Life in a Tank

by Richard Haigh

PREPARATIONS FOR THE SHOW[ToC]

That night the engines were started up, and one by one the tanks crawled off the train. Although the day had begun with brilliant sunshine, at dusk the snow had begun to fall, and by the time the tanks came off, the snow was a foot thick on the ground. The tanks moved down to the temporary tankdrome which had been decided upon near the railway, and the sponson trucks were towed there. The night was spent in fitting on the sponsons to the sides of the machines. It was bitterly cold. The sleet drove in upon us all night, stinging our hands and faces. Everything seemed to go wrong. We had the utmost difficulty in making the bolt-holes fit, and as each sponson weighs about three tons they were not easy to move and adjust. We drove ahead with the work, knowing that it must be done while the darkness lasted.

Finally, about two hours before dawn broke, the last bolt was fastened, and the tanks were ready to move. The night was blacker than ever as they lumbered out of the tankdrome, and were led across the snow to a halfway house about four miles from the railhead, and an equal distance from the front-line trenches. We had not quite reached our destination when the darkness began to lift in the east, and with feverish energy we pushed ahead, through the driving snow.

Late that afternoon, Talbot was again sent ahead with five or six troopers and orderlies to a village in the front line. It was necessary for us to spend three or four days there before the attack commenced, in order to study out the vulnerable points in the German line. We were to decide also the best routes for the tanks to take in coming up to the line, and those to be taken later in crossing No Man's Land when the "show" was on. We rode along across fields denuded of all their trees. The country here was utterly unlike that to which we had been accustomed in "peace-time trench warfare." This last expression sounds like an anomaly, but actually it means the life which is led in trenches where one may go along for two or three months without attacking. In comparison with our existence when we are making an offensive, the former seems like life in peace times. Hence, the expression. But from this it must not be supposed that "peace-time trench warfare" is all beer and skittles. Quite the contrary. As a matter of fact, during four or five days in the trenches there may be as many casualties as during an attack, but taking it on an average, naturally the losses and dangers are greater when troops go over the top. Curiously enough, too, after one has been in an attack the front-line trench seems a haven of refuge. Gould, who was wounded in the leg during a battle on the Somme, crawled into a shell-hole. It was a blessed relief to be lying there, even though the bullets were whistling overhead. At first he felt no pain, and he wished, vaguely, that he had brought a magazine along to read! All through the burning summer day he stayed there, waiting for the night. As soon as it was dark he wriggled back to our trenches, tumbled over the parapet of the front-line trench, and narrowly escaped falling on the point of a bayonet. But he never forgets the feeling of perfect safety and peace at being back, even in an exposed trench, with friends.

The fields across which we rode had been ploughed the preceding autumn by the French civilians. Later, when the snow had disappeared, we could see where the ground had been torn up by the horses of a German riding-school of ten days before. On some of the roads the ruts and heavy marks of the retreating German transports could still be seen. It was a new and exciting experience to ride along a road which only two or three days before had been traversed by the Germans in a retreat, even though they called it a "retirement." The thought was very pleasant to men who, for the last two years, had been sitting in front of the Boche month after month, and who, even in an attack, had been unable to find traces of foot, hoof, or wheel mark because of the all-effacing shell-fire. Here and there were places where the Boche had had his watering-troughs, and also the traces of scattered huts and tents on the ground where the grass, of a yellowish green, still showed. The front line of defence here was really no front line at all, but was merely held as in open warfare by outposts, sentry groups, and patrols.

At night it was the easiest thing in the world to lose one's self close up to the line and wander into the German trenches. In fact, over the whole of this country, where every landmark had been destroyed and where owing to the weather the roads were little different from the soil on each side, a man could lose himself and find no person or any sign to give him his direction. The usual guide which one might derive from the Verey lights going up between the lines was here non-existent, as both sides kept extremely quiet. Even the guns were comparatively noiseless in these days, and were a man to find himself at night alone upon this ground, which lay between two and three miles behind our own lines, the only thing he could do would be to lie down and wait for the dawn to show him the direction.

As we rode toward O—— our only guide was a few white houses two or three miles away on the edge of the village. The German had not evacuated O—— of his own free will, but a certain "Fighting Division" had taken the village two days before and driven the German out, when he retired three or four hundred yards farther to his rear Hindenburg Line. The probable reason why he hung on to this village, which was really in front of his line of advance, was because at the time he decided to retire on the Somme, the Hindenburg Line was incomplete. In fact, the Boche could still be seen working on his wire and trenches.

We arrived in O—— at nightfall. Some batteries were behind the village, and the Germans were giving the village and the guns a rather nasty time. Unhappily for us, the Boche artillery were dropping five-nine's on the road which led into the village, and as they seemed unlikely to desist, we decided to make a dash for it. The horses were a bit nervous, but behaving very well under the trying circumstances. (With us were some limbers bringing up ammunition.) Shells were exploding all around us. It would never do to stand still.

The dash up that hundred yards of road was an unpleasant experience. As we made the rush, the gunners tearing along "hell for leather" and the others galloping ahead on their plunging horses, we heard the dull whistle and the nearer roar of two shells approaching. Instinctively we leaned forward. We held our breath. When a shell drops near, there is always the feeling that it is going to fall on one's head. We flattened ourselves out and urged our horses to greater speed. The shells exploded about thirty yards behind us, killing two gunners and their mules, while the rest of us scrambled into the village and under cover.

In the darkness, we found what had once been the shop of the village blacksmith, and in the forge we tied up our horses. It was bitterly cold. It was either make a fire and trust to luck that it would not be observed, or freeze. We decided on the fire, and in its grateful warmth we lay down to snatch the first hours of sleep we had had in nearly three days. But the German gunners were most inconsiderate, and a short time afterward they dropped a small barrage down the road. The front of our forge was open, and we were obliged to flatten ourselves on the ground to prevent the flying splinters from hitting us. When this diversion was over, we stirred up our fire, and made some tea, just in time to offer some to a gunner sergeant who came riding up. He hitched his horse to one of the posts, and sat down with us by the fire. The shell-fire had quieted down, and we dozed off, glad of the interlude. Suddenly a shell burst close beside us. The poor beast, waiting patiently for his rider, was hit in the neck by the shrapnel, but hardly a sound escaped him. In war, especially, one cannot help admiring the stoicism of horses, as compared with other animals. One sees examples of it on all sides. Tread, for instance, on a dog's foot, and he runs away, squealing. A horse is struck by a large lump of shrapnel just under its withers, and the poor brute trembles, but makes no sound. Almost the only time that horses scream—and the sound is horrible—is when they are dying. Then they shriek from sheer pain and fear. Strange as it may seem, one is often more affected by seeing horses struck than when men are killed. Somehow they seem so particularly helpless.