g out over the battery: "Prepare for action!"

It put life into the men at once, and all set about their various
duties with the utmost zeal.

Wegstetten turned to the subaltern, who stood stupidly looking on, and
said, "Well, Lieutenant Landsberg, you may take over the command again
now."

Truchsess, the brewer, as No. 4 of gun six, brought out the shrapnel
very gingerly. How easily such stuff as that might go off!

The old hands had gruesome tales to tell of accidents that had happened
during gun-practice. Once while being loaded, a gun had prematurely
exploded backwards, making a great hole through gunner No. 3, right
through his chest, a hole just the same size as the bore of the gun. As
the corpse was being carried away afterwards the sun shone right
through it; so that in the middle of the shadow cast by the body was a
bright round spot exactly the same size and shape as the bore of a gun.

The brewer could not help thinking of this as he very cautiously pushed
the shrapnel into the bore. Klitzing, however, shoved it vigorously
with the rammer, so that its metal casing clinked against the inside of
the gun.

"Now then, old fellow, easy on! The thing might go off!" whispered
Truchsess.

But Klitzing only smiled, and the brewer sullenly thought to himself,
"Well, if that clerk has no use for his life, I have for mine, anyhow!"

Carefully he pushed in the cartridge, and heaved a sigh of relief as
the lock slipped back once more. At any rate, it couldn't explode at
the back now and hit him.

The battery now started again and went on at an easy trot to the
exercise-ground. In the midst of a luxuriant growth of heather they
unlimbered. It was a wonderful picture, the guns and the scattered
gunners on that peaceful sea of purple. The waves of blossom reached
nearly to the axles of the blue wheels and above the knees of the men,
and closed over the trail of the gun-carriage as it passed. The men had
to make their way through the heather almost as if it had been a wood.

"Open with shrapnel! Straight in front! At the battery before the
guide-post at the edge of the wood. Third gun! Two thousand eight
hundred!" commanded Lieutenant Landsberg. "Fire from left flank! Fire
from left flank!"--that meant that gun six should begin; that of the
whole regiment it was to have the honour of firing the first shot in
this year's practice.

Klitzing, as gun-layer, set the sight in a twinkling to 2800 yards, got
astride the