That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the DayDehan, Richard
General
That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day
Dehan, Richard
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
Luttha and von Herrnung, otherwise antagonistic, were alike in their
rabid hatred of Great Britain. Luttha had talked himself plum-coloured
and hoarse by now, but he went on, pounding the air with a knotty,
clenched fist:
"Thus it was well done on the part of the Kaiser’s secret agents to
steal Clanronald’s War Plan, on the brink of The Day to which we have
drunk so long! Not the duplicates buried in the Whitehall
strong-vaults, see you!—but the originals from the muniment-room of the
Welsh castle, the country-seat of the present Earl. Less than an hour
after you took flight from Hendon, London was alive and buzzing with the
tale! ... How do I know? ... Does not a man know everything with
Wireless? And you, with no inkling that you carried for Germany—Victory
in the World-War that is coming—you who have lost Clanronald’s secret,
are a ruined man, _bei Gott_!"
He added, as von Herrnung broke out cursing and raving:
"As I have said, I pity you!—though you have tried to bribe me!—but it
will not do to talk of suicide, for I shall prevent that! Your
cartridges are wetted—your revolver will not serve you. And you will
not get a chance to drown yourself, for I am going to submerge. My
fellows have got the flying-motor out of the stirrups and stowed it
away, with the auto-hoverer and the other things for the Emperor, whose
property they are! Then we run, only periscopes showing, for the Gat of
Norderney. There is a clear-dredged channel to Nordeich Harbour,
navigable in any tide. You have to account there to the All Highest for
the satchel, or I, _bei Gott!_ must account to him for it and you!"
And Luttha slid back the steel door, passed through the narrow gangway
and shot up the narrow steel ladder to attend to affairs on deck. Two
of his subordinates instantly replaced him. On no account was von
Herrnung, the living proof of the Commander’s fidelity to his
instructions, to be left alone, you understand.
One would have said the Superman believed in God, he blasphemed Him so
industriously. When he was quite spent and voiceless, the lieutenants
offered him practical sympathy in the shape of gingerbread and lager
beer. He accepted the beer, and sat on one of the sofas drinking it and
brooding lividly, while Undersea-boat No. 18, with hermetically-sealed
hatches, folded down her signal and Wireless masts, shut off her 2000
h.p. Diesel oil engines, sucked water into her ballast-tanks, and with
only her periscopes showing above the surface, ran under her
electric-motor power for Norderney Gat and Nordeich quay.
Behind her as she sped, a red stain upon the angry waters gave back the
last rays of stormy sunset, smouldering out behind bars of drift-wrack,
beyond the bleak east-country beaches and the long blue-black, desolate
worlds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account