Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14 — page 83: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

sand feet. Suppose they turn those rays sidewise on our advancing army? What will happen?” “Bah! You are growing old, General,” sneered the Premier. “Have we not the artillery to blast our way through such infernal machines? Our infantry are men, not machines. They can live through any kind of hell-Are and win the victory. | am fretted at the atmosphere of doubt that covers this council of war. We will attack on the first of October, opening with artillery, follow- ing with cavalry and mopping up with the infantry. These machines you dread so much are only machines, and all machines must be run by men. Kill the men and the machines are harmless, General Hurlung, you will prepare all branches of the army for the attack. Colone! Van Dort, you are dismissed from the service for cowardice. Go where you please, but if you are in Eu- penia at the end of two days, I will have you shot.” Van Dort, drawing his dress sword, broke it over his knee and threw the pieces on the table in front of the Premier. Said Van Dort, “A country that thus rewards honesty is a land rotten to the core.” The men around the table kept an awkward silence as he left the room. Premier Plautz stood up. “You gentlemen know what to do. I will accept no excuses for incompetency. Moronia must be destroyed. We will meet again a week from today. The Secret Service had better follow Van Dort and im- prison him. I do not trust him. Keep him in solitary confinement and I will deal finally with him in a few days.” Van Dort, however, was already in his automobile, leaving Eupenia as fast as he could. He paused at his home only long enough to almost throw his wife and baby and a few valuables into his car; then he started for Moronia at seventy miles an hour. Van Dort was thoroughly mad. For ten years he had served in the air corps of Eupenia, advancing slowly from mechanician to Chief of Service. During that time he had done his best. Under his leader- ship the corps had achieved the finest type of morale. He knew that his men were always ready to gamble on a chance in war, but he could not sit still and sce his entire force sent to what he felt was certain death. During his ten years of military service he had had ample chance to study the Premier. He knew that every man who had dared to oppose Plautz had come to an unfor- tunate end, disgrace, exile or death. Life, to Van Dort, with his wife and baby, was too sweet to be sacrificed unless absolutely necessary. The former Chief of the Air Service fully realized this. He increased the speed of his car. Moronia was his destination for other reasons than because it was the nearest border. He felt he could trust them, as enemies, more than he could trust the other nations who were more friendly to Eupenia. Also, his wife had come from that nation. She was the daughter of a former Moronian general, who had died in the last war. Van Dort had been a member of the army of occupation, and once having met this particular young lady, all his loyalty to Eupenia was insufficient to prevent him from falling in love. He felt that if he had to die, it would be better to die with his wife and baby in the moun- tains of Moronia, than in solitude in an Eupenian prison. The radio message beat them to the frontier, and Van Dort saw that the barricade had been lowered. It was a sturdy wooden gate, but the automobile 81 comiclooks.com |