So it goes on all day, and every day. The guns are the big brothers of the trenches. To them the front line, like the small boy in a London street row, appeals when bullied by the German artillery. To them the men in the trenches look for protection against working-parties preparing new “frightfulness,” against spying aircraft, against undue activity on the part of the _minenwerfer_. The gunners keep guard over the front line in a paternal and benevolent, not to say patronizing spirit. Their business it is to find places from which they can keep an eye on the enemy, watch the effect of their shells, and see what the enemy’s guns are doing. No matter that these places are exposed; no matter that the Germans search for them with their guns like caddies “beating” the heather for a lost ball; no matter that, sooner or later, they will be brought down about the observers’ ears. Observation is a vital part of artillery work. It saves British lives; it kills Germans. When German “frightfulness” oversteps the bounds of what is average and bearable, “retaliation” is the word that goes back to the guns. When there are bursts of German “liveliness” going on all along the line, the battery telephones (so the men in the fire-trenches tell me) are so busy that to call up a battery is like trying to get the box-office of the Palace Theatre on the telephone at dinner-time on a Saturday night. This word “retaliation” has a fine ring about it. To men with nerves jaded by a long spell of shelling with heavy artillery it means a fresh lease of endurance. To the least imaginative it conjures up a picture of the Germans, exulting in their superiority of artillery, watching in fascination from their parapets their “Jack Johnsons” and “Black Marias” ploughing, among eddies of black smoke, great rifts in our trench-lines, starting back in terror as, with a whistling screech, the shells begin to arrive from the opposite direction. Nothing puts life into weary troops like the sound of their own shells screaming through the air and mingling with the noise of the enemy’s guns. Nothing in the same way puts a greater strain on men, even the most seasoned and hardened troops, than to have to sit still under a fierce bombardment, and to know that their guns must remain inactive because ammunition is limited to so many rounds a day per gun. [Illustration: BIG SHELL EXPLODING ON A ROAD IN FRANCE. GERMAN SOLDIERS IN FOREGROUND.]