also--under the direction of the R.E., of which one Field Company was in general attached to each brigade. It was important that the infantry should know the sappers, and look upon them as assistants rather than task-masters. The Pioneer battalion had generally some special task of importance allotted to it under the direction of the C.R.E. A Machine-Gun Company at this time formed part of each brigade. The guns were distributed in depth in the trenches, but much further forward than was the case later on, when the number of Lewis guns with the infantry had been increased. Such subtleties as machine-gun barrages, indirect fire, the linking of guns by telephone to battalion headquarters, had as yet scarce been conceived. Machine gunners and infantry had their ammunition and bombs in boxes let into the parapet, these stores increasing in size from front to rear. The artillery, in rear, was also distributed in depth. Covering two brigades, as we have imagined, it would probably be divided into two groups, the group commander living at or near the headquarters of his infantry brigade. For this purpose the present formation, four artillery brigades, of which one was a howitzer brigade, was clumsy and extravagant. The howitzer brigade, for example, was invariably split between the groups, and its commander "functioned" as an administrator, but not as a combatant. This system was to be modified later. The guns were in pits, hidden as well as possible among trees or houses, or if in the open covered with "camouflage" to match the surrounding fields. The dug-outs of their detachments were close at hand, and, close at hand also, were pits containing from two to four hundred rounds per gun. At dusk the guns were laid on the "night-lines"; that is to say, each was set so as to fire upon a certain zone, in accordance with a previously arranged plan. A sentry in an observation post watched the line. Within a few seconds of a telephone call or an "S.O.S." rocket going up, the guns could open fire. An artillery liaison officer lived with each battalion in the trenches.