Mr. Tank meanwhile was not a bit disconcerted by their attentions, and continued to breathe forth flames of fire, which did great havoc in the ranks of the sightseers. But once their curiosity was satisfied the Huns did their level best to damage the brute. They fired at it; they bombarded it; they shelled it; they clambered over it. All to no purpose. Presently that ominous humming, snorting sound reached us again, and the monster began to move away. Where it had stood the ground was strewn with the dead bodies of German soldiers, and I was told afterwards that over three hundred corpses were counted to the credit of the first Tank that ever crossed "No Man's Land." Meanwhile our boys had been busy. Following in the wake of the Tank, they had cleaned up quite a lot of ground, and all the time, with my camera on them, I had secured a series of fine pictures. I don't think I ever laughed so heartily at anything as I did on the first day that I saw the Tanks in action, and officers and men all agree that they never saw a funnier sight in all their lives. But whilst they amused us they put the fear of the devil into Fritz, and whole parties of men ran forward, hands up, waving their handkerchiefs, and shouting "Kamerad," and gave themselves up as willing prisoners in our hands. The Tanks have been one of the big surprises and big successes of the war. CHAPTER XXIII WHERE THE VILLAGE OF GUILLEMONT WAS An Awful Specimen of War Devastation--Preparing for an Advance--Giving the Bosche "Jumps"--Breakfast Under Fire--My Camera Fails Me Just Before the Opening of the Attack--But I Manage to Set it Right and Get Some Fine Pictures--Our Guns "Talk" Like the Crack of a Thousand Thunders--A Wonderful Doctor. After the battle of Martinpuich the nature of my work brought me in contact with many stirring incidents, which, if put on record here, would be merely repeating to a certain degree many of my previous experiences, therefore I do not intend to bore my readers by doing so. From one section of our front to the other I was kept continually on the move. On the 25th September an attack was timed for twelve o'clock noon for Morval and Lesboeufs, and the Guards, London Scottish, Norfolks, Suffolks and many other regiments were to take part. The day before I visited our front in that section to obtain preliminary scenes. The London Scottish were preparing to leave to take up their battle positions. From one front to the other I hurried, obtaining scenes of the other regiments on the way up. I stayed during the night with an officer of an 18-pounder battling on the left of Guillemont. The Bosche was "strafing" the place pretty badly. I will not say I slept comfortably, for shells came crashing over much too closely to do so; in fact, I was up all night. [Illustration: THE HIGHLAND BRIGADE GOING OVER THE TOP AT MARTINPUICH. SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1916]