Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #12 March 2015 | Page 45

Greyhound was described as a general purpose land
frigate, that is to say it had a 12 pounder in its forward
turret and a pair of the new maxim automatic weapons
in turrets on either side. Able to engage both infantry
and enemy vehicles with its mix of weapons. The Village class land frigate mounted a pair of 10 pounders
and though next to useless against infantry did sterling
duty against enemy positions.
Both were dwarfed by the huge land cruisers which
mounted multiple turrets, cannon, machine guns and
more besides.
Greyhound was an ungainly looking thing. Its body
was some 40 feet long but only 12 feet wide, it sat
on a three pairs of steel wheels each six feet tall, the
paired wheels side by side in the middle of the land
frigates hull. Another pair of three foot wheels sat
some five feet forward and aft of the main wheels, and
a clanking belt of tracks ran around the lot.
The naval lieutenant in command of the thing had said
that the smaller wheels front and back were higher than the main wheels to allow for climbing over
obstacles. In practice all that happened was that the
land frigate rocked either forward or back on the crude
suspension system of the middle wheels until the front
or rear wheels touched the ground.
Probably why they were crewed by the navy, anyone
else riding on one would be sea sick in minutes.
The narrow design also caused other problems: the
steam engine was in the centre directly driving the
main wheels, the 12 pounder was in a turret just in
front of the engine, and the hull then narrowed down
beyond the front wheels. The lieutenant was in the
front turret along with a gunner and loader. The driver
was seated in a cramped space just in front of the turret. The two maxims were in separate turrets mounted
just behind the steam engine. The hull here bulged out
to allow them to fire forward around the central smoke
stack.
They had no way of talking to the lieutenant over the
engine noise which led to some natural confusion. Be-

hind and below them, the rear of the land frigate was
boxier and held the two engineers, the water tanks,
and the coal bins. The engineers took it in turns to
shovel coal into the engine literally beneath the maxim
gunners’ feet since these men sat in seats that hung in
the air within the smaller turrets.
There were rumours of French land cruisers, and—
even worse—those German creations that stood on
legs and walked across the battle fields. Or rumours of
weapons that could throw lightning or fire hundreds
of yards. The Germans and Russians were reported to
be working on electrical weapons, the French on fire
throwers and a new type of small rapid firing cannon.
Science was advancing too quickly; men could not
keep up. It had been no more than a few years ago that
electrical lamps had arrived. They were still uncommon in London and rare outside of the big cities,
and yet men sought to build electrical weapons. New
metals, new stronger types of steel, new steam engines
both smaller and more powerful. Land cruisers, walking fortresses, even reports of some sort of flying ship
that did not need a balloon.
To an old battlefield officer like General Summerby,
these were all signs that warfare had changed foreve