Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/123

Rh Everyone had guessed that would be so. Sitting on either side of the breech there had never been much chance for them.

The director of the school came. A board was appointed and the evidence taken. We had learned to fear long fuses, but the damage had been done by a white fused sliell, and No. 2 had looked through the bore, so that the blanket verdict of faulty ammunition went down.

An ambulance dashed up and backed towards the group. Two covered forms were lifted into it, then it clanged a swift way towards camp.

"Brace up!" an officer called with kind brutality. "You'll see plenty of other men killed before you get through with this war Get on the job now. Firing will be resumed."

The men responded, shaking themselves rather as dogs do after an unexpected immersion. That afternoon there was a new piece firing from the destroyed gun's platform. The gunner and No 1 did not flinch. The day's work went on with a noisy rapidity.

“Yet," as someone wisely remarked, “it can't be like seeing men killed in battle."

Privates Jeremiah S. Lynch and Harry J. Posner were buried the next day. Chaplain Sheridan conducted the services, and Mrs. Gariessen, of the Y. M. C.A., who had a short time before lost her own son in action, tried as best she could to take the place of the mothers. Lynch and Posner received full military honors. Men from every organization attended the funeral and saw more distinctly in the bland southern sunlight the vicious and amazing shadow that is war.