The tank's bow slope snagged loops of concertina wire which stretched and writhed until it broke. Republican troops threw themselves down to avoid the unexpected whips of hooked steel. Men shouted curses,although the gap
Des Grieux ignored the sappers.They could cause confusion within the bunker line, but they were no threat to the ultimate existence of the Federal base. The assault battalion, and still more the thousands of Republican troops waiting in reserve, were another matter.
He'd pointed the main gun 30° to starboard in order to blast the team of tank killers. Now his left hand swung the cupola tribarrel a few degrees to port. He didn't change either setting again for the moment. Not even Des Grieux's degree of skill permitted him to aim two separate sights from a gun platform travelling at fifty kph and still accelerating.
But he could fire them, alternately or together, whenever
The tribarrel caught a squad moving up at a trot to exploit pathways the sappers had torn. The Republicans were so startled by the bellowing monster that they forgot to throw themselves down.
Three survivors turned and fired their rifles vainly as the tank roared past fifty meters away. The rest of the squad were dead, with the exception of the lieutenant leading them. He stood, shrilling insane parodies of signals on his whistle.
The tribarrel had blown off both his arms.
Des Grieux's right thumb fired the main gun at another ragged line of Republican infantry. The 20cm bolt gouged the earth ten meters short, but its energy sprayed the sandy soil across the troops as a shower of molten glass. One of the victims continued to pirouette in agony until white tracers from a Federal machine gun tore most of his chest away.
Fires lighted by the cyan bolts flared across the arid landscape.
Hawes in
