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This system consists in so gauging the fire of the anti-aircraft guns that the airman finds himself in a "box" of shrapnel; that is, one shell is timed to burst directly in front of the machine, another behind it, one above, one below, and one on either side.
There was a frightful noise of splintering glass and smashing timber between each crash of high explosives. The whine of shrapnel from the anti aircraft guns had a sinister note, abominable in the ears of those officers who had come down from the fighting lines nerve-racked and fever-stricken. They lay very quiet. The night nurse moved about from bed to bed, with her flash-lamp.
Now they were to be penalized for their very desperately won success. The casualties had been costly and had been aggravated by the rapid attacks of the frost upon hands and feet. In temperature way below zero the men lay in the snow on the outskirts and in that lowly village under machine gun fire and shrapnel.
Got a game leg!" said grandfather, pointing to a swollen ankle that had been bruised by a piece of shrapnel jacket that had lost most of its velocity before striking him. "You do your duty and leave me alone. I ain't a fighting man any more. I done my work when I steadied you young fellows." "Yes, go on, Fragini," said Dellarme. "Attend to your men. Everybody in his place.
I was in constant pain, and after the old arm began to come around under Miss Malin's treatment one of the doctors discovered that my left hand was queer. It had been somewhat swollen, but not really bad. The doctor insisted upon an X-ray and found a bit of shrapnel imbedded. He was all for an operation. Operations seemed to be the long suit of most of those doctors.
Shrapnel was playing upon both roads leading from Guillemont, H.E. was bursting on my right in Lueze Wood, or "Lousy Wood," as it is called here, also in Delville Wood on my left. After a very tiring tramp over shell-holes and rubble I eventually reached my post.
The arrival of M. Blériot suggests most horribly to me how far behind we must be in all matters of ingenuity, device, and mechanical contrivance. I am reminded again of the days during the Boer war, when one realised that it had never occurred to our happy-go-lucky Army that it was possible to make a military use of barbed wire or construct a trench to defy shrapnel.
Load with shrapnel and I will see if I can't make some sort of a light outside the gate. Be ready on the instant." He ran downstairs and again crept out into the dark patio. He had noticed in the afternoon that there were several bundles of straw in the stable. Taking one of these under his arm, he approached the angle in the wall near the outer gate.
Three companies of the Rifle Brigade at last came up to reinforce. Then the G Company of the Gordons, under Captain Carnegie. But for a long time no one knew where the gap in our line really was. About half-past nine one could see the enemy still thick among the rocks and trees on the left of the extremity, though the shrapnel was dropping all among them from the 53rd Battery.
To crown all, it is more than likely that the calmness and smooth working of the proceedings will be assisted by a burst of shrapnel overhead. It is a most amazing scrimmage altogether.
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