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When Maurice reached his destination the artillerymen were already stirring and about to drink their coffee, and a quarrel had arisen between Adolphe, the forward driver, and Louis, the gunner, his mate. For the entire three years that they had been "married," in accordance with the custom which couples a driver with a gunner, they had lived happily together, with the one exception of meal-times.
The vessels ahead and astern of us were, generally, within speaking distance. Just as the sun went below the horizon, George Turnblatt, a Swede, who was our gunner, came to me, and said he thought we ought to secure our guns; for we had been cleared for action all day, and the crew at quarters.
With lips pursed tight and in stony silence the Gunner glared at him, and then, turning his shoulder, addressed himself deliberately to the Lead Driver. 'S'pose your missis . . . he began, but got no further. 'He ain't got no missis; leastways, 'e ain't supposed to 'ave, the Wheel Driver interjected triumphantly.
Then Findeisen gave his first answer during the proceedings, he shook his head. "Nothing, then?" asked the examining officer. The gunner repeated, "Nothing." Deputy sergeant-major Heimert, as the only witness, had nothing else to depose beyond what Wolf had already said: and Findeisen again persisted in his silence. After this, the officer closed the judicial examination.
"I don't care to have any one hurt," I said; "but if a plane is coming I wish it would come now. Or a Zeppelin." The captain's serious face lighted in a smile. "A Zeppelin!" he said. "We would with pleasure wait all the night for a Zeppelin!" He glanced round at the guns. Every gunner was in his place. We were to have a drill. "We will suppose," he said, "that a German aëroplane is approaching.
The sound was still going on upon the beach, and the people were evidently very busy, when, at the same moment, the crews of the two boats caught sight of a large lugger run ashore, and not twenty yards away. The lieutenant's orders to the gunner were short and sharp. "Board her on the larboard side; I'll take this! Off; give way, my lads! Close in; out cutlasses and up and have her!"
Better still was the company of the gunner officers. They told me how often they were "scared stiff." They had been very frightened an hour before I came, when the German gunners had ranged up and down the street, smashing up ruined houses into greater ruin. "They're so methodical!" said one of the officers. "Wonderful shooting!" said another. "I will say they're topping gunners," said the major.
'Can't you keep on belting 'em for a bit? asked the Platoon officer. 'Might make 'em ease up on us. The gunner shook his head regretfully. 'I'd ask nothing better, he said. 'I could just give those trenches beans. But our orders are strict, and we daren't waste a round on anything but an attack.
And when deeds of heroism were being performed by Major Miller-Wallnutt; Lieutenant Digby-Jones, R.E., Gunner Sims of the Royal Navy, and Lieutenant Fitzgerald, 11th Hussars, who met their enemies face to face, the irregular troopers were not slow to take their part in fighting at close quarters.
He watched the mad stream of fugitives as they flew past upon their shambling, squattering, loose-jointed beasts, but the black face of the Egyptian gunner was not among them. And now it really did seem as if the whole body of them, in their haste to get clear of the ravine, had not a thought to spend upon the prisoners.
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