The Moon-Voyage

CHAPTER I.

THE GUN CLUB.

Dur­ing the Fed­er­al war in the Unit­ed States a new and very in­flu­en­tial club was es­tab­lished in the city of Bal­ti­more, Mary­land. It is well known with what en­er­gy the mil­itary in­stinct was de­vel­oped amongst that na­tion of shipown­ers, shop­keep­ers, and me­chan­ics. Mere trades­men jumped their coun­ters to be­come ex­tem­pore cap­tains, colonels, and gen­er­als with­out hav­ing passed the Mil­itary School at West Point; they soon ri­valled their col­leagues of the old con­ti­nent, and, like them, gained vic­to­ries by dint of lav­ish­ing bul­lets, mil­lions, and men.

But where Amer­icans sin­gu­lar­ly sur­passed Eu­ro­peans was in the sci­ence of bal­lis­tics, or of throw­ing mas­sive weapons by the use of an en­gine; not that their arms at­tained a high­er de­gree of per­fec­tion, but they were of un­usu­al di­men­sions, and con­se­quent­ly of hith­er­to un­known ranges. The En­glish, French, and Prus­sians have noth­ing to learn about flank, run­ning, en­fi­lad­ing, or point-​blank fir­ing; but their can­non, how­itzers, and mor­tars are mere pock­et-​pis­tols com­pared with the formidable en­gines of Amer­ican ar­tillery.

This fact ought to as­ton­ish no one. The Yan­kees, the first me­chani­cians in the world, are born en­gi­neers, just as Ital­ians are mu­si­cians and Ger­mans meta­physi­cians. Thence noth­ing more nat­ural than to see them bring their au­da­cious in­ge­nu­ity to bear on the sci­ence of bal­lis­tics. Hence those gi­gan­tic can­non, much less use­ful than sewing-​ma­chines, but quite as as­ton­ish­ing, and much more ad­mired. The mar­vels of this style by Par­rott, Dahlgren, and Rod­man are well known. There was noth­ing left the Arm­strongs, Pal­lis­ers, and Treuille de Beaulieux but to bow be­fore their transat­lantic ri­vals.

There­fore dur­ing the ter­ri­ble strug­gle be­tween North­ern­ers and South­ern­ers, ar­tillery­men were in great re­quest; the Union news­pa­pers pub­lished their in­ven­tions with en­thu­si­asm, and there was no lit­tle trades­man nor _naïf_ “boo­by” who did not both­er his head day and night with cal­cu­la­tions about im­pos­si­ble tra­jec­to­ry en­gines.

Now when an Amer­ican has an idea he seeks an­oth­er Amer­ican to share it. If they are three, they elect a pres­ident and two sec­re­taries. Giv­en four, they elect a clerk, and a com­pa­ny is es­tab­lished. Five con­voke a gen­er­al meet­ing, and the club is formed. It thus hap­pened at Bal­ti­more. The first man who in­vent­ed a new can­non took in­to part­ner­ship the first man who cast it and the first man that bored it. Such was the nu­cle­us of the Gun Club. One month af­ter its for­ma­tion it num­bered eigh­teen hun­dred and thir­ty-​three ef­fec­tive mem­bers, and thir­ty thou­sand five hun­dred and sev­en­ty-​five cor­re­spond­ing mem­bers.

One con­di­tion was im­posed as a _sine quâ non_ up­on ev­ery one who wished to be­come a mem­ber--that of hav­ing in­vent­ed, or at least per­fect­ed, a can­non; or, in de­fault of a can­non, a firearm of some sort. But, to tell the truth, mere in­ven­tors of fif­teen-​bar­relled ri­fles, re­volvers, or sword-​pis­tols did not en­joy much con­sid­er­ation. Ar­tillery­men were al­ways pre­ferred to them in ev­ery cir­cum­stance.

“The es­ti­ma­tion in which they are held,” said one day a learned or­ator of the Gun Club, “is in pro­por­tion to the size of their can­non, and in di­rect ra­tio to the square of dis­tance at­tained by their pro­jec­tiles!”

A lit­tle more and it would have been New­ton's law of grav­ita­tion ap­plied to moral or­der.

Once the Gun Club found­ed, it can be eas­ily imag­ined its ef­fect up­on the in­ven­tive ge­nius of the Amer­icans. War-​en­gines took colos­sal pro­por­tions, and pro­jec­tiles launched be­yond per­mit­ted dis­tances cut in­of­fen­sive pedes­tri­ans to pieces. All these in­ven­tions left the timid in­stru­ments of Eu­ro­pean ar­tillery far be­hind them. This may be es­ti­mat­ed by the fol­low­ing fig­ures:--

For­mer­ly, “in the good old times,” a thir­ty-​six pounder, at a dis­tance of three hun­dred feet, would cut up thir­ty-​six hors­es, at­tacked in flank, and six­ty-​eight men. The art was then in its in­fan­cy. Pro­jec­tiles have since made their way. The Rod­man gun that sent a pro­jec­tile weigh­ing half a ton a dis­tance of sev­en miles could eas­ily have cut up a hun­dred and fifty hors­es and three hun­dred men. There was some talk at the Gun Club of mak­ing a solemn ex­per­iment with it. But if the hors­es con­sent­ed to play their part, the men un­for­tu­nate­ly were want­ing.

How­ev­er that may be, the ef­fect of these can­non was very dead­ly, and at each dis­charge the com­bat­ants fell like ears be­fore a scythe. Af­ter such pro­jec­tiles what sig­ni­fied the fa­mous ball which, at Coutras, in 1587, dis­abled twen­ty-​five men; and the one which, at Zorn­dorff, in 1758, killed forty fan­tassins; and in 1742, Kessel­dorf's Aus­tri­an can­non, of which ev­ery shot lev­elled sev­en­ty en­emies with the ground? What was the as­ton­ish­ing fir­ing at Je­na or Auster­litz, which de­cid­ed the fate of the bat­tle? Dur­ing the Fed­er­al war much more won­der­ful things had been seen. At the bat­tle of Get­tys­burg, a con­ical pro­jec­tile thrown by a ri­fle-​bar­rel cut up a hun­dred and sev­en­ty-​three Con­fed­er­ates, and at the pas­sage of the Po­tomac a Rod­man ball sent two hun­dred and fif­teen South­ern­ers in­to an ev­ident­ly bet­ter world. A formidable mor­tar must al­so be men­tioned, in­vent­ed by J.T. Mas­ton, a dis­tin­guished mem­ber and per­pet­ual sec­re­tary of the Gun Club, the re­sult of which was far more dead­ly, see­ing that, at its tri­al shot, it killed three hun­dred and thir­ty-​sev­en per­sons--by burst­ing, it is true.

What can be added to these fig­ures, so elo­quent in them­selves? Noth­ing. So the fol­low­ing cal­cu­la­tion ob­tained by the statis­ti­cian Pit­cairn will be ad­mit­ted with­out con­tes­ta­tion: by di­vid­ing the num­ber of vic­tims fall­en un­der the pro­jec­tiles by that of the mem­bers of the Gun Club, he found that each one of them had killed, on his own ac­count, an av­er­age of two thou­sand three hun­dred and sev­en­ty-​five men and a frac­tion.

By con­sid­er­ing such a re­sult it will be seen that the sin­gle pre­oc­cu­pa­tion of this learned so­ci­ety was the de­struc­tion of hu­man­ity phi­lan­throp­ical­ly, and the per­fect­ing of firearms con­sid­ered as in­stru­ments of civil­isa­tion. It was a com­pa­ny of Ex­ter­mi­nat­ing An­gels, at bot­tom the best fel­lows in the world.

It must be added that these Yan­kees, brave as they have ev­er proved them­selves, did not con­fine them­selves to for­mu­lae, but sac­ri­ficed them­selves to their the­ories. Amongst them might be count­ed of­fi­cers of ev­ery rank, those who had just made their _début_ in the pro­fes­sion of arms, and those who had grown old on their gun-​car­riage. Many whose names fig­ured in the book of hon­our of the Gun Club re­mained on the field of bat­tle, and of those who came back the greater part bore marks of their in­dis­putable val­our. Crutch­es, wood­en legs, ar­tic­ulat­ed arms, hands with hooks, gut­ta-​per­cha jaws, sil­ver cra­ni­ums, plat­inum noses, noth­ing was want­ing to the col­lec­tion; and the above-​men­tioned Pit­cairn like­wise cal­cu­lat­ed that in the Gun Club there was not quite one arm amongst ev­ery four per­sons, and on­ly two legs amongst six.

But these valiant ar­tillery­men paid lit­tle heed to such small mat­ters, and felt just­ly proud when the re­port of a bat­tle stat­ed the num­ber of vic­tims at ten­fold the quan­ti­ty of pro­jec­tiles ex­pend­ed.

One day, how­ev­er, a sad and lamentable day, peace was signed by the sur­vivors of the war, the noise of fir­ing grad­ual­ly ceased, the mor­tars were silent, the how­itzers were muz­zled for long enough, and the can­non, with muz­zles de­pressed, were stored in the ar­se­nals, the shots were piled up in the parks, the bloody rem­inis­cences were ef­faced, cot­ton shrubs grew mag­nif­icent­ly on the well-​ma­nured fields, mourn­ing gar­ments be­gan to be worn-​out, as well as sor­row, and the Gun Club had noth­ing what­ev­er to do.

Cer­tain old hands, in­vet­er­ate work­ers, still went on with their cal­cu­la­tions in bal­lis­tics; they still imag­ined gi­gan­tic bombs and un­par­al­leled how­itzers. But what was the use of vain the­ories that could not be put in prac­tice? So the sa­loons were de­sert­ed, the ser­vants slept in the an­techam­bers, the news­pa­pers grew mouldy on the ta­bles, from dark cor­ners is­sued sad snores, and the mem­bers of the Gun Club, for­mer­ly so noisy, now re­duced to si­lence by the dis­as­trous peace, slept the sleep of Pla­ton­ic ar­tillery!

“This is dis­tress­ing,” said brave Tom Hunter, whilst his wood­en legs were car­bon­is­ing at the fire­place of the smok­ing-​room. “Noth­ing to do! Noth­ing to look for­ward to! What a tire­some ex­is­tence! Where is the time when can­non awoke you ev­ery morn­ing with its joy­ful re­ports?”

“That time is over,” an­swered dandy Bils­by, try­ing to stretch the arms he had lost. “There was some fun then! You in­vent­ed an how­itzer, and it was hard­ly cast be­fore you ran to try it on the en­emy; then you went back to the camp with an en­cour­age­ment from Sher­man, or a shake of the hands from Mac­Clel­lan! But now the gen­er­als have gone back to their coun­ters, and in­stead of can­non-​balls they ex­pe­dite in­of­fen­sive cot­ton bales! Ah, by Saint Barb! the fu­ture of ar­tillery is lost to Amer­ica!”

“Yes, Bils­by,” cried Colonel Bloms­ber­ry, “it is too bad! One fine morn­ing you leave your tran­quil oc­cu­pa­tions, you are drilled in the use of arms, you leave Bal­ti­more for the bat­tle-​field, you con­duct your­self like a hero, and in two years, three years at the lat­est, you are obliged to leave the fruit of so many fa­tigues, to go to sleep in de­plorable idle­ness, and keep your hands in your pock­ets.”

The valiant colonel would have found it very dif­fi­cult to give such a proof of his want of oc­cu­pa­tion, though it was not the pock­ets that were want­ing.

“And no war in prospect, then,” said the fa­mous J.T. Mas­ton, scratch­ing his gut­ta-​per­cha cra­ni­um with his steel hook; “there is not a cloud on the hori­zon now that there is so much to do in the sci­ence of ar­tillery! I my­self fin­ished this very morn­ing a di­agram with plan, basin, and el­eva­tion of a mor­tar des­tined to change the laws of war­fare!”

“In­deed!” replied Tom Hunter, think­ing in­vol­un­tar­ily of the Hon­ourable J.T. Mas­ton's last es­say.

“In­deed!” an­swered Mas­ton. “But what is the use of the good re­sults of such stud­ies and so many dif­fi­cul­ties con­quered? It is mere waste of time. The peo­ple of the New World seem de­ter­mined to live in peace, and our bel­li­cose _Tri­bune_ has gone as far as to pre­dict ap­proach­ing catas­tro­phes due to the scan­dalous in­crease of pop­ula­tion!”

“Yet, Mas­ton,” said Colonel Bloms­ber­ry, “they are al­ways fight­ing in Eu­rope to main­tain the prin­ci­ple of na­tion­al­ities!”

“What of that?”

“Why, there might be some­thing to do over there, and if they ac­cept­ed our ser­vices--”

“What are you think­ing of?” cried Bils­by. “Work at bal­lis­tics for the ben­efit of for­eign­ers!”

“Per­haps that would be bet­ter than not do­ing it at all,” an­swered the colonel.

“Doubt­less,” said J.T. Mas­ton, “it would be bet­ter, but such an ex­pe­di­ent can­not be thought of.”

“Why so?” asked the colonel.

“Be­cause their ideas of ad­vance­ment would be con­trary to all our Amer­ican cus­toms. Those folks seem to think that you can­not be a gen­er­al-​in-​chief with­out hav­ing served as sec­ond lieu­tenant, which comes to the same as say­ing that no one can point a gun that has not cast one. Now that is sim­ply--”

“Ab­surd!” replied Tom Hunter, whit­tling the arms of his chair with his bowie-​knife; “and as things are so, there is noth­ing left for us but to plant to­bac­co or dis­til whale-​oil!”

“What!” shout­ed J.T. Mas­ton, “shall we not em­ploy these last years of our ex­is­tence in per­fect­ing firearms? Will not a fresh op­por­tu­ni­ty present it­self to try the ranges of our pro­jec­tiles? Will the at­mo­sphere be no longer il­lu­mi­nat­ed by the light­ning of our can­nons? Won't some in­ter­na­tion­al dif­fi­cul­ty crop up that will al­low us to de­clare war against some transat­lantic pow­er? Won't France run down one of our steam­ers, or won't Eng­land, in de­fi­ance of the rights of na­tions, hang up three or four of our coun­try­men?”

“No, Mas­ton,” an­swered Colonel Bloms­ber­ry; “no such luck! No, not one of those in­ci­dents will hap­pen; and if one did, it would be of no use to us. Amer­ican sen­si­tive­ness is de­clin­ing dai­ly, and we are go­ing to the dogs!”

“Yes, we are grow­ing quite hum­ble,” replied Bils­by.

“And we are hu­mil­iat­ed!” an­swered Tom Hunter.

“All that is on­ly too true,” replied J.T. Mas­ton, with fresh ve­he­mence. “There are a thou­sand rea­sons for fight­ing float­ing about, and still we don't fight! We economise legs and arms, and that to the prof­it of folks that don't know what to do with them. Look here, with­out look­ing any far­ther for a mo­tive for war, did not North Amer­ica for­mer­ly be­long to the En­glish?”

“Doubt­less,” an­swered Tom Hunter, an­gri­ly pok­ing the fire with the end of his crutch.

“Well,” replied J.T. Mas­ton, “why should not Eng­land in its turn be­long to the Amer­icans?”

“It would be but jus­tice,” an­swered Colonel Bloms­ber­ry.

“Go and pro­pose that to the Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States,” cried J.T. Mas­ton, “and see what sort of a re­cep­tion you would get.”

“It would not be a bad re­cep­tion,” mur­mured Bils­by be­tween the four teeth he had saved from bat­tle.

“I'faith,” cried J.T. Mas­ton, “they need not count up­on my vote in the next elec­tions.”

“Nor up­on ours,” an­swered with com­mon ac­cord these bel­li­cose in­valids.

“In the mean­time,” con­tin­ued J.T. Mas­ton, “and to con­clude, if they do not fur­nish me with the op­por­tu­ni­ty of try­ing my new mor­tar on a re­al bat­tle-​field, I shall send in my res­ig­na­tion as mem­ber of the Gun Club, and I shall go and bury my­self in the back­woods of Arkansas.”

“We will fol­low you there,” an­swered the in­ter­locu­tors of the en­ter­pris­ing J.T. Mas­ton.

Things had come to that pass, and the club, get­ting more ex­cit­ed, was men­aced with ap­proach­ing dis­so­lu­tion, when an un­ex­pect­ed event came to pre­vent so re­gret­table a catas­tro­phe.

The very day af­ter the fore­go­ing con­ver­sa­tion each mem­ber of the club re­ceived a cir­cu­lar couched in these terms:--

"Bal­ti­more, Oc­to­ber 3rd.

"The pres­ident of the Gun Club has the hon­our to in­form his col­leagues that at the meet­ing on the 5th ul­ti­mo he will make them a com­mu­ni­ca­tion of an ex­treme­ly in­ter­est­ing na­ture. He there­fore begs that they, to the sus­pen­sion of all oth­er busi­ness, will at­tend, in ac­cor­dance with the present in­vi­ta­tion,

"Their de­vot­ed col­league,

“IM­PEY BAR­BI­CANE, P.G.C.”