y build small individual dugouts a safe ways back
from the gun and extend the lanyard a safe distance. Then, with all the
gun crew under cover, they fire the piece. This naturally removes them
from their regular firing positions beside the pieces, reduces the
accuracy and slows up the entire action of the battery. The men's
suspicions of the shells combined with the fear of death by their own
weapons, which is greater than any fear of death at the hands of the
enemy, all reduce the morale of the gun crews."

Now, for an incident. A new shipment of ammunition had reached the post.
The caissons were filled with it. Early the following morning when the
guns rumbled out of camp to the practice grounds, Battery X was firing
in the open. At the third shot the shell from piece number two exploded
prematurely thirty yards from the muzzle. Pieces three and four fired
ten and twenty seconds later with every man standing on his toes in his
prescribed position.

Ten rounds later, a shell from number three gun exploded thirty feet
after leaving the bore. Shell particles buried themselves in the ground
near the battery. Piece number four, right next to it, was due to fire
in ten seconds. It discharged its projectiles on the dot. The gun crews
knew what they were up against. They were firing faulty ammunition. They
passed whispered remarks but reloaded with more of the same ammunition
and with military precision on the immediate command. Every man stuck to
his position. As each gun was fired the immediate possibilities were not
difficult to imagine.

Then it happened.

"Commence firing," megaphoned the firing executive. The section chief of
number one piece dropped his right hand as the signal for the discharge.
The corporal gunner was sitting on the metal seat in front of his
instruments and not ten inches to the left of the breech. Cannoneer
number one of the gun crew occupied his prescribed position in the same
location to the immediate right of the breech. Gunner number two was
standing six feet behind the breech and slightly to the left ready to
receive the ejected cartridge case. Gunner number three was kneeling
over the fuse setter behind the caisson which stood wheel to wheel with
the gun carriage. Gunners four and five were rigid statues three feet
back of him. Every man in the crew had seen the previous bursts of
dangerous ammunition.

Number one's eye caught the descending hand of the section chief. He
pulled the lany