L.P.M. : The End of The Great War Part 32

They all dropped down. Stanton was dead, and James was bleeding badly from the flesh-wound in his leg.

"That was the fellow in that tower over there." Lawrence made a reconnoissance. "He is now shooting straight at us."

"This has got to stop." Edestone frowned. "Lawrence send this message. No cipher; I would rather have them catch this.

"Tell 'Specs' first to haul down the U. S. flag and run up my private signal. Then he is to silence every gun he can find that is bearing on us, and train a machine-gun on the door of the bulk-head, ready to fire when I give the signal by throwing up my hat.

"Take Lawrence up to the instrument, Mr. Black," he directed, turning to Black who was giving "first aid" to the unfortunate valet. "I will do what I can for James."

When the elevator with Lawrence and the electrician had gone up above the level of the roof, leaving the shaft open down into the house, he could distinctly hear the soldiers running up the stairs. At any moment now they might be hammering on the door at the foot of the stairway leading to the roof.

He hated the idea of killing those innocent Germans, mere machines, as they were, in the hands of a Master, who with his entire entourage had become sick with a mania which took the form of militarism, imperialism, and pan-Germanism. But after the death of his two fellow-countrymen--for at heart he was still true to the land of his birth, although to save her he had just renounced the flag--he felt that he was justified in what he was about to do.

With a silent prayer for the peasant mothers who were soon to lose their dear ones, he commended their souls to G.o.d, and not as these mothers, poor benighted creatures, had done, to their Emperor.

He was startled from these sorrowful reflections by the white glow of a searchlight from the Little Peace Maker sweeping across the roof, and playing hither and thither. Evidently, "Specs" had received his order, and was now feeling about for the bulkhead door.

A moment later he located it. Immediately the night was made hideous with the roar of the guns from the airship, as they sowed bursting sh.e.l.ls in all directions, and carried death and destruction to the heart of this great and wonderful city, built up stone by stone, and standing as a living monument to one of the greatest people on the face of the earth--a people that science teaches are the very last expression of G.o.d's greatness shown in His wonderful evolution of matter into His own image. And for what? That one family might maintain the position given to one of their ancestors in the remote, dark, and grovelling ages of the past for prowess of which a modern prizefighter might be proud, but for acts to which he with a higher standard might not stoop.

The telling response of the Little Peace Maker soon put an end to the storm of shrapnel and bullets which had been singing, whistling, buzzing, and screaming about them, and Edestone might have been able to stand up, but for the pertinacity of the snipers, those serpents of modern warfare, who were searching every dark corner of the roof.

Matters were fast coming to a climax, however. By the time that Lawrence and Black had returned from sending the wireless message, and had crawled over to where Edestone lay, the soldiers had broken down the lower door, and were pounding at the upper, which "Specs" was holding as with a rapier point at the heart of a fallen foe, ready to strike at the slightest movement.

Crawling over to the elevator shaft, Edestone called down a warning in a loud voice to those below:

"I have a machine-gun trained on the top of the stairs! If you order your men to break that door down, I will order my guns to fire, and will kill them faster than you can drive them up!"

For a moment the only response to his challenge was silence. Then a voice rang out which he had heard before, arrogant and commanding:

"As G.o.d has ordained that I and none other should rule the earth, with Him alone, I shall. By my Imperial order, and with His a.s.sistance, bring that man to me, dead or alive!"

A brief pause ensued. Edestone could hear the officers urging on their men. Suddenly pistol-shots rang out, and with a mad rush they came on.

The door swayed and shivered under the impact. It split and shattered. Finally it fell.

"May G.o.d have mercy on his soul!" murmured Edestone, and he tossed his hat high in the air.

"Specs" from his look-out caught the signal; and instantly the doorway became a writhing, shrieking ma.s.s of wounded humanity. Like vaseline squeezed out of a tube, it was forced out of the opening by the pressure of those behind and spread in wider and wider circles across the roof, until the aperture itself was choked and stopped with bodies.

But Edestone and his companions were spared the full measure of this sickening sight, as the rapid manoeuvres of the Little Peace Maker compelled them to devote their attention to her.

As the great ship descended to within about ten feet of the chimney-tops, men appeared on her lower bridge and dropped over the insulated ladder which extended almost to where the refugees lay.

Picking James up and putting him on his back where he clung like a baby, Edestone ran for the ladder, quickly followed by Lawrence and Black. He reached the bridge just in time to turn James over to one of the crew, and extend his a.s.sistance to Lawrence, who had received a shot in one hand, and was rather dizzily holding on to the ladder with the other. Eventually, though, they all gained the bridge, and with their rescuers already there raced up the gangway under a perfect hail of bullets for the open doorway at the top. But before the last man had pa.s.sed through, two of the sailors had been shot, and had fallen to their death on the roof.

As they entered the ship, they were met by "Specs," Captain Lee, Dr. Brown, and other officers in uniforms which at the first glance might have been taken for those of the New York Yacht Club, except for the insignia on their caps which was a combination of Edestone's private signal and the letters L. P. M. Edestone, however, interrupted their attempt to salute him.

"Please waive all ceremony," he said. "We have wounded men here that must be attended to."

At this, Dr. Brown immediately came forward, and after ordering Lawrence and James to the hospital gave a start as his glance fell upon Edestone.

"You did not tell me that you yourself were wounded, sir," he exclaimed; and then for the first time Edestone discovered that his face, hands, and clothing were covered with blood which was streaming from a wound above his temple.

He was about to permit himself also to be examined, when there was heard from below the detonation of one of the Kaiser's big mortars; and pulling away from the Doctor, he called an excited order to "Specs":

"Throw on your full charge, and lift her as fast as you can!"

He ran to the gangway in time to see the wire carried up to a great height by the ball from the mortar settling down across the Little Peace Maker about midships. It was falling now, and would soon come in contact with the ship.

When it did, there was a slight jar perceptible, but no such result as the enemy had hoped. The wire was so quickly fused, accompanying an explosion giving out an intense light, that it seemed to shoot to the earth like a streak of lightning, setting fire to or knocking down everything that lay in its path.

Another and another mortar shot followed until the sky seemed to be filled with falling wires which were swinging, twisting, and snapping above him. The Little Peace Maker was the centre of an electrical storm, and was sending back by every wire messages of death to those who were striving to bring her down.

The ship was rising very rapidly now, however, and almost before Edestone had time to sing out, "Steady now, as you are," she was 3000 feet above the German capital, and out of range of the wire-throwers.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

YACHTING IN THE AIR

While Lawrence's hand was being dressed by one of the a.s.sistant surgeons, he had an opportunity of observing how perfect were the appointments of the operating room to which he had been taken. The orderlies and nurses moving about were all dressed in spotless white gowns and caps. The doctor and those a.s.sisting him in cleaning and dressing the slight flesh-wound which had been inflicted looked at their patient through holes in a cap that completely covered their heads and faces. Every appliance was provided for perfect cleanliness and sanitation, and the apparatus was on hand to permit of any operation of modern surgery, no matter how complicated.

From where he sat, he could see into another room exactly similar where James was having the injury to his leg attended to with the same scrupulous care; and he had pa.s.sed, as he was brought in, a long room which he was told was one of the surgical wards, and where he had seen several men on hospital cots. The surgical wards, he was further informed, were on the starboard side of the ship, and not connected in any way with the sick bay which lay over on the port side.

With his great love for ships and machinery, Lawrence was impatient to get away and make a tour of inspection of this strange craft upon which he had embarked; but while he was waiting he occupied himself in his usual fashion by giving vent to his high spirits and making a joke out of everything.

"Well, Doc," he remarked to the surgeon, "you certainly have got one nifty little butcher shop, but I want to tell you, before one of those Ku-Klux throw me down and slap the gas bag in my face, that I have no adenoids, and that my appendix was cut out by an Arabian doctor who threw a handful of sand into me to stop the bleeding. If you would like to study German sausages, though, there is a pile of it down there on the roof." And even he shuddered as he recalled that awful carnage.

A bright-looking chap, dressed in the smart uniform of a steward on a gentleman's yacht, appeared at the door, but was not allowed to come in by Lawrence's aseptic guardians. He had been sent down by Edestone to inquire as to the condition of the wounded, and to announce to Lawrence that if he felt well enough to join him, dinner would be ready as soon as he was. He begged, the messenger said, that Mr. Stuyvesant would go directly to his room and dress, and allow him to have the pleasure of showing him over the ship after dinner. If he would let the quarter-master's department have his measure, he would be fitted out.

Wild horses could not have restrained Lawrence from such an invitation, much less a little scratch on the hand; and his injury having been dressed by this time, he was about to set out with the messenger, when James appealed to him from the next room, begging to be allowed to look after his master's clothes.

"Beg pardon, sir," he urged, showing his embarra.s.sment at not being able to stand, "but I am the only one who knows how Mr. Edestone likes his dinner clothes laid out, and his whole evening will be spoiled without me, sir. I only ask to be allowed to break in the new man, sir, as starting right in laying out a gentleman's clothes is half the battle, sir."

"Don't you think, you have had enough of a battle for one day, you dear old fighting fossil?" asked Lawrence in a tone of real affection, for there is nothing which draws men together, regardless of rank, more quickly than to fight on the same side, and he could not help but admire the cool manner in which the valet had borne himself under fire.

"Thank you, sir, but mightn't I be allowed to see to his bath, sir? A drop of hot water in it turns his stomach for a week. Just let me do that, and I will come straight back to these very kind persons." He glanced about at the men of science with the condescending manner of the English upper servant in dealing with the shopkeeper cla.s.s.

But Lawrence shook his head. "I'm sorry, James, but--" he bowed low to the grinning circle of doctors and nurses, and a.s.sumed his most grandiloquent air--"you are now in the hands of the only acknowledged ruling cla.s.s of the twentieth century, who hold you with a grip of steel, but whose touch is as gentle as a mother's kiss. So get out your knitting, Old Socks; you are doomed."

He turned with a laugh and a new impersonation to the surgeon as he left the room.

"Thank you, Doc. You've cert'nly been kind to me, a poor working girl. Just send the bill to Mr. Edestone. He is my greatest gentleman friend."

In his room, which was reached by an elevator, he found the ship's tailor waiting for him; but after this functionary had taken his measure and gone, he had an opportunity to look around.