Never before had he heard such a tremendous scheme so quietly and calmly set forth. Bessemer furnaces were to be erected at once all round the pit mouth, meanwhile the firm was to contract with a Liverpool firm for an unlimited supply of concrete cement of the finest quality procurable. The whole staff of Dobson & Barlow"s works were to be engaged at an advance of twenty-five per cent. on their present wages for three months to carry out the work of converting the shaft of the Great Lever pit into the gigantic cannon which was to hurl into s.p.a.ce the projectile which might or might not save the human race from destruction.
Even granted Lennard"s unimpeachable credentials, it was only natural that the great iron-master should exhibit a certain amount of incredulity, and, being one of the best types of the Lancashire business man, he said quite plainly:
"This is a pretty large order you"ve brought us, Mr Lennard, and although, of course, we know Mr Parmenter to be good enough for any amount of money, still, you see, contracts are contracts, and what are we to do with those we"ve got in hand now if you propose to buy up for three months?"
"Yes," replied Lennard, "I admit that that is an important point. The question is, what would it cost you to throw up or transfer to other firms the contracts that you now have in hand?"
There was a silence of two or three minutes between them, during which Mr Barlow made a rapid but comprehensive calculation and Lennard took out his cheque-book and began to write a cheque.
"Counting everything," said Mr Barlow, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling, "the transfer of our existing contracts to other firms of equal standing, so as to satisfy our customers, and the loss to ourselves for the time that you want--well, honestly, I don"t think we could do it under twenty-five thousand pounds. You understand, I am saying nothing about the scientific aspect of the matter, because I don"t understand it, but that"s the business side of it; and that"s what it"s going to cost you before we begin."
Lennard filled in the cheque and signed it. He pa.s.sed it across the table to Mr Barlow, and said:
"I think that is a very reasonable figure. This will cover it and leave something over to go on with."
Mr Barlow took the cheque and looked at it, and then at the calm face of the quiet young man who was sitting opposite him.
The cheque was for fifty thousand pounds. While he was looking at it, Lennard took the bank receipt for a quarter of a million deposit from his pocket and gave it to him, saying:
"You will see from this that money is really no object. As you know, Mr Parmenter has millions, more I suppose than he could calculate himself, and he is ready to spend every penny of them. You will take that just as earnest money."
"That"s quite good enough for us, Mr Lennard," replied Mr Barlow, handing the bank receipt back. "The contracts shall be transferred as soon as we can make arrangements, and the work shall begin at once. You can leave everything else to us--brickwork, building, cement and all the rest of it--and we"ll guarantee that your cannon shall be ready to fire off in three months from now."
"And the projectile, Mr Barlow, are you prepared to undertake that also?" asked Lennard.
"Yes, we will make the projectile according to your specification, but you will, of course, supply the bursting charge and the charge of this new powder of yours which is to send it into s.p.a.ce. You see, we can"t do that; you"ll have to get a Government permit to have such an enormous amount of explosives in one place, so I"ll have to leave that to you."
"I think I shall be able to arrange that, Mr Barlow," replied Lennard, as he got up from his seat and held his hand out across the table. "As long as you are willing to take on the engineering part of the business, I"ll see to the rest. Now, I know that your time is quite as valuable as mine is, and I"ve got to get back to London this afternoon. To-morrow morning I have to go through a sort of cross-examination before the Cabinet--not that they matter much in the sort of crisis that we"ve got to meet.
"Still, of course, we have to have the official sanction of the Government, even if it is a question of saving the world from destruction, but there won"t be much difficulty about that, I think; and at any rate you"ll be working on freehold property, and not even the Cabinet can stop that sort of work for the present. As far as everything connected with the mine is concerned, I hope you will be able to work with Mr Bowc.o.c.k, who seems a very good sort of fellow."
"If we can"t work with Tom Bowc.o.c.k," replied Mr Barlow, "we can"t work with anyone on earth, and that"s all there is about it. He"s a big man, but he"s good stuff all through. Lord Westerham didn"t make any bad choice when he made him manager. And you won"t dine with me to-night?"
"I am sorry, but I must be back to London to-night. I have to catch the 12-15 and have an interview in Downing Street at seven, and when I"ve got through that, I don"t think there will be any difficulty about the explosives."
"According to all accounts, you"ll be lucky if you find Downing Street as it used to be," said Mr Barlow. "By the papers this morning it looks as if London was going to have a pretty bad time of it, what with these airships and submarines that sink and destroy everything in sight. Now that they"ve got away with the fleet, it seems to me that it"s only a sort of walk over for them."
"Yes, I"m afraid it will have to be something like that for the next month or so," replied Lennard, thinking of a telegram which he had in his pocket. "But the victory is not all on one side yet. Of course, you will understand that I am not in a position to give secrets away, but as regards our own bargain, I am at liberty to tell you that while you are building this cannon of ours there will probably be some developments in the war which will be, I think, as unexpected as they will be startling.
"In fact, sir," he continued, rising from his seat and holding out his hand across the table, "I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but when the time comes, I think you will find that those who believe that they are conquering England now will be here in Bolton faced by a foe against which their finest artillery will be as useless as an air-gun against an elephant.
"All I ask you to remember now is that at eleven p.m. on the twelfth of May, the leaders of the nations who are fighting against England now will be standing around me in the quarry on the Belmont Road, waiting for the firing of the shot which I hope will save the world. If it does not save it, they will be welcome to all that is left of the world in an hour after that."
"You are talking like a man who believes what he says, Mr Lennard,"
replied Mr Barlow, "and, strange and all as it seems, I am beginning to believe with you. There never was a business like this given into human hands before, and, for the sake of humanity, I hope that you will be successful. All that we can do shall be done well and honestly. That you can depend on, and for the rest, we shall depend on you and your science. The trust that you have put in our hands to-day is a great honour to us, and we shall do our best to deserve it. Good-morning, sir."
CHAPTER XXVI
THE FIRST BOMBARDMENT OF LONDON
When Lennard got out of the train at St Pancras that evening, he found such a sight as until a day or so ago no Londoner had ever dreamed of.
But terrible as the happenings were, they were not quite terrible enough to stop the issue of the evening newspapers.
As the train slowed down along the platform, boys were running along it yelling:
"Bombardment of London from the air--dome of St Paul"s smashed by a sh.e.l.l--Guildhall, Mansion House, and Bank of England in ruins--orful scenes in the streets. Paper, sir?"
He got out of the carriage and grabbed the first newspaper that was thrust into his hand, gave the boy sixpence for it, and hurried away towards the entrance. He found a few cabmen outside the station; he hailed one of the drivers, got in, and said:
"Downing Street--quick. There"s a sovereign; there"ll be another for you when I get there."
"It"s a mighty risky job, guv"nor, these times, driving a keb through London streets. Still, one"s got to live, I suppose. "Old up there--my Gawd, that"s another of those bombs! You just got out of there in time, sir."
Even as though it had been timed, as it might well have been, a torpedo dropped from a ghostly shape drifting slowly across the grey November clouds. Then there came a terrific shock. Every pane in the vast roof and in the St Pancras Hotel shivered to the dust. The engine which had drawn Lennard"s train blew up like one huge sh.e.l.l, and the carriages behind it fell into splinters.
If that sh.e.l.l had only dropped three minutes sooner the end of the World war of 1910 would have been very different to what it was; for, as Lennard learned afterwards, of all the porters, officials and pa.s.sengers, who had the misfortune to be in the great station at that moment, only half a hundred cripples, maimed for life, escaped.
"I wonder whether that was meant for me," said Lennard as the frightened horse sprang away at a half gallop. "If that"s the case, John Castellan knows rather more than he ought to do, and, good Lord, if he knows that, he must know where Auriole is, and what"s to stop him taking one of those infernal things of his up to Whernside, wrecking the house and the observatory, and taking her off with him to the uttermost ends of the earth if he likes?
"There must be something in it or that sh.e.l.l would not have dropped just after I got outside the station. They watched the train come in, and they knew I was in it--they must have known.
"What a ghastly catastrophe it would be if they got on to that scheme of ours at the pit. Fancy one of those aerial torpedoes of his dropping down the bore of the cannon a few minutes before the right time! It would mean everything lost, and nothing gained, not even for him.
"Ah, good man Erskine," he went on, as he opened the paper, and read that every cruiser, battleship and transport that had forced the entrance to the Thames and Medway had been sunk. "That will be a bit of a check for them, anyhow. Yes, yes, that"s very good. Garrison Fort, Chatham and Tilbury, of course, destroyed from the air, but not a ship nor a man left to go and take possession of them."
While he was reading his paper, and muttering thus to himself, the cab was tearing at the horse"s best speed down Gray"s Inn Road. It took a sudden swing to the right into Holborn, ran along New Oxford Street, and turned down Charing Cross Road, the horse going at a full gallop the whole time.
Happily it was a good horse, or the fate of the world might have been different. There was no rule of the road now, and no rules against furious driving. London was panic-stricken, as it might well be. As far as Lennard could judge the aerial torpedoes were being dropped mostly in the neighbourhood of Regent Street and Piccadilly, and about Grosvenor Place and Park Lane. He half expected to find Parliament Street and Westminster in ruins, but for some mysterious reason they had been spared.
The great City was blazing in twenty places, and scarcely a minute pa.s.sed without the crash of an explosion and the roar of flame that followed it, but a magic circle seemed to have been drawn round Westminster. There nothing was touched, and yet the wharves on the other side of the river, and the great manufactories behind them, were blazing and vomiting clouds of flame and smoke towards the clouds as though the earth had been split open beneath them and the internal fires themselves let loose.
When the cabman pulled up his sweating and panting horse at the door of Number 2 Downing Street, Lennard got out and said to the cabman:
"You did that very well, considering the general state of things. I don"t know whether you"ll live to enjoy it or not, but there"s a five-pound note for you, and if you"ll take my advice you will get your wife and family, if you have one, into that cab, and drive right out into the country. It strikes me London"s going to be a very good place to stop away from for the next two or three days."
"Thank "ee, sir," said the cabman, as he gathered up the five-pound note and tucked it down inside his collar. "I don"t know who you are, but it"s very kind of you; and as you seem to know something, I"ll do as you say. What with these devil-ships a-flyin" about the skies, and dropping thunderbolts on us from the clouds, and furreners a-comin" up the Thames as I"ve heard, London ain"t "ealthy enough for me, nor the missus and the kids, and thanks for your kindness, sir, we"re movin"
to-night, keb an" all.
"Oh, my Gawd, there"s another! "Otel Cecil and Savoy this time, if I"ve got my bearin"s right. Well, there"s one thing, t"ain"t on"y the pore what"s sufferin" this time; there"ll be a lot of rich people dead afore mornin". A pal of mine told me just now that Park Lane was burnin" from end t" end. Good-evenin", sir, and thenk you."
As the cab drove away Lennard stood for a few moments on the pavement, watching two columns of flame soaring up from the side of the Strand.
Perhaps the most dreadful effects produced by the aerial torpedoes were those which resulted from the breaking of the gas mains and the destruction of the electric conduits. Save for the bale-fires of ruin and destruction, half London was in darkness. Miles of streets under which the gas mains were laid blew up with almost volcanic force. The electric mains were severed, and all the contents dislocated, and if ever London deserved the name which James Thompson gave it when he called it "The City of Dreadful Night," it deserved it on that evening of the 17th of November 1909.
Lennard was received in the Prime Minister"s room by Mr Chamberlain, Lord Whittinghame, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Lord Milner and General Lord Kitchener.