On that same night that the tanks went forward again, I was detailed to go to the trenches to assist the telephonist, who was hard pressed for help, and in the morning I was in the front-line trench assisting the Captain with his observation work. All the time on the Somme all hands were busy doing something. Immediately after dawn, at five o'clock, the guns belched forth with an ear-splitting, deafening roar and simultaneously over the top appeared the five behemoths, one of them passing within a few feet of me.
The gunfire from our pieces at this time was immensely superior to the enemy's and his trenches had been flattened, but the wires still stood, and here it was the tanks did the work. On they came! Rolling through and making gaps 10 to 15 feet wide the Infantry plunging along in their wake. Forgetting my orders to stay where I was, I hopped in with the Infantry and reached Fritz' second-line trench.
"Gawd!" yelled a Tommy. "Wot the bloody 'ell will Fritz think of these beauties? 'E'll think its Satan's advance guard!"
On and yet on they reeled and rolled, one of them dipping nose first into a crater, and when I saw it going over the top of this huge hole my heart gave a bound of fear, as I surely thought its usefulness was now over. In this crater there were about 300 German soldiers when the tank plunged into it, and under its huge bulk 75 of them had their lives mashed out.
A spirit of wonderful fervor filled me as I saw that our behemoth was not disturbed in the slightest by the fact that he had gone into a crater; he continued to waddle all around the huge hole, his machine guns playing on the balance of the men that were jumping this way and that, and swarming like ants up, over and on top of it, to escape and save their lives in some manner. In sheer mad desperation they climbed over every part of the mammoth, discharging their revolvers at any seam in the metal or place where they thought it might be effective, breaking their bayonets on its iron coat—in vain! They could not overcome the unknown! One man thrust a hand grenade into the muzzle of one of the guns, but was blown to bits in the try. Still, over and over it they swarmed, like bees searching for a nook in a flower, the difference being that instead of getting honey they got hell. Then the poor desperate devils, in the frenzy of despair, flung themselves from the top and sides of the titan down into the crater and tried to scamper up the sides to the top, only to be met with a hail of bullets when they reached the edge and fall backwards into the crater depths, upsetting in their fall their companions who were behind them, and also trying vainly to get out of that hole of hell.
Language is futile to give anything like an adequate description of the scene in the crater. A few of the Huns, more long-headed than the rest, still clung to the tank, remaining there until it reached the top, when they held up their arms, yelling Kamerad at the top of their lungs, and these were all that were left of that 300—just 20.
The titanic ducks were each of them doing similar work on every part of the line, but the particular one whose work I was able to follow then made a call on a whiz-bang battery, smashing one of the guns when it first stepped upon it, and mowing the gunners down, the rest fleeing as though from the wrath to come. Many batteries and crews were similarly smashed, and then their work being done for the day, they all returned with the exception of one which lay in the German lines for about five hours, due to engine trouble. While lying there, Fritz did his damndest to place a mine underneath the helpless hulk, but the earnestness and the energy with which our boys at the guns worked for the preservation of their beloved behemoth, prevented him carrying out his purpose; and while the concert was in full swing all around us, the preserving messages from our guns whizzing past it in one direction, and the destructive messages from the German guns coming at it from the other direction, the tank crew quietly and industriously went about their work, repaired the engine trouble, said "ta-ta" to Fritz and waddled back home.
No returning hero from the scene of his glory ever received such a greeting as did the crews of the mighty monsters when they stepped out of the sheltering internals of their huge bowels. Clad in pants and boots, littered with grease, dirt and oil, scarred with bruises incurred as they were thrown from side to side of their armored shelter by the swaying of the thing, when they stepped from the door to the ground, the shouts and roaring cheers of ten thousand times ten thousand men thrilled them with such a thrill, that they felt fully repaid for everything that they had done that day.
The Tommies grabbed them in their arms, hugged them, slapped them on the backs and chests until the wind was fairly knocked out of them, and if we had been Frenchmen instead of Britishers, our mouths would have been covered with black grease from kisses imprinted on their cheeks.
All night long, long lines of men in gray were passing through our sector, in some places as many as 50 of them being escorted by one soldier; German Red Cross men were carrying out our wounded, eagerly volunteering for this work in the thought that they would find favor by so doing.