e line, sometimes in our territory and sometimes belonging to the
enemy. These were, as a rule, converted into redoubts or
"strong-points," and defended by both infantry and machine guns. To
the northward, within the German lines, was the town of Wytschaete,
while we had Mont Kemmel, a prominent hill which gave our artillery
good observation all the way from Ypres to "Plugstreet."

Several of the prominent roads within the German lines were in plain
sight from our position and, while the artillery devoted considerable
attention to harassing the enemy, we were not sufficiently supplied
with ammunition at that time to strafe them as was desirable. This was
especially true of several "dumps," which is the colloquial word
designating the points where the wagons and motor transports deposit
ammunition, food and other trench stores and whence they are carried
up to the front line by the men. Thus an ammunition dump means a point
where ammunition is stored, while a ration dump is a place where the
ration carrying parties repair at night to procure the rations for
the following day. At some points the field cookers or "rolling
kitchens" come up at night and the cooked food is carried from there
to the front. One such place at Messines, we called "Cooker's Halt."

The machine gun officer of the outgoing Surreys had begun to develop
some ideas of his own as to the feasibility of strafing enemy
transports and dumps at night and had selected a tentative position
behind a slight crest, about one hundred and fifty yards N. E. of "In
den Kraatenberg Cabaret" and immediately adjacent to a disused
communication trench called "Plum Avenue." Now I had been a crank on
long range, indirect fire in England, so I had no difficulty in
persuading our M. G. officer to turn this job over to me. We improved
the position and also established another one, about one hundred yards
down the trench for daylight work against aircraft. In those days the
planes would come over at altitudes of two thousand feet and less and
we had some splendid opportunities to practise on them. We succeeded
in bringing one down with his petrol tank on fire, and we turned
back a good many more until they began to fly so high that we could
not reach them. At night, by using information obtained from our
artillery and our own forward observers, we were able to cut up a lot
of their transports. At first they would drive down to a place called
the Barricade, but after we caugh