Chapter 10: Hopelessness

All along the line of the American tanks the guns flamed; flame-streaked fountains of dirt leaped up around the dark shape on the opposite hill and a burst of fire came from the farmhouse beside it as a misdirected shell struck it somewhere.

The beam from the unknown enemy snapped off as suddenly as it had come on, leaving, like lightning, an aching of the eyes behind it. Murray Lee swung his tank round, making for the reverse slope of the hill to avoid the light-beam. Crack! The beam came on again--right overhead this time. It flashed through the tree-tops leaving a trail of fire. He heard a torn branch bang on the roof of his tank, manipulated the gun to fire at the source of the beam and discovered that the magazine was empty. As he bent to snap on the automatic shell-feeding device, a searchlight from somewhere lashed out toward the black shape that opposed them, then went off. In the second’s glimpse it afforded the enemy appeared as a huge, polished, fish-shaped object, its mirror-like sides unscarred by the bombardment it had passed through, its prow bearing a long, prehensible snout--apparently the source of the light-beam.

Suddenly a shell screamed overhead and the whole scene leaped into dazzling illumination as it burst just between the enemy tanks and their own. It must be a shell from the dodos! The federated armies had no shells that dissolved into burning light like that. Then another and another, a whole chorus of shells, falling in the village behind them. Murray had a better look at their opponent in the light. It seemed to lie flush with the ground; there was no visible means of either support or propulsion. It was all of twenty feet in diameter, widest near the head, tapering backward. The questing snout swung to and fro, fixed its position and discharged another of those lightning-bolts. Off to the right came the answering crash as it caved in the armor of another of the luckless whippets. He aimed his gun carefully at the base of the snout and pulled the trigger; on the side of the monster there appeared a flash of flame as the shell exploded, then a bright smear of metal--a direct hit, and not the slightest damage!

Ben Ruby’s voice came through the radiophone, cool and masterful. “Pull out, folks, our guns are no good against that baby. I’m cutting off; radio positions back to the heavy artillery. Put the railroad guns on.”

Murray glanced through the side peep-hole again--one, two, three, four, five--all the American tanks seemed undamaged. The monster had confined its attention to the whippets, apparently imagining they were doing the shooting. He pulled his throttle back, shot the speed up, rumbling down the hill, toward the village. As he looked back, darkness had closed in; the brow of the hill, its rows of trees torn and broken by the light-beam stood between him and the enemy. Before him amid the flaring light of the enemy shells was a stir of movement, the troops seemed to be pulling out also.

The tanks rumbled through the streets of Waterford and came to a halt on a corner behind a stone church which held three machine-gun nests. Murray could see one of the gunners making some adjustment by the light of a pocket torch and a wave of pity for the brave man whose weapon was as useless as a stick swept over him.

A messenger dashed down the street, delivered his missive to someone, and out of the shadows a file of infantry suddenly popped up and began to stream back, getting out of range. Then, surrounded by bursts of artillery fire, illumined by the glare of half a dozen searchlights that flickered restlessly on and off, the strange thing came over the brow of the hill.

It halted for a moment, its snout moving about uneasily as though it were smelling out the way, and as it did so, it was joined by a second. Neither of them seemed to be in the least disturbed by the shells all the way from light artillery to six-inch, that were bursting about them, filling the air with singing fragments. For a moment they stood at ease, then the left-hand one, the one that had led the advance, pointed its snout at the village and discharged one of its flaming bolts. It struck squarely in the center of an old brick house, whose cellar had been turned into a machine-gun nest. With a roar, the building collapsed, a bright flicker of flames springing out of the ruins. As though it were a signal every machine-gun, every rifle in the village opened fire on the impassive shapes at the crest of the hill. The uproar was terrific; even in his steel cage Murray could hardly hear himself think.

The shining monster paid no more attention to it than to the rain. One of them slid gently forward a few yards, turned its trunk toward the spouting trenches, and in short bursts, loosed five quick bolts; there were as many spurts of flame, a few puffs of earth and the trenches became silent, save for one agonized cry, “First aid, for God’s sake!”

Ben Ruby’s voice came through the microphone. “Retreat everybody. Atlantic City if you can make it.”

With a great, round fear gripping at his heart, Murray Lee threw in the clutch of his machine and headed in the direction he remembered as that of the main road through the town toward Atlantic City. The night had become inky-black; the town was in a valley and the shadow of trees and houses made the darkness even more Stygian. Only by an occasional match or flashlight glare could the way be seen, but such light as there was showed the road already filled with fugitives. Some of them were helmetless, gunless, men in the last extremity of terror, running anywhere to escape from they knew not what.

But through the rout there plowed a little company of infantry, revealed in a shell-burst, keeping tight ranks as though at drill, officers at the head, not flying, but retreating from a lost battle with good heart and confidence, ready to fight again the next day. The dancing beam of a searchlight picked them out for a moment; Murray Lee looked at them and the fear died within him. He slowed up his machine, ran it off the road and out to the left where there seemed to be a clearing that opened in the direction of the town. After all, he could at least observe the progress of the monsters and report on them.

He was astonished to find that he had come nearly a mile from the center of the disturbance. Down there, the glittering monsters, still brightly illumined by searchlight and flare, seemed to be standing still amid the outer houses of the town, perhaps examining the trench system the Australians had dug that afternoon. The gunfire on them had ceased. From time to time one of the things, perhaps annoyed at the pointlessness of what it saw, would swing its trunk around and discharge a light-bolt at house, barn or other object. The object promptly caved in, and if it were wood, began to burn. A little train of the blazing remains of buildings marked the progress of the shining giants, and threw a weird red light over the scene.

[Illustration: One of the things would swing its trunk around and discharge a light-bolt at a house or other object.]

Now that he could see them clearly, Murray noted that they were all of fifty or sixty feet long. Their polished sides seemed one huge mirror, bright as glass, and a phosphorescent glow hung about their tails. Along either side was a slender projection like the bilge-keel of a ship, terminating about three quarters of the way along, and with a small dot of the phosphorescence at its tip. They seemed machines rather than animate objects. Murray wondered whether they were, or (remembering his own evolution into a metal man) whether they were actually metal creatures of some unheard-of breed.

As he watched, a battery out beyond the town that had somehow gotten left behind, opened fire. He could see the red flash-flash-flash of the guns as they spoke; hear the explosions of the shells as they rent the ground around the giants. One of them swung impassively toward the battery; there were three quick stabs of living flame, and the guns ceased firing. Murray Lee shuddered--were all man’s resources, was all of man, to disappear from the earth? All his high hopes and aspirations, all the centuries of bitter struggle toward culture to be wiped out by these impervious beasts?

He was recalled from his dream by the flash of light at his control board and a voice from the radiophone “ ... to all units,” came the message. “Railroad battery 14 about to fire on enemy tanks in Waterford. Request observation for corrections ... General Stanhope to all units. Railroad battery 14, twelve-inch guns, about to fire on enemy tanks in Waterford. Request observation for correction...”