Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/221

Rh ment, seemed dangerously unreserved. Actually a few twigs, scattered bits of green, make an impenetrable veil against the prying airmen. We opened a wooden door and descended into one of the redoubts. Half a dozen men, scrupulously clean, unlike the trench Tommies, sprang to attention in a circle about the breech of a howitzer. The gun was as clean as its grooms—wickedly beautiful and capable. The colonel muttered orders to a sergeant who nodded to the artillerymen. One lifted a projectile from a compartment in the wall. Others inserted the charge behind it, and a corporal closed the breech. The sergeant entered a cubicle at one side where a desk squatted beneath a telephone instrument. He bent over a piece of paper pinned to the wall, and from it rattled off a series of numbers like a football signal.

In response the neat men elevated the gun's great nose with an impudent ease.

The sergeant glanced up.

All ready? Lower your screen."

A soldier released a cord. From before the mouth of the gun a shrubbery screen fell away with a slight rustling.

The colonel glanced at us.

“Maybe you'd better put your fingers in your ears.

I noticed that every one in the small chamber