Puslapio vaizdai
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Suddenly the chatter of the sergeant's teeth

Stopped. He was angry, too;

And he whispered: "Are you game? Get the Maxim gun!"
I hugged him. "It will scare them blue."
Slowly, very slowly, we rose to our feet;

I was conscious of my knocking knees.
The murmur of their voices was an eery sound
Like wind in wintry trees.

I saw them staring from the tail of my eye
As the tripod legs we set.

We lifted the gun and clamped it on,

With the muzzle at the parapet.
Nervously I pushed in the tag of the belt;
The sergeant loaded and laid
Quietly, deftly; the click of the lock
Was the only sound he made.

"Ready!" he nodded. I turned my head

And nearly collapsed with fright.

Four of them were standing at my shoulder,

The others to the left and right.

Then, "Fire!" I shouted, and the gun leaped up

With a roar and a spurt of flame.

The sergeant gripped the handles while the belt ran through, Never stopping to correct his aim.

Fearfully I turned, then jumped to my feet,

Forgetting all about the feed.

They were running like the wind up a long, steep hill,

With the thumb-and-finger man in the lead!

And high above the rattle and roar of the gun

I heard a despairing yell,

As Englishmen, Dutchmen, pikemen, bowmen,
Vanished in the night, pell-mell.

The men who were sleeping in the moonlit trench

Sat up and rubbed their eyes;

And one of them muttered in a drowsy voice, "Wot to blazes is the row, you guys?"

The sergeant said: "That 'll do! That 'll do!"

But he whispered to me, "Keep mum!"

They would n't have believed that the row was all about
A finger and a huge, thick thumb.

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