The other attackers, the troops who had advanced from Beersheba, broke through the enemy’s resistance completely, and drove them back for nine miles on an eight-mile front. The battle was decisive, and after about three days’ fighting our troops at last entered Gaza. Our persistency in attack was well rewarded. The _Spectator_, commenting on the battle, said, “Samson took away the gates of Gaza, but General Allenby has secured the gates of Palestine.” On the whole the Tanks had been a success. All machines except one reached their first objectives; four reached their second, third, and fourth, and one Tank reached its fifth. All five damaged machines were afterwards salved. This was the last Tank action fought with the Army of Palestine, for, for some reason or other, the repaired and renovated Tanks were never used again. Later, however, during the Turkish retreat, we had great trouble in rounding up the tattered and wandering Turkish rearguard. We felt the need of some sort of sheep-dog, so a mission was sent to France to ask for a number of Whippet Tanks. By an ironical chance, this mission reached Tank Headquarters in France on March 21, the very day the German offensive was launched. It need not be added that no Whippets were sent. There seemed no work left for the heavies, and the Tank Detachment, therefore, handed over their machines to the Ordnance Department at Alexandria, and returned to England. CHAPTER XIII SUSPENSE--THE “SAVAGE RABBITS” EPISODE--THE ENEMY’S INTENTIONS The story of the Tank Corps from the beginning of February to nearly the end of March 1918 is one of waiting and expectancy, of strategic moves to unexpected places, of diligent rehearsal for first nights upon which the curtain never rose, of endless preparations for events which never happened. And through all the moves, in all the odd billets, or in the open fields, when--in hourly expectation of the German attack--Tanks and their crews lay ready under the hedges, run the Tank Corps’ Pinkerton-like efforts at self-improvement, its determination to finish its winter training. From before the middle of January we had been perfectly aware that the enemy meant to strike and to strike hard. He held a wasting security. We were waxing and he was waning. He was still our superior, still had more men available, but by Midsummer he knew that the Allies would outnumber him. He had troubles, we knew, at home too, troubles for which the only salve was victory. We had besides long known that before the war ended, whenever and however that end might come, we must expect a last desperate struggle. It would be the last spring of the wounded beast in which he might still find our throats, the last staggering blast of the hurricane by which the ship might still be confounded and overwhelmed.