The worst was over. Fritz was done. The stranglehold of the British fleet had paralysed the most highly-trained military nation in the world, and now the civilian armies of Britain, France, and the United States were reaping the benefit, and were steadily driving the Hun towards the Rhine. No longer was it possible—thanks to the ever-increasing efficiency of the R.A.F.—for German machines to bomb the capital of the British Empire, or even to make "cut-and-run" raids upon the south-eastern ports. Outclassed and outnumbered, Fritz was a back number on land, on the sea, and in the air.
There were constant rumours of the Huns clamouring for an armistice, and the fear of an armistice filled the Allies with alarm. They felt themselves in the position of a man who, having caught a burglar on his premises, is compelled to hand the criminal over to be tried by a notoriously lenient judge. They realized that Germany might come to terms that would undo the result of four years' fighting. The diplomat would upset the carefully-laid plans of the soldier; therefore it was imperative to continue to strike hard while there was yet time.
From the North Sea to the Swiss frontier the German line had cracked. British and Belgian troops were in possession of Bruges; Ypres was no longer a salient; Cambrai, the scene of a grave reverse that paved the way for a gigantic German offensive, was in British hands; the French had overrun the debatable Chemin des Dames and had put Rheims beyond the range of the German heavy artillery; Big Bertha and her sisters could no longer disturb the equanimity of the citizens of Paris; while the Americans had flattened out the Saint Mihiel salient, and were enveloping the fortress of Metz. After years of trench warfare, the news seemed too good to be true.
Secret orders taken on the captured ground gave abundant evidence of the effect of the predominating weight of the Allies. Frantic appeals for reserves and munitions—appeals that, read between the lines, showed a mistrust between German officers and men—orders for the strictest conservation of shells; these and a hundred other signs told of the crisis through which Imperial Germany was passing—a crisis which was bound to tell against her.
Derek Daventry's period off duty was of short duration. In the circumstances he reckoned himself lucky to have twelve hours, most of which he spent in sleeping soundly. In those strenuous times, when every available man and machine had to spend hours in the air with but brief intervals of rest, it was only through sheer exhaustion that pilots and observers were excused duty.
He was off again at five in the morning, flying in another EG machine, almost identical with his much-regretted No. 19. The biplanes composing the "flight" were ordered to harass the Germans holding a series of defensive works at a distance of about five miles farther back than the ground captured by the tanks on the previous day.
In the present phase of the operations the employment of tanks was out of the question. Tanks are capable of surmounting many obstacles; those they cannot surmount they can frequently demolish; but the mastodons have their limits. They don't like marshy, boggy ground; while a canal or river offers an impassable barrier unless a bridge is available.
Eight hundred yards in front of the Huns' position ran a broad canal, seventy-four feet in width and six feet in depth. Every swing-bridge had been blown up and the lock-gates destroyed.
Earlier in the day British and French infantry, under cover of a strong artillery-barrage, had succeeded in crossing the canal by means of pontoons, and had established themselves securely on the opposite bank; but so severe was the German machine-gun fire that the advance was held up and the troops compelled to dig themselves in.
Already thousands of sand-bags were being dropped into the canal to form a means of getting the tanks across, but a considerable time would necessarily elapse before the work, carried out under fire, could be perfected; while it was evident, from the determined resistance of the enemy, that the attackers were being held up by a crack Prussian division.