called & the uses a large and effective variety here.

Some of these have tremendous explosive affect & shatter trenches to pieces but not withstanding their violence we rarely have a casualty from them - Pieces fly for hundreds of yards with extraordinary noises & earth seems to be coming down for many minutes afterwards. Nobody minds them much except that sometimes they cause a lot of repair work.

Of course we can do quite a bit that way ourselves & our little Stokes is quite an unpleasant visitor esp. when about 12 come through the air at once - In the way of shrapnel nobody has succeeded in beating our 18 lbrs. The shell does not burst but the nose blows off wh gives tremendous forward