could not "answer back."
In March of 1915 I saw the first fifteen-inch howitzer open fire. We
called this monster "grandma," and there was a little group of generals
on the Scherpenberg, near Kemmel, to see the effect of the first shell.
Its target was on the lower slope of the Wytschaete Ridge, where some
trenches were to be attacked for reasons only known by our generals
and by God. Preliminary to the attack our field-guns opened fire with
shrapnel, which scattered over the German trenches--their formidable
earthworks with deep, shell-proof dugouts--like the glitter of confetti,
and had no more effect than that before the infantry made a rush for the
enemy's line and were mown down by machine-gun fire--the Germans were
very strong in machine-guns, and we were very weak--in the usual way
of those early days. The first shell fired by our monster howitzer was
heralded by a low reverberation, as of thunder, from the field below
us. Then, several seconds later, there rose from the Wytschaete Ridge a
tall, black column of smoke which stood steady until the breeze clawed
at it and tore it to tatters.

"Some shell!" said an officer. "Now we ought to win the war--I don't
think!"

Later there arrived the first 9.2 (nine-point-two)--"aunty," as we
called it.

Well, that was something in the way of heavy artillery, and gradually
our gun-power grew and grew, until we could "answer back," and give more
than came to us; but meanwhile the New Army had to stand the racket,
as the Old Army had done, being strafed by harassing fire, having their
trenches blown in, and their billets smashed, and their bodies broken,
at all times and in all places within range of German guns.

Everywhere the enemy was on high ground and had observation of our
position. From the Westhook Ridge and the Pilkem Ridge his observers
watched every movement of our men round Ypres, and along the main road
to Hooge, signaling back to their guns if anybody of them were visible.
From the Wytschaete Ridge (White-sheet, as we called it) and Messines
they could see for miles across our territory, not only the trenches,
but the ways up to the trenches, and the villages behind them and the
roads through the villages. They looked straight into Kemmel village
and turned their guns on to it when our men crouched among its ruins
and opened the graves in the cemetery and lay old bones bare. Clear and
vivid to them were the red roofs of Dickebusch village and the gaunt
ri