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A GLIMPSE OF WAR 
6-in. Q.F. 
By W. L. GEORGE 
CORPORAL QUADRING, at the telephone, stared 
into the feeder, so dark and mysterious as it 
passed through the floor of the turret into the 
ammunition room. There was a noise of ma- 
chinery in his ears and yet he was alert, quiet, 
at his ordinary business. His free ear, aloof from the in- 
sinuating sound that the carrier made as the shells slowly 
travelled and rose in the feeder, aloof even from the rumble 
and crackle of the distant firing which he heard when the 
cupola rose, was given to his lieutenant who sat there, three 
feet away, still as a wax figure, listening at that other telephone 
linked with the heart of the fort, the fire control. He had 
nothing to do but just to listen and to wait for sounds, for 
orders, for events in this atmosphere of strange business. 
The fire was slow, three shots a minute only. And auto- 
matically, from time to time, as the little voice below said : 
" Steady ! " he replied : " Steady ! " 
Nothing was happening yet, but he knew that something 
must soon happen. Things were not going well with the 
fortress. He wondered where the French were, whether 
that field artillery on the right could be theirs ; he wondered 
why in those bursts of sound when the cupola rose he heard 
so little musketry. No doubt the Germans were within 
five miles. But then ? Why were they not yet being battered ? 
He was lost in the enormous strife. The Ueutenant was 
talking now : 
"Control! D 'you hear me ? Control! . . . Yes, sir ! . . 
Aeroplane wrecked ? . . . What shall I do, sir ? . . . Yes, 
sir." 
Then to the sergeant : 
"Range nine four fifty." And to Quadring : "Speed 
up." 
" Speed up ! " cried Quadring into the telephone. 
The machinery went a little faster. Slowly before 
his eyes a shell rose in the black void, harmonious, 
beautiful in lines, exquisitely polished. As he listened he 
stared at the sergeant, grizzled but alert, watched the shell 
slide into the hands of four men and travel as if on velvet 
towards the breech : quick-opened, it swallowed the shell, 
snapped it up like a greedy mouth. He saw the sergeant 
push aside a gun-layer, infinitesimally alter the direction. 
" Speed up ! " said the heutenant, sharply. 
They were firing four a minute now, rather bhndly 
towards that place where the German howitzers might be, 
to show that the fort was fighting rather than to fight. Then 
the small shell began to fall. . . . 
Corporal Quadring listened, interested and, calm. He 
knew the sound : every fifteen seconds, when the cupola 
rose, he recognised the Krupp fifteen-pounders. " Small 
fry," he thought, disdainfully. He did not know where 
they were falling, hidden in the circular chamber of steel 
that whirred under his feet, the small, crowded room, in- 
tolerably hght ; he felt comfortable and secure behind the 
walls of grey metal. The lieutenant was talking again. 
Quadring understood : another aeroplane had located the 
howitzers. The range was altered. 
" Speed lip ! Speed up ! " said the Ueutenant, authori- 
tative rather than impatient. 
They were firing at twelve-second intervals now, and 
there was a gritting sound. It bothered him, this sound, 
so near liim. It dominated the more frequent bark of the 
fifteen-pounders outside. Where were they falUng ? . . . 
They sounded nearer now. Then Corporal Quadring heard 
a large splosh. Oh, they had hit the glacis then ! " Fluke," 
he thought. But there came another shell and then, as the 
6 inch fired again, two or three simultaneously, quite close : 
shrilling through the explosions he heard a cry. He grew 
taut : " That must have been on the infantry parapet ! 
Poor devils ! " thought Corporal Quadring. And then 
smugly reflected that he was better off inside. Still, the sound 
worried him. Ah ! this was it. 
" Oil can," said the sergeant. 
" Oil can," repeated Quadring, through the telephone. 
" Oil can," said the little voice. 
And, as if by magic, the oil can rose in the feeder. A 
note of excitement had come into the lieutenant's voice : 
" Yes, sir, I understand." Then to the sergeant : " Nine 
one fifty. Get all you can out of her." 
Ouadring's heart gave just one beat more and then 
became normal. They were in for it now. 
Suddenly, on his order, the feeder came alive. It rasped 
and it whirred, running at top speed, for indeed the quick-firer 
was giving all it could and the four men seemed to seize the 
new shells as fast as they fed them. Corporal Quadring was 
all bewildered outside that calm spot where lay his duty. 
His first excitement increased, for at last . . . Yes, here 
it was ... a dull heavy sound upon the cupola ; the Germans 
had the range, unless it was another fluke. . . . No, not a 
fluke : as the cupola closed down two shells fell together on 
the steel roof. The Ueutenant smiled : 
" That's the first," he said, " but we . . ." 
Corporal Quadring did not hear the rest, for this was not 
a fifteen-pound sheU that had fallen so close over his head 
that he sank it into his shoulders. The whole turret had 
quivered under the heavy impact. And now it was indeed : 
" Speed up ! " Hands were feverish as they grasped the 
shells ... for the turret had begun to move . . ■. the 
cupola rose . . . the 6-inch fired into the gleam of blue sky. 
The cupola blotted out the blue sky and, rumbUng upon its 
rails while with a swish water escaped from the pipes, the 
turret moved along the trench to take up a new position. 
It could take no risks now. . . . 
In front, behind, Quadring heard the explosions. Yes, 
they were being battered now. The gun was pushed, to its 
utmost, it seemed ; the sergeant in one movement tore off 
his coat, wiped his face upon his shirt-sleeve. And yet it 
was not fast enough. 
" Speed up ! Speed up ! " shouted Quadring. 
The lieutenant murmured : " Too slow ! Go below, 
give 'em heU ! " 
It seemed curiously cool and dark below. The store- 
keeper was sulky, hardly Ustened. Quadring just noticed 
the woiinded hydraulicist who had been hit in the trench 
and brought in, rather to clear the rails than to save him. 
He lay, a smaU khaki bundle, folded up as if to get him out 
of the way, under a mask of red, his coat black-dyed with 
blood, half -stunned by a scalp wound. 
Then from above came a sound heavier than he had heard 
before, a vast boom, and for a second everything tottered : 
as if the wall and the feeder itself swayed. The turret shook ' 
Uke a man who has been struck. " Got us full ! " he thought, 
while he stumbled up the stairs tripping on the iron treads, 
shying back from the electric globes like a nervous horse. 
Above, all was urgency and yet calm. Still the feeder was 
belching sheUs, stiU the cupola, a little askew from the blow 
of the eleven inch sheU, rose and feU as the quick-firer replied. 
He was seized by movement . . . minute after minute passed, 
lengthened into an hour of heat and fire. ... He was con- 
scious only of the swaying of the turret as it rushed along 
its trench, fired, rushed back and fired again. It was all 
action, it was aU haste, mechanical as if the men with the gun 
and the steel walls formed an automatic trinity. Sound 
was aU about him like a black blanket shot with red streaks. 
Every rise of the cupola let in the growing roar of the German 
guns, Uke a wedge, then closed it out. He felt rather than 
heard the sound grow. He understood. Nothing would 
help them, now their range was found, save perhaps some lucky 
shots unlimbering those howitzers hidden behind hill 44 or 
45, or, he thought bitterly, 48, who could tell ? 
He exclaimed. As the cupola .rose a shell burst on the 
edge of the work and for a second all was invisible, for the 
turret was filled by a cloud of concrete. Corporal Quadring 
retched a mouthful of dust . . . fierce, he forced his stung 
throat, murmured : 
" Speed up ! "' 
Thicker and thicker came the sounds. Boom upon 
boom ringing on the cupola. " It'll buckle," he thought. 
Then again : " It'U buckle." And as he thought the voice 
below spoke : 
" Bearings jammed ! " 
" Go on," said the lieutenant. 
The gun stiU raged into the strip of sky ; the cupola 
was doomed and would soon protect it no more. Right, 
left, fire . . . then left, fire and right again ... the turret, 
half-exposed, was fighting stiU. But a heavy sheU fell 
upon the edge and suddenly the three inches of steel bent, 
crumpled Uke a fan. Right, left . . . then a pause. It 
synchronised with the bursting of a shell in the trench itself. 
Quadring knew, he could imagine the rails and roadway twisted 
up : the turret would never move again ... it would only 
wait. Wait ? For what ? 
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