However, they went on, hoping for chinks in their opponents’ armour, but in spite of their superior power of manœuvre both the females were soon knocked out by shells from the German Tanks.
The one male Tank, under Lieutenant Mitchell, was now opposed to three undamaged enemy machines, each more heavily armoured than the British Tank. Lieutenant Mitchell, however, immediately engaged them and, after some dodging of the salvos of his three antagonists, who seemed to be trying to close upon him, he managed to obtain a direct hit with one of his six-pounders upon the leading German. Twice again he fired, each time hitting the same machine. The third shot completed its discomfiture; in its efforts to get away it fell into a sandpit, where it lay on its side, its tracks still rattling round ineffectively.
With its first enemy definitely out of action, the British Tank turned upon the other two.
But they had not waited, and had already discreetly turned tail, leaving Lieutenant Mitchell master of the situation.
Such was the rather inglorious end of the Germans’ first endeavour to meet the British Tank Corps with its own weapons.
It was not far from the scene of this strange encounter that about half an hour later seven Whippets came into action, debouching from north of Cachy, attacking the enemy on the ridge between Villers Bretonneux and Hangard Wood. The ridge was held by machine-gun groups concealed in shell-holes, while on the eastern slopes two German Battalions were forming up in the open ready to attack. The Whippets moved from shell-hole to shell-hole, destroying the machine-gun groups, and then proceeded to deal with the infantry. Their success was terrible. They got right in among the enemy, who had absolutely no cover, and mowed the unhappy Germans down in ranks as they stood. At least 400 of the enemy are estimated to have been killed, and the rest at last fled in confusion, the threatened attack being completely broken up.
Not only were these two Battalions disposed of, but by nightfall it was clear that for the time being at least some circumstance had definitely held up the German advance. We did not know it, but our defences had withstood and survived the last hungry lickings of the great spring tide.
Its impulse was too far spent to overflow the frail dam of our Villers Bretonneux positions. The German advance had reached slack water.
There had been one incident which had genuinely cheered the hard pressed men of the Tank Corps. At the very blackest moment of the retreat, when machines were being sacrificed by the dozen, and when the grey waves of the German infantry seemed to pursue our weary men with endless, tireless iteration, General Elles received a telegram from Mr. Docker, the chairman of the Metropolitan Carriage Company of Birmingham:—
“A resolution has been passed unanimously by the Works people of the Metropolitan Carriage Company to forgo any holidays, and to do their utmost to expedite delivery of Tanks to assist their comrades in the Field.”