Wonder Stories Super Pack. Fletcher PrattЧитать онлайн книгу.
General Stanhope,” he called into the phone. “Go ahead with railroad battery 14. Am observing fire from east of town.”
Even before he had finished speaking there was a dull rumble in the air and a tremendous heave of earth behind and to one side of the shining enemy, not two hundred yards away. “Lieut. Lee to railroad battery 14,” he called, delightedly, “two hundred yards over, ten yards right.” Berrrroum! Another of the twelve-inch shells fell somewhere ahead of the giants in the village. As Murray shouted the correction one of the metal creatures lifted its snout toward the source of the explosion curiously and as if it had not quite understood its meaning, fired a light-beam at it. Another shell fell, just to one side. A wild hope surging in him, he called the corrections—these were heavier guns than any that had yet taken a hand.
“Lieut. Lee, American Tank Corps, to railroad battery 14—Suggest you use armor-piercing shell. Enemy tanks appear to be armored,” he called and had the comforting reply. “Check, Lieut. Lee. We are using armor-piercers.” Slam! Another of the twelve-inch shells struck, not ten yards behind the enemy. The ground around them rocked; one of them turned as though to examine the burst, the other lifted its snout skyward and released a long, thin beam of blue light, not in the least like the light-ray. It did not seem to occur to either of them that these shells might be dangerous. They seemed merely interested.
And then—the breathless watchers in the thickets around the doomed town saw a huge red explosion, a great flower of flame that leaped to the heavens, covered with a cloud of thick smoke, pink in the light of the burning houses, and as it cleared away, there lay one of the monsters on its side, gaping and rent, the mirrored surface scarred across, the phosphorescent glow extinguished, the prehensile snout drooping lifelessly. Murray Lee was conscious of whooping wildly, of dancing out of his tank and joining someone else in an embrace of delight. They were not invincible then. They could be hurt—killed!
“Hooray!” he cried, “Hooray!”
“That and twelve times over,” said his companion.
The phrase struck him as familiar; for the first time he looked at his fellow celebrant. It was Gloria.
“Why, where in the world did you come from?” he asked.
“Where did you? I’ve been here all the time, ever since Ben ordered us home. Didn’t think I’d run out on all the fun, did you? Are those things alive?”
“How do I know? They look it but you never can tell with all the junk that comet left around the earth. They might be just some new kind of tank full of dodos.”
“Yeh, but—” The buzzing roar of one of the light-rays crashing into a clump of trees not a hundred yards away, recalled them to themselves. Gloria looked up, startled. The other monster was moving slowly forward, systematically searching the hillside with its weapon.
“Say, boy friend,” she said, “I think it’s time to go away from here. See you at high mass.”
*
But the conference at headquarters in Hammonton that night was anything but cheerful.
“It comes to this, then,” said General Grierson, the commander-in-chief of the expedition. “We have nothing that is effective against these dodo tanks but the twelve-inch railroad artillery, using armor-piercing shell and securing a direct hit. Our infantry is worse than useless; the tanks are useless, the artillery cannot get through the armor of these things, although it damages the enemy artillery in the back areas.”
Ben Ruby rubbed a metal chin. “Well, that isn’t quite all, sir. One of the American tanks was hit and came through—damaged I will admit. The lightning, or light-ray these dodos threw, penetrated the outer skin but not the inner. We could build more tanks of this type.”
General Grierson drummed on the table. “And arm them with what? You couldn’t mount a twelve-inch gun in a tank if you wanted to, and we haven’t any twelve-inch guns to spare.”
One of the staff men looked up. “Has airplane bombing been tried on these—things. It seems to me that a one or two-thousand pound bomb would be as effective as a twelve-inch shell.”
“That was tried this afternoon,” said the head of the air service, with an expression of pain. “The 138th bombing squadron attacked a group of these tanks. Unfortunately, the tanks kept within range of their light-ray artillery and the entire squadron was shot down.”
“Mmm,” said the staff man. “Let’s add up the information we have secured so far and see where it leads. Now first they have a gun which shoots a ray which is effective either all along its length or when put up in packages like a shell, and is rather like a bolt of lightning in its effect. Any deductions from that?”
“Might be electrical,” said someone.
“Also might not,” countered Walter Beeville. “Remember the Melbourne’s turret. No electrical discharge would produce chemical changes like that in Krupp steel.”
“Second,” said the officer, “they appear to have three main types of fighting machines or individuals. First, there are the dodos themselves. We know all about them, and our airplanes can beat them. Good.... Second, there is their artillery—a large type that throws a beam of this emanation and a smaller type which throws it in the form of shells. Thirdly, there are these—tanks, which may themselves be the individuals we are fighting. They are capable of projecting these discharges to a short distance—something over four thousand yards, and apparently do not have the power of projecting it in a prolonged beam, like their artillery. They are about fifty feet long, fish-shaped, heavily armored and have some unknown method of propulsion. Check me if I’m wrong at any point.”
“The projection of these lightning-rays would seem to indicate they are machines,” offered General Grierson hopefully.
“Not on your life,” said Beeville, “think of the electric eel.”
“As I was saying,” said the staff man, “our chief defect seems a lack of information, and—”
General Grierson brought his fist down on the table. “Gentlemen!” he said. “This discussion is leading us nowhere. It’s all very well to argue about the possibilities of man or machine in time of peace and at home, but we are facing one of the greatest dangers the earth has ever experienced, and must take immediate measures. Unless someone has something more fruitful to develop than this conference has provided thus far, I shall be forced to order the re-embarkation of what remains of the army and sail for home. My duty is to the citizens of the federated governments, and I cannot uselessly sacrifice more lives. Our supply of railroad artillery is utterly inadequate to withstand the numbers of our adversaries. Has anyone anything to offer?”
There was a silence around the conference table, a silence pregnant with a heavy sense of defeat, for no one of them but could see the General was right.
But at that moment there came a tap at the door. “Come,” called General Grierson. An apologetic under-officer entered. “I beg your pardon, sir, but one of the iron Americans is here and insists that he has something of vital importance for the General. He will not go away without seeing you.”
“All right. Bring him in.”
There stepped into the room another of the mechanical Americans, but a man neither Ben Ruby nor Beeville had ever seen before. A stiff wire brush of moustache stood out over his mouth; he wore no clothes but a kind of loin-cloth made, apparently, of a sheet. The metal plates of his powerful body glittered in the lamp-light as he stepped forward. “General Grierson?” he inquired, looking from one face to another.
“I am General Grierson.”
“I’m Lieutenant Herbert Sherman of the U. S. Army Air Service. I have just escaped from the Lassans and came to offer you my services. I imagine your technical men might wish to know how they operate their machines and what would be effective against them, and I think I can tell you.”
Chapter XI