Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: September 26, 2025
Only the Boche long-range guns were firing, and their shells were going well over our heads. And no more French infantry were coming up. 9.20 A.M.: The two Horse Artillery batteries were away. Our teams and limbers had come up, all except one team of C Battery. We waited for the colonel to give the word. Suddenly the "chug-chug-chug" of a motor-cycle: a despatch-rider from Division!
So swift was the onslaught that the first warning received by the Confederates on the highroad was a sudden storm of musketry, the loud cheers of the enemy, and the rush of fugitives from the forest. Attacked simultaneously in front, flank and rear, with the guns and limbers entangled among the infantry, Winder's division was subjected to an ordeal of which it was without experience.
That is not all. "On the sixteenth, old John Stark fell upon Baum's and Breyman's Hessians at Bennington, killed and wounded over two hundred, captured seven hundred; took a thousand stand of arms, a thousand fine dragoon sabres, and four excellent field-cannon with limbers, harness, and caissons.... And lost fourteen killed!"
The gun crews thus organized will give most effective service for the detachment. Ammunition: Each limber carries 9,840 rounds cal. .30. Four limbers, 27,360; necessary reserve, 32,640; total, 60,000. Tentage: Two conical wall-tents for enlisted men; one 'A' wall-tent for officer.
It was a pretty sight to see them negotiating this obstacle the jolting of the springless wheels up and down the stony sides and across the rails on top ought to have been enough to shake the teeth out of the men sitting on the limbers, and gripping hard to keep their seats. By the way, how loudly the nether part of a gunner's anatomy must sometimes cry out for a cushion!
"Sock it to 'em. How do you like that, you ill-begotten imps of rebels?" The rebel cannoneers seemed to lose heart at once under the storm of fire that beat upon them. The volume of their fire diminished at once, and then became fitful and irregular. Two of their limbers were blown up in succession, with thunderous noise, and this further discouraged them.
So, picking our way through streets a-throng with British faces, dodging guns and limbers, wagons and carts of all descriptions, we came out upon the open road again. And now, there being no surface at all to speak of, we perforce went slow, and I watched where, just in front, a string of lorries lumbered heavily along, pitching and rolling very much like boats in a choppy sea.
Strolling up from the river that afternoon, very fine in my best, and, I confess, content with myself except for the lack of hair powder, queue, and ribbon, which ever disconcerted me, I saw already the two guns of the battalion of artillery moving out of their cantonment, the limbers, chests, and the forge well horsed and bright with polish and paint, the men somewhat patched and ragged, but with queues smartly tied and heads well floured.
There was a great mass of troops gathered round the small mound of Lala Baba, on whose top was now a wireless station and a signal mast. There were horses, artillery, limbers, mobs of men and increasing piles of stores.
During the night several limbers of artillery came clattering down the road, dodging shell holes, dead horses and men, followed by the wakeful German guns, as the gunners knew that these limbers held ammunition for the Canadian artillery in the first line. The Germans seemed to have a weird sense of what was going on on our roads.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking