"An' wot's the next item o' the program, I wonder?" said Pug half an
hour after the last attack had failed, half an hour filled with a
little shooting, a good deal of listening to the pipe and whistle of
overhead bullets and the rolling thunder of the guns, a watching of the
shells falling and spouting earth and smoke on the defiant redoubt.
"Reinforcements and another butt-in at it, I expect," surmised
Kentucky. "Don't see anything else for it. Looks like this
pimple-on-the-map of a redoubt was holdin' up any advance on this
front. Anyhow I'm not hankering to go pushin' on with that redoubt
bunch shootin' holes in my back, which they'd surely do."
"Wot's all the buzz about be'ind us?" said Pug suddenly, raising
himself for a quick look over the covering edge of earth behind him,
and in the act of dropping again stopped and stared with raised
eyebrows and gaping mouth.
"What is it?" said Kentucky quickly, and also rose, and also stayed
risen and staring in amazement. Towards them, lumbering and rolling,
dipping heavily into the shell holes, heaving clumsily out of them,
moving with a motion something between that of a half-sunken ship and a
hamstrung toad, striped and banded and splashed from head to foot, or,
if you prefer, from fo'c'sl-head to cutwater, with splashes of lurid
color, came His Majesty's Land Ship "Here We Are."
"Gor-_strewth_!" ejaculated Pug. "Wha-what is it?"
Kentucky only gasped.
"'Ere," said Pug hurriedly, "let's gerrout o' this. It's comin' over
atop of us," and he commenced to scramble clear.
But a light of understanding was dawning on Kentucky's face and a wide
grin growing on his lips. "It's one of the Tanks," he said, and giggled
aloud as the Here We Are dipped her nose and slid head first into a
huge shell-crater in ludicrous likeness to a squat bull-pup sitting
back on its haunches and dragged into a hole: "I've heard lots about
'em, but the seein' beats all the hearin' by whole streets," and he and
Pug laughed aloud together as the Here We Are's face and gun-port eyes
and bent-elbow driving gear appeared above the crater rim in still more
ridiculous resemblance to an amazed toad emerging from a rain-barrel.
The creature lumbered past them, taking in its stride the narrow trench
dug to link up the shell holes, and the laughter on Kentucky's lips
died to thoughtfully serious lines as his eye caught the glint of fat,
vicious-looking gun muzzles peering from their ports.
"Haw haw haw," guffawed Pug as the monster lurched drunkenly, checked
and steadied itself with one foot poised over a deep hole, halted and
backed away, and edged nervously round the rim of the hole. "See them
machine guns pokin' out, Kentucky," he continued delightedly. "They
won't 'arf pepper them Huns when they gets near enough."
Fifty yards in the wake of the Here We Are a line of men followed
up until an officer halted them along the front line where Pug and
Kentucky were posted.
"You blokes just takin' 'im out for an airin'?" Pug asked one of the
newcomers. "Oughtn't you to 'ave 'im on a leadin' string?"
"Here we are, Here we are again," chanted the other and giggled
spasmodically. "An' ain't he just hot stuff! But wait till you see 'im
get to work with his sprinklers."
"Does 'e bite?" asked Pug, grinning joyously. "Oughtn't you to 'ave 'is
muzzle on?"
"Bite," retorted another. "He's a bloomin' Hun-eater. Jes' gulps 'em
whole, coal-scuttle 'ats an' all."
"He's a taed," said another. "A lollopin, flat-nosed, splay-fittit,
ugly puddock, wi's hin' legs stuck oot whaur his front should be."
"Look at 'im, oh, look at 'im ... he's alive, lad, nobbut alive."...
"Does every bloomin' thing but talk."... "Skatin' he is now, skatin' on
'is off hind leg," came a chorus of delighted comment.
"Is he goin' to waltz in and take that redoubt on his ownsum?" asked
Kentucky. "No," some one told him. "We give him ten minutes' start and
then follow on and pick up the pieces, and the prisoners."