still as black as pitch, the tanks moved again for their final
starting-point. McKnutt's machine was the first to go.
"Cheero, McKnutt," we said as he clambered in. "Good luck!"
The men followed, some through the top and some through the side. The
doors and portholes were closed, and in a moment the exhaust began to
puff merrily. The tank crawled forward and soon disappeared into the
blackness.
She had about fifteen hundred yards to go, parallel with the
Hindenburg Line, and several trenches to cross before coming up with
the enemy. We had planned that the tanks would take about three
quarters of an hour to reach their starting-point, and that soon after
they arrived there, the show would begin.
Since it was still dark and the attack had not commenced, McKnutt and
his first driver opened the windows in front of them. They looked out
into impenetrable gloom. It was necessary to turn their headlights on,
and with this help, they crawled along a little more securely. A
signal from the driver, and they got into top gear. She bumped along,
over shell-holes and mine-craters at the exhilarating speed of about
four miles an hour, and then arrived at the first trench to be
crossed. It was about ten feet wide with high banks on each side.
"One up!" signals the driver. The gears-men get into first gear, and
the tank tilts back as it goes up one side of the trench. Suddenly she
starts tipping over, and the driver takes out his clutch and puts on
his brake hard. McKnutt yells out, "Hold tight!" and the tank slides
gently down with her nose in the bottom of the trench. The driver lets
in his clutch again, the tank digs her nose into the other side and
pulls herself up slowly, while her tail dips down into the bottom of
the trench. Then comes the great strain as she pulls herself bodily
out of the trench until she balances on the far side.
It was now no longer safe to run with lights. They were snapped off.
Once more the darkness closed around them, blacker than ever. They
could no longer find their route, and McKnutt jumped out, walking
ahead with the tank lumbering along behind. Twice he lost his way and
they were obliged to wait until he found it again. Then, to his
intense relief, the moon shone out with a feeble light. It was just
enough to illumine faintly the ground before them and McKnutt
reëntered the tank, and started on.
Their route ran close to the sides of an old quarry and they edged
along cautiously. McKnutt, with his eyes glued to the front, decided
that they must have already passed the end of the quarry. That would
mean that they were not far from the spot where they were to wait for
the signal to go into action. The moon had again disappeared behind
the clouds, but he did not consider it worth while to get out again.
The journey would be over in a few minutes.
Suddenly, his heart took a great dive and he seemed to stop breathing.
He felt the tank balance ever so slightly. Staring with aching eyes
through the portholes, he saw that they were on the edge of the old
quarry, with a forty-foot drop down its steep sides before them. The
black depth seemed bottomless. The tank was slipping over. When she
shot down they would all be killed from concussion alone.
His heart was pounding so that he could hardly speak. But the driver,
too, had seen the danger.
"For God's sake, take out your clutch and put your brake on!" McKnutt
yelled, his voice almost drowned by the rattle and roar inside the
tank. The man kept his head. As the tail of the tank started tipping
up, he managed somehow with the brakes to hold her on the edge. For a
second or two, she swayed there. She seemed to be unable to decide
whether to kill them or not. The slightest crumbling of the earth or
the faintest outside movement against the tank would precipitate them
over the edge. The brakes would not hold them for long. Then the
driver acted. Slowly he put his gears in reverse, keeping the brake on
hard until the engine had taken up the strain. Slowly she moved back
until her tail bumped on the ground, and she settled down. Neither
McKnutt nor his driver spoke. They pushed back their tin hats and
wiped their foreheads.
McKnutt glanced back at the men in the rear of the tank. They, of
course, had been unable to see out, and had no idea of what they had
escaped. Now that the danger was passed, he felt an unreasonable
annoyance that none of them would ever know what he and the driver had
gone through in those few moments. Then the feeling passed, he
signalled, "Neutral left," the gearsman locked his left track, and the
tank swung over, passing safely by the perilous spot.
They settled down now to a snail's pace, shutting off their engine, as
the Germans could not be more than one hundred and fifty or two
hundred yards away. Running at full speed, the engine would have been
heard by them. In a few moments, they arrived at their appointed
station. McKnutt glanced at his watch. They had only a few moments to
wait. The engine was shut off and they stopped.
The heat inside the tank was oppressive. McKnutt and James opened the
top, and crawled out, the men following. They looked around. The first
streaks of light were beginning to show in the sky. A heavy silence
hung over everything--the silence that always precedes a bombardment.
Presumably, only the attacking forces feel this. Even the desultory
firing seems to have faded away. All the little ordinary noises have
ceased. It is a sickening quiet, so loud in itself that it makes one's
heart beat quicker. It is because one is listening so intensely for
the guns to break out that all other sounds have lost their
significance. One seems to have become all ears--to have no sense of
sight or touch or taste or smell. All seem to have become merged in
the sense of hearing. The very air itself seems tense with listening.
Only the occasional rattle of a machine gun breaks the stillness. Even
this passes unnoticed.
Slowly the minute-hand crept round to the half-hour, and the men
slipped back into their steel home. Doors were bolted and portholes
shut, save for the tiny slits in front of officer and driver, through
which they peered. The engine was ready to start. The petrol was on
and flooding. They waited quietly. Their heavy breathing was the only
sound. The minute-hand reached the half-hour.
With the crash and swish of thousands of shells, the guns smashed the
stillness. Instantly, the flash of their explosion lit up the opposite
trenches. For a fraction of a second the thought came to McKnutt how
wonderful it was that man could produce a sound to which Nature had no
equal, either in violence or intensity. But the time was for action
and not for reflection.
"Start her up!" yelled out McKnutt.
But the engine would not fire.
"What the devil's the matter?" cried James.
A bit of tinkering with the carburetor, and the engine purred softly.
Its noise was drowned in the pandemonium raging around them. James let
in the clutch, and the monster moved forward on her errand of
destruction.
Although it was not light enough to distinguish forms, the flashes of
the shell-fire and the bursts from the shrapnel lit up that part of
the Hindenburg Line that lay on the other side of the barrier. One
hundred and fifty yards, and the tank was almost on top of the
barricade. Bombs were exploding on both sides. McKnutt slammed down
the shutters of the portholes in front of him and his driver.
"Bullets," he said shortly.
"One came through, I think, sir," James replied. With the portholes
shut, there was no chance for bullets to enter now through the little
pin-points directly above the slits in the shutters. In order to see
through these, it is necessary to place one's eye directly against
the cold metal. They are safe, for if a bullet does hit them, it
cannot come through, although it may stop up the hole.
Suddenly a dull explosion was heard on the roof of the tank.
"They're bombing us, sir!" cried one of the gunners. McKnutt signalled
to him, and he opened fire from his sponson. They plunged along, amid
a hail of bullets, while bombs exploded all around them.
McKnutt and James, with that instinctive sense of direction which
comes to men who control these machines, felt that they were hovering
on the edge of the German trench. Then a sudden flash from the
explosion of a huge shell lit up the ground around them, and they saw
four or five gray-clad figures, about ten yards away, standing on the
parapet hysterically hurling bombs at the machine. They might as well
have been throwing pebbles. Scornfully the tank slid over into the
wide trench and landed with a crash in the bottom. For a moment she
lay there without moving. The Germans thought she was stuck. They
came running along thinking to grapple with her. But they never
reached her, for at once the guns from both sides opened fire and the
Germans disappeared.
The huge machine dragged herself up the steep ten-foot side of the
trench. As she neared the top, it seemed as if the engine would not
take the final pull. James took out his clutch, put his brake on hard,
and raced the engine. Then letting the clutch in with a jerk, the tank
pulled herself right on to the point of balance, and tipped slowly
over what had been the parapet of the German position.
Now she was in the wire which lay in front of the trench. McKnutt
signalled back, "Swing round to the left," parallel to the lay of the
line. A moment's pause, and she moved forward relentlessly, crushing
everything in her path, and sending out a stream of bullets from every
turret to any of the enemy who dared to show themselves above the top
of the trench.
At the same time our own troops, who had waited behind the barricade
to bomb their way down, from traverse to traverse, rushed over the
heap of sandbags, tangled wire, wood, and dead men which barred their
way. The moral effect of the tank's success, and the terror which she
inspired, cheered our infantry on to greater efforts. The tank crew
were, at the time, unaware of the infantry's action, as none of our
own men could be seen. The only indication of the fact was the
bursting of the bombs which gradually moved from fire bay to fire bay.
The Corporal touched McKnutt on the arm.
"I don't believe our people are keeping up with us, sir," he said.
"They seem to have been stopped about thirty yards back."
"All right," McKnutt answered. "We'll turn round."
McKnutt and James opened their portholes to obtain a clearer view.
Five yards along to the left, a group of Germans were holding up the
advancing British. They had evidently prepared a barricade in case of
a possible bombing attack on our part, and this obstacle, together
with a fusillade of bombs which met them, prevented our troops from
pushing on. McKnutt seized his gun and pushed it through the
mounting, but found that he could not swing round far enough to get an
aim on the enemy. But James was in a better position. He picked the
gray figures off, one by one, until the bombing ceased and our own men
jumped over the barricade and came down among the dead and wounded
Germans.
Then a sudden and unexplainable sense of disaster caused McKnutt to
look round. One of his gunners lay quite still on the floor of the
tank, his back against the engine, and a stream of blood trickling
down his face. The Corporal who stood next to him pointed to the
sights in the turret and then to his forehead, and McKnutt realized
that a bullet must have slipped in through the small space, entering
the man's head as he looked along the barrel of his gun. There he lay,
along one side of the tank between the engine and the sponson. The
Corporal tried to get in position to carry on firing with his own gun,
but the dead body impeded his movements.
There was only one thing to do. The Corporal looked questioningly at
McKnutt and pointed to the body. The officer nodded quickly, and the
left gearsman and the Corporal dragged the body and propped it up
against the door. Immediately the door flew open. The back of the
corpse fell down and half the body lay hanging out, with its legs
still caught on the floor. With feverish haste they lifted the legs
and threw them out, but the weight of the body balanced them back
again through the still open door. The men were desperate. With a
tremendous heave they turned the dead man upside down, shoved the body
out and slammed the door shut. They were just in time. A bomb exploded
directly beneath the sponson, where the dead body had fallen. To every
man in the tank came a feeling of swift gratitude that the bombs had
caught the dead man and not themselves.
They ploughed across another trench without dropping into the bottom,
for it was only six feet wide. Daylight had come by now and the enemy
was beginning to find that his brave efforts were of no avail against
these monsters of steel.
All this time the German guns had not been silent. McKnutt's tank
crunched across the ground amid a furious storm of flying earth and
splinters. The strain was beginning to be felt. Although one is
protected from machine-gun fire in a tank, the sense of confinement
is, at times, terrible. One does not know what is happening outside
his little steel prison. One often cannot see where the machine is
going. The noise inside is deafening; the heat terrific. Bombs shatter
on the roof and on all sides. Bullets spatter savagely against the
walls. There is an awful lack of knowledge; a feeling of blind
helplessness at being cooped up. One is entirely at the mercy of the
big shells. If a shell hits a tank near the petrol tank, the men may
perish by fire, as did Gould, without a chance of escape. Going down
with your ship seems pleasant compared to burning up with your tank.
In fighting in the open, one has, at least, air and space.
McKnutt, however, was lucky. They could now see the sunken road before
them which was their objective. Five-nines were dropping around them
now. It was only a matter of moments, it seemed, when they would be
struck.
"Do you think we shall make it?" McKnutt asked James.
"We may get there, but shall we get back? That's the question, sir."
McKnutt did not answer. They had both had over two years' experience
of the accuracy of the German artillery. And they did not believe in
miracles. But they had their orders. They must simply do their duty
and trust to luck.
They reached the sunken road. The tank was swung around. Their orders
were to reach their objective and remain there until the bombers
arrived. McKnutt peered out. No British were in sight, and he snapped
his porthole shut. Grimly they settled down to wait.
The moments passed. Each one seemed as if it would be their last.
Would the infantry never come? Would there be any sense in just
sitting there until a German shell annihilated them if the infantry
never arrived? Had they been pushed back by a German rush? Should he
take it upon himself to turn back? McKnutt's brain whirled.
Then, after hours, it seemed, of waiting, around the corner of a
traverse, he saw one of the British tin hats. Nothing in the world
could have been a happier sight. A great wave of relief swept over
him. Three or four more appeared. Realizing that they, too, had
reached their objective, they stopped and began to throw up a rough
form of barricade. More men poured in. The position was consolidated,
and there was nothing more for the tank to do.
They swung round and started back. Two shells dropped about twenty
yards in front of them. For a moment McKnutt wondered whether it would
be well to change their direction. "No, we'll keep right on and chance
it," he said aloud. The next moment a tremendous crash seemed to lift
the tank off the ground. Black smoke and flying particles filled the
tank. McKnutt and James looked around expecting to see the top of the
machine blown off. But nothing had happened inside, and no one was
injured. Although shells continued to fall around them and a German
machine gun raged at them, they got back safely.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y._
A TANK BRINGING IN A CAPTURED GERMAN GUN UNDER PROTECTION OF
CAMOUFLAGE]
Brigade Headquarters, where McKnutt reported, was full of expectancy.
Messages were pouring in over the wires. The men at the telephones
were dead beat, but cool and collected.
"Any news of the other 'busses?" McKnutt asked eagerly. The Buzzers
shook their heads wearily. He rushed up to a couple of men who were
being carried to a dressing-station.
"Do you fellows know how the tanks made out?" he asked.
One of them had seen two of the machines on the other side of the
German line, he said. In answer to the questions which were fired at
him he could only say that the tanks had pushed on beyond the German
front line.
Then on the top of the hill, against the sky-line, they saw a little
group of three or four men. James recognized them.
"Why, there's Sergeant Browning and Mr. Borwick, sir," he said.
"What's happened to their tank, I wonder?" He and McKnutt hurried over
to meet them.
Borwick smiled coolly.
"Hullo!" he said in his casual manner.
"What's happened to your 'bus?" "What did you do?" was fired at him.
"We got stuck in the German wire, and the infantry got ahead of us,"
he said. "We pushed on, and fell into a nest of three machine guns.
They couldn't hurt us, of course, and the Boches finally ran away. We
knocked out about ten of them, and just as we were going on and were
already moving, we suddenly started twisting around in circles. What
do you think had happened? A trench mortar had got us full in one of
our tracks, and the beastly thing broke. So we all tumbled out and
left her there."
"Didn't you go on with the infantry?" asked McKnutt.
"No. They'd reached their objective by that time," Borwick replied,
"so we saved the tank guns, and I pinched the clock. Then we strolled
back, and here we are," he concluded.
Talbot joined the group as he finished.
"But where's the rest of your crew?" he asked.
Borwick said quietly: "Jameson and Corporal Fiske got knocked out
coming back." He lit a cigarette and puffed at it.
There was silence for a moment.
Then Talbot said, "Bad luck; have you got their pay-books?"
"No, I forgot them," Borwick answered.
But his Sergeant handed over the little brown books which were the
only tangible remains of two men who had gone into action that
morning. The pay-books contained two or three pages on which were
jotted down their pay, with the officer's signature. They had been
used as pocket-books, and held a few odd letters which the men had
received a few days before. Talbot had often been given the pay-books
of men in his company who were killed, but he never failed to be
affected when he discovered the letters and little trifles which had
meant so much to the men who had carried them, and which now would
mean so much to those whom they had left behind.
In silence they went back to McKnutt's tank and sat down, waiting for
news. Scraps of information were beginning to trickle in.
"Have gained our objective in X Wood. Have not been counter-attacked."
"Cannot push on owing to heavy machine-gun fire from C----."
"Holding out with twenty men in trench running north from Derelict
Wood. Can I have reinforcements?"
These were the messages pouring in from different points on the lines
of attack. Sometimes the messages came in twos and threes. Sometimes
there were minutes when only a wild buzzing could be heard and the men
at the telephones tried to make the buzzing intelligible.
The situation cleared up finally, however. Our troops had, apparently,
gained their objectives along the entire line to the right. On the
left the next Brigade had been hung up by devastating machine-gun
fire. As McKnutt and Talbot waited around for news and fresh orders,
one of their men hurried down and saluted.
He brought the news that the other three tanks had returned, having
reached their objectives. Two had but little opposition and the
infantry had found no difficulty in gaining their points of attack.
The third tank, however, had had three men wounded at a "pill-box."
These pill-boxes are little concrete forts which the German had
planted along his line. The walls are of ferro concrete, two to three
feet thick. As the tank reached the pill-box, two Germans slipped out
of the rear door. Three of the tank crew clambered down and got inside
the pill-box. In a moment the firing from inside ceased, and presently
the door flew open. Two British tank men, dirty and grimy, escorting
ten Germans, filed out. The Germans had their hands above their heads,
and when ordered to the rear they went with the greatest alacrity. One
of the three Englishmen was badly wounded; the other two were only
slightly injured, but they wandered down to the dressing-station, with
the hope that "Blighty" would soon welcome them.
Although Talbot had his orders to hold the tanks in readiness in case
they were needed, no necessity arose, and after a few hours' waiting,
the Major sent word to him to start the tanks back to the embankment,
there to be kept for the next occasion. Better still, the men were to
be taken back to B---- in the motor lorries, just as they had been
after the first battle. Water, comparative quiet, blankets,--these
were the luxuries that lay before them.
As he sat crowded into the swaying motor lorry that lurched back along
the shell-torn road to B----, Talbot slipped his hand into his pocket.
He touched a cheque-book, a package of cigarettes, and a razor. Then
he smiled. They were the final preparations he had made that morning
before he went into action. After all he had not needed them, but one
never could tell, one might be taken prisoner. One needed no such
material preparations against the possibility of death, but a
prisoner--that was different.
The cheque-book had been for use in a possible gray prison camp in the
land of his enemies. Cheques would some time or other reach his
English bank and his people would know that he was, at least, alive.
The cigarettes were to keep up his courage in the face of whatever
disaster might befall him.
And the razor? Most important of all.
The razor was to keep, bright and untarnished, the traditions and
prestige of the British Army!
VIII
REST AND DISCIPLINE
We stayed in that region of the Front for a few more weeks, preparing
for any other task that might be demanded of us. One day the Battalion
received its orders to pack up, to load the tanks that were left over,
and to be ready for its return to the district in which we had spent
the winter.
We entrained on a Saturday evening at A----, and arrived at St.-P----
at about ten o'clock on Sunday night. From there a twelve-mile march
lay before us to our old billets in B----. As may well be imagined,
the men, though tired, were in high spirits. We simply ate up the
distance, and the troops disguised their fatigue by singing songs.
There were two which appeared to be favorites on this occasion.
One, to the tune of "The Church's One Foundation," ran as follows:--
"We are Fred Karno's[1] Army,
The ragtime A.S.C.,[2]
We cannot work, we do not fight,
So what ruddy use are we?
And when we get to Berlin,
The Kaiser he will say,
Hoch, hoch, mein Gott!
What a ruddy rotten lot,
Is the ragtime A.S.C."
The other was a refrain to the tune of a Salvation Army hymn, "When
the Roll is called up Yonder":--
"When you wash us in the water,
That you washed your dirty daughter,
Oh! then we will be much whiter!
We'll be whiter than the whitewash on the wall."
Eventually the companies arrived in the village at all hours of the
morning. No one was up. We saw that the men received their meals,
which had been prepared by the cooks who had gone ahead in motor
lorries. They did not spend much time over the food, for in less than
half an hour "K" billets--the same Hospice de Ste. Berthe--were
perfectly quiet. We then wandered away with our servants, to be met
at each of our houses by hastily clad landladies, with sleep in their
eyes and smoking lamps or guttering candles in their hands.
The next morning the Company paraded at half-past nine, and the day
was spent in reforming sections, in issuing new kits to the men, and
in working the rosters for the various courses. On Tuesday, just as
breakfast was starting, an orderly brought a couple of memorandums
from Battalion Orderly Room for McKnutt and Borwick.
No one watched them read the chits, but Talbot, glancing up from his
plate, saw a look on Borwick's face. It was a look of the purest joy.
"What is it?" he said.