A month or two passed before we could get away, and I remember one amusing incident which occurred during that time. I had spent a good deal of thought over the problem how best to attack men who lay concealed behind cover. My conclusions were that it was useless to fire at them direct, since, if they knew their business, very little of them would be vulnerable. On the other hand, if one could turn a rifle into a portable howitzer and drop a bullet with any sort of rough general accuracy within a given area, then it seemed to me that life would hardly be possible within that area. If, for example, the position was 20,000 square yards in size, and 20,000 rifles were dropping bullets upon it, each square yard would sooner or later be searched and your mark would be a whole prostrate or crouching body. What I was really evolving, though I could not know it, was the machine gun barrage of dropping or vertical fire as practised in the Great War. My principles were absolutely right and have not even yet received their full application. I wrote an article to “The Times” explaining my views, but so far as I know it had no results.
Meanwhile I was practising how to turn a rifle into a howitzer. I fastened a large needle at the end of a thread to the back sight. When the gun pointed straight up in the air the needle swung down across the stock and I marked the spot. Then the idea was to tilt the gun slowly forward, marking advances of 200, 400 and so on in the range, so that you had a dial marked on the stock and could always by letting the needle fall across the correct mark on the dial drop the bullet within a certain distance.
But the crux was to discover the exact ranges. To do this I went down to Frensham Pond and, standing among the reeds and tilting the gun very slightly forward, I pulled the trigger. The bullet very nearly fell upon my own head. I could not locate it, but I heard quite a loud thud. But what amazed me, and still amazes me, was the time it took. I counted fifty seconds on my watch between the discharge and the fall. I don’t wonder if the reader is incredulous. I feel incredulous also, but such is the fact as I recorded it.
My idea was to mark the bullet splashes on the calm water of the lake, but though I fired and fired at various angles not a splash could I see. Finally a little man who may have been an artist broke in upon my solitude.
“Do you want to know where those bullets are going?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Then I can tell you, sir, for they have been dropping all round me.”
I felt that unless my howitzer was to claim its first victim on the spot I had better stop. It was clear that the light bullet with so heavy a charge went so high into the atmosphere that one lost all command over it. Twice the weight and half the charge would have served my purpose better. Then came other calls and I could never work it out, but I am very sure that with a little care in detail I could have got a converging fire which would have cleared any kopje in South Africa.
As I was convinced that the idea was both practical and much needed I communicated full particulars to the War Office. Here is the letter I had in reply.
War Office,
Feb. 16, 1900.