This illustrated poem appeared in Appleton' s Magazine - January 1908- It refers to
great events that will occur in 1950

 

  THE BATTLE OF SEXOS PORT -  A.D. 1950

     By FREMONT RIDER

     ILLUSTRATED BY BEVERLY TOWLES

  THROUGH dark and through light as through that night I shall hear, howe'er I fare
     The pulsing drone of a riven exhaust - a hell  I cannot bear-
  The throb, throb, throb of his motor blades on the mystery of the air.

  Twas the second day of Sexos Port and the night of the second day
  That our tickers clicked our numbers and calls and ordered us into the fray.
  Sixteen we flew from the Roanoke stage and circled above the sea,
  Missing the fire of their mortar guns which thundered upon our lee.

  We knew they were pushing upon our flanks their worming gallery tubes,
  And had seen the arms of their burrowing dredges gaunt on their oscillant cubes;
  But all the land to the riverward now was hidden by hordite haze,
  And we could not see the landing stage or the yards of the Southern Ways.

  Regally couchant, assured of her might, lay Sexos, the gate of the West,
  Pulsing and blazing with sound and light from the sea to the hill-girt crest
  Where towered her roaring wind-vane wheels through the reek of her nights and days,
  Stifling the still of the cooler air as they mix with the roar of the ways,
  And bitterness grew as I gazed and thought--gazed long though the sight was old,
  For this was the meed of the nation's blood, when her blood was bartered for gold.
  Our mar-coils had tangled their wireless waves, though our vibrators clicked true,
  As they felt to sea, for the Francian fleet which with the dusk was due.
  Far to the north on a. cirrus cloud their searchlights spelt some word;
  But their cipher code was unknown to us, so only the hearers heard.
 

 
 


"Far to the North on a cirrus cloud their
        searchlights spelt some word"

 
 
 

  An hour we floated at poise in the void while the new moon sank toward the west,
  When again our tickers clicked our call, and we listened: "Come abreast:
  Vibrators now are sensing planes which left La Manche last night,
  They travel V'd a hundred east, and soon will be in sight."
  I spoke to my motorman quietly: we set the righting vanes,
  Saw to the swing of the motor heads, and tightened the soaring planes.
  Silently shimmered the stars through the dark to meet the shimmering sea,
  And between the two hung our brittle fleet, membranous-winged and free;
  But we knew in the drama to play to-night we were--and our hearts beat strong--
  Fulfilling the dreams of a hundred centuries, eager but patient long.
 

  Heat-lightninglike flickered the sudden east; then their lights flaunted west to the hills;
  And we watched them swing through the ten-league slant their swart aluminum bills.
  Silently waited their pauseless rush--twenty-eight we counted in all,
  When nearly impaled I dropt close-vaned, first shooting a maxite ball.
  We swirled far wide in the rush of their wind while they countered lumberingly
  And opened on us with their green-fire guns, but wounded only the sea.
  We paid no heed to their venomous spite, but mounted again in the blue,
  Counting the wreck of the dual fleet; breathing to grapple anew.
  Three of our ships had been caught and rammed, and six of theirs smitten with shells--
  One drifted south with her float-vanes jammed; the rest were froth on the swells.
  Far, far below for a little space hung the sheen of metal, but soon
  The fragile frames had faded away--there was only the spray and the moon.

  So much I saw: then turned our helm in time to avoid their ram:
  Our first shell had missed, but our second struck true, and she burst like a bursting dam.
  The green-fire caught to her motor cans, and she writhed in her dire distress,
  And choked to death in the roaring draft of her own destructiveness;
  Ere the driving wreckage had cleared from the stars we shook with another crash:
  Her neighbor had grazed our west float-vane, and we staggered as under a lash,
  And fell a thousand feet ere we caught--just above the Roanoke stage;
  Caught just in time to drive through their wings as they chased us. In a rage
  With trembling hands I threw the bands that choked the leverage trains;
  And watched them fall in their veering scrawl till they crushed their nether vanes.
  I saw them strike on the crouching earth and crunch in a sobbing heap,
  While the green-fire burst from their riven wheels and began to curl and leap.
 

 
 
 
 
 


  "Our first shell had missed, but our 
     second struck true, and she burst
             like a bursting dam"

 
 
 
 

  At first I did not understand that our aeroplane was free,
  Till the fearful slide of her downward glide showed the black waste of the sea.
  Though we crazily slewed I hoped to rise and caught by the wind-shield guards--
  When we clinched a third spent aeroplane and shivered like brittle shards.
  Their aeronaut struck our motor points--they slew as our sheep are slain--
  Our screw brrred wild in the swirling air, and the righting-wings were vain-
  And I crushed his face with a tightening rod to put him out of his pain.

  I saw the face of their motorman, wide mouth and staring eyes,
  Rigidly fixed on the groveling earth as he watched its hell-blast rise.
  Ten thousand pace in that locked embrace--our gauges showed it fair--
  Though hours we fell--I watched to tell--in that upward rush of the air.

  They say they found me clenched and clove, too full for speech of amaze,
  'Mid a tangled mass of alecthon wire in the yards of the Southern Ways,
  Crushed like my plane in a hundred bones, but living still to tell
  Through life of a fall that should have meant death, but--since I have lived--meant hell.

  Through dark and through light, as through that night, I shall hear, howe'er I fare,
  The pulsing drone of a riven exhaust--think ye I do not care?--
  The throb, throb, throb of his motor blades on the mystery of the air.
                               ~
 

 
 
 
 

HOME (Click)

FANTASY FLYERS PAGE (Click)