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It was a glorious afternoon. Marvellous – just the day for a battle. And now, let me see. Yes, I could get on with my job. The ground too was perfect; no mud, just right like Cambrai for tanks. In fact there was one just ahead of me – burning, burning fiercely. Every so often it seemed to be hiccoughing with indigestion as a fresh packet of shells exploded. ‘It was not possible to get near it’.
In fact it was quite possible; I could have got in at the door which was open on the far side and finished it all. Out of the door hung three blackened bodies like disembowelled entrails. I knew it was Corkran's tank. So – that was the last of those of my original crew who had remained with the battalion; the last of Sergeant O'Toole.
On my right I could see the French Foreign Legion sitting in an extended line. I found an officer and asked why they were not getting on. Was it lack of one of my tanks? He could speak better lycée English than I could speak French. “Yes, we are held up. There is a machine-gun in that village there.” He pointed to a village in front. “When we have had our lunch we shall not be ‘held up’. We shall get him.”
I waved him good luck and good-bye and set off to look for Asser. The Canadians on the left of the Roye road had swept on far in advance, apparently unobstructed either by machine-guns or lunch.
A short figure, made to look even shorter by his trying to run with his arms above his head, waddled towards me with surprising speed. He fell on his knees in front of me and tried to clasp my legs. “Kamarad kaput! Kamarad kaput!” What was the matter with me I do not know. Although I was late for my rendezvous I allowed this crazy fool to drag me by my tunic to a dug-out about twenty yards away; it was not much more than a scooped out improvisation with
a tin roof on which some turves had been planted. He invited me to go in. I pulled out my Colt. I was not so mad as to walk into a booby trap; I pushed him in first. Inside he fell on his knees again by