I think that all realised the impossibility of reducing the number of guns in front of the enemy, and one scarcely ever heard a word of grumbling, but it is well that the fact should be placed on record that the artillery practically never got a rest. Their work was not perhaps so much in the public eye as that of their gallant comrades in the infantry, nor did they experience as a rule the same extremes of danger, but it should be remembered that, while the latter were periodically withdrawn from the danger zone after about eight days in the trenches to rest billets miles behind the firing line, the men behind the guns endured the dirt and discomfort of the trenches for months at a time, were never safe day or night from hostile shell fire, and were constantly hard at work. Only perhaps those who have actually served in a battery in war-time can realise the amount of hard work and nerve strain involved in keeping up even the normal programme of day. . . Read More