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Moreover in this war a man was not dead until he was dead. The small bullets of the high-powered rifle either killed or harmed but little. It was the shrapnel that tore. The road led across low hills, and down slopes which he knew were kissed by a warm sun in summer. It was here that the vines flourished, but the snow could not hide the fact that it was torn and trampled now.
About midnight we were wakened from our slumbers by a thunderstorm, the thunder, lightning and hail being provided by a deluge of bursting shells, splinters and shrapnel bullets. When the barrage lifted, glimpses were caught of the enemy moving along our front wire; but this raid never succeeded in forcing an entrance to our trenches. We had every reason to "remember the fifth of November."
You run from the once bullet-swept water's edge to the slight shelter of a sand-bank, and walk by the narrow sap into "Shrapnel Valley," still strewn with old water-bottles and broken rum-jars, by a trench then to "Monash Valley," and there probably you start coveys of partridge, which abound now in great numbers, or you start the silver fox or ever-present hare.
It was what remained of a bomb, and had been loaded with slugs of lead and those iron cherries that are called shrapnel. A French flyer had dropped it that afternoon with intent to destroy one of the German captive balloons and its operator. The young officer was the operator of the balloon in question.
And talking of awkward places, I had forgotten about that spot upon the road whence the Boche observer could see our motor-cars. He had actually laid a gun upon it, the rascal, and waited all the long day for our return. No sooner did we appear upon the slope than a shrapnel shell burst above us, but somewhat behind me, as well as to the left.
Captain Lafone, who had been wounded at Elandslaagte, was killed; Lieutenant Price-Dent so seriously injured that there is little hope of his recovery; six other subalterns wounded one being hit by shrapnel bullets or splinters in four places and the mess waiter struck down by a heavy splinter that embedded itself beneath the ribs in a cavity too deep for probing at present.
Perhaps this was why the British soldiers adopted them as an expression of contempt for the enemy's batteries. But contempt was hardly justifiable in face of the difficulty of the problem. A gun firing a twenty-pound shrapnel shell is not pointed on an object with the celerity with which a practised revolver shot can throw his weapon into position.
I received, at the same moment, two musket balls in the thighs, a grape shot through the calf of my leg, a lance through my left shoulder, a piece of a shrapnel in the left deltoid, a bayonet through the cartilage of my right ribs, a cut-cut that carried away a pound of flesh from my chest, and the better part of a congreve rocket on my forehead.
Above the roar of London, the pop pop pop! of the defending guns could be heard now almost continuously, followed by the shrieks and moans of the shrapnel shells as they passed close overhead. They sounded like giant rockets, and even as rockets some of them broke into a cascade of sparks.
And mark stop! mark this, Dr. Shrapnel: I say, to the lady we can all excuse a good deal, and at the same time you are to be congratulated on first-rate diplomacy in employing so charming an agent.
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