The hostile artillery fire, however, was terrible; not one inch of the wood but was torn and swept by high explosive shell, rent by shrapnel and rendered completely uninhabitable to any human being. At 6 P.M. the effect of this shell-storm came to a head, and for half an hour our batteries put down a heavy barrage along the northern edge of the wood, under cover of which the infantry retired to the southern half; it was no hostile counter-attack which thus drove them back—it was the sheer weight and force of the thousands of shells which, from all around, the enemy poured into the wood, and which smashed and shattered the unfortunate troops who were trying to hold what they had so gallantly won. At first the report came through that the whole of the wood had been evacuated and that the infantry were back in their original line in front of Bazentin, but this was proved to be erroneous, and the southern half of High Wood at any rate was retained in our grasp. At 9.30 P.M. the enemy opened a vicious gas shell barrage on the ridge in front of D/162 and on the batteries of the 167th Brigade, and at 11 P.M. followed this up by a counter-attack on the scene of the morning's fight. After three hours' firing the situation became quieter, and in the morning the position on the whole had not changed since dusk the previous evening.
For the next two days there ensued another period of comparative inactivity as far as infantry assaults were concerned. Both sides paused, as it were, to draw breath, but not for one moment did this cause a lull in artillery activity. The enemy, as well as our own Higher Command, was beginning to realise more and more the immense importance of counter-battery work, and these intervals between the attacks were, from the gunners' point of view, almost more to be feared than the attacks themselves. Morning, noon and night first one battery and then another would be subjected to a sudden burst of intense fire, while at other times a ponderous and deliberate bombardment of a fixed area in which a number of batteries were in position would be carried out—a system which had the most harassing effect upon the men, and to the success of which an ever-lengthening casualty list of guns and gunners bore eloquent testimony. July 21st was a typical day of this sort; starting at 10 A.M., a prolonged and widespread enemy bombardment was carried out during the whole day with 4·2 in. and 5·9 in. upon the valley running from Longueval to Montauban, and its adjacent slopes. The 18-pdr. batteries of the 162nd Brigade, together with the headquarters of the brigade itself, came heavily under fire, and a long casualty list was only averted by the use of the shelter trenches which by this time had been dug in all the battery positions. While this was in progress the 167th Brigade, farther to the left, was also undergoing a severe bombardment by 5·9 in. howitzers. Direct hits were obtained upon B/167 (Major Stewart), and in all the batteries, including D/162 which lay just behind the 167th Brigade, a number of casualties were sustained. Murderous fire was, at the same time, opened upon Caterpillar Valley, from the fork between Mametz and Caterpillar Woods down the entire length of the valley nearly to Mametz village itself, and at times during the day it was almost impossible to see a single battery position from which the smoke, flame and dust of bursting shells were not flying. Nothing could be done; it was a case of "wait and see"—the hardest test to which troops can be put—and to the eternal credit of the men it may be said that they waited on this, as on all other similar occasions, with quiet philosophy and with a stoicism which it would be hard to equal.
Meanwhile, what of our friends the infantry? On the morning of the 21st the hard-pressed 33rd Division was withdrawn from the line and was succeeded by the infantry of the 51st Division (153rd, 154th, and 155th infantry brigades). At the same time the zones of the 33rd Divisional batteries side-slipped to the right and, coming under the 51st Divisional Artillery for tactical purposes, covered the line to the right (i.e. east) of High Wood. Day firing was carried out upon Switch Trench, the new zones were registered and night firing, consisting of 500 18-pdr. and 75 4·5 in. howitzer rounds per brigade, was directed upon the hollows in rear of and approaches to the divisional zone. At 10.15 P.M. Caterpillar Wood and the neighbouring localities were heavily bombarded by gas shell and high explosive, and all communications of the 167th Brigade were cut; lamp signalling was immediately taken up, however, and proved itself entirely reliable as a means of communication, despite the gun flashes all around and in the sky.
The morning of July 22nd was devoted to further registration and short bombardments. From 3.0 A.M. until 3.30 a general bombardment of Switch Trench was ordered at the rate of 2 rounds per minute from the 18-pdrs. and one round per minute from the howitzers, totalling upwards of three thousand rounds fired by the fifteen batteries. At the end of the bombardment the 162nd Brigade stood by to carry out a registration by aeroplane, but no machine ever appeared and soon afterwards normal firing for the day was continued, D/162 shortly after one o'clock carrying out a destructive shoot on some machine guns and dug-outs to the west of High Wood which were, by their enfilade fire, holding up the whole situation and preventing an advance in the neighbourhood. Their destruction was essential, for an advance had been ordered for the following day, and at 7 P.M. in the evening the whole of the front burst into flame in preliminary bombardment for the assault. At the rate of 80 rounds per battery per hour the guns of the XIII., XV. and III. Corps bombarded the positions which troops of the 5th (on the right), 51st and 19th (on the left) divisions were to attack next day, the objective of the 51st division, which was covered by the guns of the 33rd Divisional Artillery, being the N.E. and N.W. edges of High Wood, together with a portion of Switch Trench running E. and W. therefrom.
"Zero" was 1.30 A.M. on July 23rd, and seven minutes previous to that hour the fire of the batteries was increased to intense rate. At half-past one to the second the infantry went over the top, and the batteries searched back by short lifts to a line 200 yards beyond the objective. For half an hour was this searching fire continued, and at two o'clock the batteries slowed down and set up a protective barrage 200 yards beyond the late German trench, under cover of which it was hoped the infantry would be able to consolidate their position. Such, however, was not the case. Although in places the attacking troops had gained their objectives, at many points our men had been held up by machine gun fire and, by their failure to advance, had compelled their more successful comrades to retire to their starting place. All along the line the assault failed, and when at 5 A.M. the enemy counter-attacked fiercely the guns shortened their range and bombarded Switch Trench once more. By 8.30 A.M. all was quiet again, the attack was over—and our infantry were back holding the same line from which they had advanced earlier in the morning.
From July 23rd-27th there ensued another of those lulls which have already been described; for the moment our advance was checked and held up while the Higher Command appeared to be seeking a solution to the very determined and successful opposition which the enemy showed to our troops in this sector, and during the interval which elapsed the usual harassing was carried out night and day by the now rapidly wearying batteries. Two thousand rounds by day and 700 by night were poured on to the German defences by each brigade, and in return the German batteries gave no peace to our guns, daily subjecting the area in which the batteries were located to a vicious and effective bombardment. Mametz and Caterpillar Woods, the valleys running from Caterpillar Wood to Bazentin on the one hand and Montauban on the other were daily ploughed from end to end by shells varying in calibre from 77 mm. to 12 in., while the valley running from Longueval to Montauban, together with the ridge to the west thereof, became a veritable death trap. It was of no use seeking to move the battery positions; one place was as bad as another, and there was nothing to do but to sit tight and trust that, before our batteries were completely wiped out, a further advance might check the ever-increasing storm of German shells.
There was another, and a very serious, difficulty to be faced at this time also; owing to the enormous strain placed upon the guns by the incessant day and night firing, the running-out springs began to give way and to fail, and great difficulty was found in obtaining new ones. Previous to the war almost all these springs had come from Germany, and, with this source of supply cut off, British manufacturers at home had found it impossible as yet so to organise their output as to meet the ever-increasing and insistent demands from the various theatres of war. As an instance of the seriousness of this trouble it may be mentioned that on July 26th only five guns of the 162nd Brigade were in action, the remainder having no serviceable springs left, whilst of these five two had to be pushed up by hand after the firing of each round. Such a state of affairs, which cut down the volume of fire of the brigade by over one half, was bound to reflect seriously upon the preliminary bombardments and barrages in any attack, nor was the trouble confined to the 162nd Brigade alone.
On July 24th the 33rd Divisional Artillery ceased to work in contact with the infantry, and was put under direct orders of the XV. Corps to carry out counter-battery work on the whole Corps front, searching hostile battery positions, hollows and approaches, and in addition answering any S.O.S. call when required upon all portions of the Corps front. Such duties naturally incurred still more firing and work; two batteries (A and B) of the 162nd Brigade were unable to get sufficient right switch to cover the now wider front, and were forced to move further up the slope, new O.P.'s in front of Longueval had to be reconnoitred and linked up with the batteries by telephone, while the new zone which stretched from the south of Martinpuich to Delville Wood had to be registered before dusk. Hardly had this been done than, at 8.30 P.M., a report was received that the enemy were leaving their trenches between High Wood and Delville Wood, and the batteries immediately opened a rapid rate of fire to break up the expected counter-attack which, surely enough, was launched at 8.45 P.M. under a very heavy barrage. Both sides bombarded with the utmost fury, and ultimately the counter-attack melted under our fire, but not till midnight were the tired batteries able to report "all quiet," and even then night firing was carried on in the usual way. The 51st Divisional Artillery was at this time responsible for the direct support of the infantry, and it was by way of co-operation that this bombardment of the hostile trenches was carried out.
It has been previously stated that from the 23rd to the 27th a lull occurred in the infantry operations. This, broadly speaking, is a fact, but it must not be supposed that during that time our front line troops were entirely inactive. Bit by bit each day they had been bombing their way through Longueval, sometimes without artillery support, sometimes assisted by the guns, as on the 26th when for one hour from dawn the guns poured shells into the northern end of the village. It was slow work, this gradual penetration, but by the evening of the 26th a very appreciable advance had been made, and, when orders were received at 4 P.M. that a general assault on Delville Wood and the orchards north of Longueval would take place next day (27th), our troops were in a far more favourable position for "taking off" than they had been a week earlier.
The assault was delivered at 7.10 A.M. on the morning of Thursday, the 27th, and was preceded by an artillery bombardment beginning at 5.30 A.M. For this bombardment 1,500 18-pdr. and 400 4·5 in. howitzer rounds were fired by each brigade, and were directed mainly upon the trenches to be assaulted and the back areas thereof. To the 5th Division was entrusted the capture of the objectives on the front directly under the guns of the 33rd Divisional Artillery, and the line of this ran from the north-west edge of Delville Wood through the enclosures 150 yards north of Longueval village, along the sunken road running west from these enclosures to the High Wood-Longueval road. The chief interest of the attack, however, lay in the fact that the creeping barrage, as already practised in the opening days of the Somme battle, was now being more and more carefully elaborated. It had not yet reached that high stage of perfection which, in the offensives of Arras and Passchendaele in 1917, enabled the gunners to provide what was almost an ever-moving curtain of fire advancing yard by yard in front of the infantry, but it did even now remain upon one point until the very last moment and then lift off, but scarcely creep, to the next point to be attacked while the infantry stormed the first.