ry round Monchy was well suited for this, for there were many old
German trenches about, and the villages were all smashed to bits,
giving a realistic touch to field training. B.H.Q. were under canvas,
but I selected an old German dugout which I thought would be drier
when the rains set in. It was also cooler in the hot weather, and its
only drawback was rats. I kept them in check, however, with a small
trap that the Germans left behind; they were always good at inventing
killing machines. My own job was now to train as many infantry men as
possible in the use of the rifle-grenade. And between May 29 and June
16, 190 men went through the course. Also Lieut. Odell brought his
signal company of twenty-nine men one evening to be shown the working
of the rifle-grenade, as it was thought that the rifle-grenade (empty)
might be used as a message carrier.

The course of instruction was somewhat as follows. In the first place
I gave a short lecture on the mechanism of the grenade and methods of
firing it. Then the party of ten was split into two squads and firing
practice took place. The men were trained to fire kneeling and lying,
behind cover and without, and also out of a deep fire-trench. I was
greatly assisted by Sergt. T. Matthewson, who was a really expert
bomber, and by my orderly--L.-C. Fairclough. This training took all
morning, and as far as I could judge the men were interested in the
course and did their best to learn the intricacies of this new weapon.
In the afternoon I was free to wander round and examine the
surrounding country. It was of considerable interest, for it was part
of the ground evacuated by the enemy when he retreated to the
Hindenburg Line. The trenches were magnificently built, and revetted
with wood or wattle-work, and provided with deep dugouts and concrete
machine-gun emplacements. The latter were not only wonderfully strong,
the forerunners of the German 'pill-box'--but sometimes wonderfully
decorated with coats of arms and mottoes.

Very little equipment was left behind, and many of the dugouts were
blown in before leaving. Some of the gun emplacements, too, were very
cleverly concealed. The guns were kept in shelters in a line of
reserve trenches and a set of dummy emplacements was dug out a little
distance away for the benefit of our aeroplane observers.

It was an education in military engineering and fortification to walk
round these wonderful defences. The wiring too was most ingeniou