ite the British on
the Somme, with its minutiae of directions indicative of how seriously he
regarded the New Army, mentioned the superior means of reporting
observations to the guns used by British aeroplanes and warned German
gunners against taking what had formerly been obvious cover, because
British artillery never failed to concentrate on those spots with
disastrous results.

Where aeroplanes easily detect lines, be they roads or a column of
infantry, as I have said, a battery in the open with guns and gunners
the tint of the landscape is not readily distinguishable at the high
altitude to which anti-aircraft gunfire restricts aviators. When a
concentration begins on a battery, either the gunners must go to their
dugouts or run beyond the range of the shells until the "strafe" is
over. If A could locate all of B's guns and had two thousand guns of his
own to keep B's two thousand silenced by counter-battery work and two
thousand additional to turn on B's infantry positions, it would be only
a matter of continued charges under cover of curtains of fire until the
survivors, under the gusts of shells with no support from their own
guns, would yield against such ghastly, hopeless odds.

Such is the power of the guns--and such the game of guns checkmating
guns--in their effort to stop the enemy's curtains of fire while
maintaining their own that the genius who finds a divining rod which,
from a sausage balloon, will point out the position of every enemy
battery has fame awaiting him second only to that of the inventor of a
system of distilling a death-dealing heat ray from the sun.

And the captured gun! It is a prize no less dear to the infantry's
heart to-day than it was a hundred years ago. Our battalion took a
battery! There is a thrill for every officer and man and all the friends
at home. Muzzle cracked by a direct hit, recoil cylinder broken, wheels
in kindling wood, shield fractured--there you have a trophy which is
proof of accuracy to all gunners and an everlasting memorial in the town
square to the heroism of the men of that locality.

In the gunners' branch of the corps or division staff (which may be next
door to the telephone exchange where "Hello!" soldiers are busy all day
keeping guns, infantry, transport, staff and units, large and small, in
touch) the visitor will linger as he listens to the talk of shop by
these experts in mechanical destruction. Generic discussions about which
caliber of gun is