Morale: A Story of the War of 1941-43

  PART VI

  "... Considered as a strategic move, the Wabbly was a triumph. Eighteen hours after its landing, the orders for troops called for half a million men to be withdrawn from the forces at the front and in reserve, and munitions-factories were being diverted from the supply of the front to the manufacture of devices designed to cope with it. This, in turn, entailed changes in the front-line activities of the Command.... Altogether, it may be said that the Wabbly, eighteen hours after its landing, was exerting the military pressure of an army of not less than half a million men upon the most vulnerable spot in our defenses--the rear.... And when its effect upon civilian morale is considered, the Wabbly, as a force in being, constituted the most formidable military unit in history." (_Strategic Lessons of the War of 1941-43._--U. S. War College. P. 93.)

  As Sergeant Walpole saw the Wabbly, there was no sign of humanityanywhere about the thing. It was a monstrous mass of metal,powder-stained now where shells had burst against it, and it seemedmetallically alive, impersonally living. The armored tube withvision-slits at its ends must have been the counterpart of a ship'sbridge, but it looked like the eye-ridge of an insect's face. Thebulbous control-rooms at the ends looked like a gigantic insect'smulti-faceted eyes. And the huge treads, so thick as to constitute armorfor their own protection, were so cunningly joined and sprung that they,too, seemed like part of a living thing.

  It came within twenty yards of the staff-car with the 'copter man in itand Sergeant Walpole smoking outside. It ignored them. It had destroyedall life at this place. And Sergeant Walpole alone was visible, and hesat motionless and detached, unemotionally waiting to be killed. TheWabbly clanked and rumbled and roared obliviously past them. SergeantWalpole saw the flexing springs in the tread-joints, and there werehundreds of them, of a size to support a freight-car. He saw arefuse-tube casually ejecting a gush of malodorous stuff, in which thegarbage of a mess-table was plainly identifiable. A drop or two of thestuff splashed on him, and he smelled coffee.

  And then the treads lifted, and he saw the monstrous gas-spreading tubesat the stern, and the exhaust-pipes into which he could have ridden,monocycle and all. Then he saw a man in the Wabbly. There wereventilation-ports open at the pointed stern and a man was looking out,some fifteen feet above the ground, smoking placidly and looking out atthe terrain the Wabbly left behind it. He was wearing an enemy uniformcap.

  * * * * *

  The monster went on. The roar of its passing diminished a little. Andthe 'copter man came suddenly out of the staff-car, struggling with theportable vision set.

  "I think we can do it," he said shortly. "It's in constant beamcommunication with a bomber up aloft, and I think they're worried upthere because they can't see a damned thing. But it's a good team. Withthe Wabbly's beam, which takes so much power no bomber could possiblycarry it, the bombers are safe, and the bombers can locate anymotor-driven thing that might attack the Wabbly and blow it to hell. Butright now they can't see it. So I think we can do it. Coming?"

  Sergeant Walpole threw away his cigarette and rose stiffly. Even thosefew moments of rest had intensified his weariness. He flung a leg overthe monocycle's seat and pointed tiredly to the trail of the Wabbly. Itnearly paralleled, here, a ribbon of concrete road which once had been areasonably important feeder-highway.

  "Let's go."

  They went off through the rain along the road, nearly parallel to theroute the Wabbly was taking. Rain beat at them. Off in the woods totheir right the Wabbly's noise grew louder as they overtook it. Theypassed it, and came abruptly out of the wooded area upon cultivatedfields, rolling and beautifully cared-for. There had been afarm-headquarters off to one side, a huge central-station for all theagricultural work on what once would have been half a county, but therewere jagged walls where buildings had been, and smoke still rose fromthe place.

  Then the Wabbly came out of the woods, a dim gray monstrous shape in therain.

  * * * * *

  The helicopter man pulled the ignition-cord and a rocket began tosputter. He made a single wipe with his knife-blade along the twistedinsulated wires of the Bissel battery, and a wavering blue spark leapedinto being. The rocket shot upward, curved down, and landed with enoughforce to bury its head in the muddy ploughed earth and conceal thesignal-flare that must have ignited.

  "That ought to do it," said the 'copter man. "Let's send some more."

  Sergeant Walpole got exhaustedly off his monocycle and duplicated the'copter man's efforts. A second rocket, a third.... A dozen or morerockets went off, each one bearing a wavering, uncertain blue spark atits tip. And that spark would continue for half an hour or more. In aloop aerial, eight miles up, it might sound like a spark-plug, or itmight sound like something else. But it would not sound like the sort ofthing that ought to spring up suddenly in front of the Wabbly, and itwould sound like something that had better be bombed, for safety's sake.

  The Wabbly was moving across the ploughed fields with a deceptivesmoothness. It was drawing nearer and nearer to the spot where therockets had plunged to earth.

  It stopped.

  Another rocket left the weary pair of men, its nearly flashless exhaustinvisible in the daytime, anyway. The Wabbly backed slowly from theirregular line where the first rockets sparked invisibly. It was no morethan a distinct gray shadow in the falling rain, but the queer bulk atopits body moved suddenly. Like a searchlight, the power-beam swept theearth before the Wabbly. But nothing happened.

  The 'copter man turned on the vision set he had packed from the staffgyrocar. Voices, crisp and anxious, came out of it. He caressed the setaffectionately.

  "Listen to 'em, Sergeant," he said hungrily. "They're worried!"

  * * * * *

  The voice changed suddenly. There was a sudden musical buzzing in theset, as of two dozen spitting sparks, in as many tones, all going atonce.

  "Letting the guys in the Wabbly hear what they hear," said the 'copterman grimly. "If God's good to us, now...."

  The voices changed again. They stopped.

  The Wabbly itself was still, halted in its passage across a clear andrain-swept field by little sparking sounds which seemed to indicate thepresence of something that had better be bombed for safety's sake.

  A thin whining noise came down from aloft. It rose to a piercing shriek,and there was a gigantic crater a half mile from the Wabbly, from whichsmoke rose lazily. The Wabbly remained motionless. Another whining noisewhich turned to a shriek.... The explosion was terrific. It was a bitnearer the Wabbly.

  "We'll send 'em some more rockets," said the 'copter man.

  They went hissing invisibly through the rain. The Wabbly backedcautiously away from the spot where they landed, because they werewholly invisible and they made a sound which those in the Wabbly couldnot understand. Always, to a savage, the unexplained is dangerous.Modern warfare has reached the same high peak of wisdom. The Wabbly drewoff from the sparks because it could not know what made them, andbecause it had used its power-beam and the bomber had dropped its bombswithout stopping or destroying them. It was not conceivable to anybodyon either the Wabbly or the bombers aloft that inexplicable things couldbe especially contrived to confront the Wabbly, unless they werecontrived to destroy it.

  "They don't know what in hell they're up against," said the 'copter manjoyously. "Now lets give 'em fits!"

  * * * * *

  Rockets went off in swift succession. To the blinded men in the bomberabove the clouds it seemed that unexplained mechanisms were springinginto action by dozens, all about the Wabbly. They were mechanisms. Theywere electric mechanisms. They were obviously designed to have someeffect on the Wabbly. And the Wabbly had no defense against theunguessed-at effects of unknown weapons except....

  Bombs began to rain from the sky. The Wabbly crawled toward the last gapleft in the ring of mysterious mechanisms. That c
losed. Triumphant,singing sparks sang viciously in the amplifiers. Nothing was visible.Nothing! Perhaps that was what precipitated panic. The bombers raineddown their deadly missiles. And somebody forgot the exact length of timeit takes a bomb to drop eight miles....

  Sergeant Walpole and the 'copter man were flat on the ground with theirhands to their ears. The ground bucked and smote them. The unthinkableviolence of the hexynitrate explosions tore at their nerves, even attheir sanity. And then there was an explosion with a subtle differencein its sound. Sergeant Walpole looked up, his head throbbing, his eyeswatering, dizzy and dazed, and bleeding at the nose and ears.

  Then he bumped into the 'copter man, shuddering on the ground. He did itdeliberately. There was a last crashing sound, and some of the blastedearth spattered on them. But then the 'copter man looked where SergeantWalpole pointed dizzily.

  The Wabbly was careened crazily on one side. One of its treads wasuncoiling slowly from its frame. Its stern was blown in. Someone hadforgotten how long it takes a bomb to drop eight miles, and the Wabblyhad crawled under one. More, from the racked-open stern of the Wabblythere was coming a roaring, spitting cloud of gas. The Wabbly'sstorage-tanks of gas had been set off. Inside, it would be a shambles.Its crew would be dead, killed by the gas the Wabbly itself hadbroadcast in its wake....