Speaker 1: The Horror of the Heights, which includes the manuscript known
as the Joyce Armstrong Fragment by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The idea that the extraordinary narrative, which has been called
the Joyce Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate, practical joke evolved
by some unknown person cursed by a perverted and sinister
sense of humor, has now been abandoned by all who
have examined the matter. The most macabre and imaginative of
plotters would hesitate before linking his morbid fancies with the
unquestioned and tragic fact which reinforce the statement. Though the
assertions contained in it are amazing and even monstrous, it
is nonetheless forcing itself upon the general intelligence that they
are true, and that we must readjust our ideas to
the situation. This world of ours appears to be separated
by unexpected danger. I'll endeavor in this narrative, which reproduces
the original document in its necessarily somewhat fragmentary form, lay
before the reader the whole of the facts up to date.
Prefacing my statement by saying that if there be no
question at all as to the facts concerning Lieutenant Myrtle
r N and mister hay Connor, who undoubtedly met their
end in the manner described. The joyous Armstrong fragment was
found in the field which is called Lower Haycock, laying
one mile to the westward of the village of Withiam
upon the Kenton, Sussex border. It was on the fifteenth
September last that an agricultural laborer, James Flynn, in the
employment of Matthew Dodd, farmer of the Chauntry Farm Withiam,
perceived a briar pipe laying near the footpath which kirts
the hedge in Lower Haycock. A few paces farther on
he picked up a pair of broken binocular glasses. Finally,
among some nettles in the ditch, he caught sight of
a flat canvas backed book which proved to be a
note book with detachable leaves, some of which had come
loose and were fluttering along the base of the hedge.
These he collected, but some, including the first, were never
recovered and leave a deplorable hiatus in this all important statement.
The note book was taken by the laborer to his master,
who in turn showed it to doctor J. H Atherton
of Hartfield. This gentleman at once recognized the need for
an expert examination, and the manuscript was forward at the
Aero Club in London, where it now lies. The first
two pages of the manuscript are missing. There is also
one torn away at the end of the narrative, though
none of these affect the general coherence of the story.
It is conjectured that the missing opening is concerned with
the record of mister Joyce Armstrong's qualification as an aeronaut,
which can be gathered from other sources, and are admitted
to be unsurpassed among the air pilots of England. For
many years he has been looked upon as among the
most daring and the most intellectual of flying men, a
combination which has enabled him to both invent and test
several new devices, including the common gyroscopic attachment, which is
known by his name. The main body of the manuscript
is written neatly in ink, but the last few lines
are in pencil and are so ragged as to be
hardly legible, exactly in fact, as they might be expected
to appear if they were scribbled off hurriedly from the
seat of a moving aeroplane. There are it may be
added several stains, both on the last page and on
the outside cover, which have been pronounced by the Home
Office experts to be blood, probably human and certainly mammalian.
The fact that something closely resembling the organism of malaria
was discovered in this blood, and that Joyce Armstrong is
known to have suffered from intermittent fever, is a remarkable
example of the new weapon which modern science is placed
in the hands of our detectives. And now a word
as to the personality of the author of this epoch
making statement. Joyce Armstrong, according to the few friends who
really knew something of the man, was a poet and
a dreamer, as well as a mechanic and an inventor.
He was a man of considerable wealth, much of which
he had spent in the pursuit of his aeronautical hobby.
He had four private aeroplanes in his hangars near Devise It,
and it said to have made no fewer than one
hundred and seventy as cents in the course of the
last year. He was a retiring man, with dark moods
in which he would avoid the society of his fellows.
Captain Dangerfield, who knew him better, than anyone, says that
there were times when his eccentricity threatened to develop into
something more serious. His habit of carrying a shot gun
with him in his aeroplane was one manifestation of it.
Another was the morbid effect which the fall of Lieutenant
Myrtle had upon his mind. Myrtle, who was attempting the
height record, fell from an altitude of something over thirty
thousand feet horrible to narrate. His head was entirely obliterated,
though his body and limbs preserved their configuration. Yet every
gathering of airman Joyce Armstrong, according to Dangerfield, would ask,
with an enigmatic smile, and where prey is Myrtle's head.
On another occasion, after dinner at the mess of the
Flying School on Salisbury Plane, he started a debate as
to what will be the most permanent danger which airmen
will have to encounter. Having listened too successive opinions as
to air pockets, faulty construction, and over banking, he ended
up by shrugging his shoulders and refusing to put forward
his own views, though he gave the impression that they
differed from any advanced by his companions. It's worth remarking
that after his own complete disappearance, it was found that
his private affairs were arranged with a precision, which may
show that he had a strong premonition of disaster. With
these essential explanations, I will now give the narrative exactly
as it stands, beginning at page three of the Blood
Soak note Book. Nevertheless, when I dined at Reims with
Coselli and Gustov Raymond, I found that neither of them
was aware of any particular danger in the higher layers
of the atmosphere. I did not actually say what was
in my thoughts, but I got so near to it
that if they had any corresponding idea, they could not
have failed to express it. But then they are too empty,
vainglorious fellows, with no thought beyond seeing their own names
in the newspaper. It's interesting to note that neither of
them had ever been much beyond the twenty thousand foot level.
Of course, men have been higher than as both in
balloons and in the ascent of mountains. It must be
well above that point that the aeroplane enters the danger zone.
Always presuming that my premonitions are correct, aeroplaning has been
with us now for more than twenty years, and one
might well ask why should this peril be only revealing
itself in our day. The answer is obvious. The old
days of weak entrance, when a hundred horse power Gnome
or Green was considered ample for every need, the flights
were very restricted. Now that three hundred horse power is
the rule rather than the exception, visits to the upper
layers have become easier and more common. Some of us
can remember how in our youth Garris made a world
wide reputation by attaining nineteen thousand feet and it was
considered a remarkable achievement to fly over the Alps. Our
standard now has been immeasurably raised, and there are twenty
high flights for one. In former years, many of them
have been undertaken with impunity. The thirty thousand foot level
has been reached time after time with no discomfort beyond
cold and asthma. And what does this prove? A visitor
might descend upon this planet a thousand times and never
see a tiger. Yet tigers exist, and if he chanced
to come down into a jungle, he might be devoured.
There are jungles of the upper air, and there are
worse things than tigers which inhabit them. I believe in
time they will map these jungles accurately out. Even at
the present moment I could name two of them. One
of them lies over Pauberit's district of France. Another is
just over my head as I write here in my
house in Wiltship. I rather think there is a third
in the Homburg Wiesbaden district. It was the disappearance of
the airmen that first set me to thinking. Of course,
every one said that they had fallen into the sea,
but that did not satisfy me at all. First there
was Vergier in France. His machine was found near Bayonne,
but they never got his body. There was the case
of Baxter, also who vanished, though his engine and some
of the iron fittings were found in a wood in Leicestershire.
In that case, doctor Middleton of Amesbury, who was watching
the flight with a telescope, declared that just before the
clouds obscured the view, he saw the machine, which was
at an enormous height, suddenly rise perpendicularly upwards in a
succession of jerks, in a manner that he would have
thought to be impossible that was the last scene of Baxter.
There was a correspondence in the papers, but it never
led to anything. There were several other similar cases, and
then there was the death of hay Connor. What a
cackle there was about an unsolved mystery of the air
and what columns in the Haypeny papers, and yet how
little was ever done to get to the bottom of
the business. He came down in a tremendous wall plane
from an unknown height. He never got off his machine
and died in his pilot's seat. Died of what heart disease?
Said the doctors rubbish. Hay Connor's heart was as sound
as mine is, what did Venables say? Venables was the
only man who was at his side when he died.
He said that he was shivering and looked like a
man who had been badly scared. Died of fright, said Venables,
but could not imagine what he was frightened about. Only
said one word to Venables, which sounded like monstrous. They
could make nothing of that at the inquest, but I
could make something of it. Monsters. That was the last
word of poor Harry hay Connor. And he did die
of fright, just as Venables thought, and then there was
myrtle's head. Do you really believe does anybody really believe
that a man's head could be driven clean into his
body by the force of a fall. Well, perhaps it
may be possible, but I, for one have never believed
that it was so with myrtle, and the grease upon
his clothes, all slimy with grease, said somebody, the inquest queer.
That nobody got thinking after that? I did, But then
I'd been thinking for a good long time. I've made
three accents. How Dangerfield used to chaff me about my
shot gun, but I've never been high enough. Now, with
this new light Paul Varney machine and its one hundred
and seventy five rober, I should easily touch the thirty thousand.
Tomorrow i'll have a shot at the record. Maybe I
shall have a shot at something else as well. Of course,
it's dangerous. A fellow wants to avoid danger, it'd best
keep out of flying altogether and subside finally into flannel
slippers and a dressing gown. But I'll visit the air
jungle to morrow, and if there's anything there, I shall
know it. If I return, i'll find myself a bit
of a celebrity. If I don't, this note book may
explain what I'm trying to do and how I lost
my life in doing it, but no drivel about accidents
or mysteries, if you please. I chose my Paul Varnier
monoplane for the job. There's nothing like a monoplane when
real work is to be done. Beaumont found that out
in very early days. For one thing, it doesn't mind
damp and the weather looks as if we should be
in the clouds all the time. It's a bonny little
model and enters my hand like a tender mouthed horse.
The engines a ten cylinder rotary robure working up to
one hundred and seventy five. It has all the modern improvements,
enclosed fuselage, high curved landing skids, brakes, gyroscopic steadiers, and
three speeds worked by an alteration of the angle of
the planes upon the Venetian blind principle. I took a
shot gun with me and a dozen cartridges filled with buckshot.
You should have seen the face of Perkins, my old mechanic,
when I directed him to put them in. I was
dressed like an Arctic explorer with two jerseys under my overalts,
thick socks inside my padded boots, a storm cap with flaps,
and my talc goggles. It was stifling outside the hangars,
but I was going for the summit of the Himalayas
and had to dress for the part. Perkins knew there
was something on and implored me to take him with me.
Perhaps I should if I were using the biplane. But
a monoplane is a one man show if you want
to get the last foot of life out of it.
Of course I took an oxygen bag. The man who
goes for the altitude record without one will either be
frozen or smother or both. I had a good look
at the planes, the rudder bar, and the elevating lever
before I got in. Everything was in order as far
as I could see. Then I switched on my engine
and found that she was running sweetly. When they let
her go, she rose almost at once. Upon the lowest speed.
I circled my home field once or twice, just a
warmer up, and then with a wave to Perkins and
the others, I flattened out my planes and put her
on her highest. She turned her nose up a little,
and she began to climb in a great spiral for
the cloud bank above me. It's all important to rise
slowly and adapt yourself to the pressure as you go.
It was a close, warm day for an English September,
and there was a hush and heaviness of impending rain.
Now and then there came sudden puffs of wind from
the southwest, one of them so gusty and unexpected that
it caught me napping and turned me half round for
an instant. I remember the time when gusts and the
whorlds and air pockets used to be things of danger,
before we learned to put on overmastering power into our engines.
Just as I reached the cloud banks with the altimeter
marking three thousand down came the rain. My word, how
it poured. It drummed upon my wings and lashed against
my face, blurring my glasses so that I could hardly see.
I got down on to a lower speed, for it
was painful to travel against it. As I got higher,
it became hail, and I had to turn tail to it,
one of my cylinders, rising steadily with plenty of power.
After a bit, the trouble passed, whatever it was, and
I heard the full, deep throated purr, the ten singing
as one. That's where the beauty of our modern silences
comes in. We can at last control our engines by
ear how they squeal and squeak and sob when they
are in trouble. All those cries for help were wasted
in the old days, when every sound was swallowed up
by the monstrous racket of the machine. If only the
early aviators could have come back to see the beauty
and perfection of the mechanism which had been brought at
the cost of their lives. About nine thirty I was
nearing the clouds down below me, all blurred and shadowed
with rainly the vast expanse of Salisbury Plain. Half a
dozen flying machines were doing hack work at the thousand
foot level, looking like little black swallows against the green background.
I dare say they were wondering what I was doing
up in cloud land. Suddenly a gray curtain drew across
beneath me, and the wet folds of vapors were swirling
round my face. It was clammily cold and miserable, but
I was above the hail storm, and that was something gained.
The cloud was dark and thick as a London fog.
In my anxiety to get clear, I cocked her nose
up until the automatic alarm bell rang, and I actually
began to slide backward my soft and dripping wings. It
made me heavier than I thought, but presently I was
in lighter cloud, and soon had cleared up the first layer.
There was a second, opal colored and fleecy, at a
great height above my head, a white unbroken ceiling above,
and a dark unbroken floor below, with the monoplane laboring
upward upon a vast spiral between them. It is small
water birds that went past me, flying very fast to
the westwards. The quick whirr of their wings and their
musical cry were cheery to my ear. I fancied that
they were teal, But I am a wretched duologist. Now
that we humans have become birds, we must really learn
to know our brethren by sight. The wind down beneath
me whirled and swayed the broad cloud plane once a
great eddy formed in it a whirlpool of vapor, and
through it, as down a funnel, I caught sight of
the distant world. A large white biplane was passing at
a vast depth. Beneath me. I fancy it was the
morning Male's service between Bristol and London. Then the drift
swirled inwards again, and the great solitude was unbroken. Just
after ten I touched the lower edge of the upper
cloud stratum. It consisted of fine diaphanous vapor drifting swiftly
from the westwards. The wind had been steadily rising all
this time, and it was now blowing a sharp breeze
twenty eight an hour by my gauge. Already it was
very cold, though my altimeter only marked nine thousand. The
engines were working beautifully, and we were droning steadily upwards.
The cloud bank was thicker than I had expected, but
at last it thinned out into a golden mist before me,
And then in an instant I had shot out from it,
and there was an unclouded sky and a brilliant sun
above my head, all blue and gold above, all shining
silver below one vast, glimmering plane. As far as my
eyes could reach. It was a quarter past ten o'clock,
and the barograph needle pointed to twelve thousand, eight hundred
up If I went, and up, my ears concentrated upon
the deep purring of my motor, my eyes busy always
with the watch, the revolution indicated, the petrol lever, and
the oil bump. No wonder. Aviators is said to be
a fearless race. With so many things to think of,
there is no time to trouble about one's self. About
this time I noted how unreliable is the compass When
above a certain height from the earth. At fifteen thousand feet,
mine was pointing east and a point south. The sun
and the wind gave me my true bearings. I had
hoped to reach an eternal stillness in these high altitudes,
But with every thousand feet of ascent, the gale grew stronger.
My machine groaned and trembled in every joint and rivet
as she faced it, and swept away like a sheet
of paper. When I banked here on the turn, skimming
down wind at a greater pace, perhaps than ever mortal
man is moved. Yet I had always to turn back
again and tack up into the wind's eye. For it
was not merely a height record that I was after
by all my calculations. It was above little willulture that
my air jungle lay, and all my labor might be lost.
If I struck the outer layers at some further point.
When I reached the nineteen thousand foot level, which was
about midday, the wind was so severe that I looked
with some anxiety to the stays of my wings, expecting
momentarily to see them snap or slacken. I even cast
loose the parachute behind me, and fastened its hoop into
the ring of my leather belt, so as to be
ready for the worst. Now was the time when a
bit of scamped work by the mechanic is paid for
by the life of the aeronaut. But she held together bravely.
Every cord and strut was humming and vibrating, like so
many harp strings. But it was glorious to see how
for all the beating and the buffering, she was still
the conqueror of nature and the mistress of the sky.
There is surely something divine in man himself that he
should rise so superior to the limitations which creation seems
to impose, rise to by such unselfish, heroic devotion as
this air conquest has shown. Talk of human degeneration wind
has such a story as this been written in the
annals of our race. These were the thoughts in my
head as I climbed that monstrous inclined plane, with the
wind sometimes beating in my face and sometimes whistling behind
my ears, while the cloud land beneath me fell away
to such a distance that the folds and hummocks of
silver had all smoothed out into one flat, shining plane.
But suddenly I had a horrible and unprecedented experience. I
have known before what it is to be in what
our neighbors have called a turbillon, but never on such
a scale as this. That huge sweeping river of wind
of which I had spoken, had, as it appears, whirlpools
within it, which were as monstrous as itself. Without a
moment's warning, I was dragged suddenly into the heart of one.
I spun round for a minute or two with such
velocity that I almost lost my senses, and then fell suddenly,
wing foremost down the vacuum funnel in the center. I
dropped like a stone and lost nearly a thousand feet.
It was only my belt that kept me in my seat,
and the shock and breathlessness left me hanging half insensible
over the side of the fuselage. But I'm always capable
of a supreme effort. It's my one great merit as
an aviator. I was conscious that the descent was slower,
the whirlpool was a cone rather than a funnel, and
I had come to the apex with a terrific wrench,
throwing my weight all to one side. I leveled my
planes and brought her head away from the wind. In
an instant I had shot out of the eddies and
was skimming down the sky. Then, shaken but victorious, I
turned her nose up and began once more my steady
grind on the upward spiral. I took a large sweep
to avoid the danger spot of the whirlpool, and soon
I was safely above it. Just after one o'clock I
was twenty one thousand feet above the sea level. To
my great joy, I topped the gale, and with every
hundred feet of ascent the air grew still. On the
other hand, it was very cold, and I was conscious
of that peculiar nausea which goes with rarefication of the air.
For the first time, I unscrewed the mouth of my
oxygen bag and took an occasional whiff of the glorious gasp.
I could feel it running like a cordial through my veins,
and I was exhilarated, almost to the point of drunkenness.
I shouted and sang as I soared upward into the cold,
still outer world. It is very clear to me that
the insensibility which came upon Glacier, and in a lesser
degree upon Coxwell, when in eighteen sixty two they ascended
in a balloon to a height of thirty thousand feet,
was due to the extreme speed with which a perpendicular
ascent is made. Doing it at an easy gradient, and
accustoming oneself to the lessened barometric pressure by slow degrees,
there are no such dreadful symptoms at the same great height.
I found that even without my oxygen inhaler, I could
breathe without undue distress. It was bitterly cold, however, and
my thermometer was at zero fahrenheit. At one thirty I
was nearly seven miles above the surface of the Earth
and still ascending steadily. I found, however, that the rarefied
air was giving markedly less support to my planes, and
that my angle of ascent had to be considerably lowered.
In consequence. It was already clear that even with my
light weight and strong engine power. There was a point
in front of me where I should be held. To
make matters worse, one of my sparking plugs was in
trouble again, and there was intermittent misfiring in the engine.
My heart was heavy with the fear of failure. It
was about that time that I had a most extraordinary experience.
Something whizzed past me in a trail of smoke and
exploded with a loud, hissing sound, sending forth a cloud
of steam. For the instant I could not imagine what
had happened. Then I remembered that the Earth is forever
being bombarded by meteor stones, and would be hardly inhabitable
were they not in nearly every case turned to vapor
in the outer layers of the atmosphere. Here is a
new danger for the high altitude man. For two others
passed me when I was nearing the forty thousand foot mark.
I cannot doubt that at the edge of the Earth's
envelope the risk would be a very real one. My
barograph needle marked forty one thousand, three hundred. When I
became aware that I could go no farther physically, the
strain was not as yet greater than I could bear,
But my machine had reached its limit. The attenuated air
gave no firm support to the wings, and the least
tilt developed into a side slip, while she seemed sluggish
on her controls. Possibly, had the engine been at its best,
another thousand feet might have been within our capacity. But
it was still misfiring, and two out of the ten
cylinders appeared to be out of action. If I had
not already reached the zone for which I was searching,
then I should never see it upon this journey. But
was it not possible that I had attained it? Soaring
in circles like a month's strous hawk. Upon the forty
thousand foot level, I let the monoplane guide itself, and
with my Mannheim glass I made a careful observation of
my surroundings. The heavens were perfectly clear. There was no
indication of those dangers which I had imagined. I have
said that I was soaring in circles. It struck me
suddenly that I would do well to take a wider
sweep and open up a new air tract. If the
Hunter entered an earth jungle, he would drive through it.
If he wished to find his game. My reasoning had
led me to believe that the air jungle which I
had imagined lay somewhere over Wiltshire. This should be to
the south and west of me. I took my bearings
from the sun, for the compass was hopeless, and no
trace of Earth was to be seen, nothing but the
distant silver cloud plane. However, I got my direction as
best I might, and kept her head straight to the mark.
I reckoned that my petrol supply would not last for
more than another hour or so, but I could afford
to use it to the last drop, since a single
magnificent vulveplane could at inn any time take me to
the Earth. Suddenly I was aware of something new. The
air in front of me had lost its crystal clearness.
It was full of long, ragged wisps of something which
I can only compare to very fine cigarette smoke. It
hung about in wreaths and coils, turning and twisting slowly
in the sunlight. As the monoplane shot through it. I
was aware of a faint taste of oil upon my lips,
and there was a greasy scum upon the woodwork of
the machine. Some infinitely fine organic matter appeared to be
suspended in the atmosphere. There was no life there. It
was inchoate and diffuse, extending for many square acres, then
fringing off into the void. No, it was certainly not life.
But might it not be the remains of life? Above all?
Might it not be the food of life, of monstrous life,
even as the humble grease of the ocean, as the
food of the mighty whale. The thought was in my
mind when my eyes looked upward and I saw the
most wonderful vision that ever man has seen. Can I
hope to convey it to you, even as I saw
it myself last Thursday? Conceive a jelly fish, such as
sails in our summer seas, bell shaped and of enormous size,
far larger, I should judge than the dome of Saint Paul's.
It was of a light pink color, veined with a
delicate green, but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that
it was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky.
It pulsated with a delicate and regular rhythm. From it
there depended two long, drooping green tentacles, which swayed slowly
backwards and forwards. This gorgeous vision passed gently, with noiseless dignity,
over my head, as light and fragile as a soap bubble,
and drifted upon its stately way. I had half turned
my monoplane that I might look after this beautiful creature,
when in a moment I found myself amidst a perfect
fleet of them, of all sizes, but none so large
as the first. Some were quite small, but the majority
about as big as an average balloon, and with much
the same curvature at the top. There was in them
a delicacy of texture and coloring which reminded me of
the finest Venetian glass, pale shades of pink and green
with the prevailing tints, but all had a lovely iridescence
where the sun shimmered through their dainty forms. Some hundreds
of them drifted past me, a wonderful fairy squadron of strange,
unknown argases of the sky, creatures whose forms and substance
were so attuned to these pure heights that one could
not conceive anything so delicate within actual sight or sound
of Earth. But soon my attention was drawn to a
new phenomenon, the serpents of the outer air. These were long, thin,
fantastic coils of vapor like material, which turned and twisted
with great speed, flying round and round to touch a
pace that the eyes could hardly follow them. Some of
these ghostlike creatures were twenty or thirty feet long, but
it was difficult to tell their girth. Their outline was
so hazy that it seemed to fade away into the
air around them. These air snakes were of a very
light gray or smoke color, with some darker lines within,
which gave the impression of a definite organism. One of
them whisked past my very face, and I was conscious
of a cold clammy contact. But their composition was so
unsubstantial that I could not connect them with any thought
of physical danger any more than the beautiful bell like
creatures which had preceded them. There was no more solidity
in their frames than in the floating spume from a
broken wave. But a more terrible experience was in store
for me. Floating downward from a great height, there came
a purplish patch of vapor, small as I saw at first,
but rapidly enlarging as it approached me, until it appeared
to be hundreds of square feet in size, Though fashioned
of some transparent jelly like suf instance, it was none
the less of a much more definite outline and solid
consistence than anything which I had seen before. There were
more traces, too, of a physical organization, especially two vast,
shadowy circular plates upon either side which may have been eyes,
and a perfectly solid white projection between them, which was
as curved and cruel as the beak of a vulture.
The whole aspect of this monster was formidable and threatening,
and it kept changing its color from a very light
maub to a dark angry purple, so thick that it
cast a shadow as it drifted between my monoplane and
the sun. On the upper curve of its huge body,
there were three great projections which I can only describe
as enormous bubbles, and I was convinced as I looked
at them that they were charged with some extremely light
gas which served to buoy up the misshapen and semi
solid mass in the rarefied air. The creature moved swiftly along,
keeping pace easily with them monoplane, and for twenty miles
or more it formed my horrible escort, hovering over me
like a bird of prey, which is waiting to pounce.
Its method of progression, done so swiftly that it was
not easy to follow, was to throw out a long,
glutinous streamer in front of it, which in turn seemed
to draw forward the rest of the writhing body. So
elastic and gelatinous was it that never for two successive
minutes was it the same shape, And yet each change
made it more threatening and loathsome than the last. I
knew that it meant mischief. Every purple flush of its
hideous body told me so. The vague, goggling eyes which
were turned always upon me, were cold and merciless in
their vicid hatred. I dipped the nose of my monoplane
downward to escape it. As I did so, as quick
as a flash, there shot out a long tentacle from
this mass of floating blubber, and it fell as light
and sensuous as a whiplash across the front of my machine.
There was a loud here as it lay for a
moment across the hot engine, and it whisked itself into
the air again, while the huge flat body drew itself
together as if in sudden pain. I dipped to a volpeak,
but again a tentacle fell over the monoplane and was
shorn off by the propeller as easily as it might
have cut through a smoke wreath. A long, gliding, sticky,
serpent like coil came from behind and caught me round
the waist, dragging me out of the fuselage. I tore
at it, my fingers sinking into the smooth, glue like surface,
and for an instant I disengaged myself, but only to
be caught round the boot by another coil, which gave
me a jerk that tilted me almost on to my back.
As I fell over, I blazed off both barrels of
my gun, though indeed it was like attacking an elephant
with a pea shooter to imagine that any human weapon
could cripple that mighty bulk. Yet I aimed better than
I knew, for with a loud report, one of the
great blisters upon the creature's back exploded with the puncture
of the buckshot. It was very clear that my conjecture
was right, and that these vast clear bladders were distended
with some lifting gas. For in an instant, the huge
cloudlike body turned sideways, writhing desperately to find its balance,
while the white beak snapped and gaped in horrible fury.
But already I had shot away on the steepest glide
that I dared to attempt, my angine still full on
the flying propeller and the force of gravity shooting me
downwards like an aer light. Far behind me, I saw
a dull, purplish smudge growing swiftly smaller and merging into
the blue sky. Behind it. I was safe out of
the deadly jungle of the outer air. Once out of danger,
I throttled my engine. For nothing tears a machine to
pieces quicker than running on full power from a height.
It was a glorious spiral vulplane from nearly eight miles
of altitude, first to the level of the silver cloud bank,
then to that of the storm cloud beneath it, and finally,
in beating rain, to the surface of the Earth. I
saw the Bristol Channel beneath me. As I broke from
the clouds, but having still some petrol in my tank,
I got twenty miles inland before I found myself stranded
in a field half a mile from the village of Ashcombe.
There I got three tins of petrol from a passing
motor car, and at ten minutes past six that evening,
I elated gently in my own home meadow to devise it.
After such a journey as no mortal upon Earth has
ever yet taken and lived to tell the tale. I
have seen the beauty, and I have seen the horror
of the heights, and greater beauty are greater horror than
that is not within the ken of men. And now
it is my plan to go once again before I
give my results to the world. My reason for this
is that I must surely have something to show by
way of proof before I lay such a tale before
my fellow men. It's true that others will soon follow
and will confirm what I have said, And yet I
should wish to carry conviction from the first. Those lovely
iridescent bubbles of the air should not be hard to capture.
They drift slowly upon their w and the swift monoplane
could intercept their leisurely course. It's likely enough that they
would dissolve in the heavier layers of the atmosphere, and
that some small heap of amorphous jelly might be all
that I should bring to Earth with me. And yet
something there would surely be by which I could substantiate
my story. Yes, I will go, even if I run
a risk by doing so. These purple horrors would not
seem to be numerous. It's probable that I shall not
see one. If I do, I shall die at once.
At the worst, there is always the shot gun and
my knowledge of Here a page of the manuscript is
unfortunately missing. On the next page is written in large
straggling writing, forty three thousand feet I shall never see
earth again. They are beneath me, three of them. God
help me. It's a dreadful death to die. Such in
its entirety is the joyous, armstrong statement of the man.
Nothing has since been seen. Pieces of his shattered monoplane
have been picked up in the preserves of mister bud Lushington,
upon the borders of Kent and Sussex, with a few
miles of the spot where the notebook was discovered. If
the unfortunate aviator's theory is correct that this air jungle,
as he called it, existed only over the southwest of England,
then it would seem that he had fled from it
at the full speed of his monoplane, but had been
overtaken and devoured by these horrible creatures at some spot
in the outer atmosphere, above the place where the grim
relics were found. The picture of that monoplane skimming down
the sky, with the nameless terrors flying as swiftly beneath it,
and cutting it off always from the earth, while they
gradually closed in upon their victim, is one upon which
a man who valued his sanity would prefer not to dwell.
There are many, as I am aware, who still jeer
at the facts which I have here set forth. But
even they must admit that Joyce Armstrong has disappeared, and
I would commend them to his own words. This note
book may explain what I am trying to do, and
how I lost my life in doing it. But no
drivel about accidents or mysteries, if you please. End of
the Horror of the Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle