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Updated: June 18, 2025
In peace-time, or in harbour, or in fine weather at sea, no such teasing interference is likely to arise; but in war, and on board a cruising ship, the public service frequently calls a ship's company to exchange their Bibles and Prayer-books for the sponges and rammers.
There, every horse is down. The guns are now silent. A knot of men, with clubbed rammers, bayonet thrusts, and quick revolver shots, fight for the smoking cannon. A cheer goes up. De Gress's guns are taken. Peyton turns his head to catch a glimpse of Colonel Valois. Grasping the star-spangled guidon of the battery with his bridle hand, Valois cuts down its bearer.
As I did not want to plowter about any more in the drizzle and the dark, I put my waterproof over the muzzle of one gun, and made a sort of wigwam with two or three rammers that I found, and lay along the tail of another gun, wondering where Vixen had got to, and where I might be.
They were "maidens" among the paver folk, and determined not to give up this honorable appellation, and let themselves be miscalled "rammers. "Maiden is a human name, but hand-rammer is a thing, and we won't be called things that's insulting us."
They had pulled the cannon back, and, through the grunting sound of the groans about him, the lieutenant could distinctly hear the thud and punch of the rammers, and he knew they were going to shoot again. The low rail afforded almost no shelter against such a broadside, and there was nothing for it but to order all hands below for the time being. "Get below!" roared out the lieutenant.
It is easy to imagine the iron flanges that sweep the snow from the track to be rammers for a combat at close quarters, and the canvas hangers that shield the brushes, torpedo-nets for defence against a hidden enemy.
The side was cut for a gun-port, which opened and shut by means of laniards; and, pointing through the opened port was a model brass nine-pounder on its carriage, with all its roping correctly rigged, and its sponges and rammers hooked up above it ready for use. "There you are," said Marah Gorsuch. "That lot's for you, Mr Preacher-feller. Them things is what the Queen sent."
The gun platform was approached at either end by a good wide flight of steps; and beside each gun was a goodly pile of shot, while sponges, rammers, handspikes, and the rest of the paraphernalia for loading and training the guns reposed in brackets fixed to the inner face of the parapet.
There was feverish haste to finish undone things, but when Capt. McGillicuddy looked over his men in the company street, he declared himself proud to stack up Co. Q against any other in the regiment. Gun barrels and bayonets shone like silver, rammers rang clear, and came out without a stain to the Captain's white gloves. The band on the parade ground struck up the rollicking
They were "maidens" among the paviour folk, and determined not to give up this honourable appellation, and let themselves be miscalled rammers. "Maiden is a human name, but hand-rammer is a thing, and we won't be called things that's insulting us."
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