Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-03-10
poral Debv Holmes Follows the First British Tanks Into Aco

officer or a non-com must conceal his
nervousness. though he be dying with
fright.
The faces of the men were hard set
and pale. Some of them looked posi-
lively green. They smoked fag after
flag. lighting the new ones on the butts
All through the bombardment Fritz
was comparatively quiet. He was saw
ing all his for the time when we should
come over. Probably. too. he was holed
up to a large extent in his concrete
dugouts. I looked over the top once
or twice and wondered If I. too. would
be lying there unburied with the rats
and maggots gnawing me into an IN
recognizable mass. There were mo-
ments in that hour from 10 to Il when
1 was distinctly sorry for myself
The time strangely enough. went
fast-as it probably does with a con-
demned man in his last hour. At zero
minus ten the word went down the line.
Ten to CO. and we got to the better
positions of the trench and secured our
footing on the side of the parapet to
make our climb over when the signal
came. Some of the men gave their
bayonets a last fond rub and I looked
to my bolt action to see that it worked
well. 1 had ten rounds in the maya
zine and ] didn't intend to rely too
much on the bayonet At a few sec
onds of II l looked at the wrist watch
and was afflicted again with that empty
feeling in the solar plexus. Then the
whistles shrilled. I blew mine; and over
we went
To a disinterested spectator who was
far enough up in the air to be out of
range it must have been a wonderful
spectacle to see those thousands of men
go over, wave after wave
The terrain was level out to the point
where the little hill of high wood rose
covered with the splintered poles of
what had once been a forest. This
position and the supports to the left
81 Co ~, la1o
machine gun and shell fire. If Fritz
had been quiet before he gave US all he
had now.
Our bait went over from the second
trench and we got the cream of it.
The tanks were just ahead of US
and numbered along in an imposing
row. They lurched down into deep
craters and out again, tipped and reeled
and listed and sometimes seemed as
though they must upset; but they came
up each time and went on and on. And
how slow they did seem to move, I
thought we should never cover that
five or six hundred yards.
The tank machine guns were splitting
fire over the heads of our first wave and
their HotchkiSs guns were rafting. A
beautiful creeping barrage preceded us.
Row after row of shells burst at just
the right distance ahead, spewing
gobs of smoke and flashes of flame.
made thin by the bright sunlight. Half
a dozen airplanes circled like dragon
flies up there in the blue.
There was a tank just ahead of me.
I got behind it. And marched there.
Slow. Anyhow it kept off the ma
chine gun bullets. but not the shrapnel.
They were breaking it over US in
clouds 1 felt the stunning patter of
the fragments on my tin hat, cringed
under it and wondered vaguely why
it didn't do me in.
Men in the front wave were going
down like ten pins. of there diagonal
ly to the right and forward l glimpsed
a binding burst and as much as
whole platoon went down.
Around me men were dropping all
the time-men I knew. L saw Dolbsie
clawing at his throat as he reeled
forward. falling. I saw Vikers double
up. drop his rife and somersault. hang
ing on to his abdomen
a hundred yards away. to the right,
an officer walked backwards with an
automatic pistol balanced on his finger,
smiling, pulling his men along like