WORLD'S END

Many planes were diving and swooping, acquiring the needed skill. Some were learning a new art called "flying in formation"; others were practicing dropping objects upon stationary targets. The visitors watched them until their eyes ached, and the backs of their necks. Every now and then a new plane would take off, and the moment when it left the ground always came to the beholder as a fresh miracle: man's dream of ages realized, the conquest of the last of the elements. The visitors were introduced to some of the pilots, well-padded fellows who of course made it a matter of pride to take it all in the day's work; going up was no miracle to them, and flying around was, to tell the truth, a good deal of a bore, once you got the hang of it. One place in the sky was exactly like another, and the ground beneath was no more exciting than your parlor rug. They were practicing night flying - and that, they admitted, was something that kept you awake. Also, they were very proud because they had succeeded in "looping the loop" in a biplane, for the first time in history.

Lanny was interested to see the effect of all this upon his English friend. Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson, young man of the world whose "note" was sophistication and whose motto was nil admirari, was stirred to eloquence by the idea of military aviation. He remarked to Lanny's father that after all England wasn't as backward as the Americans might have thought. He began asking technical questions of Captain Finchley and the fliers; he wanted to know if it wouldn't be possible to mount a machine gun in a plane, and they told him that the French were trying it. "That would be a fight to put a man on his mettle!" exclaimed Rick; a surprising remark from a youth who had been heard to speak of army men as "troglodytes."

Captain Finchley was pleased by this enthusiasm. "I wish more English boys felt that way," he remarked; "the failure of the recent recruiting is a cause of deep concern to all friends of the Empire."

Robbie Budd took the occasion to speak about the effect which this new kind of warfare was bound to have upon the position of Englishmen. It deprived them of the advantage of their island solitude. Planes were now flying the Channel, and the Americans had even devised a sort of catapult that could launch a plane from a ship. It was certain that in the next war bombs would be dropped upon munitions centers and factories; and guns that could be fired at planes and airships would surely have to be mounted at vital points. Lanny understood that his father was giving a sales talk - Captain Finchley was on the board which had to decide about the Budd gun with high-angle mountings. Robbie had told his son the previous evening that they were trying to "stall" him; they wouldn't say they would buy the gun, yet they were obviously worried by the idea of his taking it anywhere else.

IX

On their way back to town in the evening the four talked about what they had seen, and the likelihood of these dangerous contrivances being actually put to the test. Kurt Meissher was worried by a letter he had received from home; the situation in the Balkans was more serious than anybody in England seemed to realize. Robbie said, yes, but it was always that way; the English were an easygoing people and left problems for others to solve as much as possible. This was just one more crisis.

"But,'' exclaimed Kurt, "do the English or anybody else expect the Austrians to let Serbian hooligans incite the murder of Austrian rulers on Austrian soil?"

"The diplomats will get together and stop it," Robbie told him soothingly. Nothing to worry about.

"But it is said that the Russians are backing the Serbs!"

"I know; they're always shoving one another about. The Russians say: 'You let my Serbian friends alone.' The Germans say: 'You let my Austrian friends alone.' The French say: 'You let my Russian friends alone' - so it goes. They've been making faces at one another for hundreds of years."

"I know it, Mr. Budd - but they've been going to war, too."

"The world has been changing so fast that it no longer pays to go to war, Kurt. The nations couldn't finance a war; it would bankrupt them all."

"But," argued Kurt, "when people get angry enough, they don't stop to calculate."

"The masses don't, but they don't have the say any more. It's the financiers who decide, and they're first-class calculators. What's happened is, we've made weapons so destructive that nobody dares use them. Just to have them is enough." Robbie paused for a moment, and smiled. "Did Lanny ever tell you about his meeting with Zaharoff? The old man was worried by the thought that his armaments might some day be put to use; I suggested to him that the ideal of civilization was to spend all our energies making things we never meant to use." Robbie chuckled, and they all chuckled with him, though a bit dubiously.