"Fellows, are you ready?" I asked.
"All right."
"Fire!"
The next instant I felt my feet giving way from under me. The gun had blown off at the shield, the muzzle being blown to pieces, gas and fumes filled the air, the spokes were blown out of the wheels, splinters striking me on the feet and legs. I started to the front of the gun and fell on top of Graham.
"What happened?" he asked. "I don't know," I said. There were several pieces of tube lying about that looked like parts of a German shell. Graham yelled to know what had happened. "A German shell hit the gun," I said. He was then seized with shell shock and became uncontrollable. Park, who was leaning against the ammunition, was blown up, the shell having driven clean through his spine; the man loading the shell had a fragment driven clear through his stomach. The man leaning against the gun wheel was beheaded as cleanly as any king's executioner with his ax could do it, his head lying in the fireplace! The cartridge had exploded but the shell did not.
The trouble was caused by what is known as a "defective" shell.
I left the gun pit to help Graham over to the dressing station and I had a job on my hands; he was suffering from a bad attack of brain concussion. After attention a couple of Fritzies carried him to the rear.
Returning to the gun pit I found a state of wild confusion among the fellows as to what had really happened. On examination I found it was this defective shell; over to the right of the gun I picked up a chunk of it over a foot long.
Those who remained of our gun crew went that night to the wagon lines, spending a few days there while waiting for our gun to be replaced.
When our gun was replaced I started back from the wagon lines, carrying a piston rod of the buffer, with Downey assisting me. We were on horseback and getting into Labazell Valley, when a shell passed over our head so close that we felt the wind of it; it was accompanied by a great flare over to our right. The shell struck one of our ammunition dumps containing about 50,000 rounds of shells and other explosives, such as rifle grenades, Mills bombs, French mortar bombs, aerial torpedoes, high explosive shells, shrapnel shells, star and gas shells. The disaster resulting from this one single shell was almost inconceivable. It started a fire that gathered strength each second, for all the world like a prairie fire, and the scenic effect was that of a titanic fireworks exhibition. The moon was brightly shining in a clear sky, but the star shells shooting in the air and exploding with a constantly increasing rapidity, the blaze of artificial light quickly obtained ascendency over the mistress of the night; and the shrapnel shells, throwing their contents of danger in all directions, together with the hissing and roaring of all the other exploding missiles of death, formed a diapason of sound that makes one of those wonder-moments that come so seldom in a lifetime.