Turtle Reader

Bert was so astonished that he stood agape, and the bird-faced
officer might have cut him to the earth without a struggle. But
instead the bird-faced officer was running away through the
undergrowth, dodging as he went. Bert roused himself to a brief
ineffectual pursuit, but he had no stomach for further killing.
He returned to the mangled, [...]

If he had not eaten so much and eaten it so fast, he would not be
so heavy. Are vegetarians always bright?…

He roused himself with a jerk again.

If he didn’t do something, he would fall asleep, and if he fell
asleep, it was ten to one they would find him snoring, and finish
him forthwith. If [...]

Bert was struck with an exasperating afterthought.

“Gord!” he cried with infinite vexation. “Why! I ought to ’ave
took their swords! ’Ere!”

But the Germans were already out of sight, and no doubt taking
cover among the trees. Bert fell back upon imprecations, then he
went up to the shed, cursorily examined the possibility of a
flank attack, [...]

The two Germans at the machine heard his voice going ever and
again amidst the clamour of the waters. Their eyes met and they
smiled slightly.

He was disposed for a time to sit in the refreshment shed waiting
for them, but then it occurred to him that so he might get them
both at close quarters. He [...]

“Look at the mischief you done! Look at the way you smashed up
New York–the people you killed, the stuff you wasted. Can’t you
learn?”

“Dummer Kerl!” said the bird-faced man suddenly in a tone of
concentrated malignancy, glaring under his bandages. “Esel!”

“That’s German for silly ass!–I know. But who’s the silly ass–
’im or me? [...]

The bird-faced man intervened with a reply in German.

“Dead man!” said Bert to him. “There.”

He had great difficulty in inducing them to inspect the dead
Chinaman, and at last led them to him. Then they made it evident
that they proposed that he, as a common person below the rank of
officer should have the sole [...]

The kitten caressed Bert’s airship boots unheeded.

“Mend dat drachenflieger,” said the Prince.

“If I do mend it,” said Bert, struck by a new thought, “none of
us ain’t to be trusted to fly it.”

“I vill fly it,” said the Prince.

“Very likely break your neck,” said Bert, after a pause.

The Prince did not understand him and disregarded what [...]

With that apparition began a new phase of Goat Island in Bert’s
experience. He ceased to be a solitary representative of
humanity in a vast and violent and incomprehensible universe, and
became once more a social creature, a man in a world of other
men. For an instant these two were terrible, then they seemed
sweet and desirable [...]

He gave the kitten some milk in a dirty plate and sat watching
its busy little tongue for a time. Then he was moved to make an
inventory of the provisions. There were six bottles of milk
unopened and one opened, sixty bottles of mineral water and a
large stock of syrups, about two thousand cigarettes and [...]

It advanced suddenly upon him with a rush, with a little meawling
cry and tail erect. It rubbed its head against him and purred.
It was a tiny, skinny little kitten.

“Gaw, Pussy! ’ow you frightened me!” said Bert, with drops of
perspiration on his brow.

He sat with his back to a tree stump all that night, [...]