When the World Shook: Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and ArbuthnotHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Science
When the World Shook: Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Adventure stories; Science fiction
“Perhaps. So indeed I have always held, but after much study I cannot
understand the manner of its working. Fate is enough for me.”
We went on and came to a flat country that was lined with ditches, all
of them full of men, Germans on one side, English and French upon the
other. A terrible bombardment shook the earth, the shells raining upon
the ditches. Presently that from the English guns ceased and out of the
trenches in front of them thousands of men were vomited, who ran
forward through a hail of fire in which scores and hundreds fell,
across an open piece of ground that was pitted with shell craters. They
came to barbed wire defenses, or what remained of them, cut the wire
with nippers and pulled up the posts. Then through the gaps they surged
in, shouting and hurling hand grenades. They reached the German
trenches, they leapt into them and from those holes arose a hellish
din. Pistols were fired and everywhere bayonets flashed.
Behind them rushed a horde of little, dark-skinned men, Indians who
carried great knives in their hands. Those leapt over the first trench
and running on with wild yells, dived into the second, those who were
left of them, and there began hacking with their knives at the
defenders and the soldiers who worked the spitting maxim guns. In
twenty minutes it was over; those lines of trenches were taken, and
once more from either side the guns began to boom.
“War again,” said Oro, “clean, honest war, such as the god I call Fate
decrees for man. I have seen enough. Now I would visit those whom you
call Turks. I understand they have another worship and perhaps they are
nobler than these Christians.”
We came to a hilly country which I recognised as Armenia, for once I
travelled there, and stopped on a seashore. Here were the Turks in
thousands. They were engaged in driving before them mobs of men, women
and children in countless numbers. On and on they drove them till they
reached the shore. There they massacred them with bayonets, with
bullets, or by drowning. I remember a dreadful scene of a poor woman
standing up to her waist in the water. Three children were clinging to
her—but I cannot go on, really I cannot go on. In the end a Turk waded
out and bayoneted her while she strove to protect the last living child
with her poor body whence it sprang.
“These, I understand,” said Oro, pointing to the Turkish soldiers,
“worship a prophet who they say is the voice of God.”
“Yes,” I answered, “and therefore they massacre these who are
Christians because they worship God without a prophet.”
“And what do the Christians massacre each other for?”
“Power and the wealth and territories that are power. That is, the King
of the Germans wishes to rule the world, but the other Nations do not
desire his dominion. Therefore they fight for Liberty and Justice.”
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