e that the battalions in the line had
a proper supply of grenades; these were taken up by the battalion
transport at night. Also that the grenades in the trenches and all
bomb stores were properly stored and cleaned. I had also to see that
sufficient rifle-grenades were fired at night to harass the enemy's
working-parties, and that our bombing-posts were properly manned.

During our stay at Bruloose I had nearly 2000 grenades taken out of
the trenches and replaced by new ones; this was hard work for the
transport. But the transport officers[5] were very obliging; and I
found on firing these old grenades at the school that about 30 to 40
per cent did not burst properly or even at all. The situation in the
trenches was getting very bad. Shelling by the enemy's artillery was
now less frequent, but the annoyance from enemy trench-mortars was
something cruel. Not only large oil-cans, full of explosives, came
over both by day and by night, but a horrible 9-inch trench-mortar now
made its appearance and blew large craters in the C.T.s and supports.
I had two of the oil-cans pretty close to me at different times, and
they were not pleasant. Eventually the trench-mortaring got so severe,
that the V Corps had a 12-inch howitzer brought up on the railway, and
several of these huge shells were fired into Petit Bois when the
German trench-mortars started. Another feature to be reckoned with was
the approach of the enemy towards K.1 and J.3 by means of a series of
fortified mine craters. These craters were worked on at night, and by
the General's orders they had to be kept under constant fire from
rifle-grenades. Several nights I went up to the trenches to see this
carried out, once accompanied by the General himself. I had at the
Bruloose bomb store a fairly good stock of smoke and incendiary bombs,
like large cocoa tins, only containing red or white phosphorus. It
occurred to me that they might be used with effect against the Germans
working in the craters. So I carried a number of these bombs up to the
trenches, and they were duly fired from the West spring-thrower or
from the trench-catapult. The Germans did not seem to like them, as
their discharge always drew a lot of machine-gun fire in reply. We
also tried to get some more noxious bombs (e.g. 'M.S.K.'), but no
supply could be obtained from the Base. The Bombing Officers[6] of the
6th and 7th N.F. carried on the harassing fire with such effect that
eventually the Germans took