It happened that one bright summer's morning exactly thirty years
after the launching of the first Geman air-fleet, an old man
took a small boy to look for a missing hen through the ruins of
Bun Hill and out towards the splintered pinnacles of the Crystal
Palace. He was not a very old man; he was, as a matter of fact,
still within a few weeks of sixty-three, but constant stooping
over spades and forks and the carrying of roots and manure, and
exposure to the damps of life in the open-air without a change of
clothing, had bent him into the form of a sickle. Moreover, he
had lost most of his teeth and that had affected his digestion
and through that his skin and temper. In face and expression he
was curiously like that old Thomas Smallways who had once been
coachman to Sir Peter Bone, and this was just as it should be,
for he was Tom Smallways the son, who formerly kept the little
green-grocer's shop under the straddle of the mono-rail viaduct
in the High Street of Bun Hill. But now there were no
green-grocer's shops, and Tom was living in one of the derelict
villas hard by that unoccupied building site that had been and
was still the scene of his daily horticulture. He and his wife
lived upstairs, and in the drawing and dining rooms, which had
each French windows opening on the lawn, and all about the ground
floor generally, Jessica, who was now a lean and lined and
baldish but still very efficient and energetic old woman, kept
her three cows and a multitude of gawky hens. These two were
part of a little community of stragglers and returned fugitives,
perhaps a hundred and fifty souls of them all together, that had
settled down to the new conditions of things after the Panic and
Famine and Pestilence that followed in the wake of the War. They
had come back from strange refuges and hiding-places and had
squatted down among the familiar houses and begun that hard
struggle against nature for food which was now the Chief interest
of their lives. They were by sheer preoccupation with that a
peaceful people, more particularly after Wilkes, the house agent,
driven by some obsolete dream of acquisition, had been drowned in
the pool by the ruined gas-works for making inquiries into title
and displaying a litigious turn of mind. (He had not been
murdered, you understand, but the people had carried an exemplary
ducking ten minutes or so beyond its healthy limits.)
This little community had returned from its original habits of
suburban parasitism to what no doubt had been the normal life of
humanity for nearly immemorial years, a life of homely economies
in the most intimate, contact with cows and hens and patches of
around, a life that breathes and exhales the scent of cows and
finds the need for stimulants satisfied by the activity of the
bacteria and vermin it engenders. Such had been the life of the
European peasant from the dawn of history to the beginning of the
Scientific Era, so it was the large majority of the people of
Asia and Africa had always been wont to live. For a time it had
seemed that, by virtue of machines, and scientific civilisation,
Europe was to be lifted out of this perpetual round of animal
drudgery, and that America was to evade it very largely from the
outset. And with the smash of the high and dangerous and
splendid edifice of mechanical civilisation that had arisen so
marvellously, back to the land came the common man, back to the
manure.
The little communities, still haunted by ten thousand memories
of a greater state, gathered and developed almost tacitly a
customary law and fell under the guidance of a medicine man or a
priest. The world rediscovered religion and the need of
something to hold its communities together. At Bun Hill this
function was entrusted to on old Baptist minister. He taught a
simple but adequate faith. In his teaching a good principle
called the Word fought perpetually against a diabolical female
influence called the Scarlet woman and an evil being called
Alcohol. This Alcohol had long since become a purely
spiritualised conception deprived of any element of material
application; it had no relation to the occasional finds of
whiskey and wine in Londoners' cellars that gave Bun Hill its
only holidays. He taught this doctrine on sundays, and on
weekdays he was an amiable and kindly old man, distinguished by
his quaint disposition to wash his hands, and if possible his
face, daily, and with a wonderful genius for cutting up pigs. He
held his sunday services in the old church in the Beckenham Road,
and then the countryside came out in a curious reminiscence of
the urban dress of Edwardian times. All the men without
exception wore frock coats, top hats, and white shirts, though
many had no boots. Tom was particularly distinguished on these
occasions because he wore a top hat with gold lace about it and a
green coat and trousers that he had found upon a skeleton in the
basement of the Urban and District Bank. The women, even
Jessica, came in jackets and immense hats extravagantly trimmed
with artificial flowers and exotic birds' feather's--of which
there were abundant supplies in the shops to the north--and the
children (there were not many children, because a large
proportion of the babies born in Bun Hill died in a few days'
time of inexplicable maladies) had similar clothes cut down to
accommodate them; even Stringer's little grandson of four wore a
large top hat.
That was the sunday costume of the Bun Hill district, a curious
and interesting survival of the genteel traditions of the
Scientific Age. On a weekday the folk were dingily and curiously
hung about with dirty rags of housecloth and scarlet flannel,
sacking, curtain serge, and patches of old carpet, and went
either bare-footed or on rude wooden sandals. These people, the
reader must understand, were an urban population sunken back to
the state of a barbaric peasantry, and so without any of the
simple arts a barbaric peasantry would possess. In many ways
they were curiously degenerate and incompetent. They had lost
any idea of making textiles, they could hardly make up clothes
when they had material, and they were forced to plunder the
continually dwindling supplies of the ruins about them for cover.
All the simple arts they had ever known they had lost, and with
the breakdown of modern drainage, modern water supply, shopping,
and the like, their civilised methods were useless. Their
cooking was worse than primitive. It was a feeble muddling with
food over wood fires in rusty drawing-room fireplaces; for the
kitcheners burnt too much. Among them all no sense of baking or
brewing or metal-working was to be found.
Their employment of sacking and such-like coarse material for
work-a-day clothing, and their habit of tying it on with string
and of thrusting wadding and straw inside it for warmth, gave
these people an odd, "packed" appearance, and as it was a
week-day when Tom took his little nephew for the hen-seeking
excursion, so it was they were attired.
"So you've really got to Bun Hill at last, Teddy," said old Tom,
beginning to talk and slackening his pace so soon as they were
out of range of old Jessica. "You're the last of Bert's boys for
me to see. Wat I've seen, young Bert I've seen, Sissie and Matt,
Tom what's called after me, and Peter. The traveller people
brought you along all right, eh?"
"I managed," said Teddy, who was a dry little boy.
"Didn't want to eat you on the way?"
"They was all right," said Teddy. "and on the way near
Leatherhead we saw a man riding on a bicycle."
"My word!" said Tom, "there ain't many of those about nowadays.
Where was he going?"
"Said 'e was going to Dorking if the High Road was good enough.
But I doubt if he got there. All about Burford it was flooded.
We came over the hill, uncle--what they call the Roman Road.
That's high and safe."
"Don't know it," said old Tom. "But a bicycle! You're sure it
was a bicycle? Had two wheels?"
"It was a bicycle right enough."
"Why! I remember a time, Teddy, where there was bicycles no end,
when you could stand just here--the road was as smooth as a board
then--and see twenty or thirty coming and going at the same time,
bicycles and moty-bicycles; moty cars, all sorts of whirly
things."
"No!" said Teddy.
"I do. They'd keep on going by all day,--'undreds and 'undreds."
"But where was they all going?" asked Teddy.
"Tearin' off to Brighton--you never seen Brighton, I expect--it's
down by the sea, used to be a moce 'mazing place--and coming and
going from London."
"Why?"
"They did."
"But why?"
"Lord knows why, Teddy. They did. Then you see that great thing
there like a great big rusty nail sticking up higher than all the
houses, and that one yonder, and that, and how something's fell
in between 'em among the houses. They was parts of the
mono-rail. They went down to Brighton too and all day and night
there was people going, great cars as big as 'ouses full of
people."
The little boy regarded the rusty evidences acrosss the narrow
muddy ditch of cow-droppings that had once been a High Street.
He was clearly disposed to be sceptical, and yet there the ruins
were! He grappled with ideas beyond the strength of his
imagination.
"What did they go for?" he asked, "all of 'em?"
"They 'AD to. Everything was on the go those days--everything."
"Yes, but where did they come from?"
"All round 'ere, Teddy, there was people living in those 'ouses,
and up the road more 'ouses and more people. You'd 'ardly
believe me, Teddy, but it's Bible truth. You can go on that way
for ever and ever, and keep on coming on 'ouses, more 'ouses, and
more. There's no end to 'em. No end. They get bigger and
bigger." His voice dropped as though he named strange names.
"It's London," he said.
"And it's all empty now and left alone. All day it's left alone.
You don't find 'ardly a man, you won't find nothing but dogs and
cats after the rats until you get round by Bromley and Beckenham,
and there you find the Kentish men herding swine. (Nice rough
lot they are too!) I tell you that so long as the sun is up it's
as still as the grave. I been about by day--orfen and orfen."
He paused.
"And all those 'ouses and streets and ways used to be full of
people before the War in the air and the Famine and the Purple
Death. They used to be full of people, Teddy, and then came a
time when they was full of corpses, when you couldn't go a mile
that way before the stink of 'em drove you back. It was the
Purple Death 'ad killed 'em every one. The cats and dogs and
'ens and vermin caught it. Everything and every one 'ad it.
Jest a few of us 'appened to live. I pulled through, and your
aunt, though it made 'er lose 'er 'air. Why, you find the
skeletons in the 'ouses now. This way we been into all the
'ouses and took what we wanted and buried moce of the people, but
up that way, Norwood way, there's 'ouses with the glass in the
windows still, and the furniture not touched--all dusty and
falling to pieces--and the bones of the people lying, some in
bed, some about the 'ouse, jest as the Purple Death left 'em
five-and-twenty years ago. I went into one--me and old Higgins
las' year--and there was a room with books, Teddy--you know what
I mean by books, Teddy?"
"I seen 'em. I seen 'em with pictures."
"Well, books all round, Teddy, 'undreds of books, beyond-rhyme or
reason, as the saying goes, green-mouldy and dry. I was for
leaven' 'em alone--I was never much for reading--but ole Higgins
he must touch em. 'I believe I could read one of 'em NOW,' 'e
says.
"'Not it,' I says.
"'I could,' 'e says, laughing and takes one out and opens it.
"I looked, and there, Teddy, was a cullud picture, oh, so lovely!
It was a picture of women and serpents in a garden. I never see
anything like it.
"'This suits me,' said old Higgins, 'to rights.'
"And then kind of friendly he gave the book a pat--
Old Tom Smallways paused impressively.
"And then?" said Teddy.
"It all fell to dus'. White dus'!" He became still more
impressive. "We didn't touch no more of them books that day.
Not after that."
For a long time both were silent. Then Tom, playing with a
subject that attracted him with a fatal fascination, repeated,
"All day long they lie--still as the grave."
Teddy took the point at last. "Don't they lie o' nights?" he
asked.
Old Tom shook his head. "Nobody knows, boy, Nobody knows."
"But what could they do?"
"Nobody knows. Nobody ain't seen to tell not Nobody."
"Nobody?"
"They tell tales," said old Tom. "They tell tales, but there
ain't no believing 'em. I gets 'ome about sundown, and keeps
indoors, so I can't say nothing, can I? But there's them that
thinks some things and them as thinks others. I've 'eard it's
unlucky to take clo'es off of 'em unless they got white bones.
There's stories--"
The boy watched his uncle sharply. "WOT stories?" he said.
"Stories of moonlight nights and things walking about. But I
take no stock in 'em. I keeps in bed. If you listen to stories
--Lord! You'll get afraid of yourself in a field at midday."
The little boy looked round and ceased his questions for a space.
"They say there's a 'og man in Beck'n'am what was lost in London
three days and three nights. 'E went up after whiskey to
Cheapside, and lorst 'is way among the ruins and wandered. Three
days and three nights 'e wandered about and the streets kep'
changing so's he couldn't get 'ome. If 'e 'adn't remembered some
words out of the Bible 'e might 'ave been there now. All day 'e
went and all night--and all day long it was still. It was as
still as death all day long, until the sunset came and the
twilight thickened, and then it began to rustle and whisper and
go pit-a-pat with a sound like 'urrying feet."
He paused.
"Yes," said the little boy breathlessly. "Go on. What then?"
"A sound of carts and 'orses there was, and a sound of cabs and
omnibuses, and then a lot of whistling, shrill whistles, whistles
that froze 'is marrer. And directly the whistles began things
begun to show, people in the streets 'urrying, people in the
'ouses and shops busying themselves, moty cars in the streets, a
sort of moonlight in all the lamps and winders. People, I say,
Teddy, but they wasn't people. They was the ghosts of them that
was overtook, the ghosts of them that used to crowd those
streets. And they went past 'im and through 'im and never 'eeded
'im, went by like fogs and vapours, Teddy. And sometimes they
was cheerful and sometimes they was 'orrible, 'orrible beyond
words. And once 'e come to a place called Piccadilly, Teddy, and
there was lights blazing like daylight and ladies and gentlemen
in splendid clo'es crowding the pavement, and taxicabs follering
along the road. And as 'e looked, they all went evil--evil in
the face, Teddy. And it seemed to 'im SUDDENLY THEY SAW 'IM, and
the women began to look at 'im and say things to 'im--'orrible--
wicked things. One come very near 'im, Teddy, right up to 'im,
and looked into 'is face--close. And she 'adn't got a face to
look with, only a painted skull, and then 'e see; they was all
painted skulls. And one after another they crowded on 'im saying
'orrible things, and catchin' at 'im and threatenin' and coaxing
'im, so that 'is 'eart near left 'is body for fear."
"Yes," gasped Teddy in an unendurable pause.
"Then it was he remembered the words of Scripture and saved
himself alive. 'The Lord is my 'Elper, 'e says, 'therefore I
will fear nothing,' and straightaway there came a cock-crowing
and the street was empty from end to end. And after that the
Lord was good to 'im and guided 'im 'ome."
Teddy stared and caught at another question. "But who was the
people," he asked, "who lived in all these 'ouses? What was
they?"
"Gent'men in business, people with money--leastways we thought it
was money till everything smashed up, and then seemingly it was
jes' paper--all sorts. Why, there was 'undreds of thousands of
them. There was millions. I've seen that 'I Street there
regular so's you couldn't walk along the pavements, shoppin'
time, with women and people shoppin'."
"But where'd they get their food and things?"
"Bort 'em in shops like I used to 'ave. I'll show you the place,
Teddy, if we go back. People nowadays 'aven't no idee of a
shop--no idee. Plate-glass winders--it's all Greek to them.
Why, I've 'ad as much as a ton and a 'arf of petaties to 'andle
all at one time. You'd open your eyes till they dropped out to
see jes' what I used to 'ave in my shop. Baskets of pears 'eaped
up, marrers, apples and pears, d'licious great nuts." His voice
became luscious--"Benanas, oranges."
"What's benanas?" asked the boy, "and Oranges?"
"Fruits they was. Sweet, juicy, d'licious fruits. Foreign
fruits. They brought 'em from Spain and N' York and places. In
ships and things. They brought 'em to me from all over the
world, and I sold 'em in my shop. _I_ sold 'em, Teddy! me what
goes about now with you, dressed up in old sacks and looking for
lost 'ens. People used to come into my shop, great beautiful
ladies like you'd 'ardly dream of now, dressed up to the nines,
and say, 'Well, Mr. Smallways, what you got 'smorning?' and I'd
say, 'Well, I got some very nice C'nadian apples, 'or p'raps I
got custed marrers. See? And they'd buy 'em. Right off they'd
say, 'Send me some up.' Lord! what a life that was. The business
of it, the bussel, the smart things you saw, moty cars going by,
kerridges, people, organ-grinders, Geman bands. Always
something going past--always. If it wasn't for those empty
'ouses, I'd think it all a dream."
"But what killed all the people, uncle?" asked Teddy.
"It was a smash-up," said old Tom. "Everything was going right
until they started that War. Everything was going like
clock-work. Everybody was busy and everybody was 'appy and
everybody got a good square meal every day."
He met incredulous eyes. "Everybody," he said firmly. "If you
couldn't get it anywhere else, you could get it in the workhuss,
a nice 'ot bowl of soup called skilly, and bread better'n any one
knows 'ow to make now, reg'lar WHITE bread, gov'ment bread."
Teddy marvelled, but said nothing. It made him feel deep
longings that he found it wisest to fight down.
For a time the old man resigned himself to the pleasures of
gustatory reminiscence. His lips moved. "Pickled Sammin!" he
whispered, "an' vinegar.... Dutch cheese, beer! A pipe of
terbakker."
"But 'OW did the people get killed?" asked Teddy presently.
"There was the War. The War was the beginning of it. The War
banged and flummocked about, but it didn't really kill many
people. But it upset things. They came and set fire to London
and burnt and sank all the ships there used to be in the Thames--
we could see the smoke and steam for weeks--and they threw a bomb
into the Crystal Palace and made a bust-up, and broke down the
rail lines and things like that. But as for killin' people, it
was just accidental if they did. They killed each other more.
There was a great fight all hereabout one day, Teddy--up in the
air. Great things bigger than fifty 'ouses, bigger than the
Crystal Palace--bigger, bigger than anything, flying about up in
the air and whacking at each other and dead men fallin' off 'em.
T'riffic! But, it wasn't so much the people they killed as the
business they stopped. There wasn't any business doin', Teddy,
there wasn't any money about, and nothin' to buy if you 'ad it."
"But 'ow did the people get KILLED?" said the little boy in the
pause.
"I'm tellin' you, Teddy," said the old man. "It was the stoppin'
of business come next. Suddenly there didn't seem to be any
money. There was cheques--they was a bit of paper written on,
and they was jes' as good as money--jes' as good if they come
from customers you knew. Then all of a sudden they wasn't. I
was left with three of 'em and two I'd given' change. Then it got
about that five-pun' notes were no good, and then the silver sort
of went off. Gold you 'couldn't get for love or--anything. The
banks in London 'ad got it, and the banks was all smashed up.
Everybody went bankrup'. Everybody was thrown out of work.
Everybody!"
He paused, and scrutinised his hearer. The small boy's
intelligent face expressed hopeless perplexity.
"That's 'ow it 'appened," said old Tom. He sought for some means
of expression. "It was like stoppin' a clock," he said. "Things
were quiet for a bit, deadly quiet, except for the air-ships
fighting about in the sky, and then people begun to get excited.
I remember my lars' customer, the very lars' customer that ever I
'ad. He was a Mr. Moses Gluckstein, a city gent and very
pleasant and fond of sparrowgrass and chokes, and 'e cut in--
there 'adn't been no customers for days--and began to talk very
fast, offerin' me for anything I 'ad, anything, petaties or
anything, its weight in gold. 'E said it was a little
speculation 'e wanted to try. 'E said it was a sort of bet
reely, and very likely 'e'd lose; but never mind that, 'e wanted
to try. 'E always 'ad been a gambler, 'e said. 'E said I'd only
got to weigh it out and 'e'd give me 'is cheque right away.
Well, that led to a bit of a argument, perfect respectful it was,
but a argument about whether a cheque was still good, and while
'e was explaining there come by a lot of these here unemployed
with a great banner they 'ad for every one to read--every one
could read those days--'We want Food.' Three or four of 'em
suddenly turns and comes into my shop.
"'Got any food?' says one.
"'No, I says, 'not to sell. I wish I 'ad. But if I 'ad, I'm
afraid I couldn't let you have it. This gent, 'e's been offerin'
me--'
"Mr. Gluckstein 'e tried to stop me, but it was too late.
"'What's 'e been offerin' you?' says a great big chap with a
'atchet; 'what's 'e been offerin you?' I 'ad to tell.
"'Boys,' 'e said, ''ere's another feenancier!' and they took 'im
out there and then, and 'ung 'im on a lam'pose down the street.
'E never lifted a finger to resist. After I tole on 'im 'e never
said a word...."
Tom meditated for a space. "First chap I ever sin 'ung!" he
said.
"Ow old was you?" asked Teddy.
"'Bout thirty," said old Tom.
"Why! I saw free pig-stealers 'ung before I was six," said
Teddy. "Father took me because of my birfday being near. Said I
ought to be blooded...."
"Well, you never saw no-one killed by a moty car, any'ow," said
old Tom after a moment of chagrin. "And you never saw no dead
men carried into a chemis' shop."
Teddy's momentary triumph faded. "No," he said, "I 'aven't."
"Nor won't. Nor won't. You'll never see the things I've seen,
never. Not if you live to be a 'undred... Well, as I was
saying, that's how the Famine and Riotin' began. Then there was
strikes and Socialism, things I never did 'old with, worse and
worse. There was fightin' and shootin' down, and burnin' and
plundering. They broke up the banks up in London and got the
gold, But they couldn't make food out of gold. 'Ow did WE get
on? Well, we kep' quiet. We didn't interfere with no-one and
no-one didn't interfere with us. We 'ad some old 'tatoes about,
but mocely we lived on rats. Ours was a old 'ouse, full of rats,
and the famine never seemed to bother 'em. Orfen we got a rat.
Orfen. But moce of the people who lived hereabouts was too
tender stummicked for rats. Didn't seem to fancy 'em. They'd
been used to all sorts of fallals, and they didn't take to 'onest
feeding, not till it was too late. Died rather.
"It was the famine began to kill people. Even before the Purple
Death came along they was dying like flies at the end of the
summer. 'Ow I remember it all! I was one of the first to 'ave
it. I was out, seein' if I mightn't get 'old of a cat or
somethin', and then I went round to my bit of ground to see
whether I couldn't get up some young turnips I'd forgot, and I
was took something awful. You've no idee the pain, Teddy--it
doubled me up pretty near. I jes' lay down by 'at there corner,
and your aunt come along to look for me and dragged me 'ome like
a sack.
"I'd never 'ave got better if it 'adn't been for your aunt.
'Tom,' she says to me, 'you got to get well,' and I 'AD to. Then
SHE sickened. She sickened but there ain't much dyin' about your
aunt. 'Lor!' she says, 'as if I'd leave you to go muddlin' along
alone!' That's what she says. She's got a tongue, 'as your aunt.
But it took 'er 'air off--and arst though I might, she's never
cared for the wig I got 'er--orf the old lady what was in the
vicarage garden.
"Well, this 'ere Purple Death,--it jes' wiped people out, Teddy.
You couldn't bury 'em. And it took the dogs and the cats too,
and the rats and 'orses. At last every house and garden was full
of dead bodies. London way, you couldn't go for the smell of
there, and we 'ad to move out of the 'I street into that villa we
got. And all the water run short that way. The drains and
underground tunnels took it. Gor' knows where the Purple Death
come from; some say one thing and some another. Some said it
come from eatin' rats and some from eatin' nothin'. Some say the
Asiatics brought it from some 'I place, Thibet, I think, where it
never did Nobody much 'arm. All I know is it come after the
Famine. And the Famine come after the Penic and the Penic
come after the War."
Teddy thought. "What made the Purple Death?" he asked.
"'Aven't I tole you!"
"But why did they 'ave a Penic?"
"They 'ad it."
"But why did they start the War?"
"They couldn't stop theirselves. 'Aving them airships made 'em."
"And 'ow did the War end?"
"Lord knows if it's ended, boy," said old Tom. "Lord knows if
it's ended. There's been travellers through 'ere--there was a
chap only two summers ago--say it's goin' on still. They say
there's bands of people up north who keep on with it and people
in Germany and China and 'Merica and places. 'E said they still
got flying-machines and gas and things. But we 'aven't seen
nothin' in the air now for seven years, and Nobody 'asn't come
nigh of us. Last we saw was a crumpled sort of airship going
away--over there. It was a littleish-sized thing and lopsided,
as though it 'ad something the matter with it."
He pointed, and came to a stop at a gap in the fence, the
vestiges of the old fence from which, in the company of his
neighbour Mr. Stringer the milkman, he had once watched the South
of England Aero Club's Saturday afternoon ascents. Dim memories,
it may be, of that particular afternoon returned to him.
"There, down there, where all that rus' looks so red and bright,
that's the gas-works."
"What's gas?" asked the little boy.
"Oh, a hairy sort of nothin' what you put in balloons to make
'em go up. And you used to burn it till the 'lectricity come."
The little boy tried vainly to imagine gas on the basis of these
particulars. Then his thoughts reverted to a previous topic.
"But why didn't they end the War?"
"Obstinacy. Everybody was getting 'urt, but everybody was
'urtin' and everybody was 'igh-spirited and patriotic, and so
they smeshed up things instead. They jes' went on smeshin'. And
afterwards they jes' got desp'rite and savige."
"It ought to 'ave ended," said the little boy.
"It didn't ought to 'ave begun," said old Tom, "But people was
proud. People was la-dy-da-ish and uppish and proud. Too much
meat and drink they 'ad. Give in--not them! And after a bit
Nobody arst 'em to give in. Nobody arst 'em...."
He sucked his old gums thoughtfully, and his gaze strayed away
across the valley to where the shattered glass of the Crystal
Palace glittered in the sun. A dim large sense of waste and
irrevocable lost opportunities pervaded his mind. He repeated
his ultimate judgment upon all these things, obstinately, slowly,
and conclusively, his final saying upon the matter.
"You can say what you like," he said. "It didn't ought ever to
'ave begun."
He said it simply--somebody somewhere ought to have stopped
something, but who or how or why were all beyond his ken.
War in the Air Chapter 11 ...
The War in the Air