The Trojan Beam
John Wyndham
THE IRRESISTABLE FORCE
The officer dropped his hand. His crew could not see his face, for he stood on the observation platform with his head in a steel turret. But the hand was enough. The twin engines roared, the great tank lurched like a huge monster just awakened and began to trundle forward.
The officer, looking left and right, had the curious vision of thickets slowly moving across the country. It was strange, he thought, that with war developed as a science so many of the old tricks remained in use. How many times in the long tale of history had an army advanced under cover of bushes and branches? It was no more than a moment's speculation before he turned his attention to keeping his machine to its place in the formation.
The weather was filthy. Sleet made it difficult to see anything much smaller than a house at 200 yards, and the wind which cut in through the observation louvres felt like a knife sawing at his face. No doubt excellent conditions for an advance, in the tactical consideration of the authorities, but not so good for the men who had to do the work. However, there was some consolation in being a tank man and not one of the infantry who would be following.
He peered ahead and swore mildly. The sleet seemed to be getting thicker. Nature was improving her screen for their attack.
In the old days, when a soldier was a warrior rather than a mechanic, generals had preferred to lose their men from wounds rather than from pneumonia. The great general,
Julius Caesar, had reasonably remarked that ‘in winter all wars cease’ and until quite recently the Chinese had very sensibly gone home in preference to fighting in the rain. He wished they still did, damn them.
But that custom, along with many others, had changed now. Somewhere beyond the shroud of sleet there were thousands of Chinese sitting in trenches, pill-boxes and redoubts, ready to blow his and all the other Japanese tanks to bits if they could, despite any inclemencies of weather.
The officer frowned. He was a loyal servant of his Emperor, of course; he would be willing to shoot anyone who suggested that he was not, but, all the same, there were moments when he privately and secretly wondered if the expense in men and money was worth the object.
His father had been in the expedition to Manchukuo and that was a definite success, but his father had also been in the 1937 campaign which had looked like being a success in the beginning, but had drawn to such an undignified end for Japan in 1940. And now here was another generation fighting over the same ground twenty-four years later. And what if they won? Markets, they said, but could you really force the Chinese to buy things they didn't want from people they hated? He doubted it, for he had come to know their stubbornness well.
The tanks passed through their own lines and entered no-man's-land. The officer abandoned his speculations and became intent on his job. The sleet was still thick. He could see only the first tanks to his right and left, though clearly enough to keep his position. There was no sign of life from the Chinese lines. He wondered what that portended. It might mean that they were actually unaware of the coming attack, but he doubted that. If it were so, it would be their first surprise for a very long time; there were too many damned spies about. More probably it meant that they had some new trick to play. They nearly always had.
Orders came through on the short wave for the whole line to incline 30° right. He acknowledged and passed it on. Presently they altered back again and the line was travelling due west once more. Still there was no sign from the opposing lines. The heavy tanks lurched forward in a shrouded world at a steady ten miles an hour.
Until now it was a tank advance like any other save that the opposition was long in coming. The officer was still at his look-out and in the process of forming a theory that the Chinese must be running short of ammunition and consequently withholding what they had for effective short-range work, when the thing which distinguished this advance from any other occurred without warning.
It seemed that his head was violently seized and jammed at the embrasure in front of him. His steel helmet met the wall of the turret with a clash, instinctively, he put up both hands to push himself away from the wall. For a moment nothing happened, then the chin-strap gave and he staggered back violently.
Even in that moment he was aware that the movement of the machine had changed. Through the din of mechanism he could hear the men below cursing. He stepped down from his platform, furious at their disobedience. Ten miles an hour had been the order; it was the big tank's quietest travelling speed. By the present motion he judged it had speeded up to twenty or more.
Inside there was a state of confusion. The driver was still in his seat, though helmetless. The others, also helmetless, were at the front, tugging at something and swearing.
He put his head close to the driver's.
“Ten miles an hour!” he yelled, through the din.
His voice was loud enough for the others to hear and they turned. He had a glimpse of a confused pile beyond them. Steel helmets, bayonets, rifles and all loose things had been thrust forward into the nose as far as they would go.
“Get that stuff back,” he roared.
The men looked at him stupidly and shook their heads.
He thrust past them and seized a sub-machine gun on the top of the pile. It did not move. He tugged, but it stayed as though it had been welded to the rest. The men looked on, wide-eyed. The officer dropped his hand to his holster, but it was empty. He became aware that the driver had not obeyed, the machine was still travelling too fast. Catching a hold, he dragged himself back. The driver's speedometer read 25 miles an hour. He cursed the man.
“It's no good,” yelled the other, “she won't stop.”
“Reverse!” bawled his commander.
The twin engines roared and then began to slow. There was an appreciable check in the tank's speed. The place began to fill with blue smoke and a smell of singeing. Suddenly the noise of the engines rose as they raced furiously and the tank lurched forward again. The driver throttled down; the roar of the engines dwindled and died.
“Clutches burnt out,” shouted the driver as he switched off.
The tank went on. He and his officer stared incredulously at the meter showing over twenty miles an hour, and then at each other.
The officer swung back to his platform. He picked up the earpieces of his short-wave communicator and spoke rapidly. There was no reply, the instrument was quite dead. He looked at the compass. For a moment he thought they had turned through a right angle and were going north, then he realized that it had jammed.
Through the observation louvres he saw that the tanks to right and left were still more or less abreast of him; one had its turret open and a man was signalling with his arms. He thrust his own cover upward and stood up in the stinging sleet. From the other's signs and the fact that he also was bareheaded he gathered that his machine was in a similar plight. He dropped down again and wiped the sweat and snow from his face.
The tank trundled on uncontrollably towards the enemy lines.
The tank officer watched with a frown. He could do nothing but observe, and it seemed to him that by the distance they had gone they should be close upon the lines, or else they had turned while he was below. It was impossible to tell.
Suddenly he became aware of something coming up on his right. As it drew nearer he could make out one of their own Japanese light tanks overtaking him at a speed eight or ten miles more than his own. The two men in it had got rid of their top shield and were hanging on grimly to the sides. He could see their scared and puzzled expressions as they passed.