Moreover, during these months of waiting our strength in munitionment had grown beyond belief. The Allied offensives of 1915 had failed largely because there was no sufficient weight of shells and guns behind them. But by June of 1916 Britain was manufacturing and issuing to the Western front weekly as much as her whole pre-war stock of land service munitions. In heavy guns the output in the year had increased six-fold. The weekly production of machine guns had increased fourteen-fold, and of rifles three-fold—wholly from home sources. In small-arm ammunition the output was three times as great, and large reserve stocks had been accumulated. The production of high explosives was sixty-six times what it had been in the beginning of 1915, and the supply of bombs for trench warfare had been multiplied by thirty-three. At last we were providing a machine which would put our infantry on equal terms with the enemy. [Illustration: “NANCY,” THE 4TH REGIMENT MASCOT, ON THE SOMME BATTLEFIELD. (_By permission of the Imperial War Museum._) The springbok “Nancy” was presented to the Regiment in August 1915 by Mr. D. M’Laren Kennedy of Driefontein, Orange Free State. She accompanied the 4th to Egypt, and thence to France, where she was with the Brigade in all its battles. She was wounded in 1917. She died at Hermeton, in Belgium, on 28th November 1918.] [Sidenote: _June 14._] The South African Brigade was inspected on 29th April by Sir Douglas Haig, and on 4th May by Sir Herbert Plumer. The next two months were devoted to its initiation in the methods of trench warfare, which were wholly new to it. During May it held a portion of the front line, and on 4th June the whole Brigade and the Field Ambulance moved into the Steenbecque and Morbecque training area. Battalion training was followed by skeleton Brigade training until 14th June, when orders were received for the division to move to the Somme. The Brigade was quartered in the neighbourhood of Ailly-sur-Somme, whence parties of officers and N.C.O.’s visited the front line in the Maricourt region. Meantime the 2nd and 3rd Regiments were attached to the 30th Division, to assist in the work of preparation for the coming attack. Few men who were then in Picardy will ever forget that strange month before the great battle opened—the pleasant summer weather, the quiet of the front, the endless activity of the British hinterland, where every road was thronged with guns and transport, the curious breathless sense of expectation. On 23rd June the Brigade moved to Corbie and Sailly-le-Sec, where it was within a few miles of the line. Next morning, Saturday, the 24th, in grey, cloudy weather with flying showers of rain, the main bombardment opened.