Well, I had to locate the position of these mine-throwers, and the easiest way to do it was to make them fire and have observers at different points to get bearings on the exact position from which the shells were thrown. They were easy to see, as they were accompanied for the first fifty yards with showers of sparks like sky-rockets. But Fritz can be very obstinate on occasions, and all our teasing with rifle-grenades failed to make him retaliate with anything larger than "pineapples" (light trench-mortars). In desperation, I sent to the brigade bombing officer for some smoke and gas-bombs. Even these failed to rouse his anger sufficiently when--Eureka!--we discovered some "lachrymose" or "tear" bombs. These did the trick and over came a "rum-jar" as the "minnie" shells are generally called. I had eight batteries on the wire, and we gave that "minnie" position a pretty warm time. By the same methods I located nine of these German trench-mortars on that front. Later on we captured one of them and I was surprised to see what a primitive affair it was. It consisted of a huge pipe made of wooden staves bound round and round with wire. The charge is in a can like an oil-drum and dropped in the pipe, and then the shell dropped in on top of it. A fuse is attached, burning several seconds so as to allow the crew to get well out of the way, as their risk is as great as those they fire it at. When I had seen the gun, I was not surprised that rarely did they know within a hundred yards of where the shell was going to land, only expecting to get it somewhere behind our lines. While I am talking of trench-mortars, I must tell you about the "blind pig." This was a huge shell with which we frequently got on Fritz's nerves. When it was first used there was some doubt about its accuracy and the infantry were cleared out of the trenches in its immediate front before it was fired. The first shot landed on our support trenches, the next in No Man's Land, and the third on Fritz's front line. Each time it seemed as if a double-powered Vesuvius were in eruption, and when the artillery got to know its pranks there was no need for us to get out from under. The aeroplanes reported that when the "blind pigs" went over, some Fritzes could be seen running half an hour afterward. Fritz does not like anything new; for example, they appealed to the world against our brutality in using "tanks." Christmas Day, 1916, one of our aviators, with total disregard of the rules of war, dropped a football on which was painted "A Merry Xmas" into a French town infested by Germans. As it struck the street and bounced up higher than the roofs they could be seen scuttling like rats, and maybe, to-day, _that_ airman is haunted by the ghosts of those who died of heart-failure as a result of his fiendishness.