Wonder Stories Super Pack. Fletcher PrattЧитать онлайн книгу.
with sunshine, giving the dodos no opportunity to attack behind the cover of clouds. There was just enough cold in the air to make the Australians and South Africans lively, though the Americans found the temperature caused the oil to move sluggishly in their metallic joints.
At daybreak the whole American unit had been pushed out to the railroad line at Greenwood with the advance guard of tanks, and finding no opposition they continued on to Farmington, where there was an airport that would serve for the leading squadrons of planes.
“Do you know,” said Ben to Murray, “I wish those dodos would show a little more pep. Fighting them is no cinch. We’re a little ahead of the game now, but it’s largely because they’ve let us alone and haven’t brought up any of those light-beam guns.”
“Maybe we’ve got ‘em on the run,” replied Murray. “You can’t tell when anyone will develop a yellow streak, you know.”
“Yes, but we’ve seen enough of these babies to know they haven’t got a yellow streak a millimeter wide in their whole make-up. Yet here they let us do just about as we please. Makes me think they’re just laying for us, and when they get us where they want us—zowie!”
“Mebbe so, mebbe so,” replied Murray. “Beeville still thinks it isn’t the birds at all; that they’ve got a big boss somewhere running the whole works and till we find out what’s behind it we’re fighting in the dark. Well, they’ll unload the rest of the army tomorrow and then we’ll get down to cases.”
*
The country between Atlantic City and Philadelphia is flat, with a few gentle elevations and dotted with small towns, farms and tiny bits of woodland. In the cold spring morning of the next day, with rain portended, the army of the federated governments pushed out along the roads through this land like a huge, many-headed snake, tanks and airplanes in the lead, the steady ranks of infantry and the big guns coming behind. Back at Atlantic City all machine-shops and factories had been set in operation and wrecking crews were already clearing the railroads and mounting huge long-range guns on trucks, preparatory to covering the advance. All along the route was bustle and hurry; camp kitchens rumbled along, harassed officers galloped up and down the lines on their horses (now, like their masters with a strange bluish cast of skin) and messengers rushed to and fro on popping motorcycles.
Out with the advance the American division of fourteen tanks rolled along. The dodos seemed to have completely disappeared, even the scouting aviators, far ahead, reporting no sign of them. The army was succeeding in establishing itself on American soil.
But around noon a “stop” signal flashed on the control boards of the tanks. They halted at the crest of a little rise and climbed out to look around.
“What is it?” asked someone.
“Perhaps gentlemanly general wishes to disport in surf,” suggested Yoshio, with his flashing, steel-toothed smile, “and proceeding is retained without presence.”
“Perhaps,” said Gloria, “but I’ll bet a dollar to a handful of blue kangaroos that the dodos are getting in their licks somewhere.”
“Well, we’ll soon know,” said Murray Lee. “Here comes a dispatch rider.”
The man on the motorcycle dashed up, saluted. “General Ruby?” he inquired, and handed the dispatch to Ben. The latter read it, then motioned the others about him.
“Well, here it is, folks,” he said, “Listen to this—‘General Grierson to General Ruby. Our flank guard was heavily attacked at Atsion this morning. The Third Brigade of the Fourteenth Division has suffered heavy loss and has been forced back to Chew Road. We are bringing up heavy artillery. The enemy appear to be using large numbers of light-ray guns. Advance guard is recalled to Waterford in support of our left flank.’”
“Oh—oh,” said somebody.
“I knew they’d start giving us hell sooner or later,” remarked Murray Lee as he climbed into his tank.
At Waterford there was ordered confusion when they arrived. Just outside the town a long line of infantrymen were plying pick and shovel in the formation of a system of trenches. Machine-gun units were installing themselves in stone or brick buildings and constructing barricades around their weapons; line after line of tanks had wheeled into position under cover of woods or in the streets of the town, the little whippets out in front, fast cruiser-tanks behind them and the lumbering battle-tanks with their six-inch guns, farther back.
Artillery was everywhere, mostly in little pits over which the gunners were spreading green strips of camouflage. As the American tanks rolled up, a battery of eight-inch howitzers behind a railroad embankment at the west end of the town was firing slowly and with an air of great solemnity at some target in the invisible distance, the angle of their muzzles showing that they were using the extreme range. A couple of airplanes hummed overhead. But of dead or wounded, of dodos or any other enemy there was no sign. It might have been a parade-war, an elaborately realistic imitation of the real thing for the movies.
Guides directed the Americans to a post down the line toward Chew Road. “What’s the news?” asked Ben of an officer whose red tabs showed he belonged to the staff.
“They hit the right wing at Atsion,” replied the officer. “Just what happened, I’m not sure. Somebody said they had a lot of those light-ray guns and they just crumpled up our flank like that.” He slapped his hands together to show the degree of crumpling the right flank had endured. “We lost about fifteen hundred men in fifteen minutes. Tanks, too. But I think we’re stopping them now.”
“Any dodos?” asked Ben.
“Just a few. The airplanes shot down a flock of seven just before the battle and after that they kept away.... What is it? General Witherington wants me? Oh, all right, I’ll come. Excuse me, sir,” and the staff officer was off.
Most of the afternoon was spent in an interminable period of waiting and watching the laboring infantry sink themselves into the ground. About four o’clock a fine, cold drizzle began to fall. The Americans sought the shelter of their tanks, and about the same time their radiophones flashed the order to move up, toward the north and east through a barren pasture with a few trees in it, to the crest of a low hill. It was already nearly dark; the tanks bumped unevenly over the stony ground, their drivers following each other by the black silhouettes in the gloom. Off to the right a battery suddenly woke to a fever of activity, then as rapidly became silent and in the intervals of silence between the motor-sounds the Americans could catch the faint rat-tat of machine-guns in the heavens above. Evidently dodos were abroad in the gloom.
At the crest of the hill they could see across a flat valley in the direction of Chew Road. Something seemed to be burning behind the next rise; a ruddy glare lit the clouds. Down the line guns began to growl again, and the earth trembled gently with the sound of an explosion somewhere in the rear. Murray Lee, sitting alone at the controls of his tank. So this was war!
There were trees along their ridge, and looking through the side peep-hole of his tank Murray could make out the vague forms of a line of whippets among them, waiting, like themselves, for the order to advance. He wondered what the enemy were like; evidently not all dodos, since so many tanks had been pushed up to the front. This argued a man or animal that ran along the ground. The dodos seemed to spend most of their time in the air....
He was recalled from his meditations by the ringing of the attention bell and the radiophone began to speak rapidly:
“American tank division—enemy tanks reported approaching. Detain them as long as possible and then retire. Your machines are not to be sacrificed; Radio your positions with reference to Clark Creek as you retire for guidance of artillery registering on enemy tanks. There—”
The voice broke off in mid-sentence. So the dodos had tanks! Murray Lee snapped in his controls and glanced forward. Surely in the gloom along that distant ridge there was a darker spot—next to the house—something.
Suddenly, with a roar like a thousand thunders, a bolt of sheer light seemed to leap from the dark shape on the opposite