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But the sudden alarm did not last very long; it left the men on the Uncas laughing. For they had quite forgotten the character of the Spanish gunners' aim. A shot tore through the tug's funnel, another chipped a piece from her bow, half a dozen shells whistled over her. And that was all. Clif turned calmly to his gun again. "If that's the best they can do," he thought, "they're welcome."
The turret in this little vessel, which held the two guns that she mounted, was so arranged as to revolve on a central pivot, thus enabling the gunners to keep their guns continually pointed at the enemy, whatever might be the position of the vessel.
My dear soul, you have taken all my breath away. Why, it must be the captain of all the gunners. How gunpowder do pay, to be sure!" "Lor, ma'am, why, don't you know," replied Mrs. Shanks, with some contempt, "that the man with three ribs is the captain of the gunners the man in my back sitting-room? No dimity-parlour for him with his family, not for a guinea and a half a week.
But the gunners soon got wind of it, and from far and near were wont to pour in during the spring, and to slaughter both old and young. This practice soon had the effect of driving the pigeons all away, and now only a few pairs breed in these woods. Deer are still met with, though they are becoming scarcer every year. Last winter near seventy head were killed on the Beaver Kill alone.
For instance, we can't fire a shell that will go three miles up into the air, yet that is a very ordinary height at which to run a biplane. Have you heard that, a year or more ago, an English aviator flew over warships at a height greater than the gunners below could possibly have reached? And did you know that the aviator succeeded in dropping oranges down the funnels of English warships?
But I desired Colonell Legg to stay and give us a sight of her performance; which he did, and there, in short, against a gun more than as long and as heavy again, and charged with as much powder again, she carried the same bullet as strong to the mark, and nearer and above the mark at a point blank than theirs, and is more easily managed, and recoyles no more than that; which is a thing so extraordinary as to be admired for the happiness of his invention, and to the great regret of the old gunners and officers of the Ordnance that were there, only Colonell Legg did do her much right in his report of her, and so having seen this great and first experiment we all parted, I seeing my guests into a hackney-coach, and myself, with Captain Deane, taking a hackney-coach, did go out towards Bow, and went as far as Stratford, and all the way talking of this invention, and he offering me a third of the profit of it; which, for aught I know, or do at present think, may prove matter considerable to us; for either the King will give him a reward for it if he keeps it to himself, or he will give us a patent to make our profit of it; and no doubt but it will be of profit to merchantmen and others to have guns of the same force at half the charge.
The last I saw of this little affair was a vision of one of my machine gunners, who was a bit of an amateur hairdresser in civil life, cutting the unnaturally long hair of a docile Boche, who was patiently kneeling on the ground whilst the automatic clippers crept up the back of his neck. A couple of days after Christmas we left for billets.
In a bend of the road on one side some of the Madras Fusiliers supported him, and on the other side, a little way off, stood Neill and his detachment, waiting for the diversion to be made by Outram's movement. To Neill's surprise, not a trace of Outram was to be seen, and Maude stood shelterless, his gunners falling before the continuous fire from the bridge.
Besides, drivers are badly placed for such luxuries; their work is only begun when camp is reached, while gunners can go off and find beds under waggons, etc. It is the same all day, except, of course, in action, when the gunners have all the work. At all halts we have to be watching a pair of horses, which have manifold ways of tormenting one.
This was a personal question, and most of the troopers had money on the event; the Gunners saying openly that they had the legs of the White Hussars. They were wrong. A march-past concluded the campaign, and when the Regiment got back to their Lines, the men were coated with dirt from spur to chin-strap. The White Hussars have one great and peculiar privilege. They won it at Fontenoy, I think.
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