“Look there! he’s fired, lads. D’ye see the white smoke?” said Velenchuk, who was one of a group of soldiers standing a little behind us.
“At our line surely, the blackguard!” remarked another.
“See what a lot of ’em come streaming out of the forest. Must be looking round … want to place a gun,” said a third.
“Supposing now a bomb was sent right into that lot, wouldn’t they spit!”
“And what d’ye think, old fellow—that it would just reach ’em?” said Chikin.
“Twelve hundred or twelve hundred and fifty yards: not more than that,” said Maksimov calmly and as if speaking to himself, though it was evident he was just as anxious to fire as the rest: “if we were to give an elevation of forty-five lines to our ‘unicorn’ we could hit the very point, that is to say, perfectly.”
“D’ye know, if you were now to aim at that group, you would be sure to hit somebody. There now, they are all together—please be quick and give the order to fire,” the company commander continued to entreat me.
“Are we to point the gun?” suddenly asked Antonov in an abrupt bass, with a look as if of gloomy anger.
I must admit that I also felt a strong wish to fire, so I ordered the second gun to be trained.
I had hardly given the order before the shell was charged and rammed in, and Antonov, leaning against the cheek of the gun-carriage and holding two of his thick fingers to the base-ring, was directing the movement of the tail of the gun. “Right, left—a bit to the left, a wee bit—more—more—right!” he said, stepping from the gun with a look of pride.