f numbers on account
of shell and rifle fire.

In May the weather was glorious and the face of the countryside assumed a
pleasant aspect. The trees were in full leaf. Wild flowers in profusion
adorned the trenches, and larks in numbers hovered in the clear blue skies
above the trenches and sang sweetly in the early mornings. The sunsets
viewed from the front line were particularly beautiful. The lines of trees
on the Beaumetz-Arras road became silhouetted black against the skyline,
reddened by the setting sun, which produced a wonderful effect.

As the summer advanced the front became more active. Shell fire increased,
and the British artillery, having a more liberal supply of ammunition,
expended it more lavishly than had been formerly the case. In July the
Battalion left the sector immediately in front of Wailly and took over
that in front of Blaireville Wood, which was held by the enemy.

On the 28th June a series of raids took place on the Divisional front,
which were covered by a discharge of cloud gas. A party from the Battalion
took part in the raid, and two officers were able to enter an enemy sap
but they did not manage to secure any prisoners. The junior of the two
officers was unfortunately killed, being shot through the head. In
retaliation for the raids the enemy brought up, on the 2nd July, what was
called a "Circus" consisting of several 150 m.m. and 210 m.m. howitzers on
railway mountings, with which he utterly destroyed the front line trenches
for a distance of two hundred yards, blew in several mined dugouts, and
inflicted heavy casualties on "D" Company. In some respects this was the
heaviest and most destructive bombardment that had been endured by the
Battalion up to this time, though it was not so prolonged as that of the
8th October, 1915.

On the 8th July, after five months continuous duty in the forward zone,
the Battalion went into Divisional Reserve at Gouy-en-Artois, where the
Battalion was housed in hutments close by the Divisional School.

The Somme Battle had commenced, and there was every likelihood of the
Division being called upon either to attack on the front it already held
or as reinforcements. In consequence the Battalion, which had had very
little training for the past five months, turned its attention to
practising the attack in some cornfields near the hutments it occupied.

The attack was henceforth to be made by successive waves of men and to
each wave was assigned a parti