MEN WHO WORK THE 75'S

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2369, 27 January 1915, Page 6

MEN WHO WORK THE 75'S

"THAT BEAUTIFUL WEAPON" FRENCH BATTERY IN AN ASPARACUS FIELD. (By G. Ward Price, in the London "Daily Mail.") This war has been the making of tho gunners.' They are the pride of Prance. They "have taken'over the foot soldier's function of winning battles; they have aunexed the reputation, of the cavalry for dash. Wherever you see a "75" it has got a triumphal wreath of flowers on it; batteries go into action looking like a harvest festival; whenever you meet an "artilleur" he is smiling and is on the top of his form. The French artilleryman ,if he were not so preoccupied with his work of kilt ) ing • Germans by the half-dozen at a time, wordd almost feel grateful to them I for the opportunity oi iamo that tiey I have brougnt him. I "But whoro are tho guas?" I- asked I the artilleiy officer. We were looking i down a long slope towards the parallel I lines of trenches below us. and suddenly the complete silence of the still winter air had been shattered by two terrific I smacks of sound, noises that you feel ' aa much as hear. I defy anyone of normal nerves not to jump when a modern field gun goeß off unexpectedly close by. At the place wherp I happened to be writing something in my notebook at that moment there is a panicky black flourish halfway across the page where my pencil shied at the shock. " The explosions of your own guns are a far more alarming sound that the bursting of the enemy's shells. I knew, from the metallic screech that followed the startling discharge that the battery that had fired must be close by, but though' there was no cover of trees or houses near where we stood, I could see not so' much" as the nose of a gun. The Hidden Cuns. "You won't find it," said the artillery .officer. "It's in an asparagus field down .there, if you want to know. Wo dug the emplacements for the guns, boarded them, covered them with earth, replanted the ' asparagus,. and now you could ride across that'field and. never guess that there was a battery beneath it. Pour holes the size of a fox's earth for the gun-embrasures, carefully masked entrances, et voilal guns, ammunition wagons, and gunners—all of them underground." .

"What a weapon, our 75J" he went on, with enthusiasm lighting up his fair, handsome .face, with its pointed golden beard. "The work it docs—but it is terrible. I assume you of it, I who speak—l go forward .-sometimes ■as observing officer and I 6ee our melinite shells fall into a trench and fling five men at a time four yards high into the air, dechiquetes, torn to bits. "And afterwards I , have gone into trenches from which they have retired and have found men' dead though whole, killed by the force of the compression of the dir.. The first time I Stiw one-r-'Tiens,' I said, they are employing negroes to fight for them'—and' then I looked again, and it was none the less a .white mail, but with face black and frightfully swollen. ■ "Yee, it is a beautiful weapon, our 3in. gun, doadly and yet so light to handle; threo men can take it anywhere. '

"It's great virtue is its complete immovability after the first shot. At the first discharge the gun. jumps back a little and the trail wedges itself into the ground. After that ib is absolutely aa rigid aa if it were ckmped down. You need only to ropoint it for the second- shot and then you can go on firing round after round with 'the certainty of landing your 6hells within three yards of the same spot. "If you put a sou on one of the wheels it would not be shaken off by the discharge. That is thanks to tho excellent pneumatic brake with, which the 75' is provided. Then, too, by swinging a wheel yon can work the gun round to sweep a wide lateral angle of fire without shifting the carriage. "It's shrapnel bursts six inches above the ground. It sweejjs a zone sis yards by twenty-five; and within that zone the chances of escaping at least a wound are very small indeed. Tho shells burst into a far greateT number of fragments than do the German ones." So the artillery lieutenant ran on, enthusiastic for his job and these tools of his trade. It happened, by the way, to be the festival of St. Bar be, patron of all gunners, so we must go down and seo the petits artilleurs in their lines. The "Nigger Village." The "nigger village," their colonel called it, and really it looked very like a native encampment at the .White City, oniy far more ingenious.; There was every kind of dwelling there, from the troglodytic cave soooped out of the sandstone rock to a neat imitation of a suburban villa' in wood and plaited straw, with front door and gables and even a woatiieroock and curtains. There was a trim little front garden railed off with trellis-work, with shell borders and box-edging, and an air of almost municipal importance was given to tho place by the dial of a clock let into the gable-end. Tho resemblance was made even closer by tho fact that the clock was not going.

Going round an encamjmient with the officers for an informal inspection like this, you get a good idea of the "family party)" good-natured, almost easy-go-ing, but yet entirely efficacious and suitable discipline of the French Axmy. The officer leads by reasonableness and good real affection. The men, on their 6ide, nature; in many cases" it amounts to take no advantage of his friendliness to shirk tbeir duty. "Mes enfants" or "les gars"—"My children" .or "the lads"—is how their colonel talks of them. Things are very different in the opposition show on the other side of the valley. ' '