ere were, no doubt, museums and town halls and even
cathedrals of a sort to mark theoretical centres of municipal and
religious organisation in this confusion; but Bert could not see
them, they did not stand out at all in that wide disorderly vision
of congested workers' houses and places to work, and shops and meanly
conceived chapels and churches. And across this landscape of an
industrial civilisation swept the shadows of the German airships like a
hurrying shoal of fishes....

Kurt and he fell talking of aerial tactics, and presently went down to
the undergallery in order that Bert might see the Drachenflieger that
the airships of the right wing had picked up overnight and were towing
behind them; each airship towing three or four. They looked, like big
box-kites of an exaggerated form, soaring at the ends of invisible
cords. They had long, square heads and flattened tails, with lateral
propellers.

"Much skill is required for those!--much skill!"

"Rather!"

Pause.

"Your machine is different from that, Mr. Butteridge?"

"Quite different," said Bert. "More like an insect, and less like a
bird. And it buzzes, and don't drive about so. What can those things
do?"

Kurt was not very clear upon that himself, and was still explaining when
Bert was called to the conference we have recorded with the Prince.

And after that was over, the last traces of Butteridge fell from Bert
like a garment, and he became Smallways to all on board. The soldiers
ceased to salute him, and the officers ceased to seem aware of his
existence, except Lieutenant Kurt. He was turned out of his nice cabin,
and packed in with his belongings to share that of Lieutenant Kurt,
whose luck it was to be junior, and the bird-headed officer, still
swearing slightly, and carrying strops and aluminium boot-trees and
weightless hair-brushes and hand-mirrors and pomade in his hands,
resumed possession. Bert was put in with Kurt because there was nowhere
else for him to lay his bandaged head in that close-packed vessel. He
was to mess, he was told, with the men.

Kurt came and stood with his legs wide apart and surveyed, him for a
moment as he sat despondent in his new quarters.

"What's your real name, then?" said Kurt, who was only imperfectly
informed of the new state of affairs.

"Smallways."

"I thought you were a bit of a fraud--even when I thought you were
Butteridge. You're jolly lucky the Prince took it calmly. He's a pretty
tidy blaze