By Any Name It Was A Remarkable Gun And The Most Demoralizing Of
Any Of The Smaller Pieces Which Have Been Used In This Campaign.
One
of its values is that its projectiles throw up sufficient dust to
enable the gunner to tell exactly where they strike, and within a few
seconds he is able to alter the range accordingly.
In this way it is
its own range-finder. Its bark is almost as dangerous as its bite,
for its reports have a brisk, insolent sound like a postman's knock,
or a cooper hammering rapidly on an empty keg, and there is an
unexplainable mocking sound to the reports, as though the gun were
laughing at you. The English Tommies used to call it very aptly the
"hyena gun." I found it much less offensive from the rear than when
I was with the British, and in front of it.
From the top of a kopje we saw that the battle had at last begun and
that the bridge was the objective point. The English came up in
great lines and blocks and from so far away and in such close order
that at first in spite of the khaki they looked as though they wore
uniforms of blue. They advanced steadily, and two hours later when
we had ridden to a kopje still nearer the bridge, they were
apparently in the same formation as when we had first seen them, only
now farms that had lain far in their rear were overrun by them and
they encompassed the whole basin.
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