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The course of instruction was somewhat as follows. In the first place I gave a short lecture on the mechanism of the grenade and methods of firing it. Then the party of ten was split into two squads and firing practice took place. The men were trained to fire kneeling and lying, behind cover and without, and also out of a deep fire-trench. I was greatly assisted by Sergt.
He did, however, treat us liberally to rifle grenades, and our casualties from these beastly contrivances were large. On one morning we were most unfortunate, a grenade killing our bombing sergeant and two men, and we started to retaliate with every variety of grenade we had. At this moment the trench mortar officer came up the trench and volunteered to assist us.
Looking quietly round, he deliberately produced and held up a hand-grenade, as it was called that is to say, a small bombshell and, before any one of the astonished spectators could stop him, lighted a match at one of the wax-candles, and applied it to the fusee of the shell. A shower of sparks came rushing from the hand- grenade, which would explode in a minute or two or even less.
It was a deadly dangerous game, for it was impossible to tell how long any fuse had still to burn and the grenade might explode at any moment, but though several men were killed and wounded in this way, the survivors persisted bravely and the Turkish advance was effectually checked.
In addition to his musket, each man of the guard moreover held a hand grenade, provided with a short fuze that could be ignited in a moment from the matches of the gunners, and with immediate effect. The soldiers in the block-houses were similarly provided.
The place was surrounded by police, but Despujol, discovering this, opened fire upon them from one of the windows and also threw a hand grenade among them, with result that two carabineers were killed and four others injured, among the latter being Señor Rivero himself. A desperate fight ensued, but in the end the bandit received a bullet in the head which proved fatal.
Into the very thick of it I rode; in the very thick of it I lay, and all that came of it was that I obtained possession of one more and overwhelming piece of evidence against my murderous Chevalier. But I outrun my story. It had been my purpose to change horses at Grenade, and so push on and reach Toulouse that very night or in the early hours of the following morning.
And one has a certain amount of sympathy for the sentry in a small post in front of the line who makes a mistake. He knows if an attack is coming he may only have a few seconds in which to act. His rifle is loaded with the S.O.S. grenade and all he has to do to let it off is to press the trigger.
From the very beginning the work had been carried on with difficulty owing to the congestion in the trench. Steps were taken, however, to get the casualties removed and the work was carried on more rapidly. The enemy's communication trench was severely bombed by the grenade teams which had been established at the various stations and the enemy bombers became much less troublesome.
I never see a hand grenade without thinking how difficult it is just now to be a hero in France. Every man is really a hero, and the men who have medals are almost ashamed, since they know that nearly all their comrades merit them. It is especially difficult to be a hero in one's own family. One of the men in our hospital at Royaumont had been in the trenches during an attack.
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