No one can deny that Ernst was a gallant fellow, lying out as he did between the lines day after day. Whether he was killed or not who can say, but I should think the odds are that some bullets of the volley found their billet. At any rate, sniping from that quarter ceased.

I have now given enough description of the work and training which was going on at that time in the Third Army in the line. The aim and end of all this work was the formation of sniping sections in each battalion, consisting of sixteen privates with two N.C.O.’s under an officer.

I had realized that my whole problem turned upon the officer. If I could succeed in obtaining fifteen or twenty officers who would be simply fanatics in their work, it was perfectly clear that the sniping movement would spread like wildfire throughout the Army. Already we had got together an immense amount of detail concerning the German sniping organization, and had begun not only to challenge his superiority, but also to enforce our own. It is wonderful what can be done in a single week by sixteen accurate shots along the length of line held by a battalion. You must understand also that the success of the German sniping rested largely upon the deeds of certain crack snipers, who thoroughly understood their work, and who each one of them caused us heavy casualties. The first work to be done in the trenches was the organized annihilation of these skilled German snipers, and I think this was the easier in that they had it their own way for so long.

As time went on, the reports from the brigades were very good; one Brigadier[C] even going so far as to wire me: “Only one Hun sniper left on my front. Can you lend me your elephant rifle?” In this particular brigade the Brigadier informed me that he had not lost a man through enemy sniping in four months.

[C] Later Major-Gen. Sir Guy Bainbridge, K.C.B.

Sniping, I think, or let us say the sniping campaign, may be divided into four parts. During the first, the Germans had the mastery. During the second, our first aim was to kill off the more dangerous German snipers and to train our own to become more formidable. The third was when the Germans had fairly gone to ground and would no longer give us a chance. The idea now was to invent various ways in which to induce them to give a target, and the final period came at a much later date, when great battles were being fought, and the work of sniping was beginning to merge into that of scouting, and snipers were being trained in great numbers to deal with the new situations that were arising every day as the Germans altered their tactical plans of defence.

CHAPTER III
EARLY DAYS WITH THE 11TH CORPS AND FIRST ARMY

Towards the end of 1915 my services were again borrowed by the First Army, this time to take a class of Sniping and Intelligence officers through the course of sniping and observation which was already in operation in the Third Army, and also to lecture to a G.H.Q. Intelligence Class on the Observation and Intelligence side of sniping—a big subject.

I went up the long road through Doullens, Frévent and St. Pol, which I had traversed so many times from the days when it was impassable with French soldiers before the Battle of Loos to the quieter times which had now dawned. During the war one had very few relaxations of any kind. Shooting was forbidden, games were difficult for the unattached Ishmaelite to obtain, and often for long periods it was impossible to get any change of thought. The long drives to all parts of the line held by the British Army, which were part of my work, were, therefore, exceedingly pleasant by contrast. Wherever there was a battle I used to try and get to it at the earliest possible moment, in order to have the opportunity of examining the German trenches, for as time went on sniping became more and more scientific, and the Germans were always starting some new method which had to be countered. One of the most important points was to obtain specimens of each issue of their steel plates, in order to experiment on them with all kinds of bullets.

But to return to the First Army Class. We were allotted a curious range on the outskirts of the town of Bethune, then a thriving community, which had been hardly shelled at all, although well within the battle area. Our rifle-firing took place under cover, and each target appeared through a series of holes cut in a number of brick walls which crossed the range at right angles. The noise in the room of the cottage which formed the 200-yards firing-point was deafening, but as the weather was both wet and cold head-cover had its advantages.