The Warlord of the Air Page 4

  There was no sign of Sharan Kang or his men. Indeed, there was no sign of life at all. Everywhere I looked I saw ruins. Not a single building in Teku Benga had escaped the earthquake. Many of the temples seemed to have disappeared altogether.

  I stood up and began to walk over the cracked remains of the pavements.

  And then I stopped suddenly and, for the first time since I had awakened, I realised that there was something I could not rationalise.

  There were no corpses—which might have been expected if the earthquake had occurred the previous night, as I thought. But perhaps the people had managed to escape the city. I could accept that.

  What brought me up short was not that the pavements were cracked—but that weeds grew in profusion between the cracks!

  And now that I looked, there were creepers, tiny mountain flowers, patches of heather growing everywhere on the ruins. These ruins were old. It had been years since anyone had occupied them!

  I licked my lips and tried to pull myself together. Perhaps I was not in Teku Benga at all? Perhaps I had been carried from Sharan Kang’s city and left to die among the ruins of another city?

  But this was plainly Teku Benga. I recognised the ruins of several buildings. And there was hardly another city like Teku Benga, even in the mysterious Himalayas.

  Besides, I recognised the surrounding mountains, the distant pass which led up to what had been the city wall. And it was obvious that I stood in the ruins of the central square in which the Temple of the Future Buddha had been erected.

  Again I experienced a dreadful shiver of fear. Again I glanced down at my dust-caked body, at my rotting clothes, at the weeds beneath my split boots, at all the evidence—evidence which mocked my sanity—evidence to show that not hours but years had passed since I had sought to escape the trap which Sharan Kang had set for me!

  Could I still be dreaming? I asked myself. But if this were a dream, it was unlike anything I had ever dreamed before. And one can always tell a dream from reality, no matter how sharp and coherent a dream it is. (That is what I felt then, but now I wonder, I wonder....)

  I seated myself on a slab of broken masonry and tried to think. How was it possible than I could still be alive? At least two years must have passed since the earthquake—if earthquake it were—and while my clothes had been subjected to the normal processes of Time, my flesh was unaffected. Could the gas I suspected as having caused the rot have actually preserved me? It was the only explanation—and a wild enough one, at that. It would take a clever scientist to investigate the matter. I wasn’t up to it. Now my job was to get back to civilisation, contact my regiment and find out what had been going on since I had lost consciousness.

  As I clambered over the ruins I tried to force the astounding thoughts from my brain and concentrate on my immediate problem. But it was difficult and I still could not rid myself entirely of the idea that I had gone quite mad.

  Eventually I reached the crumbling walls and hauled my aching body over them. Reaching the top I looked down the other side, seeking the road which had been there. But it was gone. In its place was a yawning chasm, as if the rock had cracked wide open and the part of the mountain on which the city had stood had moved at least a hundred feet away from the rest. There was absolutely no way of crossing to the other side. I began to laugh—a harsh, exhausted cackle—and then was seized by a series of dry, racking sobs. Somehow Fate had spared my life, only to present me with the prospect of a lingering death as I slowly starved on this lifeless mountain.

  Wearily, I lay down my head and must have slept a natural sleep for an hour or two, for when I awoke the sun was lower in the sky. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon.

  I dragged myself to my feet, turned and began to move back through the ruins. I would try to get to the other side of the city and see if there were any other means of climbing down the mountain.

  All around me were the snow-capped flanks of the Himalayas: impassive, uncaring. And above me was the pale blue sky in which not even a hawk flew. It was almost as if I were the last creature alive in the world.

  I stopped myself from continuing this line of thought, for I knew that madness would be the result if I did begin to reason in that way.

  When I did eventually reach the far side of the city hopelessness once again consumed me, for on all the remaining quarters there were sheer cliffs going down several hundred feet at least. That was doubtless the reason for locating the city here in the first place. There was only one approach—or had been—and it meant that Teku Benga was safe from anything but a frontal attack. I shrugged in despair and began to wonder which of the plants might be edible. Not that I was hungry at that moment. I smiled bitterly. Why should I be, if I had remained alive for at least two years? The joke made me laugh. It was a crazy laugh. I stopped myself. The sun was beginning to set and the air had grown cold. At length I crawled into a shelter formed by two slabs of masonry and fell once more into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  It was dawn when I next awoke. I felt a new confidence and I had devised a plan of sorts. My leather belt and shoulder strap had been unaffected by time and though slightly cracked were still strong. I would search the ruins until I found more leather. Somewhere there must still be storechests, even the remains of the Kumbalari warriors who had died in the earthquake. I would devote what remained of my energy to discovering enough leather out of which I might plait a rope. With a rope I could try to get down the mountain. And if I died in the attempt, well, it would be no worse than the alternative means of dying which were presented to me.

  I spent the next several hours clambering in and out of the ruins, discovering first a skeleton still dressed in the furs, iron and leather of a Kumbalari soldier. Around his waist was wound quite a good length of leather cord. I tested it and it was still strong. My spirits lifting, I continued to search.

  I was crouching in the ruins of one of the temples, trying to drag out another skeleton, when I first heard the sound. At first I thought it was a noise made by the bones scraping on the rock, but it was too soft. Then I wondered if I were, after all, not alone in the ruins. Could I be hearing the purr of a tiger? No—though that was more like the sound. I stopped tugging at the skeleton and cocked my head, trying to listen harder. A drum, perhaps? A drumbeat echoing through the mountains? It could be fifty miles away, however. I crawled back through the gap and as I did so a shadow began to spread across the rubble before me. A huge, black shadow which might have been that of an enormous bird, save that it was long, regular in shape and curved.

  Again I doubted my own sanity and in some trepidation I forced myself to look upward.

  I gasped in astonishment. This was no bird, but a gigantic, cigar-shaped balloon! And yet it was like no balloon I had ever seen, for its envelope seemed rigid-constructed of some silvery metal—and attached to this envelope (not swinging from it by ropes) was a gondola almost the length of the balloon itself.

  What astonished me even more was the slogan, inscribed in huge lettering on the hull: ROYAL INDIAN AIR SERVICE

  From its stern projected four triangular ‘wings’ which resembled nothing so much as the flat tail-fins of a whale. And painted on each of these in shining red, white and blue was a large Union Jack.

  For a moment I could only stare at the flying monster in incredulous wonderment. And then I began to leap about the ruins, waving and yelling for all I was worth!

  Chapter IV

  An Amateur Archaeologist

  I MUST HAVE seemed a pretty strange sight myself, with my filthy body clad in rotting clothes, dancing and roaring like a madman among the ruins of that ancient city, just as if I were some castaway of old who had at last caught sight of the schooner which could save him. But it did not look as if this schooner of the air had seen me. Imperturbably it sailed on, heading towards the distant northern mountains, its four great engines thumping out their smooth, regular beat, turning the massive, whirling screws which apparently propelled the vessel.

&
nbsp; It passed over the ruins and seemed to be continuing on its course, as unaware of me as it might have been of a fly settling on its side.

  The engines stopped. I waited tensely. What would the balloon do next? It was still moving forward, carried on by its own momentum.

  When the engines started again their sound was more high-pitched. I sank down in despair. Possibly the flyers (assuming there were men in the monster) had thought they had seen something but then decided it was not worth stopping to investigate. A tremor ran through the great silver bulk and then, very slowly, it began to drift backwards—back to where I sat panting and anxious. The screws had been put into reverse, rather as the screws on a steamer are reversed.

  Again I leapt up, my face splitting into a huge grin. I was to be saved—even if it were by the strangest flying machine ever invented.

  Soon the great bulk—the size of a small steamer itself—was over my head, blotting out the sky. Half-crazy with joy, I continued to wave. I heard distant shouts from above but could not distinguish the words. A siren started to blow, but I took this to be a greeting, like a ship’s whistle.

  Then, suddenly, something dropped from the ship. I was struck savagely in the face and smashed backwards against the rock. I gasped for breath, unable to understand the reason for the attack or, for that matter, what missile had been used.

  Blinking, I sat up and peered around me. For yards in all directions the ruins glistened wetly—and there were several huge puddles now in evidence. I was soaked through. Was this some rather bad joke at my expense—their way of telling me that I needed a bath? It seemed unlikely. Shakily, I got up, half-expecting the airship to send down another mass of water.

  But then I realised that the vessel was sinking rapidly towards the ruins, looming low in the sky, still sounding its siren. It was lucky for me it had not carried sand as ballast—for ballast was what that water had been! Much lightened, the balloon was able to come to my assistance more quickly.

  Soon it was little more than twenty feet above me. I stared hard at the slogan on its side, at the Union Jacks on its tail fins. There was no question of its reality. I had once seen an airship flown by Mr Santos-Dumont, but it had been a crude affair compared with this giant. There had been a great deal of progress in the last couple of years, I decided.

  Now a circular hatch was opened in the bottom of the metal gondola and amused British faces peered over the lip.

  “Sorry about the bath, old son,” called one in familiar Cockney tones, “but we did try to warn you. Understand English?”

  “I am English!” I croaked.

  “Blimey! Hang on a minute.” The face disappeared.

  “All right,” said the face, reappearing. “Stand clear there.”

  I stepped back nervously, expecting another drenching, but this time a rope ladder snaked down from the hatch. I ran forward and grabbed it in relief but as soon as my hand clasped the first run I heard a yell from overhead:

  “Not yet! Not yet! Oh, Murphy, the idiot! The-“

  I missed the rest of the oath for I was being dragged over the rocks until I managed to let go of the rung and fall flat on my face. The flying machine had yawed round a fraction in the sky—a fraction being a good few feet—and laid me low for a second time! I got up and did not attempt to grab the rope ladder again.

  “We’ll come down,” shouted the face. “Stay where you are.”

  Soon two smartly dressed men clambered from the hatch and began to descend the ladder. They were dressed in white uniforms very similar to those worn by sailors in the tropics, though their jackets and trousers were edged with broad bands of light blue and I did not recognise the insignia on their sleeves. I admired the casual skill and speed with which they climbed down the swaying ladder, paying out a rope which led upwards into the ship. When they were a few rungs above me they tossed me a rope.

  “Easy now, old son,” called the man who had originally addressed me. “Tie this round you—under your arms—and well take you up! Understand?”

  “I understand.” Swiftly I obeyed his instructions.

  “Are you secure?” called the man.

  I nodded and took a good grip on the rope.

  The sky ‘sailor’ signalled to an unseen shipmate. “Haul away, Bert!”

  I heard the whine of a motor and then I was being dragged upwards. At first I began to spin wildly round and round and felt appallingly sick and dizzy until one of the men on the ladder leaned out and caught my leg, steadying my ascent.

  After what must have been a minute but which seemed like an hour I was tugged over the side of the hatch and found myself in a circular chamber about twelve feet in diameter and about eight feet high. The chamber was made entirely of metal and rather resembled a gun-turret in a modern ironclad. The small engine-driven winch which had been the means of bringing me up was now switched off by another uniformed man, doubtless ‘Bert’. The other two clambered aboard, gathered in the rope ladder in an expert way, and shut the hatch with a clang, bolting it tight.

  There was one other man in the chamber, standing near an oval-shaped door. He, too, was dressed in ‘whites’, but wore a solar topee and had major’s pips on the epaulettes of his shirt. He was a smallish man with a sharp, vulpine face, a neat little black moustache which he was smoothing with the end of his swagger-stick as he peered at me, poker-faced.

  After a pause, while his large, dark eyes took in my appearance from head to toe, he said: “Welcome aboard, English are you?”

  I finished removing the rope from under my arms and saluted. “Yes, sir. Captain Oswald Bastable, sir.”

  “Army, eh? Bit odd, eh? I’m Major Powell, Royal Indian Air Police—as you’ve probably noticed, what? This is the patrol ship Pericles.” He scratched his long nose with the edge of his stick. “Amazin’—amazin’. Well, we’ll talk later. Sick Bay for you first, I’d say, what?”

  He opened the oval door and stood aside while the two men helped me through.

  I now found myself in a long passageway, blank on one side but with large portholes on the other. Through the portholes I could see the ruins of Teku Benga slowly falling away below us. At the end of the passage was another door and, beyond the door, a corner into a shorter passage on both sides of which were ranged more doors bearing various signs. One of the signs was sick bay.

  There were eight beds inside, none of which was occupied. There were all the facilities of a modern hospital, including several gadgets at whose use I could not begin to guess. I was allowed to undress behind a screen and take a long bath in the tub I found there. Feeling much better, I got into the pair of pyjamas (also white and sky blue) provided and made my way to the bed which had been prepared at the far end of the room.

  I was in something of a trance, I must admit. It was difficult to remember that I was in a room which at this moment was probably floating several hundred feet or more above the mountains of the Himalayas. Occasionally there was a slight motion from side to side or the odd bump, such as one might feel on a train, and, in fact, it did rather feel as if I were on a train—a rather luxurious first class express, perhaps.

  After a few minutes the ship’s doctor entered the room and had a few words with the orderly who was folding up the screens. The doctor was a youngish man with a great round head and a shock of red hair. When he spoke it was in a soft Scottish accent.

  “Captain Bastable is it?”

  “That’s right, doctor. I’m all right, I think. In my body, at any rate.”

  “Your body? What d’you think’s wrong with your head?”

  “Frankly, sir, I think I’m probably dreaming.”

  “That’s what we thought when you were first spotted How on earth did you manage to get up into those ruins? I thought it was impossible.” As he spoke he checked my pulse, looked at my eyes and did the usual things doctors do to you when they can’t find anything specifically wrong.

  “I’m not sure you’d believe me, doctor, if I told you I rode up on horseback,
” I said.

  He gave a peculiar laugh and stuck a thermometer into my mouth. “No, I don’t think I would! Rode up! Ha!”

  “Well,” I said cautiously, after he had removed the thermometer, “I did ride up there.”

  “Aye.” Plainly he didn’t believe me. “Possibly you think you did. And the horse jumped that chasm, did it?”

  “There wasn’t a chasm there when I went there.”

  “No chasm—?” He laughed aloud. “My stars! No chasm! There’s always been a chasm there—for a damned long time, at any rate. That’s why we were flying over the ruins. The only way to reach them is by airship. Major Powell’s a bit of an amateur archaeologist. He’s got permission to reconnoitre this area with a view to exploring Teku Benga some time. He knows more about the lost civilisations of the Himalayas than anyone. He’s a scholar, our Major Powell.”

  “I’d hardly count Kumbalari as a lost civilisation,” I said. “Not in the strict sense. That earthquake could only have happened a couple of years ago, surely. That’s when I went there.”

  “Two years ago? You’ve been in that God-forsaken place for two years? You poor fellow. But you’re remarkably fit on it, I’ll say that.” He frowned suddenly. “Earthquake? I haven’t heard of an earthquake in Teku Benga. Mind you...”

  “There hasn’t been an earthquake in Teku Benga in living memory.” It was the sharp, precise voice of Major Powell who had come in as we talked. He looked at me with a certain wary curiosity. “And I very much doubt that anyone could live there for two years. There’s nothing to eat, for one thing. On the other hand, there’s no other explanation as to how you got there—unless a private expedition I haven’t heard about flew there two years ago.”

  It was my turn to smile. “Hardly likely, sir. No ship of this kind existed two years ago. In fact, it’s remarkable how...”

  “I think you had better check him up here. Jim,” said Major Powell tapping his head with his stick. “The poor chap’s lost all sense of time—or something. What was the date when you left for Teku Benga, Captain Bastable?”