All the time on the Somme all hands
were busy doing something. Immediately after dawn, at five o'clock, the
guns belched forth with an ear-splitting, deafening roar and
simultaneously over the top appeared the five behemoths, one of them
passing within a few feet of me.
The gunfire from our pieces at this time was immensely superior to the
enemy's and his trenches had been flattened, but the wires still stood,
and here it was the tanks did the work. On they came! Rolling through
and making gaps 10 to 15 feet wide the Infantry plunging along in their
wake. Forgetting my orders to stay where I was, I hopped in with the
Infantry and reached Fritz' second-line trench.
"Gawd!" yelled a Tommy. "Wot the bloody 'ell will Fritz think of these
beauties? 'E'll think its Satan's advance guard!"
On and yet on they reeled and rolled, one of them dipping nose first
into a crater, and when I saw it going over the top of this huge hole my
heart gave a bound of fear, as I surely thought its usefulness was now
over. In this crater there were about 300 German soldiers when the tank
plunged into it, and under its huge bulk 75 of them had their lives
mashed out.
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