Murray Leinster

Morale Murray Leinster

Book Excerpt: ...hat in that automatic rifle, firing hexynitrate bullets, each equivalent to a six-pounder T. N. T. shell in destructiveness, Sergeant Walpole carried greater "fire-power" than Napoleon ever disposed in battle. The tread of the Wabbly made a perfect roadway. Presently Sergeant Walpole looked up to find himself scrutinizing somebody's dining-room table, set for lunch. The Wabbly had crossed a house in its path without swerving. Walls, chimneys, timbers and planks, all had gone beneath its treads. But they had been pressed so smoothly flat that until Sergeant Walpole looked down at his footing, he would not have known he was walking on the wreckage of a building. It was half an hour before he reached the village. The Wabbly had gone from end to end, backed up, and gone over the rest of it again. There was the taint of gas in the air. Sergeant Walpole halted outside the debris. His gas-mask had been blown to atoms with Observation-Post Fourteen."They're tryin' to beat the news o' their comin', ..