ARTILLERY POSITIONS AND SCREENING GUNS. 
95 
will be of great importance. It is absolutely necessary to see every bit 
of the ground within infantry fire. Practically, this is impossible if 
guns are posted in heather, high grass, etc.; but here we have the 
great pull of smokeless powder, which will not disclose our position; 
and again, we can further conceal our guns by brushwood, screens, 
etc. 
It must be remembered that we cannot fire over our own infantry 
on a level plain if the ranges are short, on account of the flatness of 
the trajectory of the newest field-guns. With the 12-pr. firing at 
1000 yards, 16 feet is the highest point of the trajectory; with the 
12-pr. firing at 1,400 yards, 38 feet is the highest point of the 
trajectory. This is too close to be pleasant i 
APOLOGY. Apology. 
Finally, I must make a most humble apology for having dared to 
dispute all the rules of theory and practice laid down by my superiors 
in rank in our own as well as in foreign armies. I have never seen a 
shot fired in anger. I have not been under fire; neither have I seen 
strong men falling on my right and left, struck down in an instant, 
singly and in groups. Still, who has seen an artillery duel on equal 
terms within the last ten years ? Who knows the effect of concentrated 
infantry fire on gun detachments ? It is not a question of nerve ? 
The gun has no nerves ; but the layers have and what about the 
battery commander, who has to “ run the show ? ” Again, will 
infantry face the shriek of exploding shell, each containing over a 
hundred bullets ? Or will all their fire be directed against those 
terrible engines of destruction—the guns—to the neglect of the 
opposing infantry ? 
No, I canuot but think that each one of us in his inmost mind tries 
to solve this problem and hopes the best for his own arm of the service. 
This is my reason for putting pen to paper. We all know how rash it 
is to expose one’s head to the hornet’s nest of criticism. 
I can only hope for my paper that like the fox, which is being Criticism in- 
broken up after a good run, it will be a case of “ tear him and eat him,” V1 e * 
and that the whole matter may bo thoroughly threshed out and 
digested, especially by the young entry,” for after all the subalterns 
are the backbone of the British Army ! 
