We said, ‘Oh, yes’, and then we got off the wall, and that good and noble man showed us the string that moves the detonator and the breech-block (when you take it out and carry it away the gun is in vain to the enemy, even if he takes it); and he let us look down the gun to see the rifling, all clean and shiny—and he showed us the ammunition boxes, but there was nothing in them. He also told us how the gun was unlimbered (this means separating the gun from the ammunition carriage), and how quick it could be done—but he did not make the men do this then, because they were resting. There were six guns. Each had painted on the carriage, in white letters, 15 Pr., which the captain told us meant fifteen-pounder.
‘I should have thought the gun weighed more than fifteen pounds,’ Dora said. ‘It would if it was beef, but I suppose wood and gun are lighter.’
And the officer explained to her very kindly and patiently that 15 Pr. meant the gun could throw a SHELL weighing fifteen pounds.
When we had told him how jolly it was to see the soldiers go by so often, he said—
‘You won’t see us many more times. We’re ordered to the front; and we sail on Tuesday week; and the guns will be painted mud-colour, and the men will wear mud-colour too, and so shall I.’
The men looked very nice, though they were not wearing their busbies, but only Tommy caps, put on all sorts of ways.
We were very sorry they were going, but Oswald, as well as others, looked with envy on those who would soon be allowed—being grown up, and no nonsense about your education—to go and fight for their Queen and country.
Then suddenly Alice whispered to Oswald, and he said—
‘All right; but tell him yourself.’
So Alice said to the captain—