orn a great hole in
the ground. They saw men running; others were crawling, dragging
themselves painfully along. And others still lay very quiet.

For just a moment there was a scene of wild confusion. But then order
was restored, and a knot of men ran to the two guns that were uninjured
and ready. Paul dived down at once. Quickly he told what had
happened, then raced up again. Another whistling overhead, and then a
terrific explosion. The two guns lay overturned, ruined.

CHAPTER X

PRISONERS OF WAR

For five minutes the two scouts, appalled, horrified, stood as if glued
to the floor, staring at the scene of destruction. The guns in Fort
Boncelles had the range now. Nothing more than Paul's hurried message,
"Your shell landed beyond the guns," had been necessary. Now shell
after shell was dropped in the midst of the battery that had been wiped
out before it could fire even a single shot. There was a deadly,
terrifying accuracy about the whole proceeding. Miles away the Belgian
gunners, safe in their concrete and steel turrets, were producing this
waste and destruction--not by fighting, it seemed to Paul and Arthur,
but by a blackboard exercise. That was all it really was.

"You see, they know just where their gun is, and they can adjust it to
fire a certain distance. They can take a map, and fire a shell at any
given spot, just by mathematics. They know the angle they must use,
and they know just how far, and how fast that shell will go. It won't
always go quite true, of course; that was why the first shell didn't
strike just the right spot."

"But why is that, if everything is so exact? I shouldn't think they'd
ever make a miss."

"Oh, there are lots of reasons. For one, after a gun has been fired a
few times the inside is affected. The rifling is worn in places, and
that gives a slightly different spin to the shell. It doesn't take
much of a change in conditions to alter the course of a shell a good
deal. And the weather counts, too. Sometimes there is more air
resistance; on a day when it is damp and foggy, with low lying clouds,
for instance. So, though they have the range exactly, they may have to
alter what they call the formula a little."

"And they find out by shooting how nearly right they are?"

"Yes, that's just what they do. It's the only way they can do it, too.
That's why it's so important, when guns are being fired at targets
miles away, to have some one report th