Grapes of wrath

CHAPTER XII A VILLAGE AND A HELMET 2 O.P. Observation Post. The officer was a young man, although under the mask of dirt and mud splashes and unshaven chin he might have been any age. He was sprawled against a broken-down breastwork of fallen bricks and timber, with a rough strengthening and buttressing of sandbags, and an irregular shaped opening opposite his head to look out from. Kentucky sidled to the opening and looked long and carefully for landmarks on the smoke-clouded ground before him. He found the task difficult, because here he was on slightly higher ground, from which the aspect appeared utterly different to the little he had seen of it from below. But at last he was able to trace more or less the points over which he had passed, to see some of the Anzacs crouching in their cover and moving cautiously about behind it, and from that to locate the Stonewalls’ position and the rough earth heaps—which now he could see formed part of an irregular line of trench—where the machine-guns were supposed to be. He pointed the place out to the officer, who looked carefully through his glasses, consulted his map, looked out again. “Likely enough spot,” he commented. “It’s been well strafed with shell fire already, but I suppose they have their guns down in deep dugouts there. Anyhow, we’ll give ’em another going over. Ridley!” “Sir,” answered the voice from below. “Stop. Fresh target. Machine-guns in trench. All guns....” and followed a string of orders about degrees and yards which Kentucky could not follow. “Now you watch the spot,” said the officer when the voice had reported “All ready, sir,” and he had settled himself in position with glasses to his eyes. “Watch and see if the shells land about the place you think the guns are.” He passed an order to fire, and a few seconds later said sharply, “There! See them?” But Kentucky had not seen them, and had to confess it. Or rather he had not seen these particular bursts to be sure of them, because the whole air was puffing and spurting with black smoke and white smoke and yellowish smoke. “They were a bit left and beyond where I wanted ’em,” said the officer. “We’ll try again. I’m firing four guns together. Look for four white smoke bursts in a bunch somewhere above your earth heaps.” “See them?” “I got ’em,” exclaimed the officer and Kentucky simultaneously a moment later. Kentucky was keyed up to an excited elation. This was a new game to him, and he was enjoying it thoroughly. He thought the four bursts were exactly over the spot required, but the more experienced observer was not so satisfied, and went on feeling for his target with another couple of rounds before he was content. But then he called for high explosive, and proceeded to deluge the distant trench with leaping smoke clouds, flashes of fire, and whirlwinds of dust and earth. Kentucky watched the performance with huge satisfaction, and began to regret that he had not joined the artillery. It was so much better, he concluded, to be snugly planted in a bit of cover calling orders to be passed back per telephone and watching the shells play on their target. He was soon to find that this was not quite all the gunners’ business. He ducked suddenly back from the lookout as a shower of bullets threshed across the ground, swept up to the broken wall, and hailed rattling and lashing on and round it. The hail continued for some seconds and stopped suddenly. “Some beast out there,” said the officer reflectively, “has his suspicions of this spot. That’s the third dose I’ve had in the last half-hour. Machine gun.” He went on with his firing, watching through his glass and shouting corrections of aim to the signaler below if a gun went off its target. Another shower of bullets clattered against the stones, and two spun ricocheting and shrieking through the loophole. Kentucky began to think observing was hardly the safe and pleasant job he had imagined. “Afraid my little eighteen-pounder pills won’t make enough impression there, if they’re in dug-outs,” said the officer. “Think I’ll go ’n ask the Brigade to turn the Heavies on to that lot. If you’re going back you can tell your C.O. I’m fixing it all right, and we’ll give ’em a good hammering.” A shell shrieked up and burst close overhead, followed in quick succession by another and another. “Better wait a bit before you start,” said the Forward Officer. “Looks as if they might be making it hot round here for a bit. Come along below while I talk to the Brigade. Carefully now. Don’t let ’em spot you.” The two crawled back, and then dived down a steep stair into a deep dug-out. Close to the entrance a telephonist sat on the ground with an instrument beside him. The officer squatted beside him and worked the “buzzer” for a minute, and then explained the situation to whoever was at the other end. “That’s all right,” he said at the finish. “The Heavies are going to hot ’em a bit. You’d better wait a little longer,” he continued, as the dug-out quivered to a muffled crash somewhere above them. “They’re still pasting us. I’m going up to observe for the Heavies,” he said, turning to the signaler. “You just pass my orders back and the battery will put them through.” He disappeared up the narrow stair just as another heavy shell crashed down. The signaler set his instrument beside him, lifted the receiver to his head, and leaned back wearily against the wall. “Are you ready, sir?” he shouted a moment later, and faintly the officer’s reply came back to them, “All ready,” and was repeated into the telephone. A moment later, “Fired, sir,” the signaler shouted, and after a pause down came the officer’s remarks, to be repeated back word for word. Once Kentucky started up the stairs, but on reaching the open he heard what had failed to penetrate to the dug-out, the loud whistling screams of shells, the sharp crack of their overhead burst, the clash and thump of the flying fragments on the stones and ground. Kentucky came down the steps again. “Bit warm up there, ain’t it?” said the signaler, continuing to hold the receiver to his ear, but placing his hand over the mouthpiece in speaking to Kentucky. “Mighty warm,” said Kentucky. “I don’t fancy your officer’s job up top there in the open.” The signaler yawned widely. “He’s the second to-day,” he said. “One expended to date—bit o’ shrap—killed straight out.” “You look kind of tuckered out,” said Kentucky, looking at the man. “I’m nex’ door to doin’ the sleep-walkin’ act,” said the signaler. He passed another order. “We bin shootin’ like mad for a week. Not too much sleep, going all the time, an’ I ’aven’t shut my eyes since yesterday morning.” Another shell hit the ground close outside, and some fragments of stone and dirt pattered down the stair. “Can’t say I like this,” said Kentucky restlessly. “If a shell plunked into that entrance or bust it in where’d we be?” “That’s easy,” said the telephonist. “We’d be here, an’ likely to stay here,” and raised his voice again to shout a message to the officer. They sat another five minutes with the walls shivering slightly or quaking violently as the shells fell close or at a distance. The telephonist sat apparently half-asleep, his eyes vacant, and his shoulders rounded, his voice raised at times to shout to the Forward Officer, sunk again to a monotonous drawl repeating the officer’s words into the telephone. Once he glanced at Kentucky and spoke briefly. “Why don’t you get down to it an’ ’ave a kip?” he said. And when Kentucky said he didn’t feel particularly sleepy, and anyhow must move along in five or ten minutes, “My Gawd,” said the telephonist; “not sleepy! An’ missin’ a chance for ten minutes’ kip. My Gawd!” When the shelling appeared to have slackened Kentucky crawled up the stair, and after a word with the officer set out on his return journey. Ahead where he judged the German position to be he could see a swirling cloud of dirty smoke, torn asunder every moment by quick-following flashes and springing fountains of earth and more belching smoke-clouds that towered upward in thick spreading columns, and thinned and rolled outward again to add still further to the dirty reek. The earth shook to the clamorous uproar of the guns, the air pulsed to the passage of countless shells, their many-toned but always harsh and strident shriekings. The greater weight of metal was from the British side, but as he hurried forward, stumbling and slipping over the wet and broken ground, Kentucky heard every now and then the rush and crash of German shells bursting near him. The rolling, pealing thunder of the guns, the thuds and thumps and bangings of their and their shells’ reports, were so loud and so sustained that they drowned the individual sounds of approaching shells, and several times Kentucky was only aware of their burst on seeing the black spout of earth and smoke, on hearing the flying fragments sing and whine close past or thud into the wet ground near him. He toiled on and came at last to an enormous shell crater in which a full dozen of the Anzacs squatted or stood. He halted a moment to speak to them, to ask how things were going. He found he had come through the main Anzac line without knowing it, so broken and uptorn was the ground, and so well were the men concealed in the deeper scattered holes. This dozen men were well in advance and close up on the line which held the Stonewalls and which they were supporting. “Your mob is just about due to slam at ’em again, mate,” said a sergeant, looking at his wrist-watch. “You’d better hustle some if you want to go to it along wi’ yer own cobbers. There goes the guns liftin’ now. Time, gentlemen, please,” and he snapped down the cover of his watch and stood to look out. Kentucky climbed out and ran on. The thunder of the guns had not ceased for an instant, but the fire-flashes and spurting smoke clouds no longer played about the same spot as before. The guns had lifted their fire and were pouring their torrent of shells further back behind the spot marked for assault. Now, as Kentucky knew well, was the designed moment for the attack, and he looked every moment to see a line of figures rise and move forward. But he saw nothing except the tumbled sea of broken ground, saw no sign of rising men, no sign of movement. For full two or three minutes he hunted for the Stonewalls, for the line he wanted to rejoin; and for those precious minutes no beat of rifle fire arose, no hail of bullets swept the ground over which the attack should pass. Then a machine gun somewhere in the haze ahead began to chatter noisily, and, quickly, one after another joined it and burst into a streaming fire that rose rapidly to a steady and unbroken roar. Shells began to sweep and crash over the open too, and Kentucky ducked down into a deep shell-hole for cover. “What’s gone wrong?” he wondered. “They were sure meant to start in when the guns lifted, and they’d have been well across by this. Now the Boche machine-gunners have had time to haul the guns from their dug-outs and get busy. What’s wrong? Surely the battalion hasn’t been clean wiped out.” He peered cautiously over the edge of his hole, but still he saw no sign of movement. He was completely puzzled. Something was wrong, but what? The Anzacs had told him the attack was due, and those lifting guns had backed their word. And yet there was no attack. He waited for long minutes—minutes empty of attack, empty of sign, empty of everything except the raving machine guns and the storming bullets. CHAPTER XII A VILLAGE AND A HELMET Kentucky decided that it was as useless as it was unnecessary for him to remain alone in his exposed position, and forthwith proceeded to crawl back to where he knew that at least he would find some one. So, keeping as low as possible, he started back, dodging from shell hole to shell hole. In about the fourth one he came to he found a group of several men, all dead, and plainly killed by the one low-bursting shell. He could see that they were Stonewalls, too, and began to wonder if the reason for his failing to find the line was the simple one that the line no longer existed. It was a foolish supposition perhaps, but men are prone to such after long day and night strain in a hot action, are even more prone to it under such circumstances as brought Kentucky to this point of crouching on the edge of a shell-hole with sudden death whistling and crashing and thundering in his ears, spread horribly under his eyes. He shivered, skirted round the pit, and over into the next one, just as another man stepped crouching over its edge. Kentucky saw him, and with a sense of enormous relief recognized him too as one of the Stonewalls’ officers. Here at last was some one he knew, some one who knew him, some one who would tell him perhaps what had happened, would certainly tell him what to do, give him simple orders to be simply obeyed. The officer was a boy with a full quarter less years to his age than Kentucky himself had, a lad who in normal life would probably still have been taking orders from a schoolmaster, who certainly, instead of giving, would have been taking orders or advice from a man his equal in education, more than his equal in age and worldliness, as Kentucky was. And yet Kentucky saw him with something of the relief a lost child would feel to meet his mother, and the officer was as natural in giving his orders as if Kentucky were the child. There is nothing unusual in all this. I only mention it because its very usualness is probably odd to any one outside the Service, and is likely to be little realized by them. “I’m mighty glad to see you, sir,” said Kentucky. “I thought I’d clean lost the battalion.” “The battalion’s strung out along here,” said the officer. “But I’m just passing along orders to retire a little on the supporting line behind us. So just push along back, and pass the word to do the same to any of ours you run across.” He moved on without further word, and Kentucky continued his rearward journey. He was aiming for the same lot of men he had passed through on his way forward, but in the broken litter of ground missed them, and instead ran on another group of half a dozen sheltering in another deep shell crater. He explained to them that in obedience to orders he had retired to join their line. “Well, you got to keep on retirin’, mate,” said one of them sulkily, “if you’re going to hitch in with us. We just got the office too that we’re to take the back track.” “Hope it’s all right,” said another doubtfully. “Seems so dash crazy to push up here and then go back for nix.” “That Curly’s such a loose-tiled kid, he might easy have mistook the order,” said another. “Anyway,” said the first, “this bloke says ’im an’ ’is cobbers is hittin’ out for the back paddock, and——” “What’s that?” several interrupted simultaneously, and moved eagerly to the crater edge. Clear through the rolling rifle and gun-fire came a shrill “Coo-ee,” and then another and another, louder and nearer. Kentucky scrambled to the edge with the others and looked out. Down to their right they could see figures climbing out of shell holes, starting up from the furrows, moving at the run forward, and again they heard the shrill “coo-ee’s” and a confusion of shouts and calls. Kentucky saw the half-dozen Anzacs scrambling from their hole like scared cats going over a fence, scuffling and jostling in their haste, heard them shouting and laughing like children going to a school treat. “Come on, mates ... nix on the back track ... play up, Anzacs....” For a moment Kentucky was puzzled. He had plain orders to retire to the support line. “Come on, cully,” shouted the last man out, looking back at him—but if the support line was advancing—”... your bunch is mixin’ it with us.” He paused to catch up and fling along the line the coo-ee that came ringing down again, hitched his rifle forward, and doubled off after the others. Kentucky climbed out and followed him. At first the whistle and shriek and snap-snap of bullets was continuous, and it seemed impossible that he should continue without being hit, that each step he took must be the last. He wondered where the bullet would hit him, whether it would hurt much, whether he would have to wait long for the stretcher-bearers. He slackened his pace at sight of an Anzac officer rolling on the ground, coughing and spitting up frothy blood. But the Anzac saw his pause, and gathered strength to wave him on, to clear his choking throat and shout thickly to “Go on, boy; go on. I’m all right. Give ’em hell.” Kentucky ran on. The bullets were fewer now, although the roar of firing from in front seemed to grow rather than slacken. His breath came heavily. The ground was rough and killingly slippery. He was nearly done up; but it was crazy to slow down there in the open; must keep on. He caught up one of the groups in front and ran with them. They were shouting ... where did they get the wind to shout ... and how much further was it to the trench? Then he saw the men he ran with begin to lift their rifles and fire or shoot from the hip as they ran; he saw gray coats crawling from a dug-out a dozen yards to his left, and with a shock realized that there was no trench to cross, that the shells must have leveled it, that he was actually into the enemy position. He ran on, heavily and at a jog-trot, without a thought of where he was running to or why he ran. He didn’t think; merely ran because the others did. He stopped, too, when they stopped, and began to fire with them at a little crowd of Germans who emerged suddenly from nowhere and came charging down at them. Several Germans fell; the others kept on, and Kentucky saw one of them swing a stick bomb to throw. Kentucky shot him before he threw—shot with his nerves suddenly grown steel strong, his brain cool, his eye clear, his hand as steady as rock. He shot again and dropped the man who stooped to pick the bomb that fell from the other’s hand. Then the bomb exploded amongst them. There were only four standing when the smoke cleared, and the Anzacs were running at them with bayonets at the level. There were only three Anzacs now, but the Germans threw their hands up. Then when the Anzacs slowed to a walk and came to within arm’s length, with their bayonet points up, one of the Germans dropped his hand and flashed out a pistol. Kentucky shot him before he could fire. He had not run in with the others, and was a score of paces away, and one of the Anzacs half-hid the man with the pistol. But he shot knowing—not believing, or thinking, or hoping, but knowing he would kill. It was his day, he was “on his shoot,” he couldn’t miss. The other Germans dropped their hands too, but whether to run or fight—the bayonet finished them without a chance to answer that. “Come on, Deadeye,” shouted one of the Anzacs; and when Kentucky joined them, “Some shootin’, that. I owe you one for it too.” They went on again, but there was little more fighting. Anyhow, Kentucky didn’t fight. He just shot; and whatever he shot at he hit, as surely and certainly as Death itself. There were a great many dead Germans lying about, and the ground was one churned heap of broken earth and shell-holes. They came suddenly on many men in khaki, walking about and shouting to each other. Then a Stonewall corporal met him and pointed to where the Stonewalls were gathering, and told him he had better go join them, and Kentucky trudged off towards them feeling all of a sudden most desperately tired and done up, and most horribly thirsty. The first thing he asked when he reached the Stonewalls was whether any one had a drop of water to spare; and then he heard a shout, a very glad and cheery shout that brought a queer, warm glow to his heart, “Kentuck! Hi, Kentucky!” “Pug,” he said. “Oh, you, Pug! My, but I’m glad to see you again, boy.” They talked quickly, telling in snatches what had happened to each since they separated, and both openly and whole-heartedly glad to be together again. “I got a helmet, Kentuck,” said Pug joyfully, and exhibited his German helmet with pride. “Tole you I’d get a good ’un, didn’t I? An’ I downed the cove that ’ad it meself. We potted at each other quite a bit—’im or me for it—an’ I downed ’im, an’ got ’is ’elmet.” Now the capture of the village was a notable feat of arms which was duly if somewhat briefly chronicled in the General Headquarters dispatch of the day with a line or two enumerating the depth and front of the advance made, the prisoners and material taken. The war correspondents have described the action more fully and in more enthusiastic and picturesque language, and the action with notes of the number of shells fired, the battalions and batteries employed, and nice clear explanatory maps of the ground and dispositions of attackers and defenders will no doubt in due course occupy its proper place in the history of the war. But none of these makes any mention of Pug and his helmet, although these apparently played quite an important part in the operation. Pug himself never understood his full share in it—remembered the whole affair as nothing but a horrible mix-up of noise, mud, bursting shells and drifting smoke, and his acquirement of a very fine helmet souvenir. Even when Pug told his story Kentucky hardly understood all it meant, only indeed came to realize it when he added to it those other official and semi-official accounts, his—Kentucky’s—own experience, and the mysterious impulse that he had seen change the Anzacs’ retreat into an attack, into the charge which swept up the Stonewalls and carried on into and over the village. To get the story complete as Kentucky came to piece it out and understand it we must go back and cover Pug’s doings from the time Kentucky left him and the others in the shell-hole to carry the message back to the artillery F.O.O. After the German counter-attack was caught in the nick of time and driven back with heavy loss, a good many of the counter-attackers instead of risking the run back to the shelter of their trench dropped into shell-holes and craters, and from here the more determined of them continued to shoot at any head showing in the British line. The men of the latter were also scattered along the broken ground in what at one time had been the open between two trenches, but was now a better position and in its innumerable deep shell craters offered better cover than the wrecked fragment of a trench behind them. On both sides too the gunners were ferociously strafing the opposition trenches, but since they dare not drop their shells too near to where they knew their own front lines to be located the tendency on both sides was for the front line to wriggle and crawl forward into the zone left uncovered by bursting high-explosive shells and shrapnel. The German and British infantry naturally did their best to discourage and make as expensive as possible the forward movement by the opposition, and industriously sniped with rifle and machine gun any men who exposed themselves for a moment. But when the counter-attack fell back Pug was for some minutes too busily engaged in helping to bandage up a badly wounded man to pay much attention to what the Germans were doing. When the job was completed he raised his head and looked out of the shell hole where he and the others were sheltering and peered round through the drifting smoke haze. He caught dim sight of some moving figures and raised his voice lustily. “Stretche-e-er!” he shouted, and after waiting a minute, again “Stre-tche-e-er!” Amidst all the uproar of battle it is not probable that his voice had a carrying power of more than scanty yards, but when no stretcher-bearers immediately materialized in answer to his call Pug appeared a good deal annoyed. “Wot d’you s’pose them blanky bearers is doin’?” he grumbled, then raised his voice and bawled again. He shouted and grumbled alternately for a few minutes with just the growing sense of annoyance that a man feels when he whistles for a taxi and no taxi appears. Two or three times he ducked instinctively at a hiss of a close bullet and once at the “Cr-r-ump” of a falling shell and the whistle of its flying splinters, and when he stood to shout he took care to keep well down in his shell hole, raising no more than his head above its level to allow his voice to carry above ground. Apparently, although he thought it unpleasantly risky to be above ground there, and in no way out of place for him not to expose himself, he took it quite for granted that stretcher-bearers would accept all the risk and come running to his bellowings. But in case it be thought that he expected too much, it ought to be remembered that it is the stretcher-bearers themselves who are responsible for such high expectations. Their salving of broken bodies from out the maelstrom of battle, their desperate rescues under fire, their readiness to risk the most appalling hazards, their indifference to wounds and death, their calm undertaking of impossibly difficult jobs, these very doings which by their constant performance have been reduced to no more than the normal, have come to be accepted as the matter-of-fact ordinary routine business of the stretcher-bearers. Pug, in fact, expected them to come when he called, only because he had seen them scores of times answer promptly to equally or even more risky calls. And the stretcher-bearers in this instance did not fail him. A couple appeared looming hazily through the smoke, and at another call labored heavily over the broken ground to him. They saw the wounded man before Pug had time to make any explanation of his call, and without stopping to waste words, slid over the edge of the crater, dropped the stretcher in position beside the wounded man, ran a quick, workmanlike glance and touch over the first field-dressings on him, had him on the stretcher and hoisted up out of the hole all well inside a couple of minutes. Pug returned to his own particular business, and settling himself against the sloping wall of the crater nearest the Germans took a cautious survey of the ground before him. At first he saw nothing but the rough, churned-up surface and a filmy curtain of smoke through which the resuming British bombardment was again beginning to splash fountains of shell-flung reek and dust. But as he looked a figure appeared, came forward at a scrambling run for a score of paces and dropped out of sight into some hole. At first sight of him Pug had instinctively thrust forward his rifle muzzle and snapped off a quick shot, but the man had run on apparently without taking any notice of it. Pug was a fair enough shot to feel some annoyance. “D’jer see that?” he asked his neighbor. “Beggar never even ducked; an’ I’ll bet I didn’t go far off an inner on ’im.” The neighbor was taking a long and careful sight over the edge of the pit. He fired, and without moving his rifle gazed earnestly in the direction he had shot. “Wot’s that, Pug?” he said at last, jerking out the empty shell and reloading. “Who ducked? Ah, would yer!” he exclaimed hastily, and pumped out a rapid clipful of rounds. Pug joined in with a couple of shots and the dodging figures they had shot at vanished suddenly. “Wot’s their game now, I wonder,” said Pug. “D’you think they’re edgin’ in for another rush?” He had raised himself a little to look out, but the venomous hiss-zizz of a couple of bullets close past his head made him bob down hurriedly. “You gotter look out,” said the other man. “A lot o’ blighters didn’t bolt when we cut up their attack. They just dropped into any hole that come handy, an’ they’re lyin’ there snipin’ pot shots at any one that shows.” Pug banged off a shot, jerked the breech open and shut and banged off another. “See that,” he said. “Same bloke I potted at afore. Not ’arf a cheeky blighter either. Keeps jumpin’ up an’ runnin’ in to’ards us. But you wait till nex’ time—I’ll give ’im run.” He settled himself nicely with elbow-rest, wide sprawled legs, and braced feet, and waited with careful eye on his sights and coiled finger about the trigger. Two minutes he waited, and then his rifle banged again, and he exclaimed delightedly, “I gottim, chum. I gottim that time. See ’im flop?” But his exclamation changed to one of angry disgust as he saw the man he supposed he had “got” rise from behind his cover, beckon vigorously to some one behind him, and move forward again another few steps. Pug blazed another shot at him, and in response the man, in the very act of dropping to cover, stopped, straightened up, and after staring in Pug’s direction for a moment, turned, and lifting the helmet from his head repeated the beckoning motion he had made before. “Well of all the blinkin’ cheek,” said Pug wrathfully; “take that, you cow,” firing again. “Wot’s up?” said his companion. “Is some bloke stringin’ you?” “Fair beats me,” said the exasperated Pug. “I’ve ’ad half a dozen clean shots at ’im, an’ ’e just laughs at ’em. But I’ve marked the last place ’e bogged down into, an’ if ’e just pokes a nose out once more, ’e’ll get it in the neck for keeps.” “Where is ’e?” said the interested chum; “show us, an’ I’ll drop it acrost ’im too when ’e pops out.” “No,” said Pug firmly, “fair dinkum. ’E’s my own private little lot, an’ I’m goin’ to see ’im safely ’ome myself. S-steady now, ’ere ’e comes again. Just ’avin’ a look out, eh Fritz. Orright, m’ son. Keep on lookin’ an’ it’ll meet yer optic—plunk,” and he fired. “Missed again,” he said sadly as he saw a spurt of mud flick from the edge of the German’s cover. “But lumme, chum, di’jer see the ’elmet that bloke ’ad?” The German it may be remembered had drawn attention to his helmet by taking it off and waving it, but Pug at that moment had been too exasperated by the impudence of the man’s exposure to notice the helmet. But this time a gleam of light caught the heavy metal “chin-strap” that hung from it, and although the helmet itself was covered with the usual service cover of gray cloth, Pug could see distinctly that it was one of the old pickel-hauben type—one of the kind he so greatly coveted as a “souvenir.” “That settles it,” said Pug firmly. “I’m goin’ to lay for that bloke till I gets ’im, an’ then when we advance I’ll ’ave ’is ’elmet.” He lay for several minutes, watching the spot where the German was concealed as a cat watches a mouse-hole, and when his patience was rewarded by a glimpse of gray uniform he took steady aim, carefully squeezed the trigger until he felt the faint check of its second pull-off, held his breath, and gave the final squeeze, all in exact accordance with the school of musketry instructions. The patch of gray vanished, and Pug could not tell whether he had scored a hit, but almost immediately he saw the spike and rounded top of the helmet lift cautiously into sight. Again Pug took slow and deliberate aim but then hesitated, “Tchick-tchicked” softly between his teeth, aimed again and fired. The helmet vanished with a jerk. “Lookin’ over the edge of ’is ’ole, ’e was,” said Pug. “An’ at first I didn’t like to shoot for fear of spoilin’ that ’elmet. But arter all,” he conceded cheerfully, “I dunno’ that it wouldn’t maybe improve it as a fust-class sooven-eer to ’ave a neat little three-oh-three ’ole drilled in it.” “Did you drill it?” asked his companion directly. “Dunno,” admitted Pug, “but I’m keepin’ a careful eye on ’im, an’ I’ll soon know if ’e moves again.” But in the process of keeping a careful eye Pug was tempted for an instant into keeping a less careful head under cover than the situation demanded. A bullet leaped whutt past within an inch of his ear and he dropped flat to earth with an oath. “That was ’im,” he said, “I saw the flash of ’is rifle. Looks like ’e’s got me piped off, an’ it’s goin’ to be ’im or me for it.” Chick and another man in the same hole had been busy shooting at any mark that presented, but when their every appearance above ground began to be greeted by an unpleasantly close bullet, they ceased to fire and squatted back in the hole to watch Pug and the conducting of his duel. A dozen times he and the German fired, each drawing or returning instant shot for shot, Pug moving from one spot to another in the shell crater, pushing his rifle out slowly, lifting his head cautiously an inch at a time. Over their heads the great shells shrieked and rushed, round them crackled a spattering rifle fire, the occasional hammering of a machine gun, the rolling crash and whirr of bursting shells and flying splinters. Wide out to right and left of them, far to their front and rear the roar of battle ran, long-thundering and unbroken, in a deafening chorus of bellowing guns, the vibrating rattle of rifles and machine guns, the sharp detonations and reports of shells and bombs and grenades. But Pug and, in lesser degree, his companions, were quite heedless of all these things, of how the battle moved or stayed still. For them the struggle had boiled down into the solitary duel between Pug and his German; the larger issues were for the moment completely overshadowed, as in war they so often are, by the mere individual and personal ones. Pug insisted in finishing off his duel single-handed, declining to have the others there interfere in it. “It’s ’im or me for it,” he repeated, “fair dinkum. An’ I’m goin’ to get ’im and ’is ’elmet on my blinkin’ own.” He decided at last to move his position, to crawl along and try to catch his opponent in flank, to stalk his enemy as a hunter stalks a hidden buck. Since he could not escape from the crater they were in without exposing himself to that watchful rifle, he scraped down with his entrenching tool a couple of feet of the rim of the crater where it formed a wall dividing off another crater. When he had cleared the passage he came back and fired another shot, just to keep his enemy watching in the same spot for him, and hurriedly crawled over into the next crater, squirmed and wriggled away from it along cracks and holes and folds of the torn and tumbled ground in a direction that he reckoned would allow him to reach the German sheltering in his hole and behind a broken hillock of earth. But before he reached such a position as he desired he found himself looking over into a deep crater occupied by an officer and half a dozen men with a machine gun. The officer looked up and caught sight of him. “Hullo, Sneath,” he said. “Where are you off to? You’re moving the wrong way, aren’t you? The order was to retire, and you’re moving forward.” Pug wriggled over into the crater and crouched puffing and blowing for a moment. “I ’adn’t ’eard nothin’ about retiring, sir,” he said doubtfully. “That’s the order,” said the officer briskly. “I don’t know what it means any more than you do, but there it is. You’d better wait now and move back with us.” Pug was annoyed—exceedingly annoyed. This retirement looked like losing him his duel, and what was more, losing him his coveted helmet. Retirement was a thing he had not for an instant calculated upon. He had taken it quite for granted that if he could slay the wearer of the helmet, the helmet was his, that he had only to wait until the line advanced to go straight to it and pick it up. With a vague idea that he would have managed the affair much better on his own, without these interfering directions of his movements, he began to wish he had never come across this officer, and from that passed to wondering whether he couldn’t give the officer the slip and finish off his program in his own way. At that moment the British artillery fire redoubled in intensity and the rush of shells overhead rose to a roaring gale. “Sharp there,” said the officer. “Get that gun picked up. Now’s our chance to get back while the guns are socking it into ’em.” He was right, of course, and their chances of retirement were likely to be improved by the heavier covering fire. Pug was also right in a half-formed idea that had come to him—that the covering fire would also lessen the risk of a move forward, or as he put it to himself—“With all them shells about their ears they’ll be too busy keepin’ their heads down to do much shootin’ at me if I chance a quick rush; an’ most likely I’d be on top o’ that bloke wi’ the ’elmet afore ’e knew it.” The others were picking up the machine gun and preparing to move, and Pug took a long and careful look over the edge of the hole to locate his helmet wearer. With a quick exclamation he snatched the rifle to his shoulder, aimed, and fired. “That’ll do,” said the officer sharply turning at the sound of the shot. “Cease firing and get along back.” But Pug was gazing hard in the direction of his shot. “I’ve got ’im,” he said triumphantly, “I’ll swear I got ’im that time. Showin’ a fair mark ’e was, an’ I saw ’im jerk ’an roll when I fired.” “Never mind that,” said the officer impatiently. “There’s their rifle fire beginning again. Time we were out of this. Keep down as well as you can all of you. Move yourselves now.” The men began to scramble out of the hole, and in an instant Pug’s mind was made up. They were retiring; so far as he knew the battalion might be retiring out of the line, out of the battle, and out of the reach of chances of German helmets. And meantime there was his helmet lying there waiting to be picked up, lying within a hundred yards of him. He climbed up the rear wall of the crater, halted and spoke hurriedly to the officer. “I won’t be ’alf a mo’, sir,” he said. “Something there I want to pick up an’ bring in,” and without waiting for any reply turned and bolted across the open towards his helmet. The officer was consumed with a quick gust of anger at such disobedience. “Here,” he shouted and scrambled out of the pit. “Hi, come back you”; and as Pug gave no sign of having heard him, he shouted again and ran a few paces after him. And so it was that about a dozen Anzacs rising sullenly and grumblingly out of a big shell crater in reluctant obedience to the order to retire, saw a khaki figure rise into sight and go charging straight forward towards the enemy, and a second later the figure of an officer bound into sight and follow him. Two or three of the Anzacs voiced together the thought that rose to all their minds. “Who said retire.... What blundering fool twisted the order ... retire, Gostrewth, they’re advancing ... us retire, an’ them goin’ forward ...” To them the position required little thinking over. They could see some men advancing, and distinctly see an officer too at that. And how many more the smoke hid—— In an instant they were swarming up and out of their crater; there was a wild yell, a shrill “Cooee,” a confused shouting, “Come on, boys ... at ’em, Anzacs ... Advance, Australia,” and the dozen went plunging off forward. Out to right and left of them the yell ran like fire through dry grass, the coo-ees rose long and shrill; as if by magic the dead ground sprouted gleaming bayonets and scrambling khaki figures. Every man who looked saw a ragged and swiftly growing line surging forward, and every man, asking nothing more, taking only this plain evidence of advance, made haste—exactly as Kentucky’s companions made haste—to fling into it. Straight at the flashing rifles and the drifting fog-bank of shell smoke that marked the German position the shifting wave swept and surged, the men yelling, shouting and cheering. Bullets beating down upon them, shells crumpling and smashing amongst them cut them down by dozens, but neither halted nor slowed down the charging line. It poured on, flooded in over the wrecked trenches and dug-outs, the confused litter of shell holes big and little, piled earth heaps, occasional fragments of brickwork and splintered beams that alone remained of the village. The flank attacks that had been launched a few minutes before and held up staggering under the ferocious fire that met them, found the weight of their opposition suddenly grow less, took fresh breath and thrust fiercely in again, gained a footing, felt the resistance weaken and bend and break, and in a moment were through and into the tumbled wreckage of a defense, shooting and stabbing and bayoneting, bombing the dug-outs, rounding up the prisoners, pushing on until they came in touch with the swirling edges of the frontal attack’s wave, and joining them turned and overran the last struggling remnants of the defense. The village was taken; the line pushed out beyond it, took firm grip of a fresh patch of ground, spread swiftly and linked up with the attack that raged on out to either side and bit savagely into the crumbling German line. These wider issues were of course quite beyond the knowledge or understanding of Pug. He had come uninjured to the spot where his German lay, found he was an officer and quite dead, snatched up the helmet that lay beside him, and turned to hurry back. Only then was he aware of the line charging and barging down upon him, and understanding nothing of why or how it had come there, noticing only from a glimpse of some faces he knew that men of his own battalion were in it, he slipped his arm through the chinstrap of his captured helmet, turned again and ran forward with the rest. With them he played his part in the final overrunning of the village—the usual confused, scuffling jumble of a part played by the average infantry private in an attack, a nightmarish mixture of noise and yelling, of banging rifles, shattering bomb reports, a great deal of smoke, the whistle of passing bullets, the crackling snap and smack of their striking ground and stone, swift appearance and disappearance of running figures. He had a momentary vision of men grouped about a black dug-out mouth hurling grenades down it; joined a wild rush with several others on a group of gray-coated Germans who stood firm even to a bayonet finish. Scrambling and scuffling down and up the steep sides of the smaller shell craters, round the slippery crumbling edges of the larger, he caught glimpses—this towards the end—of scattered groups or trickling lines of white-faced prisoners with long gray coats flapping about their ankles, and hands held high over their heads, being shepherded out towards the British lines by one or two guards. All these scattered impressions were linked up by many panting, breathless scrambles over a chaos of torn and broken ground pocked and pitted with the shell craters set as close as the cells of a broken honeycomb, and ended with a narrow escape, averted just in time by one of his officers, from firing upon a group of men—part of the flank attack as it proved—who appeared mysteriously out of the smoke where Germans had been firing and throwing stick-grenades a moment before. Through all the turmoil Pug clung tightly to his helmet. He knew that there had been a stiff fight and that they had won, was vaguely pleased at the comforting fact, and much more distinctly pleased and satisfied with the possession of his souvenir. He took the first opportunity when the line paused and proceeded to sort itself out beyond the village, to strip the cloth off his prize and examine it. It was an officer’s pickelhaube, resplendent in all its glory of glistening black patent-leather, gleaming brass eagle spread-winged across its front, fierce spike on top and heavy-linked chain “chin-strap” of shining brass. Pug was hugely pleased with his trophy, displayed it pridefully and told briefly the tale of his duel with the late owner. He told nothing of how the securing of his prize had assisted at the taking of the village, for the good reason that he himself did not know it, and up to then in fact did not even know that they had taken a village. He tied the helmet securely to his belt with a twisted bit of wire, and at the urgent command of a sweating and mud-bedaubed sergeant prepared to dig. “Are we stoppin’ ’ere then?” he stayed to ask. “Suppose so,” said the sergeant, “seeing we’ve taken our objective and got this village.” Pug gaped at him, and then looked round wonderingly at the tossed and tumbled shell-riddled chaos of shattered earth that was spread about them. “Got this village,” he said. “Lumme, where’s the village then?” Another man there laughed at him. “You came over the top o’ it, Pug,” he said. “Don’t you remember the broken beam you near fell over, back there a piece? That was a bit o’ one o’ the houses in the village. An’ d’you see that little bit o’ gray wall there? That’s some more o’ the village.” Pug looked hard at it. “An’ that’s the village, is it,” he said cheerfully. “Lor’ now, I might ’ave trod right on top o’ it by accident, or even tripped over it, if it ’ad been a bit bigger village. You can keep it; I’d rather ’ave my ’elmet.” CHAPTER XIII WITH THE TANKS Soon after Kentucky rejoined them the Stonewalls were moved forward a little clear of the village they had helped to take, just as one or two heavy shells whooped over from the German guns and dropped crashing on the ground that had been theirs. The men were spread out along shell holes and told to dig in for better cover because a bit of a redoubt on the left flank hadn’t been taken and bullets were falling in enfilade from it. “Dig, you cripples,” said the sergeant, “dig in. Can’t you see that if they counter-attack from the front now you’ll get shot in the back while you’re lining the front edge of those shell holes. Get to it there, you Pug.” “Shot in the back, linin’ the front,” said Pug as the sergeant passed on. “Is it a conundrum, Kentuck?” “Sounds sort of mixed,” admitted Kentucky. “But it’s tainted some with the truth. That redoubt is half rear to us. If another lot comes at us in front and we get up on the front edge of this shell hole, there’s nothing to stop the redoubt bullets hitting us in the back. Look at that,” he concluded, nodding upward to where a bullet had smacked noisily into the mud above their heads as they squatted in the hole. The two commenced wearily to cut out with their trenching tools a couple of niches in the sides of the crater which would give them protection from the flank and rear bullets. They made reasonably secure cover and then stayed to watch a hurricane bombardment that was developing on the redoubt. “ Goo on the guns,” said Pug joyfully. “That’s the talk; smack ’em about.” The gunners “smacked ’em about” with fifteen savage minutes’ deluge of light and heavy shells, blotting out the redoubt in a whirlwind of fire-flashes, belching smoke clouds and dust haze. Then suddenly the tempest ceased to play there, lifted and shifted and fell roaring in a wall of fire and steel beyond the low slope which the redoubt crowned. With past knowledge of what the lift and the further barrage meant the two men in the shell- pit turned and craned their necks and looked out along the line. “There they go,” said Pug suddenly, and “Attacking round a half-circle,” said Kentucky. The British line was curved in a horse-shoe shape about the redoubt and the two being out near one of the points could look back and watch clearly the infantry attack launching from the center and half-way round the sides of the horse-shoe. They saw the khaki figures running heavily, scrambling round and through the scattered shell holes, and presently, as a crackle of rifle fire rose and rose and swelled to a sullen roar with the quick, rhythmic clatter of machine guns beating through it, they saw also the figures stumbling and falling, the line thinning and shredding out and wasting away under the withering fire. The sergeant dodged along the pit-edge above them. “Covering fire,” he shouted, “at four hundred—slam it in,” and disappeared. The two opened fire, aiming at the crest of the slope and beyond the tangle of barbed wire which alone indicated the position of the redoubt. They only ceased to fire when they saw the advanced fringe of the line, of a line by now woefully thinned and weakened, come to the edge of the barbed wire and try to force a way through it. “They’re beat,” gasped Pug. “They’re done in ...” and cursed long and bitterly, fingering nervously at his rifle the while. “Time we rung in again,” said Kentucky. “Aim steady and pitch ’em well clear of the wire.” The two opened careful fire again while the broken remnants of the attacking line ran and hobbled and crawled back or into the cover of shell holes. A second wave flooded out in a new assault, but by now the German artillery joining in helped it and the new line was cut down, broken and beaten back before it had covered half the distance to the entanglements. Kentucky and Pug and others of the Stonewalls near them could only curse helplessly as they watched the tragedy and plied their rifles in a slender hope of some of their bullets finding those unseen loopholes and embrasures. “An’ wot’s the next item o’ the program, I wonder?” said Pug half an hour after the last attack had failed, half an hour filled with a little shooting, a good deal of listening to the pipe and whistle of overhead bullets and the rolling thunder of the guns, a watching of the shells falling and spouting earth and smoke on the defiant redoubt. “Reinforcements and another butt-in at it, I expect,” surmised Kentucky. “Don’t see anything else for it. Looks like this pimple-on-the-map of a redoubt was holdin’ up any advance on this front. Anyhow I’m not hankering to go pushin’ on with that redoubt bunch shootin’ holes in my back, which they’d surely do.” “Wot’s all the buzz about be’ind us?” said Pug suddenly, raising himself for a quick look over the covering edge of earth behind him, and in the act of dropping again stopped and stared with raised eyebrows and gaping mouth. “What is it?” said Kentucky quickly, and also rose, and also stayed risen and staring in amazement. Towards them, lumbering and rolling, dipping heavily into the shell holes, heaving clumsily out of them, moving with a motion something between that of a half-sunken ship and a hamstrung toad, striped and banded and splashed from head to foot, or, if you prefer it, from fo’c’sl-head to cutwater, with splashes of lurid color, came His Majesty’s Land Ship “Here We Are.” “Gor- strewth !” ejaculated Pug. “Wha-what is it?” Kentucky only gasped. “’Ere,” said Pug hurriedly, “let’s gerrout o’ this. It’s comin’ over atop of us,” and he commenced to scramble clear. But a light of understanding was dawning on Kentucky’s face and a wide grin growing on his lips. “It’s one of the Tanks,” he said, and giggled aloud as the Here We Are dipped her nose and slid head first into a huge shell crater in ludicrous likeness to a squat bull-pup sitting back on its haunches and dragged into a hole: “I’ve heard lots about ’em, but the seein’ beats all the hearin’ by whole streets,” and he and Pug laughed aloud together as the Here We Are’s face and gun-port eyes and bent-elbow driving gear appeared above the crater rim in still more ridiculous resemblance to an amazed toad emerging from a rain-barrel. The creature lumbered past them, taking in its stride the narrow trench dug to link up the shell holes, and the laughter on Kentucky’s lips died to thoughtfully serious lines as his eye caught the glint of fat, vicious-looking gun muzzles peering from their ports. “Haw haw haw,” guffawed Pug as the monster lurched drunkenly, checked and steadied itself with one foot poised over a deep hole, halted and backed away, and edged nervously round the rim of the hole. “See them machine guns pokin’ out, Kentucky,” he continued delightedly. “They won’t ’arf pepper them Huns when they gets near enough.” Fifty yards in the wake of the Here We Are a line of men followed up until an officer halted them along the front line where Pug and Kentucky were posted. “You blokes just takin’ ’im out for an airin’?” Pug asked one of the newcomers. “Oughtn’t you to ’ave ’im on a leadin’ string?” “Here we are, Here we are again,” chanted the other and giggled spasmodically. “An’ ain’t he just hot stuff! But wait till you see ’im get to work with his sprinklers.” “Does ’e bite?” asked Pug, grinning joyously. “Oughtn’t you to ’ave ’is muzzle on?” “Bite,” retorted another. “He’s a bloomin’ Hun-eater. Jes’ gulps ’em whole, coal-scuttle ’ats an’ all.” “He’s a taed,” said another. “A lollopin, flat-nosed, splay-fittit, ugly puddock, wi’s hin’ legs stuck oot whaur his front should be.” “Look at ’im, oh look at ’im ... he’s alive, lad, nobbut alive.” ... “Does every bloomin’ thing but talk.” ... “Skatin’ he is now, skatin’ on ’is off hind leg,” came a chorus of delighted comment. “Is he goin’ to waltz in and take that redoubt on his ownsum?” asked Kentucky. “No,” some one told him. “We give him ten minutes’ start and then follow on and pick up the pieces, and the prisoners.” They lay there laughing and joking and watching the uncouth antics of the monster waddling across the shell-riddled, ground, cheering when it appeared to trip and recover itself, cheering when it floundered sideways into a hole and crawled out again, cheering most wildly of all when it reached the barbed-wire entanglements, waddled through, bursting them apart and trailing them in long tangles behind it, or trampling them calmly under its churning caterpillar-wheel-bands. It was little wonder they cheered and less wonder they laughed. The Here We Are’s motions were so weirdly alive and life-like, so playfully ponderous, so massively ridiculous, that it belonged by nature to nothing outside a Drury Lane Panto. At one moment it looked exactly like a squat tug-boat in a heavy cross sea or an ugly tide-rip, lurching, dipping, rolling rail and rail, plunging wildly bows under, tossing its nose up and squattering again stern-rail deep, pitching and heaving and diving and staggering, but always pushing forward. Next minute it was a monster out of Prehistoric Peeps, or a new patent fire-breathing dragon from the pages of a very Grimm Fairy Tale, nosing its way blindly over the Fairy Prince’s pitfalls; next it was a big broad-buttocked sow nuzzling and rooting as it went; next it was a drunk man reeling and staggering, rolling and falling, scrabbling and crawling; next it was—was anything on or in, or underneath the earth, anything at all except a deadly, grim, purposeful murdering product of modern war. The infantry pushed out after it when it reached the barbed wire, and although they took little heed to keep cover—being much more concerned not to miss any of the grave and comic antics of their giant joke than to shelter from flying bullets—the line went on almost without casualties. “Mighty few bullets about this time,” remarked Kentucky, who with Pug had moved out along with the others “to see the fun.” “That’s ’cos they’re too busy with the old Pepper-pots, an’ the Pepper-pots is too busy wi’ them to leave much time for shootin’ at us,” said Pug gayly. It was true too. The Pepper-pots—a second one had lumbered into sight from the center of the horseshoe curve—were drawing a tearing hurricane of machine-gun bullets that beat and rattled on their armored sides like hail on a window-pane. They waddled indifferently through the storm and Here We Are, crawling carefully across a trench, halted half-way over and sprinkled bullets up and down its length to port and starboard for a minute, hitched itself over, steered straight for a fire-streaming machine-gun embrasure. It squirted a jet of lead into the loophole, walked on, butted at the emplacement once or twice, got a grip of it under the upward sloped caterpillar band, climbed jerkily till it stood reared up on end like a frightened colt, ground its driving bands round and round, and—fell forward on its face with a cloud of dust belching up and out from the collapsed dug-out. Then it crawled out of the wreckage, crunching over splintered beams and broken concrete, wheeled and cruised casually down the length of a crooked trench, halting every now and then to spray bullets on any German who showed or to hail a stream of them down the black entrance to a dug-out, straying aside to nose over any suspicions cranny, swinging round again to plod up the slope in search of more trenches. The infantry followed up, cheering and laughing like children at a fair, rounding up batches of prisoners who crawled white-faced and with scared eyes from dug-out doors and trench corners, shouting jests and comments at the lumbering Pepper-pots. A yell went up as the Here We Are, edging along a trench, lurched suddenly, staggered, sideslipped, and half disappeared in a fog of dust. The infantry raced up and found it with its starboard driving gear grinding and churning full power and speed of revolution above ground and the whole port side and gear down somewhere in the depths of the collapsed trench, grating and squealing and flinging out clods of earth as big as clothes-baskets. Then the engines eased, slowed, and stopped, and after a little and in answer to the encouraging yells of the men outside, a scuttle jerked open and a grimy figure crawled out. “Blimey,” said Pug rapturously, “’ere’s Jonah ’isself. Ol’ Pepper-pot’s spewed ’im out.” But “Jonah” addressed himself pointedly and at some length to the laughing spectators, and they, urged on by a stream of objurgation and invective, fell to work with trenching-tools, with spades retrieved from the trench, with bare hands and busy fingers, to break down the trench-side under Here We Are’s starboard driver, and pile it down into the trench and under the uplifted end of her port one. The second Pepper-pot cruised up and brought to adjacent to the operations with a watchful eye on the horizon. It was well she did, for suddenly a crowd of Germans seeing or sensing that one of the monsters was out of action, swarmed out of cover on the crest and came storming down on the party. Here We Are could do nothing; but the sister ship could, and did, do quite a lot to those Germans. It sidled round so as to bring both bow guns and all its broadside to bear and let loose a close-quarter tornado of bullets that cut the attackers to rags. The men who had ceased digging to grab their rifles had not time to fire a shot before the affair was over and “Jonah” was again urging them to their spade-work. Then when he thought the way ready, Here We Are at his orders steamed ahead again, its lower port side scraping and jarring along the trench wall, the drivers biting and gripping at the soft ground. Jerkily, a foot at a time, it scuffled its way along the trench till it came to a sharp angle of it where a big shell hole had broken down the wall. But just as the starboard driver was reaching out over the shell hole and the easy job of plunging into it, gaining a level keel and climbing out the other side, the trench wall on the right gave way and the Here We Are sank its starboard side level to and then below the port one. She had fallen bodily into a German dug-out, but after a pause to regain its shaken breath—or the crew’s—it began once more to revolve its drivers slowly, and to churn out behind them, first a cloud of dust and clots of earth, then, as the starboard driver bit deeper into the dug-out, a mangled débris of clothing and trench-made furniture. On the ground above the infantry stood shrieking with laughter, while the frantic skipper raved unheard-of oaths and the Here We Are pawed out and hoofed behind, or caught on its driving band and hoisted in turn into the naked light of day, a splintered bedstead, a chewed up blanket or two, separately and severally the legs, back, and seat of a red velvet arm-chair, a torn gray coat and a forlorn and muddy pair of pink pajama trousers tangled up in one officer’s field boot. And when the drivers got their grip again and the Here We Are rolled majestically forward and up the further sloping side of the shell crater and halted to take the skipper aboard again, Pug dragged a long branch from the fascines in the trench débris, slid it up one leg and down the other of the pink pajamas, tied the boot by its laces to the tip and jammed the root into a convenient crevice in the Tank’s stern. And so beflagged she rolled her triumphant way up over the captured redoubt and down the other side, with the boot-tip bobbing and swaying and jerking at the end of her pink tail. The sequel to her story may be told here, although it only came back to the men who decorated her after filtering round the firing line, up and down the communication lines, round half the hospitals and most of the messes at or behind the Front. And many as came to be the Tales of the Tanks, this of the Pink-Tailed ’un, as Pug called her, belonged unmistakably to her and, being so, was joyfully recognized and acclaimed by her decorators. She came in due time across the redoubt, says the story, and bore down on the British line at the other extreme of the horseshoe to where a certain infantry C.O., famed in past days for a somewhat speedy and hectic career, glared in amazement at the apparition lurching and bobbing and bowing and crawling toad-like towards him. “I knew,” he is reported to have afterwards admitted, “I knew it couldn’t be that I’d got ’em again. But in the old days I always had one infallible sign. Crimson rats and purple snakes I might get over; but if they had pink tails, I knew I was in for it certain. And I tell you it gave me quite a turn to see this blighter waddling up and wagging the old pink tail.” But this end of the story only came to the Stonewalls long enough after—just as it is said to have come in time to the ears of the Here We Are’s skipper, and, mightily pleasing him and his crew, set him chuckling delightedly and swearing he meant to apply and in due and formal course obtain permission to change his land-ship’s name, and having regretfully parted with the pink tail, immortalize it in the name of H.M.L.S. The D.T.’s .

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