We waited at Brigade Headquarters for the others to return. A Tank Commander from another Company was brought in, badly wounded and looking ghastly, but joking with every one, as they carried him along on a stretcher. His tank had been knocked out and they had saved their guns and gone on with the infantry. He had been the last to leave the tank, and as he had stepped out to the ground, a shell exploded directly beneath him, taking off both of his legs below the knee. The last of the tanks waddled wearily in and the work of checking-up began. All were accounted for but two. Their fate still remains a secret. Our theory was that they had gone too far ahead and had entered the village in back of the German lines; that the infantry had not been able to keep up with them, and that they had been captured. Two or three days afterwards an airman told us that he had seen, on the day of the battle, two tanks far ahead of the infantry and that they appeared to be stranded. Weeks later we attacked at the point where the tanks had been, and on some German prisoners whom we took, we found several photographs of these identical tanks. Then one day, when we had stopped wondering about them, a Sergeant in our Company received a letter from one of the crew of the missing machines, saying that he was a prisoner in Germany. But of the officers we have never heard to this day. We sat around wearily, waiting for the motor lorries which were to take some of us back to B----. Years seemed to have been crowded into the hours that had elapsed. Talbot glanced at his watch. It was still only eight o'clock in the morning. Again he experienced the feeling of incredulity that comes to one who has had much happen in the hours between dawn and early morning and who discovers that the day has but just begun. He had thought it must be three o'clock in the afternoon, at least. The lorries arrived eventually, and took those who had no tanks, back to B----. The others brought the "Willies" in by the evening. VII THE SECOND BATTLE Ten days had now elapsed since that day when we had gone back to B---- with the officers and men who had survived. We had enjoyed every minute of our rest and once more were feeling fit. The remainder of the Company had been divided up into crews. The "Willies" themselves had had the best of care and attention. Most important of all, to the childish minds of that part of the British Army which we represented, we had given another concert which had been an even greater success than the first. The Old Bird and Borwick had excelled themselves. We were convinced that something was wrong with a Government that would send two such artists to the front! They should be at home, writing "words and music" that would live forever.