THE TANK FUN

Thames Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 10273, 15 December 1916, Page 8

THE TANK FUN

BY THE MAN INSIDE.

A CAKTEKBURY SOLDIER'S

IMPRESSIONS.

-"IT'S THE FUNNIEST $PORT IN

THE WORLD."

The man in the Tank has been talking to the naturally curious Tommy, auk his impressions of our new lands!tfp.* remarfci**y* interesting (says the LoadoiuDispatch of October 22). As related by Serjeant. Warburton, of the Canterbury (N.Z.) Mounted Rifles, thEe impressions ..go to show that the Man in the Tank enjoys the fun as much as the troops who follow.laughing and cheering behind. ' Warburton came across one of the Tank fellows in Flers village, he explained yesterday. He had just come out of H.M.L. Damn, to give the Tank the liame by which it was known. H.M.L. standing for "His Majesty's Landship." This Tank had just been cleaning up Flers, and was the particular monster that, striding 1 up and down the High street, Flers, had brought up a cheering mass of the troops. - The man who was inside the Tank was laughing as if to split his sides. He was laughing so heartily, in fact, that he was almost prevented from talking. Like so many others, War* burton Mas anxious to have ( a peep inside H.M.L. Damn, but he was given a decided "No." It was obviously against orders. -, L The -Tank man was wearing <$t the shoulder a strap with the designation "Motor Machine Gun • Section," which was very interesting to Warburton, as being a discovery of what the men inside the Tank were really called.

When Warburton enquired what he was laughing at, he was told the Germans, puzzled to know wliat to iimke of H.M.L. Damn, and still more puzzled to know what to do with it, had sent out a bombing party •of twenty with a load of hand bombs to do their best. The solemn Germans had slily approached the tank, but intimate acquaintance no more satisfied them than acquaintance at a distance. THROUGH THE PEEP-HOLE. "They were frankly in a dilemma," tho maii from inside the Tank told Warburton, "and through the peepholes of the Tank .we hugely enjoyed not only the expression of their faces but their feelings as we, imagined them to be. It was too 'good fun to disturb, so we left them^ alone. "After a while, they came quite close up to the Tank, greatly daring. Then two or three 'crouched down to ■ see if they could get underneath; another' party of three investigated thes sides 1, 1 and the remainder elected to climb on the- top. ' "But wherever they climbed or looked the prospect was disappointing. They did not seom to find any openings- for the use of their bombs. Finally, in great perplexity, They held a meeting in front of the tank. ' It was a very unwise spot to choose, because a ueat little gun covered them- y

1 One' of us who spoke German quite fluently could hear and understand every word they said. Whai the meeting would have decided we don't know, for while they were jabbering and gesticulating we turned ihe gun on, 'and,' as they say in the newspapers, fthe meeting broke up in disorder.

"It was a great joke, and the lanughtcr inside the tank would have' done you good. He went on to tell us of what he called 'Come into my parlour stunt/ H.M.L. Damn ran 'into a crowd of frightened Huns, who showed a strange aversion to his presence.

"While they stood rooted to the ground in terror wel opened one of the little doors of the Tanks, one. of -our chaps jumped out, got hold of a Hun by ili& scruff of the neck and dragged him towards the Tank. The others gripped him by the tunic,and in the twinkling of an eye we had him • inside.

"To keep him company we trapped a brother "Hun in the sain© way. He squealed all the time like a stuck Fg-

"My Coy/ added the man in tlie> Tank, who was a confident youngster of about twenty-two, 'its the finest sport in the 'world; keeps you bright and cheei-ful all the time: far better than any pantomime." And then he strode off still shaking his sides with laughter. HYPNOTISED PROCESSION "We have been fighting the Bavarians and the Saxons," explained Warburton. " One day to my astonishment, I saw a procession, of fully 250 Bavarians; following behind a Tnak nsif hypnotised. I could'nt imagine what had come over them to be acting in this fashion. Either their.. Curosity had overcome their disereo ion or they had gone stark, staring raving road. ''They kept pace .with the Tank in wonderful fashion. What a. procession. Wnen they got near enough for us sve saw what had happened; They bad been hypnotised right enough, and the particular 'fluence came from an ugly-looking gun at the 1 rear of the Tank. Had they attempted to bolt the gun would have made mince , meat of the whole lot. "The Saxons are very distresed about us and our Tanks; .. Just before we advanced to give them hell spd other delights two officers and eight men nipped over, saying they

had had enough. "You ajw too good for us;" they exclaimed. > "The V Saxon prisoners we took later explained that Saxons ought not to be fighting Saxons. We could have cried as we told them they could easily avoid that painful contingency by throwing down their arms. They looked scared out of- their I lives, and yet physically they were splendid men. However big, they had learned the Kamarad step all i right. "Have'you heard about the Palm Terrace in Tank Village? So .many palms were shown in Flers when th& TSlifci went through that we had $F* fi'd&Tto 1 call it Palm Terrace, In palming business Fritz is unbeatable. '•My opinion of the Tanks—and I know it is shared by most of the men who have seen what they can do —is that without them we would never have got so far as we have done in the last three weeks, arid i certainly not tith the same small percentage of casualties. We are killing six and seven Germans to our one, and it is the Tanks that are kelping us to do it."