Across Country
Ned Newton sighted his machine gun. Tom had showed him how to work it,
and indeed the young bank clerk had had some practice with a weapon
like this, erected on a stationary tripod. But this was the first time
Ned had attempted to fire from the tank while it was moving, and he
found it an altogether different matter.
"Say, it sure is hard to aim where you want to!" he shouted across to
Tom, it being necessary, even in the conning tower, where this one gun
was mounted, to speak loudly to make one's self heard above the hum,
the roar and rattle of the machinery in the interior of Tank A, and
below and to the rear of the two young men.
"Well, that's part of the game," Tom answered. "I'm sending her along
over as smooth ground as I can pick out, but it's rough at best. Still
this is nothing to what you'll get in Flanders."
"If I get there!" exclaimed Ned grimly. "Well, here goes!" and once
more he tried to aim the machine gun at the middle of the brick wall of
the ruined factory.
A moment later there was a rattle and a roar as the quick-firing
mechanism started, and a veritable hail of bullets swept out at the
masonry. Tom and Ned could see where they struck, knocking off bits of
stone, brick and cement.
"Sweep it, Ned! Sweep it!" cried Tom. "Imagine a crowd of Germans are
charging out at you, and sweep 'em out of the way!"
Obeying this command, the young man moved the barrel of the machine gun
from side to side and slightly up and down. The effect was at once
apparent. The wall showed spatter-marks of the bullets over a wider
area, and had a body of Teutons been before the factory, or even inside
it, many of them would have been accounted for, since there were
several holes in the wall through which Ned's bullets sped, carrying
potential death with them.
"That's better!" shouted Tom. "That'll do the business! Now I'm going
to open her up, Ned!"
"Open her up?" cried the young bank clerk, as he ceased firing.
"Yes; crack the wall of that factory as I would a nut! Watch me take
it on high--that is, if the old tank doesn't go back on me!"
"You mean you're going to ride right over that building, Tom?"
"I mean I'm going to try! If Tank A does as I expect her to, she'll
butt into that wall, crush it down by force and weight, and then waddle
over the ruins. Watch!"
Tom sent some signals to the motor room. At once there was noticed an
increase in the vibrations of the ponderous machine.
"They're giving her more speed," said Tom. "And I guess we'll need it."
Straight for the old factory went Tank A. In spite of its ruined
condition, some of the walls were still firm, and seemed to offer a big
obstacle to even so powerful an engine of war as this monstrous tank.
"Get ready now, Ned," Tom advised. "And when I crack her open for you
cut loose with the machine gun again. This gun is supposed to fire
straight ahead and a little to either side. There are other guns at
left and right, amidships, as I might say, and there's also one in the
stern, to take care of any attack from that direction.
"The men in charge of them will fire at the same time you do, and it
will be as near like a real attack as we can make it--with the
exception of not being fired back at. And I wouldn't mind if such were
the case, for I don't believe anything, outside of heavy artillery,
will have any effect on this tank."
Tank A was now almost at her maximum speed as she approached closer to
the deserted factory. Ned and Tom, in the conning tower, saw the
largest of the remaining walls looming before them. Straight at it
rushed the ponderous machine, and the next moment there came a shock
which almost threw Ned away from his gun and back against the steel
wall behind him.
"Hold fast!" cried Tom. "Here we go! Fire. Ned! Fire!"
There was a crash as the blunt nose of the great war tank hit the wall
and crumpled it up.
A great hole was made in the masonry, and what was not crushed under
the caterpillar belts of the tank fell in a shower of bricks, stone and
cement on top of the machine.
Like a great hail storm the broken masonry pelted the steel sides and
top of the tank. But she felt them no more than does an alligator the
attacks of a colony of ants. Right on through the dust the tank
crushed her way. Added to the noise of the falling walls was that of
the machine guns, which were barking away like a kennel of angry hounds
eager to be unleashed at the quarry.
Ned kept his gun going until the heat of it warned him to stop and let
the barrel cool, or he knew he would jam some of the mechanism. The
other guns were firing, too, and the bullets sent up little spatter
points of dust as they hit.
"Great jumping hoptoads!" yelled Ned above the riot of racket outside
and inside. "Feel her go, Tom!"
"Yes, she's just chewing it up, all right!" cried the young inventor,
his eyes shining with delight.
The tank had actually burst her way through the solid wall of the old
factory, permission to complete the demolition of which Tom had secured
from the owners. Then the great machine kept right on. She fairly
"walked" over the piles of masonry, dipped down into what had been a
basement, now partly filled with debris, and kept on toward another
wall.
"I'm going through that, too!" cried Tom.
And he did, knocking it down and sending his tank over the piled-up
ruins, while the machine guns barked, coughed and spluttered, as Ned
and the others inside the tank held back the firing levers.
Right through the opposite wall, as through the one she had already
demolished, the tank careened on her way, to emerge, rather battered
and dust-covered, on the other side of what was left of the factory.
And there was not much of it left. Tank A had well-nigh completed its
demolition.
"If there'd been a nest of Germans in there," said Tom, as he brought
the machine to a stop in a field beyond the factory, "they'd have
gotten out in a hurry."
"Or taken the consequences," added Ned, as he wiped the sweat from his
powder-blackened and oil-smeared face. "I certainly kept my gun going."
"Yes, and so did the others," reported one of the mechanics, as he
emerged from the "cubby hole," where the great motors had now ceased
their hum and roar.
"How'd she stand it?" asked Tom.
"All right inside," answered the man. "I was wondering how she looks
from the outside."
"Oh, it would take more than that to damage her," said Tom, with
pardonable pride. "That was pie for her! Solid concrete, which she may
have to chew up on the Western front, may present another kind of
problem, but I guess she'll be able to master that too. Well, let's
have a look."
He and Ned, with some of the crew and gunners, went outside the tank.
She was a sorry-looking sight, very different from the trim appearance
she had presented when she first left the shop. Bricks, bits of stone,
and piles of broken cement in chunks and dust lay thick on her broad
back. But no real damage had been done, as a hasty examination showed.
"Well, are you satisfied, Tom?" asked his chum.
"Yes, and more," was the answer. "Of course this wasn't the hardest
test to which she could have been submitted, but it will do to show
what punishment she can stand. Being shot at from big guns is another
matter. I'll have to wait until she gets to Flanders to see what effect
that will have. But I know the kind of armor skin she has, and that
doesn't worry me. There's one thing more I want to do while I have her
out now."
"What's that?" asked Ned.
"Take her for a long trip cross country, and then shove her through
some extra heavy barbed wire. I'm certain she'll chew that up, but I
want to see it actually done. So now, if you want to come along, Ned,
we'll go cross country."
"I'm with you!"
"Get inside then. We'll let the dust and masonry blow and rattle off as
we go along."
The tank started off across the fields, which stretched for many miles
on either side of the deserted factory, when suddenly Ned, who was
again at his post in the observation tower, called:
"Look, Tom!"
"What at?"
"That corner of the factory which is still standing. Look at those men
coming out and running away!"
Ned pointed, and his chum, leaning over from the steering wheel and
controls, gave a start of surprise as he saw three figures clambering
down over the broken debris and making their way out of what had once
been a doorway.
"Did they come out of the factory, Ned?"
"They surely did! And unless I miss my guess they were in it, or around
it, when we went through like a fellow carrying the football over the
line for a touchdown."
"In there when the tank broke open things?"
"I think so. I didn't see them before, but they certainly ran out as we
started away."
"This has got to be looked into!" decided Tom. "Come on, Ned! It may be
more of that spy business!"
Tom Swift stopped the tank and prepared to get out.