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Updated: June 22, 2025
The Turk, wide awake to these preliminaries, was firing shrapnel at the aircraft overhead, and hurling towards the destroyers his high-explosive shells, which tossed up water-spouts in the sea. The whizz-bang gun spat continuously. "You won't spit after to-night," I mused, "if Doe reaches you."
But sentiment of that sort was out of place in trenches less than a hundred yards away from men lying behind rifles and waiting to kill. But that absurd idea of Santa Claus in the trenches came into my head several times, and I wondered whether the Germans would fire a whizz-bang at him or give a burst of machine-gun fire if they caught the glint of his red cloak.
Many would have preferred to go elsewhere in case of shelling, but these two never left their papers, though more than once the roof came perilously near being whisked off by some whizz-bang. Philosopher James Lincoln was particularly imperturbable, as he sat surrounded by pipes and beautifully-sharpened pencils, discussing the weather and the crops with any who chanced to pass by.
Whether the little party was seen or not will never be known; what happened would seem to show that they were. They had not gone seventy yards before a "whizz-bang" burst a few yards North of the road hitting a Stretcher Bearer. Another followed, this time the burst was only a few yards behind the party.
Apparently the East Cheshires are holding an awkward position on a place called Fusilier Bluff, and being killed like stink by a well-placed whizz-bang gun. They've got about fifty men and half an officer left per company. They're screaming for reinforcements. Salt and pepper, please. Thanks." "Where is this Fusilier Bluff, sir?" asked I. "At Suvla or Helles?"
But it could only have been the shock which knocked him over, for he was on his feet again, and staggering home. "Gawd!" screamed the sergeant-major. "He's bombed the gun and exploded the shell-dump. Finish whizz-bang!" And he bellowed with triumphant laughter. "I knew he would," cried I. "I knew he would. This way, Doe!" He was going blindly to his right.
In my tent there was no one very bad at the time, except a boy with his shoulder half-blown off by a whizz-bang, who lay in a drugged sleep at the far end. The majority were influenza, bronchitis, and trench-fever waiting to be moved to the base, or convalescent and about to return to their units.
And then of course there is the whizz-bang coming from close, along his flat trajectory: he has little to say, but comes like a sudden wind, and all that he has to do is done and over at once. And then there is the gas shell, who goes over gurgling gluttonously, probably in big herds, putting down a barrage.
A Hun observer had spotted him and flashed the target back to his guns. All about him the mud commenced to leap and bubble. He went on signalling the good word to those stranded men up front, "Messages received. Help coming." At last they'd seen him. They were signaling, "O. K." It was at that moment that a whizz-bang lifted him off his feet and landed him all of a huddle. His "bit!"
As far as Fusilier Bluff was concerned, said he, the attack was an effort to reach and destroy the terrible whizz-bang gun. It was believed that the gun's location was in a nullah where its dump of ammunition was inaccessible to our artillery. Only bombers could reach it.
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