TER XII

BEHEMOTH

The Somme district is composed of chalk pits; wherever the ground was
dug up it showed white. This afforded an excellent opportunity for the
enemy birds to spot any work we were doing. While in this section every
man in the ranks looked very much like a white-wash artist--white dust
everywhere, filling our eyes, ears, noses, mouths. Lord! when I think of
that chalk dust!

For five days after the first advance of the tanks they were lying, six
of them, immediately at the right of our battery on the edge of the
road; no one seemed to know what they were doing there or what was
contemplated. Then they moved up four miles to the edge of Pozieres
Woods, where they believed they would be safer from view, and for the
further reason that they would not have so far to travel when the next
drive was pulled off. They waddled in there at night, but the following
morning Fritz's keen eye searched them out, wirelessed the necessary
directions to their heaviest battery, and in almost less time than it
takes to write it tremendous shells came smashing around, damaging one
of them pretty severely, and the other five immediately waddled back to
a safer place in the rear.

That same night canvas dummies were drawn up by mules and set up in the
same place. Again the keen-eyed birds of the air spotted them, flashed
their range back to their heaviest mouthpieces, and for the better part
of the day the entire batteries of their heaviest caliber, expended
their energies and their shells on the dummies; there was no kind or
character of explosive shell that did not land on the frauds.

Late in the afternoon two of the air birds wanted to get down a little
closer, undoubtedly to satisfy themselves as to how the work of
destruction had progressed, and one of our little observation planes
gave battle to the visitors, engaging the nearest one first. His
companion bird made for ours, but before he could get underneath to do
anything, the first German bird had been winged and downed. Our
anti-aircraft guns now made it so warm for the other bird that he beat
it. The visit, however, must have had beneficial results for Fritz, for
immediately after the plane returned to their lines, he ceased paying
any attention whatever to the dummies. That night we put the real tanks
behind the dummies and the day following not a single shell broke over
or near them, and that same night they crept down into Pozieres Valley
under shelter of