A year or two prior to the war, the present writer remembers one occasion, in particular, on which he was discussing with a friend, possessing considerable knowledge and experience, the well-worn subject relating to the merits and demerits of the various leading "makes" of motor-cars. To a direct question as to what particular "make" he considered as being _the_ best _par excellence_ came the somewhat startling reply, "The Rolls-Royce and the Ford." Whether at the period referred to, and with expense no object, the average intending purchaser would have "dumped" for a Ford with the same enthusiasm as for a Rolls-Royce must remain an open question; suffice it to say that, comparisons remaining, as they always have been, distinctly odious, the two examples of automobile science just mentioned have, during the Great War, each in their respective spheres, performed prodigies of prowess, the Rolls-Royce more particularly in the matter of important Staff work, as well as in armoured car activity, the Ford in a variety of rôles, embracing the functions of anything from a compact and speedy little motor-ambulance to a water-carrier in the wilderness. One _rôle_ allotted to the Ford, however, although of necessity accorded little or no prominence in the public Press at the time, proved far-reaching in its effects in regard to practical utility from the strictly military point of view. Without in any way paralysing its _fons et origo_ as a road vehicle, but embodying all the potentialities of a light-railway engine, there was evolved from a simple Ford chassis an entirely novel and mechanical species of animal, which one might almost say combined the respective physiologies of the proverbial hare and tortoise, and which in due course was christened the "Crewe Tractor." The brain-wave to which this cunning little contrivance owes its existence is directly attributable to the inventive genius of one of Mr. Bowen-Cooke's talented daughters, and the incidence of the project almost whispers of romance, in that a chance encounter, a _rendezvous_ continental and cosmopolitan, a cup of coffee, and an exchange of confidences, duly culminated in a conception which had as its outcome a very perceptible reduction in casualties, the percentage of which, at least in one particular respect, had tended to reach a figure lamentably high. On the occasion in question, towards the end of 1916, having as her _vis-à-vis_ a British officer (on leave in Paris at the time), Miss Cooke was digesting a dissertation on the inherent difficulties, dangers and fatigues to which men were incessantly subjected when relieving one another in the trenches; by day, an open and exposed target to alert enemy marksmanship; by night a prey to pitfalls, victims to unnumbered and water-logged shell-craters, in which, encumbered with personal impedimenta, they were often engulfed, never to appear again.