They were neatly lined up in fours, each man with his hands above his head, and as they drooped from weariness or fidgeted from fear of the shells that continued to fall haphazardly about them, their small and solitary escort would flourish, and more than flourish his bayonet. Up would go the 400 hands once more and the parade be restored to order.
Not for nothing had one young Scotsman been taught the value of discipline.
By the time the engine had cooled down, the crew been roused, and the far bank surmounted, the infantry were well on their way to their objective. Dropping into third gear the Tank gradually gained on them, and its commander, observing that they had entered the German trench, swung half right and took a course through the barbed wire parallel to it. On the flank of the 15th Division, the trench was seen to be still in German hands. The Tank opened fire accordingly with 6-pounders and machine-guns, doing what damage it could. It caused a redoubt to be evacuated, it searched out and caused two snipers to surrender, and later in the evening, in answer to an urgent request from a Colonel of infantry, it approached within fifty yards of a trench and silenced two out of four machine-guns. Then, the already defective magneto giving out altogether and the Tank being brought to a standstill, it opened a heavy fire along the trench with Lewis and 6-pounder guns. Having thus killed many Germans, and the engine refusing to restart, the commander at 9.30 p.m. decided to abandon the Tank, after a full twelve hours in action.
It had then been dark for some time, and the Germans had kept up a lively fire on the stranded Tank with rifles and machine-guns, taking aim at the chinks and loopholes through which the lights shone out in tell-tale beams.
For hour after hour, those within had striven laboriously yet vainly to set their engines going, and so to bring their Tank safely back out of its gallant maiden action. But nothing availed, and, the enemy fire becoming more intense and accurate, the lights were switched off and the preparations for evacuation made in total darkness.
It was first necessary to find out where our own line lay and to warn our infantry that the crew would be coming in.
Sergeant Latham at once volunteered for this reconnaissance, and crawled out of the Tank into the lesser blackness of the night. Rifles spat and stray bullets cracked and whined impartially around, and British and German rifles and bullets sound very much alike. However, partly by judgment and partly by luck, Sergeant Latham stumbled into our own lines and warned the garrison of the trench to fire high as the crew from the derelict Tank would soon be coming in.
It was as well that the sergeant succeeded in delivering his message, as a relief had taken place under cover of the night, and the new garrison had been told nothing of the Tank out in front, and would certainly have greeted the returning crew as enemy raiders.
Next day, having procured a new magneto, the Tank Commander and some of his crew set out for their machine with better hope of salving her.
They were approaching the battle front when an agitated battery commander hailed them and sought information as to the Tank out to his front. Hearing that it was a derelict that they were on their way to try to bring in, he exclaimed, “Thank God for that! I’ve been blasting that part this morning. I didn’t know about the Tank, and I’ve just got a direct hit on it that’s crumpled it up. I feared it might have been manned.”