PART IV
"... which panic was enhanced by the destruction of a second flight of fighting planes. However, the destruction of Bendsboro completed civilian demoralization.... A newscasting company re-broadcast a private television contact with the town at the moment the Wabbly entered it. Practically all the inhabitants of the Atlantic Coast heard and saw the annihilation of the town--hearing the cries of '_Gas!_' and the screams of the people, and hearing the crashings as the Wabbly crushed its way inexorably across the city, spreading terror everywhere.... Frenzied demands were made upon the Government for the recall of troops from the front to offer battle to the Wabbly.... It is considered that at that time the one Wabbly had a military effect equal to at least half a million men." (_Strategic Lessons of the War of 1941-43._--U. S. War College. Pp. 83-84.)
They did not enter the town. There was just enough of starlight to showthat the Wabbly had gone through it, and then crashed back and forthruthlessly. There was a great gash through the center of the buildingsnearest the edge, and there were other gashes visible here and there.Everything was crushed down utterly flat in two eight-foot paths; andthere was a mass of crumbled debris four feet high at its highest inbetween the tread-marks.
They looked, silently, and went on. They reached a railroad track, thequadruple track of a branch-line from New York to Philadelphia. TheWabbly was going along that right-of-way. There was no right-of-way leftwhere it had been. Rails were crushed flat. Culverts were brokenthrough. But the horses raced along the smoothed tread-trails. Once abroken, twisted rail tore at Sergeant Walpole's sleeve. Somehow the lastgreat plate of a tread had bent it upward. Presently they saw a mass ofsomething dark off to the left. Flames were licking meditatively at oneof the wrecked cars.
Then they heard explosions far ahead. Flames lighted the sky.
"Our men in action!" said Sergeant Walpole hungrily.
He flogged his mount mercilessly. Then the sky became bright in thedistance. The horses, going down the crushed-smooth trail of the treads,gained upon the din. Then they saw the cause of it, miles distant. Atrain was burning luridly. Its forepart was wreckage, pure and simple.The rest was going up in flames and detonations. Munitions, of course.The Wabbly was off at one side, flame-lit and monstrous, slidingsmoothly out of sight.
* * * * *
"Ten miles of railroad," said the 'copter pilot calmly, "mashed out ofexistence. That's going to scare our people into fits. They can dropeggs till the cows come home, and every egg'll smash up a hundred yardsof right-of-way, and we can build it back up again in four hours withmobile track-layers. But ten miles to be regraded and laid is different.Half of America will be imagining all our railroads smashed andstarvation 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 hugetwo-wheeled car, whose gyroscopes hummed softly while its driver triedto extract it from something it was tangled in.
"I commandeer this car," said the 'copter pilot. "Military necessity. Wehave to trail that Wabbly."
Someone grunted. Lights flashed on within. The 'copter pilot andSergeant Walpole stiffened to attention. The stars of a major-generalshone 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. Whatdo 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 ithits iron, sir, the energy is absorbed and the iron heats up and blowsup the ship. The Wabbly's working with a bomber well aloft, sir, whichspots planes from below by picking up their spark-plug flashes in adirectional loop. The bomber aloft, sir, drops eggs when the Wabbly'sattacked. Sergeant Walpole reports several planes disabled by theirfabric being blown off their wings."
* * * * *
"I know," said the major-general. "Dammit, the front takes every shipthat's fit to go aloft. We have only wrecks back here. You're sure aboutthat spark-plug affair?"
"Yes, sir," said the 'copter pilot. "My ship crashed, sir. I started themotors again, trying to take off. Eggs began to drop about meinstantly."
"Nasty!" said the major-general. "I was going to join my men. We'veflung 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 allabout it. Nasty!"
He lit a cigar, calmly. The gyrocar shifted suddenly and backed awayfrom the thing it had been tangled in.
"Why ain't the bombers been shot down?" demanded Sergeant Walpoleangrily. "Dammit, sir, if it wasn't for them bombers--"
"Up to an hour ago," said the major-general, "we had lost sixty-eightplanes trying to get those bombers. You see, it works both ways. Thebombers drop eggs to help the Wabbly defend itself. And the Wabbly usesthat power-beam you spoke of to wipe the sky clean about the bombers. Iwondered how it was done, before you explained, sir. Do you men want tocome with me? Get on the running-board if you like. We shall probably bekilled."
The gyrocar purred softly away, with two horses left wandering and twomen clinging fast in a sweep of wind. They found a ribbon of concreteroad and the wind sang as the car picked up speed. Then, suddenly, itbucked madly and went out of control, and, as suddenly, was passingalong the road again. The Wabbly had passed over the roadway here.
* * * * *
And then they heard gunfire ahead. Honest, malevolent gunfire. Flasheslit the horizon. The gyrocar speeded up until it fairly hummed, and thewind rushed into the nostrils and mouths of the men on therunning-boards. The cannonade increased. It reached really respectableproportions, until it became a titanic din. As the road rose up a longincline, a shell burst in mid-air in plain view, and the driver of thegyrocar jammed on the brakes and looked down upon the strangest ofsights 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 bottomof a valley, a mile and a half distant, there was the Wabbly.Star-shells flared near it, casting it into intolerable brightness andclear relief. And other shells were breaking upon it and all about it.From beyond the rim of hills came the flashes of guns. The air was fullof 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 shattereda dreadnaught of the 1920's. Its monstrous treads were motionless. Itseemed queerly quiescent, abstracted; it seemed less defiant of theshell-fire that broke upon it like the hail of hell, than indifferent toit. Yes, it seemed indifferent!
Only the queer excrescence on its top moved, and that stirred vaguely.Star-shells floated overhead and bathed it in pitiless light. And itremained motionless.... Sergeant Walpole had a vague impression ofcolossal detonations taking place miles above his head, but the soundwas lost in the drumfire of artillery nearer at hand.
* * * * *
Then a gun on the Wabbly moved. It spouted a flash of bluish flame, andthen another and another. It seemed to fire gas-shells into the town, atthis moment, ignoring the batteries playing upon it. It was still again,while the queer excrescence on its back moved vaguely and shells burstabout it in a very inferno.
Then the treads moved, and with a swift celerity the Wabbly movedsmoothly forward and up the incline toward the cannonading guns. It wentover 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 intoaction. In the light of star-shells a
nd explosions they saw its gunsbegin to bellow. It went swiftly and malevolently forward, moving withcentipedean 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 tofire.... One last weapon boomed desperately at its maximum rate offire....
That stopped. The night became strangely, terribly still. Themajor-general put aside his radivision receiver. Though neither thehelicopter pilot nor Sergeant Walpole had noticed it, he had openedcommunication the instant the gyrocar came to a stop. Now themajor-general was desperately, terribly white.
"The artillery is wiped out," he observed detachedly. "The Wabbly, itseems, is going on into the town."
They did not want to listen, those men who waited futilely by thegyrocar which had witnessed the invulnerability of the Wabbly to allattack. They did not want to listen at all. But they heard the noises asthe Wabbly crashed across the town, and back and forth.
"Morale effect," said the major-general, through stiff lips. "That'swhat it's for. To break down the morale behind the lines. Good God! Whathellish things mere words can mean!"