Fletcher Pratt

“ Right on the heels of the aerial attack a pillar of smoke between two hills announced the approach of an enemy tank fleet, rushing up to support the now close-pressed robot guns, and at almost the same time, a titanic discordant buzzing beat down all the other sounds of battle. ”

“ The small man bent to examine the motor, fingering its parts with practised hands, and occasionally wagging one of the levers in a speculative manner to test its action; then looked about him. His motor lay in a kind of narrow shell well cut off on the right by a steel wall. At the left was the cat-walk down which he had come, leading forward to another steel wall with a door in it—the control station of the tank. Astride the catwalk and between him and the control station the supports of the big turret came down, like the stout metallic legs of a titanic spider. ”

“ I was on motor repair. I got a wife and three kids, so they gave me selected duty. I'm a motor man."
"Well, I'm married too. . . . " the man with the scarred chin thought for a moment. "You must be on the right forward motor. Last man on that job was killed quick as a wink. Shell from one of those robot guns came through the casemate and burst right under the motor. Drove one of those levers clean through him. There's the place."
He half-turned and waved in the general direction of the tank that stood like some questing monster in metal, snout lifted to sniff the air, a few yards away. ”

“ For the porcupine-like machine the small man had seen the night before had improved the dark hours by digging itself well underground and now from a dozen or more sources was releasing waves of sound that brought a good half of the shells from the robot batteries crashing uselessly down in the woods. ”

“ Defective eyesight-. . . . Oh, children. They all say that. Ever run a tank engine?"
"No sir," admitted the short man.
"Well, here, I'll show you." He led the way to the metal monster, unlocked a door at the stern and pointed the small man down a narrow, machine-lined passage. "Mind your head."
"Here's your post," he added a moment later, pointing to a steel chair, slightly above and behind a big motor from which a wilderness of levers projected. "Throttle here. Brake here, Signals on this board. Red is full speed and black is reverse. ”

“ We must expect losses. We must expect quite severe losses, in fact. It would not surprise me if the first division of battleship tanks were wiped out. But we will certainly succeed in eliminating the robot guns on the reverse slope of the heights and perhaps some of the railroad artillery also. I think it is worth it, rightly worth it. If we succeed any number of plans will suggest themselves, and with our present superiority in battleships we can well afford the loss. ”

“ The gunner caught a glimpse of whippets emitting smoke again; of the enemy fleet, which should have been retreating, closing in instead. The robot guns, hand-trained now, were in action again, and at point-blank range.
NOTHING visible but smoke; a loud-speaker voice began suddenly to call off range and deflections, and the gunner with the scarred chin worked like a fiend, perspiring violently inside his coat of mail, setting his sights on the indicator that ran round the gun mouth according to the data shouted through the loud-speaker. A thinner streak of smoke ”

“ The fuzzy one is a radio machine. Sends sound waves to jam up the enemy's robot guns and radio waves to jam their torpedoes. The others are gas—shoot big gas rockets; corrosive mostly, to kill off artillery and tanks. ”

“ The other rang a bell.
* *
"It isn't the heat that gets you, or the noise," said the man with the scarred chin, licking the end of a cigarette reflectively before applying it to his lips. "It's the rotten smell. Petrol, hot oil and sweat—yes, and leather. ”

“ The short man grunted. After a moment, he spoke again. "Me, I don't want no divorce. The old lady and me, we get along. I had a nice home though. Lucky we were all away with the wife's folks when the war came. That airplane gas attack killed everyone in our section and when we got back to the house everything was corroded to pieces by that damn gas. Curtains fell apart when—" ”