A period of intense activity now commenced. A tremendous lot of work had to be done, and there were at first very few men to do it. A party of about 100 men, taken from the 3rd and 16th Brigades R.H.A., was placed at my disposal, and I entrusted the superintendence of the work to Major C. A. Eeles, who tackled it with the greatest energy. Positions were selected for the five brigades at ranges of from 2000 to 2500 yards from the enemy's front line, chiefly along the Hubert road on the northern edge of the Havrincourt Wood, and, as it was absolutely essential that the work should be done without the Boche suspecting it, and the whole country was visible from his lines, the task was a very difficult one. The first thing to do was to screen off the proposed positions from view. That part of the wood through which the Hubert road ran had been cut down by the Huns when they retreated through it in April; a lot of scrub had grown up in the clearing during the summer, and with this a screen of twigs and branches was erected in one night, for a distance of two miles along the edge of the road on the enemy's side. When morning broke on the 4th November the road itself was invisible from the German trenches, and yet the screen that hid it mingled so well with the surrounding scrub that the enemy never noticed any change. For the next fortnight the work of preparation went on night and day, and so careful were the precautions taken by the working parties, that the enemy never had the slightest suspicion that anything unusual was going on. On this occasion the weather helped us, as the days were usually misty, and yet not a drop of rain fell all the time. The preliminaries consisted in making positions for 20 batteries, digging ammunition recesses and telephone pits, construction of shelters for the detachments, the preparation of gun platforms and trail beds, and the collection at the gun pits of tremendous dumps of ammunition (700 rounds per 18-pounder gun and 450 rounds per howitzer). For the conveyance of the latter about three miles of light railway had to be laid down. Then O.P.'s and brigade headquarters were selected and prepared, and camouflage was collected and placed over all work as it was carried out, and also arranged ready for putting on the guns as they were required to move into their positions in action. Lieut. E. W. Davis was wounded on the 9th November. Lieut.-Colonel R. M. Foot, D.S.O., A.A. and Q.M.G. of the Division, left us about this time on appointment to a corps. He had always been most helpful to the gunners, and we were very sorry to lose him. His place was taken, after an interval of a few weeks, by Lieut.-Colonel Harold Lea, D.S.O., with whom the Divisional Artillery always preserved the same happy relations.