The state of the ground was now becoming appalling, and, with two successive attacks rendered failures by the mud, a lull set in on this part of the front—a lull during which each of the batteries in turn managed to seize a few days' rest at the wagon-lines. The news that these short rests were to be granted was received with mixed feelings; clearly, if it was thought necessary to send each battery in turn for a short spell at the wagon-lines, the brigades were not destined to move right out of the line yet awhile, but on the other hand this new plan did assure a short interruption of the nerve-racking conditions of the gun line, and for this reason at any rate it was welcome. On October 13th Lieut.-Colonel Butler and Lieut.-Colonel Skinner handed over the control of their groups to the commanding officers of the 27th and 103rd Brigades respectively and, accompanied by the personnel of one battery from each brigade (A/156 and D/162), moved out to the wagon-lines. On the 17th these two batteries moved back into action again after a four-day rest, and on the 18th three more batteries moved out. Each battery in turn had four days at the wagon-lines of comparative rest and quiet, and then moved up into action again, and by the 24th all the batteries except C/162 were back in the line once more, slightly refreshed, slightly reorganised, but still suffering greatly from an almost complete lack of trained men. C/162 (Major Hill) had been left at the wagon-lines owing to the fact that the severe casualties sustained by the battery just prior to moving out had rendered it unfit to go back into action again.

On October 24th 162nd Brigade Headquarters moved back into the line also, and took over command of "C" Group at Bedford House under the 7th Divisional Artillery. This group consisted of "A" and D/162, "B" and C/156, and also of the 46th, 47th and 112th Australian batteries. The front covered by the group and held by the infantry of the 7th Division was, at the same time, changed from north of Gheluvelt to just south of it, as the batteries could reach this new zone at a slightly shorter range; with the new front allotted and registered, orders were received for this group and also for the 156th Brigade to cover an attack by the 7th Division to be launched on the 21st. It seemed madness for any such attack to be contemplated, for the weather had been wet and stormy since October 9th and the ground was even more impassable, even more treacherous than it had been earlier in the month. The only hope of salvation for the infantry lay in the putting down by the batteries of such a curtain of fire as would completely cover the assaulting troops while they waded through the mud, and this the batteries now prepared to do. D/162 (Major Lee), its position at Maple Copse being almost completely untenable owing to the searching fire which the enemy continually directed upon it, moved eight hundred yards northwards on the 24th to a position just west of Zouave Wood. D/156 (Major Barstow) moved forward to the middle of what had been Sanctuary Wood, dropping the trails just off the road under the shelter of the slopes in the western half of the wood, and at dawn on Friday, the 26th, all batteries manned their guns to support this, as it seemed to them, desperate venture.

The actual front of the attack by the 7th Division, which the guns of the 33rd Divisional Artillery were to cover, included Gheluvelt and the ground for six hundred yards north and south of it, and the assault was supported by one hundred and forty-four 18-pdrs., forty-eight 4·5 in. howitzers, thirty-two six-inch and twenty heavier howitzers. Two objectives were fixed, the first including the whole of Gheluvelt except the extreme eastern outskirts and running down south-west to Berry Cottages, while the final objective reached from the lake north-west of Gheluvelt down to Reigate farm, running one hundred yards east of Gheluvelt Village, the object of the operation being to capture Gheluvelt and some ground along the Zandvoorde Spur, and so to secure the hold on Tower Hamlets. "C" Group covered the 20th Infantry Brigade on the left, while "A" and D/156 with B/162 were acting under the orders of Lieut.-Colonel Marriott, commanding "B" Group, and covered the 91st Infantry Brigade on the right.

At 5.40 A.M. the barrage began, the nearest fringe of it dropping one hundred and fifty yards in front of the infantry as they formed up for the attack. There it remained for six minutes, and then started gradually to creep forward at the rate of twelve yards per minute; after traversing two hundred yards at this pace the speed of advance was slackened down to ten yards per minute for another two hundred yards, and then, at a uniform pace of seven yards per minute, it moved on to the protective line beyond the first objective. Here it remained from 7.4 A.M. until 7.50 A.M. to give the infantry time to reorganise and prepare for the next attack; at 7.50 A.M. it moved forward again, after four minutes' intense fire to warn the assaulting troops that the time to advance had come, and so forward at the same slow rate to the protective line beyond the final objective; this it reached at 8.46 A.M. and there remained as a protective barrage to allow the infantry to consolidate the ground won.

Thus moved the barrage, but what of the infantry who should have been close behind it? Already attention has been called to the bog-like nature of the ground across which they were to attack, and, even had it not, the extraordinarily slow rate of the barrage—twelve yards per minute—should be sufficient evidence of the opinion formed by the Higher Command of the sort of conditions with which the infantry would have to contend. As events turned out it was this very mud which denied success to our troops. Enemy artillery fire on the forward system had been light up till zero, and not for seven minutes after our barrage dropped did the enemy put down any sort of reply with his guns. The cause of the infantry's undoing was the machine-guns which played upon them and swept them while they struggled helplessly in the mud—machine-guns safely ensconced in concrete pill-boxes while our men were in the mud up to their waists. By twenty minutes to eight the 91st Brigade was held up at Lewis House and forced back to its original line; at half-past eight elements of the 20th Brigade had reached Gheluvelt, but were stopped by the enemy pill-boxes and ultimately had to come back. Throughout the morning the gunners maintained a protective barrage beyond the infantry to try and assist them in their now almost hopeless task, but at 2.35 P.M. the barrage was called off and the battle ceased.

All along the line of the 7th Division, and further to the right, the assaulting troops had been beaten back to their original positions and in some cases even west thereof. Machine-gun fire from Lewis House and Berry Cottages had stopped the 91st Infantry Brigade, while the men of the 20th Brigade had been beaten by the mud itself. They had fought their way right through to Gheluvelt but, on reaching it, had been unable to ward off counter-attacks as they were up to their waists in mud and every rifle was clogged and smothered with the same substance. A message sent that afternoon to headquarters urged that the advanced battalions should instantly be relieved "owing to heavy officer casualties, disorganisation and the condition of the rifles," and that sentence in itself very aptly summed up the conditions. Disorganisation there had been, and very considerable at that, but such was the condition of the ground that nothing else could have been expected. Thus the day ended in failure on this particular portion of the front; under normal circumstances, and with anything like firm ground over which to attack, success might well have been achieved, but the weather conditions stepped in and tilted the balance in favour of the enemy with overwhelming effect.

This was the last infantry operation in which the 33rd Divisional Artillery took part. On October 28th "A" and C/156 moved out to the wagon-lines; three days later they were followed by D/156, which had been very heavily gas shelled on the night of the 29th/30th. B/156 was relieved on November 2nd, and next day the whole of the 162nd Brigade withdrew from the line and marched back to Dickebusch, this time with the promise before them of a real period of rest in the back areas.

The losses of the batteries in this autumn fighting had been appalling. For fifty-one days they had been in continuous action under the worst of conditions, covering attack after attack and undergoing interminable shell fire from enemy guns of every calibre. The smallest possible personnel was kept at each position, and seldom did the total strength at the gun line of any one battery exceed thirty-six officers and men. Yet the battle casualties of the 162nd Brigade numbered three hundred and fifteen for this period, while those of the 156th Brigade were almost as great. A/156, a six-gun battery, had twenty-six guns disabled during the time it was in the line, while D/162, which had suffered the loss of one hundred and six casualties including six officers, had had nineteen guns put out of action by the enemy. The batteries had, in fact, been practically wiped out, and it was a mere remnant of their former selves which reached the wagon-lines. They had marched up to the Salient a fine fighting weapon, the outcome of many months' training and experience, hardened and versed in all the methods of war. They came away from that murderous spot smashed, depleted, worn out, their work accomplished but at a tremendous cost. Ypres was no longer to them a legendary spot, but a plain, ghastly reality, a grim and deadly place where the batteries learnt, as they had never learnt before, the full horror of war. In trench fighting it is the infantry who look more closely into the depths of Hell than do any other branches of the Service; but at Ypres the field guns share this deadly privilege, and the price of it is high, higher than can be bought with anything save human life itself. The 33rd Divisional Artillery had shared that privilege, had paid that price, and the account thereof may be seen to-day in the cemeteries which cluster round Reninghelst, Dickebusch and La Clytte, in the nameless graves lying amid the shell holes of Maple Copse, Sanctuary Wood and Armagh Wood.

CHAPTER IX.
WINTER IN THE SALIENT.
(DECEMBER 1917—MARCH 1918.)

After the tremendous fighting of the autumn offensive at Ypres and the smashing casualties which were suffered therein by the batteries, a full month in the rest area was required to bring the 33rd Divisional Artillery back to anything like its normal pitch of efficiency once more. Every detachment in every battery had to be reorganised and built up on the foundation of the few remaining gunners who had survived the two months' battle; raw recruits from England needed instruction and drilling, gaps in the non-commissioned ranks awaited filling, newly-joined officers were watched and tested. From highest to lowest the personnel of the two brigades were busily engaged in the tremendous work of smartening up and training, of teaching and of learning, of overhauling equipment and of filling up stores, of removing all traces of the scorching fires through which the batteries had recently passed. By November 3rd both brigades had completed the withdrawal to the wagon-lines at Dickebusch; on the 4th the 156th Brigade marched to the training area around La Nieppe, to be followed the next day by the 162nd Brigade which moved into billets in Bavinchove, Zuytpanne and Trois Rois, all in the neighbourhood of Cassel. Here for a week they remained, at first resting and refitting, then beginning the more elementary forms of training and gradually bringing the batteries back to something approaching a state of efficiency once more.