The Land Leviathan (A Nomad of the Time Streams Novel) (21 page)

“I think that they should know,” I found myself saying. “My name’s Bastable. I was until recently an observer attached to General Hood’s staff. I deserted and came over to the white cause. Now I have decided to serve only the cause of humanity. I am with you, Mr.—”

“Call me Paul, Mr. Bastable. Well, that was a fine speech, sir, if, might I say, a little on the prudish side! But you’ve proved yourself. You’ve got grit and grit’s what’s needed in these troubled times. Let’s go.”

He pulled back a couple of packing-cases and revealed a hole in the wall. Into this hole, which proved to give access to a passage connecting a whole series of houses, he led us, speaking to me over his shoulder as we went. “Have they started filling the cages, yet, do you know?”

“I know nothing of the cages,” I told him. “I was wondering what function they were to serve. Somebody said they were Washington’s ‘secret weapon’ against General Hood, but that mystified me even more.”

“Well, it might work,” said Paul, “though I’m sure most of our people would rather die.”

“But what will they put in the cages? Wild beasts?”

Paul darted me an amused look. “Some would call them that, mister. They’re going to put
us
in them. If Hood starts to bombard the walls, then he kills the people he intends to save. He can’t liberate Washington without killing every Negro man, woman and child in the city!”

If I had been disgusted with the whites up to now, I was stunned completely by this information. It was reminiscent of the most barbaric practices I had read about in history. How could the whites regard themselves as being superior to Hood when they were prepared to use methods against him which even he had never contemplated, no matter how strong his hatred of the Caucasian race?

Washington was to be protected by a wall of living flesh!

“But all they can achieve by that is to stalemate Hood,” I said. “Unless they threaten to kill your people in the hope of forcing Hood to withdraw.”

“They’ll do that, too, I suppose,” Paul told me. We were squeezing through a very narrow tunnel now, and I heard the distant sound of rushing water. “But they’ve had news from the Austrajaps. If they can hold Washington for twenty-four hours, there’ll be a land fleet coming to relieve them. Even those big ships of Hood’s we’ve heard about won’t be able to fire without killing their own people. Hood will have to make a decision—and either way he stands to lose something.”

“They are fiends,” I said. “It is impossible to regard them as human beings at all.”

“I was one of Hood’s special agents before I was captured,” Paul said. “I was hoping to work out a way of helping him from inside, but then they rounded up every black in the city. Our only chance now is somehow to get into the main compound tonight, arm as many people as possible and try for a break.”

“Do you think you’ll be successful?” I asked.

Paul shook his head. “No, mister, I don’t. But a lot of dead niggers won’t be much use to them when Hood does come, will they?”

My nose was assailed by a sickening stench and now I realized where the sound of water had been coming from—the sewers. We were forced to wade sometimes waist-deep through foul water, emerging at last in a large underground room already occupied by about a score of Negroes. These were all that remained of those who had planned to rise in support of Hood when the moment came. They had a fair-sized arsenal with them, but it was plain that there was very little they could do now except die bravely.

Through that day we discussed our plans and, when evening came, we crept up to the surface and moved through unlit streets to the north side of the city, where the main slave compound was situated.

By the light of flares, many Negroes were still working, and it was obvious from what we heard that Hood’s forces were almost here.

Our rifles on our shoulders, we marched openly along the broad streets, heading north. Anyone who saw us would have taken us for a detachment of soldiers, singularly well-disciplined. And not once were we stopped.

This had been the reason why the dead whites had been stripped of their hoods earlier that day and why, now, every man and woman in our party, with the exception of myself, wore a pair of gloves. The morbid insanity of the whites was being used against them for the first time. The hoods which they wore as a symbol of their fear and hatred of the black race were now helping members of that race to march, unchallenged, under their very noses.

Behind us, wearing fetters which could easily be removed when the moment came, were the rest of our party, dragging a big cart apparently filled with bricks but actually containing the rest of our guns.

More than once we felt we were near to discovery, but at last we reached the gates of the compound. My own accent would have been detected at once, so Paul spoke for us. He sounded most authoritative.

“Deliverin’ these niggers an’ pickin’ up a new party,” he said to the guards.

The white-hooded guards were unsuspicious. Too many were coming and going tonight and there was more confusion than usual.

“Why are you all goin’ in?” one asked as we walked through.

“Ain’t you heard?” Paul told him. “There’s been an outbreak. Ten or twenty of our men killed by coons.”

“I heard something,” another guard agreed, but by now we were inside the compound itself. It was unroofed—merely a large area in which the black slaves slept in their chains until they were required to work. A huge tub of swill in the centre of the compound was the only food. Those strong enough to crawl to the tub ate, those who were too weak either relied on their friends or starved. It did not matter to the whites, for the blacks had almost fulfilled their function, now.

We moved into the darkest part of the compound, shouting orders for the people to get to their feet and be inspected. Surreptitiously we began to hand out the weapons.

But by now we had attracted the curiosity of two of the guards, who began, casually, to walk towards us.

For my sins, I must admit that I fired the first shot. I did it without compunction, killing the guard instantly with a bullet to his heart. The others began firing, running back towards the gate, but now our luck had changed completely. Alerted by the shots, an old-fashioned steam traction-engine, crudely armoured and carrying a couple of gatlings, turned towards the compound and had filled the gate before we could reach it.

There was a pause while the occupants of this primitive land ’clad hesitated, seeing our white hoods, but the remaining guards shouted up to them to open fire.

Soon we were diving for the shadows—our only cover—as a stream of bullets raked the compound, killing with complete lack of discrimination. Many of those who were still chained were cut down where they lay and we were forced to use their bodies for cover, shooting desperately back while some of our party ran around the walls of the compound, searching for a means of escape.

But the walls were high. They had been designed so as to be escape-proof. We were trapped like rats and all we could do now was to go down fighting.

Slowly the traction-engine rolled into the compound, firing as it came. Our own bullets were useless against the armour, hastily made as it was.

Paul, who lay next to me, put a hand on my arm. “Well, Mr. Bastable, you can console yourself that you picked the right side before you died.”

“It’s not much comfort,” I said.

Then the ground just in front of us suddenly heaved up, rippling like the waves of the sea, and something metallic and familiar emerged, its spiral snout spinning with an angry whine, directly in the path of the traction-engine. The sound of the gatlings stopped and was replaced by the dull
boom boom
of an electric cannon.

Now two more metal “moles” broke the surface, also firing. Within seconds the traction-engine was reduced to a pile of twisted wreckage and the moles moved forward, still firing, blasting great holes in the walls of the compound.

I think we were cheering as we followed behind those strange machines. I am sure that O’Bean had never visualized such a use for them! Every white hood we saw (we were no longer wearing our own) was a target and we shot at it.

I suppose it had been naive of me to think that so clever a strategist as General Hood would not have taken the trouble to learn what the defenders of Washington had planned—and taken steps to counter their scheme. We spread out from the compound, heading for the park spaces where there were still some bushes to give us cover.

And now I heard a distant noise, reminding me more than anything else of the sound a carpet makes when it is being beaten. But I knew what the noise signified.

Seconds later explosive shells began to whistle down upon Washington.

The Land Leviathan was coming.

We regrouped as best we could, using the armed digging machines for cover, but keeping in the open as much as possible. Throughout the city now there were growing spots of light as buildings were fired by the Land Leviathan’s incendiary shells.

M
y own view of the Battle of Washington was an extremely partial one, for I witnessed nothing of the strategy. Hood had heard that A.J.F. reinforcements were on their way and had moved his army swiftly, planning to strike and overwhelm the city well before its allies could arrive. Moreover, he knew that he would not be expected to attack at night, but it was immaterial to him at what hour he moved, for the lights of the Land Leviathan could pick out a target at almost any range.

As we fought our own little hit-and-run battle through the streets, I saw the great beams from the monster’s searchlights dart out from the blackness, touch a building, marking it for destruction. Immediately would come that thunderous booming followed by a shrill whine and then an explosion as the shells struck home.

Not that Washington was helpless. Her own guns, particularly those in the Capitol itself, kept up a constant return fire and I think the ordinary land ironclads of the Black Horde would have had little chance of taking the city on their own.

Somehow I became separated from the rest of my party when a shell burst nearby and caused us to scatter. When the smoke cleared, the steel “moles” had moved on, the little army of former slaves going with them. I felt isolated and extremely vulnerable then and began to search for my comrades, but twice had to change direction as a party of white-hooded soldiers spotted me and began firing.

For an hour I kept low, sniping at the enemy when I saw him, then darting away again. My instinct was to make for a building and climb to the roof where I would be able to see the whites without being seen myself, but I knew that it would be foolish to attempt such a thing now, for buildings were being smashed to pieces all around me, under the steady bombardment of the Land Leviathan’s many cannon.

I slowly made my way back towards the centre and found that most of the enemy soldiers had been ordered to the walls. Suddenly there was relative peace near the Capitol, save for the booming of the guns situated inside the building. I sat down behind a bush to collect my thoughts and get my bearings, when I heard the sound of horses’ hoofs clattering towards me. They were coming very fast. I peered from behind my bush and was astonished to see a large number of horsemen streaming hell-for-leather away from the walls, as if the Devil himself was after them. The riders had removed their hoods and their faces were grim and frightened and they shouted at their mounts to give them more speed. Behind them, in a light, open carriage, came ‘President’ Beesley, yelling wildly. Then came the running men. Many had abandoned their weapons and had evidently panicked. I lay in my cover, but need not have feared these soldiers. They were far too terrified to stop and deal with me.

I next became aware of the ground trembling beneath me. Had God finally made up His mind to act, to punish us all for what we were doing? Had He sent an earthquake to destroy Washington?

A rumbling grew, louder and louder, and I peered ahead of me into the darkness as I gradually began to realize what was happening.

Lights blazed from the night. Lights which had their source high overhead, so that they might have been the lights of airships. But they were not the lights of airships—all Hood’s aerial battleships, it later emerged, being concentrated on harassing the Australasian-Japanese land fleet even now on its way to Washington. They were the glaring “eyes” of the Land Leviathan itself.

On it came, breaking down everything which stood in its wake, cutting a swathe through buildings, gun-emplacements, monuments. The air was filled with a ghastly, grinding sound, the snorting of the exhaust from its twelve huge engines, the peculiar sighing it gave out whenever its wheels turned it in a slightly new direction.

This vast, moving ziggurat of destruction was what had panicked Beesley and his men. It had first pounded the city with its guns and then moved forward, breaking through the walls where they were thought to be the strongest. Invincible, implacable, it rolled towards the Capitol.

Now it was my turn to take to my heels, barely managing to fling myself clear as it advanced, sighed again, and then stopped, looking up at the Capitol in what seemed to me an attitude of challenge.

Almost hysterically, the Capitol’s guns swung round and began firing and I had the impression, even as I risked death to watch, that I witnessed two primitive beasts from the Earth’s remote past in conflict.

The shells from the Capitol scored direct hit upon direct hit, but they merely burst against the turrets of the Land Leviathan which did not at first reply.

Then the two top turrets began to turn until almost all her guns were pointed directly at the great, white dome which even now reflected the flames of the buildings which burned all around it.

Twice the guns of the Land Leviathan spoke, in rapid succession. The first barrage took the entire roof away. The second demolished the walls and the Capitol was silent. Again, the vast metal monster began to lumber forward, its searchlights roaming this way and that as if seeking out any others who might wish to challenge it.