Morale Part 3

"Ten miles of railroad," said the 'copter pilot calmly, "mashed out of existence. That's going to scare our people into fits. They can drop eggs till the cows come home, and every egg'll smash up a hundred yards of right-of-way, and we can build it back up again in four hours with mobile track-layers. But ten miles to be regraded and laid is different.

Half of America will be imagining all our railroads smashed and starvation ahead."

A piercing light fell upon them.

"Shut it off!" roared Sergeant Walpole. "D'y'want to get us killed?"

He and the 'copter pilot swerved. There was a car there, a huge two-wheeled car, whose gyroscopes hummed softly while its driver tried to extract it from something it was tangled in.

"I commandeer this car," said the 'copter pilot. "Military necessity. We have to trail that Wabbly."

Someone grunted. Lights flashed on within. The 'copter pilot and Sergeant Walpole stiffened to attention. The stars of a major-general shone on the collar of the stout man within.

"Beg pardon, sir," said the pilot, and was still.

"Umph," said the major-general. "There seem to be just four of us alive, who've seen the thing clearly. I hit on it by accident, I'll admit. What do you know about it?"

"It come on a tramp-steamer--" began Sergeant Walpole.

"Hm. You're Sergeant Walpole. Mentioned in dispatches to-morrow, Sergeant. You, sir?"

"Its weapon against our planes, sir," said the 'copter man precisely, "is a radio beam carrying several thousand horsepower of energy. When it hits iron, sir, the energy is absorbed and the iron heats up and blows up the s.h.i.+p. The Wabbly's working with a bomber well aloft, sir, which spots planes from below by picking up their spark-plug flashes in a directional loop. The bomber aloft, sir, drops eggs when the Wabbly's attacked. Sergeant Walpole reports several planes disabled by their fabric being blown off their wings."

"I know," said the major-general. "Dammit, the front takes every s.h.i.+p that's fit to go aloft. We have only wrecks back here. You're sure about that spark-plug affair?"

"Yes, sir," said the 'copter pilot. "My s.h.i.+p crashed, sir. I started the motors again, trying to take off. Eggs began to drop about me instantly."

"Nasty!" said the major-general. "I was going to join my men. We've flung a line of artillery ahead of the thing. Motor-driven, of course.

But if they can pick up motors by the spark-waves, the bomber knows all about it. Nasty!"

He lit a cigar, calmly. The gyrocar s.h.i.+fted suddenly and backed away from the thing it had been tangled in.

"Why ain't the bombers been shot down?" demanded Sergeant Walpole angrily. "Dammit, sir, if it wasn't for them bombers--"

"Up to an hour ago," said the major-general, "we had lost sixty-eight planes trying to get those bombers. You see, it works both ways. The bombers drop eggs to help the Wabbly defend itself. And the Wabbly uses that power-beam you spoke of to wipe the sky clean about the bombers. I wondered how it was done, before you explained, sir. Do you men want to come with me? Get on the running-board if you like. We shall probably be killed."

The gyrocar purred softly away, with two horses left wandering and two men clinging fast in a sweep of wind. They found a ribbon of concrete road and the wind sang as the car picked up speed. Then, suddenly, it bucked madly and went out of control, and, as suddenly, was pa.s.sing along the road again. The Wabbly had pa.s.sed over the roadway here.

And then they heard gunfire ahead. Honest, malevolent gunfire. Flashes lit the horizon. The gyrocar speeded up until it fairly hummed, and the wind rushed into the nostrils and mouths of the men on the running-boards. The cannonade increased. It reached really respectable proportions, until it became a t.i.tanic din. As the road rose up a long incline, a sh.e.l.l burst in mid-air in plain view, and the driver of the gyrocar jammed on the brakes and looked down upon the strangest of sights below.

There were other hills yet ahead, and from behind them came that faint, indefinite glow which is the glow of the lights of a city. At the bottom of a valley, a mile and a half distant, there was the Wabbly.

Star-sh.e.l.ls flared near it, casting it into intolerable brightness and clear relief. And other sh.e.l.ls were breaking upon it and all about it.

From beyond the rim of hills came the flashes of guns. The air was full of screamings and many crashes.

The Wabbly was motionless. It looked more than ever like a monstrous, deadly centipede. It was under a rain of fire that would have shattered a dreadnaught of the 1920's. Its monstrous treads were motionless. It seemed queerly quiescent, abstracted; it seemed less defiant of the sh.e.l.l-fire that broke upon it like the hail of h.e.l.l, than indifferent to it. Yes, it seemed indifferent!

Only the queer excrescence on its top moved, and that stirred vaguely.

Star-sh.e.l.ls floated overhead and bathed it in pitiless light. And it remained motionless.... Sergeant Walpole had a vague impression of colossal detonations taking place miles above his head, but the sound was lost in the drumfire of artillery nearer at hand.

Then a gun on the Wabbly moved. It spouted a flash of bluish flame, and then another and another. It seemed to fire gas-sh.e.l.ls into the town, at this moment, ignoring the batteries playing upon it. It was still again, while the queer excrescence on its back moved vaguely and sh.e.l.ls burst about it in a very inferno.

Then the treads moved, and with a swift celerity the Wabbly moved smoothly forward and up the incline toward the cannonading guns. It went over the top of the incline, and those in the gyrocar saw its reception.

Guns opened on it at point-blank range. Now the Wabbly itself went into action. In the light of star-sh.e.l.ls and explosions they saw its guns begin to bellow. It went swiftly and malevolently forward, moving with centipedean smoothness.

It dipped out of sight. The cannonade lessened. Two guns stopped.

Three.... Half a dozen guns were out of action. A dozen guns ceased to fire.... One last weapon boomed desperately at its maximum rate of fire....

That stopped. The night became strangely, terribly still. The major-general put aside his radivision receiver. Though neither the helicopter pilot nor Sergeant Walpole had noticed it, he had opened communication the instant the gyrocar came to a stop. Now the major-general was desperately, terribly white.

"The artillery is wiped out," he observed detachedly. "The Wabbly, it seems, is going on into the town."

They did not want to listen, those men who waited futilely by the gyrocar which had witnessed the invulnerability of the Wabbly to all attack. They did not want to listen at all. But they heard the noises as the Wabbly crashed across the town, and back and forth.

"Morale effect," said the major-general, through stiff lips. "That's what it's for. To break down the morale behind the lines. Good G.o.d! What h.e.l.lish things mere words can mean!"

PART V

"... The only weak spot in the Wabbly's design, apparently, was the necessity of using its entire engine-power in the power-beam with which it protected itself and its attendant bombers from aerial attack.

For a time, before New Brunswick, it was forced to remain still, under fire, while it fought off and destroyed an attacking fleet eight miles above it. With sufficiently powerful artillery, it might have been destroyed at that moment. But it was invulnerable to the artillery available.... Deliberately false statements were broadcast to rea.s.sure the public, but the public was already skeptical, as it later became incredulous, of official reports of victories. The destruction of New Brunswick became known despite official denials, and colossal riots broke out among the inhabitants of the larger cities, intent upon escape from defenseless towns.... Orders were actually issued withdrawing a quarter of a million men from the front-line reserve, with artillery in proportion to their force." (_Strategic Lessons of the War of 1941-43._--U. S. War College. P. 92.)

The major-general left them at the town, now quite still and silent.

Sergeant Walpole said detachedly:

"We'll prob'ly find a portable sender, sir, an' trail the Wabbly. That's about all we can do, sir."

"It looks," said the major-general rather desperately, "as if that is all anybody can do. I'm going on to take command ahead."

The 'copter pilot said politely:

"Sir, if you're going to sow mines for the Wabbly--"

"Of course!"

"That power-beam can explode them, sir, before the Wabbly gets to them.

May I suggest, sir, that mine-cases with no metal in them at all would be worth trying?"

"Thank you," said the major-general grimly. "I'll have concrete ones made."