During the fortnight which the Division spent in this sector the time was chiefly spent in improving the line and in making preparations for a coming attack. Accordingly the artillery and the troops in the front trenches were kept fairly busy, while the enemy trench mortars caused a good deal of fresh damage and hindered the parties working at night. The Divisional Signal Company was largely occupied in an attempt to sort out a complex system of buried cables left by the VIIIth Corps after the unsuccessful attack at the beginning of the month. Wire cutting by shell-fire was carried out daily for the first four days of August. On the 4th our trench mortars and Stokes guns and the 59th Brigade machine guns co-operated with the artillery in a bombardment to silence the enemy’s trench mortars. That evening, between 7 and 9.15 P.M., another bombardment was carried out in order to assist the operations of the Ist Anzac Corps at Pozières. It had been intended to make a smoke and gas attack on the front of the 61st Brigade, but the wind was unfavourable, so all that could be done was to bring the enemy’s trenches under rifle and machine-gun fire. The 61st Machine Gun Company fired 14,000 rounds, forming a barrage behind the enemy’s line between Beaumont Hamel and Serre. The enemy’s retaliation was slight at the time, but at 11 P.M. he opened a heavy trench mortar fire. On the 7th the 61st Brigade was relieved by the 74th Brigade of the 25th Division, and went into Divisional reserve about Coigneux. On the same day the 38th Divisional Artillery was relieved by that of the Guards, whose left group fired 1000 rounds on the German front line on the 8th to assist the operations of the Fourth Army. A good deal of preparation was made on the 13th to meet an expected attack. The army operators at the listening sets overheard a conversation between two German officers, which seemed to indicate that a bombardment our lines, to be followed by a raid, had been arranged to take place that night. The Germans actually shot tracing tapes by rocket across “No man’s land,” exactly bounding the front of the expected attack. Neither the bombardment nor the raid, however, came off, the night as a matter of fact being particularly quiet. On the 14th the 61st Brigade relieved the 60th, and that night made a smoke barrage in conjunction with operations further south, while artillery, machine-gun and rifle fire was opened along the whole Divisional front, a barrage behind the enemy’s support line being made by the 61st Machine Gun Company.