Additionally, I dropped red lights visible in the daylight, over the battery’s position, which was hardly necessary, for my wireless was working perfectly and I soon was giving them the enemy’s range. But the first fire from our side was poor and I was therefore excited and indignant. “What the devil’s the matter with you?” I wirelessed, repeating the instructions. “If you can’t do better than that, I’ll have to get the infantry to teach you how to shoot!” I chuckled to think how the artillerymen would like that. It was enough to make them try a shot at us. But a minute later a shell ripped right through the trees that camouflaged the battery, tearing a big gash in the concealment. “Bull’s eye!” I shot out into the air from my key. “Give’m hell!” With that Larkin started us for home with the archeys spitting their rage but ineffectually. But just the same something did happen that made all a blackness for me until I woke up in a clearing-station hospital just behind our lines. Brave, old Larkin was the cause. He had held his nerve and strength and never did he falter until we were home and within twenty feet of the ground when he suddenly lurched forward and was “out.” We crashed to the ground and I also was “out.” There wasn’t much the matter with me. I was only pea green from bruises for a week. But Larkin, poor chap, had two ribs and a leg broken in addition to having suffered the shrapnel wounds on his face. CHAPTER XII “RAZZLE DAZZLE” It was at Beaumont-Hamel, about September 16th, that I got my chance to command a “tank.” The dear girl was named “Razzle Dazzle.” She was very young, having been in service only three months, but rather portly. Matter of fact, she weighed something over thirty tons. And in no way could you call the dear little woman pretty. She was a pallid gray and mud-splashed when I got her and there was no grace in the bulging curves of her steel shape. Or of her conical top. Or her ponderous wheels. The fact is that she showed every aspect of being a bad, scrappy old dearie. The minute I saw her in her lovely ugliness I knew she would like trouble and lots of it. Her metabolism was a marvel. She carried a six-hundred-horse-power motor. And out of her gray steel hoods protruded eight guns. An infernal old girl, you can bet she was. All ready to make battle in large quantities. When I boarded “Razzle Dazzle” she was full of dents. She had rocked around among several trench charges. But the reason for my assignment to her was prosaic. Her captain had not been killed. He was just sick--some stomach complaint. I was drafted on an hour’s notice to the job, this, because of long training in handling rapid-fire guns.