The minutes are like hours.

"My God, Darwin, look!" Talbot cried. "Something's happened to her.
She's on fire!"

In the distance we saw one of our tanks stuck in the German wire,
which at that point was about a hundred yards thick. Smoke was
belching from every porthole. A shell had registered a direct hit,
exploding the petrol, and the tank was on fire. We dashed forward
toward her.

A German machine gun rattled viciously. They had seen us. An instant
later, the bullets were spattering around us, and we dropped flat. One
man slumped heavily and lay quite still. By inches we crawled forward,
nearer and nearer to the blazing monster. Another machine gun snarled
at us, and we slid into a shell-hole for protection. Then, after a
moment's breathing space, we popped out and tried to rush again.
Another man stopped a bullet.

It was suicide to go farther. Into another shell-hole we fell, and
thought things over. We decided to send a message, giving roughly the
news that the Hindenburg Line and N---- had been taken. An orderly was
given a message. He crawled out of the shell-hole, ran a few steps,
dropped flat, wriggled along across the snow, sprang to his feet, ran
another few steps, and so on until we lost sight of him.

A moment or two later we started across the snow in a direction
parallel with the lines. Behind an embankment we came across a little
group of Australians at an impromptu dressing-station. Some of them
were wounded and the others were binding up their wounds. We watched
them for a while and started on again. We had gone about fifty yards
when a shell screeched overhead. We turned and saw it land in the
middle of the group we had just left. Another shell burst close to us
and huge clods of earth struck us in the face and in the stomach,
knocking us flat and blinding us for the moment. A splinter struck
Talbot on his tin hat, grazing his skin. Behind us one of the
orderlies screamed and we rushed back to him. He had been hit below
the knee and his leg was nearly severed. We tied him up and managed to
get him back to the Australian aid-post. Two of the original four
stretcher-bearers had been blown up a few minutes before. But the
remaining two were carrying on with their work as though nothing had
happened. Here he was bandaged and started on his way for the
dressing-station.

Far across the snow, we saw three more tanks plodding back toward the
rear. Little by little, we gained ground until we reach