By September 28 the Joint Committee had so far perfected the design of “Mother” as to have had a wooden dummy (officially described as a “mock-up”) made, and on that day her counterfeit was inspected at Wembley by an Interdepartmental Conference, and approved. Some weeks elapsed while the Joint Committee worked out the further details of their machine, and about December 3 Mr. Churchill wrote a Memorandum entitled “Variants of the Offensive,” in which he paradoxically accentuated the value of defensive armour as a preservative of mobility. There was to be a new form of attack. It was to be launched at night under the guidance of searchlights. Caterpillar Tractors were to breach the enemy’s line, and then turn right and left. The Infantry were to follow them closely under cover of bullet-proof shields. On Christmas Day Sir Douglas Haig (who had lately taken over from Sir John French, and who as yet “knew not Joseph”) read the paper with interest, and pinned a pencil slip upon it, “Is anything known about the Caterpillar referred to in para. 4, page 3?” No time was lost in finding out, and a few days later G.H.Q. sent an officer to England to inquire into the matter. This officer was Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Elles, who was afterwards to be the first Tank General. By the end of January 1916 the experimental machine--no pasteboard simulation, but “Mother” herself--was complete, and on February 2 the official trial was held at Hatfield, before the Army Council and a representative of G.H.Q. “Mother” made good, and G.H.Q. asked to be supplied with a certain number of the Land Cruisers. A small Executive Tank Supply Committee with much fuller powers than the old Joint Committee, was formed under the Presidency of Lieutenant (now Colonel Sir Albert) Stern, and orders were at once given to begin manufacture. So ended Act I. IV The first scene of Act II. (March to mid-August) was occupied with one of the most dramatic achievements of the War. This was the manufacture at Lincoln of the first 150 “Land Ships” ordered by the Government, in the space of six months, and in absolute secrecy. The public discussed the phantom Russians who travelled through England by night. It discussed the Germans who nightly signalled to each other throughout the inland counties. But it did not discuss the large water-tanks or cisterns that were being made for Petrograd, Egypt, or Mesopotamia, or some such place. That this vital secrecy was kept for months by hundreds of people was chiefly due to the happy effect of copious and imaginative lying. There was no mystery about these grotesque armour-plated creatures! They were not really for Mesopotamia at all. Every one knew that. The Russian Government had ordered them. They were ridiculous things? Of course they were. It was a Russian design. Was there not even an inscription in Russian characters on them? At least they might frighten the Germans if they served no other useful purpose.