Budworth's observers sent back word that some of our heavy guns were shelling a farm that he had instructed should not be shelled by his batteries.
Instantly he sent to the howitzer commander and asked him to "Please get off that farm."
"What's wrong with it?" asked the howitzer man. "It's in German hands, right enough."
"Of course it is," said Budworth. "But I've figured out that the Hun Artillery Commander would have his headquarters about there; very probably in that very farm. The old chap is peppering my batteries with shrapnel, which don't bother us, for we just get in our funk-holes and wait until it's all over, then run out and bang away. For that matter we don't even go in for it, if we are busy. If the old Boche chap who is running their guns should be killed by one of your big shells, and another German beggar, who decided to use high explosives on us, should take his place, we couldn't stay here long. Whatever you do, don't bother the old German gunner-chap. He is quite all right, from our standpoint, where he is at present."
Budworth's theory was proven sound by the fact that out of his three batteries of field guns he only lost eleven men and ten horses in a fortnight of fighting.
Standing in the Zonnebeke Road and looking toward Verlorenhoek, the shell-swept front line was plainly visible, a little more than half a mile away.
To reconstruct a fight on a two-and-a-half mile front such as the battle of May 13th, with official regimental reports to which to refer, would be sufficiently difficult. To piece it out while it was actually in progress was increasingly so.
I ran back and forth from our headquarters west of Ypres to the town of Potijze many times that day. By evening, when I left the Salient for the night, I had met with scores who had terrible tales to tell. The wounded made an unending stream westwards, and numbered many a familiar face.
Officers and men all declared the shell-fire was the heaviest they had seen. At no point in the line was the German shelling more fierce than on either side the Zonnebeke Road, near Verlorenhoek. The Queen's Bays were to the north of it, the 5th D.G.'s on their left. On the south of the road were the 1st Life Guards, and on their right the 2nd Life Guards, then the Leicestershire Yeomanry.