About this time I used often to go round the O.P.'s in my spare time, and to test the quickness of the different batteries in getting off a round on a trial call of S.O.S. I considered it distinctly good if a battery opened fire within 40 seconds of getting the call, but as time went on most of them became extraordinarily quick to answer, and I well remember my satisfaction when, during a walk round the O.P.'s in company with General Benson, Commanding the 5th Corps Artillery, we tried a few S.O.S. tests, and one of my batteries got off the answering round in 17 seconds. I think that the record time was nine seconds, the battery that reached it being C/310, then in position in the Noreuil Valley. [Sidenote: July 1917.] On the 2nd July I was returning from one of these tours, and, calling on my way back at the 310th Brigade Headquarters, which were then in a sunken road just N.W. of Noreuil, I found that a few minutes before my arrival a 4.2-inch shell had penetrated and burst inside a small shelter in the trench, killing four men and wounding three--all, of my special little R.A.R.E. company. The place was a shambles when I went into it. It was a particularly distressing affair, as there was a good and equally handy dug-out just beside the one that had suffered, fit to withstand any number of 4.2-inch shells; and these poor fellows had selected a place with no more protection than a corrugated iron roof. I have not mentioned the R.A.R.E. company before. It was an unauthorised formation, not to be found, that is to say, in any official manual, and was made up of eight sappers from the Divisional R.E., together with about ten men from each brigade and from the D.A.C. The company was thus brought up to an establishment of about 40 men, and was commanded by a Royal Engineer officer. We called it the R.A.R.E. Company, and its duties were to supervise generally the work of building gun emplacements, stables, shelters, dug-outs, etc., and to carry out itself any works demanding skilled labour. I was most fortunate in being given the services of Lieut. E. B. Hammond, M.C., R.E., as its first commander. He took the keenest interest in his work and inspired all his men with his own zeal and energy; and his cheery personality, and unfailing tact and good humour ensured him a warm welcome from every battery he visited, and the cordial co-operation, moreover, of those who, at the inception of the scheme, might have been inclined to resent the taking away of even a few men from their depleted batteries. It did not take long to convince any such doubters of the immense utility of this small body of men. From working with the eight skilled sappers, the gunners and drivers furnished from the brigades gradually became skilled workers themselves, and the company proved such an invaluable addition to my command from this date until the final breaking up of the division in the Army of Occupation, that I do not know how the D.A.