discharges all along our front: these operations commence on the 24. Our programme starts with wire cutting on several points on the German line with 18 pounders & trench mortars (2 inch) and on the 25 the 10th King's Royal Rifles of the 59th Brigade are ordered to carry out a raid on a salient opposite a portion of our line and about 150 yards from it. This is the best regiment in the division & is commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Blacklock who had retired some time before the war broke out. He is a very good battalion commander & the men have the greatest confidence in him. For some days past the battalion or rather those men who are to carry out the raid had practised their parts in facsimile trenches made near their camp