To make our work as noiseless as possible, we took a
number of old rubber tires, cut them in strips and wrapped them around
the gun wheels with hay wire; this facilitated both the movement of the
guns and the preservation of silence.

We again had the honor of being the sacrifice battery for the
division--in other words, having the profound pleasure of going
heavenward, or in the other direction, before any of the others, for the
purpose of working out the plan of action by the Command. We got the
guns into position under cover of night, and thoroughly camouflaged
them with grass and tree branches. We did the job so artistically that
the birds would come and chatter and sing immediately over the guns when
they were not telling their tale of love to Fritz.

Out in front of our guns was a small ridge or embankment, gradually
sloping up to a height of twenty feet and extending east and west for a
distance of three or four hundred yards. This rising piece of ground was
a decided obstacle to our progress and it was ordered mined for the
purpose of leveling it. The engineers attended to the task. It turned
out that Fritz also had mined the ridge in order to blow our sector
skyward.

The stage was set and the play started at 5:30 in the afternoon. Our
orders were to blow holes in the parapet wire which ran in a zigzag
direction every way out in front, for the purpose of enabling the
infantry to get through when they got over. Our ammunition was of the
best; we now took no chance on any defective goods. We had 20 rounds of
shell for each gun. When we got the order--"Fire!" gaps were torn in the
wire by my gun, and the other gun had blown away some small ridges. We
were going strong when a shell--the very first one--took our other gun,
blowing it and the crew into nothingness. We went on firing until we had
exploded 18 shells and had made several gaps in the wire, when, without
a moment's warning, our trench mine exploded. The trenches were packed
with troops ready for the word. A mountain of debris was shot in the air
and back over us, burying a number of soldiers in the trench, where they
died miserably from suffocation. The concussion was so powerful that it
blew the shield of my gun off downwards, cleaving Corporal King's skull
in twain and blowing Gunner MacDonald, who was sitting on the handspike
of the gun, 20 feet away. When we found him next day, every bone in his
body was broken. I was sitting on the gun alongside o