was on the alert & so the surprise did not come off. The parties told off to assault had been practising the movements wire cutting & bombing in a field - where the trench to be attacked was laid out to scale & each man knew exactly what he had to do. The craters were midway between the opposing trenches & each side had a post on the lip of the crater of about 6 men armed with trowles [sic]. In order not to excite the suspicion of the Germans I had decided that no preliminary bombardment to break up the wire was to take place, & that we would trust to our wire cutters to make a path through the entanglement. The craters