They resemble
large slugs with an underside a little like the flattened rockers of
a rocking-horse, slugs between 20 and 40 feet long. They are like
flat-sided slugs, slugs of spirit, who raise an enquiring snout, like
the snout of a dogfish, into the air. They crawl upon their bellies in
a way that would be tedious to describe to the general reader and
unnecessary to describe to the enquiring specialists. They go over the
ground with the sliding speed of active snails. Behind them trail two
wheels, supporting a flimsy tail, wheels that strike one as incongruous
as if a monster began kangaroo and ended doll's perambulator. (These
wheels annoy me.) They are not steely monsters; they are painted with
drab and unassuming colours that are fashionable in modern warfare, so
that the armour seems rather like the integument of a rhinoceros. At the
sides of the head project armoured checks, and from above these stick
out guns that look like stalked eyes. That is the general appearance of
the contemporary tank.
It slides on the ground; the silly little wheels that so detract from
the genial bestiality of its appearance dandle and bump behind it. It
swings about its axis. It comes to an obstacle, a low wall let us say,
or a heap of bricks, and sets to work to climb it with its snout. It
rears over the obstacle, it raises its straining belly, it overhangs
more and more, and at last topples forward; it sways upon the heap and
then goes plunging downwards, sticking out the weak counterpoise of its
wheeled tail.
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