Men Whose Nerves Had Been Steeled To The Crash Of The
Big Guns, Or The Monotonous Roar Of Maxims And The Rattle Of Mauser
Fire, Found A New Terror In The Malignant 'ploop-Plooping' Of The
Automatic Quick-Firer.
The Maxim of the Scots Guards was caught in
the hell-blizzard from this thing - each shell no bigger than a
large walnut, but flying in strings of a score - and men and gun
were destroyed in an instant.
As to the rifle bullets the air was
humming and throbbing with them, and the sand was mottled like a
pond in a shower. To advance was impossible, to retire was hateful.
The men fell upon their faces and huddled close to the earth, too
happy if some friendly ant-heap gave them a precarious shelter. And
always, tier above tier, the lines of rifle fire rippled and
palpitated in front of them. The infantry fired also, and fired,
and fired - but what was there to fire at? An occasional eye and
hand over the edge of a trench or behind a stone is no mark at
seven hundred yards. It would be instructive to know how many
British bullets found a billet that day.
The cavalry was useless, the infantry was powerless - there only
remained the guns. When any arm is helpless and harried it always
casts an imploring eye upon the guns, and rarely indeed is it that
the gallant guns do not respond. Now the 75th and 18th Field
Batteries came rattling and dashing to the front, and unlimbered at
one thousand yards.
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