H.M.S. ----. John Bowers QC
interest a rough "hand-axe" of dark flint, possibly of Pre-Chellean culture. However, the whole of my notes and specimens obtained on this visit are now being examined and classified, and I will postpone description of them until the meeting of the Society on the 18th.
I would have liked to have descended into the pit by a ladder or other means, but was dissuaded, partly by the motion of the airship, which swayed to and fro in the light wind, and partly by the blunt negative with which my suggestion was greeted by the Captain. We took only three baskets of specimens from this spot, as we had others to visit, and our carrying capacity was limited. As we slowly hauled in the trail-rope and prepared to continue our journey, I asked the Captain whether this crater had been intentionally formed by the Government for purposes of research, or whether it had been produced accidentally in the late war.
"Accident?" he said. "Well, no, hardly that – but still, I expect he thought he might pull it off without doing himself in." He pointed to one of two big submarines which lay on opposite sides of the crater. The one indicated was the smaller of the two, and the least damaged. She lay upright with a slight tilt up by the bow (which was dented and torn rather badly). The other was in two halves, and lay on her side with a mound of earth, bones, and rock, making a sort of rough junction between the halves. The two submarines looked like great guardians of the pit, and I wondered at the madness of man that makes him revel in war and killing to no purpose. I mentioned something of this thought to the Captain, who was still gazing at the more intact of the two boats, and tapping a flint "Coup de poing" on the side of our gondola.
"Well, Professor," he said, "the man who made this tool didn't make it to clean his nails with, did he?" I observed that it was now generally agreed that most of prehistoric man's weapons were for use against his greatest foes – which were wild beasts, and not men. The Captain jerked the flint implement back into the basket.
"My oath! you've said it," he snapped. "We've been fighting wild beasts, and that chap in the smaller boat was a friend of mine. He took that Fritz fairly amidships with his stem, but he couldn't get free, and they went down locked. When Fritz hit bottom his mines went, and that blew them apart, and so there's your bone pit, Professor."
I looked back at the pit and the two hulks beside it, now dwindling astern. "How do you know all that?" I asked.
"Read his number on the conning-tower for one thing, and the chap who had that boat would be pretty sure to take a Hun with him when he had to go. The rest? Well, his bows are bashed in, you see, and his lid is still open, so he gave Fritz his bow first on the surface. You may have some relics of curious beasts in that basket, Professor, but I can show you a relic, or a hundred if you like, of a damn sight nastier beast. See the masts over that mudbank? That's a Dutch liner – two torpedoes and no warning. Full of women too. Like to go and look? I thought not. Yes, Professor, I can show you two hundred sunken ships in a few hours' run here, and they haven't all got their davits empty by a long chalk. Never mind – here's something more amusing."
Our engine slowed and almost stopped while we drifted across a flat, broad, muddy plateau which sloped away to a valley on each side.
"See those lines?" said my abrupt naval friend – "those long straight scores along the mud, I mean. Those are where the submarines – ours and theirs – have been taking bottom for a rest. Taking bottom? Oh! on winter nights, when it's too dark to see or when they're waiting for anything, or got defects or struck fog, you know. They used to take bottom a lot here, because it's good surface and they had twenty fathom of water, too. The marks haven't washed out yet. See this one? He bumped three times before he settled: he must have had a lot of headway on – his track's all of half a mile. That bed is where he settled for the night. It's soft there, and he worked in over his bilge keel. There's another, fifty yards off him. Of course it was probably made a year before or after he made his, but there must have been cases when our boats and Fritz's lay that much apart all night and didn't know it. Pretty queer idea, isn't it? Perhaps a banjo strumming in one boat and a gramophone going in the other. Oh yes, they used to have concerts on the bottom before turning in! One of our chaps gave me a programme once. There were twenty items in it, and it was headed 'C/o G.P.O. – 126 feet.' This was a regular submarine traffic lane for both sides. Some parts of the surface up north aren't marked at all, – it was either too deep water or there were too many mines about. Funny thing is, that some of the areas which both sides seem to have studiously gone round and avoided have no mines at all in them. Just rumour, I suppose. They gave the place a bad name and damned it. Eh? No – that's all right – tip 'em out on the deck – we can scrub the place out when we get in."
He spoke to a sailor, who stepped forward and turned the nearest basket of specimens upside down. As he did so, something rolled from the heap to my feet, and with a thrill which could only be understood by my brother scientists I gazed on the greatest archæological discovery of the ages. I have already announced my discovery to the press, and the scientists of all nations are now gathering in London to inspect it, so I shall not enter now on a detailed description. I may say that my first thought was that I had in my hands a copy of my confrère Keith's reconstruction of the Piltdown skull, and that my own reconstruction had been to a certain extent false; but on mature reflection I decided that this could not be so, and that I must classify my find as belonging to a hitherto unknown branch of the race of Homo Sapiens – akin to, but yet distinct from, Eoanthropus. This prehistoric man I have called Homo Scoticanthropus, and my full report and conclusions will be shortly before the Society.
The skull is intact and requires no reconstruction. The lower mandible is of the chimpanzee-like type found with Eoanthropus, and as it was picked up by the same basket, must undoubtedly belong to the skull.
As to the remainder of our voyage, I can only say that I spent the time on the floor of the gondola measuring and inspecting my find. I could not tear myself away from it, and we therefore omitted our visits to other spots where explosions were known to have occurred near the old sea-bed, confining ourselves to a hurried round of the Naval patrol route. Beyond a casual inspection and a remark that it looked like Hindenburg, the airship captain took no interest in this now famous skull, but confined himself to his duties of navigation and control.
It is unfortunate that the exact depth and geological strata of the skull's position cannot be given. The basket was drawn from the bottom of the pit, but the skull may have been either thrown up by the explosion or rolled down later by the action of the tides.
When the new lands have dried we hope to have a careful inspection of that and other pits, when more and perhaps equally valuable discoveries may be made.
I have perhaps made undue mention of my naval friend in this pamphlet, but to tell the truth his type was new to me. Though, like all his fellow-officers, his limited education had tended to make him narrow-minded, he nevertheless deserves mention here as having assisted, albeit in a humble way, in the most wonderful discovery in history.
PRIVILEGED
They called across to Peter at the changing of the Guard,
At the red-gold Doors that the Angels keep, —
"Lend us help to the Portal, for they press upon us hard,
They are straining at the Gate, many deep."
Then Peter rose and went to the wicket by the Wall,
Where the Starlight flashed upon the crowd;
And he saw a mighty wave from the Greatest Gale of all
Break beneath him with a roar, swelling loud —
Let us in! Let us in! We have left a load of sin
On the battlefield that flashes far below.
From the trenches or the sea – there's a pass for such as we,
For we died with our faces to the foe.
"We haven't any creed – for we never felt the need, —
And our morals are as ragged as can be;
But we finished in a way that has cleared us of the clay,
And we're coming to you clean, as you can see."
Then