The capture of the greatest Prussian stronghold between the Ancre and the Somme involved hard and bitter fighting. Nowhere on the western front have the Prussian troops made stronger resistance against odds or given greater trouble in their underground lairs, dugouts and tunnels. We know now that the Prussian lines yielded many marvellous examples of catacomb work beneath the hills and valleys of Northern France for the shelter of their battalions. The British troops spoke to-day soberly and impressively of scenes in the buried fortress that lies below the blasted ridge. Two "tanks" played an important part in the capture, but the greatest "tank" story of the day concerns another part of the line--the capture of Gueudecourt; and it is so unusual and so thrilling as to give it precedence over the exploits at Thiepval. This "tank" killed three hundred Prussians who tried to storm it. The "tank" had assisted in cleaning up Gueudecourt, and infantry followed in its wake through the village, cheering mightily. The shallow cellar shelters held about four hundred prisoners, who gladly gave themselves up, and the business at Gueudecourt was easily finished. Then the "tank" started on a tour of its own in the direction of a hostile trench beyond the town. Its progress was a signal for other Prussian refugees lurking in the shell craters to signal their submission to the advancing monster. Majestically the "tank" wallowed forward amid the fluttering of white handkerchiefs that dotted the field shell holes, and hastily scooped out one man from his hiding place. These isolated ones would have been made prisoners in the "tank," but it had neither time nor accommodation. Bigger game lurked in the ground ahead. It ambled on its lonely advance until a deep, broad fissure in the tumbled earth made apparent the lodging place for many armed men. The "tank's" intention was to sit astride of this trench as a kind of deadly jest, calculated to fill any troops with horror and play its machine guns freely about, but suddenly it halted its engines and stopped. Instantly the Prussians swarmed out of the earth and buzzed around the "tank" like bees. You must give them credit for unusual courage, for although hidden batteries rained bullets at them they made desperate attempts to storm the travelling fort and to pierce its hide with rifle fire and kill the crew within. They might as well have attacked a battle ship with spades. The machine guns whirled incessantly and the pile of dead Prussians grew steadily around the monster, but still there were rushes by these foolish men, who clambered to the steel roof and hoisted one another up in the hope of finding loopholes or joints in the armor of the strange beast. Some of them carried dead men on their shoulders before they themselves were dropped by the hidden gunners. It was a fearful and indescribable sight--this futile combat of men with machinery. The "tank" fought stolidly.