oung Kinnison's hair stood straight up inside his iron helmet. On
the gray of the blasted hillside hitherto unseen gray forms moved; moved
toward their howling comrade. And Kinnison, blessing for the first time
in his life his inept throwing arm, hoped fervently that the Maxim was
still in good working order.

A few seconds of inspection showed him that it was. The gun had
practically a full belt and there was plenty more. He placed a box--he
would have no Number Two to help him here--took hold of the grips,
shoved off the safety, and squeezed the trip. The gun roared--what a
gorgeous, what a heavenly racket that Maxim made! He traversed until he
could see where the bullets were striking: then swung the stream of
metal to and fro. One belt and the Germans were completely disorganized;
two belts and he could see no signs of life.

He pulled the Maxim's block and threw it away; shot the water-jacket
full of holes. That gun was done. Nor had he increased his own hazard.
Unless more Germans came very soon, nobody would ever know who had done
what, or to whom.

He slithered away; resumed earnestly his westward course: going as fast
as--sometimes a trifle faster than--caution would permit. But there were
no more alarms. He crossed the dangerously open ground; sulked rapidly
through the frightfully shattered wood. He reached the road, strode
along it around the first bend, and stopped, appalled. He had heard of
such things, but he had never seen one; and mere description has always
been and always will be completely inadequate. Now he was walking right
into it--the thing he was to see in nightmare for all the rest of his
ninety-six years of life.

Actually, there was very little to see. The road ended abruptly. What
had been a road, what had been wheatfields and farms, what had been
woods, were practically indistinguishable, one from the other; were
fantastically and impossibly the same. The entire area had been churned.
Worse--it was as though the ground and its every surface object had been
run through a gargantuan mill and spewed abroad. Splinters of wood,
riven chunks of metal, a few scraps of bloody flesh. Kinnison screamed,
then, and ran; ran back and around that blasted acreage. And as he ran,
his mind built up pictures; pictures which became only the more vivid
because of his frantic efforts to wipe them out.

That road, the night before, had been one of the world's most heavily
traveled highways. Motorcycles, tru