"... 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 reassure 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."
Sergeant Walpole grunted suddenly.
"Look here, sir! The Wabbly stops when it uses that dinkus on top. This
guy here says it uses a lotta power--four or five thousan' horsepower."
"More likely ten or twenty," said the 'copter pilot.
"Maybe," said Sergeant Walpole profoundly, "it takes all the power they
got to work that dinkus. They were workin' it just now when the
artillery was slammin' 'em. So next time you want to tackle it, stick a
flock o' bombs around an' attack the bombers too. If they're kept busy
down below, maybe the planes can get the bombers, or otherwise they'll
get a chance to use a big gun on the Wabbly."
The major-general nodded.
"We four," he observed, "are the only living men who've actually seen
the Wabbly and gotten away. I shall use both your suggestions. And I
shall not send those orders by radio--not even tight beam radio. I'll
carry them myself. Good luck!"
A non-commissioned officer of the Eastern Coast Observation Force and a
yet uncommissioned flying cadet waved a cheerful good-by to the
major-general in charge of home defense in three states. Then they went
on into the town.
"Monocycles first," said Sergeant Walpole. "An' a sender."
* * * * *
The 'copter man nodded. The street-lights of the town dimmed and
brightened. The Wabbly had paused only to create havoc, not to produce
utter chaos. It had gone back and forth over the town two or three
times, spewing out gas as it went. But most of the town was still
standing, and the power-house had not been touched. Only its untended
Diesels had checked before a fuel-pump cleared.
They found a cycle-shop, its back wall bulged in by wreckage against it.
Sergeant Walpole inspected its wares expertly. A voice began to speak
suddenly. A television set had somehow been turned on by the crash that
bulged the back wall.
"The monster tank has been held in check," said a smug voice
encouragingly. "Encountered by home-defense troops and artillery, it
proved unable to face shell-fire...."
"Liars!" said the 'copter man calmly. He picked up the nearest loose
object and flung it into the bland face of the official news-announcer.
The television set went dead, but there were hissings and sputterings in
its interior. He had flung a Bissel battery at it, one of a
display-group, and its high-tension terminals hissed and sparked among
the stray wires in the cabinet.
"That makes me mad," said the 'copter man grimly. "Lying for morale! The
other side murders our civilians to break down morale, and our side lies
about it to build morale back up again. To hell with morale!"
Sergeant Walpole reached in and pulled out the battery. Bissel batteries
turn out six hundred volts these days, and they make a fat spark when
short-circuited.
"For Gawd's sake!" said Sergeant Walpole. "If they can pick up sparks
from a motor, can't they pick 'em up from this? What the hell y'doin'?
Y'want 'em droppin' eggs on us? Say!"
* * * * *
He stopped short, his eyes burning. He began to talk, suddenly groping
for words while he waved the high-powered small battery in his hand. The
helicopter man listened, at first skeptically and then with an equally
hungry enthusiasm.
"Sergeant," he said evenly, "that's an idea! A whale of an idea! A hell
of a fine idea! Let's get some rockets!"
"Why rockets?" demanded Sergeant Walpole in his turn. "Whatcha want to
do? Celebrate the Fourth o' July?"
The 'copter man explained, this time, and Sergeant Walpole seized upon
the addition. Then they began a hunt. They roved the town over, and it
was not pleasant. When the Wabbly had gone into that town there had
still been very many living human beings in it. Some of them had
believed in the ability of the artillery to defend the town against a
single monster. Some had had no means of getting away. But all of them
had tried to get away when the Wabbly went lurching in among the houses.
For them, the Wabbly had spewed out deadly gases. Also it had simply
forged ahead. And the two living men in their gas-masks paid as little
attention as possible to the bodies in the streets, most of them in
flimsy night-clothing, struck down in frenzied flight, but they could
not help seeing too much....
In the end they went back to the artillery-positions and found
signal-rockets there. Two full cases of them, marvelously unexploded. A
little later two monocycles purred madly in the beaten-down paths of the
monstrous treads. Sergeant Walpole bore very many Bissel batteries,
which will deliver six hundred volts even on short-circuit for half an
hour at a time. The 'copter man carried some of them, too, and both men
were loaded down.
* * * * *
When dawn came they were hollow-eyed and gaunt and weary. It had started
to rain, too, and both of them were drenched. They could see no more
than a couple of hundred yards in every direction, and they were hungry,
and they had seen things no man should have to look upon, in the way of
destruction. They came upon a wrecked artillery-train just as the world
lightened to a pallid gray. Guns twisted and burst. Caissons, no more
than shattered scraps of metal, because of the explosion of the shells
within them. And the tread-tracks of the Wabbly led across the mess.
Steam still rose, hissing softly, from the bent and twisted guns which
had burst when they were heated to redness by the power-beam. And there
was a staff gyrocar crumpled against a tree where it had been flung by
some explosion or other. There were neither sound nor wounded men about;
only dead ones. The Wabbly had been here.
"Hullo," said the helicopter man in a dreary levity, "there's a portable
vision set in this car. Let's call up the general and see how he is?"
Sergeant Walpole spat. Then he held up his hand. He was listening. Far
off in the drumming downpour of the rain there was a rumbling sound. He
had heard it before. It was partly made up of the noise of
internal-combustion engines of unthinkable power, and partly of
grumbling treads forcing a way through reluctant trees. It was a long
way off, now, but it was coming nearer.
"The Wabbly," said Sergeant Walpole. "Comin' back. Why? Hell's bells!
Why's it comin' back?"
"I don't know," said the 'copter man, "but let's get some rockets fixed
up."
The two of them worked almost lackadaisically. They were tired out. But
they took the tiny Bissel batteries and twisted the attached wires
about the rocket-heads. They had twenty or thirty of them fixed by the
time the noise of the Wabbly was very near. There was the noise of
felled trees, pushed down by the Wabbly in its progress. Great,
crackling crashes, and then crunching sounds, and above them the
thunderous smooth purring rumble of the monster. The 'copter man climbed
into the upside-down staff car. He turned the vision set on and fiddled
absurdly with the controls.
"I'm getting something," he announced suddenly. "The bomber up aloft is
sending its stuff down a beam, a tight beam to the Wabbly. Listen to
it!"
* * * * *
The uncouth, clacking syllables of the enemy tongue came from the vision
set. Someone was speaking crisply and precisely somewhere. Blurred,
indistinct flashes appeared on the vision set screen.
"They ought to be worried," the 'copter man said wearily. "Even an
infra-red telescope can't pick up a damned thing through clouds like
this. And the Wabbly's in a mess without a bomber to help...."
Sergeant Walpole did not reply. He was exhausted. He sat looking tiredly
off through the rain in the direction of the approaching noise. Somehow
it did not occur to him to run away. He sat quite still, smoking a soggy
cigarette.
Something beaked and huge appeared behind a monstrous oak-tree. It came
on. The oak-tree crackled, crashed, and went down. It was ground under
by the monstrous war-engine that went over it. The Wabbly was
unbelievably impersonal and horrible in its progress. There had been a
filling-station for gyrocars close by the place where the
artillery-train had been wrecked. One of the eight-foot treads loomed
over that station, descended upon it--and the filling-station was no
more. The Wabbly was then not more than a hundred yards from Sergeant
Walpole, less than a city block. He looked at it in a weary detachment.
It was as high as a four-story house, and it was two hundred feet long,
and forty feet wide at the treads with the monstrous gun-bulges reaching
out an extra ten or fifteen feet on either side above. And it came
grumbling on toward him.