"Murray Leinster - Morale" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

"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?"

"I hid," said Sergeant Walpole, woodenly. "The Wabbly sent over gas-shells where the ships landed.
Then it went on. Headin' west. It's got a crazy-lookin' dinkus on top like a searchlight. That moved, while
the ships were catchin' fire an' crashin'. Just like a searchlight, it moved an' the ships went down. But the
Wabbly didn't fire a shot."

The helicopter man's wrist flexed swiftly....

"Gawd!" said Sergeant Walpole in sudden agony. "Drop! Quick!"

The helicopter went down like a stone. A propeller shrieked away into space. Metalwork up aloft
glowed dully red. Then there were whipping, lashing branches closing swiftly all around the helicopter. A
jerk. A crash. Stillness. The smell of growing things all about.

"Well?" said the 'copter pilot.

"They turned it on us—whatever it is," said Sergeant Walpole. "They near got us, too."