Dynamite roared and a gap was blown in the advancing line of machines. The rest came on while a corps of small machines collected bent and twisted bits of destroyed metal. Ignoring the attempts of men to stop them, several of the larger machines encamped and dug into the earth—
Setting up a repair-production line! Broken and damaged machines were run down a conveyor belt. Darting girders carrying tools flashed in and out and damaged members were removed, repaired, and replaced.
More planted dynamite roared skyward with its toll of machines and there was more work for the repair—
The hospital corps!
Smaller machines came rolling forward under the big tracks of the larger. They came boldly to the barrier of up-thrust steel girders set in cement to stop the passage of any machine. Then from these smaller machines came thin, tubular tentacles. Lances of flame hissed from the tubes and the steel girders began to fall, cut at their bases by oxy-hydrogen torches.
Artillery began to roar, the guns served and aimed by hand. Windows shattered in the blastings, and great gaping holes opened the ranks of the machines. But more machines came out of the water, raced forward and backed up the first line of advance. Long tubular cases pointed—and the next artillery piece exploded as the lanyard was pulled. Nor, after that, could any man move one bit of steel against another.
The girders started to fall once more.
Then men went forward, carrying timbers like battering rams. They hit one machine and had their ram jerked from their grasp and hurled into the air behind the line of machines and attacked them with fists.
Like lightning, the mechanical girders danced back and forth, the grapples closing on man after man and lifting him out of the way. Each soldier was passed back over the head of the machine to another, and one after another they left the scene of the battle and were transported, still struggling, far to the rear.