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I kept my eye on it, however, for some reason, and saw it finally go over the ridge and turn, and as it turned Kr-kr-kr-p! and a shell lit on the ridge 25 yards in our front; it was about an 8-incher and showered the dirt in all directions. We scurried like rabbits into our pit, emerging in a few minutes when the dirt and dust had blown away.
Despite their activities, the balloon got well up and was doing good observation work on its way over to the naval nuisance; there it reached its objective, making the necessary notations and records. Then Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p! And the shells commenced to scatter around it. Then it was a case of getting the bag down, which was not so easy.
"Well, of all the ." I couldn't find words, and then I remembered his old-time habit of thriftiness, and I made up my mind to keep a sharp lookout, and if I caught him profiteering in rations he had saved from the men, I mentally resolved I would show him no mercy. Exactly at 2 o'clock that morning we started sending our messages to Fritzie, and inside of a minute Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p!
Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p! And his shells were flying all around us. The cookhouse was only about 20 yards off and I wondered if Scotty would now loosen up a bit, and I stepped over leaving Lawrence in charge of the gun. The cook had crawled under his bunk, which was merely a slight wire mattress raised a couple of feet off the floor.
Kr-kr-kr-p! and a shell landed right in the middle of the bathroom, and the bunch of merry-hearted fellows was transformed into a panic-stricken crowd, leaping and jumping out of the tubs in every direction in a pell-mell rush, helter-skelter, of men, some half dressed, others absolutely naked, intermingled with the women attendants, in the scramble for safety.
I ambled over to the farmhouse, stopping to speak to the Captain for a moment on the way, when I heard a shell explode; it had demolished No. 2 gun. "Stand to!" yelled the Captain; then to the farmer, "Take that damned cow away." He hurried the cow off and put it in the barn, but he had no sooner gone than Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p! and the Captain and I were knocked off our feet.
The cookhouse here was in the house of a farmer who had vacated, and as the smoke coming from the chimney got thicker every moment, I was apprehensive lest Fritz would see it and send over a shell message, but Scotty pooh-poohed the idea. Dinner was almost ready when Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p! Bang! and a shell shot clean through the joint.
Kr-kr-kr-p! and Fritz started getting busy again as an airplane hovered about, and the pace getting too deucedly hot, we started for the trenches; it was a ditch-trench half full of water which came to our waists, and in it we paddled our way until we got to a fairly good trench, and on the journey down imprecations of all kinds were hurled on the head of the offending Sergeant-Major.
I volunteered and went to a farmhouse 150 yards off, got the water and had started back for the guns. I had just stepped outside the door of the farmhouse when Kr-kr-kr-p! a huge shell came over and blew the gun and gun crew into kingdom come. A French captain was standing twenty feet from the door and, following the report, I started for our gun.
Kr-kr-kr-p! a slather of German guns had opened upon ours and the fellows fled pell-mell from the gun pit and made for the culvert, taking shelter underneath. They were there about a minute when a shell landed straight on the culvert, going through eight feet of cement and brick, blowing everything in all directions and killing 15 out of the 16 men who had taken refuge there.
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