"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "the dodos are bombing Canberra, the capital of Australia, and are being engaged by the Australian air force."
CHAPTER IX
The Opening of the Conflict
"I'm glad," said Gloria to Murray Lee, as they leaned against the rail of the steamer Paramatta in their new American Army uniforms, "that they're going to attack these things in the old U. S. I'd hate like anything to think we last Americans were shoved out of our country by a lot of chickens."
Murray glanced around him. In every direction the long lines of the convoy stretched out, big liners loaded to the funnels with men, guns, tanks and ammunition. On the fringes of the troopships the sleek grey sides of the cruisers and destroyers that protected them were visible, and overhead there soared an armada of fast airplanes—no mere observation machines, or peaceful explorers like the South Africans, but fierce, deadly fighting planes, rocket-powered, which could step along at four miles a minute and climb, dive and maneuver better than a dodo.
He nodded. "You said something, sister. Say won't it be great to take a whack at them under the Stars and Stripes. I'm glad they let us do it, even if there are only fourteen of us."
In the four months since the conference with the Australian Scientific Committee it had been amply demonstrated to the three remaining governments of the world that there was not room for both man and dodos on the same planet. A carefully-worked out campaign had evidently been set in operation by whatever central intelligence led the four-winged birds with the object of wiping human life from the earth. The bombing of Canberra was merely the first blow.
While Australia was arming and organizing to meet the menace the second blow fell—on Sourabaya, the great metropolis of Java, which was wiped out in a single night. At this evidence of the hostile intentions of the dodos radio apparatus began to tap in Australia, in the Dutch colonies and in South Africa; old guns forgotten since the last great war, were wheeled out; the factories began to turn out fighting airplanes and the young men drilled in the parks.
When, late in November, a flock of twenty-five dodos was observed over north Australia, headed for Sydney, the forces of the defence were on their guard. Long before the birds reached the town they were met by a big squadron of rocket-powered fighting planes and in a desperate battle over the desert, with claw and beak and bomb against machine-gun, were shot down to the last bird. With that the attacks had suddenly ceased, and the federated governments, convinced that it was but the calm before a greater storm, had gathered their strength for a trial of arms.