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Updated: May 29, 2025
Again the Vickers-Maxim flung its covey of projectiles. Again we crouched for the following shell; but this time it did not come immediately. I had seen quite enough, however, so we bade our friends good luck never good-bye on active service and hurried, slowly, on account of appearances, from this unhealthy valley. As we reached our horses I saw another shell burst among the infantry.
They advised us to take cover, which we would gladly have done had there been any worth speaking of; for at this moment the Boers discharged their Vickers-Maxim gun the 'pom-pom' and I have never heard such an extraordinary noise.
For some time the Boers made no reply, but at about ten o'clock their Vickers-Maxim opened on the batteries firing from the Potgieter's plain, and the fire gradually increased as other guns, some of great range, joined in, until the Artillery was sharply engaged in an unsatisfactory duel fifty guns exposed in the open against six or seven guns concealed and impossible to find.
Countless craft, manned by lissome blacks or tawny Hottentots, instantly shot forth from the crowded quays, and surged in picturesque disorder round the great hull, scarred by the ordure of ten score pure Arab chargers. 'Who goes there? cried the ever-watchful sentry on the ship, as he ran out the ready-primed Vickers-Maxim from the port-hole.
In the recoil operated guns, the barrel itself is forced to the rear by the "kick," as we commonly call it, and the force applied directly to the working parts, thus performing the same operations above described. The Maxim, Vickers, Vickers-Maxim and Maxim-Nordenfeldt belong to this class. They are all water-cooled, having a water-jacket of sheet metal entirely surrounding the barrel.
A little to the left the Welsh Regiment was advancing up the steep side of Alexander's kopje, which was doubly enfiladed by the Boer guns; two Elswicks firing from the east and a Vickers-Maxim from the south-west. There was also a nasty rain of bullets.
The Vickers-Maxim and the Nordenfeldt are the best known in America. A new type of the Vickers-Maxim was introduced in 1897 in which a quick working breech mechanism automatically ejects the primer and draws up the loading tray into position as the breech is opened. This type was quickly adopted by the United States Navy and materially increased the speed of fire in all calibres.
We were completely surrounded by a force of 3,200, under Commandant De Wet, who, according to his own testimony to us afterwards, had five guns, four of which were in action, as well as a Vickers-Maxim. Shortly after the fighting began bullets and shells were dropping, and exploding in close proximity to our hospital. The Red Cross flag had four bullet-holes.
Six crowded weeks were behind us since the disastrous one of Colenso, and with it the news of the formation of the C.I.V., and the incorporation in that regiment of a battery to be supplied by the Honourable Artillery Company, with four quick-firing Vickers-Maxim guns.
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