82 
DISCUSSION ON ARTILLERY. 
The Chairman :—That of course is common to all infantry as you 
know ; in very rapid firing they cannot hear at all. There they get 
over it by the whistle ; I do not know whether we could adopt any¬ 
thing of that kind. 
Colonel J. R. J. Jocelyn :—Is it not the experience in the Navy, 
Sir, that cotton wool in the ears in no wise interferes with the men 
hearing the word of command, if not otherwise prevented ? 
The Chairman :—Yes, that is so. Has anyone else anything to ask 
or to say about the howitzer ? 
Now then about our own 15-pr. battery. Will Captain Nicholson 
give us some information as to how that acted in the Egyptian 
campaign ? 
Captain G. H. W. Nicholson :—Sir Henry Brackenbury and 
officers, I understand that you wish, particularly, to know about the be¬ 
haviour of the 15-pr. battery on the line of march and in action, and 
again on the subject of the shell, the fuzes and the ranges. 
On the march we had teams of mules, which was an entirely new 
equipment, and these mules for the march up there, were hooked in, in 
teams of eight. On the day of the battle we put in three extra ones 
making eleven in all; so, we had three mules in the lead, three in the 
lead centre, three in the wheel centre and two in the wheel. The 
drivers rode the near ones and drove the centre ones, the gunners 
riding the off ones. 
I have not much to say of the march up there. The ground was 
flat and occasionally we came to small nullahs, but with the pick and 
Bhovel a road was soon made to get over them. We had more gunners 
with us than we were able to mount and these men came along on 
donkeys, or any other animals we could get hold of. 
As regards the gun in action, the gun and fittings worked ex¬ 
ceedingly well and we had no mishaps. The work in consequence 
was very much as one has it in the barrack square, but as regards the 
numbers at the guns, I have always been brought up to believe that 
the Nos. 7, 8, and 9 constitute the reserve and that they lie down 
in rear of the limber. As a matter of fact my experience at Omdur- 
man was that these men were kept hard at it the whole time; there 
were no men lying down. At one time when we were firing pretty 
rapidly we had an extra man at the gun to assist the No. 3 in loading, 
standing alongside of him to give him the shell from the portable 
magazines. With regard to the ammunition, I think I may say that 
the shrapnel did all that was asked of it. It was, however, found 
necessary that we should take common shell up there in order, if 
necessary, to breach the wall at Omdurman. It was originally expected 
that we were to storm the town of Omdurman and application was 
made to home for these common shell for the battery, but home could 
not supply them and consequently we had them made under our 
supervision in the Egyptian Army work-shops, which were run by 
Major Staveley Gordon of the Royal Engineers. I may mention that 
these work-shops seemed always ready to meet any contingency 
(applause). As a matter of fact, I may tell you, Sir, we never fired a 
