The monotonous humming of the electric generator was drowned out in a thunderous uproar that was muffled as an air-tight door was shut abruptly. Fifteen seconds later there was a violent lurch, and the colossal tank was on the move in the midst of a crawling, thundering horde of metal monsters whose lumbering progress shook the earth.
Sergeant Coffee, still blinking his amazement, absent-mindedly lighted the last of his share of the cigarettes looted from the prisoner.
"The big guy himself!" he said, still stunned. "My Gawd! The big guy himself!"
A distant thunder began, a deep-toned rumbling that seemed to come from the rear. It came nearer and grew louder. A peculiar quivering seemed to set up in the earth. The noise was tanks moving through the fog, not one tank or two tanks, or twenty tanks, but all the tanks in creation rumbling and lurching at their topmost speed in serried array.
Corporal Wallis heard, and turned pale. The prisoner heard, and his knees caved in.
"Hell," said Corporal Wallis dispairingly. "They can't see us, an' they couldn't dodge us if they did!"
The prisoner wailed, and slumped to the floor.
Coffee picked him up by the collar and jerked him out of the pill-box.
"C'mon Pete," he ordered briefly. "They ain't givin' us a infantryman's chance, but maybe we can do some dodgin'!"