Nearer and nearer. Then like so many thunderbolts at a hundred different points they struck the German lines and the tanks went through!
CHAPTER XIII
CAUGHT NAPPING
Nothing could stand before the terrific impact of the war tanks.
There was a grinding, tearing, screeching sound, as wire entanglements were uprooted. These had been strengthened in every way that German cunning could invent, but they bent like straws beneath the onslaught of the gray monsters. A cyclone could not have done the work more thoroughly.
There was no need now for further secrecy, and with a wild yell the Allied troops swarmed through the gaps, sending a deadly volley before them, supplemented by thousands of grenades.
At the same instant, the Allied artillery opened up and laid a heavy barrage fire over the heads of the onrushing troops.
The blow came down on the Germans with crushing force. The surprise was complete. Every detail of the great drive had been mapped out with the precision of clockwork, and so nicely had it been timed that on every part of the long line the shock came like a thunderbolt.
A horde of Germans rushed up from the trenches and poured in a great stream into the open. The earth seemed to disgorge itself. They came shouting and yelling in wild consternation, their eyes heavy with sleep and their faces pallid with fear.
Fear not so much of the Allied troops rushing upon them. These they had faced in many battles, and though they knew the mettle of their foes, they were still men who could be faced on even terms. But their courage gave way when through the spectral mists they saw the wallowing monsters bearing down on them like so many Juggernauts, crushing, tearing, mowing them down as though they were insects in the path of giants.