once
more and we balance there. The driver throws out his clutch, we slip
over very gently, and carefully he lets the clutch in again and down
we go. The "Willie" flounders around for the fraction of a second.
Then, nothing daunted, she starts off once more. We have visions of
her sweeping all before her some day far behind the German lines.

Three or four weeks of this sort of thing, and we are hardened to it.

Our reward came at last, however. After mess one morning, when the
conversation had consisted mainly of the question, "When are we going
into a show?" with no answer to the question, we were called into the
Major's room, where he told us, in strictest secrecy, that in about
three weeks a big attack was to come off. We should go in at last!

For the next two or three weeks we studied maps and aeroplane
photographs, marking out our routes, starting-points, rear
ammunition-dumps, forward dumps, and lines of supply. At last, then,
our goal loomed up and these months of training, for the most part
interesting, but at times terribly boring, would bear fruit. Two
direct results were noticeable now on looking back to the time when we
joined. First, each man in the Battalion knew how to run a tank, how
to effect slight repairs, how to work the guns, and how to obtain the
best results from the machine. Second, and very important, was the
fact that the men and officers had got together. The crews and
officers of each section knew and trusted each other. The strangeness
of feeling that was apparent in the first days had now entirely
disappeared, and that cohesion of units which is so essential in
warfare had been accomplished. Each of us knew the other's faults and
the mistakes he was prone to make. More important still, we knew our
own faults and weaknesses and had the courage to carry on and overcome
them.

A few nights before we moved up the line, we gave a grand concert.
Borwick and the Old Bird planned it. On an occasion of this sort, the
Old Bird never grumbled at the amount of work he was obliged to do.
Some weeks before we had bought a piano from one of the inhabitants of
the village, and the piano was naturally the _piece de resistance_ of
the concert. The Old Bird went around for days at a time, humming
scraps of music with unintelligible words which it afterwards
developed at the concert were awfully good songs of his own composing.
The Battalion tailor was called in to make up rough Pierrot costumes.
The Ol