True enough--but who made that inevitable
And it was not our guns that laid waste a whole countryside before
the German retreat in the spring of 1917, when the Huns ran wild,
rooting up fruit trees, cutting down every other tree that could be
found, and doing every other sort of wanton damage and mischief their
hands could find to do.
"Hard lines," said the battery commander. He shrugged his shoulders.
"No use trying to spare shells here, though, even on French towns.
The harder we smash them the sooner it'll be over. Look here, sir."
He pointed out the men who sat, their telephone receivers strapped
over their ears. Each served a gun. In all that hideous din it was of
the utmost importance that they should hear correctly every word and
figure that came to them over the wire--a part of that marvelously
complete telephone and telegraph system that has been built for and
by the British army in France.
"They get corrections on every shot," he told me. "The guns are
altered in elevation according to what they hear. The range is
changed, and the pointing, too. We never see old Fritz--but we know
he's getting the visiting cards we send him."
They were amazingly calm, those laddies at the telephones. In all
that hideous, never-ending din, they never grew excited. Their voices
were calm and steady as they repeated the orders that came to them. I
have seen girls at hotel switchboards, expert operators, working with
conditions made to their order, who grew infinitely more excited at a
busy time, when many calls were coming in and going out.
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