Meanwhile Pip Don and I were still outcasts in our own battery, up against a policy of continual distrust, suspicion, and scarcely veiled antagonism. It was at the beginning of April, 1917, that we first got to Heytesbury, and snow was thick upon the ground. Every day we had the guns out behind the stables and jumped the men about at quick, short series, getting them smart and handy, keeping their interest and keeping them warm. When the snow disappeared we took the battery out mounted, taking turns in bringing it into action, shooting over the sights on moving targets--other batteries at work in the distance--or laying out lines for indirect targets. We took the staff out on cross-country rides, scouring the country for miles, and chasing hares--it shook them down into the saddle--carrying out little signalling schemes. In short, we had a final polish up of all the knowledge we had so eagerly begun to teach them when he and I had been in sole command. I don’t think either of us can remember any single occasion on which the commanding officer took a parade. Embarkation leave was in full swing, four days for all ranks, and the brigade next to us was ordered to shoot. Two range officers were appointed from our brigade. I was one. It was good fun and extremely useful. We took a party of signallers and all the rations we could lay hands on, and occupied an old red farmhouse tucked away in a fold of the plain, in the middle of all the targets. An old man and his wife lived there, a quaint old couple, toothless and irritable, well versed in the ways of the army and expert in putting in claims for fictitious damages. Our job was to observe and register each round from splinter proofs, send in a signed report of each series, stop the firing by signalling if any stray shepherd or wanderer were seen on the range, and to see that the targets for the following day’s shoot had not been blown down or in any other way rendered useless. It was a four-day affair, firing ending daily between three and four p.m. This left us ample time to canter to all the battery positions and work out ranges, angle of sight and compass bearings for every target,--information which would have been invaluable when our turn to fire arrived. Unfortunately, however, several slight alterations were intentionally made, and all our labour was wasted. Still, it was a good four days of bracing weather, with little clouds scudding across a blue sky, never quite certain whether in ten minutes’ time the whole world would be blotted out in a blizzard. The turf was springy, miles upon endless miles, and we had some most wonderful gallops and practised revolver shooting on hares and rooks, going back to a huge tea and a blazing wood fire in the old, draughty farmhouse.