I was all enthusiasm for fighting “tanks.” But my superiors squelched it. For when I asked for command of a sister of “Razzle Dazzle” next day, a cold-eyed aide said to me:
“One tank, worth ten thousand pounds, is as much as any bally young officer may expect to be given to destroy during his lifetime. Good afternoon.”
He never gave me a chance to explain that it was “Razzle Dazzle’s” own fault, how she had taken things into her own willful control. But he did try to give me credit for what “Razzle Dazzle” had herself accomplished. He said the destruction of the “sugar mill” had been “fine work.”
I wonder what “Joffre” thought of it all. I don’t remember seeing her when we fled from the “tank,” except as something incredibly swift and black flashed past my eyes as we thrust up the lid. I sincerely hope she is alive and well “somewhere in France.”
CHAPTER XIII
Moquet Farm
The name of Moquet Farm flashes vividly to my memory a night of the bitterest, bloodiest fighting I ever went through. It certainly was the hell of war in its most intensive degree. There were twenty-two hours of continuous fighting with never a minute’s let-up in the gales of deadly missiles.
We were holding Orvilles in preparation for the great battle of the Somme and our immediate objective was Thiepval. This Moquet Farm, with its powerful batteries, presented a particular obstacle, for it was directly in our path on the road to Thiepval. It had to be obliterated. But before we might move on Moquet we must dispose of a sky-line trench just ahead. The Farm lay three miles to the right of this sky-line trench as we faced it.
If we could battle through those lines to Moquet Farm and capture or put into retreat the batteries that had been constantly and effectively in use against us, it would mean that we would make the whole German position untenable and place ourselves in a position of great advantage in preparation for the great Somme drive.