The shells fell all about in those days, and rarely did I visit the support positions--which I did scores of times each day--when the air was not full of the droning shells of our own and the French batteries, pounding the enemy's positions on the canal. Shell-fire; aeroplanes, British, French and German; anti-aircraft shells, both ours and those of the enemy, and passing troops and batteries became such common sights as the hours went by that one hardly bestowed on them a passing glance. A Belgian woman was caught, near a battery position, flashing signals with a piece of bright tin to a Hun airman high overhead. The French took her away, one stout soldier to each arm, to summary execution. Children were at play at the roadside. A dozen boys were engaged in a mock bombardment. A bottle served as the hostile town. Stones made good shells. All waited for the order, "Fire!" and then rained shots at the target with a will. Now and then one of the children would say, "Rumph! rumph!" mockingly, as a Black Maria fell near enough to jar them, but for the most part they paid scant attention to the fierce cannonade in progress all about. In a field by the road a man was ploughing stolidly. A woman was hanging her washing on the line, singing as she worked. A 13-pounder anti-aircraft shell buried itself a few yards away, but she evinced no interest in it, and did not even allow its coming to interrupt her song. Artillery work in modern warfare is carefully organised. It was difficult to realise in the midst of such an inferno of shell-fire that every gunner, who was so hard at work in those April days, had some definite objective when launching shells enemy-ward. Major Budworth was directed to conduct the artillery attack on Lizerne. In other words, the guns of H and I Batteries of the Royal Horse Artillery were to pave the way for the French infantry attack. General Putz was anxious to retake Lizerne and Steenstraate as well. The latter town was on the canal, a few hundred yards east of Lizerne, and astride the Dixmude-Ypres highway, along which German reserves, to meet the attack on Lizerne, must be brought. Budworth placed the batteries near Woesten, about 3,000 yards from Lizerne, which was surrounded by country so flat and so dotted with groups of trees that artillery observation was difficult. A couple of gunners were sent into the French front trenches at 11.30 a.m. to observe the range-finding shots.