The completeness of this victory, the march through of our troops, the utter despair of the German troops, was due in an overwhelming way to the guns, and the gunners who served them. It is only right and just that the highest tribute should be paid to these men, who have worked day and night for nearly a fortnight, under the intense strain, in an infernal noise, without sleep enough to relieve the nerve-rack, and always in danger of death. Gunner officers are hoarse with shouting under fire. They are hollow-eyed with bodily and mental exhaustion. The ammunition-carriers worked themselves stiff in order to feed the guns. They have used up incredible numbers of shells. The gunners of one division alone fired 180,000 shells with their field-batteries, and over 46,000 with their heavies. On the same scale has been the ammunition expenditure of all other groups of guns. An historic scene took place after our troops had gained the high ground of Wytschaete and Messines. An order passed along to all the batteries. Gun horses were standing by. They were harnessed to the guns. The limbers of the field-batteries lined up. Then half-way through the battle the old gun positions were abandoned, after two and a half years of stationary warfare in the salient, searched every day of that time by German shells fired by direct observation from that ground just taken. The drivers urged on their horses. They drove at a gallop past old screens, and out of camouflaged places where men had walked stealthily, and dashed up the slopes. The infantry stood by to let them pass, and from thousands of men, these dusty, hot, parched soldiers of ours, who were waiting to go forward in support of the first waves of assaulting troops, there rose a great following cheer, which swept along the track of the gunners, and went with them up the ridge, where they unlimbered and got into action again for the second phase of the fighting down the farther slopes.