THE Square of Everytown in 1970. It has a little recovered from the extreme tragic desolation of the Pestilence stage. Clumsy efforts to repair ruined buildings have been made. No shops have been reopened and half the houses are unoccupied, but the shell-hole in the centre has been filled up. There is a sort of market going on with patched and ragged people haggling for vegetables and bits of meat. Few people have boots. Most people are wearing footwear of bast and rags or sabots of wood. Few hats are worn and those old. The women are bareheaded or have shawls over their heads. The vehicles are not rude and primitive, but old broken-down stuff. One or two boxed things with old carriage wheels or motor car wheels - which people push. Few or no horses. A cow or a goat being milked. There is a peasant with a motor car (small runabout without tyres) with a lot of carrots and turnips in it, drawn by a horse. Several stalls are fairly full of second-hand stuff - clothing, furniture and household goods. It is like a small Caledonian Market. There is an old-clothes and miscellaneous stall with jewellery and worn-out finery. This is kept by an obsequious individual who might be an Oriental bazaar dealer. He rubs his hands and inspects another stall and watches the passers-by. No new stuff anywhere, because industrial life is at a standstill. The camera moves round to give a general view of the Square, coming to rest outside of the Town Hall. A big rosette flag hangs over the portico of the Town Hall. This rosette is the symbol of the ruling Boss and his government.
    A small group watching a rosetted guard writing with charcoal on the wall!
    At the top he has drawn and smeared a rough rosette.

THE PESTILENCE HAS CEASED. Thanks to the determined action of our chief in shooting all wanderers. There have been no cases for two months. The Pestilence has been conquered.
THE CHIEF IS PREPARING TO RESUME HOSTILITIES AGAINST THE HILL PEOPLE WITH THE UTMOST VIGOUR. Soon we shall have Victory and Peace.
All is well - God save the Chief. God save our Land.

    Inside an aeroplane hangar. Gordon, three years older, and in a different, rather less dishevelled costume, is working on an aeroplane engine on the bench. Behind him is the dismantled aeroplane. Two assistants with him. He examines the high tension wires.
    Gordon: "This rubber is perished. Have we any more insulated wire?"
    First Assistant: "We've got no rubbered wire at all, sir."
    Gordon: "Any rubber - tape?"
    Second Assistant: "Not a scrap of rubber in the place. We used the last on the other motor."
    Gordon slowly rises, defeated: "Oh, what's the use - there's no petrol anyway. I don't believe there's three gallons of petrol left in this accursed ruin of a town. What's the good of setting me at a job like this? Nothing will ever fly again. Flying is over. Everything is over. Civilisation is dead

    The Market. Camera swung round to the stall of gewgaws and old dresses. Roxana sailing down upon the trader. Roxana is a consciously beautiful young woman of eight and twenty. Her face is made up rather skilfully. In contrast to the dirty and dispirited people in the Square, she and her two attendant women seem brilliantly bright and prosperous. Her costume is best described as a collection of finery. It has been got together from the wardrobes and presses that are still to be found in the abandoned houses. It consists chiefly of an afternoon dress of circa 1935. Wadsky's stall is stocked with such findings.
    Roxana, advancing: "Where is Wadsky? I want to speak to Wadsky."
    Wadsky, who has been lurking behind his stall as she advances, pulls himself together and comes out to meet her.
    Roxana: "You had a piece of flowered stuff, a whole length, seven yards, and you did not tell me of it. You kept it back from me, and you gave it to that woman of yours. And she's got a new dress - a new dress."
    Wadsky disputes with his arms and shoulders while she speaks and when she pauses he Says: "Ooh Lady, I showed you that piece."
    Roxana: "Don't outface me, Wadsky. You have done that too often. You kept it from me!"
    Wadsky: "Lady! You said: 'I don't want stuff like that.'"
    Roxana: "Why! I had been asking for weeks for that very thing for the summer - light flowered cotton stuff."
    Wadsky: "Oh, but Lady!"
    Roxana: "How dared you? One would think I was of no importance in Everytown."
    Roxana turns to her first attendant. "Don't you remember? - I said I wanted light stuff with flowers."
    Attendant remembers dutifully.
    Roxana appeals to her further. "What is the good of a Lover - what is the good of a powerful lover, if one is to be treated like this?"
    Roxana to Wadsky, who is bowing, very disgruntled. "I'll tell the Chief. I've warned you before. Everything first to me."

    Swing away from her to another part of the Market Square. A little excited knot his formed round a ragged man.
    Man: "I saw it with my own eyes."
    Crowd laughs.
    Woman: "First you drink and then you see things."
    Man: "First I heard the noise, then I looked up and there it was - far away up in the sky - over the hills."
    Gordon is seen coming through the Square towards them. He hears the last remarks of the man. "What did you see?"
    Man: "An aeroplane - flying - away there over the hills. Just about dawn it was."
    The crowd jeers at him. Gordon looks at the man, sums him up, shrugs his shoulders, and goes on his way.

    Mary is buying vegetables from the peasant with the horse-drawn car. She is dressed in a rough simple costume of brownish stuff. But it suits her style. Gordon appears and they greet one another with the casualness of married people. While Mary selects food, Gordon looks at the car with professional affection. "It's a Morris, isn't it?"
    Peasant: "Yes - a good pre-pestilence machine. I oil it and turn it over at times."
    Gordon: "You think it might go fast some day? Still?"
    Peasant: "Say! I'm not one of those petrol hoarders. But all the same that engine turns over still. Why I remember when I was a boy - when it was new - we thought nothing of going a hundred miles in it - a whole hundred miles. Less than three hours I've done it in. But all that sort of thing has gone - gone for ever! Eh?"
    He looks with a sort of sceptical cunning inquiry at Gordon.

    Gordon and Mary finish their purchases and go towards the laboratory
    Mary: "You are late to-day. Did you get anything done?"
    Gordon: "Nothing. The machines are rotten. There's no petrol. It's mockery for the Boss to set me at it. We'll never get one of them up. Flying has become a dream for Bosses and such-like drunken men. There was a drunken man over there, by the by, swearing he saw an aeroplane this morning."
    Mary: "Richard!"
    Gordon: "What is it?"
    Mary: "You won't think me mad?"
    Gordon: "Eh?"
    Mary: "I heard an aeroplane this morning."
    Gordon: "When?"
    Mary: "At dawn. I thought it was a dream. But if someone else----"
    Gordon: "Nonsense. I tell you flying is finished. We shall never get in the air again. Never."
    Fifes and drums are heard. They turn abruptly, with a certain uneasiness of bearing.
    The Boss with his retinue. They are a semi-military brigand crew with little that is uniform about them except the prevalent rosette badges. They march through the Square. The Boss is a big swaggering fellow with a hat cocked on one side bearing a rosette in front of it. His frogged tunic might have belonged to a guards' bandsman. He has a sword, a dirk and two pistols. Neat riding breeches and boots. A scarf tied across his breast bears the rosette symbol. His manners might be described as the decaying civilities of a London taxi-cab driver. His underlings have compiled quasi-military costumes similar to his own.
    He recognises Gordon, glances at Mary, betrays a momentary appreciation, decides to show off at her and halts. Gordon makes a half-hearted salute.
    Boss: "Anything to report, Gordon?"
    Gordon: "Nothing very hopeful, Chief."
    Boss: "We must have those planes - somehow."
    Gordon: "I'll do what I can, but you can't fly without petrol."
    Boss: "I'll get petrol for you, trust me. You see to the engines. I know you haven't got stuff - but surely you can get round that. For example, transfer parts. Have you tried that? Use bits of one to mend the other. Be resourceful. Give me only ten in working order. Give me only five. I don't want them all. I'll see to it you get your reward. Then we can end this war of ours - for good. This your wife, Gordon? You've kept her hidden. Salutation, lady! You must use your influence with our Master Mechanic, lady. The combatant State needs his work."
    Mary doesn't like the situation. "I'm sure my husband does his best for you, Chief."
    Boss: "His best! That isn't enough, lady. The combatant State demands miracles."
    Mary pauses and then speaks rather stupidly: "It isn't everyone, Chief, who can work miracles - as you do."
    Boss, most elated: "I am sure you could work miracles, lady, if you choose."
    The voice of Roxana heard off. "Rudolf!"
    The manner of the Boss becomes slightly deflated. He turns towards Roxana who approaches rustling with indignation, followed by her three ladies-in-waiting. Gordon and Mary are ignored forthwith. Behind, in a state of nervous apprehension, hovers Wadsky.
    Roxana: "Here they are at their old tricks! Wadsky has been keeping things back from me! Is that with your permission?"
    Wadsky: "But she was shown it. She said she didn't want it. "
    Boss: "If Wadsky has been at his old tricks again he must answer for them."
    Roxana turns triumphantly towards Wadsky.
    Boss: "It isn't only Wadsky who keeps things back. What do you think of our Master Mechanic here - who won't give me planes to finish up that little war of ours with the Hill People."
    Roxana surveys Gordon with her arms akimbo, and then considers Mary and the Boss more deliberately. She rather likes the look of Gordon. She perceives that the Boss has been showing off at Mary and she wants to take him down a little.
    She speaks with a faint shrewish mockery to the Boss. "Can't you make him? I thought you could make everybody do everything."
    Gordon: "Some things can't be done, Madam. You can't fly without petrol. You can't mend machines without tools or material. We've gone back too far. Flying is a lost skill in Everytown."
    Roxana: "And are you really as stupid as that?"
    Gordon: "I'm as helpless as that."
    Roxana to the Boss: "And now Chief - what are you going to do about it?"
    Boss, becoming the strong man: "He's going to put those machines in order and I'm going to find him - coal - stuff to make his oil. "
    The throbbing of an aeroplane very far away becomes faintly audible. Close-up of Gordon's face.
    Gordon: "It's a lost skill. It is a dream of the past."
    His face changes as the beating of the aeroplane dawns on his consciousness. He is puzzled. Then his face changes. He looks up in the sky. He points silently.
    The whole group is shown. All are staring upward.
    Wadsky and the market people, the general crowd in the background, are all becoming aware of the aeroplane. The aeroplane is seen circling in the sky. This has to be the first novel aeroplane seen in the film. It is to be a small new 1970 type. Its wings curve back like a swallow's. It must not be big and impressive like the gas bomber which presently arrives, but it must be "different."
    People run out of houses. Everybody staring skywards. Running, shouting - the excitement grows.
    Gordon, deeply moved. He addresses Mary. "There it is - you were right - a plane once more! He's shutting off - he's coming down."
    The eye of the crowd follows the plane and indicates it is circling down to a descent.
    The Boss is the first to become active. "What's all this? Have they got aeroplanes before us? And you tell me we can't fly any more! While we have been - fumbling, they have been active. Here, some of you, find out who this is and what it means! You (to one of his guards), you go, and you (to another). There was only one man in it. Hold him."
    The Boss is a centre of activity.
    Boss: "Send for Simon Burton. Get me Simon."
    A sly-looking individual, the right-hand man of the Boss, appears from the direction of the Town hall and hurries up to the chief.
    The camera shows Gordon and Mary standing a little aloof, perplexed, full of strange hope, at this wonderful break in the routines of Everytown. Then it returns to Roxana. She watches the Boss and his proceedings with the sceptical criticism of a woman who knows a man too well. Then her mind returns to Mary and she looks for her and discovers Gordon also. She comes across to them.
    Roxana to Gordon: "What do you know about it? Do you know anything of this? Who is that man in the air?"
    Gordon speaks half to himself and half to Roxana and Mary. "It was something new. It was a new machine. Some-where they can still make new machines. I didn't dream it was still possible."
    Roxana: "But who is the man? how does he dare come here?"
    Close-up of her face as she surveys Everytown and realises that after all it is not the whole world. Her eyes return to the Boss who is still rather uncertain how to meet this new occasion.
    Boss: "Fetch him to the Town Hall. Guard his machine and bring him to me there."
    The camera returns to Gordon and Mary.
    Gordon: "Come along, Mary. I must see that machine."

    A field close to the town. People running. The aeroplane glides overhead and lands just out of sight over the brow of a slight hill.
    A few ragged men, women and children run up so as to stand out against the sky and look. They hesitate and keep their distance. A child starts forward but his mother stops him - they stare, and they begin to move uneasily right and left from the centre of the ridge as something unseen approaches. The two guards sent by the Boss appear and hesitate.
    We are looking towards the aeroplane across a hollow so that with quite dramatic suddenness John Cabal, the airman, the father of the children in the opening part, rises above the crest and comes towards us.
    He is now grey-haired with a lined face. He is dressed in shiny black and he wears a sort of circular shield over head and body that makes him over seven feet high. It is like a round helmet enclosing body as well as head. It is a 1970 gas mask. The vizor in front swings down, so that his head and shoulders seen from in front are suggestive of a Buddha against a circular halo. The black mask behind his head and shoulders is ribbed like a scallop shell. He stands out against the sky, a tall portent. He walks through the watchers who follow him - one guard goes over the crest towards the machine, the other guard approaches him. This second guard and Cabal go towards the town. This second guard is an oafish unshaven creature, greatly puzzled by life at all times and excessively puzzled now. A group of curious men and women follow them.
    Cabal: "Who's in control of this part of the country?"
    Guard: "The chief. What we call the Boss."
    Cabal: "Good. I want to see him!"
    Guard: "He sent me to arrest you.
    Cabal: "Well - you can't. But I'll come and see him."
    Guard: "Well, you're under arrest - whether you admit it or not. This country is at war."
    The crowd and particularly various children come closer to Cabal.
    Cabal: "I remember this place well. I lived oh - somewhere down there." (Points.) "For years. Ever heard of a man called Passworthy? Any of you? No! Harding?"
    Two children speak together. "Doctor Harding!"
    Cabal: "Yes, is he still here?"
    Old Woman: "He's a good man. He's our only doctor here. Oh, he's a good man."
    Children: "Look, here he is, sir!"
    Harding, Gordon and Mary seen approaching. Crowd in background.
    Cabal and Harding scrutinise each other.
    Cabal: "Heavens is that Harding? "
    Harding, perplexed: "I seem to remember something - something about you."
    Cabal: "But you were a young man!"
    Harding cries out: "You are John Cabal! I used to come to your house! Here! Endless years ago. Before the wars began. And you are flying! You are grey but you look - young still!"
    Cabal: "How are things in this place? Who's in control?"
    Harding looks discreetly at crowd: "We've got a chief here - a war lord. The usual thing."
    Cabal takes Harding by the arm: "H'm. I've come to look up your war lord. Where can we go to talk?"
    Harding gesticulates to indicate where he lives. Cabal makes to go with him.
    Guard: "Here! You're under arrest, you know. You've got to come to the chief."
    Cabal: "All in good time. This gentleman first."
    Guard: "You can't do that. You've got to come with me. Orders are orders. The Boss first."
    Cabal lifts his eyebrows and goes off with Harding. Guard following with gestures of amazement and protest. "Here. Here. Here," he says. Then come Gordon and Mary and the rabble. The rabble is astonished at Cabal's cavalier treatment of the guard.

    In the laboratory. Remains of a meal. The meal has been a squalid one. Cans - only a knife or so and a broken fork. No cloth, cracked bowls. Mary, Gordon, Cabal and Harding in conversation. Cabal has removed his great body gas-mask and swings it beside him.
    The guard opens the door and looks in.
    Cabal: "You keep out. I shall be all right here."
    The guard seems about to speak and then catches Cabal's eye and shuts the door again.
    Cabal: "And so you came back here after the war?"
    Harding: "And became a sort of medieval leech. A doctor without medicines or instruments. I do what I can in this broken down world. Good heavens! Do you remember how I used to blow about the research I was going to do?"
    Cabal comes and sits down: "Don't I remember? You had some good ideas. But look here - tell me things. How are things here? Are there any mechanics left? Any capable technical workers?"
    Harding: "This is the very man."
    Gordon comes forward and Cabal scrutinises him. "What are you?"
    Gordon: "Ex-air-mechanic, sir. Jack of all trades now. The last engineer in Everytown."
    Cabal: "Pilot?"
    Gordon: "Yes, sir." (Salutes.) "Not so very skilful. I wish I was a better mechanic."
    The guard opens the door again and peeps in. "My orders," he begins.
    Cabal: "Never mind your orders. Shut - that - door." The guard obeys.
    Cabal: "Tell me about this Boss you have here. What sort of man has got hold of this part of the world?"

    The Boss's headquarters in the Town Hall. He has staged things for the reception of the strange airman. He sits at a vast desk. A few guards, secretaries and yes-men around him. Simon Burton sits at a side table. Roxana watches proceedings - comes and stands close beside the Boss at his right hand. Whispers to him. She displays the excitement of a woman before a bull fight. A lively contest is going to happen and she has an impression that the strange visitant may prove an interesting novelty. Things have been dull in Everytown lately.
    The atmosphere is strained. The scene is set and the principal actor does not enter. The Boss is impatient to see Cabal and Cabal does not come. Messengers are sent and return.
    Boss: "Where is this man? Why isn't he brought here?"
    Everyone looks uneasy. The Boss turns to Burton.
    Burton: "He has gone off with Doctor Harding."
    The Boss rises. "He has to be brought here. I must deal with him."
    Roxana lays a hand on his arm. "But you can't go to him. That's impossible. He must come to you."
    The Boss hesitates and sits restless under her dominance.
    "Send another man for him. Send three men. With clubs. He must be brought here at once."
    Burton hurries out to give the order.

    The laboratory. The group talking.
    Cabal: "So that's the sort of man your Boss is. Not an unusual type. Everywhere, you see, we find these little semi-military upstarts robbing, fighting. That is what endless warfare has worked out to - brigandage. What else could happen? And we, who are all that is left of the old engineers and mechanics, are turning our hands to salvage the world. We have the air-ways, what is left of them, we have the sea. We have ideas in common; the freemasonry of efficiency - the brotherhood of science. We are the natural trustees of civilisation when everything else has failed."
    Gordon: "Oh, I have been waiting for this. I am yours to command."
    Cabal: "Not mine. Not mine. No more bosses. Civilisation's to command. Give yourself to World Communications."
    A knock at the door. They turn. The oafish guard comes into the room. Three others who have been sent for him by the Boss are behind. One of them says: "Tell him he's got to come. If he won't come on his feet, we'll carry him."
    The First Guard: "Lord knows what will happen to me, sir, if you do not come."
    Cabal shrugs his shoulders, rises, reflects, hands his great gas-mask to Gordon and stalks out, the guards following respectfully.
    The gas-mask is not in evidence in the next scene.

    The Town Hall. The Boss at his great desk. Roxana very alert behind him. Simon Burton at his own table. As the guard and Cabal approach, the Boss draws himself up in his chair, and attempts a lordly pose. Cabal's bearing is easy and familiar. The Boss is sturdy and ornate. Cabal tall, lean, black and dry.
    Cabal: "Well, what do you want to talk to me about?"
    Boss: "Who are you? Don't you know this country is at war?"
    Cabal: "Dear, dear! Still at it. We must clean that up."
    Boss: "What do you mean? We must clean that up? War is war. Who are you, I say?"
    Cabal pauses before he replies. "The law," he says.
    He improves it: "Law and sanity."
    Roxana watches him. Then looks to the Boss.
    Boss, a little late: "I am the law here."
    Cabal: "I said law and sanity."
    Boss: "Where do you come from? What are you?"
    Cabal: "Pax Mundi. Wings over the World."
    Boss: "Well, you know, you can't come into a country at war in this fashion."
    Cabal: "I'm here. Do you mind if I sit down."
    He sits down and leans across the table looking intelligently and familiarly into the face of the Boss.
    "Well?" he says.
    Boss: "And now for the fourth time who are you?"
    Cabal: "I tell you Wings - Wings over the World."
    Boss: "That's nothing. What Government are you under?"
    Cabal: "Commonsense. Call us Airmen if you like. We just run ourselves."
    Boss: "You'll run into trouble if you land here in war time. What's the game?"
    Cabal: "Order and trade----"
    Boss: "Trade, eh? Can you do anything in munitions?"
    Cabal: "Not our line of business."
    Boss: "Petrol - spare parts? We've got planes - we've got planes - we've got boys who've trained a bit on the ground. But we've got no fuel. It hampers us. We might do a deal."
    Cabal reflects and looks at his toes: "We might."
    Boss: "I know where I can get some fuel. Later. I've got my plans. But if you could manage a temporary accommodation - we'd do business."
    Cabal: "Airmen help no one to make war."
    Boss, impatiently: "End war, I said. End war. We want to make a victorious peace."
    Cabal: "I seem to have heard that phrase before. When I was a young man. But it made no end to war."
    Boss: "Now look here, Mr. Aviator. Let's be clear how things are. Come down to actuality. The way you swagger there, you don't seem to understand you are under arrest. You and your machine."
    Mutual mute interrogation.
    Cabal: "You'll get other machines looking for me - if I happen to be delayed."
    Boss: "We'll deal with them later. You can start a trading agency here if you like. I've no objection. And the first thing we shall want will be to have our own aeroplanes in the air again."
    He looks for confirmation to Burton, who nods approval and then to Roxana. But Roxana is staring at Cabal to hear his next words.
    Cabal: "Yes. An excellent ambition. But our new order has an objection to private aeroplanes."
    Roxana, softly for Boss to hear: "The impudence! "
    Boss half glances at her with a faint anxiety. She has sometimes the habit of taking the word in discussions. "I am not talking of private aeroplanes. The aeroplanes we have here are the public aeroplanes of our combatant State. This is a free and sovereign State. At war. I don't know anything about any new order. I am the chief here, and I am not going to take any orders - old or new, from you."
    Cabal leans back in his chair and reflects. He says, with a faint gleam of amusement: "I suppose I have walked into trouble."
    Boss: "You may take that as right."
    Simon Burton is about to say something, and then thinks better of it. Roxana is more outspoken: "Where do you come from?"
    Cabal smiles and addresses himself deliberately to her: "I flew from our headquarters at Basra yesterday. I spent the night at an old aerodrome at Marseilles. We are gradually restoring order and trade all over the Mediterranean. We have some hundreds of aeroplanes and we are making more, fast. We have factories at work again. I'm just scouting a bit to see how things are here."
    Boss: "And you've found out. We've got order here, the old order, and we don't want anybody else restoring it, thank you. This is an independent combatant State."
    Cabal: "We've got to talk about that."
    Boss: "We don't discuss it."
    Cabal: "We don't approve of these independent combatant States."
    Boss: "You don't approve."
    Cabal: "We mean to stop them."
    Boss: "That's - war."
    Cabal: "As you will. My people know I'm prospecting. When they find I don't come back they'll send a force to look for me."
    Boss, grimly: "Perhaps they won't find you."
    Cabal shrugs his shoulders. "They'll find you."
    Boss: "They'll find me ready. Well, I think we know now where we stand. You four guards take this man, and if he gives any trouble, club him. Club him. You hear that, Mr. Wings over your Wits? See to it, Burton. Have him taken to the detention room downstairs."
    The Camera goes to a smaller apartment behind the large room of the previous scene. It is the Boss's retiring room. Roxana enters first and turns to the Boss who is following her.
    Roxana, exasperatingly critical: "Now was that wise? "
    Boss, irritated at once: "Wise! "
    Roxana: "Yes, wise; was it wise to quarrel with him at once?"
    Boss: "Quarrel with him! Confound him, he began to quarrel with me! - 'We must clean that up!' - Clean that up! My war!"
    Roxana: "But - but there's things behind him."
    Boss: "Things behind him! Some sort of air bus driver. Standing up to me - like an equal."
    Roxana: "So you lost your temper and bullied him."
    Boss: "I didn't bully. I just took the fellow in hand."
    Roxana: "No, Rudolf. You bully. And you bully too soon."
    Boss: "I don't seem able to please you to-day."
    Roxana: "Well, if you must go from one tactless thing to another. Weakening your authority. Sacrificing dignity."
    Boss: "Here! What's the matter with you?"
    Roxana: "Oh, I saw! There's your head mechanic - an essential man for your work - and you can't keep your eyes off his wife! Don't I know you. But never mind that. I've learnt to overlook that sort of thing. What I ask again - whether you bully me or not - is, whether it was wise to take this man in this way?"
    Boss: "How else could he be taken? How else?"
    Roxana: "Well, look at it This is the first real aviator that has come our way for years. Think of what that means, my dear! You. want aeroplanes, don't you? You want your aeroplanes put in order? Well - I've always doubted if that young man Gordon was up to the job. He's good-looking in a weak sort of way - but is he really skilful and scientific? He - fumbles. He just goes about with this girl of his - whom you think so good-looking. A really clever man would have had some of those machines up long I'm sure of it."
    Boss: "So along comes this stranger who is going to clean me up. And you propose I shall hand over my aeroplanes to him, lock, stock and barrel."
    Roxana: "Why talk nonsense? You could have persuaded him - under supervision."
    Boss: "Supervision. The sort of oafs I have here to supervise him. He'd be too much for them."
    Roxana: "If he's to be too much for you, hang him and hide his machine before the others get after you. But if he isn't going to be too much for you - "
    Boss: "He's not going to be too much for me."
    Roxana: "Very well. The hand of iron in the glove of velvet. Where is the benefit in abusing him and locking him up?"
    Boss: "I don't agree with you. I don't agree with you. Oh, I don't agree with you. Now listen. Listen to me. You don't understand. Now is our time. You think I'm a fool. But let me tell you one or two things I've had in mind. If you watched my mind a little more and my movements a little less it might be better for you.
    Simon Burton joins them unobtrusively and listens deferentially.
    Boss: "This - this stranger - hasn't taken me by surprise. I knew this thing was coming."
    Close up of incredulous faces of Roxana and Simon Burton.
    Boss: "Yes, I knew this was coming. I felt they'd got ahead with their air force down there. I felt there was this conspiracy of air bus drivers brewing somewhere in the world. Very well. Now's the time. We've got this fellow bottled up for a week or so. They may not begin to miss him for days. I've got everything fixed now for an attack straight away up the Floss Valley to the old coal and shale pits - where there's oil too! And then - up we buzz. Wings over the Hill-State. Everybody has laughed at my air force that never even crawls on the ground. But they won't laugh then."
    Roxana: "My dear, that's all right. But it doesn't explain why you treat that new man as an enemy. I don't believe Gordon is a good mechanic. But evidently he is."
    Boss: "Don't harp on that! You always think you know better than I do-about everything."
    Roxana slowly: "I'm going to talk to this man myself."
    Boss: "If that sort of thing is what you were after----"
    Roxana: "Oh, you don't understand."
    Boss: "Don't understand! You spare neither youth nor age. You leave that man to me. You leave that fellow alone."

    Scene changes to a small bare room like the waiting-room of a police station. It is poorly lit by a barred window. Cabal sits on a wooden chair with his arms on a bare table and contemplates the situation.
    Cabal: "I've tumbled into a hole. It's the old old story of the over confident wise man and the truculent rough....It may be weeks before I'm reported as missing. They'll think my radio has broken down. Meanwhile Mr. Boss here does as he likes....
    "Escape?"
    He contemplates the room. Stands up and stares at the window liars.
    "They'll have my machine guarded...."
    Sits down again, laughs bitterly at himself and drums with his fingers on the table exactly as he did in Part III of the film.
    Then he jumps up impatiently. Goes to the window. Close up of his face in the dim light.
    "I suppose everyone must do something hopelessly foolish at times. I've walked into it. I - the planner of a new world....
    "Just at this time with everything ready....
    "If this mad war dog here bites me - and I die - I wonder who will carry on....
    "No man is indispensable...."
    He tries the firmness of the bars in the window. Fade out upon his hands holding the bars.

    Scene outside the Town Hall. A small troop of mounted men with a flag leaving for the war. Two led horses are brought up and the Boss and Roxana appear and mount.
    The whole body rides off.
    A small not very enthusiastic crowd watches their departure. There is a feeble cheer as the detachment goes off.

    Fight on a hill overlooking coal pits. The Boss directs operations. With him are his irregular troop leaders. They gallop off.
    The coal pits. The Boss's cavalry attack some rough trenches. The defenders are overwhelmed and seen running away. One or two flashes of the little battle. The Boss's men are plainly victorious, the enemy routed.
    The Central Square. A troop of mounted men ride into the Square. Following comes the Boss and Roxana triumphant. Flags decorate the side streets. The crowd shows a new enthusiasm. People cheer as the Boss and Roxana pull up outside the Town Hall.
    Close up of a group of lookers-on. One man is explaining to another:
    Man: "We have captured the coal pits, and the old oil retorts, and we have got oil at last."
    Close up of a lean, excited patriotic youngster wearing a rosette badge. "Now we'll bomb the hills to hell."
    In the Town Hall. A day later. The Boss still flushed with triumph. Most of his usual entourage is present, but Roxana is not there at first. Eight or nine officers of the little army are present. Gordon is seen under arrest near the Boss's desk. The Boss walks up and down and orates:
    Boss: "Victory approaches. Your sacrifices have not been in vain. Our long struggle with the Hill Men has come to its climax. Our victory at the old coal pits has brought a new supply of oil within reach. Once more we can hope to take the air and look invaders in the face. We have nearly forty aeroplanes, as big a force, I venture to say, as any in the world now. This oil we have got can be adapted to our engines. That is quite a simple business. Nothing remains to be done but a conclusive bombing of the hills. Then for a time we shall have a rich and rewarding peace, the peace of the strong man armed who keepeth his house. And now at this supreme crisis you, Gordon, our master engineer, must needs refuse to help us. Where are my planes?"
    Gordon: "The job is more difficult than you think. Half your machines are hopelessly old. You haven't got twenty sound ones. To be exact, nineteen. You'll never get the others off the ground. The thing cannot be done as you imagine it. I want assistance."
    Boss: "What assistance?"
    Gordon: "Your prisoner."
    Boss: "You want that fellow in black - Wings over the World? You want him released?"
    Gordon: "He knows his business. I don't enough. Make him my - technical adviser."
    Boss: "I don't trust you technical fellows."
    Gordon: "Then you won't get an aeroplane up."
    Boss: "I want those planes."
    Gordon shrugs his shoulders.
    Boss meditates, walking to and fro.
    Boss: "And if you get him?"
    Gordon: "Then I want Doctor Harding out too."
    Boss: "They're - old associates."
    Gordon: "I can't help that. If anybody in Everytown can adapt that crude oil for our aeroplanes it is Harding. If not, it can't be done."
    Boss: "We've had a bit of an argument with Harding."
    Gordon: "He's the only man who can do this work for you.
    Boss: "Bring in Harding."
    Enter Roxana with a certain quiet dignity while the assembly awaits Harding. The Boss glances at her as if he would rather she had not come. She stands regarding the scene critically.
    Harding is brought in. He is dishevelled, and his hands are tied. He looks as if he had been manhandled.
    Boss: "Untie his hands
    The guard releases Harding.
    The Boss pauses and looks at Harding. "Well?"
    Harding: "Well, what?"
    Boss: "The salute."
    Harding: "Damn the salute."
    The guard steps forward to strike Harding, but Roxana intervenes.
    Roxana : "No."
    Boss: "Never mind the salute now. We'll talk about that afterwards. Now let us see where we are. You, Gordon, are to direct the reconstruction of our air forces. The prisoner Cabal is to be put at your disposal. Everywhere he goes he is to be under guard and observation. No relaxing on that. And neither he nor you must go within fifty yards of his plane. Mind that! You, Harding, are to help Gordon with this fuel problem and to put your knowledge of poison gas at our disposal."
    Harding: "I tell you, I will do nothing with poison gas."
    Boss: "You've got the knowledge - if I have to wring it out of you. The Combatant State is your father and your mother, your only protector, the totality of your interests. No discipline can be stern enough for the man who denies that by word or deed."
    Harding: "Nonsense. We have our duty to civilisation. You and your like are heading back to eternal barbarism."
    The entourage is dumbfounded. Burton starts forward. "But this is pure treason."
    Harding: "In the name of civilisation, I protest against being dragged from my work. Confound your silly wars! Your war material and all the rest of it! All my life has been interrupted and wasted and spoilt by war. I will stand it no more."
    Burton: "This is Treason - Treason."
    Guards rush upon Harding, seize him and twist his arms.
    Harding snarls with pain. Roxana comes forward.
    Roxana: "No. Stop that."
    The guards stop. Harding is sullen and silent. Boss comes very close to him.
    Boss: "We have need of your services"
    Harding: "Well, what do you want?"
    Boss: "You are conscripted. You are under my orders now and under no others in the world. I am the master here! I am the State. I want fuel and gas."
    Harding: "Neither fuel nor gas."
    Boss: "You refuse?"
    Harding: "Absolutely."
    Boss: "I do not want to be forced to extremities."
    Roxana is whispering to the Boss, with her eyes on Gordon. Gordon comes fully into the picture. He has a scheme of his own. He looks hard at Roxana as though he was silently trying to will her aid. The confidence in his manner, the faint streak of impudence in his nature, increases.
    Gordon: "Sir - may I have a word? I understand you want all of these out-of-date crocks of yours which you call your air force, to fly again - and fly well?"
    Boss: "They shall."
    Gordon: "With the help of that man - Cabal - you have in the cells here, and with the help of Doctor Harding here - you may even get a dozen of your planes in the air again."
    Harding: "You are a traitor to civilisation. I won't touch it."
    Gordon ignores him: "If you will give me Cabal and - if you will leave me free to talk with the Doctor, I promise you will see your air force - a third of it at any rate - in the air again."
    Boss: "You talk as though you were driving a bargain with me."
    Gordon: "I am sorry, Chief. It is not I who make these conditions. It is in the nature of things. You cannot have technical services, you cannot have scientific help unless you treat the men who give it you - properly." .
    Roxana to the Boss, but quite loud: "That's what I have said all along! You are bullying too much, my dear. There is a limit to bullying. Why! you can't make a dog hunt by beating it."
    Boss: "I want those aeroplanes."
    Gordon: "Well."
    Boss: "And I mean to he master here."
    Roxana: "Then you have to be reasonable, my dear, and that's all about it."
    Close up of the Boss wondering where Mastery ends and Reasonableness begins.

    Gordon and Cabal at work upon that aeroplane engine which was puzzling Gordon at the opening of this part. The two men quite understand each other. Cabal works and Gordon learns from him. The four guards watch and poke their noses about and listen conscientiously but perplexedly. They glance at one another. They are much too oafish to control the conversation.
    Cabal between his teeth: "If only they'd let us go back to my own plane. There's a radio there."
    Gordon: "Hopeless... Won't even trust me."
    Cabal: "We'll have to make a job of this."
    Gordon: "I could send men for your reserve petrol. They'll give me that. For this."
    Cabal: "Good." Then louder as if explaining the machine. "One of the most difficult bits in this is what is called the get-a-way - it's a sort of cut-out But I have some ideas."
    Gordon: "We'll manage it I think. Now that Dr. Harding understands his part of the job...."
    They nod reassuringly to each other and then glance at the stupid faces of their guards. It's safe.

    Evening. Cabal is sitting in his cell lit by the light of two candles. He looks bored and despondent.
    He turns round at a knocking at his door. "Come in. Don't stand on ceremony."
    The door is opened deferentially by a guard. Roxana appears, rather specially dressed. Cabal has not expected anything of this sort. He is a man of experience with women although he has none of the Boss's devouring enterprise. He stands up. She walks in, carrying herself with a certain consciousness of her effect. He bows and remains silent.
    Roxana: "I wanted to look at you."
    Cabal stiffly: "At your service, Madam."
    Roxana: "You are the most interesting thing that has happened in Everytown for years."
    Cabal: "You honour me."
    Roxana: "You come from - outside. I had begun to forget there was anything outside. I want to hear about it."
    Cabal: "May I offer you my only chair?"
    Roxana sits down and arranges herself. Then she takes a look at Cabal to gauge her effect. Cabal stands or leans against the table in the subsequent conversation. He looks at her only very occasionally, but they are scrutinizing glances.
    Roxana: "You know - I am not a stupid woman."
    Cabal: "I am sure."
    Roxana: "This life here - is limited. War - rich plunder. Shining prizes. Of a sort. War always going on and never ending. Flags. Marching. I adore the Chief. I've always adored him since he took control in the Pestilence Days when everyone else lost heart. He rules. He is firm. Everyone - every woman finds him strong and attractive. I can't complain. I have everything that is to be had here. But----"
    Cabal looks at her for a moment. What is she up to? He makes a faint encouraging noise: "M'm."
    Roxana: "This is a small limited world we live in here. You bring in the breath of something greater. When I saw you swooping down out of the sky - when I saw you march into the Town Hall - I felt: this man lives in a greater world. And you spoke of the Mediterranean and the East, and your camps and factories. I've read about the Mediterranean and Greece and Egypt and India. I can read - a lot of those old books. I'm not like most of the younger people. I learnt a lot before education stopped and the schools closed down. I want to see that world away there. Sunshine, palms, snowy mountains, blue seas."
    Cabal: 'If I had my way - you might fly to all that in a couple of days."
    Roxana becomes pensive and looks down: "If you were free.... And if I was free."
    Cabal's expression reveals a flash of curiosity about her. "What is she up to?"
    Roxana: "I don't think any man has ever understood any woman since the beginning of things. You don't understand our imaginations. How wild our imaginations can be."
    Cabal decides he will not interrupt her.
    Roxana: "I wish I were a man."
    She stands up abruptly: "Oh if I were a man!.... Does any man realise what the life of a woman is? How trivial we have to be. We have to please. We are obliged to please. If we attempt to take a serious share in life, are we welcomed? And all the while---- Men are so self-satisfied, so blind, so limited. I see things happening here----! Injustice. Cruelty. There are things I would do for the poor - things I would do to make things better. I am not allowed. I have to pretend to he eaten up by my dresses, my jewels, my vanities. I make myself beautiful often with an aching heart. But I'm talking about myself. Tell me about yourself - about that greater world you live in. Are you a Boss? You have the manner of one who commands. You are sure of yourself. You make me afraid of you. Of the people you come from. Of what you are. Before you came I felt safe here. I fe1t - things were going on as they have been going on.... Always.... No hope of change.... Now - it's all different. What are you people trying to do to us? What do you mean to do to this Boss of mine?"
    Cabal: "Well, the immediate question seems to be what does he mean to do to me?"
    Roxana: "Something foolish and violent - unless I prevent it."
    Cabal: "That is how I see things."
    Roxana: "If he kills you----?"
    Cabal: "We shall come here and clean things up just the same."
    Roxana: "But if you are killed - how can you say we?"
    Cabal: "Oh, we go on. That's just how it is, we are taking hold of things. In science and government - in the long run - no man is indispensable. The human thing goes on. We - for ever."
    Roxana: "I see. And our Combatant State here?"
    Cabal: "Has to vanish into the shadows. After the Tyrannosaurus and the sabre-toothed tiger."
    Roxana stands looking at him. He leans against the table and smiles at her.
    Roxana: "You are a new sort of man to me."
    Cabal: "No. A new sort of training. The old Adam fundamentally."
    She goes off at a tangent again. "I suppose at the bottom of her heart every woman despises a man she can manage. And all women despise men who run after women."
    Cabal: "You're not by any chance thinking of the Chief? Where is he to-night?"
    Roxana: "Drinking and boasting. And after that, he hopes to betray me without my finding out. Vain hopes, I'm afraid. We needn't think about him. If I said I still love him, it is as one loves a dirty troublesome child. I love him and he doesn't matter. What I am thinking about is you. And this new world Of yours - oh, it's your world - that I can feel advancing on us."
    Pause.
    Cabal: "Well?"
    Roxana: "Have men of your sort no use for women?"
    Cabal: "Madam, I'm a widower and a grandfather. I see these things with a philosophical detachment. And I don't quite know what you mean by use."
    Roxana: "A man is a man till he's dead. Don't you still want the help of a woman? Have you no use for that closeness of devotion you can never get from any man? Don't you see I have been working for you already? See what I have done for you! I have saved Harding from ill-treatment. I got you half released so as to work with Gordon. I may be able at last to release you altogether. Why do you despise me?"
    Cabal: "I don't despise you in the least. I think you are the most civilised being I have met yet in Everytown."
    Roxana: "More than your friends?"
    Cabal: "Oh, much more."
    Roxana is pleased. She presses on to her next step. "Why don't you confide in me? There's Gordon, there's his wife Mary and her father Harding, and you are all - together, in some way. Something carries you all along. Do you think I don't know you are planning things and doing things? Why cannot I help you? I know this place, these people. I am a sort of queen here. Am I nothing at all to you?"
    Cabal looks at her now intently. Is she trying to find out about his plans of escape in order to betray him to the Boss? Or is she proposing to betray the Boss to him? Or is she in a state of mixed intrigue, ready to do either and mainly interested in getting some love-making going?
    He says: "And could you really restore me to my aeroplane? Hasn't that been put out of action?"
    Roxana: "No. He wants to use it and doesn't know how to. No one has touched it. There it is. With six guards night and day. Even I could not get at that just now."
    Cabal, who has been leaning against the table, stands up and confronts her. She faces up to him.
    Cabal: "What are you really proposing to me?"
    Roxana: "Nothing. I came to see you. I was interested in you."
    Cabal: "Well?"
    Roxana: "And now I find you more interesting than ever. A woman loves to help. She loves to give. I could give so much - now. And if I gave----?"
    Cabal speaking like a representative: "The Air League would not forget it."
    Roxana: "The Air League will not forget! Air League! Who cares for the Air League? Would you forget it?"
    Cabal : "Why should I in particular----"
    Roxana: "Are you stupid, man? Or are you insulting me? I tell you I find you the most interesting man in the world, a great eagle out of the air. And you stare at me with that ugly face of yours and pretend not to understand! Have you never met a woman before? Ugly you are and grey. It doesn't matter."
    Her manner changes. She comes close up to him and holds out her hands as if disposed to clutch his arms. "Oh why should I go on fencing with you? Don't you see - don't you understand? I'm for you if you want me. I'm yours. You big strong thing, all steel and dignity. Now - now will you let me help you?"
    They both become aware of a movement outside. She recoils quickly. The door is flung open without ceremony and the Boss appears in the doorway. He is wearing his conception of ceremonial uniform. In a rough way he has a certain splendour. He stands posed for a moment.
    Boss: "So this is where you are!"
    Roxana: "I said I should talk to him and I have."
    Boss: "I told you to leave him alone."
    Roxana: "Yes, and sat up there drinking and looking as wonderful and powerful as you could. Rudolf the Victorious! I know - you sent twice to ask Gordon and his wife to come! So that she should see you in your glory. And here am I trying to find out for you what this black invader means. Do you think I wanted to come and talk to him" - she turns to Cabal - "this grey cold man? While you are swaggering here, more aeroplanes are getting ready away there at Basra."
    Boss: "Basra?"
    Roxana: "His headquarters. Have you never heard of Basra?"
    Boss: "These are matters for men to talk about."
    Cabal : "Your lady has been putting me through a severe cross-examination. But the gist is - that away there in Basra the aeroplanes are rising night and day like hornets about a hornets' nest. What happens to me here, is a small affair. They'll get you. The new world of the united airmen will get you. Why, listen! You can almost hear them coming now."
    The imagination of the Boss is caught for a moment and then it recovers. "Not a bit of it!"
    Roxana: "What he says is the truth."
    Boss: "What he says is bluff."
    Roxana: "Make peace with the airmen and let him go."
    Boss: "That means surrender of our sovereign independence."
    Roxana: "But others will be coming. More machines and more."
    Boss: "And he is here - hostage for their good behaviour. Come, my lady. An end to this little - diplomatic excursion of yours."
    He holds the door open for her.
    Roxana bridles. Is about to speak and goes out.
    At the door she turns and fires a parting shot at the Boss.
    "You have the subtlety of a----" She searches for a suitable epithet and then jumps at the word she needs. "Bullfrog."
    When she has gone out of the room the Boss turns and comes towards Cabal.
    Boss: "I don't know what she has been saying to you. Perhaps I don't care. Not as much as she thinks. There's no following her chopping and changing. I've had about enough of it. But I'm not a fool. There's no making peace between you and me. None at all. It's your world or mine. It's going to be mine - or I die fighting. After all this threatening - swarms of hornets and so on - you are a hostage. Understand. No one comes near you. Your friend Gordon will have to manage without you. And don't be so sure you'll win. So just go on sitting here and thinking about it, Mr. Wings over the World."

    The following day, bright daylight, shining into the laboratory of Dr Harding. Mary leans against the work bench and Roxana is talking to her.
    Roxana: "It is not only that I want to protect you from the insults of the Chief! Oh! I know him. But I want to talk to you about this man Cabal and this Airmen's world they talk about. What is this new world that is coming? Is it a new world really? Or only the old world dressed up in a new way? Do you understand Cabal? Is he flesh and blood?"
    Mary: "He's a great man. My father knew him years ago. My husband worships him."
    Roxana: "He's so cold - so preoccupied. And so - interesting. Do men like that ever make love?"
    Mary: "A different sort of love, perhaps."
    Roxana: "Love on ice. If this new world - all airships and science and order - comes about, what will happen to us women?"
    Mary: "We shall work like the men."
    Roxana: "You mean that? Are you - flesh and blood?"
    Mary: "As much as my husband and father."
    Roxana with infinite contempt: "Men! Sometimes - when I think of lean grim Cabal - I believe this world of yours must come. And then I think - it can't come. It can't. It's a dream. It will seem to come but it won't come. It's just a new lot of men at the top. There will be wars still. Struggles still."
    Mary: "No, it will be civilisation. It will be peace. This nightmare of a world we live in - that is the dream, that is what will pass away."
    Roxana: "No. No. This is reality."
    Mary, staring in front of her: "Do you really think that war and struggle - mere chance gleams of happiness - general misery - all this squalid divided world about us, do you think it must go on for ever?"
    Roxana: "You want an impossible world. Nice in a way - perhaps - but impossible. You are asking too much from men and women. They won't bother to bring it about. You are asking them to want unnatural things. What do we want? We women. Knowledge, civilisation, the good of mankind? Nonsense! Oh, nonsense. We want satisfaction. We want glory. I want the glory of being loved - the glory of being wanted - desired, splendidly desired - and the glory of feeling and looking splendid. Do you want anything different? No. But you haven't learnt to look facts in the face yet. I know men. Every man wants the same thing - glory! Glory in some form. The glory of being loved - don't I know it? The glory they love most of all. The glory of bossing things here - the glory of war and victory. This brave new world of yours will never come. This wonderful world of reason. It wouldn't be worth having if it does come. It would be dull and safe and - oh, dreary. No lovers - no warriors - no dangers - no adventure."
    Mary: "No adventure. No glory in helping to make the world over anew! It is you who are dreaming."
    Roxana: "helping men! Why should we work and toil for men? Let them work and toil for us."
    Mary: "But we can work with them!"
    Roxana: "And what will they have to work for, then?"
    Mary: "Greater things."
    Roxana: "There's no flavour in those greater things. No flavour. No flavour at all. These airmen - they will conquer the world. And then we shall conquer them - lean and stern and sober though they are."
    Mary: "If I thought that was all we could do----"
    Roxana: "It is all we can do. Haven't you learnt anything from marriage with Gordon?"
    Mary looks at her, detesting her. But she finds herself at a loss for an argument.
    The noise of an aeroplane is heard growing rapidly louder. They turn to the window and look out. They become excited.
    They crane up at an aeroplane circling overhead. It makes a great old-fashioned roar.
    Roxana: "Look ! It's your Gordon, he's flying at last."
    The aeroplane, flying. In the aeroplane is Gordon at the controls. He is satisfied. Behind him sits a rosetted guard. Gordon turning the machine round. Then a long shot of Everytown far below. The machine flies on. The guard stirs. He protests inaudibly because of the roar of the engine. Gordon disregards him. Guard taps Gordon's shoulder, signs for him to return and presently, finding no response but a cheerful smile, points his pistol. Mutual scrutiny. Guard weakly menacing. Gordon points over the side of the cockpit. He smiles suddenly, having taken the measure of his man, and puts his fingers to his nose. The aeroplane jerks sharply upwards, and the guard, no longer pointing his pistol, but gripping tight, is manifestly scared.
    Aeroplane looping the loop then the falling leaf trick
    Guard's ordeal through all this motion. He drops the pistol and grips the side.
    Pistol falling, hitting the ground and exploding.
    The aeroplane seen flying away over the hills.
    "And so I got away," says Gordon's voice.
    As the voice is heard, the last scene dissolves into the next.

    A conference room at Basra, rather like an ultra-modern board room. It is bleaky and rationally furnished. Telephones have been restored to the world. Through a large open window one sees the great and growing aerodrome of Basra with a number of aeroplanes coming and going. Far off there is a group of smoking factory chimneys. It is a sudden contrast to the general ruinousness that has prevailed throughout the film since the war sequences. A dozen young and middle-aged men sit at the table indifferent to these familiar activities outside, and Gordon stands talking - too excited to sit.
    Gordon: "And so I got away. That is where you will find Cabal. The Boss of Everytown is a violent tough - he may do anything. There is no time to lose."
    A Middle-aged Man: "Certainly, there is no time to lose. Half squadron A is ready now. You ready to go with them, Mr.----?"
    Gordon : "Gordon, sir."
    The middle-aged man begins to dial a telephone.
    A Young Man: "This gives us a chance of trying this new anaesthetic, the Gas of Peace.... I wish I could go...."
    Wipe off to next scene.

    The Boss's bedroom. It is a large untidy room furnished with the best loot of the district. The Boss is in déshabillé, and has just got out of bed. He is still heavy with sleep. With him is Burton and by the door stands a messenger.
    Burton: "At last we have definite news."
    Boss: "What is it?"
    An attendant brings in a tray of breakfast, and sets it on the table.
    Burton: "Gordon didn't fall into the sea. He got away. A fishing boat saw him making the French coast. Perhaps he reached his pals."
    Boss, disagreeably: "Well?"
    Burton: "He'll be coming back. He'll be bringing the others with him."
    Attendant leaves.
    The Boss is waking up slowly and is very peevish: "Curse this Air League. Curse all airmen and gas men and machine men! Why didn't we leave their machines and chemicals alone. I might have known. Why did I tamper with flying?"
    Burton: "Well, we needed aeroplanes - against the Hill State. Somebody else would have started in again with aeroplanes and gas and bombs if we hadn't. These people would have come interfering anyhow."
    Boss: "Why was all this science ever allowed? Why was it ever let begin?" He turns listlessly to his breakfast. He begins again: "Science! - it's the enemy of everything that is natural in life. I dreamt of those chaps in the night. Great ugly inhuman chaps in black. Half like machines. Bombing and bombing."
    Burton: "I guess they'll come bombing, all right."
    Boss: "Then we'll fight 'em. Since Gordon got away I've had one or two of the air boys to see me. Those boys have guts. They can do something still."
    He walks up and down devouring a piece of bread. "We'll fight 'em. We'll fight 'em. We've got hostages.... I'm glad now we haven't shot them anyhow. I wonder if that fellow Harding.... Of course! He can tell us what to do about this gas. If we have to wring his arm off and knock half his teeth down his throat to make him do it. Get him - get him."
    Burton at door shouting for men and giving orders.
    The Boss is gathering courage and takes his food with greater gusto: "They have to come to earth sometime. What is this World Communications? A handful of men like ourselves. They're not magic."

    A row of old and worn-out aeroplanes in front of a battered hangar. A number of very young inexperienced- looking pilots stand before them. The Boss is inspecting them. Roxana is beside him.
    The Boss begins his speech: "To you I entrust these good, these tried and tested machines. You are not mechanics - you are warriors. You have been taught not to think, but to do - and - if need be, die. I salute you - I, your leader."
    The boy pilots go off rather reluctantly to their machines and start them up. It is an almost "Heath Robinson" scene our contemporary (1935) machines in the last stage of decay and patch-up.

   
        A very long shot of a new type of air bomber flying with a sort of remorselessness - in contrast with the hops and misbehaviour of the Boss's machines. It is Gordon returning. Two other big bombers follow, low down in the sky.
    This machine has a distinctive throb of its own which should mingle with the menace of the music.
    Closer shots of parts of this great bomber. Aviators (three men and two women) stand about looking down on the world. One is Gordon. Gordon is anxious.

    A large cavernous space arched over by the girder of a fallen building. It looks out upon suburban ruins and a distant hillside. The Boss is with Burton and Roxana and his staff. The Boss studies the familiar skyline through binoculars. Guards bring in Mary and Harding. The Boss turns to them.
    Boss: "What do you know about these Air League people? Have they gas? What sort of gas?"
    Harding. "I know nothing of gas."
    Boss: "Here, where are the masks?"
    Two boys appear with a job lot of masks - caricatures of existing types
    Boss: "Tell us about these masks, anyhow."
    Harding examines a mask and tears it and throws it down. "Rotten! No use at all."
    Boss: "What gas have they got?"
    Harding: "Gas war isn't my business."
    Boss: "Well, they can't gas us when you are here anyhow."
    Burton, in dismay: "Here they are. Listen. They're coming already!"
    The strange recognisable throb of Gordon's aeroplanes is heard and the music that accompanies it, gradually getting louder.
    The Boss rushes forward and looks up with his binoculars: "Clumsy great things! Our boys will have them down in five minutes. They're too clumsy. What! - only six of us up. Where are the rest of our fellows?"
    Sudden consternation of the group at something unseen. A machine falls in flames and crashes in the distance.
    Boss: "Go on - up at him."
    A loud report. Far off another aeroplane crashes in flames.
    Roxana: "Poor boy - it's got him."
    Boss: "They're both coming down. Cowards!"
    Roxana: "But they can't use gas - how can they use gas? - when we have the hostages."
    The Boss turns and looks at the hostages. "Ah! the hostages! I'm not done yet. Lead them out - there. Tie 'em up. Out there in the open. Where they can be seen."
    Guards take Mary and Harding out to the open and tie them up to two posts. Closer shot of Mary and Harding being tied to the posts. They look at one another with steady eyes. Then they look up at the sky.
    The Boss comes over to them, brandishing his pistol. He shouts up to the sky: "Come down, or I shoot them. Are you bombing your own hostages? Come down or I shoot."
    He remembers Cabal. "Where's the other fellow? He's the Prize Hostage. He's the best of all. They'll know him. Four of you - go and fetch him...."
    A deep soft thud and a bomb explodes some distance off. The sound the bomb makes is not a sharp explosive report; it is more like the whoof of a puff of smoke.
    A Soldier cries out: "Is it gas?"
    The Boss waves his pistol at Mary and Harding. "You anyhow, shall die before I do." Roxana stands near him. Another bomb thuds nearer. The Boss points his pistol at Harding with an expression of desperate resolution, but Roxana knocks it up as he fires.
    Boss: "You turn against me?"
    Roxana: "Don't you see - he's beaten you. Look!"
    Soldiers in the distance are seen staggering and falling.
    The gas this time is transparent, and is available only as a sort of shimmering heat haze. The foreground now is still perfectly clear, but the middle distance is flickering.
    Roxana rushes to Mary and clings to her: "Mary - I never did you any harm. I saved your father. I saved you. Couldn't you call up to your man - to stop this..."
    Crescendo of whoofs close at hand. Whoof. Whoof. WHOOF. The gas increases and creeps nearer and nearer. The picture concentrates on the face of the Boss.
    The Boss looks with amazement at his men gradually succumbing to the gas. He starts and pulls himself together.
    Boss: "Shoot them - what are you all doing - why don't you move. I won't have it like this. What's happening? Everything is going swimmy! Everything is swimming."
    He wipes his hand across his eyes as if he can no longer see or think distinctly. He wipes his mouth and rubs his eyes. His face is suddenly distorted in a last violent effort to resist the gas.
    The flicker of the gas is now all over the screen. The flickering becomes violent so that it is as if one saw the face of the Boss through disturbed water.
    Boss: "Shoot, I say! Shoot. Shoot. We've never shot enough yet. We never shot enough. We spared them. These intellectuals! These contrivers! These experts! Now they've got us. Our world or theirs. What did a few hundreds of them matter? We've been weak - weak. Kill them like vermin! Kill all of them!.... Why should I be beaten like this? Weakness! Weakness! Weakness is fatal.... Shoot!"
    The flickering broadens out to a swirling dissolve of outwardly moving circles.
    The dark figure of Cabal appears through the swirl. He is wearing his great mask again and there is no sign of collapse about him.
    Cabal: "Your sentries seem to have gone to sleep. So I came out.... All the town is going to sleep.... You made us do it."
    Abruptly the picture becomes clear again. The Boss sprawls headlong as it does so. As he becomes insensible you are no longer supposed to see things with his eyes. He falls exactly at the moment when the swirling ends. The tall black figure of Cabal now stands up in the foreground.
    All the rest are lying insensible before him....
    Pause.
    Cabal: "And now for the World of the Airmen and a new start for mankind."
    The camera pauses at the side of Cabal so that only the side of his head and shoulders and arm frame the picture. You do not get Cabal all in the picture again. You see the profile of his mask and his black arm and hand.
    Mary is in a sitting position at the foot of the post to which she was tied and Roxana is grouped very gracefully across her feet. The Boss sprawls on his face in the foreground with his clenched fist outstretched. Harding droops from his post. Burton a little further off lies on a heap of rubble and beyond him are soldiers and attendants. Cabal comes nearer the group. "You might be more comfortable, Harding," he says, and releases the ropes, lowering the inanimate Harding into a sitting position. "So."
    Then he turns to the two women. "Well, my dears, you must sleep for a time. There's nothing more to be done."
    He stands looking at them. Close up of the two women's faces in repose. Mary is quietly peaceful. Roxana even when she is insensible contrives to be attractive. Cabal's voice is heard.
    Cabal: "Mary. And Madame Roxana! Queer contrast. Madame Roxana. A pretty thing and a very pretty thing and what's to be done with this very pretty thing? The eternal adventuress. A common pretty woman who doesn't work. A lady! She has pluck. Charm. Brains enough for infinite mischief. And a sort of energy. She'll play her pretty eyes at men to the end of her time. Now the Bosses go the way of the money grubbers, I suppose it will be our turn. Wherever power is, she will follow. And let me confess to you, young woman, now that you can't hear me or take any advantage of me, that considering my high responsibilities and my dignified years, I find you a lot more interesting and disturbing than I ought to do. Men are men, you said, to the end of their days. You get at us. I wish we could keep you under gas always. There is much to be said for the harem idea. Must you still be up to your tricks in our new world?"
    The view of the camera widens to take in all the slumbering bodies
    Cabal: "The new world, with the old stuff. Our job is only beginning."

    Dawn breaking over Everytown. Dawn sky. Vista of a side street. Sleeping figures lie scattered about. Gordon and a knot of companions, several young airmen and two women, also in black leather, come through the ruins. They are no longer masked. One of them tears down a rosette flag in passing.
    First Young Airman: "They'1l sleep for another day."
    Second Airman: "Well, we've given 'em a whiff of civilisation at last."
    First Airman: "Nothing like putting children to sleep when they are naughty."

    On the outskirts of the town, wondering country people in their coarse canvas clothes and sabots are seen coming down the hillside against the familiar skyline.
    People coming into the Square which is littered with sleepers. Some of the sleepers are beginning to stir. A bunch of the new airmen in their black costumes, but not masked or helmeted, appear and walk across the scene.
    People staring at the airmen, the back of the unkempt heads very big in silhouette in the foreground of the picture.
    It is decadent barbarism watching the return of civilisation.

    Return to the council room, the board room, at the aerodrome at Basra. Much greater activity is now seen through the window. Big lorries are running about. People go to and fro. Aeroplanes of novel type are going up in groups of seven, squadron after squadron,
    The table is now covered with maps and a group of secretaries stand ready to give any help. Costumes, very slightly "futuristic," severe, and mostly mechanics' or air costume.
    The same council is present, but in addition Cabal is now a dominant figure beside the Chairman.
    Cabal, leaning over a map: "This is how I conceive our plan of operations. Settle, organise, advance. This zone, then that. At last wings over the whole world and the new world begins. More and more it will become a round-up of brigands...."
    The Airmen's War. Many aeroplanes of strange and novel shape rising into the air. They fill the sky. A brief air fight, between three old normal fighting aeroplanes and one of the new aeroplanes.
    Over a ruinous landscape, brigands with flags and old military uniforms in flight as the new aeroplanes overhead bomb them. The bombs explode and gas overcomes the brigands.
    Sky writing by the new planes: SURRENDER.
    Brigands crawl from hiding places and surrender, hands over their heads. Brigands run out from the houses of another town as the aeroplanes approach. They surrender.
    The sky dotted with the new aeroplanes. Hundreds of men drop from the sky with parachutes. The brigands stand waiting.
    A line of prisoners marching. They carry regimental flags. They are the last ragged vestige of the regular armies of the old order. It is the end of organised war at last. A group of the new airmen watch their march-past. Overhead the new aeroplanes are hovering.

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