l monsters looking as though theyd
swallowed the men. Like bubbles of air in a narrow glass tube they began
to jerk backward and forward, until at some signal--I presume given by
radio--they jumped ahead, their exhausts bellowing defiance of the grass
mauled and torn by their treads.

They went onward with careless scorn, leaving behind a bruised and
trampled pathway. The captain followed in the track and I after him,
though I must admit it was not without some trepidation I put my feet
upon the battered and now lifeless mass packed into a hard roadbed, for
I recalled clearly how the grass had wrenched the ladder from the
firemen and how it had impishly attacked the broadcaster's equipment.

The tanks moved ahead steadily until the slope of the mound began to
rise sharply and the runners of grass, instead of flattening obediently
behind, curled and twisted grotesquely as the tracks passed over them,
lightly slapping at the impervious steel sides. Small bunches, mutilated
and crushed, sprang back into erectness, larger ones flopped limply as
their props were pushed aside.

Then, suddenly, the tank we were trailing disappeared. There was no
warning; one second it was pursuing its way, an implacable executioner,
the next it had plunged into the weed and was lost to sight. The ends of
the grass came together spitefully behind it, weaving themselves
together, knitting, as we watched, an opaque blanket. It closed over and
around so that the smooth track ended abruptly, bitten by a wiry green
portcullis.

I was dismayed, but the captain seemed happy. "Now we're getting
somewhere," he exclaimed. "The little devils are eating right into the
heart of the old sonofabitch."

We stood there gaping stupidly after our lost champion, but the grass
mound was enigmatic and offered us no information as to its progress. A
survey of the other tracks showed their tanks, too, had burrowed into
the heart of the weed like so many hounds after a rabbit.

"Well," said the captain, who by now had apparently accepted me as his
confidant, "let's go and see what's coming in over the radio."

I was glad to be reminded the tanks werent lost, even temporarily, and
that we would soon learn of their advance. Field headquarters had been
set up in a house about two blocks away and there, after exchanging
salutes, passwords, and assorted badinage, the captain led. The men in
contact with the tanks, shoulders hunched, fingers rapid with pad and
pencil