The Whippets were peculiarly unfortunate in being so shackled on this

particular day. Such opportunities lay before these machines as never

fell to them again. Within two or three hours of zero the enemy, on

a wide front, was thoroughly demoralised and in flight, with most of

his field batteries captured; and there lay ahead, occupied by his

headquarters, transport and stores, a great stretch of good undulating

country served by numerous roads in fair condition. It was the day of

days for Whippets. The armoured cars, few in number and confined to

roads, did great things; but for a light fast tank the opportunities

were endless. Colonel Buchan is in error when he says that the tanks

employed that day were “mostly of the Whippet type,” for, as we

have seen, there were only ninety-six of the latter. Yet if these

had been let loose on roving commissions, the haul of prisoners and

guns, and the general demoralisation of the enemy, would have been

far greater even than was the case. With extraordinary ineptitude,

the two battalions were dragged about at the heels of Cavalry Brigade

headquarters, a position which alone shows an abysmal misunderstanding

of their functions. Elaborate tactics for their co-operation with

horsemen had been drawn up, but as the horsemen, when they attempted

to advance in any numbers, were checked almost at once by a few

machine-guns, the bulk of the Whippets merely cruised about them in

exposed situations without being able to strike an effective blow.

A few, more fortunate, were set free for their proper tasks, and

showed what might have been accomplished had all been handled in so

bold a manner. Some came into hot fighting about Cayeux Wood, Le

Quesnel, Guilleaucourt, and Harbonnières, along the Amiens-Chaulnes

railway, and, by cutting telegraph and telephone wires, increased the

enemy’s confusion. One, “Musical Box,” of the 6th Battalion, had

an extraordinary career. Passing through the advanced infantry line

and a few cavalry patrols two or three hours after zero, it engaged

a field battery which had already knocked out two Mark V. tanks.

Sweeping round behind the guns, it drove off the crews and pursued

them, killing or wounding nearly all. Turning north toward the railway

near Guilleaucourt, the tank then busied itself with various parties

of fugitives, moved on again after a short halt, entered a German

hutted camp where troops were hurriedly packing up their kits, and

accounted for about sixty of these; continued in chase of fresh bodies

of infantry retiring eastward, shot the drivers of several motor

and horse vehicles, and finally got among some horse and transport

lines near Rosières, where an immense amount of damage was done. The

little tank, being entirely alone, far ahead of its fellows and of

the infantry, was subjected to continual machine-gun fire, and petrol

was pouring down the sides and into the interior from riddled tins

carried on the roof. The petrol fumes, together with the intense

heat, obliged the crew to breathe through the mouthpieces of their

box-respirators. Eventually, about three o’clock in the afternoon--for

the “Musical Box” was in action continuously for nine or ten hours--the

tank was hit by a field-gun and set on fire on the eastern side of

the Harbonnières-Rosières road, beyond our farthest objective for

that day. The officer, Lieutenant Arnold, managed to drag out his two

men, who were overcome with the smoke and fumes. The clothing of all

three was on fire. Endeavouring to escape, after rolling in the grass

to extinguish the flames, the driver was killed, and Arnold and the

second man were captured and brutally ill-used. The full story of this

remarkable exploit was only known after Arnold’s release at the end of

the war.

The heavy tanks had met with most trouble on the two wings. On the

left the enemy’s stubborn defence of the Chipilly Spur, overlooking a

loop of the Somme, held up the 3rd Corps until the next day, and the

5th Tank Brigade had forty machines knocked out, mostly by enfilade

artillery fire from this flank. Those which passed this danger point,

however, did remarkable work, which included the capture of the 51st

German Corps headquarters, with most of the staff, near Framerville,

where the armoured cars helped. The Mark V. Stars of the 15th Battalion

in many cases delivered their unhappy loads of machine-gunners on the

final objectives, but the great size of these machines made them such

excellent targets that a disproportionate number were knocked out,

their crews and passengers being too often burnt to death inside them.

The survivors of the infantry who were carried in them were emphatic in

their determination to have nothing further to do with this method of

transport in action.

The 4th Tank Brigade, working with the Canadians on the right, also

suffered considerable losses in the early part of the day, owing to

Debeney’s Frenchmen being held up for a time along the Avre valley.

The little stream of the Luce, close behind our front line, had to be

crossed without the enemy’s knowledge, and had caused much anxiety,

as on account of its position and the necessity for secrecy, adequate

reconnaissance of it was impossible. All the tanks, except two, crossed

in a dense mist without a hitch and undiscovered by the Germans.

Everything went with a rush at first, and there were few casualties;

but in the second phase of the attack, until the French broke through

the resistance about Moreuil and were able to bring their left level

with the Canadians, tanks and infantry had a hard time at Beaucourt

and Le Quesnel, where the enemy brought field-guns into close action

with great boldness and success. One company of the 1st Tank Battalion,

caught by a battery in enfilade near Le Quesnel, lost in a few minutes

nine out of eleven Mark V. Stars, all of which were burnt out with

heavy casualties to their crews and to the hapless infantry volunteers

on board. One tank commander swung his machine round and steered

straight for the battery, but this desperate and gallant act was

useless. He was killed, with most of his crew and passengers.

Such incidents, however, were only local set-backs in what, as a whole,

was a victory without parallel. On a twelve-mile front we had advanced

at one point to a depth of seven miles. Twenty-four hours after zero

16,000 prisoners and over 200 captured guns had been counted. Amiens

and its railways were freed, and the enemy’s chief means of lateral

communication in this sector, the Chaulnes-Roye line, already was

within range of our field-guns. Only at Chipilly, on the left, had

there been any permanent check; and that flank was in its proper

alignment the next day. The greatest result of all, however, coming as

it did upon the battle of Soissons and Von Boehn’s retreat, was the

profound moral effect wrought upon the German soldier. In this respect

the 8th August stands pre-eminent. Ludendorff himself testifies that

“August 8th was the black day of the German Army in the history of

the war. This was the worst experience I had to go through....” And

immediately, in public and secret documents, he proceeded to point the

moral. The tanks alone had done this thing; and to combat tanks every

nerve must be strained and every effort directed. On 11th August,

while the battle was still in progress, he issued an urgent and secret

order:--

“Troops allowed themselves to be surprised by a mass attack of

tanks, and lost all cohesion when the tanks suddenly appeared

behind them, having broken through under cover of a mist,

natural and artificial. The defensive organisation, both of the

first line and in the rear, was insufficient to permit of a

systematic defence.... As a weapon against tanks the prepared

defence of the ground must play a larger part than ever,

and the aversion of the men to the pick and shovel must be

overcome at all hazards.... Especially, there must be defences

against tanks. It was absolutely inadmissible that the tanks,

having penetrated into our advance line without meeting with

obstacles or anything, should be able to push on along the

roads or beside them for miles.... The principle that a body of

troops, even when surrounded, must defend their ground, unless

otherwise ordered, to the last man and the last cartridge,

seems to have fallen into oblivion ... a large proportion of

our ranks fight unskilfully against tanks. A tank is an easy

prey for artillery of all calibres....”

Then followed a summary of the various anti-tank measures which I have

already described. All this was too late, however; it was shutting

the door after the steed--in this case the German soldier’s nerve and

heart--was irrevocably gone. And Ludendorff must have known, ever since

Cambrai, that against a massed tank attack, supported by good infantry,

no army in the world could stand.

Five days later, on 16th August, Sir Henry Rawlinson added his

testimony in a Special Order to the Tank Corps.

“The success of the operations of 8th August and succeeding

days was largely due to the conspicuous part played by the 3rd,

4th, and 5th Brigades of the Tank Corps, and I desire to place

on record my sincere appreciation of the invaluable services

rendered both by the Mark V. and the Mark V. Star and the

Whippets.

“The task of secretly assembling so large a number of tanks

entailed very hard and continuous work by all concerned for

four or five nights previous to the battle.

“The tactical handling of the tanks in action made calls on the

skill and physical endurance of the detachments which were met

with by a gallantry and devotion beyond all praise.

“I desire to place on record my appreciation of the splendid

success that they achieved, and heartily to congratulate

the Tank Corps as a whole on the completeness of their

arrangements, and the admirable prowess exhibited by all ranks

actually engaged on this occasion.

“There are many vitally important lessons to be learned from

their experiences. These will, I trust, be taken to heart by

all concerned, and made full use of when next the Tank Corps is

called upon to go into battle.

“The part played by the tanks and Whippets in the battle of 8th

August was in all respects a very fine performance.”

About 100 tanks had been knocked out or otherwise disabled in the

first day’s fighting. In the next day’s advance 145 took part, mostly

formed as composite companies, the evil effects of the absence of

any reserves being felt once more. The 10th Battalion helped the 3rd

Corps to clear the Chipilly Spur and the difficult gullies which

abounded in that region, while the 4th and 5th Brigades fought in

Framerville and Rosières and Bouchoir. A few Whippets cut loose from

their leading-strings and penetrated as far as the devastated area of

the old Somme battlefield; but most of these machines remained tied

to the ineffective wanderings of the cavalry, who displayed their

usual _penchant_ for collecting in valleys where they were certain to

be shelled. Another 39 tanks were hit on this day. In the meantime

Humbert’s 3rd French Army had attacked south of Montdidier. On the

10th Montdidier fell, and we were on the edge of Lihons and within

3000 yards of the railway station of Chaulnes. Sixty-seven tanks were

engaged in this fighting, of which 30 were disabled by shell-fire.

Another 40 machines were in again on the 11th, when Lihons was captured

in part and Humbert was on the edge of the much-talked-of Lassigny

_massif_, familiar to Mr Belloc’s numerous readers; and with this the

share of the Tank Corps in the battle of Amiens came to an end. The

battle itself was virtually over. The old tactical ideas of hammering

for weeks at one point had vanished with the acceptance of the new

doctrines of tank warfare. The devastated area had now been reached:

the objectives aimed at had been won; and with the enemy thoroughly

awakened and obsessed with the danger south of the Somme, the time had

come for another blow in the new style in a different quarter.

Some idea of the wastage in tanks involved in a battle of this

description, and of the infinite advantages we might have gained if we

had possessed an adequate supply of these machines, may be gathered

from the following figures and dates. In the four days’ fighting, a

total of 688 tanks had been engaged. No fewer than 480, including

supply-tanks, had been handed over to salvage. The few remaining

fighting machines needed a thorough overhaul before they would be fit

for another battle. There were left the 9th Battalion, with 27 tanks,

which had rejoined the 4th Brigade; the 11th Battalion, with 42, which

had been rushed down from the 1st Brigade to the Somme area, but had

not been used; the 7th and 12th Battalions, still with Mark IV.’s (42

apiece), and the 16th Battalion, with another 42 Mark V.’s, just out

from England. With the 9th Battalion brought up to strength, this

would give 210 tanks as an untired reserve on 12th August. The next

offensive, for which three whole brigades were needed at the very

start, was due for the 21st of the month, or in little more than a week!

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GREAT ADVANCE: FROM BUCQUOY TO BAPAUME.

I.

I can now take up again my own thread in the story and follow it

through to the end.

In the first week of July I returned from Le Tréport to Enguinegatte,

where, as I have said, I found all the company but a few headquarters’

details already gone back to our old camp and billets at Bouvigny. I

followed the next day. Our tanks had trekked across country to Central

Workshops at Erin to be handed in. B and C Companies, in Noulette

Wood, were waiting to entrain for the same purpose; and then the whole

personnel of the battalion was going to Merlimont for Hotchkiss and

driving courses preparatory to drawing its quota of Mark V.’s. The 11th

Battalion was already there, and the 12th, which was to follow, was

to become a light battalion with Whippets. Such, at least, were the

arrangements. In practice, however, things fell out very differently.

On 18th July I came home on leave. Returning on 1st August, I caught

the influenza and a particularly unpleasant bombing raid at Boulogne,

and from there proceeded to Merlimont, where I expected to find the

battalion. I found however, only A Company. B and C had drawn their old

tanks again, and returned to Noulette Wood, where they were engaged in

some mysterious business which turned out to be part of a scheme to

delude the enemy into the expectation of an attack on the Lens front.

At Merlimont I went straight to bed in a hut where I was deluged with

sand every time the door opened, and remaining there three days saw

little or nothing of the place--in which I do not think I lost much.

The day after I began to totter about again in that gentle melancholy

which influenza induces, there came the usual twenty-four hours’ notice

to move. All our hopes, it appeared, had come to nothing. Owing to

Labour troubles at home--the old story--and in view of the certain need

of heavy replacements after the battle of Amiens (then just beginning),

the supply of Mark V.’s and Whippets was insufficient to equip the

whole Tank Corps. In our brigade, therefore, while the 11th Battalion

was to draw its forty-two machines of the new type and be rushed

forthwith to the Somme on the fruitless errand I have mentioned, the

12th Battalion and ourselves were to be re-equipped with our old Mark

IV.’s before leaving for some unknown destination. The 12th, which had

been training as a Whippet battalion, was particularly annoyed. In our

case, I think we came in the end to regard this misfortune as at least

a compliment. If any battalion could make the Mark IV. capable in the

field of rivalling its more powerful and handy successor it was “G”;

and in the end, both the 12th and ourselves, I think, not only rivalled

but excelled the performances of most of the Mark V. battalions. The

amount of work we got out of our obsolete machines was astonishing.

Some of them, almost falling to pieces for want of repair, were still

pressing on with the 4th Army, at the especial request of the Guards

and other infantry, until just before the Armistice, when they had

covered, including battles and all the gambits involved by treks and

approach-marches during the greatest advance since 1914, well upwards

of 100 miles.

We left Merlimont for the Bermicourt area by lorry on 7th August,

and were billeted in Blangy, next door to Erin, on the Ternoise. The

officers of the company occupied a couple of dormitories in the most

depressing institution imaginable--a huge dilapidated religious hostel

for the feeble-minded. Very mercifully there were only a few of these

unfortunates left at the time, mostly old men and women, with two or

three nuns who looked after the establishment; but I know of no place

more chilling and uncomfortable as a residence. We were here for a

week. While the Tank commanders and crews were away at Erin every day,

receiving their Mark IV.’s and equipment, there was little for me to

do. I took a few runners in map-reading classes, drew from the M.T.

workshops at Auchy a new combination Douglas and side-car to replace

my old one, which somebody had smashed up in my absence, and paid the

usual visits to Hesdin, a charming little town temporarily spoilt by

the British Army in general and the Tank Corps in particular. I also

visited once or twice the field of Agincourt, which lies on the hills

above the Ternoise. The country has changed very little, so far as one

can judge, since Henry V.’s insignificant army crossed the river near

Erin, climbed the steep ridge beyond, and stood at bay on the tiny

battlefield. The villages of Azincourt (as it is spelt) and Tramecourt,

between which the French knights were killed in thousands, and that of

Maisoncelles, where Henry established his headquarters on the night

before the battle, still lie invisible in their trees just as they were

hidden 500 years ago. The few fields which separate them are tilled now

as they were tilled then; and only a road, some iron palings, and a

signpost need to be obliterated to re-endue that fragment of landscape

with the air and spirit of the fifteenth century. It was an odd

contrast (if one may acknowledge such obvious reflections) to the vast

tormented battlefields to which we were returning.

The workshops at Erin (which would have startled Henry V.) were now

working full blast in consequence of the Somme battle. Stray crews of

almost every unit in the Tank Corps were there, drawing new or repaired

machines. A party of the 15th Battalion, just blooded at Proyart and

Framerville, and slightly above themselves in consequence, descended

upon our effete heads in the madhouse one evening. Our own orders to

move, couched in the usual cryptic form reminiscent of a dime novel,

reached us on the afternoon of 14th August. The message began in words

like these--“14 crows entrain Birmingham 2 P.M. 15th detrain Dublin 10

P.M. ...” Decoded into sense, this meant that the company would leave

Erin next day for Saulty Station, on the Arras-Doullens road. I had to

find the 1st Brigade advanced headquarters at Sarton, near Doullens,

and learn there the destination of the tanks. Having seen the latter on

their trucks at Erin, I pushed off on my bicycle on the afternoon of

the 15th with Lishman, the company equipment officer, in the side-car.

We ran the brigade to earth in a dilapidated house at Sarton about five

o’clock, discovered that the tanks were to lie that night in Bazèque

Wood, two miles from Saulty, and went on immediately to survey the

route between the two places. We found the wood full of dug-outs, which

promised some shelter for the night, and found also a branch of the

invaluable 6th Corps Club in marquees at Bavincourt, near by, where I

ordered dinner. Owing to various accidents, however, we were not free

to attend this very necessary function until 9.30, and with the tank

train due in at ten we did not dare to leave the station for so long.

The train, of course, chose to be abominably late. We sat and dozed and

hungered in the R.T.O.’s office until long after midnight; and it was

daylight before we had all the tanks camouflaged in the wood and could

begin to think of sleep.

B and C Companies had already arrived at similar hiding-places in

the neighbourhood. The following night, that of the 16th, the whole

battalion, with 42 tanks, moved on to Bienvillers-au-Bois, where there

was a company of the 3rd Battalion’s Whippets. Battalion headquarters

joined us next day and took over our most comfortable billets--which

were very primitive at the best. Bienvillers was a half-ruined and

wholly deserted village about four miles from our front line at

Bucquoy, with which place it was connected by a direct road through

Hannescamps and Essarts. It was surrounded by orchards in full leaf,

in which the tanks were hidden, and where there were also a number of

60-pounder guns installed for the coming offensive. The country to

the eastward was good, rolling, chalk land, forming a series of low

ridges between Bienvillers and Bapaume. Before the German withdrawal to

the Hindenburg Line in the spring of 1917, the front trenches had run

between Hannescamps and Essarts, both of which were entirely ruined.

The present front line, so far as it concerned us, now ran from north

to south as follows: east of Ayette, west of Ablainzevelle, through

Bucquoy, east of Puisieux-au-Mont, and so to Miraumont on the Ancre,

the enemy having just abandoned (on 15th August) the small salient he

had held in front of Puisieux and Serre. Viewed from the high ground at

Essarts, the landscape before us was divided with a curious exactness

into two kinds. North of a line drawn between Bucquoy and Puisieux,

although wasted, desert, and seamed with trenches, it still bore some

resemblance to a state of nature. Fragmentary houses were erect in

the villages, and the trees which invariably surround the latter in

north-east France seemed at a distance to be in fair preservation. But

south of the line the track of a hurricane--the first battle of the

Somme--had sheared everything away. Trees, houses, the very sites of

villages and farms, had vanished in a wholesale annihilation; and the

country westward to Bapaume and southward to the Somme was one vast

nondescript expanse of ruin, broken only by a few stumps or a cloud of

dust. This obliterated area determined, so far as tanks were concerned,

the front of the new attack, interposing a wide gap between the 1st,

2nd, and 3rd Tank Brigades, working with the 3rd Army to the north, and

the 4th and 5th Brigades which were to come into action again with the

4th Army a day or two later. The time was past when tanks were thrust

in, willy-nilly, over any kind of _terrain_.

The 3rd Army’s attack, to be launched on 21st August, was to extend

from Moyenneville to the Ancre--a frontage of 17,000 yards. The first

objective was the line of the Arras-Albert railway, which ran from

Moyenneville through Achiet-le-Grand to Miraumont. On the 22nd the

left of the 4th Army was to come into line between the Ancre and the

Somme, while on the 23rd, south of the latter, the Australians would

renew their advance, so that the offensive would become continuous

from Boyelles to the Amiens-St Quentin road. The battle of Bapaume, as

it is convenient to call the northern part of the combined operation,

was of particular interest in that it brought us against a new system

of defence adopted by the Germans--or rather an old system, tried

with success at Ypres, now revived in greatly altered circumstances.

The idea was defence in depth, the enemy’s front positions as far

back as the Arras-Albert railway being held very thinly, chiefly by

machine-gunners with a number of scattered and camouflaged field-guns

for anti-tank purposes. Behind the railway were his battery positions

and his main line of resistance. The main object of this arrangement

was to hamper the tank attack, the first phase of which would be

delivered as it were in the air, while the German batteries, instead

of being overrun at the start, as happened on the 8th August, would be

waiting 5000 yards in rear to deal with the second phase, which must

always be less coherent owing to loss of tanks, accidents to infantry,

and the general confusion that ensues once a battle has begun. On

21st August this defence in depth caused us undoubtedly a good deal

of anxiety and loss; but such a method can never be popular with that

minority of the defending troops which has to be sacrificed as a matter

of course in the advanced positions, and this disadvantage in the

end outweighed its merits. It was found before long that the German

soldier, whose _moral_ was deteriorating week by week, surrendered so

freely when left without artillery support far in front of the main

defence line that the whole purpose of the scheme was vitiated.

The Tank Brigades had been thoroughly reshuffled before the battle. The

2nd Brigade, on the left of the 3rd Army, consisted now of the 12th

and 15th Heavy Battalions and the 6th Light Battalion (Whippets). The

3rd Brigade, in reserve, had the 9th, 11th, and 14th Heavy Battalions.

The 1st Brigade in the centre was made up of the 7th and 10th Heavy

Battalions, the 3rd Light Battalion, and the 17th Armoured Car

Battalion. “In consequence of the enemy’s new system of defence and the

varying powers of the three marks of machines used by the 1st and 2nd

Tank Brigades, tanks were disposed in echelons as follows:--

1. Two battalions of Mark IV. tanks (7th and 12th) to operate as

far as the second objective.

2. One battalion of Mark V. and one of Mark V. Star machines

(10th and 15th) to operate against the second objective and

proceed as far as the Albert-Arras railways.

3. Two battalions of Whippets and one of armoured cars to operate

beyond the railway.”[38]

As no such advance as that of 8th August was contemplated, the railway

being the final objective for the first day, this employment of the

Whippets and armoured cars seems to have been a mistake. There was

little point in their disorganising the enemy’s forces in an area over

which we had no intention of advancing until the 23rd; and, on the

other hand, their appearance, unsupported, beyond the railway, would

put them at the mercy of the German batteries, by that time fully

prepared. And, in fact, a company of the 3rd Battalion lost most of its

tanks around Achiet-le-Petit (together with a number of armoured cars)

before even the railway was reached.

There was very little time for reconnaissance before the attack.

It was, of course, to be another surprise, based on tanks, but the

battalion commanders of the latter were only informed of the details on

the 18th. The 6th Corps on the left, with the 2nd Tank Brigade, was to

capture Moyenneville and Courcelles and the line of the railway beyond.

The 4th Corps, in the centre, with the 1st Tank Brigade, had to carry

first the villages of Ablainzevelle and Bucquoy, then Logeast Wood and

the German second line to Achiet-le-Petit, and thirdly, Achiet-le-Grand

and the railway. The 5th Corps, on the right, was advancing without

tanks along the edge of the obliterated area against the Dove Cot

at Beauregard and the village of Beaucourt. The 7th Battalion was

primarily interested in Bucquoy and Ablainzevelle. B and C Companies

were to capture the former, A Company the latter, after which one

section from each company was to push on with the Mark V.’s of the

10th Battalion as far as Logeast Wood and Achiet-le-Petit. Bucquoy was

a large village shaped like a badly drawn cross, one stroke of which

ran up the Ayette road, parallel to our front, while the other crossed

it at right angles along the road from Bienvillers and Hannescamps

to Achiet-le-Petit. The opposing outposts were both in the village.

Ablainzevelle, a more compact and much smaller place, lay 1000 yards

to the north-east, just beyond the Ayette road. The infantry with whom

we were co-operating in this first phase were two brigades of the

37th Division, in which I had served in the ranks in the early days

of the war. By a coincidence, my old unit, the 10th Royal Fusiliers,

which I had not seen since June 1915, was to take Ablainzevelle with A

Company’s tanks. In spite of the fact that the new German tactics of

defence in depth presupposed the holding of both these villages very

lightly, the infantry were extremely nervous about them. The 111th

Brigade would have it that Ablainzevelle was a warren of dug-outs

and tunnels and full of men. Personally, I do not believe there were

fifty Germans in the place. In case, however, it proved to be a second

Flesquières, six tanks (all we could get into it comfortably) were

to rush it from three sides, the other eight machines of the company

devoting themselves to the trenches and alleged strong-points to the

north and south. I spent a part of the 18th and 19th reconnoitring

Ablainzevelle from our forward lines along the Ayette road, and on the

first day the Major and I, having passed in front of our outposts by

mistake, found ourselves in the ditch beside the road which led into

the village from Bucquoy, and within 100 yards of the nearest house. We

could see straight up the road into the middle of the village, which

appeared to be as deserted and peaceful as any one could wish. There

were Germans hidden somewhere in the ruins, but I am sure that if it

had been desirable our people could have walked over any time after

dark and taken the place with very little trouble. The same applied to

Bucquoy and all similar advanced posts under the new German scheme of

defence.

[Illustration: Ablainzevelle, Logeast Wood, and Achiet-le-Grand.]

During the days before the attack the weather held gloriously fine with

hot sunny days and moonlit nights, and the front was very quiet indeed.

On the evening of the 19th, about dusk, we began to get the tanks of

A Company out of their orchard. By midnight all were well on their

way to the lying-up points we had selected. These were in the shallow

valley which runs north and south between Bucquoy and the high ground

about Essarts, and on the average were less than 2000 yards behind

the front line. Wright’s section, the farthest forward of all, was to

lie up in a sunken road which ran into the northern end of Bucquoy,

M’Chlery’s behind a bank alongside the road from Essarts to Ayette, and

Custance’s under a row of trees near Quesnoy Farm, behind M’Chlery.

Except for Custance’s row of trees there was no real cover whatever in

this neighbourhood beyond a few banks and sunken roads. From Essarts

to Bucquoy the ground was a trough of grass-land where once fields had

been. Besides our company, B and C were also to collect in the valley,

so that forty-two tanks would be lying in the open a mile from the

German outposts throughout Y-day. Behind us, over the Essarts Ridge,

was the 10th Battalion, whose Mark V.’s would move up at zero. The

12th and 15th Battalions on our left had the extensive shade of Adinfer

Wood for concealment. Tanks, however, if hidden from direct observation

and properly camouflaged, are as safe, or safer, in the open than in

some conspicuous mass of timber. They are invisible from the air and

extraordinarily difficult to locate even from close quarters on the

ground, as was proved when the brigade Intelligence Officer, who knew

the approximate positions of all our sections, could only find eight

tanks out of the forty-two. By 2 A.M. our three sections were disposed

of in their hiding-places without any disturbance from the enemy or

trouble from the tanks. Having seen them camouflaged and the crews

preparing to turn in for the rest of the night, the Major and I walked

back to his car, which was waiting behind Essarts, and returned to

Bienvillers for our own few hours’ sleep. The rest of that day, the

20th, we were busy about many things. We went out to the tanks again

after breakfast, and found everything well and the German artillery

as quiet as before. The section and tank commanders were going out

for a final reconnaissance that afternoon. I spent it in studying

maps and photographs in the R.O.’s office at Bienvillers, drawing up

operation orders with the Major, and making a few preparations for my

personal comfort during the battle. After an early dinner we set off

again about 7.30 for Essarts. As darkness fell, the whole countryside,

which had been so empty of life the night before, became filled with

quiet noises--the tramp of hoofs, the rattle of wheels, the voices of

men passing orders or warnings. Dozens of field batteries were moving

forward to take up their positions in front of Hannescamps for the

opening barrage, and the assaulting infantry were on the way to their

assembly trenches. The moon, which was almost full, rose intensely

bright--too bright for my liking.

Zero was at 4.55 A.M., and before midnight all the tanks of the

battalion were uncamouflaged and ready to move. The three sections of

A Company were to be formed up in line beyond our front trench--Very

Trench--at 4.40. To be on the safe side the route of each section

was to be taped to this point, a task which normally falls to the

Reconnaissance Officer; but as I could not be in three places at once,

it was decided that the taping should be left to the section commanders

and to Jukes, my assistant R.O., who had taken Maelor Jones’s place.

I wandered round with the Major, visiting each section in turn. One

startling incident disturbed these preliminaries. We were with Wright’s

section in the sunken road about midnight. He had no more than 1500

yards to cover, and there was no point in his starting at that hour;

but some limbers appeared in the road with ammunition which had to be

taken farther forward, and as the tanks blocked the way we started to

get them up the bank to one side. The first tank reached the top, with

some difficulty, for there was no room to swing in the road, and the

bank was 12 feet high and very steep. The moon was now blazing like an

arc-light upon everything, and the tank was silhouetted on a rise half

a mile from Bucquoy, the trees of which village, as well as those along

the Ayette road, were clearly visible. Everything was so brilliant,

in fact, that we ordered men to hold up the canvas horn covers to

hide the flashing of the tracks in the moonlight as the machine moved

along above the cutting. I was down the road again watching the second

tank endeavouring to climb out, when there came the whistle of a

shell, and the leading one on top was hidden in smoke. Several more

shells followed, all of which burst round the tank, and the crew came

flying out and down into the road. The shooting was so extraordinarily

close that we felt certain that the tank had been seen. Yet, after

about a dozen rounds, none of which actually hit her, the gun or guns

stopped firing. Apparently the shelling was meant for the road, which

the Germans must have known to be used for transport at night, for

after this a machine-gun opened on it at long range, and bullets came

zip-zipping into the grass of the bank. With this epilogue, however,

the incident closed, and the night resumed its normal quietude. We

backed the leading tank behind the crest, and got the rest out of the

way of the limbers by reversing them to the end of the sunken road. We

were taking no more risks in full view. As it happened, a mist began to

rise soon after and thickened so fast that all fear of our being seen

was at an end. Before morning it was a veritable fog, which, lasting

until ten o’clock, was to hamper seriously the first phase of the

attack. I spent an hour on an errand to C Company later on, and as I

was returning saw the Mark V.’s of the 10th Battalion drawn up in the

valley our tanks had just left. The mist was very dense when I rejoined

the Major at the 111th Brigade headquarters in a dug-out in Top Trench,

the support line. I remember getting some sleep here. Shortly before

zero runners came in from all three sections to report the tanks lined

up in No Man’s Land. We climbed up into the trench, to find we could

not see a hundred yards in front of us; and a few minutes later the

massed batteries behind broke the silence with an appalling crash of

sound, a torrent of shells whined overhead, and the attack had begun.

II.

For all we could see, we might have remained in the dug-out. The

fiendish uproar of the guns seemed to increase, if that were

possible--a modern barrage is one continuous throbbing blast of noise

beyond description--but, looking back, there was not even a flicker

of light to be seen from all those smoking muzzles. Dawn had broken,

and we could see one another, but that was all. Even Misty Trench

(appropriately named), only two or three hundred yards in front,

was invisible. No hostile shells seemed to be coming our way, but

it was true they might have been bursting quite near without our

knowing it. I cannot recall anything outside a London fog as dense

as that capricious mist which covered the whole battlefield during

the early morning of the 21st. The road in which Wright’s tanks had

been concealed cut through Top Trench close to where we were standing,

and presently the last section of C Company, detailed for the second

objective, came rolling along it out of the gloom. It was now full

day, and we could see perhaps a quarter of a mile at the most. Bucquoy

was still entirely hidden. A brigade staff of the 63rd Naval Division,

which was to pass through the 37th to attack the railway, had come up

to the neighbourhood of Top Trench, and its members were standing about

flapping maps, sending and receiving telephone messages, and cursing

the fog. Runners and despatch-riders were coming and going busily in

our vague radius of vision. There was a constant bustle about the

mouth of the dug-out, where the 111th Brigade was receiving reports

every minute by telephone from the headquarters of its battalions;

and inquiries here confirmed the impression that the first objectives

had been carried with ease, in spite of the mist. The latter was at

last thinning as the sun rose, and at length the trees of Bucquoy,

1000 yards away, became faintly visible, like ghostly and tattered

scarecrows. It was now, I suppose, about seven o’clock, and the Major

and I began to make our way toward Ablainzevelle. A few walking

wounded were straggling rearwards, and the endless torrent of shells

was wailing overhead; but there was nothing else to be seen or heard

of the battle. The northern end of Bucquoy, through which we passed,

reeked of gases and corruption, but the one or two dead bodies visible

had only too palpably been lying there for days. The Ayette road was

more forlorn than ever, and littered with a new layer of bricks and

branches. The appearance behind us of some cavalry, who rode into the

village with a great clatter and parade, indicated that the attack so

far had progressed satisfactorily. A little way up the Ablainzevelle

road we met the first tank returning, followed by several more. As I

had suspected would be the case, there had been little or no fighting

in the village. The fog had caused far more trouble than the Germans,

of whom hardly any had been seen. One machine-gun had kept firing

from a ruined house until a tank drove over it, one or two others had

loosed a few bursts before their crews fled, and then proceedings had

degenerated into a hunt for souvenirs. There were plenty of these, for

the attack had come as a complete surprise.

[Illustration: _Attack on August 21, 1918._]

We returned with these tanks to the rallying-point near Durham Trench,

behind the northern gardens of Bucquoy. All the machines detailed for

Ablainzevelle were accounted for. One had broken a track near the

village, and its commander, slightly wounded in an unromantic part of

his person by a stray bullet, was the only casualty to date. During the

morning all the remaining tanks rolled in except the three of Wright’s

section, which had pushed on to Achiet-le-Petit. No one, so far, had

met with any serious opposition, but all had difficulties on account

of the mist. One tank commander, at the request of the Naval Division,

had entered Logeast Wood and demolished some machine-gun posts there.

There was a little shelling of our neighbourhood, and of Bucquoy in

general, toward midday, and Jukes and I very nearly had our promising

careers cut short by a large projectile which landed in a road along

which we were walking in search of news or food--I forget which.

Jukes’s water-bottle was the only victim. After a scrappy lunch, having

learnt that Wright’s section had returned from Achiet-le-Petit and

rallied in a small copse between that place and Bucquoy, I set out to

find Battalion headquarters, which was to have established itself by

this hour in a trench east of the latter village. The mist had now

cleared, at an awkward moment as it turned out, for the 10th Battalion

and the Whippets. The day was brilliantly fine and even uncomfortably

hot, and as I reached the far side of Bucquoy, I could see very plainly

the battle in progress along the line of the railway. Achiet-le-Petit,

hidden in trees, had been taken by tanks and was firmly held, but to

the left smoke was billowing in clouds about Achiet-le-Grand and the

eastern end of Logeast Wood. I found the Colonel, Henriquez, and Smith,

the Adjutant, sheltering from the sun under some corrugated iron at the

appointed spot, where their trench--which was in fact the German front

line, there having been only advanced posts in Bucquoy--was cut by the

road from that village to Achiet-le-Petit. I got a little news from

them. B and C Companies, it appeared, had taken Bucquoy as easily as we

had taken Ablainzevelle; but the second German line, and in particular

Logeast Wood and Achiet-le-Petit, had given more trouble. The Mark

V.’s and Whippets, passing through our tanks, had been caught bunched

together near the railway as the fog lifted at ten o’clock, and had

been knocked about badly by the German guns. The Naval Division, losing

its direction, had wandered too far to the right, even across the

Achiet-le-Petit road, with the result that Achiet-le-Grand, which it

should have carried, was still holding out. Apart from this accident,

everything so far had gone well. I was told now to bring A Company’s

tanks through Bucquoy to some point east of the village. One of our old

camps of Nissen huts, mostly in ruins, lay immediately in front, and

having noted this as a suitable place to camouflage the machines, I

returned to lead them to it.

[Illustration: Bucquoy and Achiet-le-Petit.]

Before three o’clock we had the two sections hidden in the huts, which

we knocked down and then built up again over the tanks. We established

ourselves in the trench behind. The accompanying photograph, taken

five days before the attack, shows very clearly this region behind

Bucquoy. Our trench ran from the five-sided enclosure on the left to

the first elbow in the main road, where the trees are. Beyond are the

Nissen huts. Beyond them again is a small copse, beside the road, where

Wright’s section had rallied after taking Achiet-le-Petit. The latter

village is seen at the end of the road, having on its left the line of

trees along the road to Achiet-le-Grand. In the foreground is Bucquoy,

the distance between the two villages being about a mile and a half. C

Company had concentrated their tanks in the five-sided enclosure on our

left, while those of B Company were under some trees at the south end

of the village.

We were left here in peace during the rest of the day, only a few

heavy shells whining overhead at intervals into Bucquoy. Battalion

headquarters had returned to Bienvillers. It was blazing hot, and we

were plagued by innumerable flies. Our only protection from the sun

was a few small shelters in the trench wall--the dug-outs, of which

there were a good number, being filled to suffocation by the infantry

of the 37th Division, now holding this line as a support to the general

advance. When we were not trying to sleep, our chief occupation was

watching the struggle still raging in front of Achiet-le-Grand. We

looked straight up a shallow depression to Achiet Junction, which

stood on rising ground, so that, although it was two miles distant,

we witnessed the whole attack like spectators at a play. The infantry

had carried the line of the railway to north and south, but the Germans

still held out tenaciously in a little salient that jutted out westward

around the station, the brickworks, and a number of huts erected there.

Throughout the afternoon I saw at intervals with my glasses lines of

minute figures pressing forward up the slope into the smoke-clouds that

rose and eddied over Achiet; but they always came back, and in smaller

numbers. The station was still uncaptured at nightfall.

It was extremely cold that night for August. Jukes and I were huddled

together in a bay of the trench when the Major roused us at 3 A.M.

He had become anxious about Wright’s forward section in the copse

beside the road, and wished Jukes to walk across and bring the tanks

in to the Nissen huts, with the others, before dawn. As I was too cold

to sleep, I accompanied Jukes across to the copse. It was brilliant

moonlight again, with none of the mist of the previous night. There

was very little artillery fire in progress, and only the occasional

mutter of a machine-gun along the railway. The copse, when we got to

it, proved to be no more than a triangle of tattered hedge enclosing

half a dozen small trees. There were now in it six tanks: three of A

Company’s (Wadeson’s, Clegg’s, and another), one each from B and C,

and a supply tender. We found B and C’s machines already under orders

to withdraw, and in the act of uncamouflaging; and having woken up

our own people, we hurried them on with the same business, for the

eastern sky was brightening, and it takes some time to uncamouflage

a tank, stow everything away, and start up a cold engine. The crews

were sleepy and chilled, and half an hour had passed before the first

tank was under way. This was C Company’s machine. Then two of ours,

Clegg’s, and one commanded by an N.C.O., went off with Jukes, followed

by Borrisow of B Company. The tender was remaining behind, and our last

tank (Wadeson’s) refused at first to start up. While I was standing

beside it, looking toward the railway, where the trees along the road

between the two Achiets were now visible in the rapidly growing light

of a clear morning, a close line of black shell-bursts sprang up about

500 yards away--apparently a very well-spaced barrage along what had

been the German second line. The tank was just moving, to my sincere

gratification; but before even it was clear of the copse the barrage

had jumped forward and was falling all round us. The two tanks which

Jukes was leading vanished in a cloud of smoke, and I was certain that

one at least had been hit. I saw Borrisow crossing the road and making

at full speed for the shelter of Bucquoy. I led Wadeson after him, as

the shells at the moment were falling only on our side of the highway;

but as soon as we were across, with that malignity which so often seems

to inspire indirect artillery fire, the infernal things began to fly up

in front of us. In the twilight one could see the flash in the heart of

each black plume of earth and smoke. One shell cleared the cab of our

tank by inches and burst twelve yards ahead of us. Wadeson and I were

walking in front to direct the driver, and in the perturbation of the

moment it never occurred to either of us to get inside the tank, which

we might safely have done, there being enough light for us to pick out

our way through the flaps. We swung back presently on to the road, as

the ground to the left became obstructed with large craters and other

excavations of some sort, which reduced seriously our very moderate

rate of progress. The tank, in fact, from some mechanical fault, would

only crawl along on second speed. From the copse to our huts was no

more than a thousand yards, but this distance seems interminable when

one is condemned to walk at about one mile an hour through a heavy

deluge of 5.9’s. The shells followed us with the same uncanny accuracy,

and were crashing among the huts when we reached the latter. As we

turned in from the road I met Wright, the section commander, stumbling

about, half-blinded by blood from a wound in his head. I took his arm

and ran him down the road to the trench, and judged from the brisk

way he stepped out that he was not very badly hurt. Hurrying back, I

called in the crews. It was not the moment to keep them out in the open

camouflaging the tanks, which could be done later. As it was, I was too

late. Poor Clegg, having after all come safely through the journey,

was the first in, and was standing behind his tank helping his crew to

cover it with corrugated iron from a hut, when a shell burst at his

feet and killed him instantly.

The whole thing was a striking example of bad luck. The tanks could

not have been seen in that half-light, and the bombardment was a mere

speculation, aimed, I imagine, at the trenches we occupied east of

Bucquoy. It cost the 7th Battalion a heavier casualty list in officers

than any action it ever fought. For while in A Company Clegg was killed

and Wright wounded, almost at the same time a shell landed among B

Company’s tanks in Bucquoy itself, killing a tank commander, M’Lean,

and a gunner, and wounding another officer and several men. M’Lean,

a Canadian, was one of the best fellows I have ever met, and one who

hated war almost as much as I did. Throughout the series of operations

which began at Bucquoy and ended beyond Cambrai, the 7th Battalion,

always comparatively fortunate in casualties to personnel, had four

officers killed, of whom two lost their lives in this brief and

purposeless shelling on the morning of 22nd August.

III.

A Company’s trench was not actually hit during the bombardment, but

all who were in it were much perturbed by our predicament as well as

by their own. As the three returning tanks were hidden entirely for a

while by the smoke, most of us were given up for lost. The shelling

died down after about half an hour, when parties went out to bring in

Clegg’s body and to complete the concealment of the tanks.

The rest of the day passed quietly enough, so far as we were concerned,

until the evening. The 3rd Army was pausing, while the 4th Army came

into line between the Ancre and the Somme. On our front Achiet-le-Grand

was carried in the course of the morning, and the infantry was then

established along the whole line of the railway. A little information

reached us concerning the previous day’s events on our left. The 12th

Tank Battalion in their first battle had done all and more than was

asked of them, capturing Moyenneville and pushing on to the railway.

The Mark V. Stars of the 15th Battalion, which should have passed

through the 12th, lost all direction in the mist, and for the most

part wandered aimlessly about north of Logeast Wood without achieving

anything. As, however, the battalion (by one of those dispensations

peculiar to the Army) collected something like a dozen military crosses

for an ineffective performance which did not merit one, it had every

reason to be satisfied with its day’s work. It was fortunate, perhaps,

in that its tanks did not contrive to get very far forward, for the

10th Battalion, which played the same _rôle_ on the right, passing

through our Mark IV.’s to attack the railway about Achiet-le-Grand,

met with wholesale disaster. Of the company which went in, every tank

except one, I believe, was knocked out on or near the railway by the

German batteries beyond, eleven out of twelve officers being killed or

wounded. The 3rd Battalion’s Whippets, endeavouring to pass through the

Mark V.’s, were caught in line ahead on the Achiet-le-Petit road when

the mist lifted suddenly about ten o’clock in the morning, and most of

them suffered the same fate. Two got through Achiet-le-Petit and were

hit and burnt out beyond. The armoured cars had also paid the penalty

of other people’s convictions in the same neighbourhood. An area a mile

square around the two Achiets and the curve of railway between them

was in fact littered with derelict Mark V.’s, Whippets, and armoured

cars; and the result of this, as the 10th Battalion was very short of

tanks to begin with, was that the 7th now remained the only heavy unit

approximately up to strength in the 1st Brigade.

Some of our machines, however, were in need of an overhaul, and as

it was impossible to work on those of A Company in their exposed

position east of Bucquoy, we were ordered to withdraw after dark to our

original rallying-point near Durham Trench, west of the village. These

orders had just come through, at about seven o’clock in the evening

of the 22nd, when the enemy chose to repeat his display of the early

morning by bombarding our trench with 5.9’s. He was very accurate

on this occasion, the first shell landing full in the trench, and

all the others being unpleasantly near. As the dug-outs were full of

infantrymen, we had to sit hopefully on the trench floor and trust to

luck. For a quarter of an hour this shelling was very heavy, and caused

a number of casualties among those of the infantry who were crowded out

of the dug-outs, and also in C Company in their hedged enclosure to our

left. The trench was beaten flat in several places. After a while, as

this infliction might herald a counter-attack, the Major and I sprinted

vigorously up the trench to a dug-out where a brigade headquarters of

the Naval Division was established, hoping to get some news there.

We were met on the way by a panic-stricken rabble of signallers and

other oddments, who declared, with what little breath they had left,

that the Germans were in fact advancing and had recaptured Logeast

Wood. This did not sound probable; and on penetrating at length to the

brigade headquarters, wrapped in ideal calm and silence twenty feet

below the ground, we found the General having dinner amid an assortment

of telephones, and every one perfectly happy. Guy and Chaddock, of C

Company, were also there on the same errand of inquiry as ourselves. We

sat on the dug-out stairs for some time, drinking whiskies and sodas,

while telephone reports came through from the battalions in the front

line to the effect that everything there was normal; and being thus

assured that our tanks would not be needed to repair any disaster,

we climbed out again to find the shelling ceased and a blazing moon

rising once more above Bucquoy. Something else was blazing also--the

unfortunate supply-tank we had left in the copse that morning, which

had been hit and set on fire during the bombardment. Without any

further delay we got our tanks out of their shells of corrugated iron,

and in an hour or two were back near Durham Trench, where we made

bivouacs out of tarpaulin sheets for the night. C Company, having

received similar orders to withdraw to the west of Bucquoy, were also

concentrated at their old rallying-point.

While we were sleeping, the resumption of the general offensive,

due for the morning of the 23rd, was initiated by a brilliant night

attack made by the 12th Tank Battalion, with the 3rd Division and the

Guards, on Gommecourt and Hamelincourt, north of Achiet-le-Grand. The

two operations were quite distinct affairs, the villages, which lay

1000 yards beyond the railway, being nearly two miles apart. Both

were captured, with a number of prisoners and guns, the tanks doing

extraordinarily good work in the darkness. Three Military Crosses, one

D.C.M., and three Military Medals were gained by the 12th Battalion

in these actions, in which thirteen tanks were actually engaged. With

this successful prelude, the whole battle awoke again at dawn along a

front of thirty-three miles from Lihons, in the south, to Mercatel,

beyond the Cojeul; and while in a sunken road near Durham Trench we

shaved and washed in a leisurely manner beside our tanks, the guns

were roaring once more, and strings of German prisoners were already

passing by on their way to the cages. On this morning, in our sector,

the remaining tanks of the 10th Battalion helped the 37th Division to

clear Bihucourt, beyond Achiet-le-Grand: the 9th and 11th Battalions

of the 3rd Brigade co-operated in a successful attack toward Heninel;

and about midday fifteen Whippets of the 6th Battalion were engaged in

very severe fighting around Sapignies, Behagnies, and Ervillers on the

Arras-Bapaume road. Ervillers was carried, but the two other villages

held out until the 25th, when the 7th Battalion assisted at their

capture.

About five o’clock in the afternoon orders arrived at Durham Trench for

a move by the whole battalion at dusk to the railway embankment east

of Achiet-le-Petit. A Company led, C following on behind as we passed

again through Bucquoy. B Company took their own route from the south

end of the village. Owing to various breakdowns, due to the age and

general disrepair of some of our Mark IV.’s, the battalion now mustered

little more than thirty tanks. It proceeded along the east side of the

Achiet-le-Petit road. The Major and I went on ahead in the car to a

conference at the headquarters of a New Zealand Brigade near Achiet,

which we reached just before dark. The New Zealanders were attacking

Biefvillers, Grévillers, and Loupart Wood the next morning, and wanted

two sections of heavy tanks and some Whippets. Custance’s section of A

Company, with one from B, were detailed from our battalion, the whole

being under the orders of Rossi-Ashton, commanding B Company, for the

operation. As there was nothing for the Major and myself to do, we

were ordered to return to Bienvillers to get a good night’s rest while

we had the chance; and having seen the tanks on their way round the

north side of Achiet-le-Petit, we returned to the car and drove away.

We passed the Whippets coming up, and, behind Bucquoy, along the road

which two days before had been deserted, ran into masses of transport,

finally ditching the car in a shell-hole near Hannescamps, so that it

was after midnight when we reached Bienvillers.

A night in a camp-bed, followed by a bath and a comfortable breakfast

in our tarpaulin-covered mess, worked wonders, and we were on our way

back by eleven o’clock next morning. One could see very plainly by day

the changes wrought in these back areas by our advance. The Bucquoy

road was choked with cars, lorries, ambulances, and horse-transport,

moving under a cloud of dust. There was a Y.M.C.A. canteen established

in the ruins of Essart, and we saw actually an A.P.M. endeavouring

to control the traffic in that place. We were able to take the car

through Achiet-le-Petit itself, over indescribable roads, and so down

into the valley beyond, where our tanks were lying alongside the

railway embankment. Around Achiet were many relics of the tank attack

of the 21st, in the shape of burnt-out Whippets, armoured cars, and

Mark V.’s. South-east of the village the ground falls very steeply and

then rises to the railway, while the embankment over which the latter

runs is at this point quite thirty feet high and clothed with bushes;

and in the regular gulley thus formed there was now accumulated an

astonishing mass of men, animals, and material. Against the bushes of

the embankment were camouflaged the thirty-odd tanks of our battalion,

a few Mark V.’s from the 10th, and several Whippets. A battery of

4.5 howitzers was firing with an intolerable noise straight over our

machines from a distance of twenty yards, while on the slope behind,

which rose like a _glacis_ up to Achiet, were three or four field

batteries in action. Long lines of limbers and horses filled the lower

end of the valley, and the men of an infantry battalion in reserve were

lying in the grass higher up beside our tanks. Two infantry brigade

headquarters were established in the open here, so that there was a

great coming and going of despatch-riders and orderlies. All this

activity was crowded into a hollow 1000 yards long by 200 or 300 yards

wide--a magnificent opportunity for the German artillery. The day was

fine, and a hostile aeroplane could have seen everything from a great

height. The possibilities of the place seem, however, to have been

overlooked during the earlier part of the day, when the enemy was busy

with the level crossing a mile higher up at Achiet-le-Grand, which was

violently shelled.

[Illustration: _The Advance beyond the Arras-Albert Railway, August

23-29._]

That morning’s attack had been entirely successful--Biefvillers,

Grévillers, and Loupart Wood being taken after severe fighting, in

which three of our tanks and a Whippet were knocked out. Armoured

cars had endeavoured to exploit the success by pushing along the

road from Biefvillers into Bapaume, but had found the shell-fire

too heavy. Our casualties had been slight, and Custance and most of

his people were back again with the company, covered with dirt and

glory. The battalion was supplying another three sections (twelve

tanks) the following morning--the 25th--for two separate operations.

M’Chlery’s section of A Company was to help the 37th Division complete

its unfinished task at Sapignies and Behagnies; while two sections

of C, with seven Mark V.’s (all that the 10th Battalion had left),

were working with the 63rd Division immediately to the south against

Favreuil, Avesnes-les-Bapaume, and Ligny-Thilloy. Avesnes was a

suburb of Bapaume, and Thilloy was south of that town, on which we

were now closing on three sides. M’Chlery’s section came under the

orders of C Company for these operations. The battalion being no

longer at full strength, sections were borrowed in this way to make

up composite companies with the normal number of tanks, and the three

company commanders took it in turn to direct successive attacks. A

Company having two tanks at Durham Trench which should now be ready

again for action, I was sent off after lunch to order them up. My

combination Douglas had broken in half during our move from Saulty to

Bienvillers--the combined weight of the Major and myself, coupled with

the corrugations of a ploughed field which we were crossing, proving

too much for a war-time framework; and for this journey I borrowed

Henriquez’s 4-h.p. machine, from which the side-car had been detached.

Ridden as a solo, it was unfamiliar, powerful, and rather alarming;

but after the usual anxious moments in the dense traffic that now,

beneath a fog of dust, congested the Achiet-le-Petit road, I reached

our old rallying-point behind Bucquoy, delivered my message, and

returned. It was shortly after this, there being at the moment nothing

for me to do, that I climbed the railway embankment and strolled up

to the crest of the hill beyond, and so came to witness a singular

little comedy. From the crest one looked down a gradual slope of

grass, broken by a few trenches and gun-pits, to Loupart Wood, 1000

yards away, with Grévillers just beyond to the left on a farther ridge

which hid Bapaume. The Wood, as I have told, had been captured that

morning by B Company and the New Zealanders. Subsequently the Germans

counter-attacked and retook the eastern part, whereupon two tanks of

C Company had been hurriedly summoned to drive them out again. This

was accomplished; but both tanks were then put temporarily _hors de

combat_ while still in the Wood--one with a broken track and the other

with engine trouble. At the time, about 5 P.M., when I walked up from

the railway, these machines were still there, with their crews working

on them. Nevertheless, for reasons which I never discovered, the New

Zealanders had withdrawn again from the entire Wood, and were calling

for yet more tanks to deal with some alleged (and I believe wholly

imaginary) German machine-guns re-established there. Standing on the

crest of the hill above the railway, I looked down at this juncture

upon all the dispositions for a pitched battle--with nobody. Loupart

Wood lay dark and quiet on the Grévillers spur, while within it our

two tank crews worked on quite peacefully, entirely ignorant of their

desertion and of all this pother. In front of the Wood, in extended

order on the ground, were some New Zealand infantry and a battalion

of the K.O.S.B.’s, borrowed from the 5th Division to help in this

crisis. Behind the infantry a field battery had come into position, its

limbers in rear, and a squadron of dismounted cavalry were standing

by their horses in a hollow close by, while from a crossing over the

railway to my left two more tanks of C Company were advancing to the

rescue. It was a very pretty and gallant sight, and reminded one,

in its formality and completeness, of those mimic battles one used

to enjoy at the Military Tournament. Only the stock pontoon bridge

was missing. Not a shot was being fired, except by one rifle which

cracked occasionally far away to the right of the Wood. This belonged,

I heard afterwards, to a solitary German sniper who seems to have

represented in his own person the entire enemy against which this force

of all arms was arrayed. What made the whole affair even more absurd

and unreal was the fact that, 1000 yards to the left, infantry were

marching in fours along the road into Grévillers...! As I looked on,

in some astonishment, developments ensued along the orthodox lines

laid down at Olympia and the Agricultural Hall. A cavalry patrol of

about a dozen men, greatly daring, mounted their horses and trotted

off toward the Wood. A few hundred yards from it the men dismounted

again, left two or three in charge of the animals, and walked forward

in extended order. Every other individual present (I hope) held his

breath as these gallant fellows disappeared among the trees. Even on

my hill-top I seemed to feel the atmosphere of suspense which emanated

from that silent battlefield, disturbed only by the single shots of

the indefatigable sniper in the distance.... In the Wood, of course,

nothing happened, for there was nothing to happen. But I should like

to have witnessed the meeting between the anxious patrol, scouting

warily among the trees, and our two perspiring and irritable tank

crews toiling at their tracks and engines. After a while the infantry,

reassured, got upon their feet, and in their turn began cautiously

to advance: the Wood was reoccupied; and the bloodless battle was

handsomely won.

My study of its concluding phase was disturbed by the appearance of a

squadron of German aeroplanes. There were about a dozen of them, and

they drove down suddenly from a great height upon the valley behind

me, coming so low as they cleared the crest on which I was standing

that the nearest machine was not 200 feet overhead. I saw quite clearly

its observer stand up in his cockpit and begin to fiddle about with

his machine-gun; and realising suddenly that I was a solitary and

fairly conspicuous figure on the hill-top, I ran rather hurriedly to

a trench close at hand. From here I saw the aeroplanes swoop down

across the railway and rise steeply beyond, and heard the rattle of

their machine-guns. The bullets, as I heard afterwards, flew all round

our tanks, although no one was hit. The Germans must have realised

what a magnificent target the crowded little valley offered to their

heavy guns, and all of us expected the place to be shelled furiously

within half an hour; but nothing of the sort happened, as the enemy’s

artillery was already in the act of withdrawing to positions farther

back.

While I was in the trench I was joined by a doctor belonging to the

5th Division. The latter was just back from Italy, and the M.O. was

very caustic on the subject of the Italian Army. After talking to him

for a while I walked down to our valley again by way of the nearer

railway crossing, and there overtook the two tanks of C Company on

their way home from the 3rd battle of Loupart Wood. Coutts and Chaddock

were with them, both very angry at having been called out on such a

fool’s errand. It was seven o’clock when I rejoined the company by

the embankment, and our servants there were preparing some dinner,

the _menu_ including three tinned chickens which I had brought from

Bienvillers that morning. I had to eat my share cold, however, on

a hunk of bread, for as I arrived the company received orders to

move after dark to a point indicated on the map as a German camp and

hospital at G 23, b 56; and Jukes and I had to set off at once to

investigate the place. It was 3000 yards away, on the high ground

near Bihucourt. We found it to consist of a couple of immense sheds,

presumably the hospital wards, a neat double row of Nissens, either

sunk in the ground or protected by breastworks against aeroplane

bombing, and a scattered collection of other huts all round, the whole

extending on either side of the Bihucourt-Grévillers road. Immediately

to the north of the camp ran the third German trench line, thickly

wired; 300 yards beyond that was the railway from Achiet-le-Grand

Junction to Bapaume; and across the railway were Bihucourt and

Biefvillers, a mile apart, and almost equidistant from the huts.

Bapaume itself, less than two miles away, was still hidden by the final

ridge, on top of which a derelict Whippet made a conspicuous landmark.

The whole of this country was elevated and rolling grass-land, very

little shelled, and covered with old camps which we had lost in the

March retreat.

As we returned to the valley there were ominous signs of a change in

the weather. Clouds were rolling up, and a premature twilight was

fading rapidly. We found the tanks pulling out from the embankment,

with the exception of M’Chlery’s section, which was moving later with

C Company for the attack next morning. Before we were halfway to our

new quarters it began to rain heavily, and the night fell as black as

pitch. The Major and I had eventually to find a New Zealand Brigade

whose whereabouts was very vaguely indicated, there being some talk

of a couple more tanks going into action near Bapaume in the morning;

and having accompanied our machines as far as the camp, we left them

to settle themselves in, and plunged off into the darkness on our own

voyage of discovery. I cannot imagine a more appalling night for such

an expedition. The blackness was extraordinary, and the rain fell

in torrents. We had only the haziest idea of the location of this

brigade headquarters, and for nearly two hours we stumbled about in

long grass and mud, tripping over invisible wire, dead bodies, and

other debris, falling into shell-holes and sunken roads, and getting

always more drenched and exasperated. The few people we met were either

lost themselves, or else gave us contradictory directions involving

the recognition of landmarks which we could not possibly see. After

a while a thunderstorm burst, and the lightning afforded occasional

eerie visions of a black and sodden world. One of these flashes

found us slithering down into a road filled with large dark objects,

which turned out to be the guns, men, and horses of a German battery

which had evidently been caught by shell or machine-gun fire while

limbering up.[39] Over this welter of bodies there came crashing and

rocking several of our own field-guns, which nearly rode us down. This

incident, brief and startling in the lightning flashes, filled me with

a profound respect for our artillery. The guns went rattling by in the

pitchy dark over all these grisly obstructions on the road with as

much apparent ease and surety as if it had been broad day. Very soon

after this, near a cross-roads, we were cheered by the discovery of

some lights that seemed to be shining out of the ground, and found

that, more by luck than judgment, we had very literally stumbled upon

our destination. The brigade headquarters was established in some huts

sunk in what appeared to be a quarry, and practically invisible even

in daytime until one fell over the edge. Having groped our way into

the Brigade Major’s office and introduced ourselves, the Brigadier

presently appeared from some subterranean quarters and explained what

he wanted us to do. He proposed to capture some huts and railway

sidings between Bapaume and Favreuil in the course of the following

morning, and wished for two tanks to mop up after his infantry. The

time of the operation had not been fixed, but it would take place in

daylight, as a subsidiary development of the main attack which the 63rd

Division with C Company’s tanks was carrying out at dawn from Favreuil

to Thilloy. The scheme did not commend itself to us in the very least.

It showed the common misapprehension of the correct use of tanks, and

violated all our tactical principles, based on bitter experience. There

were only two tanks to be used, which left no margin for accidents;

they were to be employed wrongly to mop up after the infantry, instead

of preceding the latter; the attack was to begin in broad daylight; and

the approach-march necessarily led over the bare and prominent ridge in

front of Bapaume, where the machines would certainly be detected before

they got into action at all. It was this last consideration which

impressed the Brigadier most forcibly. I do not think he cared over

much about what happened to the tanks, but he was very anxious that

his attack should not be discovered prematurely. In the end, nothing

was settled definitely. We agreed to have the two tanks ready to move

if required. The brigade headquarters itself was moving forward in the

early morning to some dug-outs in the German trenches in front of our

huts, and we were to report there at nine o’clock for further orders.

This proposed attack, which came to nothing so far as we were

concerned, illustrates one of the difficulties tank units continually

met with during this final stage of the war. The infantry naturally

wanted tanks whenever they could get them, and brigade and divisional

commanders were always demanding two here or three there for use in

some wasteful and impracticable manner in minor operations. Apart from

the faulty tactics (from the point of view of tank warfare) which these

hurried little schemes usually involved, tanks were getting very scarce

in France, and such as were available needed to be conserved as much as

possible for attacks on a large scale.

Having left things in this nebulous state, the Major and I plunged once

more into the darkness and rain, and contrived to find our way back to

our new camp, where we settled down in a hut about 2 A.M.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE FIGHTING FOR BEUGNY, AND THE ADVANCE TO THE CANAL DU NORD.

I.

The storm blew itself out in the night, and the morning of 25th

August was again sunny and clear, with that bracing freshness that

follows after heavy summer rain. At nine o’clock I walked over with

the Major to see the New Zealanders. We found them now immured in

an uncomfortable and, as I thought, highly dangerous dug-out near

the crest of the ridge where the derelict Whippet was standing. The

dug-out was merely a cramped, unfinished, and untimbered gallery cut

in a crumbling soil which appeared to be in imminent peril of falling

in. One entrance, indeed, was half-choked with detritus shaken down

by concussion. Our interview settled the question about the tanks.

After some discussion, the Brigadier decided against their use, to

our considerable relief, and I was no less pleased to get out of that

untrustworthy tunnel into the fresh air.

I walked down to the railway embankment after this to hear how

M’Chlery’s section and C Company had prospered in that morning’s

attack. A Company’s four tanks, it appeared, had led the infantry into

Sapignies and Behagnies, but these villages were only cleared after

severe fighting. One tank was knocked out by shell-fire in Behagnies,

its commander, Charnock, being wounded. C Company and the Mark V.’s,

attacking Favreuil, Avesnes-les-Bapaume, and Thilloy with the 63rd

Division, met with an even more tenacious resistance and suffered

heavily. Neither Thilloy nor Avesnes could be held, although both were

partially cleared. Favreuil was captured; but the section of C Company

which took the village met with disaster later on. The tanks were

returning south of Favreuil, between Monument Wood and Bapaume, when

a field-gun in the outskirts of the town knocked out three of them.

Brassington and his driver, O’Mahony, in the first tank, were killed

together by a shell which came through the side of the cab and set the

machine ablaze. A gunner was killed while getting out, and there were

several other fatal casualties among the N.C.O.’s and men in the two

disabled tanks behind. Poor Brassington’s death came as a great shock

to me. We had been in the same hut as cadets at Bisley and in the same

section in G Battalion, had shared quarters at Bovington, and had been

much together in France. Before joining the Tank Corps, Brassington had

been a sergeant in the Duke of Wellington’s. Like so many North-country

men, he was genuinely musical, with a good voice and a knowledge of how

to use it; and he shared another local characteristic--that sort of

independence (as it is called) which, often aggressive and unpleasing,

in his case took only the form of a determination to go his own way.

He would never bother to cultivate friendly relations with influential

people if he did not like them, an attitude fatal to progress in the

Army. A really capable soldier, with long experience in the war, he

always said he would end as a tank commander.

After these actions on the 25th, the 7th Battalion enjoyed a rest

for three days, being taken into Corps Reserve. B Company’s tanks

moved up to a little valley behind our huts. We made ourselves fairly

comfortable in the latter, and were disturbed very little by shelling,

although a battery of our 60-pounders, posted a few hundred yards in

rear, rendered the nights hideous. We had driven some of our tanks

into one of the big hospital sheds, and camouflaged the others behind

it, there being now eight fit machines left in the company. A certain

amount of reorganisation was necessary throughout the battalion; but

everything was turned upside down by a most extraordinary development

on the 28th. It had been known for some time that a proportion of the

officers and men of the Tank Corps in France were to be sent home to

provide an experienced nucleus for new units forming at Bovington,

the establishment of the corps having been raised again from eighteen

to twenty-five battalions. Now that we were involved in a general

offensive, however, it naturally was supposed that these changes would

be postponed for a time. That the offensive would end only with the war

was not then suspected, of course, by any one, least of all by Tank

Corps H.Q. in London, which now took an entirely unexpected step. The

personnel selected for England was called for at a few hours’ notice.

In the middle of a battle, some units, including the 7th Battalion,

found themselves deprived at a blow of 30 per cent of their already

reduced complements. The first intimation we of A Company received

at Bihucourt was a message which arrived during the afternoon of the

28th ordering all officers and men detailed for Bovington to prepare

to leave that evening. This sudden and wholesale removal affected

our company more seriously than either B or C, for the party to go

included the Major, the second in command, two section commanders out

of three, Jukes, the Assistant R.O., several tank commanders, the

orderly-room corporal, and a number of our best N.C.O.’s and men. The

company, in fact, lost all its senior officers. M’Chlery, the junior

section commander, as the only remaining Captain, found himself in

charge pending the arrival of a new O.C. to be posted to us from the

11th Battalion. B and C Companies, while less hard hit, sent away

two section commanders apiece (Merchant being among them), with a

proportion of subalterns and men. As for battalion headquarters,

it virtually disappeared. The Colonel left, to command a new unit,

and took with him the Adjutant, Henriquez the R.O., and most of the

orderly-room staff, who, rumour had it, were all promoted sergeants in

the train. All this happened, as I say, in two or three hours. Lorries

arrived at Bihucourt to take away our contingent immediately after we

received the order. The Colonel rushed up in his car to say good-bye

and to introduce his successor, Major Thorp, to the bewildered residue

of A Company; and then M’Chlery, M’Elroy, and I, the only survivors

present of the original officers, and in consequence responsible

between us for the immediate prosecution of the Great War, retired in a

dazed condition to our hut to have a much-needed drink before grappling

with the new situation.

II.

In the meantime, while the 3rd Army paused in front of Bapaume, the

general offensive was extended northward, where the 1st Army struck out

from Arras. The 3rd Tank Brigade, some of whose units trekked twenty

miles during the 24th and 25th August, advanced with the Canadians

against Wancourt, Guémappe, and Monchy-le-Preux, on the 26th. These

places were taken, and on the 27th Roeux and Gavrelle, north of the

Scarpe, fell also. Far to the south the 4th Army and the French were

advancing again, and on our front the Germans evacuated Bapaume on the

28th. Our line in the 3rd Army sector now ran, from north to south,

east of St Leger, east of Mory, east of Beugnâtre (beyond Favreuil),

across the Cambrai road between Bapaume and Fremicourt, and east of

Thilloy.

The German armies, bewildered by this series of blows, were preparing

to retreat to the Siegfried Line and the Canal du Nord. But to give

time for their heavy guns and supplies to escape, they held out stiffly

during the last days of the month along the whole front. The 3rd Army,

attempting to advance from Bapaume up the Cambrai road, was checked

before Fremicourt and Beugny; and a series of assaults on the latter

village ended in sanguinary failures. In two of these the 7th Tank

Battalion took part.

On the morning of the 29th, while the battalion was in the throes of

reorganisation after the startling disappearance of a third of its

officers, it was ordered to provide eight tanks for an attack with the

5th Division on Beugny the following morning. One section of A Company

and one of B were detailed accordingly, Major Rossi-Ashton of B Company

being in command. M’Elroy and I were now running affairs in the camp

near Bihucourt, M’Chlery having left us to wrestle with returns and

other horrible matters at Bienvillers, where our rear headquarters

was still situated. Early in the afternoon we received instructions

to move four tanks to the valley beyond Biefvillers. This valley was

a wide and shallow depression running north and south between the

village and the Arras-Bapaume road. We got our tanks here by about

four o’clock, parking them up under a bank beside a battery of 4.5

howitzers, whose people were very annoyed at our arrival. Behind us the

whole of C Company’s tanks appeared from the railway at Achiet-le-Petit

and hid themselves among some huts on the west side of the valley. An

hour later we moved again, following the valley northward and then

north-east across the Arras-Bapaume road to a point almost north of

Favreuil, where, under another high bank, we joined the four tanks of B

Company which were to co-operate with ours in the attack. I will try to

make clear the features of the country that now lay before us. Bapaume,

3000 yards due south of our lying-up point, stands on a moderate

elevation about 450 feet above sea-level. The ground falls away from

it in a series of spurs to the north and north-east. There radiate out

from the town, like the fingers of a hand and alternately along the

spurs and in the valleys between, four roads, the most westerly the

main highway to Arras, running west of north; next a road through

Favreuil, running north; next again one through Beugnâtre, running

north-east; and finally, the highway through Fremicourt and Beugny to

Cambrai, running north of east. All these diverging roads except the

last-named were now behind our front, which had reached a point two

or three hundred yards east of Beugnâtre, whence it trended a little

west of south, crossed the Cambrai road between Bapaume and Fremicourt,

and then continued east of Thilloy. The whole of this country was bare

rolling grass-land, of a uniform appearance, all traces of cultivation

and even of the boundaries of fields having vanished. It was dotted

with a large number of hutted camps, mostly old ones of our own, and

the only cover, apart from these, was to be found in the trees around

the various villages. The roads were sunken in places, and there was

a general resemblance to parts of Salisbury Plain, except that the

undulations were less pronounced.

[Illustration: Bapaume burning. End of August 1918.]

Our two sections of tanks were to lead the 13th Infantry Brigade into

Beugny. This village lay on the Bapaume-Cambrai road a mile east of

Fremicourt. It was surrounded by wire and entrenchments, and was

further protected by one of our old defence systems converted by the

Germans, two lines of trenches and entanglements running obliquely into

our front north of Beugnâtre. On our left the 2nd Tank Brigade, with

infantry of the 3rd Division, was to carry Ecoust, Longatte, and the

Noreuil Switch, while on our right the New Zealanders, with a few Mark

V.’s, were to move straight forward from Bapaume upon Fremicourt and

Bancourt. Zero was at 5 A.M. on the 30th.

The valley in which we were lying preparatory to the attack was a

thoroughly unpleasant place. It curled round to the north of the spur

on which stood Favreuil and Monument Wood. There had been a good deal

of fighting here, and a number of dead men and horses, in varying

degrees of decomposition, were lying about. Our tanks were drawn up

under a high bank topped by a row of trees on the south side of the

valley. On the north side a little gully, lined with rough hutments

that were full of old straw, dirt, smells, and flies, led up to the

main Arras road at Sapignies. Eastward, at the foot of the valley,

field batteries were in action; and beyond them one could see the line

of trees along the road from Beugnâtre to Ecoust-St Mein, which marked

approximately our front. Having found Beale, the Reconnaissance Officer

of B Company, with his tanks, I walked forward with him past Favreuil

to some rising ground near Beugnâtre. We wished to see something of

the country before us while the light held, but although the evening

was fine a mist had risen, and the smoke of shells bursting around the

village helped further to hide the landscape beyond. We sat for some

time in a trench, memorising as much as we could verify on the map.

Camps of Nissen huts were clustered about Beugnâtre, and others seemed

to extend far over the monotonous plain behind toward Beugny. It was

agreed between us that our sections should move together by the track

we had just followed to within a few hundred yards of Beugnâtre, when

Beale would lead his tanks south of the village while I took mine round

by the north. Once over the front line, where our duties would end, the

two sections would have each an unmistakable guide to direct them on to

Beugny. M’Elroy’s tanks would strike sooner or later the old converted

trench system of which I have spoken, and which it was their first

task to clear. It would lead them down to the village from the north.

B Company’s tanks, on the right, had for a guide the Bapaume-Cambrai

railway, running north of the main Cambrai road and roughly parallel

to the latter until it crossed it between Fremicourt and Beugny. In

an attack over such monotonous country, shrouded in smoke and the

mists of early morning, it is very easy to lose one’s direction in a

tank, and as even a temporary delay may provoke serious trouble, any

obvious means of guidance is an inestimable boon. In this case we were

very fortunate. The trenches and the railway, like two hand-rails,

converged together and crossed immediately in front of Beugny; and the

tanks, moving up this angle, could not possibly lose their way. The

chief feature of the country they had to fear was a gentle rounded spur

behind which the village itself was hidden, and on whose absolutely

bare crest they would stand out as admirable targets as they approached.

[Illustration: _Beugny._]

I had some dinner that night with B Company’s people beside their

tanks, and then went for a few hours’ rest in one of the wooden shacks

in the gully opposite, which had been cleared of litter. At midnight

the tanks were unsheeted and the engines started up. By one o’clock

seven of them were in line above the bank, ready to move. The eighth,

one of A Company’s, developed engine trouble at the last moment and had

to be left behind. There was no moon now, and the night was very dark,

with a slight mist. The distance to our front line beyond Beugnâtre was

only 3000 yards, but part of the route was unknown to us, and we had to

move at the slowest speed to prevent noise. The two sections separated

at the point Beale and I had chosen, and he led his four tanks away to

the south of Beugnâtre, while M’Elroy and I held straight on to pass

the north end of the village. So far there had been no hitch; but now

I could not find the track I had noted earlier in the evening, and was

forced to feel my way without this slight help. There was no danger of

our losing our way here, for the trees of Beugnâtre and the huts about

it were quite visible, but there was always the chance of coming upon

some obstacle which the track naturally would have avoided. We ploughed

forward through long grass, M’Elroy and I in front feeling about with

sticks for wire or holes, and were passing to the north of the village,

which made a vague mass of trees and ruins on our right, when shells

began to burst in front of us. There ensued a very disturbing quarter

of an hour. A regular barrage fell directly in our path, between us and

the Beugnâtre-Ecoust road, the flashes of the shells coming and going

in rapid succession. We had no time to waste in halting until this was

over, and indeed we were almost in it at the start; and having ordered

our runners and every one else who was walking to get into the tanks,

we moved on through the barrage. M’Elroy and I continued to walk in

front, as it was necessary for me to act as a guide, and he insisted on

staying with me. For a few minutes we were hopping nimbly about to take

shelter on one side or the other of the leading tank, as the shells

were crashing and sparkling unpleasantly near. With that good fortune

which always seems so extraordinary in the retrospect, we passed

through without damage to the tanks or ourselves. The barrage was still

falling behind us when the trees along the Beugnâtre road appeared

out of the darkness. We were now among the huts of a camp, and having

missed the track I had aimed for, we struck the road at a point where

it was deeply sunken. The first tank crossed without difficulty, but

the other two experienced some trouble in mounting the farther bank. I

pushed on with the leader, leaving M’Elroy to bring on the others. We

had come so slowly that the few minutes’ delay caused by the barrage

and our wanderings among the huts threatened to make us late. Beyond

the Ecoust road, a second one runs out of Beugnâtre to the north,

leading to Vaulx-Vraucourt, and immediately beyond this was our front

line. The tank I was leading, commanded by Sergeant Duddridge (we were

so short of officers that two out of the three machines were in charge

of N.C.O.’s), was now several hundred yards ahead of the others. The

sky was already brightening in the east, zero was due in a few minutes,

and as soon as we crossed the second road I began to peer about for

the front line. So far I had not seen a single infantryman since we

started. In the semi-open warfare in which we were engaged, front lines

were always indeterminate features difficult to recognise and liable

to frequent fluctuations; and on this occasion all I ever discovered

was a group of three men crouching in a shell-hole, who told me they

were in support. A hundred yards farther on a blaze and a crash behind

me signified the opening of our barrage at zero. I hauled myself up

on to the front of the tank, yelled to Sergeant Duddridge to get into

fourth speed and push ahead, and then ran back to look for the others.

I remember nothing more until I found myself sitting on the ground,

with my head spinning like the proverbial top and a general feeling

of having been hit all over with some violence, watching the two rear

tanks going by. As they were a long way behind the leader, several

minutes must have elapsed. There was a hideous noise everywhere,

and heavy shells were thudding all round. The Germans, expecting an

attack, had dropped their barrage a few seconds after ours along our

front line, and I must have been knocked over (and temporarily out) by

the explosion of a shell close astern of Duddridge’s tank. I got on

to my feet with some difficulty, and looked for M’Elroy, but he was

nowhere to be seen. The two tanks were already past me, and rolling

on in great style, and as my head still appeared to be doing several

hundred revolutions a minute, I decided to get out of this inferno for

a while, if I could find some sheltered spot in which to recuperate.

It was growing light, although the mist and smoke were very thick,

and just behind me was a row of old Nissen huts, protected by earthen

banks against bombing raids. There were no trenches in sight, and I

ran, therefore, rather unsteadily, into one of these huts and found at

the end of it a sort of miniature dug-out, where I sat for some time

trying to induce my head to behave in a normal manner. It was perfectly

evident that the German counter-barrage was uncommonly heavy as well

as very prompt, for the whole gimcrack place shook continuously with

concussions close outside.

I must have remained here for half an hour, for it was quite light

when I came out again. Nothing could be seen for smoke, and the shells

were falling as thickly as ever. I had now to make my way back to

the headquarters of the 13th Infantry Brigade, near Beugnâtre, to

report that the tanks had started at zero. Still somewhat fogged, as

I suppose, I pushed off in the wrong direction altogether, toward the

battle instead of away from it. I met a wounded infantryman looking

for a dressing station, and with the best intentions took him with

me. After wandering about for some time among huts, dodging shells, I

realised that we were going wrong by the lie of the ground, which was

steadily downhill, and we turned about and groped our way back again

through the smoke. The brigade headquarters, where I guessed there

would also be a dressing station, occupied some dug-outs in our part

of the old defence trenches, just west of the Ecoust road. We reached

it at length, after various vicissitudes, to find every one driven

underground by the shelling. The latter, in fact, was something quite

out of the ordinary. The enemy, determined to cling for another few

days to his last position west of the Canal du Nord, had put down, not

a normal barrage, but a heavy bombardment by 5.9’s over a large area. I

have never, before or since, seen such consistently severe shell-fire

so widely spread. It extended for a mile back from our front line. At

the brigade headquarters, where ordinarily one would have found most of

the staff and details standing about as interested spectators with maps

and field-glasses, there was not a soul above the surface; and shells

were falling as far back as Favreuil.

I got very little news from the staff, as nearly all the telephone

wires had been cut, and after waiting in the dug-out, in a temperature

of about 190 degrees, for half an hour or so, I decided to try to

make my way to the rallying-place chosen for the tanks. This was a

valley which ran northward from Fremicourt. It was now about eight

o’clock, and another brilliant day, but the shelling was as fierce

as ever, and smoke and dust hung thickly over the country between

Beugnâtre and Beugny. I made my way down the trench, as the only sort

of covered approach, past our original front line, over a number of

bodies, British and German, to the point where it crossed the valley

from Fremicourt. But I could not see the rallying-point for smoke. The

place was being shelled mercilessly, and it was obvious that no tanks

could stay there. If they had rallied by this time, they must have come

farther back. I tramped back up the hill to the brigade headquarters,

seeing on the way a party of prisoners and their escort blown to

pieces by a shell, and having several narrow escapes myself. Obtaining

no information from the brigade beyond the fact that things were not

going at all well, I walked down the Beugnâtre road to see if the tanks

had rallied somewhere near the village, found no sign of them, nor

indeed of any infantry or anybody else, and then made a second attempt

to get to the original rallying-point in the Fremicourt Valley. But

things there were as bad as before. A number of huts were on fire,

and the whole place was smoking like a furnace. It was impossible to

see anything, and it would have been suicidal to have gone groping

about in the murk for problematical tanks. It was quite possible that

all had been knocked out long before this. The whole battlefield was

extraordinarily deserted. In my two journeys I had met only a couple of

artillery officers reconnoitring for battery positions, two or three

walking wounded, and the prisoners whom I saw destroyed. Every one who

could find some cover from the ferocious shelling had taken it.

After a final hunt about Beugnâtre, I decided to walk back to our

starting-point behind Favreuil. And there, about midday, I found some

of the officers and men of the two sections, who had been in an hour or

two already. Close, of B Company, was having a number of small wounds

attended to. Beale, hit slightly in the leg by the same shell, was

there also. Two out of the three tanks of A Company, it appeared, had

been knocked out, and two out of the four from B, all on the dangerous

ridge looking down into Beugny. The surviving tanks, returning to the

rallying-point after it was plain that the infantry could not get near

the village, had found the Fremicourt Valley, as I suspected, too

hot to hold them--so hot, indeed, that it was considered inadvisable

even to attempt to get them back through it into safety. They were

driven against the railway embankment at the head of the valley, which

afforded some slight protection, and there temporarily abandoned until

the unprecedented shelling should have slackened. The crews had taken

refuge in culverts and other holes and corners, where they still

remained.

Almost everywhere the attack had been a failure. A slight advance

had been made, and the New Zealanders and Mark V.’s on the right had

captured Fremicourt and Bancourt; but the backbone of the position

was untouched. On our left, four tanks of the 12th Battalion, misled

by an infantry guide, arrived late, and the 3rd Division, attacking

Ecoust and Longatte without them, could make no progress. Two other

tanks which advanced against the trenches called the Noreuil Switch

became ditched before they could effect anything. The assault on

Beugny itself, as I have indicated, was hardly more successful. Of

M’Elroy’s three tanks, which had cleared without much trouble the

old trench line as far as the spur in front of the village, two were

knocked out by gun-fire the moment they appeared over the high ground.

The third tank reached Beugny, but found that the infantry could not

follow. B Company’s section, moving along the railway, had a similar

experience--two tanks disabled and the others unable to make any

permanent impression on the village for lack of infantry support. In

addition to Close, whose injuries sent him to hospital, we had two

officers wounded. Sergeant Duddridge, whose tank was one of those hit

on the ridge, performed extraordinarily fine work. Getting out his

Lewis guns, he took his crew forward to join the infantry, and rallied

parties of the latter who had lost their officers and were retiring.

Having used all the ammunition of his own gun, he returned alone to

his tank for more, and remained inside for some time firing 6-pounder

shells into Beugny. He sent his crew back eventually, but stayed in

the firing line himself throughout the day, turning up at Favreuil, as

placid and cheerful as ever, late in the evening. He won the D.C.M. for

this performance.

The 3rd and 5th Divisions seemed badly shaken by this affair, in which

they suffered heavily from the terrific shelling. The latter continued

on into the afternoon, so that it was two o’clock before the crews of

our three surviving tanks (which, by a miracle, were untouched) could

issue from their hiding-places and drive the machines back to Favreuil.

A semi-humorous element in an otherwise nerve-wracking morning was

provided by an officer of the American Tank Corps, one of three

attached to us for a few days’ experience. He had only been in France

a week, and had hardly seen a gun fired until he rashly volunteered to

go forward with Beale and the Major to the rallying-point, where he

found himself in the middle of as ferocious a bombardment as any one

there had ever experienced. I met him afterwards, when I returned to

Favreuil from my wanderings in search of the tanks. He was an extremely

nice fellow, and quite ingenuous in his obvious delight and surprise

at finding himself still alive. I think his ideas of modern war had

been drawn from the surprising journals of his native land, on which

our own newspapers are so successfully modelled; and undoubtedly that

morning’s ordeal had been one of the shocks of his life. He was burning

to use his new-found knowledge in confuting some of his fire-eating

colleagues, who had been proclaiming (from a distance) their fondness

for battles and gore.

III.

The fighting on the 3rd Army front from 30th August to 3rd September

was practically a rearguard action on a very large scale. Von Below’s

17th German Army, its right threatened by the advance from Arras,

still clung desperately to its position from Ecoust southward. Our

first attempt to hustle it into a premature retreat having failed, the

attack was renewed the next morning, 31st August. The hard hit and

somewhat shaken 3rd Division was reinforced by units from the 56th and

62nd Divisions, and nine tanks of the 12th Battalion led this infantry

in another attack on Ecoust, Longatte, and the Noreuil Switch, which

were carried in spite of a very stubborn defence. The pair of tanks

responsible for the switch and other trenches between Longatte and

Vaulx-Vraucourt provided two of the most notable incidents of the

morning, described as follows in the ‘12th Battalion History’:--

“‘Lorraine’ (Lieut. Staub), after working down Vraucourt

trench to within a thousand yards of Vraucourt itself, turned

north again at the request of the infantry to deal with some

machine-guns near Vraucourt Copse. While heading to take these

guns in the rear, the tank was disabled by a bullet from an

anti-tank rifle hitting the magneto. Intense machine-gun fire

was now concentrated on the tank, and four of the crew were

wounded by A.P. bullets. Our nearest infantry were in a trench

150 yards away, and unable to advance, so Lieut. Staub, with

great gallantry, got his badly-wounded men out of the tank

and pulled or carried them under a severe fire to the trench.

For this action he was recommended by the infantry for a

decoration, and received the Military Cross. Meanwhile ‘Lupin,’

the other tank, had disappeared into the blue. Its commander,

Lieut. Acroyd, was the only officer to cross the front line the

previous morning, and on this occasion he seems to have carried

on until well in front of our foremost infantry, when his

tank stopped through magneto trouble. While in this situation

some of the enemy managed to climb unseen on to the roof, and

having from there shot the N.C.O., either through the manhole

being unbolted or by means of an open revolver port, compelled

the rest of the crew to surrender. The N.C.O., who was shot

through the stomach, was left behind in a cellar when the enemy

retreated, and _after three days_ was able to make his way out

and summon assistance.”

The 7th Battalion was not engaged on the 31st. The 5th Division was

licking its wounds in front of Beugny, and no further attempt was made

upon that place until the general offensive was resumed on the 2nd. By

the evening of the 30th, M’Elroy and I, with most of the crews that

were in action that morning, had been conveyed in cars and lorries

back to Bienvillers, where we indulged in hot baths and clean clothes,

and met our new company commander, Merriam, just arrived from the 11th

Battalion. Inhabitants were already returning to Bienvillers, and

we were threatened with eviction from our fly-blown and dilapidated

billets. The 6th Corps Club, an institution which followed up the

army on the heels of the heavy guns, had now moved its branch from

Bavincourt to our village, and one was able to enjoy some of the sweets

of civilisation in the form of comfortable chairs and passable wine.

Within a day or two this enterprising club had opened another branch

at Gommecourt, and a third actually in Behagnies, while the latter was

still odorous with dead horses and other uncleared refuse of the battle.

Returning to Bihucourt on the afternoon of the 31st, we heard the

first rumours of a possible German counter-attack with tanks. Two

of A Company’s few remaining machines were ordered to stand by to

assist the New Zealanders in the event of these rumours materialising

into facts. No one believed in them; but on the following day the

enemy did counter-attack at Thilloy with a couple of his massive

_Panzerkraftwagen_, and six tanks from our three companies moved toward

Bapaume to be at hand if wanted. They were not wanted, although the

right-hand pair, from B Company, did a little voluntary work among

some huts south of the town. The counter-attack was a failure, and the

German tanks did not get into action at all. Their half-hearted crews

drove them (apparently on purpose) into a sunken road and abandoned

them there. They were afterwards towed into Bapaume, where they lay in

the station yard for many weeks.

Preparations were in hand for a heavy blow to be struck by both the 1st

and 3rd Armies on 2nd September. The Canadians of the 1st Army astride

the Arras-Cambrai road, and in touch, north of Ecoust, with the left

of our 17th Corps, were now in front of the famous Drocourt-Quéant

switch-line, supposed to be stronger than the main Hindenburg system.

All the available tanks of the 3rd Brigade (9th, 11th, and 14th

Battalions) were to lead the 4th Division and the 1st and 4th Canadians

against these formidable trenches. To the remnants of the 2nd Tank

Brigade, the 12th and 6th (Light) Battalions, was allotted the capture

of Lagnicourt and Morchies, north-east of Beugny, with the infantry

of the 6th Corps. For our part, we were to supply twelve tanks for a

renewed attempt with the 5th Division on Beugny, and for a further

operation south of Bapaume against Villers-au-Flos, beyond Thilloy.

Four tanks of C Company were detailed for each of these objectives, a

section of B Company following up in reserve.

As everybody knows, the attack of the 1st Army on the Drocourt-Quéant

Switch was a brilliant success. To quote Colonel Buchan, “It went clean

through all the line of one of the strongest positions in the West,

and took six miles of the switch, the villages of Etaing, Dury (with

the important Hill of Dury), Villers-les-Cagnicourt and Noreuil, and

8000 prisoners.” The Switch, in effect, had fallen as the Hindenburg

Line fell at Cambrai, instantly, and this time irrevocably. But Colonel

Buchan does not explain how it was carried so swiftly and easily. He

does not mention tanks, and leaves it to be assumed that the infantry

unaided fought their way in an hour or so through triple trenches and

belts of wire. It will be well, therefore, to point out that once

more the assault was led by tanks, of which fifty-seven (all the 3rd

Brigade could muster) were employed. Fifty-three got into action. Only

the most strenuous exertions got the depleted and disorganised tank

units ready and in position for the battle. The 11th Battalion, which

had recaptured the debris of Monchy-le-Preux on the 25th, had to trek

across the whole front of the Canadian Corps, often within 1000 yards

of the line, to reach the 4th Division, with which it was attacking

Etaing, in the marshes of the Sensée. It is possible that the enemy

heard this approach, as he sent up S.O.S. signals three minutes before

zero. The tanks carried the massive trenches of the Switch, but had

to make so wide a detour farther on to avoid the marshes that they

could not reach Etaing with the infantry. In the centre, twenty-three

out of twenty-four machines of the 9th Battalion reached their final

objectives, which included Dury, where the Town Major was taken

prisoner. The 14th Battalion, on the right, was no less successful,

but had seven tanks knocked out beyond the Switch. “It is estimated

that in this attack one company of tanks alone destroyed over seventy

hostile machine-guns, the German gunners surrendering to the tanks as

they approached.”[40] South of the Canadians, the 17th Corps of the

3rd Army closed on the great knuckle of fortifications about Quéant,

where the Switch joined the main Hindenburg Line. Quéant was almost

surrounded by nightfall. The 6th Corps, in the meantime, had not fared

so well; and two companies of the 12th Tank Battalion were sacrificed

by the failure of the infantry to arrive at the time they themselves

had arranged, and by their inability to get forward when at length

they did reach the point of attack. Zero, for some reason, was fixed

for 5.30, half an hour later than was the case with the corps on the

left, so that the enemy’s retaliation there, overlapping the 6th

Corps’ front, fell about the tanks of one company of the 12th, and

they were moved forward into No Man’s Land to escape it. Our barrage

came down at 5.30, but the assaulting infantry had not arrived; and

it being considered equally dangerous to keep the tanks stationary

or to attempt to withdraw them, they were sent forward alone, in the

hope that they could keep down the German machine-gun fire while the

belated infantry got into position and advanced. The latter were forty

minutes late, and then made no advance at all. The tanks cruised

about, destroying machine-gun posts around Noreuil until they came

under the fire of field batteries, when most of them were knocked out.

Only two out of nine returned. The company on the right, with eight

tanks, received little better support in its attack on Vaulx Wood and

Morchies, and suffered almost as heavily. The battalion left twelve

machines out of seventeen on the field, and lost eight officers and

fifty-six other ranks. The 3rd Division, which was responsible for the

disastrous fiasco on the left, had shown a progressive deterioration

in quality since the attack on 30th August, and its staff work had

gone from bad to worse. Such cases are not uncommon; but it is unjust

that the sacrifices of one arm should remain hidden in order that the

blunders of another may be hushed up. There was very little reticence

in the old days, when tanks were uncertain and untrusted novelties,

if they did not perform some impossibility expected of them. Now that

the boot was on the other foot, a discreet silence shrouded every

small misadventure. From the first capture of Monchy-le-Preux in

1917 to the end of the war there was a multiplication of cases where

inefficient staff work on the part of infantry brigades and divisions

caused tanks to be sacrificed unnecessarily. In the strain and hurry

of the last advance these incidents became very frequent. The new

tactics, in which every attack was led by tank units, made the latter

absolutely dependent upon proper co-operation by the infantry staffs

concerned. Tanks are large objects which cannot easily be hidden, and

any misdirection, any omission to notify changes of plan, any hitch

in the assembly of the assaulting troops (all common faults), meant

in nine cases out of ten that the particular tanks involved would

find themselves sooner or later caught in the open without support in

face of an enemy who could devote his whole attention to destroying

them. I will give chapter and verse later on for an instance within my

own experience; but what I wish to point out now is that the general

ignorance of the part played by tanks in the last year of the war is

due to an official reticence based very often simply on a determination

to avoid unpleasant disclosures. The tanks were not the only victims

of this tendency. Their case happens to be peculiar, but every arm

suffered in turn for the susceptibilities of the others.

While the 12th Battalion, through no fault of its own, was losing tanks

in vain about Morchies and Noreuil, we were suffering again at Beugny

and winning a welcome success at Villers-au-Flos. The latter village

was carried by the 42nd Division with the help of one section from C

Company, three of whose tanks subsequently broke down east of the

village while on their way home, and had temporarily to be abandoned.

The fighting was severe, the German machine-gunners holding out to

the last with that conspicuous bravery which they displayed in almost

all these actions; and the fourth tank, commanded by Sergeant Penny,

having done splendid work in the village, returned plastered grey

with lead and stuck all over with armour-piercing bullets. The other

section, in the meantime, working again with the 5th Division, had

again found Beugny unconquerable. The place was a veritable fortress,

entrenched and wired and held by a large garrison with field-guns; and

although our infantry, as a result of the first attack, were close to

the outskirts, they were checked at the start by intense machine-gun

fire, and failed to make any progress beyond a slight advance to the

north of the village. The tanks could do nothing alone, and the affair

was another expensive failure. It cost us the life, among others, of

Adney, a boy who joined the battalion before Cambrai, where he got

the Military Cross, and who was now killed in rather extraordinary

and still obscure circumstances. He had with him two of my old crew,

Corporal Mitchell and Taylor. His tank, having pushed on alone in

default of infantry support, cruised along the north side of Beugny,

firing into it, and then started to return. It was hit, apparently,

somewhere in front, by a shell which wounded Taylor (who was driving)

and filled the inside with smoke. Adney and the rest of the crew,

believing the machine to be disabled, as it had stopped, scrambled

out, but finding themselves isolated among groups of Germans, ran back

and got inside again, with the exception of Corporal Mitchell, who

was captured. The tank, on examination, proved to be still in running

order. She was therefore started up and driven toward our lines. She

was now hit a second time, in the petrol-tank, and finally disabled,

and simultaneously, it appears, Adney was killed by a bullet which

came through his open flap. Presumably it was fired by one of our own

infantry. The latter making a slight advance at this point, the rest of

the crew escaped, carrying Taylor with them, and shortly after Corporal

Mitchell was rescued from a dug-out where his captors had left him. I

happened to be in C Company’s huts in the Favreuil Valley, talking to

Coutts and Alden, who had just returned from the action, when Mitchell,

who was supposed to be killed, made a dramatic reappearance. He had

lost his watch and everything else in his pockets, but otherwise was

none the worse for his fifteen-minutes’ captivity.

IV.

We had not yet finished with Beugny. Toward dusk on 2nd September I

was waiting about in our camp at Bihucourt for the Major, who was

taking me back to Bienvillers in his car. Word had come through that

the 1st Tank Brigade was to be withdrawn into Army Reserve to refit,

and those of us who had nothing particular to do were returning to our

old headquarters that night. I was especially glad of this release, as

the symptoms of another attack of influenza (or some kindred variant

of P.U.O.) were beginning to affect me, and I was longing for bed. At

this time battalion headquarters had established an advanced base at

Bihucourt in one of the huts, and the Major was now conferring there

with the Colonel, who had just arrived. Unconscious of my doom, like

one of the infants in the poem, I was standing about outside when the

Major appeared to summon me, as I supposed, to the car. His first words

dissipated this natural delusion.

“There’s another dog-fight on to-night,” he said. “They want two of our

tanks for Beugny again....”

Beugny was becoming a perfect curse to the battalion, a sort of King

Charles’s head, or Old Man of the Sea. This was the third time in five

days that we had been called upon to tackle it, and it was A Company’s

second turn in the pleasant round. We were, I think, inclined to

feel that the 5th Division might have done their own work on this

occasion without dragging us into it again, as we had given them two

opportunities which they had failed to seize. However, the thing had to

be done. We were working once more with our old acquaintances the 13th

Infantry Brigade, who had attacked the place with us on the 30th. Our

only fit tanks, three or four, and none of them in good condition, were

still in the valley by Favreuil. We had no officers available as tank

commanders, and two sergeants were sent off to prepare the most likely

machines for action. M’Elroy, who was once more to share with me the

responsibilities of office, was already away at Bienvillers, no doubt

luxuriating in a bath and the prospect of several days of peace; and

a car was despatched to bring him back to these unpleasant realities.

After a hurried meal with the Colonel, the Major and I departed in

his Vauxhall for the 13th Brigade Headquarters, still in the dug-out

near Beugnâtre. As it was now quite dark, we were able to drive most

of the way to the village. We found the Brigadier and his Brigade

Major in the dug-out, and obtained from them the plan of attack and

the _rôle_ the two tanks were expected to play. Beugny, it appeared,

was to be dealt with faithfully at last. Six field batteries and one

battery of 6-inch howitzers were to pound it for half an hour before

the infantry advanced. The tanks were required only to clear a trench

which ran immediately behind the village. It appeared rather obvious

that if the latter was carried, the fall of the trench would be only a

matter of time, and that if the artillery preparation was sufficiently

thorough and accurate, both village and trench (together a small and

compact target) would be rendered so untenable that tanks would not be

needed for their capture. One cannot argue with brigadiers, however.

We promised that the tanks should arrive, if we could get them there.

I remember this interview, held in a candle-lit compartment of the

dug-out, with peculiar clearness. I had seen the Brigadier and his

Brigade Major before, and was to meet them again some weeks later when

I was with the 12th Battalion at Solesmes, and I was struck by the

marked contrast between them. The General, whose name I forget, was a

powerful bulky man, with an odd resemblance to a boar. Stewart, the

Brigade Major, was very young, very fair, slim, and rather exquisite.

He seemed to find speech an exhausting process, and wore a permanent

expression of boredom and fatigue, neither of which, I dare say, was an

affectation at that time.

When we returned to the tanks at Favreuil, the two machines detailed

for the attack were filled up and ready to move, and M’Elroy had

arrived from Bienvillers. I spent half an hour explaining the details

to the crews and plotting out compass-bearings on the map. We should

be approaching Beugny in the dark over ground that was unknown to me

except for the few glimpses I had obtained through the smoke on the

30th, and I determined to strike the railway, of which I have spoken,

as soon as possible, and use it as a guide to the village. Soon after

midnight we started, following the road north of Monument Wood, through

Favreuil, and so through the deserted camps south of Beugnâtre. The

two tanks, although the best we could provide at this stage, were in

great need of an overhaul, and we soon began to have trouble with

them. One stuck in the sunken road beyond Beugnâtre. After waiting for

some time, M’Elroy and I went on with the remaining machine, as we had

still a long way to go. We were now launched upon the open grass-land,

devoid of landmarks, and I began to use the compass. Far ahead of us,

in a direct line with the bearing I had taken to the railway, a fire

was burning behind the German front, and this served us as a useful

guide. I supposed it to be a village or a dump set alight by our

shells, but presently a second fire was visible, and then a third, and

I began to wonder if these conflagrations did not signify that the

enemy was burning his stores before retreating. Our guns were very

quiet, as they had been throughout the evening, and it was difficult

to account otherwise for these sudden glares on the horizon. In the

meantime, the tank we had left in the sunken road had not overtaken us,

and our remaining machine was giving trouble. One or two delays, due

to engine defects, wasted a lot of valuable time. Zero was at 5.40,

and it was four o’clock before at length we struck the railway at a

point marked by two stacks of fodder and an overturned Whippet. This

machine, incidentally, had been the cause of a very gallant action

a few days before. One of a section of the 3rd Battalion sent in to

“clear up the situation” (whatever that euphemistic phrase may mean) on

29th August, the Whippet had turned completely over in a shell-hole,

catching fire at the same time. The door of the cab was jammed in the

earth, and the crew of three was imprisoned upside down in burning oil.

The commander of another Whippet, Lieutenant Sewell, got out under

intense machine-gun fire at close range, and with a shovel dug out

and forced open the door of the inverted tank. He liberated the crew,

but was shot in several places and killed, together with his driver,

while endeavouring to return to his own machine. A posthumous V.C. was

awarded him.

Having found the railway, we pushed along beside it at a good speed.

The fires in the east were growing brighter, and the extreme quietness

of the night confirmed me in my belief that the expected retreat of

the enemy actually was begun. When we reached the head of the valley

which had been our inauspicious selection as a rallying-point for the

30th, the tank developed further eccentricities, and eventually refused

to move at all. The engine stopped, and no coaxing would start it up

again. There was no sign of the second tank. At a quarter past five,

as we were still 1000 yards from our front line, M’Elroy and I decided

that nothing more could be done. We told the crew to take refuge in a

culvert, which ran through the railway embankment close at hand, if

the tank was discovered and shelled at dawn, and then we began to make

our way back to the 13th Brigade Headquarters to report our failure.

We were nearing the Beugnâtre road as the barrage fell upon Beugny at

zero. Dawn was breaking, and as, deafened by the throbbing clamour of

the batteries all round us, we looked back eastward from the rising

ground, we saw fresh fires blazing and clouds of white smoke rolling

away from a dozen points far beyond the range of our shells. There

could be hardly any doubt about it now: the German retreat had begun.

At the brigade headquarters we found nobody but a few signal officers

and other details staring at these distant conflagrations, and they had

no news to give us; but tramping on to Biefvillers we met the Major

in his car, and learnt from him that the enemy had indeed vanished in

the night. Beugny, pulverised for half an hour by high explosives, was

empty of all living things. Only a few machine-gunners were left amid

the debris of the retreat between us and the Canal du Nord.

V.

On 4th September the whole Tank Corps was withdrawn into G.H.Q. Reserve

to refit and reorganise. Since the 21st August, 511 tanks had been in

action, and had been largely responsible for a succession of victories

in which we had captured 53,000 prisoners and 470 guns. The 1st, 2nd,

and 3rd Tank Brigades were now so crippled that they could not have

mustered fifty fit machines between them. The 4th and 5th Brigades,

having suffered heavily on 8th August and after, had less work to do in

the course of the 4th Army’s subsequent advance south of the Somme, for

which reason I have not attempted, amid so much other matter, to follow

their actions during this fortnight; but they were hardly less reduced

and in need of rest than the three northern brigades.

Strikes, and the vacillating policy of the authorities in respect

of tanks, had left the corps with no reserve from which casualties

and worn-out machines could be replaced. The ratio of wastage in any

series of tank actions, from mechanical causes alone, was very large,

increasing proportionately as machines were used again and again with

no opportunity between times for a thorough overhaul. On the other

hand, the majority of repairs needed were only of a minor character;

and after a week’s rest a battalion which had been reduced perhaps

to half a dozen serviceable tanks could put twenty or thirty into

the field again. Cases of disablement by gun-fire, of course, fell

into a different category. Such machines as could be salved on the

spot and were worth repairing were despatched to Central Workshops,

whose personnel at this time was working day and night, but the

replacement of shattered armour-plate was a longer job than a change

of track-plates or rollers. In any case, nothing could make up for

the lack of an adequate reserve of new tanks. The batches of Mark

V.’s which came out from England replaced only a small portion of the

casualties in the dozen battalions which used that type, and the 12th

Battalion and ourselves carried on to the end with Mark IV.’s, most of

which were nearly two years old.

The period of reorganisation after 4th September included the

inevitable reshuffling of battalions among the five brigades. It will

be enough to state here that the 1st Brigade was made up once more of

its old units, the 7th, 11th, and 12th Battalions. The 301st American

Tank Battalion was attached for a short time and came with some Mark

V.’s to Bihucourt, where the 7th remained.