Similarly, the Sergeants stood behind their sections, except that one after another they stepped forward to the guns to take the places of men who had fallen and could not be replaced. At the guns the men were working with the swiftness of light flashes, and the unerring certainty of machines. To the watchers at the base of the slope they seemed to weave back and forth like some gigantic, demoniac loom, as they sprang at their guns, loaded them, "broke away" as they fired, leaped back again, caught the gun in its recoil, hurled it forward, again reloaded, "broke away" and fired, all quicker than thought. A shell took off a sponger's head, but the sponge-staff was caught by another before it fell, and the gun fired again without a pause. A shrapnel swept away every man about one gun. The Lieutenant looked inquiringly at the Sergeant, and in an instant another squad seemed to spring up from the ground to continue the firing without missing a note in the battery's rhythm.
Director
"He has been called," Gornom said. "He has been chosen.""I'd have you know. Miss Widgeon, the papers don't magnify the matter. They don't make a fuss over nothing. They don't begin to tell all the truth. None o' them can. My brother was nearer dead than any man who ever lived. Nothing but the favor of God and Klegg grit pulled him through. It'd killed a whole house full o' Randy Widgeons or that Second Lieutenant. I remember Randy Widgeon turning pale and a'most fainting when he run a fish-hook in his finger. If it ain't nothing, why don't Randy Widgeon go down there a little while, with the rest o' the boys, and do his share?"Cadnan, this time, repeated the phrase with the elders."Perhaps not," Dr. Haenlingen said. "Unfortunately, what bothers me is not reducible to rule."