PART II
"... 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 theretreating monster. Sergeant Walpole scribbled on the official form.Just as the monstrous thing dipped down out of sight there was avicious, crashing report from its hinder part. Something shrieked....
Sergeant Walpole got up, spitting sand. There was blood on thereport-form in his hand. He folded it painstakingly. Of the two men whohad been with him, one was struggling out of the sand as SergeantWalpole had had to do. The other was scattered over a good many squareyards of sandy beach.
"Um. They seen us," said Sergeant Walpole, "an' they got Pete. You'llhave 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. Ifsomebody springs somethin' you ain't able to fight, run away but keep itin sight an' report to the nearest commissioned officer. Remember that.Now get on. There's monocycles in the village. Get there an' beat thatdamn Wabbly thing with the news."
He saw his follower start off, sprinting. That particular soldier, bythe way, was identified by his dog-tag some days later. As nearly ascould be discovered, he had died of gas. But Sergeant Walpole picked upone of the two rifles, blew sand out of the breech-mechanism, andstarted off after the metal monster. He walked in the eight-foot trackof one of its treads. As he went, he continued the cleaning of sand fromthe 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 SergeantWalpole looked up to find himself scrutinizing somebody's dining-roomtable, set for lunch. The Wabbly had crossed a house in its path withoutswerving. Walls, chimneys, timbers and planks, all had gone beneath itstreads. But they had been pressed so smoothly flat that until SergeantWalpole looked down at his footing, he would not have known he waswalking on the wreckage of a building.
It was half an hour before he reached the village. The Wabbly had gonefrom end to end, backed up, and gone over the rest of it again. Therewas the taint of gas in the air. Sergeant Walpole halted outside thedebris. His gas-mask had been blown to atoms with Observation-PostFourteen.
"They're tryin' to beat the news o' their comin'," he reflected aloud,"which is why they smashed up the village. The telephone exchange wasthere.... Tillie's under there somewheres...."
He fumbled with the rifle, suddenly swearing queerly hate-distortedoaths. Tillie had not been the great love of Sergeant Walpole's life.She was merely a country telephone operator, reasonably pretty, andflattered by his uniform. But she was under a mass of splintered woodand crushed brick-work, killed while trying to connect with the tightbeam to Area Headquarters to report the monster rushing upon thevillage. That monster had destroyed the little settlement. There wasnothing left at all but wreckage and the eight-foot tracks of monstertreads. Sometimes those tracks crossed each other. Between them wreckagesurvived to a height of as much as four feet, which was the clearance ofthe Wabbly's body.
Something roared low overhead. Sergeant Walpole swore bitterly, lookedupward, and waited to die. But the small plane was American, and old. Itwas 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 speedacross the tree-tops. "They heard the bombs go off all the way toPhilly. Sent me. What in hell was it?"
* * * * *
A thin, high, wailing sound coming down as lightning might be imaginedto descend.... The pilot dived madly and got behind a pine forest beforethe explosion and the concussion that followed it. Sergeant Walpole sawthe pine-trees shiver. The sheer explosion-wave of that egg, if it hitan old ship like this in mid-air, would have stripped the fabric fromits wings.
"Set me down," said Sergeant Walpole. "They're watchin' us from aloft. Isent a man on a monocycle to report." But he told luridly of the thingthat 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 ofgettin' back."
The pilot set him down, and began ticking away on a code sender even ashe landed. Then he climbed swiftly away from the Sergeant, headed in aweaving, crazy line to westward. Then things screamed downward and theSergeant clapped hands over his ears once more. The ground quiveredunderfoot, though the eggs landed a good three-quarters of a mile away.The training-plane dropped like a plummet. The sharpness of ahexynitrate explosion carries its effect to quite incredible distances.The fabric of its wings split to ribbons. The ship landed somewhere andsmoke 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 sawa school-house. The Wabbly had passed within a hundred yards of it. Theschool-house seemed deserted. Then the Sergeant saw the hole in itsroof. Then he caught the infinitely faint taint of gas.
"Mighty anxious," said Sergeant Walpole woodenly, "not to let news getahead of 'em. Yeah.... If it busts on places without warnin', it'll havethat much easier work. I hope I'm in on the party when we get this damnthing."
There was no use in approaching the school-house, though he had agas-mask now. Sergeant Walpole went on.