The Dirigibles of Death by A. Hyatt Verrill

The Dirigibles of Death
    by A. Hyatt Verrill
    I was living in England, at Ripley, when the first of the mysterious things arrived. I am an early riser and fond of taking a stroll along the lanes and across the fields at dawn, and on that particular morning—an epochal and terrible date in the world's history—I rose and with stick in hand prepared to start on my usual morning walk. As I opened my front door and glanced down the village street I actually gasped with astonishment. In the dim gray light an immense, dark-colored mass loomed through the soft morning mist above the roof of the Antelope public house on the opposite side of the road a few rods down the street. I was still gazing at the thing, wondering what on earth it could be, when old Tim Newbald appeared on the porch of his little cottage. Evidently he, too, saw the thing, for he uttered a surprised ejaculation, and adjusting his glasses, stared towards the Antelope.
    "What be the drasted thing?" he demanded, without taking his eyes from the strange object.
    Sudden realization came to me. "An airship!" I shouted to him. "A dirigible of some sort. Must have been forced down. Maybe persons injured or killed."
    As I spoke I dashed to the street and ran towards the Antelope, my mind filled with visions of dead and injured persons in the gondola of the strange airship.
    Old Tim came clumping at my heels, and as I passed Gilmore's house he too popped from the door and, instantly catching sight of the stranded balloon, came racing along with me. Whether it was the sounds of our running feet, whether we unconsciously shouted as we ran, or whether it was some inexplicable form of telepathy or intuition, I cannot say, but regardless of the early hour and the fact that ordinarily few persons are astir in the village before seven, everyone seemed to be up, everyone appeared to have seen the stranded dirigible. By the time I reached the Antelope I was leading a group of a dozen excited and curious people. The contraption was resting in an open pasture back of the inn, its rounded, slightly-swaying black mass rising perhaps twenty feet above the ridge of the inn. Apparently no one in the Antelope had noticed the strange arrival in the inn's backyard. Evidently old man Thorpe and the staff were still sleeping, for the windows were tightly shuttered, the doors closed and no sign of life showed about the premises. The gate in the inn wall was also closed and latched and some delay was caused by trying to open it. By this time a considerable crowd had gathered, and I was conscious of wondering how the inmates of the Antelope could sleep through the hubbub we were making. Then Bob Moore, the village constable, arrived on his bike and took official charge. I noticed, as I finally forced the gate and hurried to the rear of the inn, that someone was pounding lustily at the front door of the Antelope. Reaching the inn-yard, I had a clear view of the airship.
    Although I am not at all familiar with the niceties of details of such contrivances, I realized at once that it was very different from anything of the sort I had ever before seen. The balloon or bag was perhaps 800 feet in length by forty feet in diameter, and appeared to be made of some metal. Below it, and forming an integral part of it, was a boat-shaped body or car that rested, slightly canted by the remains of a hay-rick under one side, at a sharp angle on the ground. Close at my elbow was the bobby, while the rest of the crowd swarmed into the inn-yard from all sides.
    "Rum lookin' Zep Hi s'y," commented the representative of the law as we hurried forward towards the airship now but a few yards distant. "Queer, too ‘ow the blinkin’ thing got here. Wasn't 'ere when Hi parsed at three, Hi'll swear. Think'e, Doc, there'll be bodies 'urt into it?"
    "Like as not," I replied. "Don't see anyone about. If they're not injured or dead they'd have let us know they were here long ago."
    We had now reached the airship, and to my