CHAPTER VII

CHARGING WITH THE TANKS

“What’s that you’re fooling with?” asked Blake, as he came one morning shortly afterward to where Joe and Charlie were examining with great curiosity a weapon that they had picked out from a number that had been captured from the Germans.

For answer, Joe turned it in his friend’s direction and the latter jumped hastily aside as he saw a wicked-looking muzzle threatening him.

“For the love of Pete! be careful with that thing,” Blake expostulated. “I don’t want any of that ‘didn’t know it was loaded’ business in mine. What name does that murderous thing go by, anyway?”

“I don’t wonder it gives you a shock,” laughed Joe, as he obeyed his friend’s injunction. “It’s what they call an anti-tank gun. It’s a new thing the Heinies have conjured up to get the better of the tanks. Come and take a look at it.”

Blake did so. The weapon was after the rifle type, but very much larger and heavier, so much so in fact that it was more than a man could easily handle and had to be operated on a swivel that enabled it to be turned in any direction.

“They say it can send a bullet through a tank at the distance of a mile,” explained Joe.

“I can readily believe it,” answered Blake. “Gee, it’s more like a piece of artillery than a rifle.”

“I’d hate to be standing in front of the muzzle when it was fired,” observed Macaroni.

“The result would be something like that the darky spoke of when he was looking at the death chair in a State prison in company with a friend,” laughed Blake. “The friend looked at the chair and said:

“‘Am dat where de prisoner sits?’

“‘It sho’ am,’ replied the other.

“‘An’ den de sheriff turns on de ’lectricity?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘An’ what happens den?’

“‘Ruin,’ replied the other, ‘jess ruin.’”

The boys laughed.

“The tanks have sure got the Germans’ goat,” remarked Blake. “Ever since the English started using them, the Heinies have been figuring up some way to stop them. First they got up some tanks of their own, but they were so big and unwieldy that they didn’t do any good. The British tanks ran circles around them. Then Fritz built solid concrete pillars in all the roads where he thought the tanks would be coming along, but that didn’t bother the tanks at all. They just left the roads and meandered through the woods. If a tree was in their way it was so much the worse for the tree. The tanks didn’t mind a little thing like that. Oh, I tell you, they’re great stuff.”

“I don’t wonder the Heinies ran like sheep when they first saw them used,” commented Charlie, “and I don’t blame them much either. To be wakened out of your sleep and run out of your tent and then to see those great monsters coming at you through the mists would be enough to make any man beat it while the going was good.”

“The old car of Juggernaut wasn’t in it with the tanks,” observed Joe.

“By the way,” said Blake, “I think we’ll have a chance to see the tanks in action very soon and get some great pictures, too.”

“What makes you think so?” asked Joe eagerly.

“Well,” said Blake, “you must have noticed what a lot of them are gathering on this part of the front. For the last few days I’ve been seeing them wherever I looked. Then, too, the fellows in charge of them have been working like beavers getting them in shape. And only yesterday I heard some officers talking about the strong entrenchments the Germans have been building back of the present lines. So, taking everything together, I have a hunch that they’re getting ready to send the tanks in advance to clear a way for the artillery.”

“There’s a big Jumbo of a tank in that little side road,” suggested Joe. “Let’s walk down that way and take a look at it.”

His friends were perfectly willing, and they were soon standing beside one of the gray monsters that was having some slight repairs done to it by one of its crew. He was a bright, merry-eyed fellow and was perfectly willing to talk about his gigantic pet, in which he evidently took great pride. He showed them the machine guns mounted on all four sides of the tank in addition to one three-inch field-piece.

“Regular cave you have in there,” remarked Blake, as he looked into the yawning interior. “How big a crew do you carry?”

“From six to eight men besides the operator,” replied the man. “Sometimes we have as many as ten. We lost three men the last time we went out,” he added with a shade of sadness in his tone. “But the Heinies lost a good many more,” he added, brightening up.

“What are those birds you have in that cage?” asked Blake, pointing to a wicker cage where, in the dim light in the interior of the tank, he saw some feathered creatures.

“Carrier pigeons,” answered the man.

“Carrier pigeons!” echoed Joe in surprise. “What use do you find for them in a tank?”

“Lots,” was the answer. “Once in a while we get stuck in the mire or in a trench and at times we get upset. Then we’ve got to have other tanks come to help us out of the fix. Perhaps the Boches are all around us and we’d sure get potted if one of us stepped out. In such a case, we send one of the birds with a message to headquarters and help is sent in a jiffy.”

“Great stuff,” said Joe. “But what are you doing with those white mice in that basket? What is this, anyway, a menagerie?”

The tank man laughed, as he picked one of the tiny creatures up and smoothed it.

“They’re for the gas,” he explained. “You see when a gas attack is loosed the gas comes on so gradually that humans wouldn’t notice it until it was too late. But the mice detect it instantly and begin to squeal. Then we put on our masks in a hurry and throw a covering over the basket that protects the mice.”

“So even mice are in the war,” observed Blake, with a laugh.

“Very much in it,” was the smiling reply. “They use them, too, in submarines. The air in there is very close and some of the chemicals are deadly. If one of the pipes springs a leak, the mice give warning and the crew gets busy right away.”

“Well,” said Joe, “I’m learning a lot about this war that I never knew before.”

“We were just saying a little while ago that it looked as though the tanks were going into action soon,” remarked Blake. “What about it?”

The man looked mysterious.

“It’s against orders for me to say anything,” he replied, “but I shouldn’t be surprised if there would be something doing before long. You said you were taking moving pictures, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Blake.

“Well then, you just get your films ready and stick around,” advised their new acquaintance.

Two days later, Blake and Joe were summoned to the quarters of their commanding officer.

“There’s going to be an advance by our troops to-morrow morning,” he announced. “The tanks are going ahead of them, and as you haven’t had much chance to see them in action it may be a good opportunity to get some pictures of them for the War Department. You can make arrangements to be up in the front and close beside them. It will be ticklish and dangerous work, but I’ve learned by this time that that doesn’t worry you much.”

“We’ve been pretty lucky so far, sir,” answered Blake, “and I guess our luck will hold.”

The next morning before dawn, they had been assigned their place up in the front ranks. Through the gloom they could see a multitude of dark shapes lined up at intervals that they knew were the tanks. Silence reigned in the ranks of the men who were standing in their trenches awaiting the command to go over the top, for it was hoped that the attack would take the enemy by surprise.

Slowly the darkness grew less dense as the dawn crept up the sky. Then, at a given signal, the artillery opened up with a tremendous roar that shook the earth, a barrage of fire was laid down and the ponderous tanks plunged forward. On they went, followed by the men who scrambled out of the trenches. On, still on, gathering momentum as they went, until with a terrific grinding and crashing they struck the barbed-wire entanglements of the enemy.

They crumpled them up as though they were so much thread, and through the gaps they made the soldiers poured like a flood. Men fell by the score, for the enemy was replying now, and a storm of shot and shell tore its way through the American ranks. But they closed up at once and like a tidal wave swept forward.

It was light enough now for the moving picture boys to get fairly good pictures, though they knew that they would have to intensify them later on. But it was getting brighter every minute and they worked away feverishly. They had had a good view of that first great onset of the tanks crashing through, but after that the infantry had got in the way and the tanks were lost sight of. But they knew that the breaking through was only the first step in the activities of the tanks, and they were desperately anxious to see them in the actual fighting.

“Come along, fellows,” said Blake. “Let’s follow them up. We’ve had plenty of pictures of infantry actions, but to-day it’s the tanks we want to see. Let’s get a move on.”

They picked up the camera and tripod and followed in the wake of the charging troops. They stumbled over dead bodies and skirted the edge of shell holes, while bullets whistled past them and shells exploded so near them as to cover them with dirt. But they were so on fire with excitement that they paid no attention to these messengers of wounds and death, and in a little while had worked their way through the lines to a point where they could once more have the tanks in full view.

“Look at them spitting fire!” exclaimed Joe breathlessly, as they dropped into a shell hole that offered them some slight measure of protection and set up their camera so that it just peered above the edge of the crater.

The tanks were dashing here, there and everywhere, scattering enemy groups, smashing pill boxes, straddling trenches, which they raked throughout their length with a withering fire from their machine guns, charging batteries whose crews scattered in consternation as the monsters bore down upon the guns.

“Quick!” panted Blake in mad excitement, as with trembling fingers they started the film to registering. “Don’t let’s lose a bit of this. It’s the greatest chance of our lives. It will make the finest film we’ve yet secured.”

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