ble-bodied youth I could muster
was enrolled in my infantry battalion and spent most of his time in
vigorous bayonet practice. And for the same reason I had discarded the
idea of armor. I felt it would be clumsy, and questioned its value.
True, it was an absolute bar against the disintegrator ray, but of what
use would that be if a Han ray found a crevice between overlapping
plates, or if the ray was used to annihilate the very earth beneath the
wearer's feet?

The only protective equipment that I thought was worth a whoop was a
very peculiar device with which a contingent of five hundred Altoonas
was supplied. They called it the "umbra-shield." It was a bell-shaped
affair of inertron, counterweighted with ultron, about eight feet high.
The gunner, who walked inside it, carried it easily with two shoulder
straps. There were handles inside too, by which the gunner might more
easily balance it when running, or lift it to clear any obstructions on
the ground.

In the apex of the affair, above his head, was a small turret,
containing an automatic rocket gun. The periscopic gun sight and the
controls were on a level with the operator's eyes. In going into action
he could, after taking up his position, simply stoop until the rim of
the umbra-shield rested on the ground, or else slip off the shoulder
straps, and stand there, quite safe from the disintegrator ray, and work
his gun.

But again, I could not see what was to prevent the Hans from slicing
underneath it, instead of directly at it, with their rays.

* * * * *

As I saw it, any American who was unfortunate enough to get in the
direct path of a "dis" ray, was almost certain to "go out," unless he
was locked up tight in a complete shell of inertron, as for instance, in
an inertron swooper. It seemed to me better to concentrate all our
efforts on tactics of attack, trusting to our ability to get the Hans
before they got us.

I had one other main unit besides my bayonet battalion, a long-gun
contingent composed entirely of girls, as were my scout units and most
of my auxiliary contingents. These youngsters had been devoting
themselves to target practice for months, and had developed a fine
technique of range-finding and the various other tactics of Twentieth
Century massed artillery, to which was added the scientific perfection
of the rocket guns and an average mental alertness that would have put
the artilleryman of the First World W