Freiburg was still sitting in the same spot, smoking his pipe reflectively. If he’d heard the droning, he didn’t appear bothered by it.
“Hello, boys, you’re soon back. Learned anything?”
“Yes and no,” George replied. The droning worried him. He gazed up.
“They’re just above the clouds, or in them,” he said, at large. “Doubt if they can see us or even know we exist. They’ll pass over.”
This opinion was brief comfort to anyone. With a shriek which rose to a crescendo, the first sheaf of bombs dropped on a section of the arc of the tank perimeter. Two tanks went flying through the air like discarded toys. The blast sent the men reeling. They scrambled into the crater alongside the body of Milman.
The skipper, rocking and looking surprised, still sat on the edge of the crater. George grabbed his legs and pulled him in.
“My pipe!” exclaimed Freiburg, sounding injured. He scrabbled for it. The meaningless war began again. All around the distant skirts of the plain unseen anti-aircraft guns and rocket batteries opened up, firing at the equally invisible enemy in the sky. But this time the tanks and the big wheeled vehicle took no part in it—except as sitting targets for the bombs. The men in the crater, although they heard plenty, saw little of the action. They were huddled in a petrified heap. They felt horribly exposed to the objects dropping from the grey and poisonous clouds. Mostly these were bombs, but among them were shapeless chunks of flying machines which the ground defenses had hit. Earth and sky thundered, the rain of destruction went on, and there was nothing you could do except lie still and pray. Then the droning, somewhat weakened, passed away to the west. The bombing in this vicinity had ceased, but far off to the west there was a dull rumbling and the thudding of guns.
Until at last all was quiet again.
George got to his feet and counted heads. Then sighed with relief, because Milman was still the only dead man among them. There were some nasty bruises, but the only blood was coming from Sparks’ tender lip, which had opened up again.
Freiburg was looking thoughtful, and George hoped that was a good sign. Sparks said, thickly: “What I really need is a gum-shield, but has anyone got a spare handkerchief?”
George gave him one, then took stock of the situation outside. All the tanks were still there, but some had been shifted around by blast and four had been overturned. The wheeled torpedo stood squarely and impassively in the same spot, showing no signs of damage: possibly its armor was impervious to bomb splinters.
In the obscure distance George glimpsed moving shapes. He turned the telescope on them, and groaned aloud. Another tank attack was developing. He warned the others. The Captain shrugged, the mate glowered, and Sparks swore.
Then, all at once, the tanks nearer to them, which had originally attacked them, showed evidences of life —except the four overturned ones. Their engines started up, and they jockeyed slowly backwards, forming a smaller, tighter circle. They then stopped. The HQ vehicle, however, hadn’t budged.
“Well, what do you know?” said the mate. “It’s crazy,” said George. “Know what, mister? I don’t think your theory about the power-cut was right. I don’t believe the power was ever off. They formed a laager around us to defend us. The.bombs blew gaps in it Now they’ve just tightened up their defenses again.”
The mate scratched his head. “I don’t get that. They started in to shoot us to hell. Why should they turn their coats?”
“Search me,” said George.
Freiburg made no comment, but he had listened and was becoming interested in events again. He looked intently at the advancing tanks. But it was the tanks in their own circle which opened fire first, beginning a rapid drum- fire.
There was a reason for this. The attacking tanks, it soon became clear, were smaller and swifter but carried correspondingly smaller armament. So the bigger tanks were taking advantage of their own greater range. However, there were at least twice as many of the smaller tanks. They whirred around like desert beetles, making themselves difficult targets. They began a policy of darting close in to take quick shots with their small guns, then zig-zagging off. But they didn’t always get away with it—several were knocked out and brewing up.
It was exciting to watch, but dangerous. Shells were flying all ways. But the men in the crater believed that this time they were neutral. Therefore, illogically, they felt safer.
That feeling was short-lived. A small enemy tank dashed in past one of their own (the Earthmen were beginning to look on them as their own) knocked-out tanks, and once inside the defensive ring came charging on towards them, squirting shells as it came. The small shells whizzed harmlessly over their heads and over the fallen space-ship behind them.
The tank started to depress its gun elevation. But before it opened fire again, the great torpedo-shaped ship on wheels suddenly came to life with an angry roar of rocket vents.
