Presently, a deeper, more substantial explosion sounded from the rear, its flash visible at midafternoon.
A dirty column of smoke and debris shot skyward. "Lieutenant!" Fronze yelled excitedly from a display globe. "Cogsworthy got it goin', sir! That ought to give 'em somethin' t' think about!" Her image jumped violently as sounds of heavy return fire filled the control cab.
More of the huge, drumming-explosions followed the first. These were succeeded in rapid succession by whole series of smaller bursts. "By Corfrew's beard," someone said excitedly, "I don't think they liked that!"
"Can't understand why not," another voice said after more explosions tore up the marsh. "Look! It wasn't anywhere half near them. Bastards have no sense of humor."
"How's it going back there, Fronze?" Brim asked.
"Not so bad, Lieutenant," the rating said through clenched teeth. She blanched while a whole volley of discharges thundered from the disruptor above her, then turned to peer out the rear of her vehicle, shaking her head. "'Cept," she added, "I think they're shootin' closer t' us, an' Cogsworthy's gettin' farther away from them." She grinned. "This single-file-on-the-wire stuff cuts our shootin' down to my one projector." Her image danced violently in the globe as Cogsworthy let go with another shot, then continued to shake from a peppering of near misses landed in return. "Course," she added cheerfully, "it also saves our skins from more'n one of theirs, too."
Suddenly, the display globe seethed with a churning glow and disappeared. A violent flash from aft lit the afternoon sky, followed by a grating, trembling roar. Brim swung in his seat in time to see a burning turret arch lazily through the sky, trailing thick clouds of amber smoke until it disappeared with a monstrous splash and cloud of steam far out into the lagoon.
"Universe," someone bawled, "that was Cogsworthy!"
"Poor Fronze!" wailed another voice.
"Shut up, the both of you," a third voice rasped. "None of those three felt a bloody thing! So just maybe they're the lucky ones.
"Yeah," said a fourth. "You'll wish that was you if we're ever captured, you will!"
Brim squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, thinking about a prefect named Valentin, then nodded in silent agreement.
"Someone told me you were worried about bein' bored this trip, Lieutenant," Barbousse called out over the roar of the machinery, his face an impish parody of surprise.
"Must have been someone else," Brim said, eyeballs raised in feigned concentration. "It surely wasn't this Wilf Brim!" He glanced out the windshield and nearly jumped in surprise. His running battle was rapidly approaching the titanic suspension structure he had viewed from a distance.
He snapped his fingers. That was it! An artificial hill—and a big one.
He activated "broadcast" on the COMM console and began to speak, taking special pains to keep a calm inflection in his voice. "Now hear this, all hands!" he yelled over the rising thunder of the disruptors.
"We are about to run the high arch ahead. While we're on this side, you'll each have fine visibility and a clear field of fire below. Make the most of both! And remember that any tanks you don't polish off will have the same visibility and field of fire when you are on the bottom!"
CHAPTER 6
So absorbed was Brim with the unfolding battle that the ascent onto the bridge, when it came, nearly took him by surprise. Fragonard had the big disruptor in action before they climbed fifty irals. The noise was deafening, as was the concussion. Higher and higher they rose, traction system roaring and dense white vapor streaming from the cooling fins. Brim watched the ground below erupt in gigantic explosions as the wiry little gunner switched to rapid fire and fairly peppered the right-of-way around the speeding enemy tanks. He counted ten of the lopsided enemy machines and thanked whatever powers had dissuaded him from stopping to battle the tanks in place. His second fieldpiece soon added its fire to the holocaust below, then the third. The cable pitched and swayed from dozens of frenzied discharges.
Without warning, a particularly bright blast on the ground was followed first by a cloud of peculiar-looking debris and then by frenzied cheering from the COMM cabinet.
"A hit!" someone yelled.
"I nailed the bastard, I did!"
"Good on you, Ferdie! Give 'em wot for!"
Soon all seven of the captured fieldpieces were firing rapidly and wildly—as often as their disruptors could recover. Below, the Leaguers maintained a furious barrage in return—although two more of their number were now carbonized junk mounds smoldering at the base of towering smoke columns along the right-of-way. Beneath Brim's straining vehicle, the rampaging cable was bucking violently in two axes, making Barbousse lean desperately on the rudder pedals in a frantic attempt to keep from plunging off into the considerable abyss that now separated them from the surface.
"Sweet bloody Universe!" someone screamed in panic from the COMM console. "I'm losin' it!"
Horrified, Brim looked back along the wire to see one of his fieldpieces skid up and off the writhing cable, its projector still firing spasmodically. Momentum carried the awkward vehicle perhaps twenty irals higher before it peaked, rolled lazily to port, and plunged like a stone through the suspension wires, disappearing in a great splash that spread rapidly in all directions from the point of impact. Heartbeats later, a single explosion rent the lagoon in a giant glowing bubble that burst with a massive eruption of smoke and greasy flame-quenched almost instantly in a plume of steam and slowly tumbling debris.
Ahead, the apex of the great arch was now visible through the windshield—no more than a few hundred irals distant. Aft and below, the remaining enemy gun layers were finally warming to their jobs—space around Brim's convoy was suddenly alive with explosions and concussion. Three of the armored windows above his head shattered, filling the control cabin with a swarm of whirring glass splinters that buzzed harmlessly along the armored fabric of his battle suit and helmet, but shredded the tough upholstery of his seat. He shook his head. Another near miss tore a huge access hatch from something near the cooling mechanism—which was itself beginning to glow again from the strain of the long, steep climb and the insatiable demands of the disruptor, now firing almost constantly. Renewed clouds of steam billowed in their wake from the cooling fins, and as he looked down along the weaving, swinging cable, he could see his other fieldpieces were in no better shape at all. It was now or never. He bullied the COMM cabinet back to "broadcast" and yelled over the noise, "Now I hear this, all hands!
Switch targeting immediately to the buried cableway five hundred irals in front of the bridge. I repeat, in front of the bridge." The disruptors went silent momentarily I as he talked. "Dig up the cable so the tanks can't follow right away," he enjoined the ordnance men. "But don't touch the bridge. We need that for our own trip home!"
"Right ya are, Lieutenant!" someone called back over the noise.
"We'll be careful, sir," someone else echoed.
In short order, the six disruptors directed a new frenzy of ft flame and concussion onto the buried cableway—no more accurate than before, but now at least concentrated. The bridge began to sway again, but Barbousse was now mastering the big machine, and he tracked the cable flawlessly as it pitched and yawed like a pendant flying in the breeze.