A score of 6-inch guns spoke out at once with a ringing clamour which absolutely drowned all other sounds, and their great 100-pound shells came hurtling inland with a series of long-drawn shrieks.
'Look! Look!' cried Ken again, as great fountains of earth and gravel spurted from the side of a hill a mile and a half away to the left. That's plastering them. Now we're getting a little of our own back.'
There was no doubt about it. The German guns shut up like a knife, but whether they were actually hit or merely silenced, it was, of course, impossible to say.
For twenty solid minutes the grim battleships and cruisers poured forth their storm of shells, until the whole hill-side where the German guns had been posted gaped with brown craters. Then they ceased, and the saucy aeroplane came buzzing inland again to observe and report upon the damage done.
What its extent was the Colonials could not, of course, know, but at any rate the enfilading guns remained silent and the worst danger was at an end.
'That's saved our bacon,' said Ken, with a sigh of relief. 'We'll get a little rest now, perhaps.'
'Maybe ye will, and maybe ye won't,' said Sergeant O'Brien, who came past at that moment and overheard Ken's words. 'But if ye want forty winks, bhoys, now's your time to snatch 'em. There'll be mighty little slape this night for any of us.'
'Why so, sergeant?' asked Dave.
