"... The Wabbly was meant for one purpose, the
undermining of civilian morale. To accomplish that
purpose it set systematically about the establishment
of a reign of terror; and so complete was its success
that half the population of a state was in headlong
flight within two hours. It was, first, mysterious;
secondly, deadly, and within a very few hours it had
built up a reputation for invincibility. Judged on the
basis of its first twelve hours' work alone, it was the
most successful experiment of the war. Its effect on
civilian morale was incalculable." (_Strategic Lessons
of the War of 1941-43._--U. S. War College. Pp. 80-81.)
Two of the members of Observation-Post Fourteen gaped after the
retreating monster. Sergeant Walpole scribbled on the official form.
Just as the monstrous thing dipped down out of sight there was a
vicious, crashing report from its hinder part. Something shrieked....
Sergeant Walpole got up, spitting sand. There was blood on the
report-form in his hand. He folded it painstakingly. Of the two men who
had been with him, one was struggling out of the sand as Sergeant
Walpole had had to do. The other was scattered over a good many square
yards of sandy beach.
"Um. They seen us," said Sergeant Walpole, "an' they got Pete. You'll
have to take this report. I'm goin' after the damn thing."
"What for?" asked the other man blankly.
"To keep it in sight," said Sergeant Walpole. "That's tactics. If
somebody springs somethin' you ain't able to fight, run away but keep it
in sight an' report to the nearest commissioned officer. Remember that.
Now get on. There's monocycles in the village. Get there an' beat that
damn Wabbly thing with the news."
He saw his follower start off, sprinting. That particular soldier, by
the way, was identified by his dog-tag some days later. As nearly as
could be discovered, he had died of gas. But Sergeant Walpole picked up
one of the two rifles, blew sand out of the breech-mechanism, and
started off after the metal monster. He walked in the eight-foot track
of one of its treads. As he went, he continued the cleaning of sand from
the rifle in his hands. The rifle was useless against such a monster,
of course, but it is quaint to reflect that in that automatic rifle,
firing hexynitrate bullets, each equivalent to a six-pounder T.N.T.
shell in destructiveness, Sergeant Walpole carried greater "fire-power"
than Napoleon ever disposed in battle.
The tread of the Wabbly made a perfect roadway. Presently Sergeant
Walpole looked up to find himself scrutinizing somebody's dining-room
table, set for lunch. The Wabbly had crossed a house in its path without
swerving. Walls, chimneys, timbers and planks, all had gone beneath its
treads. But they had been pressed so smoothly flat that until Sergeant
Walpole looked down at his footing, he would not have known he was
walking on the wreckage of a building.
It was half an hour before he reached the village. The Wabbly had gone
from end to end, backed up, and gone over the rest of it again. There
was the taint of gas in the air. Sergeant Walpole halted outside the
debris. His gas-mask had been blown to atoms with Observation-Post
Fourteen.
"They're tryin' to beat the news o' their comin'," he reflected aloud,
"which is why they smashed up the village. The telephone exchange was
there.... Tillie's under there somewheres...."
He fumbled with the rifle, suddenly swearing queerly hate-distorted
oaths. Tillie had not been the great love of Sergeant Walpole's life.
She was merely a country telephone operator, reasonably pretty, and
flattered by his uniform. But she was under a mass of splintered wood
and crushed brick-work, killed while trying to connect with the tight
beam to Area Headquarters to report the monster rushing upon the
village. That monster had destroyed the little settlement. There was
nothing left at all but wreckage and the eight-foot tracks of monster
treads. Sometimes those tracks crossed each other. Between them wreckage
survived to a height of as much as four feet, which was the clearance of
the Wabbly's body.
Something roared low overhead. Sergeant Walpole swore bitterly, looked
upward, and waited to die. But the small plane was American, and old. It
was a training-plane, useless for front-line work. It dived to earth,
the pilot waved impatiently, and Walpole plunged to a place beside him.
Instantly thereafter the plane took off.
"What was it?" shouted the pilot, sliding off at panic-stricken speed
across the tree-tops. "They heard the bombs go off all the way to
Philly. Sent me. What in hell was it?"
* * * * *
A thin, high, wailing sound coming down as lightning might be imagined
to descend.... The pilot dived madly and got behind a pine forest before
the explosion and the concussion that followed it. Sergeant Walpole saw
the pine-trees shiver. The sheer explosion-wave of that egg, if it hit
an old ship like this in mid-air, would have stripped the fabric from
its wings.
"Set me down," said Sergeant Walpole. "They're watchin' us from aloft. I
sent a man on a monocycle to report." But he told luridly of the thing
that had come ashore, and of its destructiveness. "Now set me down.
Gimme a gas-mask an' clear out. You ain't got a burglar's chance of
gettin' back."
The pilot set him down, and began ticking away on a code sender even as
he landed. Then he climbed swiftly away from the Sergeant, headed in a
weaving, crazy line to westward. Then things screamed downward and the
Sergeant clapped hands over his ears once more. The ground quivered
underfoot, though the eggs landed a good three-quarters of a mile away.
The training-plane dropped like a plummet. The sharpness of a
hexynitrate explosion carries its effect to quite incredible distances.
The fabric of its wings split to ribbons. The ship landed somewhere and
smoke rose from it.
"He shouldn't ha' gone up so high," said Sergeant Walpole.
He struck across country for the treads of the Wabbly once more. He saw
a school-house. The Wabbly had passed within a hundred yards of it. The
school-house seemed deserted. Then the Sergeant saw the hole in its
roof. Then he caught the infinitely faint taint of gas.
"Mighty anxious," said Sergeant Walpole woodenly, "not to let news get
ahead of 'em. Yeah.... If it busts on places without warnin', it'll have
that much easier work. I hope I'm in on the party when we get this damn
thing."
There was no use in approaching the school-house, though he had a
gas-mask now. Sergeant Walpole went on.