After the first rush the enemy advance slowed down and ultimately stopped, there being no further attack on the evening of the 16th nor on the night of the 16th/17th. Lieut. Bruce and Lieut. McDonald of the 156th Brigade went forward to Byron Farm and got good information regarding the position of the infantry, and during the whole of the night the batteries kept up a slow harassing fire upon all likely places where the enemy might concentrate for a further assault. 162nd Brigade Headquarters, which had been set up in the ruins of a small cottage a short distance in front of the new positions occupied by the batteries, was heavily shelled, although hitherto the spot had been more or less immune; after losing the wireless operator and several men, together with a great deal of stores destroyed, it moved out and was established at dawn with D/162.
Thursday, April 17th, brought with it a heavy enemy bombardment of all the battery positions. The 162nd Brigade, as a result of its retirement on the previous day, lay east of the Millekruisse-Hallebast road, between the road and Kemmel-Beek; Major Cory's battery (B/162) was on the left, nearest Hallebast Corner, with C/162 (Major Body) next on the right. A/162 (Major Fetherston) lay further to the right still, and then came Major Lee's guns (D/162) on the Millekruisse-Kemmel road. The 156th Brigade was still hanging on to the original positions held prior to the enemy attack on the previous day, but the flashes of the more forward batteries must have been clearly visible to the enemy on Wytschaete Ridge, and the guns came in for a heavy gruelling. This did not prevent them, however, from giving the utmost support to a counter-attack launched by our infantry upon Wytschaete at 7.30 P.M., in which the guns of the 162nd Brigade also took a large share. The counter-attack was unsuccessful, and, with the enemy still on Wytschaete Ridge, the necessity of a withdrawal of a portion of the 156th Brigade to a more covered position became apparent. Next day (April 18th) a reconnaissance was carried out and positions were chosen some one thousand yards further west, behind the road known as Cheapside which ran parallel with and about eleven hundred yards west of the Kemmel-Vierstraat road. On the 19th these positions were occupied by two batteries and the guns were registered from just in front, the whole Brigade except for Major Carrell's battery (A/156) being now clustered around Lieut.-Colonel Butler's headquarters in a line five hundred yards in length. A/156 lay further to the north-east, little more than a quarter of a mile from Ridge Wood.
From April 17th until the 25th the enemy did not make any considerable advance, and, although the batteries were daily shelled, a fair amount of opportunity offered itself for strengthening the gun line. A certain readjusting of positions also took place about this time. D/162 sent forward a section under Lieut. Bennet and Lieut. Garrod to a position two hundred yards south of Siege Farm, near the old position which had been held prior to the loss of the Wytschaete Ridge, and from which some excellent harassing fire was carried out. On the 22nd Major Studd (B/156), with only four serviceable guns left, moved two of them some three hundred yards further south on the Kemmel-Ridge Wood road, and to this latter position was added on the 23rd a third gun, received that morning from the I.O.M. On April 24th A/156, who had been very heavily shelled on the previous day, moved two guns to a position three hundred yards north of Siege Farm; the remainder were to have moved thither on the morning of the 25th, but the events of that day, as will presently be shown, put an end to any such ideas. About the 23rd also Major Jones (D/156) put one 4·5 in. howitzer two hundred yards to the north of the A/156 "Siege Farm" section. Thus the batteries were more split up, each brigade having a main line of guns with detached sections thrown out slightly in front, from which latter the majority of the firing was done.
Before the further operations on this front are described a word must here be spoken of the battery wagon-lines. As a rule the wagon-lines were looked upon as comparatively safe—a "cushy" job for those whose lot it was to live there—but the wagon-lines during the German advance were far from restful. True, they did not suffer the dense barrages which the gun line had to face; but they were constantly shelled by high-velocity guns at long range, a most disconcerting performance which meant that day and night, at odd intervals, a shell would crash into the crowded horse-lines or work havoc amongst the men's bivouacs, and even occasional shells are terribly upsetting when they burst amongst a mass of horses. In addition, enemy aeroplanes came nightly and scattered bombs along the length and breadth of the lines, while daily the weary drivers and teams had to make their way up to the batteries with ammunition, usually being shelled all along the road. The consequent strain upon horses and men may well be imagined.
Throughout this period the wagon-lines were kept in two portions—a forward wagon-line, in which were kept the gun teams and such wagons as were necessary to the batteries in a move of any emergency, and rear wagon-lines where lived the main body of drivers and teams. From April 12th until the loss of Kemmel on April 25th the forward wagon-lines of both brigades were situated between Hallebast Corner and Vierstraat, the rear wagon-lines of the 156th Brigade being in the Reninghelst-Ouderdom area, while those of the 162nd Brigade lay at first at Canada Corner, north of Locre, moving on the 17th to the area between Reninghelst and Busseboom. There they were all kept continually moving, sometimes in Reninghelst, sometimes nearer Busseboom, every spot they inhabited being shelled by the enemy and, after a very short period, rendered uninhabitable. In both rear and advanced wagon-lines the casualties amongst horses and men mounted rapidly, but it is safe to say that the "emergency" teams at Hallebast Corner had far the worst time.
To return to the tactical situation, however. On April 19th both brigades had been put under the command of the C.R.A. 9th Division, but on the 22nd the French 28th Division came up into the line and the French Artillery Commander took over control of the 162nd Brigade. Headquarters of the latter moved over to Scherpenberg to be near the French commander, but the distance from there to the batteries was too great for any efficient control to be carried on, and permission was obtained by Lieut.-Colonel Skinner to move his headquarters back to Millekruisse so as to be near the batteries, and also near the commander of a "groupe" of French artillery which had just come up and lay in action to the east of and near the village. Lieut. Norton (C/162), who could speak French fluently, was left as liaison officer with the "C.R.A." of the French division.
The disposition of the two brigades on April 24th, therefore, was as follows. The batteries of the 156th were grouped together about 1,800 yards due north of Kemmel, with an advanced section of 18-pdrs. (A/156) and one advanced 4·5 in. howitzer (D/156) near Siege Farm and about 600 yards in front of the main line of guns. Lieut.-Colonel Butler's headquarters were right amongst his guns, between "C" and B/156, but the remaining two sections of A/156 were some 1,200 yards to the north-east and were so far away that, when the battle began on April 25th, it was found impossible to exercise command over them.
The 162nd Brigade also lay together between the Millekruisse-Hallebast road and the Kemmel-Beek, and therefore slightly in rear of the 156th Brigade. Lieut.-Colonel Skinner's headquarters were in Millekruisse, and in this case one advanced section of 4·5 in. howitzers (D/162) was thrown forward in a position just west of Rossignol Wood.
As far as communications were concerned, a party of scouts was kept on the top of Mount Kemmel in visual signalling with the guns, while O.P.'s were manned at Desinet Farm, at Vierstraat Cross-roads and elsewhere, whence good observation of Wytschaete Valley and Wood and all the country to Spanbroekmolen was obtainable; these O.P.'s were also in visual communication with the guns, but the fog and smoke during the battle of the 25th rendered all their work impossible. Each brigade had, in addition, a liaison officer with the infantry battalion in the line, and therefore the system of communication between infantry and artillery, and the observation kept upon the enemy by the guns, was as good as could be hoped for. Buried cables, however, were scarce, and it needed but a few well-placed shells to cut off all connection of this kind.
April 24th was an unusually quiet day, though prior to this date the enemy counter-batteries had been very active, each of our batteries being carefully and accurately registered. This may have been done by sound-rangers, but stringent precautions to avoid being located by them were taken, and the universal opinion, which was reported by Colonel Butler to Corps Headquarters, was that the location of the batteries was being carried out by expert observers in the German balloons. These had come very close to the line and numbers of them were constantly in the air, entirely unmolested either by the Flying Corps or by the R.G.A. April 24th, therefore, gave little hint of what was coming, unless the exceptional activity of the German anti-aircraft guns were taken as a sign. The quietness, however, was soon to be broken; at 1.0 A.M. on Friday the 25th a few of the batteries were warned that an enemy attack might be expected at dawn, but the remainder were completely unaware that any untoward events were impending until suddenly, at 2.0 A.M., there descended upon them with a roar and a crash the most appalling barrage that they had ever yet undergone.