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the gunner of the unfortunate tank together fastened the towing wires to the tank's hooks.
    The thick steel wires sang, taut as violin strings. They could break any moment, and if they hit you, you would be killed on the spot. We'd seen it happen.
    The loader became so nervous that he let go his grip on the hooks and took cover behind the tank. Tiny threw a handful of mud, for want of better, at him.
    "Wait till I get hold of you, you cunt-thief!" Then he leaped up onto the wires and hung on to the hooks for all he was worth.
    "If they part," the Old Man muttered, "they'll mash him."
    "Un bon soldat," said the Legionnaire with an approving nod.
    "But as dumb as the hole in a cow's arse," Porta said with a grin.
    "Don't go too far," Heide threatened. "I'm not so bloody dumb. No NCO has passed out with higher marks than I in the last twenty years. Who of you pissers can floor me on tactics?"
    "March, march!" shouted Major Mike.
    Slowly the stranded tank moved up out of the mud. Tiny lay on his belly across the wires, and the major helped him keep them firmly on the towing-hooks, cursing and swearing at Leutnant Herbert, who stood gazing forlornly from his turret. As soon as the tank was on firm ground again, Leutnant Herbert had to leave the turret, where Unteroffizier Lehnert took his place. No one exulted over the unfortunate. We had seen a hauptman fired as company commander and his place taken by a feldwebel in the middle of an attack.
    We took up position behind a long dyke and at once set about camouflaging the tanks, removing the broad marks of the tracks with little rakes and by sticking grasses in them and laying twigs and branches over them. This was essential in case planes came over. It was the Russians taught us the art of camouflage. Three Jabos came screaming out of the clouds, just as Porta and I were out checking that all was as it should be. We pressed ourselves flat. The next moment they began firing. It was like an invisible grass-cutter sweeping across the ground. Hundreds of little fountains of earth spurted up. We were lucky, because they were using armour-piercing, not explosive shells. One of the pilots showed himself to be bloodthirsty by rising up almost vertically and diving back at us, his cannon spitting murderously.
    The other two Jabos circled round. The first one passed over us so low that we thought he would rip up the belly of his machine. Then with a thunderous bang he disappeared over the hill after his companions.
    Major Mike called the crews to him and we squatted among the bushes with him in the middle.
    "In front of you," he said, "are two miles of visible road. When those buggers come, the first is to get as far as the curve where the road disappears into the wood. That will be your tank, Beier. You are on the left wing. Frick, you're on the right wing. You will plaster the last tank in the column the moment it emerges from the curve round the hill, but I warn you: no shot is to be fired before I give the word. I personally will shoot any gunner who presses his trigger too soon." He almost swallowed his big cigar in his vehemence, then he went on in a more kindly tone: "All sixteen guns are to fart off simultaneously. Every shell must hit. After the first salvo, the sector will be divided into fields of fire. Each tank is to weed out its own field." He spat a long jet at a feeding bird, hit it and grinned broadly. He bit a piece off his length of twist and, as usual, handed it to the Old Man. "And I would advise any gunner who sends a shell into space to follow it, before I reach him. Keep cool heads, lads. Let them come to the scaffold. They have no idea we are here. They can't possibly see us. The three Jabos are proof of that. We'll stay here quietly and wait for them."
    We eased ourselves into our seats. We tested our radios, checked the electric firing mechanism. Heide conversed in low tones with the radio-operators in the other tanks. Feldwebel Slavek had just married by proxy and