rward
with a jerk, and a moment later, as he and the Number Two slipped into
their seats on the gun the Number Two grinned at him. "Sharp's the
word," he said: "d'you mind the time----" He was interrupted roughly by
the sergeant, who had just had the target pointed out to him, jerking
up the trail to throw the gun roughly into line.

"Shut yer head, and get on to it, Donovan. You see that target there,
don't you?"

"See it a fair treat!" said Donovan joyfully; "I'll bet I plunk a bull
in the first three shots."

Back in the wood the infantry colonel, from a vantage-point half-way up
a tall tree, watched the ensuing duel with the keenest excitement.

The battery's first two ranging shots dropped in a neat bracket, one
over and one short; in the next two the bracket closed, the shorter
shot being almost on top of the target. This evidently gave the range
closely enough, and the whole battery burst into a roar of fire, the
blazing flashes running up and down the line of guns like the reports
of a gigantic Chinese cracker. Over the long team of the German gun a
thick cloud of white smoke hung heavily, burst following upon burst and
hail after hail of shrapnel sweeping the men and horses below. Then
through the crashing reports of the guns and the whimpering rush of
their shells' passage, there came a long whistling scream that rose and
rose and broke off abruptly in a deep rolling cr-r-r-rump. A spout of
brown earth and thick black smoke showed where the enemy shell had
burst far out in front of the battery.

The infantry colonel watched anxiously. He knew that out there
somewhere another heavy German gun had come into action; he knew that
it was a good deal slower in its rate of fire, but that once it had
secured its line and range it could practically obliterate the light
field guns of the battery. The battery was fighting against time and
the German gunners to complete their task before they could be
silenced. The first team was crippled and destroyed, and another team,
rushed out from the cover of the trees, was fallen upon by the shrapnel
tornado, and likewise swept out of existence.

Then another shell from the German gun roared over, to burst this time
well in the rear of the battery.

The colonel knew what this meant. The German gun had got its bracket.
The battery had ceased to fire shrapnel, and was pouring high-explosive
about the derelict gun. The white bursts of shrapnel had given place to
a series of