Item I. The Germans were fortifying a certain point on a certain farm.  We were going to put some “heavy stuff” in there and some “light stuff,” too.  The burst of our shells could be located in relation to a certain tree.

Item II.  Our planes thought that the Germans had a wireless station in a certain building.  “Heavy stuff” exclusively for this.  No enemy’s wireless station ought to be enjoying serene summer weather without interruption; and no German working-party ought to be allowed to build redoubts within range of our guns without a break in the monotony of their drudgery.

Six lyddites were the order for the wireless station; six high explosives which burst on contact and make a hole in the earth large enough for a grave for the Kaiser and all his field marshals.  Frequently, not only the number of shells to be fired, but also the intervals between them is given by the artillery commander, as part of his plan in his understanding of the object to be accomplished; and it is quite clear that the system is the same with the Germans.

One side no sooner develops an idea than the other adopts it.  By effect of the enemy’s shells you judge what the effect of yours must be.  Months of experience have done away with all theories and practice has become much the same by either adversary.  For example, let a German or a British airman be winged by anti-aircraft gun-fire and the guns instantly loosen up on the point over his own lines, if he regains them, where he is seen to fall.  All the soldiers in the neighbourhood are expected to run to his assistance; and, at any rate, you may get a trained aviator, whose life is a valuable asset on one side of the ledger and whose death an asset on the other.  There is no sentiment left in war, you see.  It is all killing and avoiding being killed.

By the scream of a shell the practised ear of the artilleryman can tell whether it comes from a gun with a low trajectory or from a howitzer, whose projectile rises higher and falls at a sharper angle which enables it to enter the trenches; and he can even tell approximately the calibre.

A scream sweeping past from our rear, and we knew that this was for the redoubt, as that was to have the first turn.  A volume of dust and smoke breaking from the earth short of the redoubt, and after the second’s delay of hearing the engine whistle after the burst of steam in the distance on a winter day, came the sound of the burst.  The next was over.  With the third the “heavy stuff” ought to be right on.

But don’t forget that there was also an order for some “Right stuff,” identified as shrapnel by its soft, nimbus-like puff which was scattering bullets as if giving chase to that working-party as it hastened to cover.  There you had the ugly method of this modern artillery fire:  death shot downward from the air and leaping up out of the earth.  Unhappily, the third was not on, nor the fourth—­not exactly on.  Exactly on is the way that British gunners like to fill an order f.o.b., express charges prepaid, for the Germans.