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"I believe it slightly killed one mule. How did you like the hell fire from the Nordenfeldt?" "Never saw it. But honestly, why don't you come in and surrender?" "But honestly, what is your real opinion of those who desert their country in her hour of need?" He preferred not to say, but disconnected the wire, and we heard no more of our friend the Royal Engineer.
"Well, Larry," I said at last, after polishing up the ratchet of the Nordenfeldt I was working at to my personal satisfaction, hoping to have the aiming of it bye-and-bye, "I can't tell you any more than that we are bound up the coast, and are likely to have a brush with the Arabs along there somewhere; but where that somewhere is, my joker, I'm hanged if I know!"
each carrying: 2 Nordenfeldt guns 1 quick-firing 12-pounder gun 1 Howitzer 4 Maxims 1896 Class Armoured Screw Gunboats : the Fateh, The Naser, the Zafir each carrying: 1 quick-firing 12-pounder gun 2 6-pounder guns 4 Maxims Old Class Armoured Stern-wheel Gunboats : the Tamai, the Hafir*, the Abu Klea, the Metemma each carrying: 1 12-pounder gun 2 Maxim-Nordenfeldt guns Steam Transport
We have a Nordenfeldt, a couple of Maxims more, four seven-pounder guns of almost prehistoric date, slow of fire, uncertain as regards the elevating-gear, and, I tell you plainly, as dangerous, some of 'em, to be behind as to be in front of! One or two more we've got that were grey-headed in the seventies. By the Lord! I wish one or two Whitehall heads I know were mopping 'em out this minute.
Had it been he or his ghost who had stood behind the Nordenfeldt shields with the bullets pattering against the steel and stinging the air overhead? He or his ghost, barefoot in the sand that sopped the blood of fallen comrades, the ship shaking with the detonation of her guns, the hoarse cheering of her crew re-echoing in his half- deafened ears?
I believe they are of German construction. They bristle with heavy Krupp and Nordenfeldt guns. The elevation on the coast varies from eighty feet to 410 feet. The land defences, though newer than those seaward, are less powerful; the heaviest guns, of 21 and 24 centimetre, are in the latter. Everywhere the forts are supplemented by trenches, rifle-pits, and open redoubts or walled camps.
When finally such a tangle was straightened out, only a few minutes elapsed before somebody else, moving a few steps, would bring about the same deplorable state of affairs. The Nordenfeldt II. acted more like a bucking bronco than a self-respecting submarine boat and as a result it became impossible to find a crew willing to risk their lives in manning her.
They both had a whimsical turn, and the cure did not ask Tarboe how he came by such perfect liquor. Many high in authority, it was said, had been soothed even to the winking of an eye when they ought to have sent a Nordenfeldt against the Ninety-Nine.
"As the sound of the beaters swells upon the ear, and the thunder of the tom-toms grows more insistent, the keen-eyed sportsman grasps more firmly the lever of his four-barrelled Nordenfeldt and prepares to play upon the bears his hail of stinging missiles. Hark!
I at once diagnosed the position with great professional acumen we were now enfiladed from both flanks, but the knowledge was acquired too late to help us, for "We lay bare as the paunch of the purser's sow, To the hail of the Nordenfeldt." This was the last straw; there was nothing left but surrender or entire annihilation at long range. I surrendered. Boers, as usual, sprang up from all round.
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