THE "TANKS"

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2962, 28 December 1916, Page 5

THE "TANKS"

DISCREET DETAILS OF THE MACHINES PANTOMIME AND HORROR COMBINED (From tho "Times" Special Correspondent.) Tho Germans hare now had fair opportunities of becoming acquainted with, at least, the exterior and the fighting powers of our "tanks"; so it is permissible to go discreetly somo way towards giving a description of them. Curiosity _in regard to them usually expresses itself ill tho question: "What animal are they really likoP" Candour compels one to reply that they are not like ally animal, except in so far as they are even less like anything else on earth. _ If you must have some particular animal to compare them with, they perhaps resemble in general contour a toad more than anything else; a . toad rather elongated towards its hinder end. In size tho thing is—well, laige. Not to be too exact, it is bigger than an ordinary motor-car and smaller than a labourer's cottage. In these circumstances. it can bardly bo expected to move fast, and the deliberatenoss of Its advance, coupled with the faot that it has no visible wheels or legs, gives to it a perfectly ridiculous solemnity. ■ Colour and Armament. "Tanks" are painted in what naturalists call protective colours, tbo colours of snakes or lizard is, browns and greens and yellows which harmonise admirably with the,desolated environment in wliicli the creatures move. Perhaps this colouration increases the suggestion of a toad .in the thing's appearanoe; till one almost thinks that some such /huge and awful batrachian may have lived, if not in tho childhood of this earth, then in some other' world, a tiling related to all other toads as "Diplodocus" is re-1 lated to a small sand lizard. When one sees tho unspeakable tilings moving, with their great blunt noses thrust in the air before them, limbloss and wheelless, going with a movement, as smooth as that-of a snake, but majestic and deliberate as a giant tortoise, it is such a mixture of pantomime and pure horror as no nightmare ever equalled. They~are, as you know, armour-clad, but the thickness of their armour I must not tell, although the Germans doubtless know it. For 'their armament,. it may vary as you please, but is of the machine-gun type; and the guns,_ it is needless to say, can fire in all directions. Each carries its commanding officer and a crow of driver and gunners; and they have at; least room enough in their interior to have been able on at least one occasion, as you have been told, to bring homo a German battalion commander as a prisoner inside. To thrust oneself, cooped up in the beast's steel interior, into tho mazo of the enemy's' trenches and strong positions must be an exceedingly unpleasant job, but not a man, I believe, on any machine has yet behaved otherwise than splendidly." Official and Army Titles. Officially, the new craft call themsclves His Majesty's land-ships ('H.M.L-S."), and every ono carries its own name—Delphino, Daphne, Dolsie, Cordon Rouge, or Creme de Mentho —as proudly as any ship of the sea. But, whatever thoy call themselves, tho Army generally calls them "Tanks," that name, it is understood, as I have told before; being chosen as having tho merit of being totally undescriptivo. No person, overhearing an unguarded conversation about "Tanks," could possibly imagine that it had reference to such a portentously incredible thing as aro these land-Bhips. And, besides "Tanks," tho Army calls them by many names, as "Rhino" and "Willie" and "Crocodile" and "Humming Bird" and other names less printable, while in certain select circles the bmto is. known as the "Hush-hush!" Even at_a slow rata of speed a creature of ihis size travels with considerable momentum; and neither the brick wall of an ordinary house nor a tree °f. moderate size, "if Behemoth gots a fair push at it, is much of an obstacle in his path.- Lesser obstructions are only pleasing incidents in his journoy, which.he.climbs oyer, as a slug climbs over a pebble, or squashes by his weight' and passes on. The Vaguo Horror. The Germans, as it has been sum, have now had fair opportunities of seeing something of the animals.. More than ono, as you know, has lain crippled out between the lines, where tne enemy has'been able on the one side, as we w;cre able on tho other, to creep up and .examine it, always subject to tho. possibility of being shot or bombed in tho operation. No "Tank," howeVor, has fallen into the enemy's hands. The Germans, have been able to reach the beast and fondle it, but they havo not been able to persuade one to follow them home.

\ Many thousands of German soldiers also have seen tho things coming into battle, and they must ha,ve been a terrifying_ sight to those who saw them first dimly outlined in the grey light of dawn, spitting fire and death as tliey cajne. One can pity even Germans who only saw the vague horror moving against them and wero killed by it before they knew what it was that killed them.

■ The time is. doubtless not far away .when pictures of "Tanks" will bo familiar futures of the illustrated papers, and ivo shall have their portraits oil post-cards. Children will liavo miniature "Tanks" for toys, and street-sell-ers will make tliem waddlo about tho kerb. As yet, however, they lire halfmysteries. '■ Of the value of the services which .they have rendered thero can be no question, or of tho gallantry with which they have been bundled.