s and
often carefully concealed in the hedges or ditches. Inside the gun
shelters, you found that the gun was fixed on a central pivot and
worked round a wooden platform with every degree carefully marked.
Whilst on the walls stood a painted board with every barrage line and
target carefully worked out, and the range and code call set out as
well. The O.P. was sometimes in a high tree, with the ladders to get
up and the telephone wires still remaining. It had been a quiet part
of the line, and consequently the patient industry of the German had
had full scope.

The 50th Division began to take over the line west of Cherisy and Vis
about the middle of June; but only two brigades were in the front
trenches together, and it was our turn to remain behind. On June 18
the Brigade moved from Monchy-au-Bois to Boisleux-au-Mont, where
B.H.Q. were in a canvas camp. From June 20 to 23 I continued the
rifle-grenade training. The recruit training was now practically over
and these days were given to showing the handling of a rifle-grenade
section in open warfare. Forty-one officers, nine N.C.O.'s and
sixty-two men took part in these schemes. I had also two or three
rather important court-martial cases to attend to during the evenings.

Before going back into the line I was given nine men to act as Brigade
observers; the 6th N.F. sent L.-C. Chappell and Ptes. Wright and Hume;
the 7th N.F. Ptes. Fail and Ewart; the 4th N.F. Pte. Brook and
another; the 5th N.F. L.-C. Roxburgh, who had once been in the 7th
N.F. and Pte. Garnett. Pte. Brook I found came from Meltham, only
seven or eight miles from my own home. He was a typical lad from these
parts, with the bright red face and the speech that I knew so well.
Naturally I took an interest in him and I was sorry when he left us
about the end of November 1917. He has come through the war safely, I
am glad to say. Ptes. Fail and Ewart were destined to act as my
observers both with this brigade and in the 42nd Division in 1918. And
I cannot speak too highly of the excellent work done by Pte. Fail.
Owing to exceptional eyesight he was a first-class counter-battery
observer, and later on his skill with the pencil did the Germans a lot
of damage. On this front he spotted the flash of a 4-inch gun battery
that used to shell B.H.Q., with the result that the heavy gunners
fired on this battery and silenced it completely.

I had also the services of L.-C. J. Cowen and Pte. J. King (both 7th
N.F.)