wn into it. The other seven men took refuge behind the second
wall, until it was their turn to throw. Before the grenade was thrown
the officer had to blow two blasts on his whistle. The first meant
'Get ready to fire'--i.e. draw the safety-pin, the second meant
'Fire.' Some men of course were more confident than others; but on the
whole the Northumberlands were easy to teach, for many were miners and
accustomed to explosives--in fact, it was sometimes difficult to make
them take cover properly. When the grenade was thrown, every one
ducked down behind the wall and waited for the explosion. If it went
off all right, all was well; and the next man came along for his turn.
If, however, the grenade did not go off, it had if possible to be
retrieved and the detonator taken out. This was the most exciting
work I had to do. Generally the sergeant and I took it in turns to
pick up these 'dud' grenades as they were called. After some
experience it was possible to tell the moment the grenade was thrown
why it did not go off, for example the fuse might be damp and never
light; or the cap might misfire; or, worst of all 'duds,' the striker
might stick fast through rust or dirt.

Before I gained the experience of picking up these 'duds' and drawing
their teeth, I had one lucky escape. The grenade in question had a
'hanging striker' and burst on the ground within five yards of me. It
was not, I think, a very good explosion, but one of the pieces caught
me on the thigh--happily it cut into the seam of my breeches and then
turned, following the seam out and leaving me with a bruise and two
holes in my clothes. I never liked picking up these 'duds,' but later
on I got to know from the sound what was the matter with them; and
then it was just a matter of experience getting them to pieces safely.
The live grenades when they burst in the pit, sometimes threw out old
'dud' grenades lying in the mud. One of these latter burst in mid-air,
but hurt no one; and another time the grenade dropped right into the
firing-trench but did not go off. Another nasty thing was when the
grenade burst too quickly; many men have been killed by premature
bursts during practice. But though some grenades went off too quickly,
I never had one burst in less than a second, by which time the
grenade was fairly well away from the trench. Besides these thirty-two
untrained men, the bombers from the battalion at Locre used to come
and practise on the ground under thei