Első fejezet

The European world war breaks out; the Author, as a surgeon, is posted to the man-of-war Bulwark.

Off Essex the Germans blow up the ship.

The Author and the ship's commander make their escape by hydroplane.

At the critical moment a wondrous flying-machine rescues the Author and sets him safely ashore in Faremido.

The reader will doubtless marvel that, notwithstanding so many sorrowful experiences, and after I had vowed forever that I would put to sea no more, in July of the year 1914 I nevertheless forsook my wife and children to set out, as a surgeon aboard the man-of-war Bulwark, for the waters of the Baltic.

There will be those who charge me with inconstancy on this account; for already at the close of my first voyage, having by good fortune escaped out of Lilliput, I ought to have concluded that a true-born English subject does better never to overstep the borders of our boundlessly beloved country, since he procures himself thereby nothing but senseless and profitless bitterness, forgetting that one day he must, after all, return to the fervently loved land of his birth.

My later voyages, to Brobdingnag, to Laputa, and to the country of the Houyhnhnms, did but the more convince me of this truth; as the reader will surely recollect (for is it not so?) that, calling to mind above all my last adventurous journey, had I, upon returning home from Laputa and Lagado, but sat quietly at home, how many horrible and mortal perils I should have spared myself: to say nothing else, I need mention only that well-nigh fatal adventure, when in my despair at being brought back by force to England I leaped from the ship's bow into the sea, on which occasion I very nearly lost my life.

Had I stayed at home, I should never have come into such a pass.

To excuse this seeming inconstancy of mine, I need only point to that burning and boundless love of country which glows in the breast of every English subject, to the thought that a man should stake his life and fortune for his native land.

In the summer of 1914 the Austro-Hungarian monarchy demanded satisfaction of the Serbian government, for that it had procured, by hired men, the treacherous murder of the country's heir to the throne.

The chivalry of our beloved country and of Russia could not, of course, suffer that a strong and mighty state, such as the monarchy, should fall upon so weak and helpless a little people, one that has not even strength enough to kill its enemy in open battle, but is driven to strike treacherously, from behind, whenever it has a mind to do a little murdering.

Accordingly, that it might secure the peace of Europe, my country declared war upon Germany, as the obstructor of culture, which had ceaselessly threatened the world with war.

With Russia, too, it made peace, in the hope that she would call to her aid her old enemy, Japan; which indeed came to pass.

In such circumstances every Englishman felt it, of course, his duty to defend his unjustly and unexpectedly assaulted country, the more so since everyone well knew that we had these ten years been preparing our splendid army and our invincible fleet for this very war.

I too presented myself at once as a surgeon, being unable to resist partly my own roving and adventurous nature, which forever drove me into fresh and further undertakings, and partly that unquenchable and irresistible love of country which lives in the breast of every English subject when the hour comes to offer up his life and blood for the common cause.

In my resolve I was confirmed, at the last, by this circumstance also: that, as a naval surgeon of the reserve, I had been summoned to my company by an urgent call-up, and knew that, did I not present myself of my own accord, I should be haled before a court-martial and, in all likelihood, shot.

After presenting myself I was assigned to the man-of-war Bulwark, whose charge it was to guard the coast off Essex and, upon occasion, to support the offensive operations of the fleet.

My commander, Sir Edward B——, a most excellent and cultivated gentleman, struck up a friendship with me in the very first days, and imparted to me many interesting particulars, of military moment, touching the private life of the Admiral.

Our ship came at first into no line of fire, but took up wounded men on the French coast and carried them to Essex.

As a surgeon I gathered exceedingly interesting and instructive experience toward the advancement of my profession; and I may roundly affirm, in the name of my colleagues, that there is nothing which so furthers the beautiful science of surgery as a modern war of this kind, which, with its numberless weapons, its machine guns, its grenades, its steam-mortars, its bombs that burst in the air, its bullets filed to a point, its poisoned arrows, supplies the apt and studious surgeon with cases each more interesting and each newer than the last, for his edification.

I myself observed no fewer than thirty-four such mortal wounds and maladies, external and internal, as had until then figured in no medical lexicon whatsoever, and by the recording of which I may say, without immodesty, that I rendered the science of medicine no trifling service.

There were broken bones and mangled livers; there were entrails turned inside out and eyes pressed in.

There was one man whose face and breast had swollen to the bigness of a barrel, because a bullet had bored through the windpipe and the air had passed half into the lung and half beneath the skin; and there was another whose left arm had withered away, because a splinter of shrapnel in his right shoulder had torn the artery asunder.

There were shot wounds, cuts, and stab wounds in plenty, and some few cases of great physiological interest, which, by the magnitude of the surgical injury to the muscles of the neck, gave proof of the dynamic force of the human dentition.

Though it lies not strictly within my province, I set down also some interesting neuropathological observations: there came into my hands, for instance, a Japanese soldier (it being understood that we had called in the Japanese as well, for the saving of European culture), who had gone mad upon the field of battle — his fixed delusion being that he knew what he was fighting for.

Our ship cruised close under the English coast until the very end of November — I shall not weary the reader with the particulars.

On the twenty-second of November there came by wireless telegraph the order that the Bulwark should land her wounded, make up her crew to full war strength, and advance upon Dixmude, which the Germans had taken.

We took on seven hundred men, shipped our store of ammunition, and on the twenty-fourth of November set out, in a great fog, for the Belgian coast.

We lit the fog with our searchlights, yet even so we lost our way, and strayed a little off our course, toward the English coast, to the west-southwest.

On the twenty-fifth of November we received light-signals in the fog, but could not read them; some few knots off, our searchlights showed a ship.

We swung out the disappearing guns and sounded the alarm to the crew.

Every man took his post, and the ship's engineer had that instant ordered full steam, when a terrible detonation shook the deck: the ship had run upon a mine.

Wild terror broke out upon the deck; every man lost his head, and a desperate press began toward the lifeboats.

The force of the explosion flung me down from the bridge, where I had that moment been speaking with the captain, and for some seconds I lost consciousness.

When I came to myself the ship lay upon her side and was sinking fast.

The crew, cursing and brawling, tore at the retaining chains of the boats: they had seized every place, and no one troubled himself about me.

I saw that I must perish, and cursed in my despair the moment that had brought me aboard, when the commander crept over to me and beckoned me to follow.

Reeling, we made our way to the after-deck; whereupon the commander raised a wooden gang-board and signed to me to climb down quickly.

I espied a great flying-machine, fully fitted out with boat-runners and ready to start; the motor was already whirring.

At a single bound we sprang into the seats; the commander seized the lever, and the next moment the hydroplane ran down its sloping slipway onto the water.

The screw began to beat the air; we ran some kilometers upon the water, then of a sudden fluttered up into the fog.

Looking back, I could see nothing more of the ship: uncertain lights flickered through the fog beneath me.

The cold was piercing, and soon everything about us vanished: an impenetrable, dense fog wrapped the machine, which, far from clearing, grew ever thicker.

For the clatter of the motor one could not speak, and so I had no notion in what direction we were making, nor at what height.

I sat in my place in dread, from time to time half losing my senses from the cold and the rushing blast of air, so that to this day I do not know whether we flew thus for three hours or half a day.

I recall only that once I felt a wetness trickling upon my chin; I put my hand to it, and my hand came away bloody, and at the same time I perceived that blood was seeping too from beneath my nails, and that my breath was failing.

About me the fog seemed to begin to clear, and a certain unnatural, dark-gray light lurked between the wings.

Then I understood that we were so high that the air was already grown quite thin; in terror I seized the commander's arm, but he did not so much as stir; I leaned forward and looked into his face; it was motionless and rigid, his eyes of glass, and from his two nostrils the blood ran quietly down.

His hands, with a thrusting motion, gripped the elevating-rudder convulsively.

A hideous terror took hold of me, and I thrust him aside; he tipped heavily to the left, and his head fell forward.

Over his head I stretched out both my arms and seized the rudder, but I felt already that I was done for, that I could hold out no longer.

At that moment I heard a rushing above my head; looking up, I beheld a great bird-shaped contrivance through the clearing fog.

I made to cry out that I surrendered (in my reeling brain I fancied that an enemy aircraft had come above me), but not a sound would come from my throat.