CHAPTER XV
THE BOGGED LANDSHIP
"Full speed ahead represented a speed of nearly ten miles an hour, not taking into consideration detours and slowing down to avoid craters and other obstructions. Henricourt Farm, Ralph found by consulting his large scale map, was approximately two miles away, and on the eastern slope of Vimy Ridge. Barring accidents, the Tank ought to be on the spot in fifteen minutes.
Already the motor-cyclist dispatch-rider was speeding over the rough ground on his return journey. Setley could not help admiring the pluck and determination of the man. Not only had he to avoid shell-holes, heaps of debris and stray strands of barbed wire, but the while desultory shells from the German long-distance guns were "watering" the ground in a vain hope of checking the irresistible British advance.
Even as Ralph looked a projectile struck the ground almost under the dispatch-rider's front wheel. With a lurid flash the shell burst, throwing masses of earth in all directions. Through the yellowish-green smoke the subaltern had a momentary glimpse of the motor-bike flying in one direction, the rider in another.
"Gone West, poor fellow," thought Ralph; but almost the next instant the man picked himself up and staggered towards the prostrate machine. The motor-cycle had finished its career. It consisted mostly of a tangled mass of steel and a grotesquely bent petrol tank.
"We'll have that fellow in," said Setley to his sergeant—a trustworthy non-com. of the name of Archer. "Tell him to look sharp about it."
Although the sergeant shouted at the top of his stentorian voice to the dispatch-rider he paid no attention. Either the roar of the distant guns drowned his words, or else the man had been rendered deaf by the concussion. To remain there in the open was to court death from bullets which were "plonking" sullenly into the sodden earth.
"Shell-shock, sir, that's what it is," declared Sergeant Archer. "I'll fetch him in."
A shell bursting eighty yards away sent fragments rattling harmlessly on the Tank's armoured side. The dispatch-rider never turned his head. It was a clear proof that he had lost his sense of hearing.
Descending from the comparative security of the landship Archer raced across the intervening distance. It was not until he touched the unfortunate man on the shoulder that the latter was aware of his presence. He stared vacantly at the non-com., then pointed to the wreckage of his motor-cycle, but although his lips moved he was unable to utter a sound. It was a bad case of shell-shock. Without sustaining visible injury, he had been deprived of both speech and hearing.
Archer pointed towards the waiting Tank, but the man obstinately shook his head and turned his attention once more to the smashed motor-cycle.
"It's nah-poo!" yelled the non-com. "You come along with me at once."
The vocal effect was completely thrown away, and when Archer gripped the man's arm the dispatch-rider resisted strenuously.
Just then another motor-cyclist dashed up. He was riding with a set purpose, and could not stop to see what was wrong. Crippled motor-bikes were too common objects. Like the Levite, he passed by on the other side.
Close behind came another motor-cyclist He evidently was returning, having accomplished his errand, and was merely indulging in a friendly "speed-burst" with the other man. Slowing down he came to a standstill, and surveyed the wrecked machine.
"What's wrong, chum?" he asked inconsequently.
"He's got shell-shock, and is as obstinate as a mule," declared Archer.
There was method in his obstinacy, for seeing one of his own men the disabled dispatch-rider fumbled in his pouch and produced a sealed envelope.
The new-comer glanced at the address and the endorsement, "Highly urgent!"
"All right, chum; I'll see to it," said the man, and with a flying start he leapt into his saddle and rode furiously away.
A look of satisfaction spread over the face of the speechless motor-cyclist, then, staggering, he fell unconscious into the arms of Sergeant Archer, as a shell whizzing a couple of feet over the non-com.'s head buried itself deep in the ground, fortunately without exploding.
Willing hands relieved the sergeant of his burden and lifted the unconscious soldier into the Tank. A precious three minutes had been lost, but, did Ralph but know it, the retransmission of the dispatch was of far more vital importance than the work of succouring the stranded landship.
But by the time Setley's Tank arrived upon the scene the situation was serious enough. The bogged consort was lying on the floor of a vertical pit twenty feet in depth—a cunningly devised trap right in front of a hitherto masked position, where nearly a hundred of the Prussian Guard, supported by a strong machine-gun detachment, still held out.
Into the pit the Huns were lobbing bombs galore. These did but little damage, although the fumes were trying the crew of the trapped mammoth very severely, and, to make matters worse, the enemy had brought up a liquid flame apparatus from an undemolished dug-out and were about to squirt a fiery stream upon the helpless and hapless Tankers.
In front of the position lay between forty and fifty dead or wounded Highlanders—reserves, who, caught in the open while advancing in support of an Irish battalion, had been surprised and mown down by machine-gun fire. The wily Prussians had lain low when the first wave of British had swept over their trenches, and by one of those inexplicable omissions a detachment had not been left to consolidate and clear up the captured ground.
Several of the wounded Jocks frantically cheered the oncoming Tank, at the same time shouting warnings that there was a pitfall in front. Some of them actually staggered to their feet, and grasping their rifles followed the ponderous landship as it approached the ridge held by the men of the Prussian Guard.
Almost at the brink of the exposed trap Setley brought his command to a halt. While the quickfirers and machine-guns replied most effectually to the Boches' fire the subaltern examined from the interior of the Tank the nature and extent of the barrier that lay betwixt him and the enemy.
The pit measured roughly fifty feet by thirty. A little less than half of the covering still remained—fir planks covered with a few inches of clay that harmonized with the surrounding ground. Unless the Huns had constructed another pitfall alongside this one, it would be practicable to pass it by keeping a few yards to the left.
The roof of the trapped Tank was plainly visible, but there were no signs of any of her crew. In their unenviable position they could do nothing in self-defence. The edge of the pit intervened between the muzzles of the Tank's guns and the hostile trench, but this did not prevent the Huns hurling their bombs over the parapet into the pit.
There was no chance of extricating the snared mastodon. Unlike the one that was towed out of action when Setley, then a mere private, played such a daring part, the Tank was penned in by the four vertical sides of the deep cavity—climbing a vertical wall of stiff clay is one of the accomplishments that a Tank cannot do. Later on, when the foe were cleared away, gangs of men would be set to work to dig an inclined plane, up which the ponderous machine would be able to climb to the open ground.
Heaving a sigh of relief as his command safely negotiated the passage past the hidden end of the obstruction, Ralph steered straight for the strongly held earthwork. The Huns, working fervently to get their diabolical fire-squirting apparatus in order, held their ground. Seeking cover behind sand-bags hastily thrown across the floor of the trench, and crouching in the concreted entrances to their dug-outs, they hailed bullets against the avenging Tank's blunt, armour-plated nose. Bombs, too, burst with an appalling clatter above and below the stupendous moving fortress.
The crew gave good measure in exchange. With their machine-guns spitting venomously and the quickfirers barking loudly the British accounted for numbers of their foes, while the Tank set to work systematically to level the barbed wire and flatten out the parapet of sand-bags.
In their puny rage several of the Huns closed round the Tank. Immune from the fire of her machine-guns they rained blows with axes at her tractor-bands, and even attempted to check the resistless, crushing motion by means of crossbars. All in vain: like a hippopotamus beset with a swarm of flies the Tank continued its dignified progress, levelling all that came in its way; until with the now monotonous cry of "Kamerad," the surviving Prussians surrendered.
"Let a couple of Jocks take 'em back, sir," suggested Sergeant Archer. "All the stuffing's knocked out of them, I guess."
A few slightly wounded Highlanders cheerfully accepted the commission. Thirty badly scared Prussian Guardsmen, deprived of their arms and accoutrements, meekly submitted to be marched off under the escort of the indomitable Scotsmen, while in order to ingratiate themselves with their captors the Huns voluntarily carried several of the British wounded to the advanced dressing stations.
Setley's next task was to render what assistance he could to the crew of the bogged Tank. Already the crew, finding that the mild bombardment with bombs had ceased, had emerged from their metal-box and were somewhat ruefully surveying the unclimbable walls of their prison.
"Hullo, Danvers!" shouted Ralph. "Sorry you've had ill-luck. We'll find a means to haul you out; but your bus must wait, I'm afraid."
Cautiously, and with his revolver ready for instant action, Sergeant Archer, accompanied by two of the crew, descended into a dug-out, the entrance of which was not blocked sufficiently to prevent squeezing through. Within were half a dozen dead Huns—killed instantly by the concussion of a high-explosive shell, yet without a wound on them. Apparently, the dug-out formed the engineers' store, for there were tools in plenty, including mattocks, spades, sectional ladders, and ropes.
Returning with his find, the sergeant was about to report upon his success when a bomb hurtled through the air. Instantly the three men threw themselves flat on their faces, while a second later the missile exploded without doing them harm beyond covering them with mud and dust.
Starting to his feet, Archer levelled his revolver. He was at a loss to discover the whereabouts of the thrower. It seemed as if the missile had been projected from the Tank, until a burst of machine-gun fire leapt from her side into the wall of earth within three feet from the muzzle of the gun.
The landship had come to a stop immediately opposite the mouth of a dug-out which had been so badly battered that the timber props were leaning together like an inverted V. Within a desperate Hun still lurked, and finding Archer and the two men in the open he had hurled a bomb in the hope of strafing the Englishmen.
"Hands up!" shouted Archer, flattening himself against the bank of earth by the entrance of the dug-out and firing a couple of shots into the cavernous recess by way of adding weight to his words.
There was no reply.
"That Maxim laid the blighter out, sergeant," suggested one of the men.
"I won't chance my arm on that," declared Archer. "Hand me that spade."
Removing his steel helmet, the non-com. placed it on the handle of the spade and thrust it carefully in front of the partly blocked tunnel. Again there was no response to the silent invitation. Archer repeated the tactics, this time exposing a little more of his metal head-dress.
A rifle-shot rang out. The helmet was completely perforated by the bullet.
"All right, Fritz," exclaimed the sergeant. "If you won't give in like a sensible fellow we'll have to rout you out. I've a smoke-bomb ready."
"Is that an English officer who speaks?" enquired the lurking German.
"A British sergeant—quite good enough for a Boche to argue with," retorted Archer. "So you speak English? Come out and surrender. That's plain enough, and you know it."
"What's happening, sergeant?" asked Setley, who, screened by the immense bulk of his Tank from the Hun's lair, had been conversing with Danvers.
"There's a Boche in this dug-out, sir," reported the non-com. "Be careful, sir; he chucked a bomb out just now. I believe he's an officer, because he enquired if he was chewing his rag to a British officer."
"I officer am," interposed the unseen. "To you I make surrender."
"Right-o," replied Ralph. "Out you come."
The head and shoulders of a Prussian appeared. Setley stepped forward to receive his prisoner, when with a curse the treacherous Hun hurled a bomb full at the face of the subaltern.
With outstretched hand Archer intercepted the flying missile and hurled it whence it came, where it exploded with a hollow vibration.
"Good thing I'm a cricketer, sir," he remarked. "That ought to have settled the swine's hash. There's no trusting a Prussian."
"Don't," ordered Ralph, as the non-com. was about to investigate. "We'll run no unnecessary risks, but the blighter must be accounted for. Where's a smoke-bomb?"
The Prussian officer was still alive. The mention of the word "smoke-bomb" made him find his tongue. He had very strong objections to being driven from his shelter like a rat from its hole. It was he who had ordered the liquid fire apparatus to be brought to play upon the bogged Tank, and now, when threatened with efficacious but comparatively humane measures, he asserted that the British soldiers were taking a mean advantage.
"You've put yourself out of court," exclaimed Setley. "For your treachery you deserve to be exterminated; but we'll give you another chance. Come out and we'll give you quarter. Any attempt at your low-down games and you'll be shot down."
The Hun hesitated. Having no regard for his own plighted word, he had doubts concerning the British officer's pledge.
"I will not surrender make," he shouted almost spluttering in his rage. "This a magazine is. If you a smoke-bomb throw den I fire der powder an' blow you and your landship to pieces."
"We'll risk that," replied Ralph coolly.
The bomb was tossed into the mouth of the dug-out. Nauseating, pungent fumes wafted out. For thirty seconds there was no sign of the Prussian. With their revolvers ready, Ralph and the sergeant crouched by the side of the flattened trench.
Suddenly a grey-coated figure dashed through the asphyxiating smoke. Temporarily blinded by the vapour, well nigh suffocated, the Prussian floundered into the open air, until his bent head came into violent contact with the side of the Tank. Like a felled ox he dropped upon the ground.
"Blessed if he isn't the very image of Little Willie, sir," remarked the sergeant, turning the Prussian over with his boot.
"He certainly looks a mental degenerate," agreed Ralph. "Here, stop those men. Let them carry him in."
A batch of thirty prisoners, under the escort of an imperturbable Tommy, came trudging across the open. They were Saxons; perhaps that accounted for the rough handling they accorded the Prussian officer.
"I've seen the last of that gentleman, I hope," remarked Setley. "You've found a rope? And ladders, too, I see. Look alive there."
Danvers and his men were soon extricated from the pitfall. With them was a German colonel, a tall, sparely built man, who was trembling violently in every limb.
"We hauled him out of a dug-out on our way up," explained Danvers. "The old bus squatted right over the entrance, and this cheerful Hun surrendered. We couldn't send him back. There were no men available for that job. Besides, there was a pretty hot machine-gun fire just then; so we hauled him on board. We hadn't gone a couple of hundred yards when the colonel josser began to get jumpy. He jabbered away as hard as he could, but as I don't understand the beastly Hun jargon I told him to shut up. After all, he was trying to tell me we were blundering into a trap—not out of consideration for us, you understand, but because he didn't relish the big bump. It was his own cowardly carcase of which he was thinking.
"Then came the big bump. Talk about peas in a box. They weren't in it. Thought the Tank was going to turn upside down, but she pitched on her nose with a terrific whump, and then settled down on an even base.
"For nearly an hour the Boches bombed us. At first it was a jolly disconcerting experience, and our Hun started shouting to the bombers to stop it—the skunk! Imagine our fellows doing that. Finding that nothing happened he quieted down a bit, until he suddenly danced up and down regardless of the fact that he was bumping his pig-headed skull against the roof girders. In his raving I caught the word Flammenwerfer several times, so I was forced to come to the unpleasant conclusion that the Huns were going to strafe us with liquid fire. Then your bus rolled up and put the lid on. The rest you know."