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Well, after four years of war we amateur soldiers were not dismayed by regulations. We made no fuss. We would receive an instruction to despatch a certain number of men to be demobilised at certain specified centres, and the men were despatched to time and in good order. By some mischance Sergt. T. went into the first batch and the demobilisation of Pte. X. was unaccountably delayed. It was unfortunate, but I was not sorry. The Company remained happy and contented. Further, we found to our amazement and delight that the vast majority of officers and men belonged to certain favoured classes, with the result that the demobilisation of the Company proceeded with remarkable rapidity....
The days were long and indescribably monotonous, until on January 11th I received the bunch of papers for which every officer and man in France was yearning, and on the 12th I slipped away from my already depleted Company.
I was desperately sorry to leave my men and my tanks. It must break the heart of a man to retire from a famous regiment in which he has spent his life, but the regiment continues to live. A Carrier Company was a humble, temporary unit in a vast organisation, a momentary improvisation. Like every other Company, it had found itself and created its own personality. It had fought for its existence against the ignorance and laughter of the more conservative elements in the Tank Corps. I knew that soon the remnants of the Company would return home and the Company finally be dissolved. Yet there it was—something which I had "formed" though not created. From an odd crowd of men with a few obsolete tanks and some cases of equipment it had become a "Company" of whose honour we were jealous, whose achievements we extolled, whom all of us could leave only with lasting regret....
I was motored into Arras, and travelled down to the coast in a cattle-truck with thirty-one soldiers and civilians of all ranks and classes and four nationalities. The train was bound for Calais, but the driver in answer to my appeal said that he might be able to pass through Boulogne. I do not know whether he had any choice in the matter—strange things happened on the railways in France—but at 10 A.M. on the morning of the 13th the train did stop outside Boulogne, and the stoker ran hastily down the line and helped me to throw my luggage off the truck.
A train-load of prisoners from Germany had just arrived—childishly feeble, still shamefaced, and so emaciated that when I saw a man stripped to the waist washing, I could have cried for the pity of it. Outside the station three of these men, excited by their release, were jeering at two shabby cowed German boys pushing a barrow....
I crossed that afternoon a little sadly, and as usual obtained a seat in the Pullman by climbing in on the wrong side,—I shall never be able to afford a Pullman again. At 10.25 A.M. on the 16th I was demobilised at the Crystal Palace. I felt that I should have been demobilised twice as I enlisted twice....
Now I travel daily to St James's Park station by the 9.31, and when a "file" returns to me after many days, I sometimes wonder how I ever managed, without writing a single "minute," to command a Company of Tanks.
1
Every intelligent person in every French village or town knew the numbers of all the divisions in the neighbourhood.
2
Detached posts, which could not be approached by day, in front of the main trench system.
3
Now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen, K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.
4
A famous dug-out.
5
Now Major-General H. J. Elles, C.B., D.S.O.
6
Major R. Cooper, M.C., Royal Fusiliers, had replaced Captain R. Haigh, M.C.
7
Now Brigadier-General J. Hardress Lloyd, D.S.O.
8
Paget, the Corps Camouflage Officer, was of the greatest assistance.
9
We learned later that they had been heard.
10
An airman who flew over the battlefield is inclined to doubt this story. We must wait for the official history.
11
Major R.O.C. Ward, D.S.O., killed at Trescaut in November while leading his tanks forward.
12
This paragraph was written in the comfortable days before the lorries disappeared into battalion or brigade "pools." In the spring of 1918, when movement was necessarily hurried, my company had to do without—higher formations had so much of value to move.
13
Major P. Johnson, D.S.O.
14
The Tank Corps was always the very soul of economy.
15
The regimental officer always appreciated our difficulties, praised our achievements, and sympathised with us in our misfortunes.
16
S. entirely retrieved his reputation as a skilful and gallant tank commander by attacking a field-gun single-handed at Flesquieres on November 20th.
17
It was incorrectly reported later that the tank had fallen through the bridge. I have obtained the facts from Major P. Hamond, D.S.O., M.C., who was in command of the tanks at the bridge.
18
He was seriously wounded and captured.
19
Captured.
20
But it was "G" Battalion that captured the wood a year later.
21
It was known later that the two attacking forces were instructed to meet at Metz, a mile or so from my camp.
22
I quote from memory, but I am certain of the words "will attack."
23
It was in fact intended to inform the General that two battalions of the 2nd Tank Brigade would attack from the directions indicated.
24
See p. 169.
25
See 'Adventures of a Despatch Rider,' p. 15 et seq.
26
An average time for detraining twelve Mk. IV. tanks is thirty minutes.
27
The 2nd and 8th Battalions were armed with the Mk. V. tank, a swifter and handier tank than the Mk. IV., and the 15th Battalion with the lengthy Mk. V. Star.
28
Certain Canadian battalions only reached the "start-line" in time by doubling.
29
It was, of course, only the luck of the game. This particular battery of Horse Artillery was brigaded with the Australian Artillery and went where it was told. It finished the day in close support of the infantry at Morcourt.
30
Sergeant Bell was awarded the D.C.M. He was killed in action on September 28.
31
Lieut. F. M. Holt was one of my most promising and gallant subalterns, who, if he had lived, would certainly have received early promotion. He was a charming companion in the mess. We could ill afford to lose him.
32
At that period the sponsons of Carrier tanks were made of boiler-plate, which was not proof against bullets.
33
The numbers include orderlies, cooks, batmen, &c.
34
For the actual carrying—cooks, &c., excluded.
35
Lieutenant (later Captain) S. A. Thomas, M.C.
36
It was in these local attacks that tanks suffered most severely.
37
In any case it was bad policy for Mk. IV.'s and Mk. V.'s to move in the same convoy.
38
We could always obtain rum: every tank carried a supply to revive its exhausted crew. At Cambrai each of my tanks carried a bottle of whisky in place of rum, but this innovation tended to bunch the infantry—Argylls—dangerously near to the tanks, and in subsequent actions we reverted to rum.
39
I hope I shall be forgiven if I mention the fact that this village was commonly known as "Teddie Gerard."
40
These were easily distinguished, as my tanks were the only Mk. IV.'s in the neighbourhood. Mk. V.'s and "whippets" leave a different track.
41
One battalion, or at least one company of it, spent the first Christmas after the Armistice in building a camp for itself, although there were several pleasant villages in the neighbourhood.