"There it is again."
"Bullets ..."
"Yes."
"In threes, double traverse!"
The Captain had climbed into an apple-tree close to the fourth gun. The bullets, brushing over the crest, were too high to touch us, but they continually cut down leaves round the Captain. We begged him to come down. For the tenth time one of the gunners insisted:
"You mustn't stay there, sir!"
The Major interfered:
"Come down, De Brisoult!"
But the Captain, his glasses to his eyes, continued to scan the northern horizon and only answered quietly:
"But I can see very well, sir ... very well. Nine hundred!..."