With the Tanks
For the second time within twelve hours Derek Daventry made a journey
by car to Le Tenetoir aerodrome. On the second occasion it was to
give evidence against the airman-spy Count Hertz von Peilfell; but
upon arriving at his destination he found that the court-martial had
been summoned to no purpose. The prisoner had escaped, and, although
his description had been circulated all along the Allied front and
over the back-areas, the Count was still at large.
Amongst the British airmen the general tone of expression was one of
sympathy--as far as sympathy could be extended to a Hun. Von Peilfell
was a crack airman; his rôle of spy was quite in accordance with
modern warfare, for both British and French air-craft had frequently
landed spies well behind the German lines. It was almost unanimously
felt that, if Count von Peilfell were to fall, a fitting end to him
would be in aerial combat. If he fell on territory occupied by the
Allies he would be buried with full military honours; if on soil
temporarily held by the Huns, then a British aeroplane would
doubtless circle over the funeral-party and drop a wreath bearing a
tribute to the crack Hun flyer's prowess.
But sterner work was on hand. It was a carefully-kept secret that at
dawn on the next day following the spy's escape a frontal attack was
to be delivered upon the Huns, still holding a strongly-fortified
section of the line--a front of twenty miles, protected on both
flanks by broad canals, and defended by mazes of trenches and
barbed-wire entanglements.
Once this section were pierced, the whole German line would be in
danger. Army corps would be practically surrounded and forced to
surrender, while a broad wedge would be driven between the Huns in
Flanders and those who were stoutly resisting the Franco-American
troops in the neighbourhood of Metz.
An infantry attack would be too costly. Heavy artillery bombardment
would give the Boches an inkling of what was about to develop. On
this account the British guns had of late remained comparatively
inactive, in order to lull Fritz into a state of false security.
So the assault was to be delivered by tanks, supported by relatively
small detachments of infantry, while the R.A. F. were ordered to
co-operate to their utmost capacity. Every available machine fit for
offensive work was to be employed in the operations, the idea being
not only to paralyse the Huns in the firing-line, but to prevent
reinforcements and supplies reaching them. In brief, the whole of a
certain German sector was to be wiped out.
At five in the morning, or two hours before dawn, the tanks were to
start upon their grim errand. Every square foot of ground occupied by
the enemy in the coveted sector had been photographed and
re-photographed by daring airmen. The work had been efficiently
performed, but at a cost, as the long R.A.F. casualty list testified.
It was not in the heat of combat that these daring aerial
photographers had been shot down, but in the cold, methodical pursuit
of an art that the demands of modern warfare had relentlessly
absorbed.
With an accurate knowledge of the nature of the terrain the task of
the tanks had been rendered fairly straightforward. There were, of
course, hidden pitfalls which the almost all-seeing lens of the
camera failed to detect: cleverly-camouflaged gun-emplacements and
nests of machine-guns that were not shown on the finished
photograph-prints; but even here the work of the airman was evident.
Cryptic markings on the prints gave the staff officers certain
clues--an anti-aircraft battery here; a booby-trap there, an
observation-post in that place. The science of detecting screened
pitfalls was almost as perfect as the skilful art of camouflage.
There were tanks and tanks. The ground trembled under the pulsations
of their powerful engines. Whippets, male tanks, female tanks,
"Rolls" tanks capable of doing twenty miles an hour with their
250-h.p. engines; tanks mounting six hundred quick-firers, tanks
bristling with machine-guns--a veritable armada of land-ships moving
forward in what appeared to be a solid, compact mass.
They moved slowly at first, each section led by an officer on foot
towards the as yet invisible German lines. There had been a spell of
quietude on this part of the front of late. The Huns considered their
defensive works so perfect that a frontal attack would be impossible,
and, being let severely alone, they had refrained from their usual
lavish display of star-shells.
Grunting, groaning, coughing; ejecting vile, sulphurous fumes from
their noisy exhausts, the steel-clad mastodons ambled onwards until
Fritz, suddenly aware that danger was at hand, opened a furious fire
that threw a dancing, lurid glare upon the crater-pitted plain over
which the hordes of tanks surged like a sullen ground-swell beating
upon a flat shore. Vivid red and white rockets--Fritz's S.O.S.
signals--soared skywards, an appeal by the field-grey infantry for
support from their heavy artillery.
It was at this juncture that Derek Daventry, one of the host of
aerial fighters, found himself flying at a few hundred feet above the
Boche lines.
In the reflected glare of the rifle- and machine-gun fire he could
discern the array of tanks advancing. The slow-moving tanks were in
the van, their _raison d'être_ to flatten down the hostile wire and
pave a way for the whippets and "twenty-milers" of the land-fleet.
Machine-gun bullets were rattling against their armoured snouts,
while here and there bursts of vivid-red flame gave token that the
anti-tank bullets--steel-cored and copper-encased missiles--had put
more than one tank out of action.
All this Derek took in as the result of a few seconds' flight. Then,
over the hostile front, his work began. In darkness, save for the
intermittent flashes of the guns, the British 'planes sped to and
fro. Unavoidable collisions brought friends crashing to earth;
oft-times the machines were flying blindly through clouds of black,
nauseating smoke. Rocking, side-slipping, bumping, and banking, the
aerial-fleet continued its work in hammering with the land-armada of
tanks. Machine-gunning, bombing, and dropping poison-gas cylinders,
the airmen hovered remorselessly over the now-demoralized Boches,
while the tanks, surging onwards, beat down acres of barbed-wire and
flattened out whole sectors of trenches.
Derek had just fired his ninth tray of ammunition when he felt the
joy-stick give. A fragment of shell had severed the "nerve-centre" of
the biplane, and the 'bus was now practically out of control. A touch
upon the rudder-bar turned EG 19 in the direction of "home", but
almost immediately the engine "konked". In the darkness it was
impossible to see what had happened, but another fragment of shell
had lodged fairly in the magneto.
EG 19 had to come down. How she came down depended upon sheer luck,
since the skill and nerve of the pilot were useless to avoid the
threatened calamity.
Derek steeled himself to meet the tremendous crash, but the shock
never came. By one of those eccentricities of movement that
aerial-craft occasionally perform, the biplane flattened out within
twenty feet of the ground, dipped her nose, and then pancaked upon
the shelving side of a large shell-crater. Without a scratch the
pilot scrambled out of the fuselage and gained the ground.
He promptly threw himself at full length in the stiff mud that lay in
the bottom of the crater, and listened to the appalling racket
overhead. Shells of light calibre were screeching and bursting all
around, their uproar punctuated by the heavier concussion of
aerial-bombs. A crescendo of machine-gun fire added to the deafening
roar, while the hail of bullets directed upon the imperturbable tanks
sounded like a continuous tattoo.
Almost on the lip of the crater a large tank had come to a
standstill. Two jagged holes in her fantastically-painted sides
showed that a Hun anti-tank gun had scored direct hits, but whether
these had put the mobile fort out of action Derek was unable to
determine.
While debating whether it would be safer to take cover under the lee
of the tank or to remain in the doubtful security of a wide
shell-crater, Daventry saw the door in the wake of the tank's sponson
thrown open, and a couple of mechanics crawl through, followed by a
waft of brownish smoke.
At first sight the flying-officer imagined that the men were the sole
survivors of the land-ship's crew, but he was mistaken. It was a case
of engine failure that had brought the tank to a halt, and since the
only means of "cranking-up" was performed from without, the mechanics
were risking death in the open in a laudable effort to restart the
motors.
Even as the men strained frantically at the handle a shell burst
within five yards of the tank. One of the mechanics, caught by the
direct blast of the explosion, was wiped out of existence; the other,
by one of those inexplicable freaks of fortune, escaped with only a
slight shock. Although only a few inches from his luckless comrade he
was evidently in the so-called safety-zone of explosion. Slightly
dazed, and apparently oblivious of the fact that he had missed death
by inches, he sweated at the cranking-handle in a vain attempt to
overcome the compression.
Acting purely upon impulse, and not taking into account the risk,
Derek scrambled up the loose mound of earth, against which bullets
were burying themselves with a succession of dull thuds. Then across
the few yards of open ground he ran, and threw himself at the
starting-gear.
The mechanic took no notice of the new arrival. His whole mind was
set upon his task. Even had Derek been a Boche it is doubtful whether
the man would have given him a thought.
"Hold out there, mate!" shouted the mechanic, without raising his
head. Derek grasped the cranking-handle. The other, placing his foot
upon the metal, brought his whole weight down. Over swung the crank,
and with a thunderous roar the powerful motor fired--and continued to
do so. Through the eddying fumes Daventry could discern the mechanic,
with hunched shoulders, stumbling towards the still open door.
"This is a stunt that will suit me," exclaimed the young officer. "A
change is as good as a rest." The next thing he remembered was
barking his shins on the sharp, metallic edge of the threshold. Then,
coughing and spluttering in the petrol-laden fumes, he heard the door
clang behind him.
The interior of a tank was not strange to Derek. Several times
previously he had gone for joy-rides in the land-ships, but now he
was experiencing a novel sensation, that of being cooped up in a
mobile armoured fort in action.
There was very little room to move about. Most of the interior was
occupied by the powerful motors and fuel-tanks, six-pounder guns
mounted _en barbette_, and machine-guns, to say nothing of fifteen
men of the original crew. The tank was in reality a moving magazine,
for, in addition to the large quantity of petrol and ammunition, she
carried a stock of phosphorous-bombs, smoke-bombs, and gun-cotton.
The latter explosive was for use in the event of the tank becoming
disabled and in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy, and it
was the duty of the last surviving member of the crew to blow the
land-ship to bits should there be a danger of capture.
Derek, not content to be a mere passenger, looked around for
something to do. The commander of the tank was too busy to notice the
new arrival. His sole attention was directed towards the enemy
through the periscope sights in the roof of the mastodon.
An unattended machine-gun attracted Derek's notice. A brief
examination showed that the mechanism was intact. There was
ammunition in plenty. A neatly-punched hole just above the
sighting-aperture told its own tale. An anti-tank bullet had passed
through the armour, and had hit the machine-gunner fairly in the
centre of his forehead.
The tank was now lurching forward. Machine-gun bullets were splaying
against its nose and sides. Fragments of nickel were forcing their
way through the joints in the metallic beast's armour, and a sliver,
cutting Derek in the cheek, gave him warning that he was not properly
equipped for the task.
Discarding his triplex glass goggles he donned a "tin hat" and steel
visor that were lying on the floor. They had been the property of the
dead machine-gunner, and had he been wearing them it is just possible
that the anti-tank bullet that had laid him out might have glanced
from the convex surface of the steel helmet.
By this time the tank had skirted the edge of the crater and was
bearing down upon a nest of Hun machine-guns. Even as it passed what
appeared to be a pile of rubble an anti-tank gun was fired at a range
of less than forty yards.
Derek felt the windage of the missile as it passed completely through
the armoured sides. Fragments of copper and steel rattled against his
visor.
Bending over the sights of his machine-gun, Derek prepared to deluge
the concealed Huns under a hail of nickel, but before he could open
fire the tank made a half-turn almost in its own length and went
straight for the snipers' lair.
The Huns saw it coming and promptly bolted. They had but two choices:
one was to hold their ground and risk being pulverized under the
banded wheels of the tank; the other to risk being shot down in the
open. Bending low they ran. Few covered more than twenty yards, for
the British machine-gunners were taking a heavy toll. Enfiladed by
other tanks, the anti-tank gunners were completely wiped out with
less compunction than if they had been rabbits in a warren.
Then, swinging back into line, the tank in which Derek had "signed
on" as an unofficial member of the crew pressed forward towards
another belt of almost intact wire, against which hundreds of
demoralized Boches were held up in their precipitate retreat.
On breasting the ridge the armada was greeted by a heavy fire at
short range. Several tanks came to an abrupt halt, burning fiercely
from end to end. Others, regardless of a heavy fire, held resolutely
on their course, methodically flattening out obstacles and crushing
Boche machine-gunners out of existence.
Suddenly an anti-tank bullet passed through the forepart of the tank
on which Derek was busily engaged with his machine-gun. The steel
core passed through the head of the pilot, glanced from a metal
girder, and penetrated the chest of the Commander. Not content with
this, the deadly missile pulverized the magneto and disappeared
through the floor of the tank.
Promptly the huge land-fort came to a standstill. To all appearances
its term of life was approaching its end. Flames began to issue from
one of the carburettors. In another moment the tank would have become
a raging inferno but for the action of one of the drivers. Grasping a
"pyrene" extinguisher, he directed the oxygen-destroying chemical
upon the flames. Almost immediately the fire was quenched, but the
noxious fumes from the extinguisher made the interior untenable. Even
those of the men who wore gas-masks found that these were no
protection from the choking fumes, for owing to the showers of
metallic splinters in the interior of the tank not a mask remained
serviceable.
"Out of it, lads!" spluttered the second in command, a subaltern of
the Tank Corps. His voice trailed off into a queer little squeal of
pained surprise, for a bullet, passing through a rent in the tank's
side, shattered his left arm at the wrist.
Quickly, yet in an orderly manner, the evacuation was carried out.
The wounded men were assisted to a place of doubtful shelter afforded
by an abandoned trench, while Derek and the eight unscathed members
of the crew followed to await developments.
Even as Derek crouched in the shallow trench, the greater part of
which had been flattened out by tanks crossing the obstruction, he
noticed an officer in the uniform of a major of the Tank Corps
running along the irregular parados.
"Back, back, all of you!" he shouted. "Pass the word along. Signal to
the Tank-Commanders. We're held up, and the ground is heavily mined.
Retire!"