Evening star., 1941-12-29

The motor coughed and almost
stalled. I knew he had stepped
down on the gas too much.
That "-"a a CT. "a governor" !"
he sWore.
The tank cleared the first obstacle,
mostly on its impetus and ploughed
on toward the second. Again, the
terrific impact and the tanks nose
shot up 1t came down slowly and
the tank came to a rest. half
stranded on one of the long-wise
logs.
A cheer went up from the boys
who had built the obstacle. They
were gleeful. But their cheer was
premature. The little driver put the
tank into reverse. He battered time
and again at the obstacle.
At last, he got over the second
obstacle and started to climb up the
logs toward the high block. But
something slipped, and the tank
straddled the long logs.
Its treads were off the ground
now and racing around. 1t was
stuck.
Cocky, These Engineers.
That's the approved solution" !"
gloated a lieutenant colonel of the
engineers, and a big cheer went up.
He might get out of there even
tually," said the officer. but before
he could, We would have put rs
on him, or driven you guys in the
crew out with Molotov cocktails"
The engineers are pretty cocky
about their ability to build tank
traps. Sometimes they work. some
times they don't. They have an
engineers ballad which starts out:
%, some of us are whisky men and
some of us drink gin,
We don't know where we're going,
but we've liked it where we've
been,
o, some of US drink Spanish rum
and some drink beer and ale,
And every time we see a tank,
we set it on its tall
Over in the demolition area the
engineers were working out an
other nifty. They blasted three
huge craters in the road and now
they were going to see If a tank
could get through.
1 rode to battle in a different
tank this time. The sergeant was
a little dubious about taking me
along, but when he found out that
1 had waived all claims against
everybody in case Of accident, he
told me to get aboard.
The craters were so close together
that it was impossible to Jump
them.
I'VE could Jump the first, but we'd
land in the second one. Well 60
through slow
He's Destroyed" Again.
The craters we're about Is feet
deep. and perhaps Is feet across.
We rumbled up to the edge and
then tipped over. That tank was
headed straight down.
The sergeant hauled away at the
gear levers and we started forward.
Up 1t went. and we were pointing
straight at the sky. But we couldn't
get out of the hole. The tank
rocked back and forth and slipped
down. I was certain 1t was going
to turn over.
We struggled for q while, still
pointing straight up, and finally
got over the top. I was satisfied
with the demonstration, but the
driver plunged ahead into the next
crater.
Again, we stood on our nose. It
was cool and damp down in the
crater and you could smell the
acrid fumes of the exploded nitro.
The sergeant tugged and cursed
and at last we pulled out. The last
of the three craters was the tough
est.
Just as we edged over the top,
the tank-pointing straight toward
the sky-seemed to tilt over back
ward. could feel us moving, and
I thought We had back flip. But
we had landed, right side up, out
of the crater.
you're destroyed" said an en-
gineer onicer. "You were In there
70 long, We blasted you to bits"
Those guys!