gun fretted and chafed impatiently as if each second had been an hour.

At another message from the Forward Officer the Battery Commander
called for Section Commanders. The Sergeant-Major clapped megaphone to
mouth and shouted, and two young subalterns and a sergeant jumped from
their places, and raced for the dug-out. The Major spoke rapidly and
tersely. 'We are putting down a belt of shrapnel in front of our own
infantry--very close to them. You know what that means--the most
careful and exact laying and fusing, and fire as hot and heavy as you
can make it. The infantry can't hold 'em. They're depending on us;
the line depends on us. Tell your men so. Be off, now.' The three
saluted, whirled on their heels, and were off. They told their men,
and the men strained every nerve to answer adequately to the call upon
them. The rate of fire worked up faster and faster. Between the
thunder-claps of the gun the Sergeant-Major's megaphone bellowed,
'Number Six, check your lay.' Number Six missed the message, but the
nearest gun caught the word and passed it along. The Section Commander
heard, saluted to show he had heard and understood, and ran himself to
check the layer's aim.

Up to now the Battery had worked without coming under any serious fire.
There were always plenty of rifle bullets coming over, and an
occasional one of the shells that roared constantly past or over fell
amongst the guns. A few men had been wounded, and one had been killed,
and that was all.

Then, quite suddenly, a tempest of high-explosive shell rained down on
the battery, in front of, behind, over, and amongst the guns.
Instinctively the men hesitated in their work, but the next instant the
voices of the Section Commanders brought them to themselves. There
were shelter-pits and dug-outs close by, and, without urgent need of
their fire, the guns might be left while the gunners took cover till
the storm was over. But there could be no thought of that now, while
the picture was in everyone's mind of the infantry out there being hard
pressed and overborne by the weight of the assault. So the gunners
stayed by their guns and loaded, laid, and fired as fast as they could
serve their pieces. The gun shields give little or no protection from
high-explosive shells, because these burst overhead and fling their
fragments straight down, burst in rear, and hurl jagged splinters
outwards in every direction. The men were as open and unprotec