Hartmann the Anarchist E-Book

Edward Fawcett

• Herausgeber: Blackmore Dennett
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Dirigibles, Zeppelins, Airships, Blimps – whatever you want to call them there's no doubt these inflatable monsters of the sky exert a deep fascination for fans of aviation and modern day "Steam Punks" everywhere. Well, this book is where it all began!

Hartmann the Anarchist was originally published in 1892 when Edward Douglas Fawcett was 16 years old and has been out of print for more than 100 years. In it, Fawcett's imagination creates "The Attila" from a wondrous new form of lighter-than-air metal, canvas and ships' rigging and has it piloted by Rudolph Hartmann, one of the most fiendish villains in literary history, raining pitiless death and destruction from the skies on Parliament, St Pauls and the City. Just 20 years later, Fawcett's apocalyptic vision came true when German zeppelins bombed London.

Hartmann the Anarchist is a man who harnesses the power of science, engineering and Victorian ingenuity – only to use it for diabolical means although some might argue his choice of targets is understandable.

Keep watching the skies, comrades!

Leseprobe

HARTMANN

THE ANARCHIST

by Edward Fawcett

Published 2018 by Blackmore Dennett

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. DARK HINTS.

CHAPTER II. THE ‘SHADOW’ OF HARTMANN.

CHAPTER III. A MOTHER’S TROUBLES.

CHAPTER IV. FUGITIVES FROM THE LAW.

CHAPTER V. A STRANGE AWAKENING.

CHAPTER VI. ON THE DECK OF THE ‘ATTILA.’

CHAPTER VII. THE CAPTAIN OF THE ‘ATTILA.’

CHAPTER VIII. A STRANGE VOYAGE.

CHAPTER IX. IN AT THE DEATH.

CHAPTER X. THE FIRST BLOW.

CHAPTER XI. A TEMPEST OF DYNAMITE.

CHAPTER XII. HOW I LEFT THE ‘ATTILA.’

CHAPTER XIII. IN THE STREETS OF THE BURNING CITY.

CHAPTER XIV. A NOCTURNAL RIDE.

CHAPTER XV. THE MORROW OF THE DISASTERS.

CHAPTER XVI. THE LAST OF THE ‘ATTILA,’

CHAPTER I. DARK HINTS.

All things considered, I rate October 10th, 1920, as the most momentous day of my life. Why it should be so styled is not at once apparent. My career has not been unromantic; during many years I have rambled over the globe, courting danger wherever interest led me, and later on have splashed through shambles such as revolutions have seldom before been red with. More than once I have tripped near the cave where Death lies in ambush. I am now an old man, but my memory is green and vigorous. I can look back calmly on the varied spectacle of life and weigh each event impartially in the balance. And thus looking, I refer my most fatefulexperience to an hour during an afternoon conversation in my dull, dingy, severe-looking quarters in Bayswater.

From romance to the commonplace is seldom a long trudge. On this occasion a quite commonplace letter determined my destiny. There was nothing of any gravity in the letter itself. It was a mere invitation to meet some friends. Most people would stare vacantly were I to show it to them. They would stare still more vacantly were I to say that it enabled me to write this terrible story. Bear in mind, however, that a lever, insignificant in itself, switches an express train off one track on to another. In a like manner a very insignificant letter switched me off from the tracks of an ordinary work-a-day mortal into those of the companion and biographer of a Nero.

Some two years before the time of which I write I had returned to London, having completed a series of adventurous travels in Africa and South-West Asia. My foregoing career is easily briefed. Left an orphan of very tender years, I had grown up under the ægis of a bachelor uncle, one of those singularly good-hearted men who rescue humanity from the cynics. He had always treated me as his own son, had given me the advantages of a sterling education, and had finally crowned his benevolence by adopting me as his heir. An inveterate politician, he had early initiated me into the mysteries of his cult, and it is probably to his guidance that I owed much of my later enthusiasm for reform. As a youngster of twenty-three I could not, however, be expected to abandon myself to blue-books and statistics, and was indeed much more intent on amusement than anything else. Among my chief passions was that of travel, a pursuit which gratified both the acquired interests of culture and the natural lust of adventure. Of the raptures of the rambler I accordingly drank my fill, forwarding, in dutiful fashion, long accounts of my tours to my indulgent relative. Altogether I spent three or four years harvesting rich experience in this manner. I was preparing for a journey through Syria when I received a telegram from my uncle’s doctor urging me immediately to return. Being then at Alexandria I made all haste to comply with it, only, however, to discover the appeal too well grounded, and the goal of my journey a death-bed. I mourned for my uncle’s loss sincerely, and my natural regrets were sharpened when his will was read. With the exception of a few insignificant bequests, he had transferred his entire property to me.

The period of mourning over, I was free to indulge my whims to the utmost, and might well have been regarded as full of schemes for a life of wild adventure. Delay, however, had created novel interests; some papers I had published had been warmly welcomed by critics; and a new world—the literary and political—spread itself out seductively before me. Further, I had by this time seen “many cities and men,” and the hydra-headed problem of civilization began to appeal to me with commanding interest. The teachings also of my uncle had duly yielded their harvest, and ere long I threw myself into politics with the same zeal which had carried me through the African forests, and over the dreary burning sands of Araby. I became, first a radical of my uncle’s school, then a labour advocate and socialist, and lastly had aspired to the eminence of parliamentary candidate for Stepney. A word on the political situation.

Things had been looking very black in the closing years of the last century, but the pessimists of that epoch were the optimists of ours. London even in the old days was a bloated, unwieldy city, an abode of smoke and dreariness startled from time to time by the angry murmurs of labour. In 1920 this Colossus of cities held nigh six million souls, and the social problems of the past were intensified. The circle of competence was wider, but beyond it stretched a restless and dreaded democracy. Commerce had received a sharp check after the late Continental wars, and the depression was severely felt. That bad times were coming was the settled conviction of the middle classes, and to this belief was due the Coalition Government that held sway during the year in which my story opens. In many quarters a severe reaction had set in against Liberalism, and a stronger executive and repressive laws were urgently clamoured for. At the opposite extreme flew the red flag, and a social revolution was eagerly mooted.

I myself, though a socialist, was averse to barricades. “Not revolution, but evolution” was the watchword of my section. Dumont has said that “the only period when one can undertake great legislative reforms is that in which the public passions are calm and in which the Government enjoys the greatest stability.” Of the importance of this truth I was firmly convinced. What was socialism? The nationalization of land and capital, of the means of production and distribution, in the interests of a vast industrial army. And how were the details of this vast change to be grappled with amid the throes of revolution? How deliberate with streets slippery with blood, the vilest passions unchained, stores, factories, and workshops wrecked, and perhaps a starving populace to conciliate? What man or convention could beat out a workable constitution in the turmoil? What guarantee had we against a reaction and a military saviour? By all means, I argued, have a revolution if a revolution is both a necessary and safe prelude of reform. But was it really necessary or even safe?

Feeling ran high in this dispute. Many a time was I attacked for my “lukewarmness” of conviction by socialists, but never did I hear my objections fairly met. Though on good terms with the advanced party as a whole, I was opposed at Stepney by an extremist as well as by the sitting Conservative member. My chances of election were poor, but victorious or not I meant to battle vigorously for principle. To a certain extent my perseverance bore good fruit. During the last month I had been honoured with the representation of an important body at a forthcoming Paris Convention, and was in fact on the eve of starting on my journey. There was no immediate call for departure, but the prospect of a pleasant holiday in France proved overwhelmingly seductive. The Socialist Congress was fixed for October 20th, and I proposed to enjoy the interval in true sybaritic fashion. Perhaps my eagerness to start was not unconnected with a tenderer subject than either rambling or politics. Happily or unhappily, however, these dispositions were about to receive short shrift.

It was a raw dismal afternoon, the grim fog-robed buildings, the dripping vehicles, and the dusky pedestrians below reminding one forcibly of the “City of Dreadful Night.” Memories of Schopenhauer and Thomson floated slowly across my mind, and the gathering shadows around seemed fraught with a gentle melancholy. Having some two hours before me, I drew my chair to the window and abandoned myself wholly to thought. What my meditations were matters very little, but I remember being vigorously recalled to reality by a smart blow on the shoulder.

“No, Stanley, my boy, it’s no use—she won’t look your way.”

I looked up with a laugh. A stalwart individual with a thick black beard and singularly resolute face had broken upon my solitude.

This worthy, whose acquaintance we shall improve hereafter, was no other than John Burnett, journalist and agitator, a man of the most advanced revolutionary opinions, in fact an apostle of what is generally known as anarchical communism. No law, no force, reference of all social energies to voluntary association of individuals, were his substitutes for the all-regulating executive of the socialists. He made no secret of his intentions—he meant to wage war in every effective mode, violent or otherwise, against the existing social system. Though strongly opposed to the theories, I was not a little attached to the theorist. He talked loudly, but, so far as I knew, his hands had never been stained with any actual crime. Further, he was most sincere, resolute, and unflinching—he had, moreover, once saved me from drowning at great risk to himself, and, like so many other persons of strong character, had contracted a warm affection for his debtor.

That his visits to me were always welcome I cannot indeed say. Many rumours of revolutions and risings were in the air, and some terrible anarchist outrages reported from Berlin had made the authorities unusually wary. Burnett, in consequence, was a marked man, and his friends and acquaintances shone with a borrowed glory. Moderate as were my own views, they might conceivably be a blind, and this possibility had of late been officially recognized. It was wonderful what a visiting list I had, and still more wonderful that my callers so often chose hours when I was out. However, as they found that I was guiltless of harbouring explosives and had no correspondence worth noting, their attentions were slowly becoming infrequent. Burnett, too, had been holding aloof of late, indeed I had not been treated to his propaganda for some weeks. To what was the honour of this unexpected visit due? “Off to Paris, I hear,” he continued. “Well, I thought I might do worse than look in. I have something to tell you too.”

“My dear fellow,” I cried, “you choose your time oddly. I must leave this place in a trice. Meanwhile, however, tell me where you’ve been of late, and what this latest wrinkle is.”

“I? Well, out of London. If you had not been rushing off at short notice I might have spoken more to the point. You can’t stay a couple of days longer, can you? Say yes, and I will engage to open your eyes a bit.”

“No, I fear I can’t: the Congress is not till the 20th, but meantime I want rest. I am positively done up. Time enough, however, later on.”

Burnett laughed. “It is worth while sometimes to take time by the forelock. Look here, I am bound hand and foot at present, but this I will say, your congresses and your socialism—evolutionary, revolutionary, or what not—are played out.”

“I think I have heard that remark before,” I somewhat coldly rejoined; “still, say what you like, you will find that we hold the reins. I won’t say anything more of the practicability of anarchism, we have talked the matter over ad nauseam. But this I will say. Compared with us you are a handful of people, politically speaking of no account, and perhaps on the whole best left to the attention of the police. Forgive my bluntness, but to my mind, your crusade, when not absurd, appears only criminal.”

“As you like,” said Burnett doggedly; “the world has had enough barking—the time for biting has come. Restrain your eloquence for a season, and I’ll promise you a wonderful change of convictions.”

“What, have your Continental friends more wrecking in hand? What idiocy is this wretched campaign! It converts no one, strengthens the hands of the reactionaries, and, what is more, destroys useful capital. Why, I say, injure society thus aimlessly?”

“Curse society!”—and a heavy fist struck my writing-table—“I detest both society as it is and society as you hope it will be. To-day the capitalist wolves and a slavish multitude; to-morrow a corrupt officialism and the same slavish multitude, only with new masters. But about our numbers, my friend, you think that we must be politically impotent because we are relatively so few. We count only our thousands where you tot up your millions of supporters. Obviously we could hardly venture to beard you after the established orthodox fashion. But suppose, suppose, I say, our people had some incalculable force behind them. Suppose, for instance, that the leaders of these few thousands came to possess some novel invention—something that—that made them virtual dictators to their kind”—and looking very hard at me he seemed to await my answer with interest.

“Suppositions of this sort are best kept for novels. Besides, I see no scope even for such an invention—it is part of the furniture of Utopia. But, stay! was not this invention the dream of that saintly dynamiter Hartmann also? Hartmann! Now there’s a typical case of genius wasted on anarchy. A pretty story is that of your last martyr—tries to blow up a prince and destroys an arch and an applewoman. For the life of me I can’t see light here!”

“All men bungle sometimes,” growled the revolutionist, ignoring the first part of my reply; “Hartmann with the rest—ten years ago was it? Ah! he was young then. But mark me, my friend, don’t call people martyrs prematurely. You think Hartmann went down with that vessel—permit me to express a doubt.”

“Well,” I responded, “it matters little to me anyhow, but, anarchy apart, how that poor old mother of his would relish a glimpse of him, if what you hint at is true!”

He nodded, and involuntarily my thoughts ran back to the days of 1910, when my uncle read me, then a mere boy, the account of Hartmann’s outrage.

As Hartmann’s first crime is notorious I run some risk of purveying stale news. But for a younger generation it will suffice to mention the attempt of this enthusiast to blow up the German Crown Prince and suite when driving over Westminster Bridge on the occasion of their 1910 visit. Revenge for the severe measures taken against Berlin anarchists was the motive, but by some mischance the mine exploded just after the carriages had passed, wreaking, however, terrible havoc in the process. My sneer about the applewoman must not be taken too seriously, for though it is quite true that one such unfortunate perished, yet fifty to sixty victims fell with her in the crash of a rent arch. There was a terrible burst of indignation from all parts of the civilized world and the usual medley of useless arrests; the real culprits, Hartmann and his so-called “shadow” Michael Schwartz, escaping to sea in a cargo-boat bound for Holland. The boat went down in a storm, and, failing further news, it was believed that all on board had gone down with her. Hartmann was known to have possessed large funds, and these also presumably lined the sea-bottom. Such was the official belief, and most people had agreed that the official belief was the right one.

I should add that among Hartmann’s victims must, in a sense, be classed his mother. At the time of which I am now writing she was leading a very retired but useful life in Islington, where she spent her days in district-visiting and other charitable work. She still wore deep mourning, and had never, so it seemed, got over the shock caused by the appalling crime and early death of her son. Burnett knew her very well indeed, though she scarcely appreciated his visits. I was myself on excellent terms with the old lady, but had not seen her for some weeks previous to the conversation here recorded.

My time running fine, Burnett shortly rose to go.

“Be sure,” he said, “and look me up early on your return. Mischief, I tell you, is brewing, and how soon I shall have to pitch my camp elsewhere I hardly know.”

He was moving to the door when my landlady entered with a note. She had probably been listening to the conversation, for she glanced rather timorously at my guest before depositing her charge.