"We went to the raid 4 officers and about 40 other ranks, and returned to our Division 1 officer and 6 other ranks." I received the following letter from the G.O.C.R.A., 50th Division: "Will you please thank your fellows very much for the good work they did for us yesterday. I am most awfully sorry your trench mortars had such a bad time. It was just bad luck; the Boche put down a barrage where he had never put one down before, and caught them. It was most unfortunate. I can't tell you how sorry I am about it." On the 26th September we carried out a bombardment of the enemy's trenches south of Riencourt, together with a barrage, with the object of making him think we were assaulting, and inducing him to unmask his artillery positions. This object was successfully attained, the enemy "got the wind up" thoroughly, and answered with every available gun. Our planes and balloons were able to fix the positions of nearly 40 batteries. Major A. F. Bayley arrived on the 27th, and was posted to the 310th Brigade. For the next few weeks things were comparatively quiet, though life in the batteries was diversified by occasional bombardments. I take from a note written at the time a short account of one of my routine trips. It is a fairly typical one, and will serve to give some idea of the sort of condition under which we were now holding the line: First we drive in the car for about two miles; then we alight, fix gas helmets in the ready position, put on tin hats, and go on on foot, leaving the car in a sunken road fairly safe and snug. Now the excitement begins. We go across country, generally in full view of the Boche lines, though they are still far off, and often dodging the places where their long-range shells are falling, or lying down till they burst if we hear them coming near us. A walk of one and a half miles brings us into a much-battered village in which my most advanced guns are scattered about, and now begins the second and more dangerous stage. The village (Ecoust) is a deserted ruin, but for occasional individuals moving hastily from cover to cover, and we waste no time in passing through it, and enter the communication trench which leads up to the front infantry line. As the Boche has exact photographs of the course of this trench, he frequently bombards it; and though the chances are greatly against a shell falling on any one bit of the trench just at the moment when one is passing, still at the time the possibility seems far from remote, and the situation is thrilling enough. About a mile of trench as the crow flies (but treble that distance to walk, owing to the zig-zag formation of the trench, so designed to prevent a shell from sweeping right down it) brings one to the support line. Stage three, and the most dangerous one, now begins; one follows the support trench for a good long way; it is generally pretty deep, but in places it has almost been destroyed by recent