III
OBSERVATION
It has been said in a previous chapter that the fire of any given battery is, in the majority of cases, directed by an officer in an observation post from whence he can see the target and the ground surrounding it. The general principles of this observation are as follows. The position of the battery and target are ascertained upon a map, and by means of it the range and direction of the target from the battery are obtained. A calculation based upon this information is made, and a certain elevation and direction given to the guns. A round is then fired, and the position of the point where it falls relative to the target noted by the observation officer, who gives a correction based upon the error. This correction is transmitted to the battery by methods depending on the distance between it and the observation post, but almost invariably by telephone, and applied to the guns. Another round is then fired, which is again observed and a fresh correction made as before. This process continues until the rounds are falling at or very close to the target. It sounds remarkably simple, but is in practice extremely difficult. To hit an unknown target with the expenditure of the minimum possible number of rounds requires considerable experience in observation, for the puff of a bursting shell lasts only for the fraction of a second, and is apt to look very small at a distance of more than a few hundred yards. Further, knowledge of the vagaries of each individual gun is required, and also a keen appreciation of the nature of the country round about the target. Observation of fire may be truly said to be an art, in that it comes naturally to some people, whilst others may spend a lifetime in its practice without ever becoming proficient.
The second part of an observation officer's duty, that of keeping a general watch on the ground spread out in front of him, is considerably easier, as it only requires a keen eye and a good memory. After a little practice, it is soon found that the apparent changeless calm of a deserted land is in the highest degree deceptive. Although they are utterly invisible, that land is thickly populated with hidden troops, whose object it is perpetually to turn every feature of it, natural and artificial, to the best possible use for attack or defence. The ruins of a barn stand some little way back from the enemy's line, roofless and abandoned. The telescope shows it to have some part of its walls yet standing, and within them a ladder. Now ladders are precious things in a strip of country where everything is made to serve a useful purpose. Examine the place daily and perhaps at dawn a single figure may be seen scurrying up the ladder, or perhaps its position may have altered slightly. For weeks, perhaps, one has noticed a dilapidated house, so broken down that through the shell-holes that breach the front wall one can see the horizon beyond. Yet one morning one of these shell-holes shows dark, or perhaps a new one has appeared higher up, although no battery has been seen to fire at it. A flock of starlings pours suddenly from the stump of what was once a church tower, and for a long time the birds circle in clamorous flight about it, seemingly afraid to re-enter their accustomed haunt. Hints, all of these, indicating that some use is being made of these places, either as observation stations or snipers' posts.
Even the innocent-looking surface of a weed-grown field is not above suspicion. The naked eye is suddenly drawn to it by what seems at first almost inspiration, but one becomes conscious as one watches of an indeterminable movement taking place on its surface. Mark the place very carefully and bring the telescope to bear upon it. The sense of movement resolves itself into the periodic sprinkling of brown earth thrown up as by an industrious mole. These are spadefuls of earth, showing that a trench is being dug. Natural features themselves have a habit of changing their positions with the same disconcerting effect as that phenomenon had upon Macbeth. Of course, one is never lucky enough to catch them actually in motion, but a morning of surprises will often reveal the disappearance of a well-known hedge, or the sudden apparition of an orchard of full-grown trees in the middle of a ploughed field, or even a stately plantation of elms on what was formerly a pavé road. The hedge was removed to provide something with a field of fire, or to allow somebody to see a particular part of our line; the game is now to discover the whereabouts and nature of that something or somebody. The orchard and the elm trees were required as cover, probably for guns; the surest plan is to shell them and await developments. It may be possible to drive the detachments out into the open, when every weapon that can be brought to bear will sing its own particular song of triumph.
A certain redoubt was located by our aeroplanes, and its position indicated to us by the fact that it lay right in front of the seventh from the northern end of a row of trees such as occur at intervals along the side of most French Routes Nationales. For many days we used this mark, until it suddenly struck one of our observation officers that the trees looked somehow different to what they did when first he noticed them. Suspicion being thus aroused, further aeroplane reconnaissance was undertaken, when it was found that the third tree of the row now marked the position of the redoubt. The enemy, seeing that they had been "spotted" by the first aeroplane, had dug up the four trees at the northern end of the row and replanted them at the southern end, and must consequently have watched, with a delight not very difficult to imagine, our shells raising a little inferno of their own a couple of hundred yards away from them.
All this is a part of the great game of war that it is most difficult to learn in times of peace. "Pretending to look for something you know isn't there," as I have heard it described, is an occupation that palls upon the dullest mind. Well do I remember many years ago forming one of a class of young officers under instruction in the use of the "Observation of Fire Instrument," which consists of a telescope fearfully and wonderfully mounted on a gigantic tripod—it is now, in the language beloved of the text-books, "becoming obsolescent," may it soon be relegated to the limbo of forgotten things! Our instructor, a highly capable but choleric major (majors always were apt to be petulant, I thought, in those days), had spent the best part of a warm June morning explaining the use of the cumbrous toy, until the whole class were sick at heart. At last he sent one of our number some distance away with orders to observe and report upon some object in the distance out to sea, the while he discoursed to the remainder. The minutes slipped by, and no word came from the keeper of the lonely vigil. "Go and see what that dam! fool is up to, sergeant-major," said our instructor. Anon the sergeant-major returned, with a face as impassive as the metal of the instrument itself. "Well?" rapped out the major. "If you please, sir, Mr. Robinson is a-studying observation on the ladies' bathing-place!"
Observation, it may be repeated, is an art, but every art requires considerable training, if only in technique, before the artist can acquire perfect and instinctive expression. Where, as in the case of the art of the gunner, art leans for its support upon the strong arm of science, the probationary stage requires even more time and application on the part of the tyro. It has been said that it takes three years to teach an artillery officer the elements of his profession. It will doubtless be claimed as a triumph of foresight for our military administration that, although at the outbreak of war our heavy artillery matériel was, in equipment and numbers, such as would not inspire pride in a Central American Republic, we had a large reserve of highly-trained artillery officers and men languishing in the enforced sloth of our coast fortresses all over the world. Well it is for us that this was so, for this is a war of heavy artillery, and without these men to train, command and leaven the newly formed batteries that we were forced so hurriedly to raise, our artillery would never have attained its present admitted dominance. Splendid indeed is the new material; the artillery manage to secure officers of the higher and better educated classes, and men, thanks to rigidly-enforced physical standards, of the sturdier build; all ranks are full of the interest of their new profession, enthusiastic, keen to learn, absorbing in the sharp days of war knowledge that others required the leisurely weeks of peace to acquire. Still, may the country, in its just pride in the performances of these men, never forget the debt that it owes to that little band whose pay it loved to curtail and whose ambitions to discourage in the old forgotten years of peace!