Would be make a report?
Everything was made ready. The gun recoiled from the previous shot;
swiftly it was swabbed out. A new shell was handed up; I looked it
over tenderly. That was my shell! I watched the men as they placed it
and saw it disappear with a jerk. Then came the swift sighting of the
gun, the almost inperceptible corrections of elevation and position.
They showed me my place. After all, it was the simplest of matters to
fire even the biggest of guns. I had but to pull a lever. All morning
I had been watching men do that. I knew it was but a perfunctory act.
But I could not feel that! I was thrilled and excited as I had never
been in all my life before.
"All ready! Fire!"
The order rang in my ears. And I pulled the lever, as hard as I
could. The great gun sprang into life as I moved the lever. I heard
the roar of the explosion, and it seemed to me that it was a louder
bark than any gun I had heard had given! It was not, of course, and
so, down in my heart, I knew. There was no shade of variation between
that shot and all the others that had been fired. But it pleased me
to think so--it pleases me, sometimes, to think so even now. Just as
it pleases me to think that that long snouted engine of war propelled
that shell, under my guiding hand, with unwonted accuracy and
effectiveness! Perhaps I was childish, to feel as I did; indeed, I
have no doubt that that was so.
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