It lasted about twenty minutes. It
was complete, final, unchallengeable. At intervals the artillery
Captain himself admitted that such-and-such a part of the device
was tres beau. It was. There was only one word of which I could not
grasp the significance in that connection. It recurred. Several times I
determined to ask the Captain what he meant us to understand by
that word; but I lacked moral courage. I doubt whether in all the
lethal apparatus that I saw in France I saw anything quite equal to
the demoniac ingenuity of these massive guns. The proof of guns is
in the shooting. These guns do not merely aim at Taubes: they hit
them.
I will not, however, derogate from the importance of the illustrious
"seventy-five." We saw one of these on an afternoon of much
marching up and down hills and among woods, gazing at horses
and hot-water douches, baths, and barbers' shops, and deep dug-
outs called "Tipperary," and guns of various calibre, including the
"seventy-five." The "seventy-five" is a very sympathetic creature, in
blue-grey with metallic glints. He is perfectly easy to see when you
approach him from behind, but get twenty yards in front of him and
he is absolutely undiscoverable. Viewed from the sky, he is part of
the forest. Viewed from behind, he is perceived to be in a wooden
hut with rafters, in which you can just stand upright. We beheld the
working of the gun, by two men, and we beheld the different sorts of
shell in their delved compartments.
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