The Argus Pheasant Part 50

You will probably hear Captain Fallon lecture, but his book is something you will wish to keep. It is historical and every word rings true.

THE WAR BOOK WITH A THRILL

SPECIMEN CHAPTER

CHAPTER XII

"RAZZLE DAZZLE"

It was at Beaumont-Hamel, about September 16th, that I got my chance to command a "tank."

The dear girl was named "Razzle Dazzle." She was very young, having been in service only three months, but rather portly. Matter of fact, she weighed something over thirty tons. And in no way could you call the dear little woman pretty. She was a pallid gray and mud-splashed when I got her and there was no grace in the bulging curves of her steel shape.

Or of her conical top. Or her ponderous wheels.

The fact is that she showed every aspect of being a bad, sc.r.a.ppy old dearie. The minute I saw her in her lovely ugliness I knew she would like trouble and lots of it. Her metabolism was a marvel. She carried a six-hundred-horse-power motor. And out of her gray steel hoods protruded eight guns. An infernal old girl, you can bet she was. All ready to make battle in large quant.i.ties.

When I boarded "Razzle Dazzle" she was full of dents. She had rocked around among several trench charges. But the reason for my a.s.signment to her was prosaic. Her captain had not been killed. He was just sick--some stomach complaint. I was drafted on an hour's notice to the job, this, because of long training in handling rapid-fire guns.

It was all new to me, but highly interesting. My crew consisted of seven men--five of them well experienced. And a black cat. Although she was a lady-cat she had been named "Joffre" and I can't tell you why because I never received any explanation on this point myself. But "Joffre" was very friendly and insisted on sitting either on my knee or shoulder from the moment I sealed myself and my men in the tank. We had our outlook from several periscopes above the turret and from spy holes in the turret itself.

The order had come to me about one in the morning, and it was nearly three when we started lumbering out toward the enemy trenches. We had about six hundred yards to cover. I knew little or nothing of her motor power or speed. My concern was with the efficiency of the guns. She pumped and swayed "across No Man's Land" at about four miles an hour.

She groaned and tossed a great deal. And in fact, made such poor progress that my regiment, the Oxfords and Bucks, beat the old dearie to the enemy lines. Our men were among the barbed wire of the first line, fighting it, cutting it, knocking it down before the old "Razzle Dazzle"

got into action.

But she "carried on" just the same. And when she smote the barbed-wire obstacles, she murdered them. She crushed those barriers to what looked like messes of steel spaghetti.

Instead of sinking into trenches as I feared she would, she crushed them and continued to move forward. Of course, we were letting go everything we had, and from my observation hole, I could see the Germans didn't like it.

They had put up something of a stand against the infantry. But against the tank they were quick to make their farewells. It was a still black night, but under the star-sh.e.l.ls we could see them scurrying out of our way.

This was very sensible of them because we were certainly making a clean sweep of everything in sight and had the earth ahead throwing up chocolate showers of spray as if the ground we rode was an angry sea of mud.

Every man in the tank was shouting and yelling with the excitement of the thing and we were tossed up against each other like loosened peas in a pod. Only Joffre remained perfectly cool. Somehow she maintained a firm seat on my swaying shoulder and as I glanced around to peer at her she was calmly licking a paw and then daintily wiped her face.

Suddenly out of a very clever camouflage of tree branches and shrubbery a German machine-gun emplacement was revealed. The bullets stormed and rattled upon the tank. But they did themselves a bad turn by revealing their whereabouts, for we made straight for the camouflage and went over that battery of machine guns, crunching its concrete foundation as if it were chalk.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "British blood is calling British blood"]

Then we turned about and from our new position put the Germans under an enfilade fire that we kept up until every evidence was at hand that the Oxfords and Bucks and supporting battalions were holding the trenches.

But this was only preliminary work cut out for the tank to do. I had special instructions and a main objective. This was a sugar refinery. It was a one-storied building of brick and wood with a tiled roof. It had been established as a sugar refinery by the Germans before the war and when this occasion arose blossomed as a fortress with a gun aimed out of every window.

To allow it to remain standing in hostile hands would mean that the trenches we had won could be constantly battered. Its removal was most desirable. To send infantry against it would have involved huge losses in life. The tank was deemed the right weapon.

It was.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cleaning Mills bombs]

And largely because "Razzle Dazzle" took matters into her own hands. The truth is she ran away.

We rocked and plowed out of the trenches and went swaying toward the refinery. I ordered the round-top sealed. And we beat the refinery to the attack with our guns. But they had seen us coming and every window facing our way developed a working gun. There were about sixteen such windows. They all blazed at us.

My notion had been to circle the "sugar mill", with "Razzle Dazzle" and shoot it up from all sides. We were getting frightfully rapped by the enemy fire, but there was apparently nothing heavy enough to split the skin of the wild, old girl. Our own fire was effective. We knocked out all the windows and the red-tiled roof was sagging. As I say, my notion was to circle the "mill" and I gave orders accordingly. But the "Razzle Dazzle's" chauffeur looked at me in distress.

"The steering gear's off, sir," said he.

"Stop her then and we'll let them have it from here," I ordered.

He made several frantic motions with the mechanism and said:

"I can't stop her, either."

And the "Razzle Dazzle" carried out her own idea of attack. She banged head-on into the "mill." She went right through a wide doorway, making splinters of the door, she knocked against concrete pillars, supports and walls, smashing everything in her way and bowled out of the other side just as the roof crashed in and apparently crushed and smothered all the artillery men beneath it.

On the way through, the big, powerful old girl bucked and rocked and reared until we men and the black cat inside her were thrown again and again into a jumble, the cat scratching us like a devil in her frenzy of fear.

Closed up in the tank as we were, we could hear the roar and crash of the falling "mill," and from my observation port-hole I could observe that it was most complete. The place had been reduced to a mere heap.

Not a shot came out of it at us.

But still the "Razzle Dazzle" was having her own way. Her motorist was signaling me that he had no control of her. This was cheerful intelligence because right ahead was a huge sh.e.l.l crater. She might slide into it and climb up the other side and out. I hoped so. But she didn't. She hit the bottom of the pit, tried to push her way up and out, fell back, panted, pushed up again, fell back and then just stuck at the bottom of the well, throbbing and moaning and maybe penitent for her recklessness.

Penitence wasn't to do her any good. It wasn't five minutes later when the Germans had the range of her and began smashing us with big sh.e.l.ls.

I ordered my men to abandon her and led them in a rush out of the crater and into small sh.e.l.l holes until the storm of fire was past.

When it was, "Razzle Dazzle" was a wreck. She was cracked, distorted and shapeless. But the runaway engine was still plainly to be heard throbbing. Finally a last big sh.e.l.l sailed into the doughty tank and there was a loud bang and a flare. Her oil reservoir shot up in an enormous blaze.

"Razzle Dazzle" was no more. But she had accounted for the "refinery."

And our infantry had done the rest. The German position was ours.

I was all enthusiasm for fighting "tanks." But my superiors squelched it. For when I asked for command of a sister of "Razzle Dazzle" next day, a cold-eyed aide said to me:

"One tank, worth ten thousand pounds, is as much as any bally young officer may expect to be given to destroy during his lifetime. Good afternoon."

He never gave me a chance to explain that it was "Razzle Dazzle's" own fault, how she had taken things into her own willful control. But he did try to give me credit for what "Razzle Dazzle" had herself accomplished.

He said the destruction of the "sugar mill" had been "fine work."

I wonder what "Joffre" thought of it all. I don't remember seeing her when we fled from the "tank," except as something incredibly swift and black flashed past my eyes as we thrust up the lid. I sincerely hope she is alive and well "somewhere in France."

"THE BIG FIGHT" is over 300 pages long and is the most interesting of war books. Some books are made to read and forget; others to read and to keep. "THE BIG FIGHT" belongs to the latter cla.s.s.

Why not order a copy to-day?

[Ill.u.s.tration: In the supports, waiting to advance]