What in the world was it?

As we stood there peering at the thing, we forgot for the moment that our heads were well above the parapet. We were too fascinated by the movements of the weird-looking object to bother about such a trifle as that! And the Bosche trenches were only two hundred yards away! For the life of me I could not take my eyes off it. The thing--I really don't know how else to describe it--ambled forward, with slow, jerky, uncertain movements. The sight of it was weird enough in all conscience.

At one moment its nose disappeared, then with a slide and an upward glide it climbed to the other side of a deep sh.e.l.l crater which lay in its path. I stood amazed and watched its antics. I forgot all about my camera, and my desire to obtain a picture of this weird and terrifying engine of destruction. Like everyone else, its unexpected appearance on the scene first surprised and then held me under its strange influence.

So that was the "Hush! hush!"--the Juggernaut Car of Battle. One of the Tanks, the secret of whose appearance, and indeed of whose very existence, had been guarded more carefully than all the treasures of the Indies.

Truly Bosche was in for a big surprise.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

All this time I had scarce taken my eyes off the ugly-looking monster.

It waddled, it ambled, it jolted, it rolled, it--well it did everything in turn and nothing long--or wrong. And most remarkable of all, this weird-looking creature with a metal hide performed tricks which almost made one doubt the evidence of one's senses. Big, and ugly, and awkward as it was, clumsy as its movements appeared to be, the thing seemed imbued with life, and possessed of the most uncanny sort of intelligence and understanding. It came to a crater. Down went its nose; a slight dip, and a clinging, crawling motion, and it came up merrily on the other side. And all the time as it slowly advanced, it breathed and belched forth tongues of flame; its nostrils seemed to breathe death and destruction, and the Huns, terrified by its appearance, were mown down like corn falling to the reaper's sickle.

Presently it stopped. The humming ceased. The spell was broken. We looked at one another, and then we laughed. How we laughed! Officers and men were doubled up with mirth as they watched the acrobatic antics of this mechanical marvel--this Wellsian wonder.

Now the metal monster was on the move again. It was advancing on the German position. The Bosche machine-guns got busy and poured a very hail of sh.e.l.ls and bullets upon the oncoming death-dealer. It made no difference. The Tank pursued its way, unperturbed by all the racket of the exploding metal on its sides. Sh.e.l.ls seemed to glide off it quite harmlessly. Bullets had no effect upon this extraordinary apparition.

Fritz must have thought the devil himself had broken loose from h.e.l.l and was advancing to devour him. The Huns scurried to their funk-holes and craters, their hiding-places, and their trenches like so many rabbits.

Still the Tank advanced, pausing now and then, astride a particularly wide crater, and sweeping the surrounding pit-scarred ground with its machine-guns. Up popped a German head. Zip went a bullet; and down went the head for the last time. How many Germans were crushed in their holes in that first advance goodness only knows.

Presently the monster stopped again. There was a pause. Nothing happened. A minute--two minutes went by. Still nothing happened. The Germans began to regain their courage. Heads popped up all over the place. Enemy troops began to edge nearer and nearer to it, in spite of the hail of bullets from our trenches. Then they began to swarm round the strange creature the like of which they had never seen before. To do them justice, these Germans showed exceptional courage in the face of unknown and altogether exceptional danger.

Mr. Tank meanwhile was not a bit disconcerted by their attentions, and continued to breathe forth flames of fire, which did great havoc in the ranks of the sightseers. But once their curiosity was satisfied the Huns did their level best to damage the brute. They fired at it; they bombarded it; they sh.e.l.led it; they clambered over it. All to no purpose. Presently that ominous humming, snorting sound reached us again, and the monster began to move away. Where it had stood the ground was strewn with the dead bodies of German soldiers, and I was told afterwards that over three hundred corpses were counted to the credit of the first Tank that ever crossed "No Man's Land."

Meanwhile our boys had been busy. Following in the wake of the Tank, they had cleaned up quite a lot of ground, and all the time, with my camera on them, I had secured a series of fine pictures.

I don't think I ever laughed so heartily at anything as I did on the first day that I saw the Tanks in action, and officers and men all agree that they never saw a funnier sight in all their lives. But whilst they amused us they put the fear of the devil into Fritz, and whole parties of men ran forward, hands up, waving their handkerchiefs, and shouting "Kamerad," and gave themselves up as willing prisoners in our hands.

The Tanks have been one of the big surprises and big successes of the war.

CHAPTER XXIII

WHERE THE VILLAGE OF GUILLEMONT WAS

An Awful Specimen of War Devastation--Preparing for an Advance--Giving the Bosche "Jumps"--Breakfast Under Fire--My Camera Fails Me Just Before the Opening of the Attack--But I Manage to Set it Right and Get Some Fine Pictures--Our Guns "Talk" Like the Crack of a Thousand Thunders--A Wonderful Doctor.

After the battle of Martinpuich the nature of my work brought me in contact with many stirring incidents, which, if put on record here, would be merely repeating to a certain degree many of my previous experiences, therefore I do not intend to bore my readers by doing so.

From one section of our front to the other I was kept continually on the move. On the 25th September an attack was timed for twelve o'clock noon for Morval and Lesboeufs, and the Guards, London Scottish, Norfolks, Suffolks and many other regiments were to take part. The day before I visited our front in that section to obtain preliminary scenes. The London Scottish were preparing to leave to take up their battle positions. From one front to the other I hurried, obtaining scenes of the other regiments on the way up. I stayed during the night with an officer of an 18-pounder battling on the left of Guillemont. The Bosche was "strafing" the place pretty badly. I will not say I slept comfortably, for sh.e.l.ls came crashing over much too closely to do so; in fact, I was up all night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HIGHLAND BRIGADE GOING OVER THE TOP AT MARTINPUICH.

SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1916]

On several occasions I really thought my last minute had come. The noise was deafening, the glare and flash although beautiful was sickening.

Our guns were pouring out a withering fire, and the ground quivered and shook, threatening to tumble the temporary shelter about my ears. One sh.e.l.l, which came very near, burst and the concussion slightly blew in the side of the shelter; it also seemed to momentarily stun me; I crouched down as close to earth as possible. I will admit that I felt a bit "windy," my body was shaking as if with ague; a horrible buzzing sensation was in my head, dizziness was coming over me. I dare not lose control of myself, I thought; with an effort I staggered up and out of the shelter, clutching my head as the pain was terrible. I dropped down into an old German trench and sat in the bottom. In a few minutes my head pains eased down slightly, but my nerves were still shaky. At that moment one of the battery officers came along.

"Hullo! you got clear then?" he said.

"Yes, only just, by the appearance of things."

"I saw it drop near by where we left you and felt quite certain it had done you in. Feel all right?"

"Yes," I said, "with the exception of a thick head. I will get my camera stuff down here. Lend me your torch, will you?"

I took it out and found my way back to the shelter.

Fritz was now jumping over shrapnel, so, believe me, I did not hang about on my journey. Our guns continued their thundering and fire was literally pouring from their mouths. I got down in the trench, as close as possible, sat on my camera-case and so pa.s.sed the remainder of the night, thinking--well, many things.

Towards dawn the firing gradually died down until, comparing it with the night, it was quite peaceful. I got out of my trench and sat up on the parapet. My head was still throbbing from the concussion of the night, and having no sleep made me feel in rather a rotten state.

"How's the head, old chap?" asked an officer I knew who came up to me at that moment.

"Better," I replied, "but needs improvement."

"We are just making some tea; come and join us."

"Jove, rather! It may stop this jumping."

A slight mist was hanging over the sh.e.l.l-pocked ground, it was gradually rising, as I had seen it on previous occasions, and the horrible stench from the putrifying dead seemed to rise with it. As far as the eye could see in every direction the ground had been churned up by the fearful sh.e.l.l-fire. The sh.e.l.l-holes met each other like the holes in a sponge.

Not a blade of gra.s.s or green stuff existed; the place which once marked a wood was now a s.p.a.ce with a twisted, tangled ma.s.s of barbed wire and, here and there, short wooden stumps, slashed, split, and torn into shreds--the remains of once beautiful trees.

The village of Guillemont literally does not exist, in fact, it is _an absolute impossibility to tell where the fields ended and the village began_. It is one of the most awful specimens of the devastating track of war that exists on the Western Front. The village had been turned by the Bosche into a veritable fortress; trenches and strong points, bristling with machine-guns, commanded every point which gave vantage to the enemy. But, after much b.l.o.o.d.y fighting, our troops stormed and captured the place and the German losses must have been appalling. Many had been buried, but the work of consolidating the ground won and pressing on the attack does not permit our men thoroughly to cleanse the square miles of ground and bury the bodies and fragments that cover it.

Unknowingly, when I had hurried for cover in the trench, the night before I had been within twelve feet of a party of five dead Bosches, and the atmosphere in the early morning was more than I could tolerate, so picking up my camera, etc., I took up fresh quarters.

A snorting, crunching sound struck my ears and looking on my left I observed a Tank ambling forward to take up its position for the coming show. It was emitting clouds of bluish-grey smoke from its exhaust which gave it a rather ghostly appearance in the mist.... Now and again as it came to a very deep sh.e.l.l-hole it stopped to poise itself on the rim and then gently tipped its nose downwards, disappearing, to rise like a huge toad on the other side, and then continue its journey.

More troops were coming up in platoon to take up their position in supports, ammunition carriers were taking up fresh supplies of bombs, Red Cross men were making their way forward--not a sound was to be heard from them and the whole place was now a line of silent movement. All the main work and preparation was to finish before the last shadow of night had been chased away by the light of the rising sun, before the setting of which many of the boys would lay down their lives that justice and civilisation might triumph over the false doctrine of blood and iron and barbarism--_German Kultur_.

"Come along, Malins, your cup of tea is ready," shouted an officer.

I left my camera under cover of a fallen tree trunk and crossed to a covered sh.e.l.l-hole which answered to the name of dug-out. Anyway, apart from shrapnel or a direct hit from an H.E., we were comparatively safe, being below ground level. Along the centre was a rough plank on two boxes and grouped either side were several other officers of the battery. We all of us soon forgot about the previous night's efforts of Fritz in a gorgeous repast of _bacon_, fried bread, and tea.

Bosche was now fairly quiet; he was "strafing" the ridge in front with an occasional H.E.; some of our batteries on my right were still at it.

It was now quite daylight; our aeroplanes were flitting across the sky, diving low to obtain better observation of the enemy, and incidentally getting "strafed" by his anti-aircraft guns which did not interest them in the least.

"What time is zero-hour?" I asked.

"Twelve-thirty," was the reply. "We start our intense at twelve o'clock, every gun we have in this section is going to fairly give Bosche jumps; in fact he will have to find a 'better 'ole.'"

This remark caused considerable laughter.