Chapter 3

“ ... The Wabbly made no attempt to do purely military
damage. The Enemy command realized that the destruction
of civilian morale was even more important than the
destruction of munitions factories. In this, the Enemy
displayed the same acumen that makes the war a fruitful
subject of study to the strategic student.” (Strategic
Lessons of the War of 1941-43.--U. S. War College.
Pp. 81-82.)

At nightfall the monster swerved suddenly and moved with greater speed. It showed no lights. It did not even make very much noise. Then the second flight of home-defense planes made their attack. Sergeant Walpole heard them droning overhead. He lit a fire instantly. A little helicopter dropped from the blackness above him and he began to heap dirt desperately on the blaze.

“Who’s there?” demanded a voice.

“Sergeant Walpole, Post Fourteen, Eastern Coast Observation,” said the Sergeant in a military manner. “Beg to report, sir, that the dinkus that brought down the other ships is housed in that big bulge on top of the Wabbly.”

“Get in,” said the voice.

The Sergeant obeyed. With a purring noise the helicopter shot upward. Then something went off in mid-sky, miles ahead, where a faint humming noise had announced the flight of attack-planes. A lurid, crackling detonation lit up the sky. One of the ships of the night-flying squadron. From the helicopter they could see the rest of the flight limned clearly in the flash of the explosion. Instantly thereafter there was another such flash. Then another.

“Three,” said the voice beside Sergeant Walpole. Another flash. “Four...” The invisible operator of the screw-lifted ship was very calm about it. “Five. Six.” The explosions lit the sky. Presently he said grimly. “That’s all of them. I’d better report it.”

He was silent for a while. Sergeant Walpole saw his hand flicking a key up and down in the faint light of radio bulbs.

“Now shoot the works,” said the helicopter man evenly. “All the ships that attacked this afternoon went down. One of them started to report, but didn’t get but two words through. What did that damned thing use on them?”

“A dinkus on top, sir,” said Sergeant Walpole formally. “I’d found a monocycle, sir, and was trailing the thing. I’d come to the top of a hill and seen it moving through a pine-wood, crashing down the trees in front of it like they wasn’t there. Then a egg came down from Gawd-knows-where up aloft. I stopped up my ears, thinkin’ it was aimin’ for me. Then I seen the ships. Two of ‘em were fallin’. They landed, an’ I heard a coupla other explosions. Little ones, they sounded like.”

The helicopter man’s wrist was flicking up and down.

“Little ones!” he said sardonically. “Those ships were carrying five-hundred-pound bombs! It was those you heard going off!”

“Maybe,” conceded Sergeant Walpole. “There was twenty or thirty ships flyin’ in formation, goin’ hell-for-leather for the Wabbly. They were trailin’ it from the air. They were comin’, natural, for me, because I was between them an’ it. Then my pants caught on fire--”

“What?”

“My pants caught on fire,” said Sergeant Walpole, woodenly. “I was sittin’ on the monocycle, tryin’ to figure out which way to duck. An’ my pants caught on fire. The bike was gettin’ hot. I climbed off it an’ it blew up. My rifle was hot, too, an’ I chucked it away. Then I saw a ship go down, on fire. The Wabbly’d stopped still an’ it didn’t fire a shot. I’ll swear to that. Just my monocycle got hot an’ caught on fire, an’ then a ship busted out in flames an’ went down. A couple more eggs come down an’ three ships dropped. Didn’t hit ‘em. The concussion blew the fabric off ‘em. Another one caught fire an’ crashed. Then another one. I looked, an’ saw the next one catch. Then the next. It was like a searchlight beam hittin’ ‘em. They flamed up, blew up, an’ that was that. The last two tried to get away, but they lit up an’ crashed.”

The pilot’s hand flicked up and down, interminably. There was the steady fierce down-beat of the slip-stream from the vertical propellers. The helicopter swept forward in a swooping dash.

“The whole east coast’s gone crazy,” said the ‘copter man drily. “Crazy fools trying to run away. Roads jammed. Work stopped. It leaked out about the planes being wiped out to-day, and everybody in three states has heard those eggs going off. You’re the only living man who’s seen that crawling thing and lived to tell about it. I’ve sent your stuff back. What’s that about the thing on top?”