged. “This is silly. But I agree—it is also ironic. I thought you, well, neutral, at least.”

  “Whatever else I am, captain, I am a patriot,” I said.

  “I think that I am that, too,” he smiled. “I believe most strongly in the British ideal of justice. But I should like to see that ideal spread a little further than the shores of one small island. I should like to see it put into practice the world over. I admire what Britain stands for in many ways. But I do not admire what she has done to her colonies, for I have had some experience of what it is to live under foreign rule, Bastable.”

  “Russia’s conquest of Poland is scarcely the same as Britain’s administration of India,” I said.

  “I see no great difference, Bastable.” He sighed. “But you must do what you think right. You have the gun. And the man with the gun is always right, eh?”

  I refused to be drawn into this trap. Like most Slavs, he had proved to be a superb logic-splitter.

  Barry broke in, his Irish brogue seemingly thicker than before. “Conquest—administration—or, in the Americans’ terms, the loan of ‘advisors’—it’s all the same, Bastable, me boy. And it has the same vice at its root-the vice of greed. I’ve yet to see a colony that is better off than the nation which colonised it. Poland—Ireland—Siam...”

  “Like most fanatics,” I pointed out coolly, “you share at least one characteristic with children—you want everything now. All improvements take time. You cannot make the world perfect overnight. Things are considerably better for more people today than they were in my—in the early years of this century, for instance.”

  “In some ways,” Korzeniowski said. “But the old evils remain. And will continue until those who have the most power are made to understand that they are promoting evil.”

  “And you would make them understand by exploding bombs, murdering ordinary men and women, agitating ignorant natives to take part in risings in which they are bound to come off worst? That is not my idea of people who oppose evil.”

  “Nor is it mine, in those terms,” said Korzeniowski.

  “Dutchke has never let off a bomb in his life!” said Barry.

  “He has given his blessing to those who do. It is the same thing,” I countered.

  I heard a small sound behind me and tried to back away to see what caused it. But then I felt something press forcefully into my ribs. A hand appeared and covered the cylinder of my revolver and a quiet, slightly amused voice said:

  “I suppose you are right, Herr Bastable. When all is said and done, we are what we are. Our temperaments are such that we support one side or the other. And, I’m afraid, your side is not doing too well today.”

  Before I could think, he had taken the gun from my hand and I turned to confront the cynically smiling face of the arch-anarchist himself. Behind him stood a pretty girl dressed in a long, black travelling coat. Her short, dark hair framed her heart-shaped, serious little face and she stared at me curiously with steady, grey eyes which reminded me immediately of Korzeniowski’s. “This is my daughter, Una Persson,” said the captain from over my shoulder. “You know Count von Dutchke already, of course.”

  Once again I had failed to fulfill an ambition in this world of the future. I became convinced that I was doomed never to succeed in anything I set out to do. Was it simply because I was a man existing in a period of history not his own? Or, faced with similar situations in my own time, would I have bungled my opportunities as I had these?

  This was the drift of my thoughts as I sat in my cabin, a prisoner, as the ship came and went from Lahore and began heading for its next destination, which was Calcutta. After Calcutta came Saigon where the ‘deck passengers’ were due to come aboard, and then Brunei, where Dutchke and his beautiful woman friend were bound (doubtless to join the terrorists seeking to end British rule there). After Brunei we were due to pay a call at Canton, where we would put off the pilgrims who were our deck passengers (or more likely terrorist friends of Korzeniowski’s!) and then start back, via Manila and Darwin. I wondered which of these ports I should visit before the anarchists decided what to do with me. Probably they were trying to decide that now. It should not be difficult to claim that I had been lost overboard at some convenient point.

  Barry brought my food in, his own revolver once again in his possession. So distorted was his point of view that he seemed genuinely sorrowful that I had turned out to be a ‘traitor’. Certainly he, seemed more sympathetic than angry. I still found it hard to see Barry and Korzeniowski as villains and once I asked Barry if Una Persson,
the captain’s daughter, was in some way a hostage for the captain’s good behaviour. Barry laughed at this and shook his head. “No, me boy. She’s her father’s daughter, that’s all there is to that!” But it was evidently the connection—why The Rover had been chosen as the vessel in which they had made their escape from Britain. It also proved to me that the captain’s moral sensibilities must be stunted, to say the least, if he allowed his daughter to share a cabin with a man to whom she was evidently not married (where was Mr Persson? I wondered—doubtless another anarchist who had been apprehended). Plainly I did not have much chance of living more than a few hours longer.

  I had one hope. Johnson, the telephone operator, had certainly not been in the know about Dutchke’s identity. Although he might have other reasons for choosing to serve aboard The Rover, he was not the committed socialist the others were. Perhaps I could bribe Johnson in some way? Or offer him help, if he needed it, if he would help me now. But how was I to contact Johnson? And if I did contact him, would he not fall under suspicion and be unable to get a telephone message out to a British airpark?

  I stared through the tiny porthole of my cabin. When we had berthed at Lahore, Dutchke had kept me at gunpoint so that I might not shout out or drop a message through. I could see nothing but grey clouds going on and on for miles. And all I could hear was the steady roar of The Rover’s cumbersome engines, bearing me, it seemed, closer and closer to my doom.

  At Calcutta, Dutchke once again joined me in my cabin, his revolver pointing at my breast. I glanced out at the sunshine, at a distant city I had known and loved in my own time but now could not recognise. How could these anarchists say that British rule was bad when it had done so much to modernise India? I put this to Dutchke who only laughed.

  “Do you know how much a pair of good boots costs in England?”

  “About ten shillings,” I said.

  “And here?”

  “Probably less.”