The Manchester Guardian of Monday published an uproarious account of
a week's work with a tank from the diary of a young
Australian. The rattle of bullets on the thick skin of the tank, and the heavy lurches and crashes from the very start, made the writer think that he and his companions were " booked through," as he says. But the noise was much worse than the damage. Soon the tank was astride a German trench and did great execution. At the end of the first day the writer remarked that tank-sickness was as bad as sea-sickness. After the first day the Germans grew bolder in attacking the strange monster :-
"Silly blighters thought they could rush the tank like they would a fort. Dashed up from all sides. We fired at them point-blank. Devilish plucky chaps some of them for all their madness. The survivors had another try. We spat at them venomously. More of them went down. The blessed old tub gave a sudden jerk. God in heaven, thought I, it's good-bye to earth. ; but it wasn't. Only some Hun dead and wounded we had skidded into."
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