Zero was fixed for 3.30 a.m. on July 31. By the last week in July misty weather with often a drizzle of rain at night had set in. Our preparations were complete, but it was perhaps not without a certain anxiety that our commanders awaited the issues of the engagement. By none might such an uneasiness have been felt with better reason than by General Elles. The Army had staked much upon a gamble, but at least it had not been forced to stake its prestige. General Elles must have been conscious that the very existence of the Tank Corps might hang upon the fortunes of the coming attack. CHAPTER IX THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES “Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea Nor good dry land--nigh foundered, on he fares, Treading the crude consistence; half on foot.” _Paradise Lost._ The night of July 30 was dark and wet, and towards morning a fine mizzling rain blurred the outlines of the star shells that lit up the lines. Along fifteen miles of front the English and German guns had roared against each other all night. The waiting men shivered in their wet assembly trenches. About three o’clock on the morning of the 31st there was a lull in the firing. A low soaking blanket of Scotch mist had crept up and lay heavily enfolding the opposing armies. Zero hour was drawing near. All along the front, men were feeling for the little footholds above the fire-step. At 3.50 the streaming darkness was rent along the seven miles of attack. Thermite and blazing oil flared out, and such a barrage as had not yet been crashed upon the enemy’s line, and infantry and Tanks scrambled and lurched in the darkness in and out of shell-holes over the torn and slimy ground. The German front line fell at once along the whole seven miles. Until nearly eight o’clock men and Tanks could hardly get through the mud fast enough to come to grips with the enemy. On each Corps front there were many machines that got ditched on the enemy front line as they nosed about here and there, seeking to mop up lurking machine-gun nests and snipers. There some of them remained stuck fast, not having seen the main body of the enemy at all, so immediate had been his retreat. His artillery was, however, active enough, and as the Tanks floundered or stuck utterly in the mud, his guns and his low-flying aeroplanes took steady toll. All morning we pressed on, the enemy Command patiently conserving the power of its armies. The doings of a group of Tanks belonging to the 3rd Brigade give an extraordinarily good idea of this part of the action. They were fighting on the 19th Corps front. [35]“At 11.30 a.m. message was received that a Battalion of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were held up on the right. Tank ‘Canada’ moved in this direction and silenced enemy machine-guns in the Railway Embankment, assisted by the Tank ‘Cuidich’n Rich.’ When patrolling in front of the infantry whilst they were consolidating, Tank bellied.