“This didn’t stop us, though, and our batteries opened up full split in reply. My tank was due to start out at six o’clock, and promptly on schedule we got away. It was still pitch dark, though, and raining as usual, and as neither side was sending up star shells for fear of exposing their own operations, we had very little to guide us. We lost our way a couple of times, at the same time falling behind our schedule, and when we finally did get on the right track, we trundled along at top speed. Top speed doesn’t mean very much to a tank, to look at it from the outside, but when you’re on the inside, with the engine going full split, and rocking along over ground that’s been ploughed up about a million times by big shells, you certainly do know you’re moving.
“Well, we had travelled maybe half a mile, when suddenly we stopped dead, with a slam that nearly took my teeth out. At first I thought we must have hit a big tree, but then I remembered that all the trees around that section had been blasted into kindling wood a good many months ago, and as about everything else had shared the same fate, I didn’t know what had happened to us. But in a few seconds we had our searchlight going, and then I found out what was the matter pretty quick. There in front of us, butted square into us, was a big Boche tank.”
Here the narrator paused to roll a cigarette, while the boys waited impatiently for him to go on. After deliberately making and lighting his cigarette, he took a few deep puffs, and resumed his narrative.
“Well, boys, I figured we were up against it for fair in more ways than one. The driver put her into low gear, and threw in the clutch again and again, but it was no use. I suppose the other fellow was doing the same thing, and neither of us could budge an inch. Then, first thing we knew, a big explosive bullet came crashing through our armor, and stretched the driver over his seat, done for for good. I depressed my gun as far as it would go, and tried to get back at the Boche, but he could get his gun lower than I could get mine, and my bullets just bounced off his armor, because they hit it at such a big angle.
“I went down and told our lieutenant how things stood, and he took the place of the dead driver, and threw her into reverse, but the Boche realized his advantage, and followed us up so close that I never got a chance to get a direct hit on him. It looked pretty bad for us, and I thought it was about time to say ‘Good-bye, sweet world, good-bye.’ But the Lieutenant kept his wits about him, and suddenly had an idea.
“As we backed down into a big shell crater, he waited until the nose of the Boche tank came rolling over the edge, and then suddenly shot our machine forward, so that it slid in under the German. That gave me my chance, and maybe you think I didn’t take advantage of it. I began pumping steel jacketed bullets in through the floor of that tank so fast they must have thought it was a machine gun doing it. They saw what they were up against, and tried to retire. But we followed them close, and never gave them a chance to get away.
“Seeing that they couldn’t escape that way, they suddenly reversed and tried to climb over us, but the Lieutenant was some driver, I can tell you, and reversed about as quickly as they did, so that was no go. Oh, we had them right that time, and no doubt about it.”
Here Arney took a last lingering puff at the remnants of his cigarette, and regretfully tossed it away.
“Well, how did it end?” questioned Billy, eagerly.
“Oh, we got their gasoline tank, and then it was all over,” replied Arney, “of course, all the time the Lieutenant was backing and filling, I was pumping bullets into them for all I was worth. Suddenly there came a terrific explosion, and the whole inside of that tank was on fire with burning gasoline. That finished those who were left in it, and then we backed away from under, and as our men had reached their objectives by that time, we returned to our own lines. We were pretty well torn up by the encounter, but still had a little fight left in us.”