another huge field is divided. The motor slackens, and we watch the
creature slowly attack a high bank, land complacently on the top, and
then--an officer walking beside it to direct its movements--balance a
moment on the edge of another bank equally high, a short distance away.
There it is!--down!--not flopping or falling, but all in the way of
business, gliding unperturbed. London is full of tanks, of course--on
the films. But somehow to be watching a real one, under the French sky,
not twenty miles from the line, is a different thing. We fall into an
eager discussion with Captain F. in front, as to the part played by them
in the Somme battle, and as to what the Germans may be preparing in
reply to them. And while we talk, my eye is caught by something on the
sky-line, just above the tank. It is a man and a plough--a plough that
might have come out of the Odyssey--the oldest, simplest type. So are
the ages interwoven; and one may safely guess that the plough--that very
type!--will outlast many generations of tanks. But, for the moment, the
tanks are in the limelight, and it is luck that we should have come upon
them so soon, for one may motor many miles about the front without
meeting with any signs of them.

Next, a fine main road and an old town, seething with all the stir of
war. We come upon a crowded market-place, and two huge convoys passing
each other in the narrow street beyond--one, an ammunition column, into
which our motor humbly fits itself as best it can, by order of the
officer in charge of the column, and the other, a long string of
magnificent lorries belonging to the Flying Corps, which defiles past us
on the left. The inhabitants of the town, old men, women and children,
stand to watch the hubbub, with amused friendly faces. On we go, for a
time, in the middle of the convoy. The great motor lorries filled with
ammunition hem us in till the town is through, and a long hill is
climbed. At the top of it we are allowed to draw out, and motor slowly