Robertson Over the Border

1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-98744-972-7
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 199 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

'Over the Border' is a fascinating tale about hypnosis and mesmerism. The narrator lost much of his memory for many years after leaving his former life as a sailor. One night he visits a theatre where a hypnotist is performing. On his way home on the tram, he hears two doctors discussing a case at the hospital - a man with amnesia. One doctor recommends hypnosis as therapy to try to access the lost memories. (Amazon)

Autoren/Hrsg.

Robertson, Morgan

Leseproben

THE LAST BATTLESHIP
It was nearly midnight, and the battleship Argyll, stripped to bare steel, was drifting with banked fires but a full head of steam, waiting for daybreak to discover the enemy. New things were expected in this coming action. Wireless news had told of the presence of submarines, as yet unproved in war, and before the going down of the sun a high-power telescope on board had brought to view two small moving spots in the distant sky—airships; but whether they were friends or enemies had not been determined. No hammocks were piped that night—men slept at their stations or remained awake and talked; and aft on the superstructure a group of officers off duty discussed the possibilities of future warfare, and the coming place of the battleship under the menace of the bomb-dropping dirigible balloon and the invisible submarine with its deadly torpedo. All had taken part, some with laughter and joking, others with the earnest conviction of serious thought, and the discussion finally had narrowed down to a wordy combat between the highest and the lowest of the commissioned officers, Mr. Clarkson, the executive officer, and young Mr. Felton, temporarily the torpedo lieutenant. Mr. Felton had become dogmatic in his assertions, which is excusable at sea only in the young. "But, Mr. Felton," said the executive officer, slowly and earnestly, "have a little common sense. Can't you see that conditions must change, that the battleship, like the steamship, has almost reached the limit of size and development, while the airship and the submarine are in their infancy?" "But there must be a center, a nucleus of the fleet. How can you preserve the line of battle without such a backbone? Where will you put the admiral?" "Up in the air, where he can see things?" "And be seen, too, and shot at." "Felton, an ordinary gas bag can travel faster than the speediest water craft ever constructed. We cannot hit a destroyer at full speed. How can we hit an airship above us? Gun sights are useless at such elevations, even though guns could be pointed." "All a matter of mathematics. Design new ones." "And suppose a few bombs come down on deck, or down the funnels; what'll happen to the boilers?" "Armor the deck, and do away with funnels. We will soon have internal combustion engines, anyhow." "And for submarine attack? Armor the bottom, too? Felton, a battleship will cease to be a battleship. With that weight of armor she could only carry the guns of a cruiser without a cruiser's speed." "But she would still hold the line of battle." "Until she was further reduced. Then she would not be even a cruiser. Finally she would sacrifice some of her armor—side armor, we'll say, because unnecessary—then, with enemies only above and below, she would lose it all, seal up and dive, or take wings and fly." "Oh, Mr. Clarkson," said Felton, wearily, "you are a visionary and theorist. The battleship is here, a perfected fighting machine." "But she cannot grow much better, while the flying machine and the submarine have just begun. Imagine the three types starting together. Which would be chosen?" "It would depend upon the judgment, experience, and gray matter of the choosers. I"—young Mr. Felton threw out his chest—"would choose the battleship." "Because you never hit one. There goes eight bells. Turn in, Felton, and sleep it off." Amid the laughter—for Mr. Felton, as torpedo officer, had not yet scored a hit in his department—of the listening officers, the group dispersed, to stand watch, or sleep, until four hours later, when the striking of eight bells would again bring a change on the watches. It was Felton's turn in, and he went to his berth; but, hot and excited over the discussion, he remained awake, tossing and rolling, and mentally arguing with the impractical "first luff," until one bell had struck, then two, and finally three. Then he dozed off, and was sound asleep when the familiar stroke of the bell again rang in his ears. "Clang-clang, clang-clang." "Only four bells," he murmured, sinking back for another two hours of sleep. But he had hardly lost consciousness when the gun-room orderly tapped at his door. "Going into action, sir," he said. "You were called, and I thought you had wakened. All hands are at stations, sir." Felton sprang out of his berth and dressed hurriedly. Until the enemy was within the "cruising radius" of torpedoes his station was on the bridge with the captain. As he ran along the gun deck he heard through the steel walls of the big ship the faint sound of distant firing, and when he had bounded up the forward companion steps to the main deck he could hear the singing of shells, and see through the inky blackness twinkling points of flame. A crash and a jar of the whole huge fabric told him that one ship of the enemy had the range, and that something had struck somewhere, and penetrated. There was no time for sight-seeing. The bridge was above him, and the quickest road to it was by way of the turret, from the top of which he could swing himself up. He mounted the iron ladder bolted to the turret, but slipped on the hard steel roof and, with a force that deprived him of breath, was pressed sprawling on his face. But a deafening roar of sound from within the turret told him that the force came from below—from the explosion of a shell and one or more twelve-inch charges, perhaps the whole magazine in the depths. Hardly had his dazed faculties grasped this fact than another was borne in upon him. Gripping tightly the hand-hold of the turret hatch, and choked with gas fumes oozing through the sight holes in the hood, he felt that he was whirling through the air, upward and to port, he and the whole turret roof. As it turned in air he could see for a moment the dim, bulky outline of the ship below; then it faded into darkness, and he was clinging for dear life to that slowly canting disk of armored steel, until, as it assumed a perpendicular, he was holding his weight with one hand, very curiously, as he then thought, weighing very little. But he partook of the motion of the whole. Something hard and rigid brushed him on the shoulder, and in a moment he was torn from his support to find himself clutching a smooth, round rod of what seemed to be steel or iron. It was perpendicular, and beyond in the darkness he made out another, and beyond another. Looking down he saw a long, pointed platform or deck, to the edge of which the rods led. He was clinging to the stanchion of an airship, but what kind of an airship he could not determine. Thankful for life and a whole skin—though bruised and shocked almost into unconsciousness—he slid down the stanchion to the deck, and faced a man in the darkness—a tall man who peered down at his face. "Hello, who are you, and where'd you come from?" he asked, rather kindly. "How'd you get aboard!" "I hardly know myself. I hardly know I'm alive. This is an airship, isn't it?" "Yes." "My name is Felton, torpedo officer of the battleship Argyll. There was an explosion in the forward turret, and I was on top. I went up with the roof." "Was that a turret top? I wondered what they were shooting at us." "It was. I was rifling it. Which side are you on in this mix?" "The side of the Lord." The man whistled shrilly, and immediately half a dozen other dark forms materialized out of the dark. They threw themselves upon Felton, choked, pinioned, and bore him down, and before he could speak his protest he found himself bound hand and foot. "Stay there," said the tall man, who seemed to be the commander, "until we need to expend weights. We did want a little more ballast." Felton wisely accepted the situation, and remained through the waning night where they had placed him. They had not gagged him, and he was free to roll over and change his position when tired. He lay on what seemed to be a grating, but on turning to look at it, he found that it was the deck of the car, through the slits of which he could see lights below, and the quick gleaming of distant gun fire, but nothing on the black carpet that took form and identity. In his immediate vicinity, however, objects were becoming faintly visible in the first blink of the morning light that had not yet reached the surface below. He made out the shape, size, and general construction of the craft that carried him. It was not the conventional elongated gas bag, with car and motor, rudder, and screw; nor was it suspended in the air by wings or planes, unless the long, concave roof above, toward the edge of which the stanchions led, performed some such function. Amidships were a vertical and a horizontal steering wheel, aft a noisily buzzing engine, and, behind it in the darkness, presumably, were the screw and rudders that propelled and guided the craft. Symmetrically disposed about the deck were long, steel cylinders that doubtless contained the compressed gas or air that worked the engine, and through and between them all a system of pipes, valves, levers, and indicators, as complicated as the fittings of an engine-room. The tall commander was at the wheel amidships, another man at the engine, and the rest of the crew, seven in all, were scattered about the deck "keeping lookout," not ahead, but down. "There she is," said one, suddenly lifting his head. "Ahead, and to port." "I see her," said the captain, peering down and shifting the wheel. "You see, young man," he said to Felton, "we had to rise so suddenly to dodge that turret top that we lost sight of her." "Do you mean to say," answered Felton, cautiously, for he did not yet understand the temper of these men, "that you can dodge...