Several raiding operations were carried out by us. On the night of the 25th May our guns supported the 57th Division in a raid which resulted in the capture of eleven prisoners, and at 1 a.m. on the 18th June we fired off a thousand gas projectors at Ablainzeville, the guns and trench mortars firing a barrage through the village at the same time. The mortars that took part in this operation were firing from a position barely 400 yards from the Boche line, which had been selected by Bottomley, who had succeeded Powell as Trench Mortar Officer. It was a very dangerous and badly "strafed" place, but the risk was well worth taking, and the mortars were a constant thorn in the enemy's side. For obvious reasons the results of operations of this sort could very rarely be ascertained, but in this instance we were more fortunate for we learned from a document, captured in the following August, that the Germans lost in this gas attack two officers and 51 men killed, and 66 gassed, all of the 12th Bavarian R.I.R. There were two rather notable events in the wagon lines during this period. On the 19th May, Whit-Sunday, General Braithwaite attended a parade service there and presented a large number of Military Medals. He took the occasion to make us a very graceful speech and to congratulate all ranks on their courage and fine behaviour during the trying days of the great offensive. On the 16th June he inspected the D.A.C. and presented three Distinguished Service Medals which had been won by Indian drivers. The Indians, as I have said before, were a very useful lot of men, and could always be counted upon to obey orders, however difficult and dangerous the execution of them might be. In fact, as the following incident shows, the literal way in which they tried to obey their orders was sometimes carried to excess. Sometime during April, when the fighting was at its hottest, some wagons of the D.A.C., driven by Indian drivers, were carrying ammunition up to a battery near Essarts. The drivers of one of the wagons were making their first trip up to the battery area, and one of the instructions given them was that they must on no account leave anything behind them when they returned, however heavily they might be shelled. As luck would have it this wagon had a very bad time of it, the British N.C.O. with it being badly wounded, and two out of the six mules being killed. The drivers behaved very well, finished their job of delivering ammunition, and brought back the wounded man safely. They were, however, full of apologies on their return to camp; they had done their utmost, they said, to load up the two dead mules on to the wagon, but although they had tried their hardest for about an hour under heavy fire, they had had to give it up at last as beyond their powers.