Captain Dobie had risen and stumbled a step toward the window.
“Blast it!” he shouted. “Help me, Cimino.”
André then saw a new man in the room—a soldier with a walkie-talkie, who must have arrived by way of the farmyard.
Slim plunged through the door and snatched up a bazooka from the pile of arms in the hall. Cimino, the walkie-talkie operator, slipped out of the straps holding the instrument. He flung himself toward Slim to serve as second man on the bazooka.
“Help me to the window, André,” Captain Dobie ordered, picking up a Tommy gun. “Then stay out of range.
“Slim,” he barked, “fire at the front drive sprocket and the gas tanks, center, low. You can’t penetrate that forward armor, remember.”
The bazooka muzzle thrust out the window, Slim knelt in tense firing position. Cimino stood ready to reload.
The captain braced himself at the second window, Tommy gun leveled. André heard the rumble of the tanks draw nearer.
The explosion of fire from the windows and the fierce back-flash of the bazooka joined with the grinding screech of shattered metal, outside. Then came the hollow scraping of steel on steel.