Anyway there was just a chance, and I decided to take it.
Therefore I suggested that I should go up very early in the morning to our front line, getting there about four o'clock. There would just be sufficient light for me to have a look round, that is if Brother Fritz wasn't too inquisitive. I could then fix up the camera and wait.
"What time does the barrage start?" I asked.
"Ten minutes to zero. It's going to be very intense, I can tell you that."
"Well, sir, there is one special point I would like you to clear up for me if possible. What the deuce is the 'Hush! Hush!'?"
At that question everyone in the place laughed. "Hush! hush! not so loud," one said, with mock gravity. "You mean the Tanks."
"I am just as wise as ever. Anyway, whether they are called the 'Hush Hushers' or 'Tanks,' what the dickens are they? Everyone has been asking me if I have seen the 'Hush! hush!' until I have felt compelled to advise them to take more water with it in future. At first I thought they were suffering from a unique form of shell-shock."
"I haven't seen them," he said. "All I know is that we have two of them going over with our boys. This is their line; they will make straight for the left-hand corner of the village, and cross the trenches on your left about two hundred yards from the point suggested. They are a sort of armoured car arrangement and shells literally glance off them. They will cross trenches, no matter how wide, crawl in and out shell-holes, and through barbed wire, push down trees and...."