"I am not out here to make a career," said a Canadian; "I am out to finish an ugly job."
It is to end this filthy war quickly that our men are fighting so grimly and with such deadly resolution. So the Londoners have fought their way into Wancourt and Héninel, and there were great uncut belts of wire before them--the new wire of the Hindenburg line--and trenches and strong points from which machine-guns gushed out waves of bullets. One of the strong points hereabouts is called the Egg, because of its oval hummock, which was hard to hatch and crack, but as one of our officers said to-day, the Egg gave forth two hundred prisoners.
In the fighting for the two villages the Londoners were held up by those great stretches of wire before them and were menaced most evilly by the enfilade fire of machine-guns from Guémappe and a high point south. Two Tanks came to the rescue, and did most daring things.
"Romped up," said an officer, though I have not seen Tanks romping.
Anyhow, they came up in their elephantine way, getting the most out of their engines and most skilfully guided by their young officers and crews, who were out on a great and perilous adventure. Climbing over rough ground, cleaving through snow-drifts and mud-banks with their steel flanks, thrusting their blunt noses above old trenches and sand-bag barricades, they made straight for the great hedges of barbed wire, and drove straight through, leaving broad lanes of broken strands. One cruised into Wancourt, followed from a distance by the shouts and cheers of the infantry. It wandered up and down the village like a bear on the prowl for something good to eat. It found human food and trampled upon machine-gun redoubts, firing into German hiding-places. The second Tank struck a zigzag course for Héninel, and in that village swept down numbers of German soldiers, so that they fled from this black monster against which bombs and rifles were of no avail. For forty hours those two Tanks--let me be fair to the men inside and say those officers and crews--did not rest, but went about on their hunting trail, breaking down wire and searching out German strong points, so that the way would be easier for our infantry.
Even then our men had no easy fighting. The enemy defended themselves stubbornly in places. Their snipers and bombers and machine-gunners did not yield at the first sight of the bayonets. While some of our troops bombed their way down trenches towards Wancourt, others worked up from the south, and at last both parties met exultantly behind this section of the Hindenburg line, greeting each other with cheers. Nearly two hundred prisoners were taken hereabout, all Silesian mechanics, like those I met at Loos in September 1915--rather miserable men, with no heart in the war, because, as Poles, it is none of their making.