I think that all realised the impossibility of reducing the number of guns in front of the enemy, and one scarcely ever heard a word of grumbling, but it is well that the fact should be placed on record that the artillery practically never got a rest. Their work was not perhaps so much in the public eye as that of their gallant comrades in the infantry, nor did they experience as a rule the same extremes of danger, but it should be remembered that, while the latter were periodically withdrawn from the danger zone after about eight days in the trenches to rest billets miles behind the firing line, the men behind the guns endured the dirt and discomfort of the trenches for months at a time, were never safe day or night from hostile shell fire, and were constantly hard at work. Only perhaps those who have actually served in a battery in war-time can realise the amount of hard work and nerve strain involved in keeping up even the normal programme of day and night firing, the map readings and calculations to be worked out by the officers in a damp dug-out by the light of a guttering candle, the long spells of duty to be endured by the weak gun detachments always under strength through sickness and casualties, the heart-breaking and back-breaking labours of keeping up the ammunition supply, and with it all the constant sense of an ever-brooding danger. That all sorts and conditions of men should have endured this kind of existence for several years, cheerfully and without a murmur, seems to me a more wonderful phenomenon than even the most dramatic act of individual gallantry.
The following honours were announced on the 30th May:—
Major G. Fleming, Legion of Honour.
Major G. A. Swain, Croix de Guerre.
Chapter II
JUNE TO OCTOBER, 1917. TRENCH WARFARE
"The thundering line of battle stands,
And in the air Death moans and sings."
Julian Grenfell.
June 1917.
In the next few weeks trench warfare pursued its monotonous course—long periods, as it has been aptly said, of unutterable boredom varied by moments of inexpressible terror—but June was, on the whole, the quietest month the Division had in France. On the 15th the Divisional Headquarters at Achiet-le-Grand was shelled by a 15-inch gun firing from a range of about 20 miles. Two or three shells burst within 50 yards of our mess, but the only casualties were one of my clerks and my Reconnaissance Officer Anderson's servant, both slightly wounded. On the 19th orders came for the Division to go into the line again, relieving the 20th Division on the front opposite Riencourt and Quéant, a side slip of a mile or two to the right of our old position. The artillery were all in their new positions by the 22nd, on which date I reassumed command, moving my headquarters to the Monument Camp on the Sapignies-Bapaume road.