. Its chief object was to harass a certain
portion of a hostile trench which was taken in enfilade by it! In
order to accomplish this successfully, the guns were placed in an old
disused position in a field, near La Brique, on the backward slope of
a hill, and the low gun-pits were completely covered with tufts of
growing grass. The centre pits were occupied by the two pieces and the
outside ones were speedily converted into habitations for the men.

When the trenches were not being subjected to hostile shelling, the
enemy devoted most of his time in endeavouring to destroy the numerous
O.P.'s dotted about here and there. These were constructed for the
most part of reinforced concrete, but the particular one used by us,
called "Frascatis," had not yet been discovered, so we were free to
carry out shoots to our heart's content.

A favourite diversion was sniping with one of our pieces, which was a
particularly accurate one, and several points of observation and
snipers' posts were carefully registered. Then we would lie in wait,
observe some movement, and let fly one round only. This method
exasperated and annoyed the enemy exceedingly.

One of the enemy's principal forms of amusement was to blow parts of
our front parapet away and train a machine gun on the space left
vacant, and snipe at any unsuspecting person who happened to pass
along. On many occasions we were able to bring assistance to the
harassed infantrymen, by spotting the offending snipers, and by, in
turn, sniping at them with our "How." till we finally silenced them.

At dusk the enemy invariably harassed all roads of communication, and
dropped innumerable shells of large calibre into the stricken (p. 029)
city; and we made a habit of sitting at the entrance to the little
shack, used as the officers' mess, smoking our evening pipes,
interested spectators, while the shells screamed overhead, and
alighted somewhere in the town, sending up columns of brick dust.

All the batteries in the line were now busy constructing new battery
positions, while fresh O.P.'s were also erected, and it was thought
that these preparations were preparatory to making an attack to enable
us to improve our position by the capture of Pilkem Ridge, but,
although the work was completed, nothing further developed.

Soon there were whispers of an impending gigantic attack away down in
the south, and for several days before the opening of it our shelling
was considerably incr