ous mechanisms. That closed. Triumphant,
singing sparks sang viciously in the amplifiers. Nothing was visible.
Nothing! Perhaps that was what precipitated panic. The bombers rained
down their deadly missiles. And somebody forgot the exact length of time
it takes a bomb to drop eight miles....

Sergeant Walpole and the 'copter man were flat on the ground with their
hands to their ears. The ground bucked and smote them. The unthinkable
violence of the hexynitrate explosions tore at their nerves, even at
their sanity. And then there was an explosion with a subtle difference
in its sound. Sergeant Walpole looked up, his head throbbing, his eyes
watering, dizzy and dazed, and bleeding at the nose and ears.

Then he bumped into the 'copter man, shuddering on the ground. He did it
deliberately. There was a last crashing sound, and some of the blasted
earth spattered on them. But then the 'copter man looked where Sergeant
Walpole pointed dizzily.

The Wabbly was careened crazily on one side. One of its treads was
uncoiling slowly from its frame. Its stern was blown in. Someone had
forgotten how long it takes a bomb to drop eight miles, and the Wabbly
had crawled under one. More, from the racked-open stern of the Wabbly
there was coming a roaring, spitting cloud of gas. The Wabbly's
storage-tanks of gas had been set off. Inside, it would be a shambles.
Its crew would be dead, killed by the gas the Wabbly itself had
broadcast in its wake....

PART VII

"... It is a point worth noticing, by any student of
strategy, that while the Wabbly in working solely for
effectiveness in lowering civilian morale worked upon
sound principles, yet the destruction of the Wabbly by
Sergeant Walpole and Flight Cadet Ryerson immediately
repaired all the damage done. Had it worked toward more
direct military aims, its work would have survived it.
It remains a pretty question for the student, whether
the Enemy Command, with the information it possessed,
made the soundest strategic use of its unparalleled
weapon.... But on the whole, the raid of the Wabbly
remains the most startling single strategic operation
of the war, if only because of its tremendous effect
upon civilian morale...." (_Strategic Lessons of the
War of 1941-43._--U. S. War College. Pp. 94-96.)

A major-general climbed out of a staff gyrocar and waded through mud for
half a mile, after which he, in person, wak