* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *

This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few
restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make
a change in the eBook (other than alteration for different
display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of
the eBook. If either of these conditions applies, please
contact an FP administrator before proceeding.

This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under
copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your
country's copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT
IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.


Title: Blitzkrieg in the Past
Date of first publication: 1942
Author: David W(right) O'Brien writing as John York Cabot (1918-1944)
Date first posted: June 16 2013
Date last updated: June 16 2013
Faded Page eBook #20130627

This eBook was produced by: Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan
& the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net




                      BLITZKRIEG IN THE PAST

                        by JOHN YORK CABOT

     The guns of the United States Tank Corps faced formidable foes
     in the jungles of Earth's youth!

                          AMAZING STORIES

                        VOLUME 16, NUMBER 7

                             JULY 1942




     This United States Tank division found itself facing something
     far more terrible than Japs--across a million years of time!


I remember that we had just been issued our new uniforms, and that I had
just wrestled into mine and was standing back away from the mirror above
my bunk getting an eyeful of myself and feeling pretty classy. Classy
and proud as hell to belong to an armored division of Uncle Sam's Army.

At a quick glance the new raiment looked like nothing more than an olive
drab suit of coveralls belted at the waist and strapped to the shoe
tops. But my division insignia, stitched to the shirt front, with the
lightning bolt of crimson flashing through a triangle of blue, was the
thing that really gave the outfit class.

If you've never met a blitz-baby, a soldier of an armored division, you
don't know anything about the _real_ backbone of this man's army. 'Cause
whether the public is aware of it or not, _we_ know that the tank corps
is the finest, fightingest, classiest branch of the U. S. Armed Forces.

And the U. S. Tank Corps is the finest in the world.

We're going to prove it in Australia, and in Burma, and in Libya. Yes,
and we're going to prove it in Norway, and France, and Germany; in the
Philippines and in Tokyo.

We'll shove so many tanks at the Nazis and the Japs and the Wops that
they'll wish they never heard of mechanized warfare! It'll be blitz
tactics by the best blitzers in the world.

And right now, the maddest!

So you see where that puts us. You see why you have to excuse the fact
that maybe we're a little cocky, a little clannish, and a little pitying
toward the sissies in the infantry, the paratroops, the quartermaster
corps, the artillery, and the air corps--just to name a few of the
lesser branches of the service.

Hell, all the time you hear statements made to the effect that there is
more _esprit de corps_, more first rate morale in the armored divisions
of the United States Army than in any other arm of the service. And if
you were one of us, you'd believe it.

So there I was, admiring the new togs and puffing out my chest like I
said, when into my barracks trooped Rusty Harrigan and Leeds McAndrews.

Rusty and Leeds are my buddies. We three comprise the unit operating one
light tank. Rusty is the gunner--and what an eye he has--and Leeds is
the guy in the tower who kicks the hell out of my skull while signaling
me to turn this way and that.

"Well, well, well," Rusty said most sarcastically, catching sight of my
preening. "You gonna pose for one of them covers on a picture magazine?"

Rusty is red headed, Irish, freckled and sharp tongued with his wit. He
stands five six in his sox, and has a pair of shoulders that would look
large on a guy twice his size.

Rusty also has big, red-knuckled mitts. Hanging loose at his sides they
look like twin bunches of crimson bananas. But, baby, those mitts can
caress a motor like a super-skilled surgeon. And they can trigger a
machine gun the way I hear Billy the Kid used to twirl a six-shooter.

"So what?" I snapped. "I think they look plenty classy, these new togs."

Leeds McAndrews came in with that mild, drawly voice of his.

"Burt is right, Rusty. Now, we won't be mistaken for common garden
variety soldiers."

       *       *       *       *       *

Leeds is tall and thin. His hair is black and frames a long, somber,
studious pan. If you'd put horn-rimmed specs on his nose, he'd look like
an elongated edition of Harold Lloyd back in the days of silent pics.
Some day he'll be a brass hat, and one of the best damned tank tactic
strategists. There's nothing he doesn't know that he can't learn if you
give him five minutes to concentrate.

I grinned: "You said it, Leeds. Hell, four days ago some floozie was
wandering around camp looking the place over, and she stops me to ask if
we're part of the coast artillery. Imagine!"

"And if she sees you in this new Government Issue field uniform and
shock proof headgear, she'll want to know if you're first string on the
football team," Rusty said.

But I noticed _he'd_ donned the new issue, and that _his_ barrel chest
was puffed out a mile.

"What did you come in here for?" I asked. "Fashion parade?"

Rusty grinned. "I just wanted to tell you that you and me and Leeds
are gonna get a chance to get this new issue gear all nasty dirty this
afternoon."

"What?" I yelped. We were all slated for town tour that afternoon.

"It's the truth, Burt," Leeds broke in. "Special orders. Our unit has
been assigned to test duties this afternoon. We're to report to Major
Hobart right after noon chow."

I sat down on my bunk.

"But I made a date, damn it," I groused.

"So did I," Rusty echoed. "A little southern peach. Boy what a figure!"

Leeds grinned widely. "Thank God I was going to wait and take my
chances."

Rusty scowled angrily. "Why in hell can't they get another tank besides
ours?"

"We're the best," Leeds said simply.

"Yahh," said Rusty. "We're the top tank team. And what do we get for it?
Time off? Medals? Yahh!" He slumped down bitterly on the bunk next to
mine.

"There'll be a gold star on your report card, Junior," I ribbed him, "if
you just be patient."

"Sometimes," Rusty said morosely, looking at the ceiling, "I think my
insides must be shook up like a milkshake, or a Tom Collins."

"With you it'd be more like a Tom Collins," Leeds predicted.

"Bounce, bang, bounce, bang, dust in your nose and your throat. Bounce
bang, bounce bang, bounce--" Rusty chanted.

"The needle's stuck in that record," I cut in. "Someone turn it over."

Rusty glared at me. "What I mean," he said fiercely, "is why did I ever
get in this outfit anyway?" He shook his head. "Sometimes I think I was
crazy to join."

"Why don't you ask for a transfer?" I asked. "There ought to be some
lace and lovely branch of the service that could use you."

Rusty sat bolt upright.

"Are you crazy? Do I look like a _walking_ soldier?" He demanded. "And
besides, what'd happen to our armored division if I quit?"

"That's right, Rusty," Leeds McAndrews said dryly. "You wait until they
can find a man good enough to replace you."

"Hah!" Rusty snorted. "I should wait that long!"

It's like that in the armored divisions. Beef, beef, beef. But just
offer any one of them a chance to transfer to another branch of the
service, and run, mister, run.

Leeds turned away. "Think I'll get back to my barracks," he said. "I
want to do some reading." He left.

"Smart guy, Leeds," Rusty observed after he'd gone. "Alla time reading,
reading. Hell, I'll bet he's read so much he's hadda start all over
again on the books he began with."

"That would be impossible, Rusty," I told him. "Impossible for one man
in a thousand lifetimes."

Rusty blinked. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Rusty considered this silently. A great man on a motor, a genius with a
gun, Rusty.

"That's a lotta books," he said at last.

I nodded soberly. "That's it exactly." I rose, stretching and yawning.
Rusty looked up at me.

"Where you going?" he asked.

"Think I'll wander over to the canteen," I said. "Want to pick up a
magazine that's out today."

Rusty nodded, leaned back and closed his eyes....

       *       *       *       *       *

Leeds and Rusty and I met outside the door of Old Blue Bolt--he's Major
Hobart, commanding officer of our Tank Unit--shortly after noon mess.

"Did you call your southern peach and cancel this afternoon's
engagement?" Leeds asked.

Rusty snapped his fingers. "Cripes! I knew there was something I forgot!"

I grinned, and Leed's somber eyes twinkled. We had something to keep
Rusty sweating about all afternoon now.

And then the door of the office opened and Old Blue Bolt himself stood
there, looking at us with those steely blue eyes of his. He was a
rugged, carved out of rock-ish old duck. Former cavalry officer with
Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan, he'd won his comish in the Spanish War
while still a punk of eighteen. In the World War I, he'd seen action as
a Captain in charge of the first tank units of the A.E.F.

His voice was hard, and the words came from him like bits of shrapnel
exploding at you.

"Sergeant Joyce," he snapped, "your crew ready?"

We'd all gone ramrod to attention. And now I saluted.

"Reporting, sir," I said.

"At ease," Old Blue Bolt snapped. "Come inside with me."

We entered his office, and he waved us to chairs as he stepped to his
desk and pulled several operations maps from his desk. Then he turned
back to us, papers in hand.

"I've picked you men for an experimental job this afternoon," he said,
"because of your record. Your task won't be difficult, and will consist
merely of a routine tank reconnaissance operation--over terrain which we
have mapped here."

Old Blue Bolt handed the operational maps to me, and I glanced at them
briefly.

"Mechanics are already installing the device you are to take along with
you in the M-3 tank I want you to use," he went on. "You needn't be
too concerned with its operation--that's more a matter for our testing
engineers."

"What sort of a device is it, sir?" I asked.

"A rather startling development in tank radio communication," Old Blue
Bolt answered. "If it works." He paused. "However, your job today
will not, to repeat, concern operation. We're merely installing the
mechanism, turning it on full power, and seeing how it stands up under
the actual physical thumping around it will get from standard tank
reconnaissance such as you will go through today."

"I see, sir." I declared.

Old Blue Bolt suddenly snapped a salute. "That is all. See you on the
garrison grounds in ten minutes. Have your M-3 ready to roll by that
time."

Leeds, Rusty, and I were kicking through the dust of the testing grounds
three minutes later.

"Why in the blazes don't they put us through the paces right here on the
reservation?" Rusty demanded. "Good Lord, this'll be a mere two hundred
mile jaunt. A hundred miles each way."

Leeds was looking at one of the map copies I'd given him. He grinned.
"You're a little off, Rusty. It'll be a hundred and thirteen miles
going, and one-eleven coming back."

Rusty shrugged. "Okay, okay, twenty-four miles more doesn't make it any
sweeter."

"Stop thinking about your southern peach," I ribbed him. "This'll just
be a jeep jaunt."

Rusty waved a big paw disgustedly through the air. "Yah--a nine hour
haul."

"Off again, Rusty," Leeds put in. "Twenty-five miles an hour top in an
M-3, you know. Think for a minute we can average that?"

Rusty shrugged his shoulders. He glared at me. "Put me in the steer nest
of that bounce buggy and I'll average it!" he promised.

"No thanks," I said. "I want a few bones left unfractured."

       *       *       *       *       *

The special equipment was already inside our M-3 when we rolled out onto
the garrison grounds in it some five or six minutes later. We'd only had
time to make the very briefest scrutiny of it, and with the exception
of Leeds McAndrews, who whistled interestedly at the sight of the
complicated little box of tubes and wires, there wasn't much you could
gather from such a quick peek.

"Looks like something outta Buck Rogers," Rusty had grumbled. "Give me a
gun any day for simplicity."

"When we clear the reservation I'd like to take a closer look at it,"
Leeds had said. "I think I've got an idea of what it's supposed to do."

"Rusty'll relieve you in the tower," I promised him, "once we get out of
sight. But for godsakes don't try to take the damned thing apart."

On the garrison grounds Old Blue Bolt and several other brass hats
waited for us. There was a short, dumpy, bald-headed guy in civvies with
them. We rolled to a stop and got out, while they clambered inside the
tank for a last check-up. From the conversation, it became evident that
the dumpy, bald-headed little guy in civvies was the inventor of the
device, and that the War Department was giving him a preliminary test on
it.

While we waited outside, I noticed Leeds squinting up at the sky
curiously several times.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Stormy weather ahead?"

That's Leeds McAndrews, just like I said. There's damned little he
doesn't know a lot about, even to the weather. And he doesn't depend on
a bunion for that, either.

Leeds nodded soberly. "We're due for some wet stuff," he observed
quietly.

"Hot damn!" Rusty had overheard him. "It'll kill that blank-blank dust."
A big grin split his mug.

"And cut down our time," I reminded him.

The grin left Rusty's face. "Hell," he said, "you never win in this
man's army."

Old Blue Bolt, the officers, and the inventor were clambering out of the
tank again. On the ground, Old Blue Bolt snapped a salute.

"You have your orders, sergeant," he said. "Carry on!"




CHAPTER II

Georgia Disappears


Half an hour later we were making a maximum twenty-five per along a
smooth enough dirt straightaway. But the day was a scorcher, and the
dust kept sifting through the front vision slot with choking monotony.

I was beginning to agree with Rusty as to his first wish for the
deluge Leeds had promised. My back was drenched with sweat, and the
perspiration cascaded down my forehead like a miniature Niagara.

Up above me, getting plenty of fresh, clean air on his lean face, Leeds
McAndrews had the gall to keep up a cheerfully incessant whistle. And to
my right, Rusty accompanied him with a steady monotone of profanity.

Rusty interrupted his blasphemous monotone long enough to chant
despairingly.

"Cool," he said. "Clean ... fresh ... cool ... clean ... fresh ... cool!"

"What's eating you?" I demanded loudly.

"I was thinking," he said, "of how nice it wouldda been had I joined the
Air Corps insteadda this outfit."

I silenced him with a glare.

"What about that damned rain Leeds promised?" Rusty yelled after a
minute or so.

I knocked Leeds' leg with the side of my head. I looked up as he peered
down at me.

"Where in the hell's that rain?" I asked.

Leeds grinned. "Another twenty minutes," he promised.

I looked at the operations map at my elbow. Another twenty minutes would
find us in rough enough terrain without mud to mess through. I sighed.
Maybe Rusty was right. You never really win.

But Leeds had miscalculated, for once. We got our rain in fifteen
minutes, not twenty. Got it while we were still traveling the smooth
dirt straightaway.

I heard it patter on the tank, lightly at first. But the drops were big,
and pretty soon they were coming harder and faster, and all of a sudden
the smooth dirt straightaway was covered in a sheeting downpour.

"Turnabout!" Rusty grinned, yelling. He pointed his finger up toward the
tower where Leeds was now taking a drenching. "First we bake--then he
drowns!"

Leeds kicked my shoulder in a stop signal. We halted a few yards
forward. I moved aside, and he clambered down.

"How about Rusty taking the crow's nest while I get a look at the radio
device we're lugging?" Leeds asked.

I looked at Rusty, whose face had suddenly gone dark.

"Nuts to that noise!" he protested sharply. "The minute it gets wet up
there you decide to change places with me. Yah!"

"There was no squawk when I first mentioned it," Leeds reminded Rusty.

"It seemed like a good deal, then," Rusty countered. "Thought it would
give me a little pure air for a change."

Leeds grinned. "In other words you had no objections to it when we were
getting started, is that right?"

Rusty nodded, starting to say something.

Leeds cut in. "And in other words you sanctioned a bargain then, but
want to back out now."

"Yeah, but--"

"Unforeseen circumstances can't make an agreement any less binding,
ethically," Leeds cut him off again.

Rusty muttered something hot. Then he sighed. "Every time I try to argue
with you, McAndrews, I lose my shirt." He stood up and moved around,
permitting Leeds to slide into the position he'd vacated.

"Up you go," I grinned.

Tight-lipped, Rusty clambered up into the tower. And when he gave my
shoulder the starting nudge with his foot you'd think he'd wanted to
root a field goal from the fifty yard line.

"Hey!" I yelled. "A little easy there!"

We rumbled off once more, and through my vision slot I could see the
rain slashing down even more viciously than before, while the sky grew
ominously darker and the first splitting explosions of thunder sounded
in the distance.

       *       *       *       *       *

Above me, I could hear Rusty's faint, wrathful grumblings. Leeds was
busy in his inspection of the special radio apparatus, lost in blissful
fascination at the intricate arrangement of it.

We clanked along the dirt straightaway in that fashion for another
fifteen minutes, while the fury of the rain and the crashing
reverberations of thunder grew greater with every passing minute.

Jagged flashes of lightning were now splitting the sky on an average of
once every two or three minutes.

Then Rusty was kicking my shoulder hard in a stop signal.

I slowed the tank to a halt.

Rusty's head peered down.

"Do I have to stay up here and be top man on a lightning rod?" he
demanded plaintively.

I glanced at Leeds. "How about it? Had enough look-see?"

Leeds looked up. "Eh? Oh--" He grinned. "Tell that red head I'll relieve
him in another five minutes."

I passed on the information. Rusty glowered.

"Okay," he said sullenly. "But I'll be counting off them five minutes
like a clock."

I glanced at my operations map, and peered out to see our road position.

"That next fork up there," I told Rusty, "is where we go off over the
bounding hills and dales. Don't let me miss it."

Rusty muttered something indicating none too pleased agreement and sat
back up in his perch.

I started up again, just as a particularly brilliant flash of lightning
whitened the darkened sky. I heard Rusty curse angrily in his discomfort.

Leeds looked up. "Wonder if they counted on an electrical storm playing
hell with this device?" he asked.

"I don't suppose so," I answered. "Why? Something wrong?"

Leeds shook his head. "It's skittering around like a water bug in a
whirlpool," he announced.

I shrugged. "That's not our worry."

"No," Leeds admitted. "No, it isn't." He went back to his study of the
device.

I got the turn kick from Rusty, then, and wheeled our M-3 down off the
straightaway across a rutted field. The going wasn't too bad, although
now and then we made a camel-like lurch as we crossed a narrow ditch or
gully.

The thunder was crackling almost constantly, now, and its din, plus
the incessant deluge of rain on the tank structure and the noise of
the M-3's motor itself, made further conversational exchanges--even
shouting at the top of our lungs--more than impossible.

Mentally, I was hoping that the terrain over which we were headed would
not become bog and mud too quickly; for the operations map at my elbow
indicated that this was just a brief stretch and that we'd emerge on a
straightaway again in another few miles.

I shot a glance at Leeds occasionally, and from the expression on his
somber, studious pan, he seemed still worried about the operation of the
radio device our run was testing.

But that was Leeds, of course. He was that type of guy. Always stewed
and fretted over everything, feeling responsible for the perfection of
the smallest details of anything remotely connected with our assignments.

Up above me Rusty had subsided. Or perhaps he hadn't. At any rate the
din of the storm and the usual clanking cacophony of our M-3 drowned out
whatever profane observations he might have had on our progress.

I was just figuring that the fury of the electrical storm was getting to
be more than anyone, even Leeds, had expected, when it happened.

The black storminess of the sky became a sudden, blazing sheet of white
flame; and hell exploded with the tremendous crash of a thunderbolt.

I remember the force of the shock throwing me from my seat, and that,
with subconscious forethought, I snapped off the power on my way to the
tank floor.

       *       *       *       *       *

Vaguely, Leeds' voice, raised shoutingly, came to me; and I seemed to
hear Rusty's angry yelling in the background of fog that was settling
over me. It was only later that I found out I'd cracked my head with
tremendous force against a turret panel on my right, and that merely the
presence of my safety helmet saved me from splitting my skull in two.

Then the lights were out for me completely.

"Here ... no ... rub his wrists first ... yes ... that's ... right. Let
me ... better ... beginning ... open his eyes.... Coming around ... now."

Those were the words that hammered at the back of my brain as I began to
blink through the fog and regain consciousness. I was aware of Rusty's
mug, and Leeds' somber pan both bending over me.

I sat up suddenly.

"Jeeudas," I yelled, "what time is it?"

I must have been blinking foolishly as I gaped around at my surroundings.

"You're not in the barracks," Rusty said, "and reveille hasn't just
sounded. Calm down. You're all right. We were just struck by a lightning
bolt, that's all."

"Lighting?" I gasped.

"Sure," Leeds McAndrews said dryly, "that's all."

"Wheeeeeeeeew!" I ran a shaky hand along my face.

Rusty was grinning now, and he rose, half bending, making me suddenly
realize we were still inside the tank.

"How about you guys?" I demanded. "How come you weren't knocked silly?"

"We were knocked flat," Leeds remarked. "Rusty was just clambering down
inside to beef about getting relief when the bolt hit. I was banged face
forward on my button. Rusty hung on for dear life."

"But the tank," I protested, looking around at the somehow undamaged
mechanism inside our M-3, "should have been cindered!"

Leeds nodded. "Thank God it wasn't," he agreed, "even if it should
have been. It was just knocked ahead, literally through the air, for a
distance of no less than fifteen yards."

I whistled. "Honest to God?" I demanded, shuddering.

Leeds held up his hand. "Honest Injun," he said.

"What about the precious equipment?" I asked suddenly.

Leeds shrugged. "Seems to be undamaged. Can't be sure," he told me. "But
I have a funny hunch that it was the cause of attracting the bolt in the
first place."

Rusty knotted his red brows in disbelief. "How?" he challenged.

Leeds gave him a look. "I could explain," he said flatly, "but I'd be
wasting my breath."

"Yah!" Rusty said scornfully.

I clambered to my feet, aware suddenly that my knees were all of a
sudden very rubbery indeed, and stood there in a half bend.

"I better get out and make a check of this blitz box before we try to go
any further," I said.

Leeds nodded. "That's a good idea."

Rusty's face was a portrait of disappointment. "You mean you figger on
going ahead?" he demanded.

"Why not?" I asked him.

"And get hit again by a bolt?" he demanded.

"The thunder's stopped," I said, cocking my head to one side, "and, if
my ears and sixth sense aren't wrong, our storm is clearing up."

Leeds nodded in sudden surprise. "Damned if you aren't right," he
agreed. "No more rain spattering the sides. Let's pile out and look
around while you check the M-3."

Leeds was first up and out. Rusty followed him, and I brought up the
rear.

So we got Leeds' choked exclamation of astonishment first.

Then Rusty's hoarse, bewildered bellow.

And then I was looking at it.

Looking at the terrain surrounding us, I mean. The thick, tangled,
semi-tropical jungle that stretched for miles to either side. The
chalk-cliffed mountains miles in the distance. The utter absence of
anything remotely hinting of civilization.

All that--when we'd been crossing the sparse woodland pasture of a
southern county before the lightning had struck!

Rusty's choked words formed the first coherent sentence.

"Listen," he grated hoarsely, "this ain't Georgia!"

Leeds got the next sentence loose. "For once in my life, Rusty," he
declared, "I agree with you perfectly!"

Nobody cracked wise.

Nobody felt like it. For this was screwy, frighteningly screwy. And all
of a sudden there was a fine, cold sweat on my brow ...




CHAPTER III

Centuries Into the Past


By now the sticky sweetness of the lush, strange vegetation hemming in
from the jungle all around us was strong in our nostrils. It was an
eerie smell. Like a cheap brand of sugary incense.

And then we heard the bird.

At least it sounded like a bird. Not quite, like any bird _I'd_ ever
heard, of course. It was too loud, too clear, too bloodthirsty a bird
scream to suit me.

"Jeudas," Rusty muttered under his breath, "please don't let anybody try
to tell me that was a crow!"

I gulped twice, and some instinct made me turn to Leeds for
information. "Wh-where are we?" I managed.

Leeds shrugged. "I'll wait for the sixty-four dollar question."

Rusty suddenly rubbed his big jaw along his solid jaw, a shocked, white
speculation on his face.

"Maybe," the redhead ventured, "we're," he had to gulp before he could
get it out, "d-d-dead!"

I looked at the somehow unnice jungle growth around us, while the memory
of the bloodthirsty bird scream still tingled in my ears.

"No," I decided, "this place isn't heaven."

"Wh-who said anything about heaven?" Rusty demanded.

Leeds had turned quietly away while Rusty and I were still rooted in
our tracks. He was walking along the natural clearing in which we found
ourselves, stopping now and then to glance down at the ground with a
studious, unhurried scrutiny.

Rusty and I both noticed him at the same time.

"Who in the hell do you think you are?" Rusty demanded. "Daniel Boone,
or the Lone Ranger?"

"I'm the little native boy out of Kipling's _Jungle Book_," Leeds said
quietly. "And if you don't believe it," he pointed casually down at
something in the soft earth at his feet, "take a look at this."

We were over beside him before the last word left his mouth, standing on
either side of him, and looking down askance at the imprint in the soft
earth where he pointed.

The imprint of an incredibly enormous animal foot; a print at least
three feet in diameter!

In ninety-nine out of a hundred other situations, Rusty's remark would
have been howlingly unoriginal. Now it was just unoriginal: "There ain't
no such animal!" he gasped.

But Leeds didn't even hear him. He was staring straight ahead, a fixed,
grim expression around the corners of his mouth. Staring through the
tangled depths of the sickly sweet jungle growth directly ahead of us.

"What is it?" I gasped, startled again. "What do you see?"

Leeds spoke softly. "I don't see anything," he said. "I'm just trying to
see what I can see." It didn't make sense, but I wasn't blaming anyone
for not making sense at this moment.

"Look." I grabbed his arm sharply. "What do you make of this huge damned
animal print?"

"Make of it?" Leeds blinked in surprise. "Make of it? Why, it's a
dinosaur print, of course."

"A dinosaur?" I yelped, while the skin peeled icily down my spine. "A
dinosaur?"

Leeds nodded. "That's right. Sorry. I thought you'd recognize it. Don't
know why I expected you to do so. Sometimes I don't think beyond myself."

"What," Rusty put in, "is a dinersour?"

Leeds explained briefly. "They were extinct centuries ago," he concluded.

       *       *       *       *       *

Rusty nodded soberly. Then his face brightened. "But, hell, Leeds, this
is easy. If them beasts were outta date hundreds of years back, then
this _couldn't_ be the print of a dinersour!" He beamed brightly at the
stunning impact of his own logic.

Leeds nodded sober agreement. "Under ordinary circumstances I'd say
you're right, Rusty," he said. "But can you find anything ordinary in
these circumstances?" He waved his hand generally, to indicate our
situation. "We're hit by a bolt of lightning while crossing a sparsely
wooded section of farmland in Georgia," he went on. "Our tank is
knocked about twenty feet through the air and lands right side up
with no one killed. And when we climb out, we find that somehow we're
god-knows-how-many miles from our location, surrounded by territory
that couldn't be found in any section of Georgia that I know anything
about. It's a cinch it's nowhere within a four hundred mile radius of
the county where our divisional headquarters are. In fact," he said
speculatively, "I'd be willing to bet there's no wasteland or jungle
sections similar to this anywhere in the United States!"

Rusty rubbed his solid jaw with a big knuckled paw. "Yeah," he admitted.
"The situation isn't exactly everyday, is it?"

I cut in. "In relation to your last guess, Leeds, where in the hell do
you think we are, if it isn't in the U. S.?"

Leeds rubbed a hand across his forehead. "I have to try to figure this
out a little, Burt," he said. "Hell, I don't know but what maybe we are
still in the United States at that; maybe still in Georgia, even."

"But how could we still be in Georgia," I protested, waving a hand to
indicate our surroundings, "when you say, and I agree also, that there
isn't territory similar to this in the whole U. S.?"

"It's not easy to explain," Leeds admitted soberly. "But, then, neither
is the dinosaur print, or how in the hell we got here to begin with."

"Yeah," I agreed slowly, "I see what you mean."

"Did you ever study geology or historic biology?" Leeds asked with what
seemed to be almost casual irrelevance.

I shook my head. "No. Did you?"

"Messing around with odd angles of odd subjects has always
been a sort of hobby of mine. Curious information about
unimportant--so-called--angles to sciences has always fascinated me."

"Yeah," I nodded impatiently. "I've yet to see anything that hasn't
fascinated you. But what's it add up to?"

This time Leeds seemed to reflect before answering immediately; as if he
had information that would knock my hat off, but wanted to recheck it
mentally for his own satisfaction before blurting it.

Rusty took this silence to shove himself back into the parley.

"All I wanta know," the redhead demanded, "is where we are."

"It's like this," Leeds suddenly said. "All this," he waved his hand to
indicate the jungle surrounding us, "plant life and undergrowth is of
the most primitive biological type. As far as civilized man knows, this
sort of vegetation died out eons back in time. It exists nowhere on the
face of the earth as we know it today."

My mind was starting to march around in narrowing little circles trying
to follow this.

"Also, we've found the track of a species of evolutionary animal which
hasn't existed on the face of the earth in centuries."

"Yeah," Rusty broke in, "a dinersour." He beamed, glad at the
opportunity to air his newly found knowledge.

Leeds glanced wryly at him, then went on. "So what does all this point
to more than anything else?"

"Huh?" I demanded. "Come again!"

"What one fact in all this big mess stands out most clearly?" Leeds
demanded.

"That we don't know where we are," Rusty blurted before I could supply
the answer.

Leeds shook his head. "No. The most outstanding thing about this
incredibly strange situation and our surroundings is the fact that
they couldn't exist--according to absolutely solid, modern scientific
fact--in any place other than a world centuries and centuries back in
time itself!"

I squinted hard at Leeds. "Sure you didn't hit your head when the
lightning knocked the tank through the air?"

"When the lightning, through the presence of a most peculiar radio
device, knocked our tank through time, you mean," Leeds corrected me
soberly. "I'm not out of my head, Burt, and I'm not kidding. I'm no
mental marvel, but what I do know about what we've seen all around us
here adds up only to the conclusions I've just handed out."

"You mean," I demanded indignantly, "to stand there and tell me we're
centuries back in the past?"

"I mean," Leeds said angrily, "that two and two makes four."

       *       *       *       *       *

Rusty, who had been following our interchange frowningly, brightened
up when it came inside his mental sights. "That's right," he blurted
happily. "Leeds is right, Burt. Two and two's four!"

We both fixed him with an impatient glare, and his effervescence
subsided.

I turned back to face Leeds.

"Look," I said, "I have a man-on-the-street knowledge of so-called
time theories and all that malarkey. I know that a few zany scientists
subscribe to them and claim that some day time travel will be feasible.
But as far as I'm concerned, that's a lot of junk. Please don't hand me
any more of that back-in-the-past reasoning, Leeds. You're too smart for
that sort of noise."

Leeds shrugged. "All right, Burt," he said with softly worded surrender,
"you explain all this, then."

"Why, it's simple," I said. "This is just, ah, weelll, I mean, that is.
Hell, Leeds, dammit all. This is, ahhh ..."

But he had me. As coldly and as simply as that. One sentence was all
Leeds had to use in the clinch. And it had punctured any balloons of
doubt I might have clung to.

Leeds smiled humorlessly.

"But, Leeds," I began weakly.

And the shot blasted out at that moment, loudly, startlingly, less than
two feet from us. We both wheeled to see Rusty, the huge automatic
pistol he carried at his belt as a side arm, smoking in his big, red
knuckled mitt.

We looked toward the spot where the barrel of the gun still pointed. A
spot near a heavy fringe of thick jungle brush.

An incredible, miniature monster lay stretched out there kicking it's
nine legs in last dying spasms!

"Damned thing looked dangerous," Rusty commented briefly to us over his
shoulder. "Noticed it moving creepy-like through the brush toward us."

Neither Leeds nor I said a word. We moved cautiously over toward
the dying creature as Rusty followed, nonchalantly smug over his
marksmanship, at our heels.

Leeds held out an arm to halt us as we drew within five feet of the
thing kicking there on the soft, black soiled grass near the fringe of
the underbrush.

It was about seven feet long, about two feet thick, and maybe three
wide. It most closely resembled a gigantic, mis-shapen, horned toad.
Except that it seemed protected by a thick coat of shell-like armor, and
had, as I said before, nine legs.

It was flat on its back, now, and those legs were making their last
feeble kicks as we watched it wordlessly. Blood was pouring from the
huge right eye where Rusty had plugged it.

       *       *       *       *       *

And then Leeds pointed his finger at a pair of sharp, thin tendrils that
ran bug-like from its skull.

"Damned good thing Rusty plugged it," he said softly. "Those waspish
tendrils are venomous stingers. Deadly poisonous, no doubt. We might
easily have been attacked by it."

Rusty's chest puffed out.

"I seen that turtle armor around it and figgered I'd better not waste a
shot on it, so I let 'em have it in the blinker," he declared.

I looked at the ugly creature and shuddered. The legs had stopped
kicking, now, and I started in closer toward it. Leed's hand shot out
and grabbed my arm.

"Let it be," he said. "Maybe it's dead, but maybe it isn't quite dead
yet. Don't take chances."

I was glad to take his advice. We turned away and went back toward the
tank in the middle of the narrow clearing.

None of us said a word. I felt certain we were all thinking pretty much
the same thoughts, however. But I didn't count on Rusty's typically
unorthodox reaction.

"Well," Rusty said brightly, "maybe we better get rolling again. I
missed one date with a southern peach, and I got one lined up for
tomorrow that I don't wanta miss."

I looked at Leeds, and he returned the glance with equal amazement,
shaking his head unbelievingly.

I touched Rusty's arm.

"Look, chum," I said, "don't you get it?"

Rusty frowned. "Get what?"

"The spot we're in," I said. "Weren't you listening when Leeds and I
threshed out an explanation of where we really are?"

"Not carefully," Rusty admitted. "I just got the gist of it, and
understood that you'd figgered out where we were. Why, are we a long
ways from where we wanna be?"

We were patient, then. Oh, so very patient. We told it to Rusty slowly.
We didn't use big words. We made it as simple as we could. We repeated
it three times, each of us, into his none too shell-like ear. And then
we stood back and waited for the great light to break out of his pan.

"Ohhhhhh," Rusty said soberly. "Then we're really in a jam, eh? We're
really lost, huh? How long do you think it'll be before we can find our
way out of this joint?"

Leeds and I sighed and exchanged glances of frustration. The swift
trigger touch in Rusty Harrigan was limited to his finger. His mind
didn't have any.

"We'll try again later and it'll seep in over a gradual period of time,"
I told Leeds.

He nodded agreement. "That's the best way." Then: "What do we do now?"

I looked at the sun lowering fast on the horizon. "It'll be dark pretty
soon," I judged. "We have no idea of the territory around us, and
scouting it by night, with such pretty denizens of the jungle as we just
saw at large, would be a risky proposition. We'd better hole in here in
this clearing around the tank. We can keep a brush fire going all night,
stand watch tricks in turn, and keep any danger off that way."

Leeds nodded agreement. "That's the best program."

"You mean we gotta camp here?" Rusty demanded.

I nodded. "Exactly."

Rusty groaned. "Whatta dump, and whatta spot to be in!"

I thought of the night gathering over the primeval jungle, and of the
huge, incredibly monstrous creatures stalking the darkness in search of
food. I thought of the fact that we were thousands of years in the past,
utterly lost and at the mercy of a million unknown elements. Something
inside me grew cold and shuddered violently. But I managed a grin for
Rusty and Leeds.

"That's the height of understatement," I said.

And as if in answer, the blood-hungry bird screech ripped shrilly,
half-humanly, out of the jungle depths once more. This time I shuddered
outwardly ...




CHAPTER IV

The Neanderthals


We broke out our emergency rations and started a small fire just about
the time the sun went down. And as the three of us hunched around the
blaze to cheat the growing dampish cold, the jungle began really to come
alive with sound.

And the sounds weren't pretty, believe me.

They were the sounds of strange and hungry beasts waking from the
slumber of a warm afternoon, stretching themselves in the growing cold
and darkness before they began their forays for food.

Leeds felt the danger crackling increasingly loud through the
atmosphere, and so did I. But the two of us could only envy the calm
placidity with which Rusty accepted the situation. The fact that his
almost bovine acceptance was due in a large part to an overwhelming
ignorance of the real danger of our plight did little to alter the
situation.

After that, pulling out cigarettes, we had a council of war and policy
around the fire. Leeds and I, of course, carried on most of the war and
shaped the policy.

Rations were the first thing slated for conservation. And an estimate of
our supplies was immediately made. After that we figured them out, ounce
for ounce, so that we'd get through the next six days on them. Even at
that, however, they were stretched pretty thin.

Matches, clothing, medical aid and ammunition rounds were all in order,
of course, for we knew our allotments in those items beforehand.
However, they, too, were put on a strict rationing basis.

"We'll need 'em for hunting when we run out of food," said Leeds,
speaking of bullets.

In his voice and his eyes, however, there was the unmistakable
conclusion that we might damned well need our ammunition for sheer
self-defense.

"Don't worry about me using more than my share," Rusty put in. "One shot
to a target is plenty for old Rusty." Which, thank God, was a fact.

We decided, then, to match off the watch tricks in four hour shifts. I
drew the first, from eight to midnight. Rusty was next, from twelve to
four, and Leeds was then to take over until eight.

We checked over our equipment on the M-3, getting gear and guns in
shape, and then, on my instructions, Rusty and Leeds bedded down inside
the tank for some shut-eye.

I took my watch near the fire, a tommy gun nestling in my lap as
insurance against any disturbance, and a blanket wrapped around my
shoulders for warmth against the dampness of the night.

       *       *       *       *       *

The stars were out in all their glory, thousands of them, jamming the
sky like I'd never seen them before. I speculated for a while about
those twinkling dots, wondering how much changing they'd done from this
moment in the past up until the twentieth century.

And after a while I began to catch glimpses of the tiny, bright beacons
flashing at me from the fringes of the jungle surrounding our clearing.
Animals, of course. Of what species I didn't dare imagine. I thought
about the dinosaur track a lot, too. Don't think I was forgetting that.
I made a mental prayer that the clearing in which we were spending the
night wouldn't happen to be the ancient monster's boudoir.

The jungle sounds continued. The queerest, chillingest bunch of noises
you've ever heard. Now and then my feathered chum back there in the
tangled undergrowth would give out one of those shrill, bloodthirsty,
half-humble screeches and set my spine tingling again. I wished to God
that he'd go off in some tree and take a snooze.

I thought of a line from somebody's epic poem. You know the one.

"_This is the forest primeval._"

It didn't help much, thinking that way. But somehow I couldn't get it
out of my head. For, if ever there was a forest primeval, this was it.

Of course there was a little bit of mental argument going on in my mind
against what Leeds had said. Now that I was alone some of my skepticism
returned. But every time it did, the clincher he'd given me, "Go ahead,
Burt. You explain it," came back to reaffirm my faith in his theory. And
what the hell, wasn't there that track, that print of the dinosaur? And
I wasn't forgetting the miniature monster with nine legs, the thing
that looked like a nightmarish toad grown a hundred times in size.

Centuries back in the past. An unknown jungle, peopled by unknown
monsters, stretching God knows how many thousand miles to every side of
us.

It wasn't too pleasant to think about, so I turned my thoughts to
nostalgic remembrances of the things we'd left thousands of years away
from us. That wasn't any too helpful to personal morale either, and
finally I went back to concentrating on the shadows and sounds and
flickering eyes around the clearing where we were camped.

The time passed this way until at last it was close to midnight, and I
was climbing to my feet, shedding the blanket, and preparing to rouse
Rusty for relief.

He groaned a little, grumbling sleepily, but woke at last from my none
too gentle tweaking of his ear.

"Huh," Rusty muttered. "Time for my trick?"

"You said it, child," I told him. I shoved the tommy gun into his big
and very capable paws.

He stood there, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the big red
knuckles of his right mitt, while he held the tommy gun carelessly with
his left.

"When do I wake Leeds?" Rusty demanded foggily.

       *       *       *       *       *

I was already bedding myself down in the bunk Rusty had occupied.
Leeds lay sound asleep a few feet away in a makeshift bunk of his own
fashioning.

"Four hours," I told him, "and no sooner."

"Gimme your timepiece," Rusty demanded.

I removed my wristwatch and handed it to him. "Don't know how in the
hell the band will fit that wrist of yours," I said. "Don't snap the
thing."

Rusty held it to his ear, then grinned.

"Good to have this, huh?" he said. "I mean, out in the middle of
nowhere, it's good to have something you can depend on."

"You sound like a magazine advertisement," I told him. "Get out there
before the wolves eat our tank up."

"See any wolves?" Rusty said eagerly.

I made a face. "Go out and look. But don't stray from the fire, Red
Hoodingride."

"Don't worry about me," Rusty advised, starting up and out the tower.
"You guys'll never have a more peaceful sleep than you'll get now, with
ole Rusty standing guard."

"That makes me feel better already," I said sarcastically.

Leeds sat up then, blinking and cursing softly under his breath.

"Can't you guys hold your oratorical conventions some place other than
the one spot where I'm trying to grab some sleep?" he demanded.

Rusty poked his head down from the tower to ask, "Did I wake yuh, Leeds?"

Leeds glared helplessly up at him.

"No," he answered with acid calm. "No, Rusty. You didn't wake me. I
always wake up automatically at midnight just to see what time it is."

Rusty frowned. "Really? What a hellofa silly thing to do." His head
disappeared. Then it poked back into the tank again. "Say, what time is
it?" he demanded.

I sighed. "You've got my watch," I told him. "When you get to your guard
post figure it out on your toes."

Rusty muttered something, and his red head disappeared from the tower
opening. We heard him clambering down the tankside a moment later.

"Sorry, Leeds," I muttered.

"S'all right," he muttered. "Don't know how I'd get along sleeping
normally, anyway."

There was a silence, and I closed my eyes in the darkness, feeling
suddenly tired as hell. I pulled the blanket up over my shoulders and
stretched as best I could in the cramped surroundings.

"Leeds," I said after a moment.

"Yeah?" his voice answered sleepily through the darkness.

"How damned many species of animal life do you think there'll be around
this neck of time?"

There was another silence for a moment. "Hell," Leeds answered. "I
really don't know, Burt. Plenty of 'em. You can be sure of that. I don't
think the scientists have ever made any accurate computations."

"This would be a helluva swell spot for a scientist," I thought aloud,
"if he could ever get back."

"Yeah," said Leeds, "if he could ever get back."

Another silence.

"That brings up something I haven't wanted to talk about," I said after
a minute or so.

"You mean about getting back, of course," Leeds answered.

"Yeah," I admitted. "Think we've any chance, ever?"

This was the longest silence. And when Leeds' voice finally came through
the darkness, it was grimly soft. "What do you think, Burt?"

"I don't see how--" I began.

Leeds cut me off. "Neither do I," he agreed.

We didn't say any more after that. Pretty soon I could hear Leeds'
breathing coming regularly in sleep, and I lay there in the darkness
envying him, his composure, and wondering how in the hell all this came
about and where in the hell it would end.

I must have dropped off to sleep on that track ...

       *       *       *       *       *

A hand was shaking my shoulder roughly, and I said something nasty in my
sleep, turning over, then sitting up, blinking and rubbing my eyes.

"Damnit to hell!" I muttered. "This is no time to jar me out of the only
decent rest I've had since--"

And by then my eyes were focusing. My eyes were focusing to the extent
where I was aware of several unpleasant circumstances all at once. The
first being that the interior of the tank was weirdly illuminated.
Illuminated by a torch held in a gigantic, hairy hand. The second was
the animal stench, the unwashed, wild and woolly odor in the air. And
the third was the fact that there were two alien _human_ beings standing
over me. One of them was the owner of the hairy hand that held the
torch. The other, the owner of the equally hairy paw that grabbed my
shoulder so roughly. This latter person having, rather than a torch, a
huge, ominous, crude club!

"What the--" I started.

But my exclamation was never completed. One of those hairy paws clamped
hard across my mouth, and an arm, massively muscled, coiled tightly
around my chest, pinioning me helplessly.

I was lifted off my feet, then, and carried bodily from my improvised
bunk. Up through the tower, while the torchlight carrier behind me
grunted in the background.

Then we were out in the clearing, and I was dumped to the ground. Rusty
was there. Flat on his back, hands and arms tied by crude thongs of
leather. He was out cold, a lump the size of an egg already swelling on
the side of his skull.

I got a better view of our captors, now, both of them.

They were even larger than I had supposed inside the tank.

Huge, massively boned and hairy creatures. Both wore animal skins,
Johnny Weismuller fashion, to cover their tremendous bodies. Their
skulls were the kind you see on stone-age creatures in museum
reproduction cases.

I wondered then, where in the hell Leeds McAndrews had gone. Foggily, I
tried to recall whether or not he'd been in the tank when I was jarred
out of my sleep by the ungentle gents who now grunted unintelligibly to
one another over my prostrate form. I couldn't remember. But it seemed
safe to assume that had he been so, he'd be out here in the clearing,
captive with Rusty and me.

Starting to rise to my feet, I saw the slight movement made by the club
carrying behemoth to my right. I changed my mind hastily, thinking of
the lump on Rusty's skull, and went back to my former position.

Bitterly, I remembered the fears I'd held for the animal life around us.
It seems I'd never given a thought to cave men.

The Neanderthalish chap with the club made a grunting noise that might
have been some communication to his other chum. For the torch-bearing
chappie nodded his assent and stepped around behind me.

Warily, I turned, looking back over my shoulder. Turned, to see the
torch-bearer's extremely ugly pan split in what was undoubtedly meant to
be a grin.

And then I got it.

Hard against the side of my skull, while a million flames exploded in my
brain and the stars came out shooting like Roman candles to a pinwheel
background of wheeling planets.

The club-bearing brute had used the weapon the moment I'd turned. And as
I fell through a million miles of flame splashed darkness, I was fuzzily
aware of this fact. And fuzzily aware, too, that I couldn't hang onto my
last straws of consciousness any longer ...




CHAPTER V

A Prehistoric Greeting


For lord knows how long, I was certain that I'd been taken to
hell. Taken to hell and placed upon a huge spit--like a barbecued
chicken--which was driven through the top of my skull and straight
through the rest of my body.

The spit was turning me back and forth across a huge furnace of white
hot coals, toasting and crisping my body to a delicious golden brown,
while savages, all of them looking like cave men, stood happily around
the pit on which I was being fried, spittle drooling eagerly from the
sides of their huge mouths.

And then I opened my eyes. Opened my eyes to find immediately the
physical causes for the nightmare in which I'd been living.

I was stretched out, tied hand and foot, before a huge, roaring bonfire
in front of the mouth of a great cave. Close enough to the fire, in
fact, to dangerously approximate being spitted over white hot coals.

My back, legs, and forehead were drenched with sweat from the heat of
the great blaze. And the aching in my head from the smashing blow I'd
received from the primitive war club was undoubtedly the reason for my
imagining that a spit had been driven through my skull.

And as for the cave savages, my nightmare had batted one thousand. They
were everywhere around the big blaze, and streamed back and forth before
the mouth of the huge cave.

None of them seemed to be paying the slightest attention to the trussed
form of yours truly; so I squirmed this way and that, until I was able
to get a better view of the primitive panorama around me.

My eyes must have been bug-wide, and it's a cinch that my heart was
hammering sledge-like in my chest as I lay there on my side, taking a
long visual gulp of it all.

There were crudely fashioned ladders running along the walls on either
side of the big cave entrance, and by craning my neck until it almost
snapped, I was able to see smaller cave openings, perhaps a double dozen
of them, at the end of each of those crude ladders.

It was evident that this location was the primeval equivalent of a Park
Avenue apartment sector. I got the impression that it was close to a
cliff edge, and the additional feeling that there was probably quite a
drop down from said cliff edge. It seemed reasonable to assume that for
protection's sake this community was built on a mountainside.

And as much as I hated to admit it--for my own peace of mind--the
citizenry of this community seemed far cruder than the dwellings they'd
fashioned for their ape-like bodies.

The two chaps who'd captured Rusty and me had evidently been just
average specimens of this pre-civilized humanity. For there were guys,
and gals, moving around the place who were considerably more gargantuan
than our original captors.

And the female of the species was repulsive beyond my wildest dreams.
I thought I'd seen ugly wenches, but these walked away with last prize
for all time as far as I was concerned.

They were all almost as large as their menfolk, and aside from being
lumpier generally, if you know what I mean, they were hard to tell from
the males.

I had a sudden, wild, foolish nostalgia for the beautiful gals of
Georgia. And then I remembered that these, ironically enough, might very
well be Georgia peaches of the ummmm-thousand B. C. variety.

It occurred to me, then, that I'd better squint around a bit to see what
had happened to Rusty.

Some more squirming around on the earth brought me into the desired
position for additional look-see of the territory.

It took me several minutes to scan the territory thoroughly enough to
establish the fact that Rusty Harrigan wasn't in evidence.

And then it took an additional two minutes for me to comprehend fully
what a hell of a spot I was in.

       *       *       *       *       *

Leeds had been the first to disappear. I hadn't thought about that since
I'd been banged over the bean by the knotty club. But now I gave it some
more very serious consideration.

I wondered, among other things, if our cavemen captors had beaten his
brains out while he slept. I hadn't thought to see if he, or the remains
of him, had been in the tank at the time that the massively muscled
brethren had dragged me from the interior of the tank. There hadn't been
time for that.

But, too, there had been no sign of him around the clearing when I'd
discovered Rusty, out cold and tied like a hog for market, immediately
before I'd been sandbagged with an ancient shillallah.

I remembered that Leeds had always been a light sleeper.

Perhaps, on hearing the sound of the scuffle that must have occurred
between Rusty and the cave dweller, Leeds had piled out of the tank to
see what was going on.

Perhaps he'd even engaged in the scrap alongside Rusty, maybe getting
his brains beaten out in the fringes of the jungle.

I shuddered, giving up the mental debate.

But Rusty, where was he now? Had he been more than out cold there in the
clearing when I'd spied him with the knot on his knob? It didn't seem
likely and I quite frankly hoped to God their club belts hadn't killed
him.

Remembering the thickness of that Mick's skull, however, I heaved a sigh
of relief and dismissed the thought. It would be utterly impossible for
anyone to kill Rusty Harrigan by beating his brains out.

And then it suddenly occurred to me that the redhead must have been
stealthily ambushed. For had he seen the two aboriginals advancing on
our camp clearing, they'd never have survived two quick bursts from
his tommy gun. Rusty Harrigan had the sharpest eye in the service, and
the fastest trigger finger. An eye like an eagle--I remembered someone
having commented. Then I grinned, recalling Leeds' additional bird-like
description of Rusty. And a brain like a wren--Leeds had added.

But eagle eye and wren brain notwithstanding, Rusty was nowhere around
at present. And the most disconcerting factor I faced in an entire
hodge-podge of impossible trouble was the fact that I now didn't know
whether Rusty or Leeds were alive any longer.

So I lay there near the roaring blaze, baking and broiling until my
clothes were sticking fast to my body and my face must have been blood
red. Lay there and went through a special sort of indescribable torment.
Torment which brought into play all my emotions of dread, horrible
suspense, futile remorse, and sick fear regarding the fate of the two
best guys I'd ever known.

And finally, I don't know how much later it was, I caught sight of thick
legs and huge feet moving over toward me. I closed my eyes instinctively
as I heard the guttural grunts passed between my approaching captors.

Hands were grabbing me up, then, like a limp sack of flour, and I found
myself tossed up onto a broad, unpleasantly odorous, bare shoulder.

Then my insides were getting an unpleasant jolting, while I caught
bobbing glimpses of the ground over which I was being carried. Suddenly
the ground became stone, and I realized we were entering the large cave
which I'd first seen on opening my eyes.

The place seemed illuminated flickeringly in some sort, and I decided it
was probably lighted by torches placed along the walls.

We--my carrier and I--must have covered about fifty or sixty yards of
caveway before we came to a halt.

I was just wondering what next, when I was dumped jarringly to the stone
flooring, narrowly missing landing on my skull.

I was twisting around wildly on the floor, trying to get my snoot off
the cold stone, a most difficult maneuver when bound hand and foot, when
hands were once again laid most ungently on my carcass and a stone knife
cut the thongs binding my aching ankles.

       *       *       *       *       *

This, to date, came as the greatest surprise of my captivity. I lay
there motionless, face downward, feeling that my legs were now free, but
dreading to take advantage of the new freedom for fear of some unsubtle
trickery.

A huge hand slapped me on the back--an unmistakable signal for me to
rise to my feet.

But I didn't move. I didn't turn my face for a gander at the
backslapper. I'd turned my noggin once, and gotten a club in the side of
the skull for my curiosity.

I could hear grunt-sounds. They sounded slightly annoyed and a little
bit disgusted. Probably because I wasn't rising so I could be kicked in
the stomach and knocked down again, I figured.

All of a sudden, for no particular reason that hadn't been present all
along, I got boiling mad.

I pulled my knees up under me--my arms were still bound by thongs behind
my back--and tried the grimly precarious balancing feat of rising. Try
to get up without support sometime when your arms are securely tied
behind your back.

The first effort wasn't successful, and wasn't funny. I got but several
feet from the floor before I spilled over on my face.

There were grunt-noises around me this time that sounded like good,
hearty, primeval horselaughs.

I was beginning to turn my slow burn into a boiling rage. And the next
try I spread my legs as wide as I could, one in front of me, the other
behind. It did the trick.

And as I was on my feet, a hearty paw slammed me hard in the back, while
a most familiar voice boomed out jovially.

"Hy-yah, Sarge!"

The voice belonged to Rusty Harrigan!




CHAPTER VI

Enter, a Queen


I whirled around to face him like a dervish showing off, half my brain
digesting the sound of that voice, and the other half refusing to
believe it.

But it was Rusty, all right. Rusty still with a lump on his skull, and
blood caked in those crimson locks of his. But Rusty in spite of hell
and high tide.

I was too stunned to say anything immediately. I could only stare at him
like a blasted idiot, trying to shift my mental gears to a combination
that would handle this impossibility.

For Rusty looked completely unperturbed, utterly at ease, and very much
amused with the antics through which I'd been putting myself in the past
two or three minutes.

"What," I croaked at last, "what in the hell is this all about?"

Rusty's grin didn't leave. He continued to stare smugly at me. And his
self-satisfaction oozed from the tenor of his voice.

"Don't worry about a thing, Burt old boy. Rusty Harrigan of the U. S.
Armored Forces is in complete control."

And then I noticed for the first time what sort of a place this cave we
were in was; and what sort of companions stood all around us.

The cave was an extraordinarily high vaulted affair, and was some twenty
or twenty-five yards wide. Looking back over Rusty's shoulder, I could
see the entrance through which I'd been taken into the place. I could
see the big, roaring fire still crackling down there at the mouth of it.
As I'd originally suspected, huge, crude torches were placed all along
the walls to provide the illumination for the cavern.

And gathered around us, all standing a few respectful yards back from
Rusty, were at least two dozen aboriginals of the type I now am getting
heartily sick of.

Rusty saw my glance, and waved a genial hand at our crude chums and
cavern surroundings. He spoke with the air of a greeter presenting the
keys to a city.

"Some joint, eh?" he said.

I nodded. "Yeah, and some playmates." I paused to get mad all over again
in exactly half a second. "Listen," I thundered, "I want to know what
in the hell this is all about! I want you to start at the beginning
and bring me right up to this minute, chum. I want a blow by blow
accounting!"

Rusty grinned more broadly. "Sure, sure, if you'll wait a minute while
I have your wrist thongs cut." He turned, making a cutting gesture with
one hand over his right wrist. One of the aboriginals grunted, nodded,
and stepped over to me with a stone knife in his hand.

I turned my back and the thongs were sawed through speedily by the
razor-sharp edge of the stone.

The aboriginal stepped quickly back to a respectful distance behind
Rusty.

"Now," I demanded, rubbing my very sore wrists, "get on with it."

"Very simple," Rusty said. "These babies, musta been a good dozen of
'em, crept up on me while I was standing my watch trick. I never knew
what hit me. Guess they beaned me with one of them clubs they carry."

I interrupted him. "For your information there wasn't a dozen of them,
Rusty. There were only two. And you must have been plenty alert to let
them 'creep' up on you."

Rusty colored, and the smug smirk left his face for a minute.

"Maybe so," he conceded. "I wouldn't know how many there was. Maybe
there was thirty."

"There were only two," I repeated.

"Anyhow," said Rusty, "I was ambushed. They jumped down on me from them
trees and--" suddenly he stopped, really flushing this time, as he
realized his slip.

"Ahhh," I said icily, "down from the trees, eh? I didn't know there were
any trees in our clearing. You couldn't have gone just a little bit into
the jungle to snoop around, could you, Rusty?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Rusty looked stricken. "Hell, just thought I'd try a little hunting,
Burt. I was keeping my eye on our camp-site alla time, of course, and--"

"Of course," I said frigidly. "Sure. You were standing your watch duty
and hunting, too. One eye for each."

"Do you wanta know what happened or don't you?" Rusty demanded, mopping
his brow with his sleeve.

"Sure," I said. "Sure, I want to know. And it seems I'm finding out a
lot."

"Well," Rusty put in hastily, "it was like I said. Bam, I was knocked
out like a light. Then I didn't know no more until I come to in this
cave here," he waved his hand. "I wasn't tied up at all. I was just
stretched out flat, and some dame was rubbing my forehead gentle-like,
bringing me around."

"Some dame?" I demanded.

"Yeah," Rusty said. "Wearing one of them skins they all wear around
here, only she had an extra skin." He said the last words in
disappointment.

"You mean one of the gruesome, hairy old bags, beef-fisted Amazons they
have here?" I demanded incredulously.

Rusty echoed my surprise. "Old bags?" Rusty demanded. "I ain't seen any
old muscle bound bags around here. This here dame I'm telling you about
was the only woman I've seen so far."

I spied an aboriginal female in the crowd of flatheads behind Rusty and
pointed to one.

"What do you think she is," I demanded, "a he?"

Rusty's eyes followed my pointing finger. He gulped.

"You mean," he choked, "that the bulgier brutes around here is women,
actually?"

"Elemental, my dear Rusty," I said acidly.

The wench at whom I'd pointed bared thick lips in a gruesomely coy
smile, and I shuddered, turning back to Rusty.

"You mean to say it wasn't a dame of that type who was stroking your
fevered brow when you regained consciousness?" I demanded.

Rusty raised his right hand. "Honest to God, Burt. This wench I tell you
about was a looker, a queen!"

I shook my head pityingly. "You must have been delirious," I scoffed.

"Honest!" Rusty protested.

I frowned. "You certain?" I demanded.

"I'm getting to the point I wanta tell you," Rusty answered. "This
dame, this queen-bee, this looker, seemed to be the Boss over all these
flat-skulled apes around here."

"They aren't apes," I said. "They're primitives, aboriginals."

"Anyway," Rusty declared, "they look like apes." Rusty had a one-track
mind. "And this dame was their Boss, what I mean."

"But why weren't you tied up?" I demanded. "Especially since they took
the trouble to knock you out and tie you up in the first place?"

Rusty spread his hands wide. "That's what I'm getting at," he said
plaintively. "Doncha see what I mean? The dame fell for me like a load
of bricks!"

I could only stand there and gape at the egocentric redheaded mug. Gape,
and shake my head slowly from side to side.

"And so that's why you're up and around," I said. "And is that why I've
been freed?"

"Why else?" demanded Rusty. "These baboons," he waved his hand to
indicate the aboriginals who gaped curiously at us, "were told off by
the knockout babe when they tried to push me around. They're scared as
hell of her, and have been plenty nice to me, ever since she showed 'em
that she wanted nothing but the best for Rusty Harrigan."

Everything was coming too fast and furious now for anything to register
definitely. I put a hand to my forehead, and held another up to Rusty to
quiet him a few minutes.

       *       *       *       *       *

Maybe Rusty hadn't been delirious. Maybe everything he'd just told
me was true. Certainly, the aboriginals around us were definitely no
longer hostile. Certainly, too, Rusty's explanation was as reasonable as
anything else that had happened in the last fifteen hours or so.

"Where in the hell is Leeds?" I demanded, switching the tack.

Rusty looked blank. "Isn't he out there, tied up somewhere like you?" he
demanded.

I shook my head. And then, briefly, I told him all I knew about what
might have happened to Leeds.

Rusty gulped. "Jeeudas," he muttered. "When they brought you in, I felt
sure as hell they'd been bringing Leeds in here pretty soon after."

"Unless," I said grimly, "his brains were bashed out in the tank."

Rusty looked sick. He gulped again, as if fighting for breath that had
been knocked from him.

"I know what you're thinking, Burt," he said quietly. "If I hadnta
been such a damned fool--if I hadn't gone prowling around looking for
something to shoot at, none of us would be in this place, and Leeds
would be al--" he choked off, unable to finish.

I jarred his shoulder sharply with my palm, and there was a mumbling
grunt of interest from the primitives massed behind Rusty.

"Take it easy, redhead," I ordered. "We don't know that Leeds is done
for. I've a hunch he's still very much alive somewhere. And, besides, we
don't know if this situation is good or bad, yet. Tell me more about the
beautiful dame in the animal skins."

Rusty shrugged. "That's about all I know," he said.

"All? Where is she? Where did she go?" I demanded.

Rusty spread his hands, he pointed over my shoulder then.

I turned, looking at the end of the cave to which he pointed for the
first time. I'd been facing in that direction when I'd scrambled to my
feet, but I hadn't even noticed it when Rusty's voice had boomed in my
ear so suddenly.

Now I got my first clear view of the rock-hewn throne dais.

For it was a throne. It couldn't have been anything else. Primitive,
crude, yet nakedly majestic, it towered about six feet from the stone
base of the dais.

And yet it was small. Small, that is, compared to the size it would have
had to be to fit comfortably any creature of the oversized bulk of the
aboriginals.

Gaudy colored feather plumage was the crest which haloed the peak behind
the throne chair itself, and rich fur skins formed a thick carpet all
around the dais.

There was, however, no one occupying the throne at the moment.

I saw the side exit, a cave mouth leading to a smaller cavern corridor,
toward which Rusty was now pointing.

"She went out there?" I demanded.

Rusty nodded.

I started forward, and Rusty grabbed my arm just as an ominous snarling
mutter rose from the aboriginals behind us.

"Not so fast," Rusty exclaimed.

"Getting too close to that throne business is something these baboons
don't seem to like--I know," he concluded, explaining, "I started to
follow her."

I shrugged. "Okay. We'll oblige," I said.

Rusty's hand had suddenly tightened roughly on my arm and he drew in his
breath sharply.

"Look!" he said hoarsely. "There she is!"

But it wouldn't have been necessary for him to have said a word. For the
incredibly gorgeous female creature who had just stepped onto the dais
at the end of the cave announced her entrance by the very electrifying
savage splendor of her presence!




CHAPTER VII

Ordered to Kill


Even the primitives behind us seemed to be holding the breath in their
wide nostrils. And for some reason beyond explanation, my heart was
beating at three times its normal quota.

The girl--her very suppleness and grace of action, not to mention her
slender, beautifully molded body, proclaimed her as a girl--moved
across the dais with such serene assurance, that it was fully half a
minute before I was aware she had ascended the steps to the throne chair
and was now seated regally there.

"That," choked Rusty, "is the broad!"

But even his Main and Broadway remark couldn't break the spell that had
suddenly taken hold of the cave and everyone in it including yours truly.

My jaw must have been fully an inch slack, my eyes ready to be knocked
off by sticks.

And then I saw that she was crooking a delicate finger at Rusty and me,
beckoning us toward her throne, smilingly.

Somehow my legs found locomotion, and I was but vaguely aware that Rusty
moved along beside me as we advanced toward the stone dais and the
throne in which the regally savage beauty sat.

I was able to see her face more clearly as we drew closer. The color of
her hair, which from a distance had seemed to be burnished copper, now
appeared to be rich gold.

Her lips were ripe, and red, and sensuously full. Half-parted as they
were in an inscrutable smile, they took on still richer crimson from
the milk white purity of her even teeth. Those lips moved then, making
sounds that were her words.

But the sounds were nothing like the guttural gratings I'd heard from
the thick lips of the flatheaded savages behind us. They were soft and
_purring_. God knows I had no manner of telling what those sounds meant,
but nonetheless, you could almost subconsciously _sense_ their meaning.

Her eyes were luminously commanding, twin ovals of flashing brown
passion; her cheekbones high, and ivory cheeks delicately tinted crimson
in the almost imperceptible hollows.

And then I was half stumbling on the first steps leading to the dais.
Half-stumbling, unaware of anything save the incredible fascination of
the girl in the throne chair.

She raised her hand high, then, and I found myself--without
thinking--dropping to my knees some five feet before the steps that led
to her chair. I remember noticing Rusty imitating my obeisance, his
features also transfixed in fascination on the girl.

She dropped her hand, then, and the inscrutable smile left her features.
A moment later, and she raised her hand ever so slightly, palm upward. I
found myself rising. Rusty similarly climbing to his feet again.

The girl turned her head briefly toward the side corridor from which
she had made her entrance. Then she looked down at us again, the smile
returning to her incredibly beautiful face.

And from the side corridor there suddenly entered a visibly frightened
aboriginal. He looked like one of the two cave creatures who had
captured us in the clearing, but I couldn't be certain.

And then, in utter amazement, I stared at what he was carrying in his
thick arms.

A pair of tommy guns from the tank!

"Jeeudas!" Rusty exclaimed. "What in the--"

But the _purring_ sounds made by the girl's voice then cut him off. She
spoke to the terrified primitive, who advanced to within three feet of
us, deposited the weapons, and backed frightenedly out of the picture.

I stared at the tommy guns, grateful for the link they'd established
with reality. There seemed suddenly to be less commanding fascination
in the presence of the girl on the throne dais. It was as if
symbolically, those weapons had taken us, mentally at least, thousands
of years up through the future, back into the time era to which we
belonged.

I licked lips gone suddenly dry, thinking how grateful I'd have been for
the presence of those guns when the aboriginals had captured me sleeping
in the tank.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then I found my glance returning to the beautiful features of the girl,
and found myself wondering if she knew the power that lay in those
strangely shaped clubs three feet from us. It occurred to me, instantly,
as if somehow she had mentally answered my question, that she did know;
that perhaps Leeds, Rusty, and I had been watched by hidden eyes not
many hours before, when Rusty had brought down the weird, nine-legged,
giant frog at the fringe of the clearing. Perhaps _her_ eyes too had
seen Rusty's shooting.

She smiled, as if at me, and waved her hand toward the tommy guns in a
gesture that could only mean, "Get them."

I stepped over to the guns, picked them up, turned and handed one to
Rusty, who had been right behind me.

"What the hell is this all about?" Rusty muttered.

I shrugged, fondling the gun in my hands.

"I don't know," I said. "But I've got a temptation to use these."

Rusty was shocked. "You wouldn't!" he protested.

"I have a hunch that tells me it'd be a smart thing to do. Right this
minute," I concluded.

"On the girl?" Rusty gasped.

I shrugged again, trying to keep my glance from returning to those
incredibly beautiful features.

"Why not?" I demanded.

"Why, why she saved us from them baboons!" Rusty protested again.

"For what reason?"

Rusty took his turn at shrugging. "Maybe because we're like her more'n
we're like these baboons."

"There's no more than a standard clip of ammunition with either of these
guns," I reminded Rusty. "Did it ever occur to you that she's trusted
us with 'em because she knows we could only kill a few dozen flatheads
before we'd be through?"

Rusty thought this over. Then he glanced up at the girl on the throne.
She was still smiling. She held out her hand, as if it had a pistol
in it, and pointed it at the stone wall of the cave to her right. I
knew, then, that she _had_ watched while Rusty brought down the strange
frog-like monster not so many hours ago.

"She wants us to try these things," Rusty gasped.

"On the wall," I agreed. "Can you find a target there?"

Rusty squinted. "There's a little, round hollow about six feet up from
the floor," he finally announced. "It's about three inches in diameter.
See it?"

I strained my eyes for a minute. "Yeah," I said finally.

"I'll make it about six inches in diameter," Rusty announced calmly.

"At this distance?" I protested.

Rusty grinned, raising the tommy gun to firing position. He lined his
sights briefly, then triggered the gun in a short, staccato burst which
reverberated in the cave like cannon fire.

The aboriginals shrank back in awe. And glancing swiftly at the girl
on the throne chair I saw that she was still smiling. From her very
expression I could tell that she knew the target Rusty had selected,
and had a pretty good idea of what he'd boasted he could do to it.

"Take a look," Rusty told me.

I crossed over to the wall, finding the hollow Rusty had selected as his
target. It was almost exactly six inches in diameter, now, and deeper
than before!

I didn't have to look further to see that not a single bullet had
scarred the smooth wall surface anywhere but in the exact center of
Rusty's target.

"As called?" Rusty asked.

I nodded. "As called."

Returning to Rusty's side I had another chance to study the expression
of the incredibly beautiful girl on the throne chair. Her smile was even
more delighted, now, and her eyes glowed with satisfaction.

"You've pleased Her Majesty, at any rate," I told Rusty.

"But what's the pitch?" Rusty demanded. "Why did she order this
exhibition?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Unable to answer him, I glanced again at the girl on the throne chair.
The smile had left her face, and her sensuously full red lips were now
fixed in what seemed to be savage anticipation. She was looking past us,
down toward the mouth of the cave, where we could hear sudden sounds of
commotion.

Rusty and I turned in that direction immediately. The aboriginals
between the throne dais and the cave mouth were parting in an avenue
down which four of their compatriots dragged two inert, bound bodies.

"I'm beginning to get an idea, Rusty," I whispered quickly. "I think
lovely golden locks on the throne intends to make us into a two man
execution squad."

The four aboriginals dragging their two captives were drawing closer
now. Closer, so that it was possible, now, to make something of the
appearance of their captives.

And suddenly I gasped.

For one of those bound captives was Leeds McAndrews!

Rusty saw as much at the same moment I did. He grabbed my arm.

"Good god, Burt!" he choked.

"Take it easy," I warned him through set teeth. "We've got these tommy
guns in our hands yet. Let's see what's what."

And then the Neanderthal men were dragging Leeds and the other trussed
body past us and up to within two feet of the throne on which the girl
sat.

Leeds was out cold, body limp in the thongs that bound him, shirt and
coveralls torn, head cut from cheek to temple.

And then I noticed the other captive. Noticed and sucked in my breath
in sharp surprise. For the bound victim besides Leeds McAndrews was not
another shaggy Neanderthal, even though he was clad in typical loin skin
attire and his black hair was matted and shaggy.

"Look at that other guy," Rusty whispered. "He ain't no baboon. Even if
he's dressed like one!"

I was trying to figure out this new and very rapid twist to things. Who
was the blackhaired young guy in the loin cloth? Had he been captured
simultaneously with Leeds, or was he just a captive they'd had around
here on ice somewhere?

It was apparent, now, that all the peoples of this past civilization
weren't the thick, aboriginal swine that we had first encountered and
who now were the majority crowding this cave. The entrance of the
sensuously beautiful girl on the throne chair had been the first
indication of that. And now the appearance of another less primeval
species of human being added confirmation to my first guess.

The girl was speaking now, _purring_ of course. But there was a savage
venom in the sound words she directed at the four primeval apes who
stood over the captives they'd just dragged in before her.

The four turned then, frightenedly, and left the dais with stumbling
haste. And then the girl's gaze was fixed on Rusty and me.

She held out her hand, pointing with one slim finger to the two captives
at her feet. She _purred_ something between set, milk white teeth.

I shuddered, sensing the meaning of the sounds she _purred_. A most
unwholesome meaning. A meaning confirming my suspicions the moment I'd
seen the aboriginals dragging the captives in through the mouth of the
cave.

And then her slim finger was pointing commandingly at the tommy guns
Rusty and I had in our hands. There was no mistaking that silent
command. It said, "_Kill these two!_"




CHAPTER VIII

Into the Jaws of Death


Even Rusty got the implication of that commanding gesture.

"Burt," he gulped, grabbing my arm, "do you think she means what I think
she means?"

I nodded, unable to answer that one lightly.

"What the hell," Rusty muttered grimly, "she's off her trolley."

"Take it easy," I warned him. "Don't lose your head. Sit tight."

I moved over to where Leeds McAndrews and the blackhaired young guy in
the loin cloth lay. Bending over Leeds, I grabbed him by the hair and
jerked his head back so that I could look into his face.

Looking up swiftly at the girl on the throne, I saw that her expression
was one of puzzled watchfulness. I let Leeds' head drop back carelessly,
registering an expression of as fierce contempt as I could command.

Another glance at the girl left me in doubt as to how the act was going.
But I'd started this thing, and there wouldn't be any sense in dropping
the scheme now. Unless she got wise.

I dropped to one knee beside Leeds, looking up for an instant to flash a
warning glance at Rusty, who still stood frowningly where I'd left him.

Rusty seemed to catch the signal well enough, so I brought back my right
hand in an open palmed arc, swinging it down hard on Leeds' cheek. It
shook him. Shook him hard. But his eyelids only flickered. I registered
another contemptuous glance for the benefit of the savage beauty on the
throne. From the corner of my eye, I could see the trace of a satisfied
smile forming on her sensuous lips.

I took a deep breath. I didn't like doing this. But it was the only way
I could bring Leeds around without rousing suspicion. And he had to be
conscious and on his feet, if we were to get any decent chance at a
getaway.

Another open palmed slap, hard. It brought the blood flushing to his
cheeks, and this time his eyes blinked more rapidly, stayed open half a
second, unfocused, then closed once more.

I followed it with a third slap, stinging, brutal.

It did the trick.

Leeds McAndrews opened his eyes, looking bewilderedly and unbelievingly
about him.

"Burt," he croaked. "Good god, Burt!"

"Easy," I said harshly. "I hate your guts, understand? For the benefit
of the damsel up on that rocky throne chair I hate you enough to want to
wake you up before I kill you. Get it?"

I made those words extremely snarly, and added appropriate facial
expressions. For the benefit of the bloodthirsty and beautiful savage
wench on the throne, of course.

Leeds McAndrews reacted magnificently. Dazed and shaken though he was;
bewildered as he might have been concerning all this, he put an instant
register of fright on his features.

"Yeah," he said in the tone of a stool pigeon sweating under a police
beating. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. You scare the hell out of me. What's
up?" He contorted his features fearfully.

"Little cutie pants on the throne wants us to rub you and the young
strong man with you. Just to show how well our tommies work," I said
wrathfully.

Leeds forced another frightened expression. "It fits in, Burt," he
bleated in well-feigned terror. "It fits in perfectly. This dame on the
throne is a female Hitler, Neanderthal style. She's a renegade from the
primitive tribe that I stumbled on trying to find you lads. A tribe much
more advanced than these Neanderthal ape-men with whom she's trying to
start a blood-rule. This young Tarzan beside me is a member of the tribe
that threw her out. We were caught by a raiding party of your female
Hitler's bunch."

I got a swift glimpse of the girl on the throne from the corner of my
eye. Her satisfaction was beginning to wane a bit, and I sensed that our
act was losing punch. I slapped Leeds hard across the face and stood up.

"Help me drag these two over against the wall," I yelled at Rusty.

Rusty had heard it all, and his eyes were bugging. But he did his best
to look savagely delighted as he moved over beside me.

"Take the blackhaired kid, Rusty," I told him. "Slap him into life.
He'll have to be awake and on his feet, same as Leeds."

Rusty stepped between Leeds and the blackhaired young savage in the loin
cloth, bending over and letting the latter have one hard across the
mouth. I had time to notice that it brought Leeds' fellow captive around
immediately. Then I had to busy myself dragging Leeds across to the cave
wall.

I made it laborious going, and as I did so, loosened the thongs that
were knotted around Leed's wrists.

"That'll leave your hands free to get to work on your leg bonds," I
muttered.

"Good boy," Leeds said, and he made it sound like a whimper.

I could see Rusty doing the same stalling with the loin-clothed young
savage. Then we were both propping Leeds and the long maned kid up
against the wall.

       *       *       *       *       *

We turned, then, and went back to the place where we'd left the tommy
guns.

"What in the hell now?" Rusty muttered as we bent to retrieve the
weapons.

I gulped. "Give me a minute to think," I said. "I haven't got it all
clear yet. There isn't enough ammunition to blast our way out of here
through all those thick skulls. And that leaves just one other solution."

"Jeudas, be fast with it," Rusty muttered. Sweat was dripping down the
redhead's forehead.

"You cover up for Leeds and the junior Tarzan," I said. "Keep the apes
at bay. I'll handle the girl. She'll have to be a hostage."

I turned from Rusty, then, and advanced toward the throne chair where
the girl was seated. I put on my Sunday smile, and hoped to God that the
old Main Street charm would work as well thousand years in the past as
it had in twentieth century barrooms.

The tommy gun was nestling in the crook of my arm, and as I met the
incredibly beautiful savage's eyes, something inside me turned to water
and I prayed mentally that she wasn't good at reading minds.

She watched me advance toward her expressionlessly. Her eyes were
speculative, and her glance flitted from me to Rusty to the pair of
trussed captives lined up against the far wall of the cave for the
slaughter.

Several feet from the throne I dropped to one knee. I still kept my eyes
fixed on hers, however, in spite of what the effort did to a limp little
spot in my stomach.

Then I held out both hands, with the tommy gun resting on them, palms
upward.

Quite a gesture. After you, lady. Anybody to be killed, I wouldn't
_think_ of depriving you of the first shot.

The girl on the throne squinted down at me in surprise. She hadn't
expected this. And then the surprise gave way to an expression of
curiosity and flattered delight. I had counted on the fact that even
the most primitive of women would be both inordinately curious and most
susceptible to flattery.

Almost without thinking, the girl rose slightly in the throne chair and
reached forward to take the tommy gun from my hands. But I'd figured on
that and placed myself so she'd have to--

She stood up and descended one step.

I drew my arms in ever so slightly.

She reached forward, stepping down the second time.

And then I stood up. Stood up and jammed the gun right smack into her
naked middle, wrapping one arm around her shoulder and throat as I did
so!

"Cover, Rusty!" I yelled.

I whirled, with the snarling girl in my arms, shifting the tommy gun
muzzle until it bored unpleasantly into her back. But now I could see
the swarming Neanderthals in the cave. And I could hear the ominous,
animal-throated growls that rose to their lips as they dully perceived
what had happened.

One of them, a huge, lumbering ape, made a rush toward me.

I heard Rusty's gun chatter, and saw the human monster tumble awkwardly
forward to the floor, face splattered with his own blood.

That stopped them all for a moment. Even the girl I held as hostage
in my arms. She stopped squirming the instant she saw the Neanderthal
tumble. Obviously, she had just recalled that the weapon I had pressed
into her lovely golden back was deadly.

Leeds had freed his leg thongs, now, and was rubbing the circulation
back into his muscles as Rusty continued to keep a covering scrutiny on
the white and frightened ape creatures who now milled around uncertainly
at a safe distance from us.

Then I saw him turn to the young savage, who had freed himself in half
the time that Leeds had. He muttered something to the loin-clothed young
primitive, and I had scarcely time to wonder how in the hell Leeds was
communicating intelligibly with him, when Rusty yelled in my direction.

"What now, Napoleon? Those damned apes is jammed in this cave. We've not
enough ammunition to cut our way through 'em, remember?"

I realized that, of course. The aboriginals were now almost fifty thick,
massed between the cave entrance and where we stood on the throne dais.

Leeds shouted, then, gesturing toward the side entrance through which
I'd first seen the beautiful savage wench make her appearance.

"A corridor passage," he called. "Yenga, here, knows the way. We'll
follow him."

Yenga. I had time to note that man but briefly, and marvel. In
that short time, Leeds must have exchanged calling cards with the
comparatively civilized young savage in the loin cloth. But it wasn't
surprising. Nothing was ever surprising where Leeds McAndrews was
concerned. And now I was damned thankful that he was recognized by at
least one chamber of commerce in this time era as a right guy. For
Yenga, if that was the savage youth's name, was going to be valuable.

       *       *       *       *       *

The savage youngster in the loin cloth had darted toward the side
entrance just off the throne dais that Leeds had indicated. And now,
still grappling with my lovely problem, I moved slowly across the stone
platform toward that exit.

The savage wench was very still, now, very willing to do what seemed
to be the thing to keep her alive. For which I was fortunate. Had she
struggled, I don't know if I'd have had the heart to plug her. Women are
always women, no matter what heels they may be by human standards. And
rubbing out such a beautiful, though malignant, wench, would have taken
quite an effort on my part.

None of the aboriginals were making a move toward us. The sight of their
fellow flathead lying in a spreading pool of his own blood, had stopped
them all. I think the fact that Rusty had killed the guy from such a
distance and so mysteriously was really the only factor that kept them
from all rushing us at once.

They were scared and bewitched. And the dragging around I was giving
their Queen Bee didn't add to the prestige of the primitive young wench,
at least in the eyes of her flatheaded aboriginal yes-men.

Leeds, Rusty, and the young Yenga were waiting at the side cave corridor
when I got there. Rusty stood outside a little, keeping his gun trained
on the mob of primitives.

Leeds had the thongs with which he and Yenga had been bound. Excellent
foresight. And now he used them to tie the sultry and savage wench up
hand and foot, relieving me of some of my burden and freeing me to use
my tommy gun should it be necessary.

Yenga, the young black maned savage, grunted something at Leeds, and
I'll be damned if the lanky McAndrews didn't seem to understand the
grunt jargon.

"He says we'd better get going," Leeds translated, "but fast!"




CHAPTER IX

Tank vs. Dinosaur


Turning, I glanced down the darkened passage of the cave corridor. From
somewhere back at the outlet of it, there came a sudden damp gust of
wind.

"What about this dame?" I demanded.

Leeds hesitated.

"We'd better take her along for a bit," he said. "Otherwise she'd be
making trouble for us the instant we left her."

I nodded toward Yenga. "How about having your nice little friend carry
her awhile?" I suggested. "That would leave Rusty and me free to cover
our getaway with the tommies."

Leeds nodded. He turned to the young savage with the long black hair and
the surprisingly intelligent face. Slowly, he made a few well chosen
grunts. I listened astounded, and was further amazed when the young
primitive seemed to catch on. He nodded, stepped over to where the
golden haired female tigress lay tied hand and foot. In an instant he'd
swept her up over his massive young shoulder and turned back down the
corridor.

"You seem to be the interpreter," I said to Leeds. "You move along with
Yenga. Rusty and I will cover."

The going was tough through the dark and slippery cave passage. Leeds
and Yenga, up in front, stopped every so often to wait for Rusty and
me. Only once did a valorous and curious Neanderthal attempt to follow
us down the corridor. And when he poked his nose into the entrance, the
light behind him outlined him as a perfect target. I brought him down
with a short burst from my tommy gun.

It must have been fully five minutes later, after we'd covered several
bends and turns in the black, dank passage, that we saw the pinpoint of
light that promised exit and escape.

I mentally breathed a prayer of thanks for our having Yenga on our side
of the fence. Without him, we'd never have found our way through this
labyrinth. Then, some three minutes later, Yenga, with the bound girl
still over his shoulder, and Leeds stood waiting at the exit as Rusty
and I scrambled and slipped hastily up to them.

The exit to which Yenga had led us was on a high cliff side, overlooking
a deep jungle valley. And even as we stood there catching our breath,
the loin-skinned lad was pointing down to the right of the valley at an
ascending stretch of cleared ground running up toward the mountain on
which we stood.

He grunted something briefly to Leeds, making signs with his hands. And
while I was waiting for my lean, lanky chum to interpret the primitive
jargon, I caught the first sign of what Yenga was driving at when he'd
pointed to that ascending stretch of clearing.

There was movement, faint but noticeable, in the tangled jungle
underbrush around that clearing. Movement that indicated the presence
of something other than animal life. Yenga had dropped the incredibly
beautiful savage wench to the ground now, and was grunting something
further to Leeds, with additional hand gestures.

"Yenga's tribe is staging an attack," Leeds said, turning to me. "You
can notice them over by that clearing, if you look closely enough.
They've planned a raid on the Neanderthal bunch we just gave the slip
to. That clearing over there leads to the other side of this mountain,
or the front of the cave community we just left."

I squinted hard, trying to see something more than just the suggestion
of movement that I'd first noticed. Dawn was turning the sky from black
to gray, now, and visibility was fairly good across the deep little
valley.

"How many of them are there?" I asked.

"Four or five hundred," Leeds said.

"And are they all like Yenga, I mean, somewhat more civilized than those
flatheads we just left behind?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Leeds nodded. "They're a strangely advanced level of society in this
primitive world. Pretty far ahead of the flatheads. It's hard to
understand how they progressed to the stage they're now in, when the
rest of the human element in this time forsaken era are still just a
stage past the apes."

"Then they shouldn't have any trouble whipping the flatheads," I said.
"Especially since we've got the flatheads' renegade princess neatly tied
and out of the struggle."

Leeds shook his head dubiously. "It's not as easy as that," he declared.
"I told you that the tribe Yenga is part of numbers some four or five
hundred. But I didn't add that there're more than two thousand of these
flatheads holding this mountain."

I whistled. "I see what you mean."

Leeds paused a moment. "Our tank," he said, pointing with his finger
over the cliff edge, "is down there on the other side of the valley.
We're almost out of rounds for the tommy guns, and they wouldn't be
enough to handle a couple of thousand Neanderthals alone. Plenty of gun
power and ammunition in the M-3, however," he concluded.

"Listen," I began, getting what he was driving at.

"We're fighting men, aren't we?" Leeds asked. "No matter what time era
this happens to be, we're still fighting men. We don't know if we're
going to get out of this mess we're in, ever. And if we've got to stay
around this neck of time from now on in, I think it'd be a good idea
to see to it that we'll be living with primitives who have a slant on
things a little closer to our own."

"Listen," I picked up where he'd cut me off. "You don't have to talk
us into anything, Leeds. Ever since we were clubbed cold by those
flatheads, Rusty and I have been aching to get back. How far is the
tank, in minutes, mean?"

Leeds looked down across the valley. "About ten or fifteen minutes away,
with Yenga as a guide," he said.

Rusty came up beside us. He'd been standing there quietly, listening to
us and figuring it out.

"What in the hell are we waiting for?" he said.

Leeds grinned. "I don't know why I thought I'd have to reason with you
mugs," he said.

"How about the dame?" Rusty pointed to where the renegade wench of the
wondrous beauty lay beside Yenga's feet.

Leeds thought a moment. "Taking her along would only slow things up."

"We'll stick her behind a big boulder," I suggested. "She's tied tight
enough to stay that way."

"She'll starve to death," Rusty protested.

"We'll come back for her when we've mopped up on the flatheads," Leeds
said. "Then we can turn her over to the tribe she loused on. They can
decide their own justice."

"Fair enough," I told him. "Now let Yenga in on it and we'll get
started."

Leeds turned to the blackhaired young savage in the loin cloth. He made
gestures with his hands, pointed across the valley, and grunted one or
two terse sound-words.

Yenga seemed to catch, for his lips went flat against his white teeth in
a savagely pleased smile. He nodded his head rapidly up and down.

I turned and looked around the cliff edge on which we stood. There was
a large boulder several yards away, and I jerked my thumb at it, then
pointed at the girl on the ground.

"Let's file her away for future reference," I said.

Leeds nodded, and with Yenga, lifted the girl and carried her over
behind the boulder. Her mouth was tight with rage, and her eyes flashed
electrical sparks, but she didn't make any sound.

Yenga and Leeds reappeared from behind the boulder.

"Let's get started," said Rusty. He pointed down toward the cleared,
rising elevation at the corner of the valley. "They're getting under
way," he said.

We both followed his gesture. Squinting hard, I could see the evidences
of motion in the tangled underbrush around the clearing growing more
definitely obvious. The motion was toward the mountain where the
flatheads, unsuspecting, were probably still trying to figure out what
they should do about the loss of their leader.

"Yeah," I said. "We'd better get stepping."

       *       *       *       *       *

Yenga took us down a side trail, steep and rocky and hidden by thorny
green brush that tore sections of skin from our faces as we moved along
its twisting course.

After about five minutes we were in the moist green underfooting of the
valley bed itself. And here the going became even tougher. There were
vines and trailers that hung low over the scantily marked trail Yenga
now guided us along; some of them, almost as if alive, catching and
twisting around our legs and arms to further slow up our progress.

Although the sun wasn't up as yet, the very dank heaviness of the jungle
around us was hot and humid, so that we were bathed in sweat after five
more minutes following the swift, lithe leadership of Yenga.

And it was five minutes after that when Yenga, some ten yards on ahead
of us, suddenly disappeared from sight around the bend of the trail.

When we caught up with him he was waiting for us in a clearing. The same
clearing in which we had left the tank; and the sight of the M-3, big
and tough and deadly looking, was the most wonderful thing in the world.

Rusty put our emotions into words.

"Baby!" he yelped. "Oh, you pretty, pretty, baby!"

Rusty and I and Leeds were all grinning like three idiots as we ran to
the side of the M-3. Rusty was first at its side. And the big damned
fool draped an arm around the front of it, patting and stroking the
steel surface.

"To think I'd ever be glad to see you again," Rusty told the tank. "Oh,
you great big beautiful doll!"

"No necking," Leeds grinned. "We've got some fighting to do."

"How'll we get back to those babies?" I asked.

"Yenga can ride the tank and guide us," Leeds said.

I busied myself making a thorough, though hasty, check of the M-3, and
found everything still in perfect order. The old gal was raring to go.

Then Leeds was grunting and gesturing and explaining to Yenga exactly
what he wanted, and the savage youth was nodding his black maned head
excitedly.

Rusty clambered up through the tower and into the tank. I followed him;
and Leeds, finishing his explanations to Yenga, hoisted himself up into
tower position.

I could hear Yenga taking his place on the front of the tank, and then
at Leeds' signal we started up. The sound and feel of something familiar
once again was something that brought a lump to my throat. No matter
where in the hell we were in time, we were at least once again where any
self-respecting tank fighters ought to be--moving out to battle.

       *       *       *       *       *

Rusty chortled and babbled and acted like a small child with a day off
from school as he ordered his guns while we jounced along through the
tangled jungle four minutes later.

Yenga was taking us to the flatheads' mountain side cave camp by a
different route. And the strong young savage seemed to know what were
and were not impassable obstacles for the M-3. He ordered us through
certain sections that we crashed over with ease, and sent us skittering
around spots that might have held us up for minutes. He was doing a job
of it.

And when at last we rolled out onto an ascending stretch of clearing,
I knew that we were covering the terrain that led directly up to the
mountain stronghold of the Neanderthal bunch. And it was as I turned
to Rusty to yell something at him, that I heard the first wild shouts
far up ahead of us and saw the swarm of loin skinned savages pouring
from crags and bushes and crannies halfway up the mountain, some eight
hundred yards from the Neanderthals' encampment.

I could tell from the very size, swiftness, and grace of them that they
were Yenga's tribe, and that the attack on the aborigines had begun!

"Get the lead outta this garbage can," Rusty yelled. "There's fighting
starting, and we're being left outta it."

Up ahead, now, I saw the first signs of the burly, flatheaded
Neanderthals rushing from their caves, carrying clubs and stone knives,
and hefty rocks of no little size.

They met the attack of their less crude brethren with wild fury, and the
wave of Neanderthals meshed and locked with that of the attackers from
Yenga's tribe.

Yenga's bunch were hurling smaller missiles, rocks about the size of a
hand grenade. And I saw the method of their attack instantly. It was
obvious that they didn't want any hand-to-hand combat with the ape-like
aborigines, knowing that they wouldn't have equal brute strength. As a
consequence, they waited until the ape-like flatheads drew within six
or eight feet, then letting fly with their grenade sized rocks. Their
aim would have put Bob Feller to shame, for one after another, the
brutish defenders sprawled to the green moss of the clearing, skulls
crushed by the well aimed missiles.

But additional waves of Neanderthal reinforcements were pouring from the
caves, and although the attackers carried from five to six grenade sized
rocks in crude leather sacks strapped to their sides, they couldn't
throw them forever. It was apparent that they'd be out of ammunition
shortly, with more and more Neanderthals pouring down to grapple with
them.

But the bunch from Yenga's tribe weren't as dumb as I thought they'd be.
Evidently they'd realized this would happen, and now they were drawing
their lines back in as orderly a tactical retreat as I'd ever witnessed.
In their wake they left the dead bodies of more than forty Neanderthals,
while only five or six of their own--who'd been unfortunate enough
to run out of ammunition too soon--lay dead beside the brutes they'd
attacked.

And then Rusty, operating our cannon without orders, let loose with
an earth shaking shot that hit far up behind the struggling savages
and plowed up a flower of black earth less than twenty feet from the
Neanderthals' cave quarters.

It had the desired effect. The ape-like aborigines turned and ran like
hell back to their mountainside stronghold. And this gave Yenga's bunch
a chance to complete their orderly retreat.

We moved on perhaps another four hundred yards, and I could hear Yenga,
still atop our tank, yelling shrill grunts to his tribesmen who had
retreated to the brush once more.

I got the stop signal from Leeds.

His head poked down.

"Ask Rusty if he can reach the mountainside where the brutes have their
caves from this distance," he said.

Through my front vision slot, I could see Yenga clambering down from the
tank and trotting across the clearing toward his tribesmen.

"What's the pitch?" I demanded.

"I told Yenga to hold back his bunch until we give the mopping up
orders," Leeds said. "I have an idea. Ask Rusty about that range."

I asked Rusty.

"What the hell," he grinned, "why not?"

I repeated it to Leeds.

"Climb out, both of you," he said, "and I'll show you what I have in
mind."

We left the tank and climbed down beside Leeds. He pointed up the
ascending section of clearing, indicating the cave community stronghold
up there against the side of the mountain.

And then I realized what Leeds was getting at. The entire Neanderthal
cave stronghold was built underneath a gigantic overhanging crag some
two hundred feet above it.

"Supposing Yenga's bunch, without getting too close, can draw the
Neanderthals out after 'em." Leeds said.

"That'd be easy enough," I agreed. "Then what?"

"Then Rusty, banging away with well placed cannon fire, could blast the
hell out of that overhang. Those big brutes would be buried alive under
God knows how many tons of rock."

Rusty frowned. "We'd have to get up a little closer," he said. "Maybe a
hundred yards more."

"But then you could do it?" Leeds asked.

Rusty grinned. "What do you think?"

Leeds grinned back, then turned toward the underbrush where we'd seen
Yenga disappear after this fellow tribesmen. He waved his hands four
times, semaphore fashion.

"Let's go," Leeds said. "I've given Yenga the signal to start."

       *       *       *       *       *

We were moving along slowly a minute later, giving Yenga's bunch a
chance to get well up to the clearing, close but not too close. Rusty,
at his cannon beside me, was grinning delightedly.

"Okay," Rusty said a minute later. "I got range enough."

We halted. Ahead, the wave of Yenga's savage buddies swept up toward the
cave community, yelling like hell and hurling rocks. And then it started
to rain. Just like that. A deluge, breaking from the gray skies without
the slightest announcement. It was a terrific downpour. The sound of it
banged like hail against the tank sides.

Rusty cursed. "Makes it tougher," he said. "Can hardly see a damned
thing through this!"

But even through the sheet of the downpour, I could see that the
Neanderthals were pouring from their cave, rushing out to meet this
second assault from Yenga's tribe. And then I caught the faintest
glimpse of something else. Something that made me refuse to believe
my eyes. I wasn't certain, but I thought for an instant that I'd had
a glimpse of the incredibly gorgeous renegade wench up there near the
caves. How on earth she'd be found, or returned to her thick-witted
subjects, I didn't have time to ponder.

"For God's sake," Leeds yelled down. "Get that range and start hammering
away. If you don't hurry Yenga's bait will be gobbled up by those
flatheaded slobs!"

Rusty had the cannon trained. And then, as the gun blasted, the entire
landscape was bathed in a jagged white flash of lightning, affording us
a split-second view of the effect of that burst.

It hit the overhang back and to the right, spraying a shower of rock and
slag in every direction, and starting a jagged break along the very base
of it.

"Jeeudas!" Rusty muttered. "My eyes are going back on me. That was three
feet from where I wanted to place it."

I didn't have time to grin. The next cannon blast shook loose in half
a minute. There was no lightning this time to show us its effect, and
for twenty awful seconds we held our breath, guessing. The sudden awful
crashing that followed a split second later was a most beautiful sound,
sweeter than music. Rusty's second shot had done it. The overhang was
crashing down with a tremendous roaring fury!

"You got 'em! You got 'em! Oh, you sweetheart!"

It was Leeds' voice, and he was poking his head down from the tower and
chortling like a man gone mad.

"You buried the whole damned bunch," he yelled. "There won't be one of
'em left alive!"

But we could still hear it. The noise of the thunderous avalanche
started down that mountainside by Rusty's magnificent gun work. It was
the wildest, angriest rumble of stone and mountain you've ever heard.

"What about us?" I yelled up at Leeds. "Hadn't we better back out of the
path of any complications that the avalanche might start?"

A savagely blinding flash of lightning seared the sky at that moment.
It was almost too close for comfort. And then, less than half a second
after that, another similar jagged ribbon of electrical fury split the
air.

Leeds McAndrews suddenly poked his head down from the tower.

"Burt," he yelled. "Burt, poke your nose out and see what's going on!"

He clambered up out of the way, and I followed him, sticking my head
out of the tower. Leeds was pointing excitedly up at the mountainside.
Pointing to the bare, scarred side where Rusty's shots had blasted loose
the overhang.

Lightning flashes, dozens of licking tongues of them were slashing white
hot ribbons at that surface. Hardly ten seconds passed between each one.

"Some mineral, some conductive ore, must have been behind that
overhang," Leeds said excitedly. "It's drawing every streak of lightning
in the sky toward it!"

"A damned good reason for our getting away from here," I said. "Climb in
and I'll wheel this baby around and away. We wanta find some healthier
spot in this jungle than here!"

Leeds was grabbing my shoulder, and his fingers were digging hard into
my arm. He was pointing again; pointing at the swarms of primitives,
Yenga's tribe, dashing down the mountainside toward us.

"They're running away from it, too," Leeds said. "They don't even want
to stick around and dance about their victory."

"Once again I admire their brains," I said. "Climb in and let's set a
pace for them."

Leeds shook his head. "It's a natural," he said. "It's the only thing
near a chance."

"What are you babbling about?" I asked.

"We're going up there," Leeds said. "Over the debris left by the
avalanche. Smack up into that electrical storm belt!"

"Have you lost your mind?" I grabbed his arm and tried to pull him down
into the tank.

"Don't you see?" Leeds demanded. "It's a chance. We got here through
electrical energy waves as they reacted on the damned radio device in
our tank. It's the only way we'll ever leave. We can't hang around here
for centuries, waiting for another lucky blast of lightning to strike
us. We may never have the chance to walk right into it again!"

       *       *       *       *       *

And then I got it. Got it and felt suddenly weak inside. For even though
it was a chance, it was no more than that. It might work, or it might
mean the end of all of us. I looked up there at that constant belt of
ragged white flashes and gulped.

"Damn you, McAndrews," I said. "Get down into the tank. I'll put Rusty
in the tower. See if you can get that damned mechanism in the same state
as it was before!"

Rusty poked his head into the tower. "What's up?" he demanded.

"You're top man," I said. "Leeds wants to tinker with the radio device
again."

Rusty gave me a disgusted glance. "Are you nuts?"

"That's an order," I snapped.

Grumbling, Rusty changed places with Leeds, and then we were all at
stations again, and I was responding to Rusty's starting signal. We
lumbered up the inclined clearing, headed toward that flashing fury up
on the mountainside, while Leeds muttered frantically to himself and
messed around with the radio device.

The aborigines from Yenga's tribe passed us half way along the
ascension, going in the opposite direction. The glances they gave the
tank were wild and frightened, but the glances they shot over their
shoulders at the electrical storm belt up on that mountainside were
those of stark terror.

"Anytime anyone ever tries to tell me primitives had no brains," I
grumbled, "I'll spit in their eye. That's the direction in which we
ought to be traveling."

"But we aren't," Leeds said tightly. "Keep on moving."

By now we were climbing up and over and around the debris and rock left
by the avalanche, and it was one solid hell of slam-bang bouncing around
we got. I could hear Rusty's profanity tearing loose from the tower.

And then, a scant three hundred yards off from the lightning belt, we
heard the noise that was like thunder, trumpeting, and grunting all in
one.

It was like no other noise I'd ever heard in all my life. It sounded
alive.

Rusty's yell followed it immediately. And we hit an up-bounce an instant
later that gave a brief and hideous view of the cause of the noise.

My yell was drowned in the second thunderous roar of the beast that
stood less than fifty yards from us, directly between our tank and the
flashing lightning fury on the mountainside.

And when I say beast, I mean dinosaur!

My heart was in my throat, and unable to speak, I tugged at Leeds'
sleeve, pointing frantically out the vision slot. He leaned over, peered
out and saw the dinosaur.

His face was chalk white when he turned to me.

"What a lovely little obstruction we find in our way," he managed.

"Get to post at the cannon," I snapped. Leeds scrambled back to the gun
position.

There was another terrible roar from the huge beast, and it started
toward us, its long neck and snake-like head swinging combatively back
and forth as it sized us up.

"I'm finding a flat spot," I yelled at Leeds. "Then we stop and let that
monstrosity make the next move. In a twenty yard range, open up!"

It took another half minute to find the spot I wanted; another half
minute and another twenty yards. That left the monster just thirty yards
off. It was still surveying us, but moving closer cautiously.

Rusty booted me in the side of my helmet, and I inched over while he
came down. Wordlessly, he went to the other gun, as I slid further out
of the way. I clambered around and up toward the tower.

"I'll signal from there," I yelled. "I'll have a better view of the
damned thing."

I poked my head out of the tower and almost choked to death as my heart
skyrocketed up to meet my Adam's apple.

       *       *       *       *       *

The head of the horrible monster was swinging out on that long,
snake-like neck until it was less than thirty feet from the tower of the
tank.

I kicked Rusty down below and yelled, "Fire!" at the same instant.

Leeds and Rusty fired simultaneously. And I saw the sudden flash of
enraged flame shoot into the queer eyes of the thing as its head snapped
up and back and its body recoiled from the force of the gun blasts.

There were two huge rents in the thing's hide. Rents from which poured a
bluish ooze that must have been blood.

"Again!" I yelled.

Once more our M-3's guns blasted, and the huge beast thrashed backward,
its enormous tail slapping dangerously around, almost swiping our tank,
out of existence.

It trumpeted then; that terrifying roar. Trumpeted and started to move
sluggishly, limpingly, toward us. There was hell and fury in those wild
eyes.

"Give it!" I yelled.

Rusty and Leeds blasted loose again. Blasted loose just as the horrible
head of the monster was sweeping down directly at me in the tower. I
closed my eyes, and clenched my teeth.

There was an enraged, gurgling bellow from the beast, followed by the
sounds of terrible threshing, and stone and slag and rock banged against
the sides of our tank.

I opened my eyes.

The dinosaur lay some twenty yards off, twisting and thrashing wildly on
its side. But its efforts were growing feebler every second. And I knew
we'd finished it off!

We shifted back to our own positions then, with the exception of Rusty,
who went up into the tower once more. None of us said a word during this
rapid reshuffling. We didn't feel up to it.

Rusty gave me the signal and we were off again, picking our way around
the still dying hulk of the huge dinosaur. The rain was lessening in
force, and up ahead--a scant hundred yards or so now--the lightning
flashes in the area of the cliff scar were less frequent.

Leeds was mumbling and cursing as he saw this, and we were knocking
ourselves out, taking it the hardest and the fastest way. Fifty yards,
now, and we hung on for dear life as we bounced from crag to boulder to
brush.

"Oh, God," Leeds groaned, "we'll never make it!"

And at that instant the white flash of the lightning bolt seared down
at us, splitting the rock less than ten feet from the tank. I had a
sensation of being hurtled forward, and smashing my head hard against
the side of the tank. I could hear Rusty yelling something at the top of
his lungs, while Leeds cursed like a madman....

       *       *       *       *       *

I was dragging my helmet off and sliding along on my stomach to get out
of the tower exit. We were flat on our side, tipped completely over, and
I could hear the rain still pounding against the metal shell of our tank.

I slithered out the tower and plunked flat on my face into a mire of
mud. Then Rusty was helping me to my feet, and Leeds was just crawling
out and we turned to help him.

We stood there, then, the three of us, drinking in the country landscape
like thirsty nomads rescued from a desert. There was no mountain, no
avalanche debris, no stinking sweet primeval valley.

There was just good old Georgia!

Rusty was looking strangely sheepish.

"Look, Burt," he said, plucking at my sleeve, his face struggling
between emotions of shame and bewilderment, "I'm sorry I dozed off.
Damnedest thing. Never done it before in all my life!"

For a minute I didn't get it. Then I looked at Leeds. There was growing
realization on his face. And in the glance we exchanged, there passed a
silent agreement to carry it out this way. For obviously, the redheaded
lug had instantly decided that what had happened was nothing but a dream!

"You," said Leeds sharply, "and your damned dreams. You're to blame for
spilling us like this. You had the tower position."

"Hell," I said to Leeds, "it's just lucky the redheaded ape didn't let
us plough head on into a stone wall."

"Ape!" Rusty said, snapping his fingers. "There was guys like apes in my
dream. And you and Leeds was there. Damnedest thing, huh?"

It was better this way. My, so much better. For even though Leeds and I
knew the facts we'd never be such fools as to put ourselves in line for
the booby hatch by spilling such a yarn to Old Blue Bolt. And Rusty,
bless his little soul, would have spread the story all over camp.
_But_--and I took a deep breath and thanked God--the redhead figured it
was all a dream.

"Yeah," I said, feeling the nice, warm twentieth century, Georgia rain
cooling my forehead. "Yeah, it was certainly the damnedest thing!"

Leeds grinned at this perfect understatement....


[The end of _Blitzkrieg in the Past_ by David W. O'Brien]