"
Like the last star of dawn the only remaining shred of poor Scotty's
valor faded away and was gone.
CHAPTER XII
BEHEMOTH
The Somme district is composed of chalk pits; wherever the ground was
dug up it showed white. This afforded an excellent opportunity for the
enemy birds to spot any work we were doing. While in this section every
man in the ranks looked very much like a white-wash artist--white dust
everywhere, filling our eyes, ears, noses, mouths. Lord! when I think of
that chalk dust!
For five days after the first advance of the tanks they were lying, six
of them, immediately at the right of our battery on the edge of the
road; no one seemed to know what they were doing there or what was
contemplated. Then they moved up four miles to the edge of Pozieres
Woods, where they believed they would be safer from view, and for the
further reason that they would not have so far to travel when the next
drive was pulled off. They waddled in there at night, but the following
morning Fritz's keen eye searched them out, wirelessed the necessary
directions to their heaviest battery, and in almost less time than it
takes to write it tremendous shells came smashing around, damaging one
of them pretty severely, and the other five immediately waddled back to
a safer place in the rear.
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