1
It was only very slowly that Bert got hold of this idea that the whole world was at war, that he formed any image at all of the crowded countries south of these Arctic solitudes1 stricken with terror and dismay as these new-born aerial navies swept across their skies. He was not used to thinking of the world as a whole, but as a limitless hinterland of happenings beyond the range of his immediate2 vision. War in his imagination was something, a source of news and emotion, that happened in a restricted area, called the Seat of War. But now the whole atmosphere was the Seat of War, and every land a cockpit. So closely had the nations raced along the path of research and invention, so secret and yet so parallel had been their plans and acquisitions, that it was within a few hours of the launching of the first fleet in Franconia that an Asiatic Armada beat its west-ward way across, high above the marvelling3 millions in the plain of the Ganges. But the preparations of the Confederation of Eastern Asia had been on an altogether more colossal4 scale than the German. "With this step," said Tan Ting-siang, "we overtake and pass the West. We recover the peace of the world that these barbarians5 have destroyed."
Their secrecy6 and swiftness and inventions had far surpassed those of the Germans, and where the Germans had had a hundred men at work the Asiatics had ten thousand. There came to their great aeronautic7 parks at Chinsi-fu and Tsingyen by the mono-rails that now laced the whole surface of China a limitless supply of skilled and able workmen, workmen far above the average European in industrial efficiency. The news of the German World Surprise simply quickened their efforts. At the time of the bombardment of New York it is doubtful if the Germans had three hundred airships all together in the world; the score of Asiatic fleets flying east and west and south must have numbered several thousand. Moreover the Asiatics had a real fighting flying-machine, the Niais as they were called, a light but quite efficient weapon, infinitely8 superior to the German drachenflieger. Like that, it was a one-man machine, but it was built very lightly of steel and cane9 and chemical silk, with a transverse engine, and a flapping sidewing. The aeronaut carried a gun firing explosive bullets loaded with oxygen, and in addition, and true to the best tradition of Japan, a sword. Mostly they were Japanese, and it is characteristic that from the first it was contemplated10 that the aeronaut should be a swordsman. The wings of these flyers had bat-like hooks forward, by which they were to cling to their antagonist11's gas-chambers12 while boarding him. These light flying-machines were carried with the fleets, and also sent overland or by sea to the front with the men. They were capable of flights of from two to five hundred miles according to the wind.
So, hard upon the uprush of the first German air-fleet, these Asiatic swarms13 took to the atmosphere. Instantly every organised Government in the world was frantically15 and vehemently17 building airships and whatever approach to a flying machine its inventors' had discovered. There was no time for diplomacy18. Warnings and ultimatums19 were telegraphed to and fro, and in a few hours all the panic-fierce world was openly at war, and at war in the most complicated way. For Britain and France and Italy had declared war upon Germany and outraged20 Swiss neutrality; India, at the sight of Asiatic airships, had broken into a Hindoo insurrection in Bengal and a Mohametan revolt hostile to this in the North-west Provinces--the latter spreading like wildfire from Gobi to the Gold Coast--and the Confederation of Eastern Asia had seized the oil wells of Burmha and was impartially21 attacking America and Germany. In a week they were building airships in Damascus and Cairo and Johannesburg; Australia and New Zealand were frantically equipping themselves. One unique and terrifying aspect of this development was the swiftness with which these monsters could be produced. To build an ironclad took from two to four years; an airship could be put together in as many weeks. Moreover, compared with even a torpedo22 boat, the airship was remarkably23 simple to construct, given the air-chamber material, the engines, the gas plant, and the design, it was really not more complicated and far easier than an ordinary wooden boat had been a hundred years before. And now from Cape25 Horn to Nova Zembla, and from Canton round to Canton again, there were factories and workshops and industrial resources.
And the German airships were barely in sight of the Atlantic waters, the first Asiatic fleet was scarcely reported from Upper Burmah, before the fantastic fabric26 of credit and finance that had held the world together economically for a hundred years strained and snapped. A tornado27 of realisation swept through every stock exchange in the world; banks stopped payment, business shrank and ceased, factories ran on for a day or so by a sort of inertia28, completing the orders of bankrupt and extinguished customers, then stopped. The New York Bert Smallways saw, for all its glare of light and traffic, was in the pit of an economic and financial collapse29 unparalleled in history. The flow of the food supply was already a little checked. And before the world-war had lasted two weeks--by the time, that is, that mast was rigged in Labrador--there was not a city or town in the world outside China, however far from the actual centres of destruction, where police and government were not adopting special emergency methods to deal with a want of food and a glut30 of unemployed31 people.
The special peculiarities32 of aerial warfare33 were of such a nature as to trend, once it had begun, almost inevitably34 towards social disorganisation. The first of these peculiarities was brought home to the Germans in their attack upon New York; the immense power of destruction an airship has over the thing below, and its relative inability to occupy or police or guard or garrison36 a surrendered position. Necessarily, in the face of urban populations in a state of economic disorganisation and infuriated and starving, this led to violent and destructive collisions, and even where the air-fleet floated inactive above, there would be civil conflict and passionate37 disorder38 below. Nothing comparable to this state of affairs had been known in the previous history of warfare, unless we take such a case as that of a nineteenth century warship39 attacking some large savage40 or barbaric settlement, or one of those naval41 bombardments that disfigure the history of Great Britain in the late eighteenth century. Then, indeed, there had been cruelties and destruction that faintly foreshadowed the horrors of the aerial war. Moreover, before the twentieth century the world had had but one experience, and that a comparatively light one, in the Communist insurrection of Paris, 1871, of the possibilities of a modern urban population under warlike stresses.
A second peculiarity42 of airship war as it first came to the world that also made for social collapse, was the ineffectiveness of the early air-ships against each other. Upon anything below they could rain explosives in the most deadly fashion, forts and ships and cities lay at their mercy, but unless they were prepared for a suicidal grapple they could do remarkably little mischief43 to each other. The armament of the huge German airships, big as the biggest mammoth44 liners afloat, was one machine gun that could easily have been packed up on a couple of mules45. In addition, when it became evident that the air must be fought for, the air-sailors were provided with rifles with explosive bullets of oxygen or inflammable substance, but no airship at any time ever carried as much in the way of guns and armour46 as the smallest gunboat on the navy list had been accustomed to do. Consequently, when these monsters met in battle, they manoeuvred for the upper place, or grappled and fought like junks, throwing grenades fighting hand to hand in an entirely47 medieval fashion. The risks of a collapse and fall on either side came near to balancing in every case the chances of victory. As a consequence, and after their first experiences of battle, one finds a growing tendency on the part of the air-fleet admirals to evade48 joining battle, and to seek rather the moral advantage of a destructive counter attack.
And if the airships were too ineffective, the early drachenflieger were either too unstable49, like the German, or too light, like the Japanese, to produce immediately decisive results. Later, it is true, the Brazilians launched a flying-machine of a type and scale that was capable of dealing50 with an airship, but they built only three or four, they operated only in South America, and they vanished from history untraceably in the time when world-bankruptcy put a stop to all further engineering production on any considerable scale.
The third peculiarity of aerial warfare was that it was at once enormously destructive and entirely indecisive. It had this unique feature, that both sides lay open to punitive51 attack. In all previous forms of war, both by land and sea, the losing side was speedily unable to raid its antagonist's territory and the communications. One fought on a "front," and behind that front the winner's supplies and resources, his towns and factories and capital, the peace of his country, were secure. If the war was a naval one, you destroyed your enemy's battle fleet and then blockaded his ports, secured his coaling stations, and hunted down any stray cruisers that threatened your ports of commerce. But to blockade and watch a coastline is one thing, to blockade and watch the whole surface of a country is another, and cruisers and privateers are things that take long to make, that cannot be packed up and hidden and carried unostentatiously from point to point. In aerial war the stronger side, even supposing it destroyed the main battle fleet of the weaker, had then either to patrol and watch or destroy every possible point at which he might produce another and perhaps a novel and more deadly form of flyer. It meant darkening his air with airships. It meant building them by the thousand and making aeronauts by the hundred thousand. A small uninitated airship could be hidden in a railway shed, in a village street, in a wood; a flying machine is even less conspicuous52.
And in the air are no streets, no channels, no point where one can say of an antagonist, "If he wants to reach my capital he must come by here." In the air all directions lead everywhere.
Consequently it was impossible to end a war by any of the established methods. A, having outnumbered and overwhelmed B, hovers53, a thousand airships strong, over his capital, threatening to bombard it unless B submits. B replies by wireless54 telegraphy that he is now in the act of bombarding the chief manufacturing city of A by means of three raider airships. A denounces B's raiders as pirates and so forth55, bombards B's capital, and sets off to hunt down B's airships, while B, in a state of passionate emotion and heroic unconquerableness, sets to work amidst his ruins, making fresh airships and explosives for the benefit of A. The war became perforce a universal guerilla war, a war inextricably involving civilians56 and homes and all the apparatus57 of social life.
These aspects of aerial fighting took the world by surprise. There had been no foresight58 to deduce these consequences. If there had been, the world would have arranged for a Universal Peace Conference in 1900. But mechanical invention had gone faster than intellectual and social organisation35, and the world, with its silly old flags, its silly unmeaning tradition of nationality, its cheap newspapers and cheaper passions and imperialisms, its base commercial motives59 and habitual60 insincerities and vulgarities, its race lies and conflicts, was taken by surprise. Once the war began there was no stopping it. The flimsy fabric of credit that had grown with no man foreseeing, and that had held those hundreds of millions in an economic interdependence that no man clearly understood, dissolved in panic. Everywhere went the airships dropping bombs, destroying any hope of a rally, and everywhere below were economic catastrophe61, starving workless people, rioting, and social disorder. Whatever constructive62 guiding intelligence there had been among the nations vanished in the passionate stresses of the time. Such newspapers and documents and histories as survive from this period all tell one universal story of towns and cities with the food supply interrupted and their streets congested with starving unemployed; of crises in administration and states of siege, of provisional Governments and Councils of Defence, and, in the cases of India and Egypt, insurrectionary committees taking charge of the re-arming of the population, of the making of batteries and gun-pits, of the vehement16 manufacture of airships and flying-machines.
One sees these things in glimpses, in illuminated63 moments, as if through a driving reek64 of clouds, going on all over the world. It was the dissolution of an age; it was the collapse of the civilisation65 that had trusted to machinery66, and the instruments of its destruction were machines. But while the collapse of the previous great civilisation, that of Rome, had been a matter of centuries, had been a thing of phase and phase, like the ageing and dying of a man, this, like his killing67 by railway or motor car, was one swift, conclusive68 smashing and an end.
2
The early battles of the aerial war were no doubt determined69 by attempts to realise the old naval maxim70, to ascertain71 the position of the enemy's fleet and to destroy it. There was first the battle of the Bernese Oberland, in which the Italian and French navigables in their flank raid upon the Franconian Park were assailed72 by the Swiss experimental squadron, supported as the day wore on by German airships, and then the encounter of the British Winterhouse-Dunn aeroplanes with three unfortunate Germans.
Then came the Battle of North India, in which the entire Anglo-Indian aeronautic settlement establishment fought for three days against overwhelming odds73, and was dispersed74 and destroyed in detail.
And simultaneously75 with the beginning of that, commenced the momentous76 struggle of the Germans and Asiatics that is usually known as the Battle of Niagara because of the objective of the Asiatic attack. But it passed gradually into a sporadic77 conflict over half a continent. Such German airships as escaped destruction in battle descended78 and surrendered to the Americans, and were re-manned, and in the end it became a series of pitiless and heroic encounters between the Americans, savagely79 resolved to exterminate80 their enemies, and a continually reinforced army of invasion from Asia quartered upon the Pacific slope and supported by an immense fleet. From the first the war in America was fought with implacable bitterness; no quarter was asked, no prisoners were taken. With ferocious81 and magnificent energy the Americans constructed and launched ship after ship to battle and perish against the Asiatic multitudes. All other affairs were subordinate to this war, the whole population was presently living or dying for it. Presently, as I shall tell, the white men found in the Butteridge machine a weapon that could meet and fight the flying-machines of the Asiatic swordsman.
The Asiatic invasion of America completely effaced82 the German-American conflict. It vanishes from history. At first it had seemed to promise quite sufficient tragedy in itself--beginning as it did in unforgettable massacre83. After the destruction of central New York all America had risen like one man, resolved to die a thousand deaths rather than submit to Germany. The Germans grimly resolved upon beating the Americans into submission84 and, following out the plans developed by the Prince, had seized Niagara--in order to avail themselves of its enormous powerworks; expelled all its inhabitants and made a desert of its environs as far as Buffalo85. They had also, directly Great Britain and France declare war, wrecked86 the country upon the Canadian side for nearly ten miles inland. They began to bring up men and material from the fleet off the east coast, stringing out to and fro like bees getting honey. It was then that the Asiatic forces appeared, and it was in their attack upon this German base at Niagara that the air-fleets of East and West first met and the greater issue became clear.
One conspicuous peculiarity of the early aerial fighting arose from the profound secrecy with which the airships had been prepared. Each power had had but the dimmest inkling of the schemes of its rivals, and even experiments with its own devices were limited by the needs of secrecy. None of the designers of airships and aeroplanes had known clearly what their inventions might have to fight; many had not imagined they would have to fight anything whatever in the air; and had planned them only for the dropping of explosives. Such had been the German idea. The only weapon for fighting another airship with which the Franconian fleet had been provided was the machine gun forward. Only after the fight over New York were the men given short rifles with detonating bullets. Theoretically, the drachenflieger were to have been the fighting weapon. They were declared to be aerial torpedo-boats, and the aeronaut was supposed to swoop87 close to his antagonist and cast his bombs as he whirled past. But indeed these contrivances were hopelessly unstable; not one-third in any engagement succeeded in getting back to the mother airship. The rest were either smashed up or grounded.
The allied88 Chino-Japanese fleet made the same distinction as the Germans between airships and fighting machines heavier than air, but the type in both cases was entirely different from the occidental models, and--it is eloquent89 of the vigour90 with which these great peoples took up and bettered the European methods of scientific research in almost every particular the invention of Asiatic engineers. Chief among these, it is worth remarking, was Mohini K. Chatterjee, a political exile who had formerly91 served in the British-Indian aeronautic park at Lahore.
The German airship was fish-shaped, with a blunted head; the Asiatic airship was also fish-shaped, but not so much on the lines of a cod92 or goby as of a ray or sole. It had a wide, flat underside, unbroken by windows or any opening except along the middle line. Its cabins occupied its axis93, with a sort of bridge deck above, and the gas-chambers gave the whole affair the shape of a gipsy's hooped94 tent, except that it was much flatter. The German airship was essentially95 a navigable balloon very much lighter96 than air; the Asiatic airship was very little lighter than air and skimmed through it with much greater velocity97 if with considerably98 less stability. They carried fore24 and aft guns, the latter much the larger, throwing inflammatory shells, and in addition they had nests for riflemen on both the upper and the under side. Light as this armament was in comparison with the smallest gunboat that ever sailed, it was sufficient for them to outfight as well as outfly the German monster airships. In action they flew to get behind or over the Germans: they even dashed underneath99, avoiding only passing immediately beneath the magazine, and then as soon as they had crossed let fly with their rear gun, and sent flares101 or oxygen shells into the antagonist's gas-chambers.
It was not in their airships, but, as I have said, in their flying-machines proper, that the strength of the Asiatics lay. Next only to the Butteridge machine, these were certainly the most efficient heavier-than-air fliers that had ever appeared. They were the invention of a Japanese artist, and they differed in type extremely from the box-kite quality of the German drachenflieger. They had curiously102 curved, flexible side wings, more like BENT103 butterfly's wings than anything else, and made of a substance like celluloid and of brightly painted silk, and they had a long humming-bird tail. At the forward corner of the wings were hooks, rather like the claws of a bat, by which the machine could catch and hang and tear at the walls of an airship's gas-chamber. The solitary104 rider sat between the wings above a transverse explosive engine, an explosive engine that differed in no essential particular from those in use in the light motor bicycles of the period. Below was a single large wheel. The rider sat astride of a saddle, as in the Butteridge machine, and he carried a large double-edged two-handed sword, in addition to his explosive-bullet firing rifle.
3
One sets down these particulars and compares the points of the American and German pattern of aeroplane and navigable, but none of these facts were clearly known to any of those who fought in this monstrously105 confused battle above the American great lakes.
Each side went into action against it knew not what, under novel conditions and with apparatus that even without hostile attacks was capable of producing the most disconcerting surprises. Schemes of action, attempts at collective manoeuvring necessarily went to pieces directly the fight began, just as they did in almost all the early ironclad battles of the previous century. Each captain then had to fall back upon individual action and his own devices; one would see triumph in what another read as a cue for flight and despair. It is as true of the Battle of Niagara as of the Battle of Lissa that it was not a battle but a bundle of "battlettes"!
To such a spectator as Bert it presented itself as a series of incidents, some immense, some trivial, but collectively incoherent. He never had a sense of any plain issue joined, of any point struggled for and won or lost. He saw tremendous things happen and in the end his world darkened to disaster and ruin.
He saw the battle from the ground, from Prospect107 Park and from Goat Island, whither he fled.
But the manner in which he came to be on the ground needs explaining.
The Prince had resumed command of his fleet through wireless telegraphy long before the Zeppelin had located his encampment in Labrador. By his direction the German air-fleet, whose advance scouts108 had been in contact with the Japanese over the Rocky Mountains, had concentrated upon Niagara and awaited his arrival. He had rejoined his command early in the morning of the twelfth, and Bert had his first prospect of the Gorge109 of Niagara while he was doing net drill outside the middle gas-chamber at sunrise. The Zeppelin was flying very high at the time, and far below he saw the water in the gorge marbled with froth and then away to the west the great crescent of the Canadian Fall shining, flickering110 and foaming111 in the level sunlight and sending up a deep, incessant112 thudding rumble113 to the sky. The air-fleet was keeping station in an enormous crescent, with its horns pointing south-westward, a long array of shining monsters with tails rotating slowly and German ensigns now trailing from their bellies114 aft of their Marconi pendants.
Niagara city was still largely standing115 then, albeit116 its streets were empty of all life. Its bridges were intact; its hotels and restaurants still flying flags and inviting117 sky signs; its power-stations running. But about it the country on both sides of the gorge might have been swept by a colossal broom. Everything that could possibly give cover to an attack upon the German position at Niagara had been levelled as ruthlessly as machinery and explosives could contrive118; houses blown up and burnt, woods burnt, fences and crops destroyed. The mono-rails had been torn up, and the roads in particular cleared of all possibility of concealment120 or shelter. Seen from above, the effect of this wreckage121 was grotesque122. Young woods had been destroyed whole-sale by dragging wires, and the spoilt saplings, smashed or uprooted123, lay in swathes like corn after the sickle124. Houses had an appearance of being flattened125 down by the pressure of a gigantic finger. Much burning was still going on, and large areas had been reduced to patches of smouldering and sometimes still glowing blackness.
Here and there lay the debris126 of belated fugitives127, carts, and dead bodies of horses and men; and where houses had had water-supplies there were pools of water and running springs from the ruptured128 pipes. In unscorched fields horses and cattle still fed peacefully. Beyond this desolated129 area the countryside was still standing, but almost all the people had fled. Buffalo was on fire to an enormous extent, and there were no signs of any efforts to grapple with the flames. Niagara city itself was being rapidly converted to the needs of a military depot130. A large number of skilled engineers had already been brought from the fleet and were busily at work adapting the exterior131 industrial apparatus of the place to the purposes of an aeronautic park. They had made a gas recharging station at the corner of the American Fall above the funicular railway, and they were, opening up a much larger area to the south for the same purpose. Over the power-houses and hotels and suchlike prominent or important points the German flag was flying.
The Zeppelin circled slowly over this scene twice while the Prince surveyed it from the swinging gallery; it then rose towards the centre of the crescent and transferred the Prince and his suite132, Kurt included, to the Hohenzollern, which had been chosen as the flagship during the impending133 battle. They were swung up on a small cable from the forward gallery, and the men of the Zeppelin manned the outer netting as the Prince and his staff left them. The Zeppelin then came about, circled down and grounded in Prospect Park, in order to land the wounded and take aboard explosives; for she had come to Labrador with her magazines empty, it being uncertain what weight she might need to carry. She also replenished134 the hydrogen in one of her forward chambers which had leaked.
Bert was detailed135 as a bearer and helped carry the wounded one by one into the nearest of the large hotels that faced the Canadian shore. The hotel was quite empty except that there were two trained American nurses and a negro porter, and three or four Germans awaiting them. Bert went with the Zeppelin's doctor into the main street of the place, and they broke into a drug shop and obtained various things of which they stood in need. As they returned they found an officer and two men making a rough inventory136 of the available material in the various stores. Except for them the wide, main street of the town was quite deserted137, the people had been given three hours to clear out, and everybody, it seemed, had done so. At one corner a dead man lay against the wall--shot. Two or three dogs were visible up the empty vista138, but towards its river end the passage of a string of mono-rail cars broke the stillness and the silence. They were loaded with hose, and were passing to the trainful of workers who were converting Prospect Park into an airship dock.
Bert pushed a case of medicine balanced on a bicycle taken from an adjacent shop, to the hotel, and then he was sent to load bombs into the Zeppelin magazine, a duty that called for elaborate care. From this job he was presently called off by the captain of the Zeppelin, who sent him with a note to the officer in charge of the Anglo-American Power Company, for the field telephone had still to be adjusted. Bert received his instructions in German, whose meaning he guessed, and saluted139 and took the note, not caring to betray his ignorance of the language. He started off with a bright air of knowing his way and turned a corner or so, and was only beginning to suspect that he did not know where he was going when his attention was recalled to the sky by the report of a gun from the Hohenzollern and celestial140 cheering.
He looked up and found the view obstructed141 by the houses on either side of the street. He hesitated, and then curiosity took him back towards the bank of the river. Here his view was inconvenienced by trees, and it was with a start that he discovered the Zeppelin, which he knew had still a quarter of her magazines to fill, was rising over Goat Island. She had not waited for her complement142 of ammunition143. It occurred to him that he was left behind. He ducked back among the trees and bushes until he felt secure from any after-thought on the part of the Zeppelin's captain. Then his curiosity to see what the German air-fleet faced overcame him, and drew him at last halfway144 across the bridge to Goat Island.
From that point he had nearly a hemisphere of sky and got his first glimpse of the Asiatic airships low in the sky above the glittering tumults145 of the Upper Rapids.
They were far less impressive than the German ships. He could not judge the distance, and they flew edgeways to him, so as to conceal119 the broader aspect of their bulk.
Bert stood there in the middle of the bridge, in a place that most people who knew it remembered as a place populous146 with sightseers and excursionists, and he was the only human being in sight there. Above him, very high in the heavens, the contending air-fleets manoeuvred; below him the river seethed147 like a sluice148 towards the American Fall. He was curiously dressed. His cheap blue serge trousers were thrust into German airship rubber boots, and on his head he wore an aeronaut's white cap that was a trifle too large for him. He thrust that back to reveal his staring little Cockney face, still scarred upon the brow. "Gaw!" he whispered.
He stared. He gesticulated. Once or twice he shouted and applauded.
Then at a certain point terror seized him and he took to his heels in the direction of Goat Island.
4
For a time after they were in sight of each other, neither fleet attempted to engage. The Germans numbered sixty-seven great airships and they maintained the crescent formation at a height of nearly four thousand feet. They kept a distance of about one and a half lengths, so that the horns of the crescent were nearly thirty miles apart. Closely in tow of the airships of the extreme squadrons on either wing were about thirty drachenflieger ready manned, but these were too small and distant for Bert to distinguish.
At first, only what was called the Southern fleet of the Asiatics was visible to him. It consisted of forty airships, carrying all together nearly four hundred one-man flying-machines upon their flanks, and for some time it flew slowly and at a minimum distance of perhaps a dozen miles from the Germans, eastward149 across their front. At first Bert could distinguish only the greater bulks, then he perceived the one-man machines as a multitude of very small objects drifting like motes150 in the sunshine about and beneath the larger shapes.
Bert saw nothing then of the second fleet of the Asiatics, though probably that was coming into sight of the Germans at the time, in the north-west.
The air was very still, the sky almost without a cloud, and the German fleet had risen to an immense height, so that the airships seemed no longer of any considerable size. Both ends of their crescent showed plainly. As they beat southward they passed slowly between Bert and the sunlight, and became black outlines of themselves. The drachenflieger appeared as little flecks151 of black on either wing of this aerial Armada.
The two fleets seemed in no hurry to engage. The Asiatics went far away into the east, quickening their pace and rising as they did so, and then tailed out into a long column and came flying back, rising towards the German left. The squadrons of the latter came about, facing this oblique152 advance, and suddenly little flickerings and a faint crepitating sound told that they had opened fire. For a time no effect was visible to the watcher on the bridge. Then, like a handful of snowflakes, the drachenflieger swooped153 to the attack, and a multitude of red specks154 whirled up to meet them. It was to Bert's sense not only enormously remote but singularly inhuman155. Not four hours since he had been on one of those very airships, and yet they seemed to him now not gas-bags carrying men, but strange sentient156 creatures that moved about and did things with a purpose of their own. The flight of the Asiatic and German flying-machines joined and dropped earthward, became like a handful of white and red rose petals157 flung from a distant window, grew larger, until Bert could see the overturned ones spinning through the air, and were hidden by great volumes of dark smoke that were rising in the direction of Buffalo. For a time they all were hidden, then two or three white and a number of red ones rose again into the sky, like a swarm14 of big butterflies, and circled fighting and drove away out of sight again towards the east.
A heavy report recalled Bert's eyes to the zenith, and behold158, the great crescent had lost its dressing159 and burst into a disorderly long cloud of airships! One had dropped halfway down the sky. It was flaming fore and aft, and even as Bert looked it turned over and fell, spinning over and over itself and vanished into the smoke of Buffalo.
Bert's mouth opened and shut, and he clutched tighter on the rail of the bridge. For some moments--they seemed long moments--the two fleets remained without any further change flying obliquely160 towards each other, and making what came to Bert's ears as a midget uproar161. Then suddenly from either side airships began dropping out of alignment162, smitten163 by missiles he could neither see nor trace. The string of Asiatic ships swung round and either charged into or over (it was difficult to say from below) the shattered line of the Germans, who seemed to open out to give way to them. Some sort of manoeuvring began, but Bert could not grasp its import. The left of the battle became a confused dance of airships. For some minutes up there the two crossing lines of ships looked so close it seemed like a hand-to-hand scuffle in the sky. Then they broke up into groups and duels164. The descent of German air-ships towards the lower sky increased. One of them flared165 down and vanished far away in the north; two dropped with something twisted and crippled in their movements; then a group of antagonists166 came down from the zenith in an eddying167 conflict, two Asiatics against one German, and were presently joined by another, and drove away eastward all together with others dropping out of the German line to join them.
One Asiatic either rammed168 or collided with a still more gigantic German, and the two went spinning to destruction together. The northern squadron of Asiatics came into the battle unnoted by Bert, except that the multitude of ships above seemed presently increased. In a little while the fight was utter confusion, drifting on the whole to the southwest against the wind. It became more and more a series of group encounters. Here a huge German airship flamed earthward with a dozen flat Asiatic craft about her, crushing her every attempt to recover. Here another hung with its screw fighting off the swordsman from a swarm of flying-machines. Here, again, an Asiatic aflame at either end swooped out of the battle. His attention went from incident to incident in the vast clearness overhead; these conspicuous cases of destruction caught and held his mind; it was only very slowly that any sort of scheme manifested itself between those nearer, more striking episodes.
The mass of the airships that eddied169 remotely above was, however, neither destroying nor destroyed. The majority of them seemed to be going at full speed and circling upward for position, exchanging ineffectual shots as they did so. Very little ramming170 was essayed after the first tragic171 downfall of rammer172 and rammed, and what ever attempts at boarding were made were invisible to Bert. There seemed, however, a steady attempt to isolate173 antagonists, to cut them off from their fellows and bear them down, causing a perpetual sailing back and interlacing of these shoaling bulks. The greater numbers of the Asiatics and their swifter heeling movements gave them the effect of persistently174 attacking the Germans. Overhead, and evidently endeavouring to keep itself in touch with the works of Niagara, a body of German airships drew itself together into a compact phalanx, and the Asiatics became more and more intent upon breaking this up. He was grotesquely175 reminded of fish in a fish-pond struggling for crumbs176. He could see puny177 puffs178 of smoke and the flash of bombs, but never a sound came down to him....
A flapping shadow passed for a moment between Bert and the sun and was followed by another. A whirring of engines, click, clock, clitter clock, smote179 upon his ears. Instantly he forgot the zenith.
Perhaps a hundred yards above the water, out of the south, riding like Valkyries swiftly through the air on the strange steeds the engineering of Europe had begotten180 upon the artistic181 inspiration of Japan, came a long string of Asiatic swordsman. The wings flapped jerkily, click, block, clitter clock, and the machines drove up; they spread and ceased, and the apparatus came soaring through the air. So they rose and fell and rose again. They passed so closely overhead that Bert could hear their voices calling to one another. They swooped towards Niagara city and landed one after another in a long line in a clear space before the hotel. But he did not stay to watch them land. One yellow face had craned over and looked at him, and for one enigmatical instant met his eyes....
It was then the idea came to Bert that he was altogether too conspicuous in the middle of the bridge, and that he took to his heels towards Goat Island. Thence, dodging182 about among the trees, with perhaps an excessive self-consciousness, he watched the rest of the struggle.
5
When Bert's sense of security was sufficiently183 restored for him to watch the battle again, he perceived that a brisk little fight was in progress between the Asiatic aeronauts and the German engineers for the possession of Niagara city. It was the first time in the whole course of the war that he had seen anything resembling fighting as he had studied it in the illustrated184 papers of his youth. It seemed to him almost as though things were coming right. He saw men carrying rifles and taking cover and running briskly from point to point in a loose attacking formation. The first batch185 of aeronauts had probably been under the impression that the city was deserted. They had grounded in the open near Prospect Park and approached the houses towards the power-works before they were disillusioned186 by a sudden fire. They had scattered187 back to the cover of a bank near the water--it was too far for them to reach their machines again; they were lying and firing at the men in the hotels and frame-houses about the power-works.
Then to their support came a second string of red flying-machines driving up from the east. They rose up out of the haze188 above the houses and came round in a long curve as if surveying the position below. The fire of the Germans rose to a roar, and one of those soaring shapes gave an abrupt189 jerk backward and fell among the houses. The others swooped down exactly like great birds upon the roof of the power-house. They caught upon it, and from each sprang a nimble little figure and ran towards the parapet.
Other flapping bird-shapes came into this affair, but Bert had not seen their coming. A staccato of shots came over to him, reminding him of army manoeuvres, of newspaper descriptions of fights, of all that was entirely correct in his conception of warfare. He saw quite a number of Germans running from the outlying houses towards the power-house. Two fell. One lay still, but the other wriggled190 and made efforts for a time. The hotel that was used as a hospital, and to which he had helped carry the wounded men from the Zeppelin earlier in the day, suddenly ran up the Geneva flag. The town that had seemed so quiet had evidently been concealing191 a considerable number of Germans, and they were now concentrating to hold the central power-house. He wondered what ammunition they might have. More and more of the Asiatic flying-machines came into the conflict. They had disposed of the unfortunate German drachenflieger and were now aiming at the incipient192 aeronautic park,--the electric gas generators193 and repair stations which formed the German base. Some landed, and their aeronauts took cover and became energetic infantry194 soldiers. Others hovered195 above the fight, their men ever and again firing shots down at some chance exposure below. The firing came in paroxysms; now there would be a watchful196 lull197 and now a rapid tattoo198 of shots, rising to a roar. Once or twice flying machines, as they circled warily199, came right overhead, and for a time Bert gave himself body and soul to cowering200.
Ever and again a larger thunder mingled201 with the rattle202 and reminded him of the grapple of airships far above, but the nearer fight held his attention.
Abruptly203 something dropped from the zenith; something like a barrel or a huge football.
CRASH! It smashed with an immense report. It had fallen among the grounded Asiatic aeroplanes that lay among the turf and flower-beds near the river. They flew in scraps204 and fragments, turf, trees, and gravel205 leapt and fell; the aeronauts still lying along the canal bank were thrown about like sacks, catspaws flew across the foaming water. All the windows of the hotel hospital that had been shiningly reflecting blue sky and airships the moment before became vast black stars. Bang!--a second followed. Bert looked up and was filled with a sense of a number of monstrous106 bodies swooping206 down, coming down on the whole affair like a flight of bellying207 blankets, like a string of vast dish-covers. The central tangle208 of the battle above was circling down as if to come into touch with the power-house fight. He got a new effect of airships altogether, as vast things coming down upon him, growing swiftly larger and larger and more overwhelming, until the houses over the way seemed small, the American rapids narrow, the bridge flimsy, the combatants infinitesimal. As they came down they became audible as a complex of shootings and vast creakings and groanings and beatings and throbbings and shouts and shots. The fore-shortened black eagles at the fore-ends of the Germans had an effect of actual combat of flying feathers.
Some of these fighting airships came within five hundred feet of the ground. Bert could see men on the lower galleries of the Germans, firing rifles; could see Asiatics clinging to the ropes; saw one man in aluminium209 diver's gear fall flashing head-long into the waters above Goat Island. For the first time he saw the Asiatic airships closely. From this aspect they reminded him more than anything else of colossal snowshoes; they had a curious patterning in black and white, in forms that reminded him of the engine-turned cover of a watch. They had no hanging galleries, but from little openings on the middle line peeped out men and the muzzles210 of guns. So, driving in long, descending211 and ascending212 curves, these monsters wrestled213 and fought. It was like clouds fighting, like puddings trying to assassinate214 each other. They whirled and circled about each other, and for a time threw Goat Island and Niagara into a smoky twilight215, through which the sunlight smote in shafts216 and beams. They spread and closed and spread and grappled and drove round over the rapids, and two miles away or more into Canada, and back over the Falls again. A German caught fire, and the whole crowd broke away from her flare100 and rose about her dispersing217, leaving her to drop towards Canada and blow up as she dropped. Then with renewed uproar the others closed again. Once from the men in Niagara city came a sound like an ant-hill cheering. Another German burnt, and one badly deflated218 by the prow219 of an antagonist, flopped220 out of action southward.
It became more and more evident that the Germans were getting the worst of the unequal fight. More and more obviously were they being persecuted221. Less and less did they seem to fight with any object other than escape. The Asiatics swept by them and above them, ripped their bladders, set them alight, picked off their dimly seen men in diving clothes, who struggled against fire and tear with fire extinguishers and silk ribbons in the inner netting. They answered only with ineffectual shots. Thence the battle circled back over Niagara, and then suddenly the Germans, as if at a preconcerted signal, broke and dispersed, going east, west, north, and south, in open and confused flight. The Asiatics, as they realised this, rose to fly above them and after them. Only one little knot of four Germans and perhaps a dozen Asiatics remained fighting about the Hohenzollern and the Prince as he circled in a last attempt to save Niagara.
Round they swooped once again over the Canadian Fall, over the waste of waters eastward, until they were distant and small, and then round and back, hurrying, bounding, swooping towards the one gaping222 spectator.
The whole struggling mass approached very swiftly, growing rapidly larger, and coming out black and featureless against the afternoon sun and above the blinding welter of the Upper Rapids. It grew like a storm cloud until once more it darkened the sky. The flat Asiatic airships kept high above the Germans and behind them, and fired unanswered bullets into their gas-chambers and upon their flanks--the one-man flying-machines hovered and alighted like a swarm of attacking bees. Nearer they came, and nearer, filling the lower heaven. Two of the Germans swooped and rose again, but the Hohenzollern had suffered too much for that. She lifted weakly, turned sharply as if to get out of the battle, burst into flames fore and aft, swept down to the water, splashed into it obliquely, and rolled over and over and came down stream rolling and smashing and writhing223 like a thing alive, halting and then coming on again, with her torn and bent propeller224 still beating the air. The bursting flames spluttered out again in clouds of steam. It was a disaster gigantic in its dimensions. She lay across the rapids like an island, like tall cliffs, tall cliffs that came rolling, smoking, and crumpling225, and collapsing226, advancing with a sort of fluctuating rapidity upon Bert. One Asiatic airship--it looked to Bert from below like three hundred yards of pavement--whirled back and circled two or three times over that great overthrow227, and half a dozen crimson228 flying-machines danced for a moment like great midges in the sunlight before they swept on after their fellows. The rest of the fight had already gone over the island, a wild crescendo229 of shots and yells and smashing uproar. It was hidden from Bert now by the trees of the island, and forgotten by him in the nearer spectacle of the huge advance of the defeated German airship. Something fell with a mighty230 smashing and splintering of boughs231 unheeded behind him.
It seemed for a time that the Hohenzollern must needs break her back upon the Parting of the Waters, and then for a time her propeller flopped and frothed in the river and thrust the mass of buckling232, crumpled233 wreckage towards the American shore. Then the sweep of the torrent234 that foamed235 down to the American Fall caught her, and in another minute the immense mass of deflating wreckage, with flames spurting236 out in three new places, had crashed against the bridge that joined Goat Island and Niagara city, and forced a long arm, as it were, in a heaving tangle under the central span. Then the middle chambers blew up with a loud report, and in another moment the bridge had given way and the main bulk of the airship, like some grotesque cripple in rags, staggered, flapping and waving flambeaux to the crest237 of the Fall and hesitated there and vanished in a desperate suicidal leap.
Its detached fore-end remained jammed against that little island, Green Island it used to be called, which forms the stepping-stone between the mainland and Goat Island's patch of trees.
Bert followed this disaster from the Parting of the Waters to the bridge head. Then, regardless of cover, regardless of the Asiatic airship hovering238 like a huge house roof without walls above the Suspension Bridge, he sprinted239 along towards the north and came out for the first time upon that rocky point by Luna Island that looks sheer down upon the American Fall. There he stood breathless amidst that eternal rush of sound, breathless and staring.
Far below, and travelling rapidly down the gorge, whirled something like a huge empty sack. For him it meant--what did it not mean?--the German air-fleet, Kurt, the Prince, Europe, all things stable and familiar, the forces that had brought him, the forces that had seemed indisputably victorious240. And it went down the rapids like an empty sack and left the visible world to Asia, to yellow people beyond Christendom, to all that was terrible and strange!
Remote over Canada receded241 the rest of that conflict and vanished beyond the range of his vision....
收听单词发音 |
1
solitudes
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| n.独居( solitude的名词复数 )；孤独；荒僻的地方；人迹罕至的地方 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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marvelling
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的现在分词 ) | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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barbarians
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| n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 )；外国人；粗野的人；无教养的人 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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aeronautic
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| adj.航空（学）的 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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swarms
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| 蜂群，一大群( swarm的名词复数 ) | |
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swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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vehement
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| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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ultimatums
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| 最后通牒( ultimatum的名词复数 ) | |
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outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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torpedo
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| n.水雷，地雷；v.用鱼雷破坏 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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tornado
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| n.飓风，龙卷风 | |
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inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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glut
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| n.存货过多，供过于求；v.狼吞虎咽 | |
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unemployed
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| adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的 | |
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peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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warship
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| n.军舰，战舰 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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mammoth
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| n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的 | |
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mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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punitive
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| adj.惩罚的，刑罚的 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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53
hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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54
wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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civilians
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| 平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓 | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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reek
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| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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sporadic
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| adj.偶尔发生的 [反]regular；分散的 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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80
exterminate
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| v.扑灭，消灭，根绝 | |
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81
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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82
effaced
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| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
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massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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84
submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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85
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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86
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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87
swoop
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| n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击 | |
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88
allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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89
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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90
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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91
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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92
cod
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| n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗 | |
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93
axis
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| n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线 | |
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94
hooped
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| adj.以环作装饰的；带横纹的；带有环的 | |
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95
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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96
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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97
velocity
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| n.速度，速率 | |
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98
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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99
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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100
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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101
flares
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| n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开 | |
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102
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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103
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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104
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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105
monstrously
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106
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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107
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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108
scouts
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| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
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109
gorge
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|
| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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110
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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111
foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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112
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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113
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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114
bellies
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|
| n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的 | |
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115
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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116
albeit
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| conj.即使；纵使；虽然 | |
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117
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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118
contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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119
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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120
concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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121
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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122
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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123
uprooted
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| v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的过去式和过去分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园 | |
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124
sickle
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| n.镰刀 | |
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125
flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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126
debris
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| n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片 | |
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127
fugitives
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| n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
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128
ruptured
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| v.（使）破裂( rupture的过去式和过去分词 )；（使体内组织等）断裂；使（友好关系）破裂；使绝交 | |
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129
desolated
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| adj.荒凉的，荒废的 | |
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130
depot
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| n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站 | |
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131
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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132
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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133
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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134
replenished
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| 补充( replenish的过去式和过去分词 )； 重新装满 | |
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135
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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136
inventory
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| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
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137
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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138
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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139
saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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140
celestial
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|
| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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141
obstructed
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| 阻塞( obstruct的过去式和过去分词 )； 堵塞； 阻碍； 阻止 | |
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142
complement
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| n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足 | |
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143
ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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144
halfway
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|
| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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145
tumults
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|
| 吵闹( tumult的名词复数 )； 喧哗； 激动的吵闹声； 心烦意乱 | |
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146
populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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147
seethed
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| （液体）沸腾( seethe的过去式和过去分词 )； 激动，大怒； 强压怒火； 生闷气(~with sth|~ at sth) | |
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148
sluice
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| n.水闸 | |
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149
eastward
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|
| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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150
motes
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| n.尘埃( mote的名词复数 )；斑点 | |
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151
flecks
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| n.斑点，小点( fleck的名词复数 )；癍 | |
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152
oblique
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| adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的 | |
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153
swooped
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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154
specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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155
inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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156
sentient
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|
| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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157
petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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158
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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159
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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160
obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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161
uproar
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|
| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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162
alignment
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| n.队列；结盟，联合 | |
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163
smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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164
duels
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| n.两男子的决斗( duel的名词复数 )；竞争，斗争 | |
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165
Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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166
antagonists
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|
| 对立[对抗] 者，对手，敌手( antagonist的名词复数 )； 对抗肌； 对抗药 | |
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167
eddying
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| 涡流，涡流的形成 | |
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168
rammed
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| v.夯实（土等）( ram的过去式和过去分词 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输 | |
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169
eddied
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| 起漩涡，旋转( eddy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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170
ramming
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| n.打结炉底v.夯实（土等）( ram的现在分词 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输 | |
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171
tragic
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|
| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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172
rammer
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| n.撞锤；夯土机；拨弹机；夯 | |
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173
isolate
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| vt.使孤立，隔离 | |
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174
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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175
grotesquely
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| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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176
crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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177
puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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178
puffs
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| n.吸( puff的名词复数 )；（烟斗或香烟的）一吸；一缕（烟、蒸汽等）；（呼吸或风的）呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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179
smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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180
begotten
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去分词 )；产生，引起 | |
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181
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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182
dodging
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| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
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183
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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184
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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185
batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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186
disillusioned
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| a.不再抱幻想的，大失所望的，幻想破灭的 | |
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187
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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188
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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189
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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190
wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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191
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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192
incipient
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| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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193
generators
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| n.发电机，发生器( generator的名词复数 )；电力公司 | |
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194
infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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195
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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196
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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197
lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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198
tattoo
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| n.纹身，(皮肤上的)刺花纹；vt.刺花纹于 | |
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199
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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200
cowering
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|
| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的现在分词 ) | |
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201
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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202
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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203
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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204
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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205
gravel
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|
| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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206
swooping
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的现在分词 ) | |
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207
bellying
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| 鼓出部；鼓鼓囊囊 | |
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208
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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aluminium
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| n.铝 (=aluminum) | |
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muzzles
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| 枪口( muzzle的名词复数 )； （防止动物咬人的）口套； （四足动物的）鼻口部； （狗）等凸出的鼻子和口 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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wrestled
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| v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤 | |
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assassinate
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| vt.暗杀，行刺，中伤 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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dispersing
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| adj. 分散的 动词disperse的现在分词形式 | |
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deflated
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| adj. 灰心丧气的 | |
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prow
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| n.(飞机)机头，船头 | |
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flopped
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| v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的过去式和过去分词 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅 | |
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persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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propeller
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| n.螺旋桨，推进器 | |
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crumpling
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| 压皱，弄皱( crumple的现在分词 )； 变皱 | |
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collapsing
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| 压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂 | |
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overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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crescendo
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| n.(音乐)渐强，高潮 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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buckling
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| 扣住 | |
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crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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foamed
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| 泡沫的 | |
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spurting
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| （液体，火焰等）喷出，（使）涌出( spurt的现在分词 )； （短暂地）加速前进，冲刺； 溅射 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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239
sprinted
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| v.短距离疾跑( sprint的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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