Bodger stuck to his perch, though the shell-splinters whanged on the armour, and got off with nothing worse than a chipped ear. After this he became a tank enthusiast, and when his major was promoted Admiral of the Fleet and hoisted his flag in the _Mammoth_, Bodger succeeded to the command of the _Mastodon_. He painted her in a beautiful chromatic color-scheme, and fitted a larder and a cushioned beer-bin. He worked up his crew at gunnery till they could hit a Boche parapet while bumping across country. He enjoyed four solid meals a day and ceased to repine at his increasing weight. The Big Push came on, and Bodger's _Mastodon_ proved the smartest landship in the fleet, while at gunnery she could have given points to the _Excellent_. There came a day when we had pierced deeply into the German lines, and with it came Bodger's chance, which has made his name in the Land Fleet. He saw a locomotive half a mile in front dragging off a couple of howitzers along a light railway, and, regardless of his admiral's warning toots he made for it across the trenches. Furious Germans tried to rush him as he ploughed through their lines but he held the _Mastodon_ to her course, spouting flame on both broadsides. Field guns were hurriedly turned on him, but the shells missed or glanced from the armour. He headed off the locomotive by a bare 50 fathoms, and, reversing his starboard chain, jockeyed the _Mastodon_ sharply round to meet it. Now when a 60-ton locomotive hauling double its weight of heavy howitzer, meets a 100-ton tank, both all out, something is almost certain to happen. This time it was the unexpected. The antagonists stood on their tails, locked for a moment like wrestlers, and then suddenly disappeared from view. The railway crossed a hollow road at the point of encounter and the bridge had given way. Down went the locomotive, wheels uppermost, with the _Mastodon_ on top of it. The trucks with the monster howitzers lumbered up and pitched on top of the heap. But the tank, though dented like an old tin can, was little the worse, and the Germans, who expected to find a wreck, were met by shells and machine-gun fire. There was no holding our men that day, and they pressed on well beyond the hollow road where the _Mastodon_ had "brought up." When the leading battalion reached her they found Bodger lunching on deck, with a dozen bottles of beer standing ready for his visitors. He was asked to describe his trip across the German trenches, but preferred to expatiate on the perfections of his cushioned beer-bin. "Only two bottles broken, and I believe one of them had gone flat!" A new 1,000-horsepower tank, carrying a 6 inch gun, is ready for launching, and Bodger will command her. He is looking forward to steering her through the streets of Berlin. IV--STORY OF THE BATTLE MONSTERS AT FALL OF THIEPVAL _Told by Percival Phillips, with British Army in France_