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"Golly!" observed Captain Little, with respectful relish. "That means," continued Wagstaffe, "that we shall be able to blow Brother Boche's immediate place of business to bits, and at the same time take on his artillery with counter-battery work.

But it was often necessary to spend more than half of the four hundred rounds allotted to a normal counter-battery shoot in destroying the trees round the target, before the airman could get a good view of it.

I raised fortifications about the wretched place, adding every day to the number of my iniquities to prevent Thee taking it. When there was an appearance of Thy becoming victorious over this ungrateful heart, I raised a counter-battery, and threw up ramparts to keep off thy goodness, and to hinder the course of thy grace. None other could have conquered than Thyself.

Our gun positions, in proportion to the new increase in counter-battery work, were also often shelled. Though unconnected with any artillery, our doctor, Stobie, and with him Arrowsmith had a bitter experience of German shells. One fine summer morning the enemy commenced a programme of destructive fire upon some empty gunpits where the Doctor had his dressing-station.

During this month the observers had a little mild training each day; but the G.O.C. sent word to me to rest the men as much as possible. I amused myself at the battle O.P. on Bayencourt Ridge and sent in daily reports of sound bearings to the IV Corps Counter-Battery Office. On the whole the enemy let our camp fairly well alone.

The evening before the big attack our artillery carried out counter-battery work, destroying as many as possible of the enemy's guns. Just at dusk we fell in line and began our march to the trenches. We passed through St. They didn't think it possible for us to capture Vimy Ridge, where the French troops had lost thousands in a vain attempt the year before.

We, therefore, moved six miles to the west and found ourselves in support of British, and no longer of Italian, Infantry. Our Brigade ceased to be a "trench-punching" and became a "counter-battery" Brigade. Most of our work in future was to be in close co-operation with our own Air Force. My Battery was destined to remain here, with two short interludes, for seven months.

Orders came in from Brigade for an elaborate counter-battery shoot with gas shell, in two parts, one between 11 p.m. and midnight, the other between 2 and 3 a.m. We had never fired gas shell from six-inch howitzers before, though we had been warned that we should soon be required to do so.

It was pitch-dark and the Germans were shelling furiously, though before we left all our massed artillery had carried out what is known as half an hour's counter-battery work, the idea being to put as many German guns out of action as possible. Our gunners had most of the enemy positions covered, as our aeroplanes had been spotting them.

Here at least was a man who dealt with it as a scientific business, according to the methods of science calculating the weight and effect of gun-fire, the strength of the enemy's defenses and man-power, the psychology of German generalship and of German units, the pressure which could be put on British troops before the breaking-point of courage, the relative or cumulative effects of poison-gas, mines, heavy and light artillery, tanks, the disposition of German guns and the probability of their movement in this direction or that, the amount of their wastage under our counter-battery work, the advantages of attacks in depth one body of troops "leap-frogging," another in an advance to further objectives the time-table of transport, the supply of food and water and ammunition, the comfort of troops before action, and a thousand other factors of success.