"I don't believe our people are keeping up with us, sir," he said. "They seem to have been stopped about thirty yards back."
"All right," McKnutt answered. "We'll turn round."
McKnutt and James opened their portholes to obtain a clearer view. Five yards along to the left, a group of Germans were holding up the advancing British. They had evidently prepared a barricade in case of a possible bombing attack on our part, and this obstacle, together with a fusillade of bombs which met them, prevented our troops from pushing on. McKnutt seized his gun and pushed it through the mounting, but found that he could not swing round far enough to get an aim on the enemy. But James was in a better position. He picked the gray figures off, one by one, until the bombing ceased and our own men jumped over the barricade and came down among the dead and wounded Germans.
Then a sudden and unexplainable sense of disaster caused McKnutt to look round. One of his gunners lay quite still on the floor of the tank, his back against the engine, and a stream of blood trickling down his face. The Corporal who stood next to him pointed to the sights in the turret and then to his forehead, and McKnutt realized that a bullet must have slipped in through the small space, entering the man's head as he looked along the barrel of his gun. There he lay, along one side of the tank between the engine and the sponson. The Corporal tried to get in position to carry on firing with his own gun, but the dead body impeded his movements.
There was only one thing to do. The Corporal looked questioningly at McKnutt and pointed to the body. The officer nodded quickly, and the left gearsman and the Corporal dragged the body and propped it up against the door. Immediately the door flew open. The back of the corpse fell down and half the body lay hanging out, with its legs still caught on the floor. With feverish haste they lifted the legs and threw them out, but the weight of the body balanced them back again through the still open door. The men were desperate. With a tremendous heave they turned the dead man upside down, shoved the body out and slammed the door shut. They were just in time. A bomb exploded directly beneath the sponson, where the dead body had fallen. To every man in the tank came a feeling of swift gratitude that the bombs had caught the dead man and not themselves.
They ploughed across another trench without dropping into the bottom, for it was only six feet wide. Daylight had come by now and the enemy was beginning to find that his brave efforts were of no avail against these monsters of steel.
All this time the German guns had not been silent. McKnutt's tank crunched across the ground amid a furious storm of flying earth and splinters. The strain was beginning to be felt. Although one is protected from machine-gun fire in a tank, the sense of confinement is, at times, terrible. One does not know what is happening outside his little steel prison. One often cannot see where the machine is going. The noise inside is deafening; the heat terrific. Bombs shatter on the roof and on all sides. Bullets spatter savagely against the walls. There is an awful lack of knowledge; a feeling of blind helplessness at being cooped up. One is entirely at the mercy of the big shells. If a shell hits a tank near the petrol tank, the men may perish by fire, as did Gould, without a chance of escape. Going down with your ship seems pleasant compared to burning up with your tank. In fighting in the open, one has, at least, air and space.
McKnutt, however, was lucky. They could now see the sunken road before them which was their objective. Five-nines were dropping around them now. It was only a matter of moments, it seemed, when they would be struck.
"Do you think we shall make it?" McKnutt asked James.
"We may get there, but shall we get back? That's the question, sir."