"077 (B041) - Merchants of Disaster (1939-07) - Harold Davis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Then officers signaled briskly. The troops pivoted, reentered the smoke screen.



That was when the unexpected happened. The first impression the watchers got was that of a receding picture. Smoke screen, proving ground and all appeared to move backward, rapidly.



The effect was that of watching a movie fadeout, where she camera is drawn back suddenly, changing from a close-up to a distant view.



Some of the high military officers yanked their field glasses from their eyes. Still the scene seemed to be dropping backward.



Then gasps came from the officers. A pyrotechnic display of great intensity appeared before them. It started some fifty feet in the air and continued all the way to the ground.



There was a maze of tiny blue and red sparks. The air was so full of them the smoke screen could hardly be seen - but the men beneath that smoke screen remained invisible.



The scene might have been one of awe-inspiring beauty had it not been so unexpected and inexplainable.



A cold chill of dread gripped the watching high command. Hands clenched, faces became tense.



Something was wrong, radically wrong.



The strange sparks laced through the smoke screen as if They had been darts of lightning - but lightning gone mad. The sparks made circles, then seemed to condense into an almost solid sheet of tiny points of fire. Again they appeared like darting light-signals.



A general shouted a command. The watchers darted for automobiles, racing downward toward the proving ground.



Minutes went by before they arrived. But the troops remained hidden in the smoke screen.