‘It was fate,’ said Ada. ‘All of this is fate. Do not feel too badly, George. If there is anything that is within your power to do in order that the day be saved, you, I trust, will do it.’
‘By bedtime?’ George asked. Hopefully.
‘That might be asking quite a lot.’
‘There,’ said George, pointing. ‘Two policemen with rifles. Let us slip into the back alleyways and make haste to St Paul’s.’
‘And then?’
‘Somehow end this war,’ said George. ‘Upon my shoulders, so I have been told, rests the future of the planets. I must do what I can to end this war.’
Ada nodded. ‘Yes indeed.’
‘And,’ George added thoughtfully, ‘war. What is it good for?’
‘Absolutely nothing,’ said Ada Fox.
Evening was coming, borne, it so appeared, on summer winds. The great dome of St Paul’s darkened with the setting of the sun. George and Ada edged their ways down alleys whose grim impoverishments had guided the pen of Gustave Doré. Here was a London never viewed by tourists. A dark forbidding place of crime, poverty and hopelessness.
A more cynical George might have reasoned that areas such as this would do well to be destroyed by fire-breathing spaceships. That they might be destroyed and forgotten. New housing built to home the poor in a manner more humane.
But such thoughts never entered this George’s head. All was precious to him now. London, rich or poor, life and, above all, Ada.
‘Look,’ whispered Ada. ‘Above St Paul’s – the stolen Lemurian airship still remains.’
‘Then perhaps we will succeed.’
But sounds of distant cannons reached their ears. Cannon fire and then explosions slowly drawing nearer.
‘Whatever we can do,’ said George, ‘it would be best that we do it now.’
Magonian cloud-ships hung in the sky above Penge. Sunset tinting diaphanous sails. Glinting in the golden eyes of sky-sailors. Languid fingers, frail as twigs, toyed at weird controls. Sparkling spheres descended to the village far below.
A gout of flame, an awesome force and Penge in but a moment was gone from England’s soil.
The red soil of Mars was blistered and black. Settlers from Earth dead or dying. Space pigeon post carried orders and Jovian battle craft arose from moons and turned their prows towards the planet of blue.
And in the midst of the bluest of seas a mighty volcano erupted. Not from lava came this fearful shock, but through weapons of monstrous design. The work of alien tentacles. And Martian ships of aerial war rose up into the heavens. Engines of ghastly destruction, these, they swung in the sky and set a course for London.
43
Speaking tubes whistled in the war room bunker and Mr Churchill held one to each ear. He passed on messages to General Darwin, the ape he’d commissioned to aid him throughout the campaign, by sticking coloured flags into the big war-board map on the big war-room table.
The elderly generals in their exaggerated uniforms grumbled and mumbled to each other. They were ‘Old Contemptibles’ all, veterans of many a map-sticking campaign. So this was the much vaunted ‘progress’ that they had been hearing about, was it? Usurped from their map-sticking pinnacles of power by a damned monkey!
The damned monkey in question, now being a monkey of not only high social standing but military rank, took immediate offence to the mumblings and grumblings against him. But not being gifted with the powers of verbalisation, he vocalised his contempt through the medium of dung.
A response perhaps somewhat overused of late, but one which nevertheless always got its point across.
‘General Darwin,’ called Mr Winston Churchill. ‘When you are done with that, would you please wash your hands and stick a very large blue flag to the south of the Croydon Aerodrome?’
General Darwin saluted and went to the washroom.
To the south of Croydon Aerodrome a bloated copper-coloured craft wallowed in the sky. It had dropped down towards Croydon at a most alarming speed, red and glowing as it parted from space to enter the atmosphere. Like a flaming meteor it fell to the Earth. Then it put on its air brakes, swerved and drew up short.
The craft was, by nothing more than coincidence, the precise length that the Crystal Palace had so recently been. And there were similarities in shape also, as this craft was not only fast, but it was bulbous too. Waves of energy flowed from its propulsion system, superheating the air about the ship of space to create the effect of a shimmering mirage.
The orders Mr Churchill had delivered via the speaking tube system, to the gunners in their turrets all about the aerodrome, differed in no way from the orders he had delivered to every gunner at every other location.
‘When the enemy comes within range, fire at will.’
The Croydon battery opened up into the evening sky. Rapier blades of searing force slashed at the Jovian warship.
But the hull was tempered to resist the heat of atmospheric entry and these beams did little to trouble the swollen craft.
But now a klaxon call rang out across the aerodrome. The amplified voice of an adjutant called, ‘Scramble, chaps, and chocks away.’ Captain Bigglesworth, who had not gone down with his ship, the Empress of Mars, was squadron leader of the armoured airship company stationed at Croydon. He marched across the cobbled airstrip, meerschaum pipe firmly clenched between fine white teeth. Silk scarf of similar whiteness all a-flap about his neck. One of those new leather flying jackets with the high sheepskin collar, adding that little extra sleek sartorial something that might not have already been amply catered for by his abundant handlebar moustache, black leather flying helmet and exclusively customised brass flying goggles, courtesy of Dogfish, Marmaduke and Gilstrap, goggle-makers to the gentry.
‘Pip pip, chaps,’ called Captain Bigglesworth, adopting the new and singular patois of the Flying Service. ‘Bandits at five o’clock and it’s half past seven now, some giraffe, some neck, doncha know.’
The gunners in their turrets lashed the alien craft with fire. The Jovians retaliated, slender missiles seeking out their targets. Captain Bigglesworth and his company of airmen took to the sky and engaged the enemy in combat.
That enemy of honesty, that fiend in human form, Professor Coffin paced before the statue. The golden Goddess so beautiful and perfect to behold seemed now to be so very sad of face. Professor Coffin glanced up at the wonderful visage. Was that actually a tear that had formed at the corner of an emerald eye? Surely not. A mere trick of the light, nothing more.
Professor Coffin paced further and muttered to himself. It really had not occurred to him that either the ecclesiastics of Venus or the burghers of Jupiter would actually go so far as to declare war against the Earth. He had seen himself touring planets with the statue. Achieving vast celebrity upon each world he visited. Receiving medals of distinction. Being feted by off-world royalty. Being entertained by glamorous concubines. An interplanetary war was, to say the least, a tiresome inconvenience.
But then Professor Coffin gave himself up to optimistic thinking. If the British Empire triumphed in this war, as they had indeed triumphed in the last one, the Empire would extend itself to the populated worlds. Their peoples, now conquered and wholly compliant, would shell out their entrance fees. There would still be fortunes to be made.
‘Things will be for the best,’ said Professor Coffin. ‘Things will be for the best.’
‘Best foot forward, chaps. Do the hokey-cokey and poke my ailing aunty with a mushroom on a stick,’ cried Captain Bigglesworth, as there were still many wrinkles to be ironed out in the new patois of the Flying Service.
‘Strafe those Jovian bounders,’ he continued. Which was near enough.
The Croydon squadron were not, however, making any particular impact upon the Jovian man-o’-war. Sleek missiles streaked from its rotund underbelly, striking home at an English airship and dropping it to the ground. The Jovian craft seemed all but invulnerable and Captain Bigglesworth was about to order a strategic
withdrawal when help arrived from a most unexpected quarter.
A Magonian cloud-ship of the Venusian strike force skimmed overhead, its masts draping vapour trails across the evening sky.
Crystal spheres discharged on the Jovian man-o’-war. A mighty explosion, blinding white, dazzled the heavens above.
‘Bravo, old chap,’ cried Captain Bigglesworth. ‘A friend in need is a friend in need and all that kind of turkey muffin guff.’
Crystal spheres now swept in his direction.
Captain Bigglesworth swung the ship’s wheel and took to evasive action.
Evasive action was a tactic quite unknown to Martians. These lately risen Lemurian fighters knew neither fear nor concept of surrender. Their aircraft, heavily armed and crowded to the bulwarks with warriors anxious only for battle, the utter destruction of their enemies and the return of their sacred statue, streaked over San Francisco and continued at improbable speed towards London.
And in London, George and Ada reached St Paul’s. The sky above was night dark now, the dome a silhouette of deeper black upon it. Above the dome and tethered by a cable hung the Lemurian airship, twin to those that swept across America.
Before the great cathedral doors, George halted. Once more he took Ada in his arms.
‘Know only this,’ he said to her. ‘Whatever happens next to me, never forget how much I love you.’
‘That sounds like a fond farewell,’ said Ada.
‘Well,’ said George, ‘we must part company here. I must face Professor Coffin alone.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Ada. ‘And why might that be?’
‘Because of the danger,’ said George.
‘Oh,’ said Ada. ‘And I am a stranger to danger, I suppose? A helpless little woman who must fret while her big brave man deals with the wicked villain?’
George looked down at Ada Fox. ‘Well, it was worth a try,’ said he, ‘but I did not for one moment expect it to work. Come quietly with me now then and we will see what we can do.’
General Darwin, doing things that he should not be doing with red flags, was called to some attention by young Winston.
‘Darwin, my dear fellow,’ he said to the monkey. ‘There is a war on, you know, and your assistance would be valued at this time.’
Darwin bared his teeth and bounced and gestured at the map.
‘Ah, I see,’ said Mr Churchill. ‘You are trying to tell me something. What is it, boy, a small child trapped down a well? A party of Abyssinians locked in a water closet?’
General Darwin rolled his eyes and then renewed his gestures.
The elderly generals who had been deprived of their map-pinning duties were clustered all about the big map spread across the big map table. Winston rose from his comfortable chair and elbowed several aside.
General Darwin spread his arms above the flag-stuck map.
‘Ah,’ said Mr Winston Churchill, drawing deeply upon his cigar and releasing a great gale of smoke to envelop all and sundry. ‘I see your cause for concern, my dear Darwin. London, it would appear, is completely surrounded.’
And it was as true as a terrible truth could be. Yellow flags signifying Venusian forces arced to the south and the east. Blue-flagged areas to the west and north displayed the air forces of Jupiter.
‘A pretty pickle,’ said Mr Winston Churchill, ‘but not, I feel, a desperate circumstance. As our American cousins would have it, it will shortly be like “shooting fish in a barrel”.’
And these were no idle words upon the part of the great militarist. For dug-in close to the capital’s heart were many fortifications. And these armed with modified weaponry of a most fantastic nature. The work of Mr Charles Babbage and Mr Nikola Tesla.
Electrical weaponry, this, involving many valves and capacitors. And many great ‘power-up’ levers that had to be swung into place using both hands, which gave life to much electrical crackling between steel balls high upon towers of pale ceramic insulators. Operators in special goggles of greenly darkened glass threw the ‘power-up’ levers, marvelling at the cracklings of electrical force. Others peered through telescopic sights, which offered night-time vision via the medium of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter transperambulation.
A Jovian warship moved silently above the Thames, coming from the direction of Kew. A fine hunter’s moon shone down on its globulous upper parts. The Thames reflected moonbeams to its armoured underbelly.
Its captain might have taken in the sudden flashings ahead. Taken them to be some vehicle moving over the Hammersmith Bridge. But before the misinterpretation of those flashings could be reinterpreted into the positive threat that they truly represented, it was all too late.
The new electric street lighting of Hammersmith dimmed as colossal fistfuls of power were sucked from the grid and hurled with devastating force from Mr Tesla’s futuristic weapons.
The Jovian spaceship, girdled in blue flame, reared like some startled, swollen creature stung by a deadly insect. It circled, rolled, turned its bloated belly to the heavens and plunged into the Thames.
The water foamed, bubbled and boiled. The Jovian ship exploded.
A mighty cheer rose up from those upon the Hammersmith Bridge.
A mighty cheer and a great, ‘God save the Queen.’
And the Queen was being blessed now in many parts of London. The electric guns spat bolts of man-made lightning to the sky. Striking home on many an alien spacecraft.
Magonian cloud-ships withered and crumpled. Folded in upon themselves and died. Venusian commanders, appalled by this turn of events, cast aside their tranquil mien, bawled furious orders to retreat and drew their ships on high and out of range.
From there to drop their crystal spheres with terrible effect.
On Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush the crystal spheres rained down. An eight o’ clock performance by Little Tich at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire was rudely interrupted by the building’s utter destruction. And the award-winning architectural triumph that was the gentlemen’s lavatory on the green – a favourite haunt of Mr Oscar Wilde when The Importance of Being Earnest was playing at the Empire – became nothing but the fondest of memories.
Gentlemen of the West London Fire Brigade stoked up the fireboxes of their steam-driven tenders. It was likely to be a very long night.
Firemen offered up their prayers and donned their great big helmets.
The dome of St Paul’s, a helmet of faith perhaps, was now being lit sporadically by flashes of flame. Explosions on high and roaring fires below. The chaos of war was drawing nearer to the great cathedral. Beyond the stained-glass windows, sheets of artificial lightning, hurled from Mr Tesla’s guns, fragmented the sky and challenged the light of the moon.
Within the inner temple, Professor Coffin, all alone, was very hard at work. He had removed the canvas awning that covered this blasphemous showman’s booth and he was high on a gantry dismantling the scaffolding, cursing as he did so to himself.
‘Damned fools!’ he cried, and loudly too. ‘All of them, stupid damn fools. Fear not, my lovely,’ he called to the statue. ‘I will save you from harm. We’ll make away from here in haste and head to safer parts.’
‘No,’ came the voice of George Fox, firmly. ‘That you will never do.’
Professor Coffin turned to view the young man on the gantry.
‘George,’ he said. ‘Well, this is some surprise.’
‘Yes.’ George nodded. ‘It must be, as you sent my wife and I to our deaths.’
‘There must be some misunderstanding, my boy.’ Professor Coffin danced a little. ‘I merely wished for those fellows to lock you away for a couple of days. Where are they, by the by?’
‘Both dead,’ said George. A-smiling as he said it.
‘Ah.’ Professor Coffin nodded. ‘That is most unfortunate. ’
‘For you certainly,’ said George. ‘London is under attack. People are dying and it is your fault. I will offer you a choice that you do not deserve. Leave the cathedral now, alone, walk away and I w
ill make no attempt to stop you.’
‘Or?’ asked the professor. ‘I am intrigued.’
‘You have committed a crime so heinous,’ said George, ‘that there can only be one just punishment for you. Resist me and attempt to steal the statue once more and I swear that I will kill you where you stand.’
‘Kill me!’ Professor Coffin made flamboyant gestures. ‘Such bluff and bluster, young man. You have not the stomach for such gruesome stuff. You are but a boastful boy.’