While the Aeroplanes Were Coming

After the speech, Graham expects action. What he receives is a room full of bells, messengers and waiting.

The man in yellow reports that the south-west wards are marching toward the flying stages.

Graham sends a brief message of encouragement, then turns again to the strategic problem. If Ostrog's aircraft land, disciplined troops may recover the city.

The Master offers to join the march.

Ward leaders refuse. The battle is taking place inside a maze of corridors, lifts, tunnels and sub-stages. Graham's public value is too great to risk in a place where nobody can even know where he is.

So Graham remains near the communications apparatus while other people fight.

The confinement is different from the Silent Rooms but produces the same helplessness. Doors open, messengers arrive, machines record fragments of information—and the decisive struggle remains invisible.

Only gradually does he assemble a picture.

Beneath the Roehampton flying stage, thousands of separate fights are spreading through the city's interior.

The forces are not conventional armies.

Workers, ward organisations and armed citizens move through familiar local passages against guards and supporters loyal to Ostrog.

Most have little experience with the small green carbines distributed during the first revolution. Some carry weapons without enough ammunition. Orders compete with rumour.

A battle involving hundreds of thousands becomes a hundred thousand private decisions made in smoke, noise and enclosed space.

The people possess numbers and momentum. Ostrog's side possesses training, privileged access and a habit of obedience.

Neither side has a clear view of the whole contest.

The vast architecture breaks war into galleries, stairways and disabled lifts. Retreat can become impossible simply because a passage is blocked by bodies.

Above them, the sky remains clear and almost peaceful.

It seems to be waiting for the aeroplanes.

Reports trace the approaching fleet across Spain and France.

Each message shortens the remaining time.

Graham repeatedly asks about new guns believed to be hidden somewhere in London, but the weapons cannot be moved quickly enough to the roof spaces.

The flying stages must be captured before the aircraft arrive.

No one can tell him whether the battle below is succeeding.

At last, a message arrives from Roehampton.

The people have taken part of the stage and captured a monoplane lying across its launch carrier.

The machine is intact.

There is one fatal problem.

They have no aeronaut.

For a moment the information appears useless.

Then Graham remembers the three days Helen once reproached him for wasting.

He learned to fly.

He is inexperienced and has never fought in the air, but he understands the controls and the difference between a nimble monoplane and the large aircraft approaching London.

A skill acquired as entertainment has become the only action available to him.

Graham tells them to put the machine on its guides.

Helen understands before the others do. He intends to fly to Roehampton and attack the incoming fleet himself.

She says he will be killed.

Graham does not deny it.

He has given his word publicly. Asking someone else to take the greatest risk would make the pledge hollow.

The decision is no longer romantic or abstract.

If he stays, he may preserve the symbol of the Sleeper while the city falls.

If he goes, he may die without changing anything.

Graham chooses the possibility of action.

Helen takes his hand and kisses it. He holds her briefly and kisses her hair with the tenderness of people who know there is no useful argument left.

Then Graham turns toward the flying stage.

The aeroplanes are coming.