Chapter XIII
The Bombardment of London
While the fighting had been going on at the moon, London was the scene of a frightful panic. The Government had declared war, and sent the first fleet into space with the confident expectation that there would be great victories, followed by fresh acquisitions. But, to their horror, after months of anxious waiting, a message was flashed from Neptune stating that the vast fleet had been totally annihilated. The news could not be kept secret, so in a few minutes it was telegraphed to every quarter of the globe. Horror and consternation were seen everywhere; there was a complete panic. Nearly every house was in mourning for a father, son, or friend who would return no more. Those who had lost no one were groaning at the fate that probably awaited themselves, for no quarter was asked for or given by these terrible metal-clad fighting machines and their scientist officers. Thousands watched the sky night and day, expecting every minute to see the victorious Sirian fleets come dashing down through the air, and dreading to be burnt up by the rays of the terrible force Ednogen. However, as days passed by and no fleets appeared, the Government gradually gained their ascendancy, and the people put away their blind, unreasoning fear; but, nevertheless, the shame of defeat had entered deep into their souls.
Meanwhile, strenuous exertions were being made in all the dockyards to build and equip new fleets. All through the day and night the machinery continued to clatter and clang without intermission, and nearly every day a new war-ship took the air to make its trial-trip. Dockyards were set up deep underground and in the hearts of mountains, so that the building could be carried on if the earth happened to be invaded. The entrances to these were guarded by numerous forts cut out of the sides of the rock and faced with metal plates, so that any hostile vessels which might come near could be pierced through and through by the heavy cannon with which they were armed. Forts bristling with every terrible weapon that science had invented for the purpose of offence grew up all round London. Levies of officers and men were made, and retired veterans were called out and distributed among the new ships. By degrees, the panic caused by the first disaster wore away, and an enthusiasm for resistance to the utmost spread all over the globe. The great Anglo-Saxon Empire was determined not to perish without struggling to the last gasp. If it fell, there should be mourning and woe all through the victorious Empire of Kairet.
After some months had gone by, a message was flashed from planet to planet, stating that the Sirian fleet had met the second line of defence at Neptune, and was about to fight it. Later on the battle areas could be seen around Neptune with the aid of a powerful telescope as they glowed with the fire of artillery. Then a nebulous cloud sprang up at Jupiter, showing that the hostile fleets were growing ever nearer and nearer. Soon afterwards the moons of Jupiter collided, and many brave men felt their hearts stand still with fear when they saw those flames leap out into space and the glowing sky cast lurid, threatening shadows over the earth. No one had any idea of what had happened. Many thought that the end of all things was about to come to pass; others mistook the dazzling light for a fleet just outside the earth's atmosphere. Soon, however, a message was sent from Jupiter stating what had really happened and describing its own woes. But this only increased the terror, for many began to dread lest the moon should be hurled down to the earth amidst the wreck and din of war. There was no time for thinking now, for events began to follow one another in a terribly rapid succession. A message was sent to the War Bureau stating that the ships which formed the second line of defence were so few and so heavily outnumbered that they must retreat to the moon, and a groan went to the ends of the earth when the people saw the tide of battle, destruction, and death rolling ever nearer and nearer towards them.
But no one gave way. Not a man abandoned the idea of self-defence to the very last. More dockyards and magazines were constructed deep down underground, and the machinery and munitions of war were removed to them from the old ones. Tunnels were excavated under the earth for the purpose of transport. The newly-constructed fleets were hidden away in safe places till they were ready to issue forth to battle. Disused mines were turned into ammunition factories, and the War Bureau took up its station in a coal-mine in the north of England. Soon hundreds of ships ready armed and equipped were lying in wait in the dark depths of mines, ready to take to the air at a moment's notice. In spite of the near approach of the enemy, every detail of the interstellar ship administration was admirably organized. The people of Kairet should suffer bitterly for daring to invade the earth.
Vast as the losses had been on both sides, there was not a moment's intermission in the deadly combat. A few days after the second line of defence had collapsed, the people on the earth could see the struggle recommencing at the moon. Whenever the moon was visible, its course through the sky was followed by thousands of telescopes. They could see the lines of ships slowly crawling along the surface pouring out fire and smoke, and the fragments of rock blown about by the explosions. Night after night they saw the lines of fire moving hither and thither, and sometimes melting away altogether before the storms of shot. Then, in the dark space round the moon, were the glimmering lights from the main body, that was only waiting for the third line to break down before it advanced to the earth. Agonizing messages were continually being flashed down to the Bureau of War, stating that the gallant defenders could not hold out much longer.
It was now that the earth itself, and even London, had its sanctity violated for the first time by the horrors of war. Stray shot and shells came whistling down through the atmosphere, often exploding high up, but sometimes dropping on to buildings, crowded streets, or the solitary mountains and valleys of the country. Often, too, entire wrecks and huge fragments of metal came rushing down without the least warning, destroying great buildings and killing hundreds of people. The affrighted Anglo-Saxons gazed in horror at the ghastly remains of what were but a few moments before living beings. These accidents told them what they must expect when the outer lines of defence had given way, and the Sirian fleets were free to come and shell them in their homes. It was with a sickly sensation of an unknown horror that they gazed night after night at the far-off defenders of their homes, still keeping up a losing contest on the rocky deserts of the moon.
At last it was announced that the third line of defence had given way, and but one fleet interposed between London and the victorious hosts of Kairet. Some days were passed in suspense and anxiety, and then, in the middle of the night, long flashes of fire some miles from the surface of the earth announced that the fourth and last line of defence was being attacked. Hither and thither the flashes and streams of fire darted across the sky, now overhead, now low down on the horizon, but never ceasing for a moment. Not a sound came from the battle area; its progress could only be ascertained by observing the movements of the lines of fire. Sometimes the ships were so crowded together in one spot that the sky was illuminated by a frightful glare; then they would spread out, darting their lights all over the heavens. Soon the refuse of battle began to fall down on to the earth: mangled bodies, burnt wrecks, and clouds of thin hazy smoke. When daylight arrived the ships were invisible, but the horrid rain still fell. Night came on, and the long luminous streaks made by the searchlights and the flashes of white and purple flame from the guns reappeared. Huge battleships came dashing along glowing like meteors, singly, in lines, in columns. These were met by other lines of light, and then the surrounding space scintillated like a fine display of fireworks, and in a few minutes the rain of battle came pouring down on to the terrified spectators.
Days and nights passed by, and the fighting still continued without intermission. Sometimes the contending fleets came down into the air, and then the earth re-echoed with the terrific roar of combat. The huge battleships could then be seen quite plainly moving hither and thither, with their flags waving in the breeze and a few sailors like little black ants clustering along the bulwarks of the upper-deck. Sometimes terrific combats took place within a few hundred yards of the surface of the earth, and the air was rent by the thunder of the guns, the explosion of torpedoes, and the clashing together of the waves of Ednogen, while all surrounding objects were obscured by clouds of vapour. Then the victors would dash away and leave the ground beneath strewn with dead bodies, heaps of mangled frameworks, and metal sheathing half buried in the ground. But the Sirians had to pay dearly for their success; numbers of their finest war-ships were strewn about on the violated Anglo-Saxon soil.
A continual stream of half-wrecked monsters was descending from the battle area and making for the various dockyards. Huge first-class battleships with yawning rents in their sides and riddled by shot, with hardly a quarter of their crews left, could only just reach a place of safety. Their outsides bore the ghastly traces of the terrible contest. The twisted metalwork was covered with blood, human bodies were lying about in the pierced compartments torn almost to ribbons, and arms, legs, and headless trunks were squashed between bent metal plates and rods, or rammed up between the machinery. Other war-ships staggered along with great pieces shot off the bows or stern, and a whole side blown completely away. A few that came were mere heaps of battered metal, with only a few men left alive. A few heroic men brought back the shattered remains of their torpedo-boats with no other living man on board and not an ounce of ammunition or a torpedo left. The ships of Kairet could bear witness of the mischief the latter had done.
But the final act of the great drama was fast approaching. The Anglo-Saxon fleet, again heavily outnumbered by the Sirians, was rapidly dwindling down on account of the number of vessels that had either been destroyed or sent to the docks for repairs. The rest of the fleet was engaged with a detachment of the Sirians, while the main body of the latter, under the eye of the Admiral-in-Chief, began to mass itself over London. Although invisible to the eye, the government was soon informed of this concentration by their indicators. No one now had any doubt as to what was to follow. The hostile fleets might begin at any moment to rain their deadly showers on to the capital of the Anglo-Saxon Empire.
The whole of England was a scene of frightful panic. Crowds of people left London and the other great cities in the hope of finding shelter from the deadly hail in disused coal-mines or in caves in the mountains. Others preferred to remain by their possessions and dare the approach of death. But in the midst of all the confusion the dockyards continued to build more ships and manufacture fresh supplies of shot and explosives.
It was not long before the storm burst over the devoted city. One night the sky above London was quite bright from the flashing of innumerable searchlights, and the dark forms of battleships covered it in every direction. Then, about midnight, there was a blinding flash of light high up in the sky, followed by a terrific roar. It was the signal from the Admiral for the bombardment to begin. A moment afterwards flames darted from the sides of a hundred ships, followed by roar after roar. The air shook with the reverberation. A moment afterwards the metal shower came crashing down on to the city. Torpedoes, shell, and shot fell down in an increasing stream. Houses were dashed to pieces, towers staggered and were overturned, domes were pierced and battered down. Huge blocks of granite were wrenched away from their places and thrown down, crashing and breaking everything in their way. Walls tottered and fell; pavements and roads were torn up by the bursting shells. Huge public buildings, churches, hotels, museums, factories, and picturesque rows of private houses were soon reduced to heaps of shapeless stone. Hundreds of thousands of human beings were crushed to death beneath their homes. Clouds of dust and smoke rose into the air and hovered over the city like a funeral pall. The gardens and parks were ploughed up by the shot, and the flowers scorched by the terrible rays of Ednogen; trees were uprooted and torn to pieces. Bridges folded up and fell into the Thames, blocking up its bed with their ruins. And still the deadly hail kept falling, pitiless, irresistible. After two hours there was scarcely a building left untouched.
The guns at the forts returned the fire, but they did little damage on account of the continual movements of the fleets. Waves of Ednogen were sent up into the air and produced vivid flashes of light, but they did not do much harm to the enemy. The apparatus which produced them was soon destroyed by a few well-directed shells, and the guns ceased to fire when the gunners saw that they could do nothing to stop the ruin.
The air soon became so thick with dust and smoke that the hostile fleets had to cease firing for awhile until the light breeze that was blowing had cleared it away. Then they descended much lower, and carefully levelled their guns at every building that was left entire, until it was beaten down to the ground. They fired shells on to the roads, into the parks, the gardens, every spot where the face of the ground had not yet been torn up, until there was not a square yard of flat surface left. Waves of Ednogen ran over the grass, burning it up and setting fire to any woodwork that happened to lie among the ruins, and soon columns of fire and clouds of smoke rose up from what had, but a few hours before, been the fairest and most splendid city of the Universe. When day dawned it was but a shapeless heap of smoking ruins.
There was a slight pause in the destruction after the bombardment of London, while the hostile fleets retired to the transports for fresh supplies of ammunition, and then they divided into small squadrons and bombarded in turn most of the great cities of the earth. But their course of victory was now nearly run, and they were soon to be overtaken by the terrible vengeance of the enemies whom they thought they had conquered. They were already making preparations to land their soldiers from the transports to take possession of the conquests which their fleets had won, when the charm of victory was broken. An obscure Anglo-Saxon scientist had just achieved a discovery that would overtop all those that had already been made in that age of science. This discovery was destined to entirely revolutionize the art of interstellar war.