I ram in another clip of dummy cartridges.
How quickly and smoothly that's done. One—two seconds, and five cartridges are set in your magazine. Every one of them, if need be, can penetrate six men; it can penetrate palisades and trees; it can penetrate earthworks and stone walls. There is practically no cover left against this dainty little missile, against this little pointed cone.
And what a wonderful bit of mechanism this Mauser rifle is. How wretchedly badly off they were in 1870-71 with their rattletrap needle guns. A single feeble bullet at a time, and after you had fired it came the long, complicated business of reloading.
And yet the war accounted for well over a hundred thousand French and German dead.
I wonder how many dead this war will ac count for? If only every fifth man is left on the field, and if another fifth comes home invalided ... what will its harvest amount to then?
The whole of both countrysides are at this moment covered with soldiers lying flat, and all of them with their rifles at the ready, and all of them pointing the death-bearing barrels at one another, are perfecting themselves in the art of hitting the heart.
But behind them the guns are swinging up. The gunners are jumping down and dragging the trail round. They are already aligned, and a thousand black mouths are gaping uncannily toward the heavens.
We were once standing—we were in camp for musketry training at the time—and watching a battery firing with live ammunition. They had unlimbered and were ready to fire. The officers were peering into the distance through their field-glasses. The targets were not as yet in sight. We were all gazing intently toward the firing zone, where at any moment something might come into view.... There! Away over there. In the distance. Something is moving!
A shout of command.
The subaltern points to the moving target with his right hand. He shouts out the range. The gunners take aim, and: