would be good policy, and in the end Makhmad found himself let off with the comparatively nominal sentence of six months' imprisonment.

As for Khair Ali's case, it was decided that it should be assessed by the tribal Jirgah, an old - established Frontier tribunal, to which many cases along the border can profitably be referred. It consists of the elders of a given section of the community, who have ways of finding out the truth of such cases which are not available to a more regularly constituted court. Their view of the case was purely tribal: Khair Ali had but set out to save his friends against a traitor, a oreature hated and loathed as far as the border stretches. He was no raider at any time, as was well known. He had run a risk for no profit to himself. That he had fired on British subjects during the escape counted as nothing to the Jirgah, for had they not been firing at him? And Khair Ali left the court without a stain on his character.

Now it happened that the Deputy-Commissioner, a man

who had learnt in the years he had spent among the Frontier Pathans how to size them up with quick discrimination, had taken a great fancy to Khair Ali. He had heard his defence of Makhmad, and was struck and surprised at the straightforward way in which the tale was told. He had found a Pathan who had performed two altruistic deeds at no small risk to himself, and who had descended to no subterfuge to shield himself. The man's personality, too, was distinctly taking, and after some thought, and in consultation with his adviser, the Political Tehsildar, he caused a message to reach Khair Ali after his release that he would like to see him. Such a message from such a source brought the recipient in to Daudabad post-haste, and the frankly-conveyed offer of employment as a Subordinate in the Political Department-the best prize open to the better class of educated Pathan-was accepted with the gratitude only shown by the finer characters amongst Indians, of whatever race, on obtaining a benefit.

WE had become masters of our tanks. Faults had been traced and eliminated; defeotive parts had been replacedthree tanks had received complete new engines and invaluable experience had been acquired not only in the upkeep and repair of tanks, but in the art of extorting "spares from Field Stores, in preserving the necessary "stock" in the Technical Quartermaster - Sergeant's stores, and in arranging for the correct "part," even if it were an engine complete, to be rushed forward by lorry to the invalid tank. I knew now that, if I ordered a tank or a section of tanks to trek any reasonable distance within a reasonable time, there was no need for me to wonder how many of my tanks would reach their destination. This may seem a small thing, but you must remember that five months before not half a dozen of my men had had the slightest idea of a petrol - engine's insides.

I took the opportunity of indulging in a little Paris leave. On the second night Paris was bombed. I was awakened by a discreet tap at the door of my room. Sleepily I heard the calm

voice of the unruffled Swede who owned my favourite hotel in Montparnasse

"It is an air-raid, and my clients gather below; but M. le Commandant, who is acoustomed to war's alarms, will doubtless prefer to continue his sleep."

It was too absurd to be bombed when stretched comfortably in the softest of beds with a private bathroom next door. ... I thought that I must be dreaming. Anyway, nothing on earth or above it could have induced me to leave that bed.

My car met me at Amiens on the 25th. The driver told me that my Company had moved forward to Manancourt, a village a few miles south of Ytres, and was expecting shortly to take part in an attack. So with the famous air from that sophisticated operetta, "La Petite Femme de Loth," running in my head, I drove through Villers-Bretonneux and Warfusée to Proyart, where I dropped an austere American Staff Officer, who had come with me in the train, and thence over the Somme through the outskirts of Peronne, to a tidy little camp on clean grass by a

At Boisleux we had come under the orders of the 4th Tank Brigade, which had suffered such heavy losses during the battle of Amiens, both in a series of actions with the Canadians and later in the Happy Valley, that it had been placed in reserve, The stern defence of Bullecourt by the enemy, who held it as desperately in 1918 as they had in 1917, nearly drew the Brigade from its rest; but at last even Bullecourt fell, and the British Armies swept on to the suburbs of Cambrai and the Hindenburg Line.

It was with the Hindenburg Line that the 4th Tank Brigade was concerned.

On the front of the 4th Army, with which our Brigade was operating, the Hindenburg Line, a series of defences 7000 to 10,000 yards in depth, was itself defended by the St Quentin Canal. For three and a half miles, between Vendhuille and Bellicourt, the canal passes through a tunnel, and this stretch it was determined to attack. But before the main operation could take place, it was urgently necessary to capture certain outlying points of vantage known as The Knoll and Quennemont and Guillemont Farms. Already we had attempted unsuccessfully on three occasions to carry them by storm. A final attempt was to be made by the 108th Amerioan Infantry Regiment on September 27th, and one seo

Company during my absence, had detailed his own section for the job.

On the afternoon of the 25th, Ryan and I reported at the Headquarters of the American Division concerned, the 27th. We found to our gratification that Australian Staff Officers were "nursing" the Americans

there were 8 number of Australians with each American unit-and we soon obtained the orders and the information which we required. The Australians knew us and we knew the Australians: nothing could have been more satisfactory. The Americans, on the other hand, had never heard of Carrier tanks, although they appreciated their use at once.

My tanks moved by easy stages to a copse three-quarters of a mile from Villers-Fancon, where they were loaded on the 26th with ammunition, wire, water, and sandbags. They were joined by unloading parties of American infantry, eight men to each tank, bright young fellows who had not previously been in action. I doubted whether they would be of use: to follow a slow Carrier tank into action and to unload it in sight of the enemy under heavy fire needs the coolness and skill of veterans.

On the night before the battle the tanks moved up to points in the rear of our posts, and thirty minutes after "zero" they followed the fighting