ntervals. Once when Tom peeped over the edge of the
communication trench he saw the tanks waddling along to right and left,
rearing up and bowing as they crossed the trench, like clumsy, trained
hippopotamuses. And all the while the artillery was booming with
continuous, deafening roar.

Tom did not see the first of the boys to go over the top for they were
over by the time he reached the second-line trench, but as he passed
along the fire trench toward the road he could see them crowding over,
and when he reached the road the barbed wire entanglements lay flat in
many places, the boys picking their way across the fallen meshes, the
clumsy tanks waddling on ahead, across No Man's Land. As far as Tom
could see along the line in either direction this shell-torn area was
being crossed by hundreds of boys in khaki holding fixed bayonets, some
going ahead of the tanks and some perching on them.

Above him the whole district seemed to be in pandemonium, men shouting
and their voices drowned by the thunder of artillery.

His first real sight of the attack was when he clambered out of the
trench where it crossed the road and faced the flattened meshes of
barbed wire with its splintered supporting poles all tangled in it.
Never was there such a wreck.

"All right," he shouted down. "It's as flat as a pancake--careful with
the machine--lift the back wheel--that's right!"

He could hardly hear his own voice for the noise, and the very earth
seemed to shake under the heavy barrage fire which protected them. In
one sweeping, hasty glance he saw scores of figures in khaki running
like mad and disappearing into the enemy trenches beyond.

"Do you mean to let the wire rest on this?" he asked, as his machine was
lifted up and the first of the wire carriers came scrambling up after
it; "it might get short-circuited."

"We'll run it over the poles, only hurry," the men answered.

They were evidently the very last of the advancing force, and even as
Tom looked across the shell-torn area of No Man's Land, he could see the
men picking their way over the flattened entanglements and pouring into
the enemy trenches. The tanks had already crossed these and were rearing
and waddling along, irresistible yet ridiculous, like so many heroic mud
turtles going forth to glory. Here and there Tom could see the gray-clad
form of a German clambering out of the trenches and rushing pell-mell to
the rear.

But it was no time to stand and look. Hur