“Here’s old Harry Lauder come to take a crack at them himself,” I heard one man say to another.

“Good for him!  The more the merrier!” answered his mate.  He was an American—­would ye no know it from his speech?

I was trembling with eagerness.  I wondered if my shot would tell.  I tried to visualize its consequences.  It might strike some vital spot.  It might kill some man whose life was of the utmost value to the enemy.  It might—­it might do anything!  And I knew that my shot would be watched; Normabell, sitting up there on the Pimple in his little observatory, would watch it, as he did all of that battery’s shots.  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.  But I dinna care!

There was no report by telephone from Normabell about that particular shot; I hung about a while, by the telephone listeners, hoping one would come.  And it disappointed me that no attention was paid to that shot.

“Probably simply means it went home,” said Godfrey.  “A shot that acts just as it should doesn’t get reported.”

But I was disappointed, just the same.  And yet the sensation is one I shall never forget, and I shall never cease to be glad that the major gave me my chance.  The most thrilling moment was that of the recoil of the great gun.  I felt exactly as one does when one dives into deep water from a considerable height.

“Good work, Harry!” said the major, warmly, when I had stepped down.  “I’ll wager you wiped out a bit of the German trenches with that shot!  I think I’ll draft you and keep you here as a gunner!”