furnace with a cup of water to put out the fire.
Only a battalion commander who is a fool will refuse, in face of
concentrated machine gun fire, to stop the charge.

"Leave it to me!" was the unspoken message communicated to the infantry
by the sight of that careening, dipping, clambering, steel body as it
rumbled toward the miniature fortress. And the infantry, as it saw the
tank's machine guns blazing, left it to the tank, and, working its way
to the right, kept in touch with the general line of attack, confident
that no enemy would be left behind to fire into their backs. Thus, a
handful of men capable, with their bullet sprays, of holding up a
thousand men found the tables turned on them by another handful manning
a tank. They were simply "done in," as the tank officer put it. Safe
behind his armor, he had them no less at his mercy than a submarine has
a merchant ship. Even if unarmed, a tank could take care of an isolated
machine gun position by sitting on it.

One of the most famous tanks was Creme de Menthe. She had a good press
agent and also made good. She seemed to like sugar. At least, her
glorious exploit was in a sugar factory, a huge building of brick with a
tall brick chimney which had been brought down by shell fire. Underneath
the whole were immense dugouts still intact where German machine gunners
lay low, like Br'er Rabbit, as usual, while the shells of the artillery
preparation were falling, and came out to turn on the bullet spray as
the British infantry approached. British do the same against German
attacks; only in the battle of the Somme the British had been always
attacking, always taking machine gun positions.

Creme de Menthe, chosen comrade of the Canadians on their way to the
taking of Courcelette, was also at home among debris. The Canadians saw
that she was as she moved toward it with the glee of a sea lion toward a
school of fish. She did not go dodging warily, peering around corners
with a view to seeing the enemy before she was seen. Whatever else a
tank is, it is not a crafty boy scout. It is brazenly and nonchalantly
public in its methods, like a steam roller coming down the street into a
parade without regard to the rules of the road. Externally it is not
temperamental. It does not bother to follow the driveway or mind the
"Keep Off the Grass" sign when it goes up to the entrance of a dugout.

And Creme de Menthe took the sugar factory and a lot of prisoners. "Why
not?" as one of