Tank

We heard strange throbbing noises, and lumbering [moving] slowly towards us came three huge mechanical monsters such as we had never seen before . . . Big metal things they were, with two sets of caterpillar wheels that went right round the body. There was a bulge on each side with a door in the bulging part, and machine-guns on swivels poked out from either side . . .

There they sat, squat [thick] monstrous things . . . crushing the sides of our trench . . . [and] with their machine-guns swiveling around and firing like mad.

—Bert Cheney, An Account of the First Tanks in Action, 1916