Life in a Tank, Richard Haigh [top 10 novels TXT] 📗
- Author: Richard Haigh
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Then a sudden and unexplainable sense of disaster caused McKnutt to look round. One of his gunners lay quite still on the floor of the tank, his back against the engine, and a stream of blood trickling down his face. The Corporal who stood next to him pointed to the sights in the turret and then to his forehead, and McKnutt realized that a bullet must have slipped in through the small space, entering the man's head as he looked along the barrel of his gun. There he lay, along one side of the tank between the engine and the sponson. The Corporal tried to get in position to carry on firing with his own gun, but the dead body impeded his movements.
There was only one thing to do. The Corporal looked questioningly at McKnutt and pointed to the body. The officer nodded quickly, and the left gearsman and the Corporal dragged the body and propped it up against the door. Immediately the door flew open. The back of the corpse fell down and half the body lay hanging out, with its legs still caught on the floor. With feverish haste they lifted the legs and threw them out, but the weight of the body balanced them back again through the still open door. The men were desperate. With a tremendous heave they turned the dead man upside down, shoved the body out and slammed the door shut. They were just in time. A bomb exploded directly beneath the sponson, where the dead body had fallen. To every man in the tank came a feeling of swift gratitude that the bombs had caught the dead man and not themselves.
They ploughed across another trench without dropping into the bottom, for it was only six feet wide. Daylight had come by now and the enemy was beginning to find that his brave efforts were of no avail against these monsters of steel.
All this time the German guns had not been silent. McKnutt's tank crunched across the ground amid a furious storm of flying earth and splinters. The strain was beginning to be felt. Although one is protected from machine-gun fire in a tank, the sense of confinement is, at times, terrible. One does not know what is happening outside his little steel prison. One often cannot see where the machine is going. The noise inside is deafening; the heat terrific. Bombs shatter on the roof and on all sides. Bullets spatter savagely against the walls. There is an awful lack of knowledge; a feeling of blind helplessness at being cooped up. One is entirely at the mercy of the big shells. If a shell hits a tank near the petrol tank, the men may perish by fire, as did Gould, without a chance of escape. Going down with your ship seems pleasant compared to burning up with your tank. In fighting in the open, one has, at least, air and space.
McKnutt, however, was lucky. They could now see the sunken road before them which was their objective. Five-nines were dropping around them now. It was only a matter of moments, it seemed, when they would be struck.
"Do you think we shall make it?" McKnutt asked James.
"We may get there, but shall we get back? That's the question, sir."
McKnutt did not answer. They had both had over two years' experience of the accuracy of the German artillery. And they did not believe in miracles. But they had their orders. They must simply do their duty and trust to luck.
They reached the sunken road. The tank was swung around. Their orders were to reach their objective and remain there until the bombers arrived. McKnutt peered out. No British were in sight, and he snapped his porthole shut. Grimly they settled down to wait.
The moments passed. Each one seemed as if it would be their last. Would the infantry never come? Would there be any sense in just sitting there until a German shell annihilated them if the infantry never arrived? Had they been pushed back by a German rush? Should he take it upon himself to turn back? McKnutt's brain whirled.
Then, after hours, it seemed, of waiting, around the corner of a traverse, he saw one of the British tin hats. Nothing in the world could have been a happier sight. A great wave of relief swept over him. Three or four more appeared. Realizing that they, too, had reached their objective, they stopped and began to throw up a rough form of barricade. More men poured in. The position was consolidated, and there was nothing more for the tank to do.
They swung round and started back. Two shells dropped about twenty yards in front of them. For a moment McKnutt wondered whether it would be well to change their direction. "No, we'll keep right on and chance it," he said aloud. The next moment a tremendous crash seemed to lift the tank off the ground. Black smoke and flying particles filled the tank. McKnutt and James looked around expecting to see the top of the machine blown off. But nothing had happened inside, and no one was injured. Although shells continued to fall around them and a German machine gun raged at them, they got back safely.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.
A TANK BRINGING IN A CAPTURED GERMAN GUN UNDER PROTECTION OF CAMOUFLAGEToList
Brigade Headquarters, where McKnutt reported, was full of expectancy. Messages were pouring in over the wires. The men at the telephones were dead beat, but cool and collected.
"Any news of the other 'busses?" McKnutt asked eagerly. The Buzzers shook their heads wearily. He rushed up to a couple of men who were being carried to a dressing-station.
"Do you fellows know how the tanks made out?" he asked.
One of them had seen two of the machines on the other side of the German line, he said. In answer to the questions which were fired at him he could only say that the tanks had pushed on beyond the German front line.
Then on the top of the hill, against the sky-line, they saw a little group of three or four men. James recognized them.
"Why, there's Sergeant Browning and Mr. Borwick, sir," he said. "What's happened to their tank, I wonder?" He and McKnutt hurried over to meet them.
Borwick smiled coolly.
"Hullo!" he said in his casual manner.
"What's happened to your 'bus?" "What did you do?" was fired at him.
"We got stuck in the German wire, and the infantry got ahead of us," he said. "We pushed on, and fell into a nest of three machine guns. They couldn't hurt us, of course, and the Boches finally ran away. We knocked out about ten of them, and just as we were going on and were already moving, we suddenly started twisting around in circles. What do you think had happened? A trench mortar had got us full in one of our tracks, and the beastly thing broke. So we all tumbled out and left her there."
"Didn't you go on with the infantry?" asked McKnutt.
"No. They'd reached their objective by that time," Borwick replied, "so we saved the tank guns, and I pinched the clock. Then we strolled back, and here we are," he concluded.
Talbot joined the group as he finished.
"But where's the rest of your crew?" he asked.
Borwick said quietly: "Jameson and Corporal Fiske got knocked out coming back." He lit a cigarette and puffed at it.
There was silence for a moment.
Then Talbot said, "Bad luck; have you got their pay-books?"
"No, I forgot them," Borwick answered.
But his Sergeant handed over the little brown books which were the only tangible remains of two men who had gone into action that morning. The pay-books contained two or three pages on which were jotted down their pay, with the officer's signature. They had been used as pocket-books, and held a few odd letters which the men had received a few days before. Talbot had often been given the pay-books of men in his company who were killed, but he never failed to be affected when he discovered the letters and little trifles which had meant so much to the men who had carried them, and which now would mean so much to those whom they had left behind.
In silence they went back to McKnutt's tank and sat down, waiting for news. Scraps of information were beginning to trickle in.
"Have gained our objective in X Wood. Have not been counter-attacked."
"Cannot push on owing to heavy machine-gun fire from C——."
"Holding out with twenty men in trench running north from Derelict Wood. Can I have reinforcements?"
These were the messages pouring in from different points on the lines of attack. Sometimes the messages came in twos and threes. Sometimes there were minutes when only a wild buzzing could be heard and the men at the telephones tried to make the buzzing intelligible.
The situation cleared up finally, however. Our troops had, apparently, gained their objectives along the entire line to the right. On the left the next Brigade had been hung up by devastating machine-gun fire. As McKnutt and Talbot waited around for news and fresh orders, one of their men hurried down and saluted.
He brought the news that the other three tanks had returned, having reached their objectives. Two had but little opposition and the infantry had found no difficulty in gaining their points of attack. The third tank, however, had had three men wounded at a "pill-box." These pill-boxes are little concrete forts which the German had planted along his line. The walls are of ferro concrete, two to three feet thick. As the tank reached the pill-box, two Germans slipped out of the rear door. Three of the tank crew clambered down and got inside the pill-box. In a moment the firing from inside ceased, and presently the door flew open. Two British tank men, dirty and grimy, escorting ten Germans, filed out. The Germans had their hands above their heads, and when ordered to the rear they went with the greatest alacrity. One of the three Englishmen was badly wounded; the other two were only slightly injured, but they wandered down to the dressing-station, with the hope that "Blighty" would soon welcome them.
Although Talbot had his orders to hold the tanks in readiness in case they were needed, no necessity arose, and after a few hours' waiting, the Major sent word to him to start the tanks back to the embankment, there to be kept for the next occasion. Better still, the men were to be taken back to B—— in the motor lorries, just as they had been after the first battle. Water, comparative quiet, blankets,—these were the luxuries that lay before them.
As he sat crowded into the swaying motor lorry that lurched back along the shell-torn road to B——, Talbot slipped his hand into his pocket. He touched a cheque-book, a package of cigarettes, and a razor. Then he smiled. They were the final preparations he had made that morning before he went into action. After all he had not needed them, but one never could tell, one might be taken prisoner. One needed no such material preparations against the possibility of death, but a prisoner—that was different.
The cheque-book had been for use in a possible gray prison camp in the land of his enemies. Cheques would some time or other reach his English bank and his people would know that he was, at least, alive. The cigarettes were to keep up his courage in
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