Yet we are in a state of constant readiness, and the appearance of inactivity is wholly misleading. Eyes are perpetually on the watch in the observation station, a telephonist sits with the head receiver of the instrument fixed on his head, the detachments on duty sit in the gun-pits or in the dug-outs close at hand, busy upon some work, improving the head cover, polishing the fittings of the gun, or else writing letters to their friends that tell strange tales of battle, murder and sudden death. In the control room by the telephone dug-out sits an officer, studying the map, recording the results of a previous day's fire, or entering particulars of targets and ranges in his notebook. Perhaps the wind is blowing towards the firing line, carrying away from the battery all sounds of war, so that nothing can be heard but the strains of an amateur band (of mouth-organs, concertinas and a triangle) from one of the gun-pits, and the monotonous call of the crier in that strange game of "House" that pervades the British Army--"nineteen, forty-one, number three, sixty-four," and a sudden excited voice "'ouse!" But suddenly the buzzer in the telephone room wakes into life. Dash dot dot dash, dash dot dot, dash dash dot--X D G, it calls imperiously. That is our call, and the telephonist throws away the novel he was reading and seizes pencil and paper. "320th Siege! Yes, go on, yes--fire six rounds at once on Puits thirty-seven. R.D." The message reaches the officer in the control room, who dashes out of the door with a megaphone through which he roars one word, "Action!" Instantly the detachments vanish into the pits, from which a sound of urgent preparation rises, the band stops abruptly upon an excruciating chord, the players of "House" scatter to their respective stations. Then comes the regular sequence of orders, and in something less than a minute from the receipt of the message the first gun roars into pulsing life again.