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The officers were ordered to stop these "races with death" for there were some killed, but they would break out now and again when the last man who was killed had been forgotten. The bombing officer had a good deal of sport with his rifle-grenades, and as I was hand in glove with him I enjoyed some of his fun.
The battalion bombers were also trained at the school to fire live rifle-grenades. No risks were taken with the Newton rifle-grenade; during firing all men had to be behind a barricade and the rifle was fired off with a string and held in position by an iron stand.
They discovered the bomb store and opened such a Brock's benefit that the enemy must have been shocked with surprise. One young marine was bomb-slinging for four hours, and grinned at the prodigious memory as though he had had the time of his life. Another confessed to me that he preferred rifle-grenades, which he fired off all night until the dawn.
It was a method of gaining ground, for the craters were fortified and turned into a trench. In this way the Germans began to approach fairly close to us at K.1 and J.3. I had to register with Newton rifle-grenades on the crater, but as we were short of cartridges it was not possible to fire at night.
We arrange to have rifle-grenades fired along three hundred yards of trench except for fifty yards where is our gateway. Here we sneak up and carefully roll hand-grenades into two or three bays. The Germans on either side do not take any notice of these explosions as the same thing is happening all along the line, and the Germans in the bays are not in condition to take much notice either.
The training went on from March 12 to 17, and thirty-four section leaders attended the course. About 1150 rounds were fired. I did not attempt any live firing in fact, I have never thought it serves any useful purpose to fire live rifle-grenades in practice.
We only stayed there a few days, but were greatly bothered with rifle-grenades, so, finding that our grenades fell short of the German line, the major and a small party took the grenade-gun out in the long grass until they were able to reach the enemy and thus secured a temporary peace.
These craters were worked on at night, and by the General's orders they had to be kept under constant fire from rifle-grenades. Several nights I went up to the trenches to see this carried out, once accompanied by the General himself. I had at the Bruloose bomb store a fairly good stock of smoke and incendiary bombs, like large cocoa tins, only containing red or white phosphorus.
One day was given to field firing practice, on which occasion I acted as one of the 'casualty' officers that is to say, I had to select various men during the sham attack and order them to drop out as casualties. Live ammunition was used in rifles and Lewis guns as well as live rifle-grenades; and I remember there were seven slight casualties from accidents with the rifle-grenades.
But there was a different kind of concert next day, and the music was played by trench-mortars, Mills bombs, rifle-grenades, and other instruments of death in possession of the Guards. There were cries of agony and terror from the German trenches, and young officers of the Guards told the story as an amusing anecdote, with loud laughter.
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