The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-10-13

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smoke, and beyond and around. al
though we could not see it, we knew
that terrible barrage was being let
down. The place, in fact, was en-
circ1ed with shells, and inside the
enclosure as it were, there poured
death and destruction. An awful
sight.
Pretty early one morning we got
the word to go over. The ground had
been bad before, but when the smoke
had lifted it revealed such a quag-
mire of craters that the most hard
ened veteran amongst us might have
hesitated. Such ;craters and such
craters and such mud! If once you
got begged there you were a fixture.
| Only a crane could have lifted you
out. However, it had to be done,
mud or no mud, so when the signal
was given, out we set at our advance
jog trot.
And with us was our chum, the
tank.
My word, the Huns may say what
they like about knocking, them out
by the score. don't know. We had
a jolly lot of them with us on this
trip, and though they were hit eocca-
sionally they never seemed to worry
much. They .waddled on, like ele-
plants, and when the worst bit of the
job came. as I'll show you. they saved
| the ugliest situation imaginable and
won US the day.
For the goodish bit, If I except the
mud, the going was fairly decent.
| Sometimes I had to wait to haul a
] comrade out, sometimes comrade
! had to walt to haul me out, but all
this time, fortunately, the Huns were
doing very little in the way Of ma
chine gun work. They'd been obli-
terated, I suppose, for the time being,
and the barrage, lifting steadily in
front of us, kept them below
ground.
i Anyway, on we went behind and
around the tanks like kids following
circus wagons into a village at home.
That's just what I thought at the
time.
Soon we were at the beginning of
the trenche maze, or to be quite
truthful, where the maze had once
been. A sort of Indication OF
trenches was there, as If someone had
gone over nice clear, drawing with
a lump of india-rubber and had blur
red it all. Not much trouble there
The trenches were filled, the dug-outs
choked, the entanglements in shreds
The tanks trundled on, flattening the
trenches more than ever and buryina
the entanglements and posts >deel
, down into the sticky mud, which fell
off in cakes as if they were she'd ding
, scales.
, brutes
Suddenly, just about the further
edge of the maze, and a bit inside the
= n of ~, or
machine-gun fire opened. The Who'll,
sound of the batt1e-the roar of tn,
81 barrage and the queer squelch of tn,
3 tanks beside uS-neemed to chang,
!, into one vicious whirr of bullets. TIL,
machine-gunners appeared to be ev
> erywhere, but in a moment or two 81
were the tanks. They'd been goini
fairly leisurely up. to-, this time, blu
t now that they scented their QUAR-,
= they got a squirt up.
Flashes and smoke came from
4 them, and they~vanished ahead of u
like avenging monsters. Then the ful
began.
!. The bullet shower, we could hav
g sworn diminished as the tank
t ploughed ahead but that did not cas-
: matters very much for u.s.
g Just as we were emerging agai
h from whatever shelter we had foun
f when the first vicious blast of lea
It came over, the air seemed suddenl
h filled with cries of "Hochi hoch!"-
c and, to our establishment, huge bod
IS of Huns were seen tearing down upo
2. us from the neighborhood of our ul
d innate objective. Where they ha
l, sprung from we did not know, an
IS had not time to learn. It was a cas-
. Of downing them there and then.
It Well, I tell you, that was a mast
II situation. The Huns were in gres
e numbers, and although we let ther
Is have it point-b1ank right away wit
q rifle, bomb and Lewis gun, there wa
/ no apparent chance of stemming thei
rush, and for a time it looked as
t quite a lot of US would be rounde
: up and made prisoners.
t, We simply had to withdraw a lii
i tie to avoid any such calamity and W
were wondering whether this gre
/ wedge of men would drive rigl
a through us, when all at once, from o,
d the smoke to the left. there loomed-
" a tank.
y We could have yelled with Joy. TIL
y monster paused for few seconds
= if to weigh up the situation, the1
with lunge, and splitting fire,
struck across the flank of the Gel
2, mans VIII the OBVIOUS intention
Is cutting them off. What a shoutin
n, and cursing followed.
The Huns for the most part tune
se tail. but some of them boldly attacl
n. ed the brute with bombs. They g,
r. ploded all over and around it, but G
a, it went, and 1atterly, to our great d,
light, it managed to get right benin
e them. 1t was 'tKamerad" after tina
B. We bagged the lot.
g Our work was by no means owe
I'd however.
ID Headed by the tank we were awe
m again towards our objective, .Th
4 time there were no surprises-abo,
le ground, at any rate-but there was
big enough one underground, tt
g. tank was ploughing on vtctoriousl
at when, with a highly heave. its ia
to shot skywards, and it plunged, as v
lg thought, into the very bowels OF IL
IN earth. My heart went into my mout
a with alarm. I thought 1t was all owe
he didn't know ia Rofara =,