WHEN THE DARKIES TURNED PALE
At one of our Government proving grounds, some years ago, the officers were testing a new high explosive, and, as was their custom, they charged a twelve-inch shell with the material in order to estimate the power of the explosive by the fragmentation of the projectile when the charge was detonated.
They had a bomb-proof chamber prepared for this purpose. It consisted of a room about ten feet wide, twelve feet long, and eight feet high, lined with armorplate. The projectile was placed on the armored floor in the middle of the room, and covered with a few hundred pounds of fine sand. It was armed with an electrical exploder, which was set off from another bomb-proof at a safe distance. After each explosion, the fragments were sifted from the sand and counted and weighed.
A twelve-inch shell charged with Maximite and exploded at Sandy Hook during the tests there of that explosive, was broken into ten thousand fragments. The fragments made deep dents in the hard face of the armorplate. The shell that enters into this story was exploded under similar conditions.
When the officers were ready to explode the shell, they sounded the usual alarm to give warning to laboring men on the premises to seek cover. Now, it so happened that about a dozen negroes who were engaged in some pick-and-shovel work had been in the habit of using this very bomb-proof as a shelter when a big gun was fired; consequently, when the warning was sounded, they immediately rushed for cover within that bomb-proof.
The officer in command was about to close the switch to explode the projectile, and his hand was already upon it, but, being an exceedingly cautious man, he thought he would take another look to be sure that all was safe, and, to his amazement, he saw a negro who had been screening himself behind a pile of rubbish making a dash for the bomb-proof containing the projectile, when it was revealed that the dozen darkies had all huddled into it for safety.
When those darkies found out how close a call they had had, they turned just as pale as negroes can turn. Had the projectile been exploded while they were in the bomb-proof, they would not only have all been killed by the blast, but would also have literally been blown to ribbons.