During the second half of July the activity of the hostile artillery increased considerably. On the 17th three officers were wounded, Lieuts. H. C. O. Lawrie, E. H. Vanderpump, and T. B. Wills, and three guns of B/310 were put out of action. On the next day the Noreuil Valley again came in for a severe shelling, chiefly directed on the advanced section of A/310, which had one of its guns knocked out, but no casualties in its personnel. The Army Commander, Sir Julian Byng, visited some of the batteries in the right sector on the 19th, and also one or two of the O.P.'s. He expressed himself as much pleased with all he saw. On the 22nd A/312 was heavily shelled in its position just west of Lagnicourt, and had two guns put out of action. C/312 was bombarded the same night for several hours in the village of Morchies; not much harm was done, but the guns were shifted next day to a garden in the village which afforded better cover from the view of the Boche observation balloons. Morchies showed signs of having once been as pretty a village as could be seen in France, and must have been a charming spot before the Boche left his obscene trail there. At this time it was a shameful ruin, wantonly and brutally destroyed by the Huns when they retired through it a few months before. The numerous fruit trees had all been barked or uprooted, and most of the destruction in the village, both indoors and out, had obviously been done purposely and malignantly, and not by our, or the enemy's, shell fire. Of course this was only one out of hundreds of such cases, but Morchies must have once been so pretty and simple, and so aloof, that one felt an especial sense of outrage in seeing the hateful treatment to which it had been subjected. I used to wish that some of our pacifists could be brought out to see it. On the 24th A/310 was again plentifully bespattered with shell, but so well were the guns and detachments protected that the net result of several hours bombardment was only two men wounded, and one gun wheel broken. Fortunately we were able to spot one of the batteries responsible for these recent annoyances, and on the 25th July Major Foot's battery, D/310, engaged this 5.9-inch battery with aeroplane observation. The shoot was a very successful one; several direct hits on the guns were recorded, and two emplacements were blown up with their ammunition. As a rule the batteries that annoyed us were firing from such a long range that they had to be dealt with by our heavy artillery, and it was a great satisfaction to us all when we were able to have a smack at them ourselves. [Sidenote: Aug. 1917.]