Already, before leaving Thetford, they had given a demonstration before the King and several members of the Cabinet. At Yvrench they had performed before General Joffre, Sir Douglas Haig, and the greater part of the G.H.Q. Staffs,[13] but on reaching the Loop they found to their horror that it was to be “Roses, roses, all the way.” A Tank Commander wrote bitterly: “It rather reminded me of Hampstead Heath. When we got there we found that the Infantry Brigades had been notified that the Tanks were to perform daily from 9 to 10 and from 2 to 3, and every officer within a large radius and an enormous number of the Staff came to inspect us. We were an object of interest to every one. This did not help on one’s work.” On the 13th they were to move the Loop to the point of assembly, and the problems of “housekeeping” became acute. [14]“The officer and each man carried two gas helmets and one pair of goggles, and in addition to their ordinary service caps, a leather ‘anti-bruise’ helmet; we also had a large field dressing as well as an ordinary first-aid dressing. The usual equipment consisted of revolver, haversack, water-bottles and iron rations. There are eight people in a Tank, and as soon as they get in they naturally take off all these things, which lie about on the floor, unless you devise some method of packing all your equipment.... We carried, in addition to iron rations, sixteen loaves and about thirty tins of food, cheese, tea, sugar and milk. These took up a lot of room. We also had one spare drum of engine oil and one of gear oil, two small drums of grease, three water-cans and two boxes of revolver ammunition ... four spare Vickers barrels, one spare Vickers gun, a spare barrel for the Hotchkiss and two wire-cutters. We also had three flags for signalling purposes, which unfortunately proved to have been lost when they were really wanted.” But Captain Henriques’ list was, even so, not complete. Many Tanks also carried two carrier pigeons, 33,000 rounds of S.A. ammunition for their machine-guns, a lamp-signalling set, and a telephonic contrivance consisting of an instrument and one hundred yards of cable wound upon a drum. The second instrument was to be left at the “jumping-off place,” and the Tank was to unwind the cable as it advanced, relating its experiences the while to the telephone operator or other interested person in the rear. What was to happen when the Tank began to traverse the hundred and first yard we do not know. In practice the device was not used. But that was not all. The orders, time-tables and maps upon which the Tank Commanders depended, proved to have been issued in insufficient quantities. “For every three Tanks only one set of orders had been issued, and only one map supplied: consequently we had to grasp these orders before we passed them on to the other two officers.”