United States or Lithuania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Again came the running bursts and puffing white smoke, and satisfied this time with their line, position, and distance, the Forward Officer shouted for 'Gun-fire, jumped down and across to the telephonist's shelter-pit. 'I'm putting a belt of fire just ahead of our line, he shouted, curving his fingers about his lips and the mouthpiece in an attempt to shut out the uproar about them.
Then I heard Ranjoor Singh's voice, high-pitched. Almost the next I knew we were halted in the shadow of the trees again, calling low to one another, friend's voice seeking friend's. We could scarcely hear the voices for the thunder of artillery that had begun again; and whereas formerly the German gun-fire had been greatest, now we thought the British and French fire had the better of it.
If the head bad man not the secondary bad man who stayed bad all through, or the tertiary bad man who was fatally extinguished with gun-fire in Reel Two, but the chief, or primary, bad man who reformed and married Little Nell, the unspoiled child of Death Valley wore the smartest frontier get-up of current year's vintage that the Chicago mail-order houses could turn out; if Little Nell's father, appearing contemporaneously, dressed according to the mode laid down for Forty-niners by such indubitable authorities as Bret Harte; if the sheriff stalked in and out of lens range attired as a Mississippi River gambler was popularly supposed to have been attired in the period 1860 to 1875; and if finally the cavalry troopers from the near-by army post sported the wide hats and khaki shirts which came into governmental vogue about the time of the Spanish War, all very well and good.
'My! ye're a fair treat! said Macgregor, chuckling in his misery. ''Sh! Keep still! Something comin'! The distant gun-fire had diminished. There were appreciable silences between the blasts. But during a flash Macgregor detected a helmeted crawling shape. Willie's hand stole out and grasped the bayonet. 'Number twa! he muttered, with a stealthy movement. 'I maun get him!
They had made the Kaiser's troops pay dearly for every inch of ground; and, whereas the German High Command had confidently expected to reach Verdun within a day or two, five days had passed, and yet, in spite of overwhelming gun-fire and masses of troops, the French had only just retired to their main defensive position. Douaumont stood on that line.
When the battles began in July of that year it was only a short distance away from the fighting-lines; near enough to hear the incessant roar of gun-fire on the French front and ours, and near enough to get, by motor-car or lorry, in less than thirty minutes, to places where men were being killed or maimed or blinded in the routine of the day's work.
We'll see the head of the procession come in sight away off yonder pretty soon, now." Says I, "It's pretty lonesome, Sandy; I reckon there's a hitch somewheres. Nobody but just you and me it ain't much of a display for the barkeeper." "Don't you fret, it's all right. There'll be one more gun-fire then you'll see. In a little while we noticed a sort of a lightish flush, away off on the horizon.
If you go in you have got to picket your horse here and put your baggage there and come in at gun-fire, and all sorts of things that troubles a man who is accustomed to act as he likes." The horses were soon picketed. "I will go in first and see who is here, Tom.
I could hear every gun-fire, Zurba being only nine miles in a direct line from my house, and I counted fifteen shots a minute during a part of the time.
And officers looked at one another and shook their heads knowingly, out of the drear, hard experience in spade approaches, when they thought of that brilliant uniform as a target and of frontier tactics against massed infantry and gun-fire. "Once will be enough," said the cynical. "There won't be many left to tell the tale!" And the African Braves knew how the army felt.
Word Of The Day