"Gunner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Monroe also went out. Descending the front steps he walked out into the street, and placed himself immediately in front of the howitzer pointing down St. Charles Street. There, folding his arms, he fixed his eyes upon the gunner who stood, lanyard in hand, ready for action. Here he remained without once looking up or moving, until the flag had been hauled down by Lieutenant Kantz, and he and Captain Bell reappeared.... As they passed out through the Camp Street gate, Mr. Monroe turned towards the hall, and ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... water in a metal pan before the fire was warm on one side and froze on the other. Here "it snowed and froze extremely, at which time we, looking from the shore towards the ship, she appeared a piece of ice in the fashion of a ship, or a ship resembling a piece of ice." Here the gunner, who hand lost his leg, besought that, "for the little the he had to live, he might drink sack altogether." He died and was buried in the ice far from the vessel, but when afterwards two more were dead of scurvy, and the others, ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... of course, is a long chase all the world over, as everybody knows, and ours was no exception. Still, all the time we gradually overhauled the dhow; and just about sunset we got within range of a long seven-inch gun, which we carried forwards. This, Mr Shrapnel, our gunner, trained right across the slaver's bows, and at the word of command, 'Fire!' let drive with a bang that shook the steamer right down to her kelson and seemed to stop her way for the moment, sending her back, as it were, ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to work, keeping as accurately as he might the head of the blatant beast to the same level, and loading it with a grenado. When the gunner had finished his task and lighted the fusee, Morgan rubbed his hands for joy. Retiring sharply, off went the missile with an explosion that shook the whole fabric. When the smoke was gone they perceived some trifling damage in an old court, where the bomb, striking about half-a-yard ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... On the platform beforehand I meet a gunner subaltern. We talk. He's very well read, and interested in lots of the things I love so much. We discuss the war. He knows a lot of the billets I know. Evidently we have nearly met out here often before. What is that book he is reading? Richard Jefferies? From Jefferies to Maeterlinck. ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... forth in fresh snow unless driven by hunger or some other dire need. Perhaps, like a cat or a hen, he dislikes the wetting of his feet. Or it may be that the soft snow makes bad hunting—for him. The truth is, T believe, that such a snow makes too good hunting for the dogs and the gunner. The new snow tells too clear a story. His home is no inaccessible den among the ledges; only a hollow in some ancient oak or tupelo. Once within, he is safe from the dogs; but the long fierce fight for life taught him generations ago that the ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... there no other humble homes but that For the vile Hun to fire at? Did some spy, In bitter jealousy, betray my shirt? What boots it to lament? The shirt is gone. It was not meant for such an one as I, A plain rough gunner with one only pip. No doubt 'twas destined for some lofty soul Who in a deck-chair lolls, and marks the map And says, "Push here," while I and all my kind Scrabble and slaughter in the appointed slough. But I, presumptuous, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... be capable of landing over a 30 foot vertical obstacle and coming to rest within a hundred yards' distance from the obstacle in a wind of not more than 15 miles per hour. A third requirement was a heavy type of fighting aeroplane accommodating pilot and gunner with machine gun and ammunition, having a speed range of between 45 and 75 miles per hour and capable of climbing 3,500 feet in 8 minutes. It was required to carry fuel for a 300 mile flight and to give the gunner a clear field of fire in every direction up to 30 degrees on each ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... himself firing at inanimate targets thrown into the air and had perfected himself in the use of firearms without realizing that he had done so. Now indeed would he hunt big game. A slow smile touched his lips as his finger closed gradually upon the trigger. The rifle spoke and a German machine gunner collapsed behind his weapon. In three minutes Tarzan picked off the crew of that gun. Then he spotted a German officer emerging from a dugout and the three men in the bay with him. Tarzan was careful ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... happened on the 23rd of December, and on the 25th the boats left us with moast of the officers and a great part of the seamen. The master-gunner, purser, one master's mate, one midshipman, and a parson, with nine seamen, was got into the longboat and cleared the ship. The doctor and four or five men got into a cutter and was upset close to the ship, and all of them was drowned. As for the rest of the boats, I believe they must be lost and ...
— "The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton - 1901 • Louis Becke
... a very melancholy state by scurvy and other distempers. The sickness increased upon us every day, so that we once buried two in one day, the armourer and carpenter's, mate, besides whom the carpenter, gunner, and several others died, together with some of our ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... hand of man, where stand the cannon upon neat slightly-raised pavements of small flint stones, each with its pyramid of bullets on one side, and on the other a box, in which is stowed the gear which the gunner requires in the exercise of his craft. Everything was in its place, everything in the nicest English order, everything ready to scathe and overwhelm in a few moments the proudest and most numerous host which might appear marching in hostile ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... our pilot came on board with 4 of our men that had left us when the Cap'n turned Edward Sampford ashore. At 2 P.M. the Cap'n ordered our gunner to deliver arms to them that had none. 25 hands fitted themselves. Great firing at our buoy, supposing him a Spaniard. I hope to God their courage may be as good, if ever they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... three o'clock a Salvationist carried a second supply of hot coffee to the battery positions. One gunner with tense, strained face eyed his full coffee mug with satisfaction and said with a sigh: "Good! That is all I wanted. I can keep going until ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... that 'those of the 28th Regiment are our "boys,"' gunner Purs, of Benatky, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. He was sent in chains to the ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... aloud for help, and a couple of the native servants rushed out; one of them seizing the drunken gunner, and, in the brief struggle which ensued, I saw the two women run away, while their assailant held on to one of the white-clothed men, and, steadying himself, began striking him savagely, while the syce made no resistance, but passively ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... sent, with a party of men, to assist the gunner in erecting a battery on Adelaide Island. Having made bankrupts of the natives in the yam market, the African, schooner, sailed to-day for the purpose of procuring them, in other parts ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... hazy clouded weather. Every body went to work at their respective employments, one of which was to caulk the ship's sides, a thing much wanted. The seams were paid with putty, made with cook's fat and chalk; the gunner happening to have a quantity ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... gross pleasantry, too, perpetrated by a gunner who led along a bear, evidently the pet of his battery, which was dressed in the full ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... to handle their gun. We shall see how they behave when we get them within range of ours. Stand by, Beal, to give it them," he said to the gunner, who had brought a match from the ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... the inhabitants, he determined to hinder the panick from spreading further by leading them immediately to action; and, therefore, ordering them to their pars, he landed without any opposition, there being only one gunner upon the bay, though it was secured with six brass cannons of the largest size, ready mounted. But the gunner, while they were throwing the cannons from their carriages, alarmed the town, as they soon discovered by the bell, the drums, and the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... me your rifle, and reload mine," he exclaimed. Terence did as he was bid. Another of the gunner's crew fell; a third and a fourth shared the same fate. The slaver's people could not understand how this had happened, but terror seized them, and they refused to go to the gun. This, however, did not save them, for the unerring rifle picked out several ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... battery was trained upon Sumter, and the gunner stood ready at the lanyard, but the old man with the long white hair and the keen, eager face, stepping forward, begged General Beauregard to allow him the honor of firing the first shot. The General consented at once, and the old man pulled ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sea-fight off Minorca, in 1756, a gunner had his right hand shot off, just as he was going to fire off a gun. The brave fellow took up the match, saying, quite unconcernedly, "So then you thought that I had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various
... battle of Monmouth a gunner named Pitcher was killed, and the call was made for some one to take his place; his wife, who had followed him to the camp and thence to the field of conflict, unhesitatingly stepped forward and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... French ship came running by. "Helas!" he wailed. "A careless gunner has destroyed ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... volley, they meant to rush the works. The Imperialists though were loath to squander the one ball to a carbine when Indian-like fighters like these were so near. They had one mountain piece, a brass howitzer, and the gunner stood ready, the lanyard in his hand. But he hesitated, bewildered. His targets were not twenty paces below, yet nowhere crouching behind the rocks were the foe massed together. His pride forbade that he waste twelve pounds of death ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... be made was seasonably provided, to supper they went, merry on all hands, especially Iapazeus and his wife, who to expres their joy would ere be treading upon Captaine Argall's foot, as who should say tis don, she is your own. Supper ended Pocahuntas was lodged in the gunner's roome, but Iapazeus and his wife desired to have some conference with their brother, which was onely to acquaint him by what stratagem they had betraied his prisoner as I have already related: after which discourse to sleepe they went, Pocahuntas ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... ancient machine, made of copper and strengthened by bands of iron. A handsome face; dead to morality, alive to pleasure; the face of a man past thirty, the expression of immortal one-and-twenty! A figure from the pages of Ovid, metamorphosed to a gunner of Santa Anna! The bright radiance from a cloudless sky, the smoke having drifted westward from the summit, fell upon him ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... ordnance on their carriages, With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur; ... and the nimble gunner With linstook now the devilish cannon touches, And down ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... and a great deal of money, in all about 5000 dollars—the jolly boat foundered; they saw the boat fill, and heard them cry out, and saw them clinging to the masts—they went ashore on Barron Island, and buried the money in the sand, but very lightly. Soon after they met with a gunner, whom they requested to conduct them where they could get some refreshments. They were by him conducted to Johnson's (the only man living on the island,) where they staid all night—Dawes went to bed at about 10 o'clock—Jack Brownrigg set up with Johnson, and in the morning told Dawes that he ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... the Tiger from sinking as she was so leaky, and the master and crew were very weak. The 3d September I went on board the Tiger, accompanied by the masters and merchants to survey her, and we found her in a very leaky condition with only six men fit for duty, one of whom was master gunner. It was agreed accordingly to take all the men into the other ships, with all the goods we could save, and then to abandon her. We began discharging her on the 5th, and having taken out her guns, victuals, gold, and every thing we could by the 8th, we set her adrift ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... dear," one of the other girls exclaimed, "but so curiously inquisitive! I have a great friend, a gunner, whom I brought with me to one of his parties, and he is always asking me questions about him and his work. I had to absolutely worry Dick so as to be able to answer all his questions, didn't ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... found himself in the presence of objects which delighted all his senses; yet he reasoned on his situation, and felt that courage alone would recover him from this species of trance; he asked the master gunner of the frigate for some wine: who procured him a little; and he recovered in a degree from this state of torpor. If the unfortunate men, when they were attacked by these first symptoms, had not had resolution to struggle against them, their death was certain. Some ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... hands ready to charge the guns. By the explosion, the wad-nets and other loose things took fire between decks, and the whole ship was so filled with smoke that the men, in their confusion, cried out she was on fire in the gunner's store-room, imagining from the shock they had felt from the balls that a shell had actually fallen into her. This notion struck a panic into the greater part of the crew, and 70 or 80 jumped out of the port-holes into the boats that were alongside ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... his destination the artillerymen were already stirring and about to drink their coffee, and a quarrel had arisen between Adolphe, the forward driver, and Louis, the gunner, his mate. For the entire three years that they had been "married," in accordance with the custom which couples a driver with a gunner, they had lived happily together, with the one exception of meal-times. Louis, an intelligent man and the better informed of the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... crossed, the bridges were blown up behind them by contact mines, and the German cavalrymen were raked by the deadly fire of the machine guns. Nevertheless, finding their foes were not numerous, they made a courageous stand, waiting for their main columns to draw nearer. Every French machine gunner was silenced by the Guards with their Maxims; but when the main invading army swept into view along the river valley, the French artillery from the hills around Charleville mowed down the heads of columns with shrapnel. Still the Teutons advanced with reckless courage. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... Gunner after the battle, and offered to lead him to that store of goods which the sea-rovers had stowed away, and said that it was both better and larger than that which ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... directed their movements from the centre of the track. There was an ugly moment when a maxim situated in a cornfield began to fire point-blank at a range of one hundred yards, but a Czech outpost entrenched quite near made it so hot for the gunner that after firing about 150 rounds he scooted, leaving a well-placed gun and 5,000 rounds, all belted, behind. We now advanced over the Czech and French trenches, for these forces, like our armoured trains, had been ordered to take no part in the advance. ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... have made good! Then I've been worthy of my opportunity! I'd rather be a good gunner than a king. I'll eat this new work and smack my lips for more. Tell Miss Galland that every shell that hits the mark is a thought from the old gardener for her. Six weeks ago trimming rose-bushes and ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... sights and pulled the trigger. The man with the rammer dropped to the earth and the rammer fell beside him. He lay quite still. Crockett seized a second rifle and fired. A loader fell and he also lay still. A third rifle shot, almost as quick as a flash, and a gunner went down, a fourth and a man at a wheel fell, a fifth and the unerring bullet claimed a sponger, a sixth and a Mexican just springing to cover was wounded in the shoulder. Then Crockett remained with the seventh rifle still loaded in his hands, as there was nothing to ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... can pursue: you must get on board a boat, and pass for a common sailor. I will manage the business for you."—Some hours afterwards the captain came to me with a Gallo-Genoese sailor, who offered to take me, without any papers, wherever I wished to go. He added, that he had a relation who was a gunner on board the Inconstant, a brig belonging to Napoleon, and that he should be very glad to see him again. I judged that my design of going to Elba had got wind: I therefore determined, if possible, to depart that very ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... frolic with Jackson, as I have related before. He received me with a good deal of courtesy, and, when I put him in mind of our former acquaintance, expressed great joy at seeing me again, and recommended me to an exceeding good mess, composed of the gunner and master's mate. As there was not one sick person in the ship, I got leave to go ashore next day with the gunner, who recommended me to a Jew, that bought my ticket at the rate of forty per cent discount; and, having furnished myself with the necessaries ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... heard; and some have seen ghosts. Yesterday I came upon a woman with a crowd round her; she was staring up at a white cloud, and swore that she could plainly see an angel with a white sword, and some of the others cried that they saw it too. I should like to have been a gunner's mate with a stout rattan, and to have laid it over their shoulders, to give them something else to think about for a few hours. It is downright pitiful to see such cowards. At the corner of one street there was a quack, vending pills and perfumes that he warranted to keep away the Plague, ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... by the darkness, and it was with some astonishment that we found the 125th brigade coming through our lines diagonally. One or two stragglers from other divisions came in and told stories of heavy enemy attacks, but a gunner major rode back from the front on a white horse, and said the situation was not so bad as these men's reports had intimated. Still, there seemed to be a good deal of confusion, and the 7th were somewhat bewildered, not knowing quite what to expect next. Meanwhile they longed hard for daylight ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... that Major Pountney, and Captain Gunner, and Mr. Lopez were ever among the number ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... shore in a sinking state. In Hawke's words, they had "taken a great deal of drubbing." The captain and crew thought they had done about enough; but Greenville was not of this opinion; he gave orders to the master gunner, whom he knew to be a fellow after his own stamp, to scuttle the REVENGE where she lay. The others, who were not mortally wounded like the Admiral, interfered with some decision, locked the master gunner ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gun-cleaning squad every afternoon. To-day I cleaned the machine gun on which I'm second gunner. We treat our machine guns as if they were pets. No one will ever be able to say that my gun is dirty. It will probably be my ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... pieces of artillery; but he had no master who understood it, and consequently the pieces were so poorly made that none of them stood the test. I saw twenty pieces out of thirty-six burst at the first shot, as the gunner, one Pedro Castano, who is in this court, will tell; consequently they did not dare to test the cannon with the royal test. There was an excellent founder there, named Don Diego de Prado, who had made considerable artillery in Lisboa. Silva refused to accept ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... extraordinary number, and those rowing with many oars) sent away her gundeloe [? gondola] towards the town, to give warning. But our Captain perceiving it, cut betwixt her and the town, forcing her to go to the other side of the bay: whereby we landed without impeachment, although we found one gunner upon the Platform [battery] in the very place where we landed; being a sandy place and no key [quay] at all, not past twenty yards ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... put it better. You get no vacancies by shot and shell, and being fit for another world, you keep out of it. Have you ever heard me tell the story about Gunner MacCrab, of the Bellerophon?" ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... when the German shells seemed to be falling in every street and on every house, I saw this car again, going forward at not less than forty miles an hour. The turret was being swung to bring the gun-muzzle forward, as if the gunner were expecting to go into action almost immediately. As the last of the Belgian trenches were just the other side of the town, I have no doubt that ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... (Gaerheard, Gaerweald), but probably these are through French, Garbett (Garbeald, with which cf. the Italian Garibaldi), Gatliffe (Geatleof), Goddard (Godheard), Goodliffe (Godleof), Gunnell (Gunhild), Gunner (Gunhere), [Footnote: It is unlikely that this name is connected with gun, a word of too late appearance. It may be seen over a shop in Brentford, perhaps kept by a descendant of the thane of the adjacent Gunnersbury.] Haines (Hagene), Haldane (Haelfdene), Hastings (Haesten, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... out to the officer on the bridge, as soon as he had heard me out, directing also the blue-jacket who had received me at the entry port to pass the word down that he wanted to speak to the gunner; while Ching Wang was invited to come on board and the sampan veered astern by its ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and faster worked the gunner, Soiled with powder, blood, and dust, English bayonets shone before him, Shot and shell around him burst; Still he fought with reckless daring, Stood and manned her long and well, Till at last the gallant fellow Dead—beside his ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... twelve of them were Terrans—a couple of lieutenants, sergeants, gunners, technicians, the sergeant-driver and corporal-gunner of his own car. The other fifty-odd were Ullrans. They stood erect on stumpy legs and broad, six-toed feet. They had four arms apiece, one pair from true shoulders and the other connected to a pseudo-pelvis midway ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... the rigging were lying over the side; But Sir Richard cried in his English pride, "We have fought such a fight for a day and a night As may never be fought again! We have won great glory, my men! And a day less or more At sea or ashore, We die—does it matter when? Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain! Fall into the hands of God, not into the ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... abreast. It was sometimes called forskali. Internally the hall consisted of three divisions, a nave and two low side aisles. The walls of these aisles were of stone, and low enough to allow of their being mounted with ease, as we see happened both with Gunner's skali, and with Njal's. The centre division or nave on the other hand, rose high above the others on two rows of pillars. It was of timber, and had an open work timber roof. The roofs of the side aisles were supported by posts as well as by rafters and cross-beams leaning ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... me to learn that," replied the President, as if the episode was wholly new to him; "I am impatient to do what I can to repair the carelessness of my gunner: will it please you to have him shot, as a warning to others ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... during Lent, and as well as I can now remember, in the year 1524, our little army consisting of 27 cavalry, 23 musqueteers, 72 foot soldiers armed with sword and target, and one field-piece under the direction of a cowardly fellow of a gunner, who pretended to have served in Italy. Besides these, we had 50 Mexican warriors, and the cacique of Cachula with some of his principal people, who were all terribly afraid. On approaching Chiapa, an advanced guard of four of our most active soldiers, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... are other artillery camps, but none of the importance of Petewawa, for it is essentially an active service camp. Jackets are strapped to the limbers, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, and straw hats, locally known as "cow-breakfasts," take the place of the more military cap. The gunner reverts to his original state and becomes a farmer again. And he is none the less a good gunner for so doing. Men who can understand the mechanism of a modern combined reaper and binder have no trouble learning the recoil apparatus of an eighteen-pounder gun, and for drivers ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... expect to hear what Captain Swan would propose, and therefore were very willing to go Aboard. But unluckily for him, two days before this Meeting was to be, Captain Swan sent Aboard his Gunner, to fetch something ashore out of his Cabbin. The Gunner rummaging to find what he was sent for, among other things took out the Captain's Journal from America to the Island Guam, and laid [it] down by him. This Journal was taken up by one John ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... Lansing Lamont in his 1965 book Day of Trinity, life at Trinity could at times be very exciting. One afternoon while scientists were busily setting up test instruments in the desert, the tail gunner of a low flying B-29 bomber spotted some grazing antelopes and opened up with his twin.50-caliber machine guns. "A dozen scientists,... under the plane and out of the gunner's line of vision, dropped their instruments and hugged the ground ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum
... t' other day. He is goin' t' Boston t' command the Raleigh, a thirty-two gunner. But one's no good. He ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... a fatal move, for a German gunner sprang forward—there was a fearful roar—a loud explosion, a cloud of smoke, and, when the smoke had cleared away, there was no automobile to be seen—nothing but wreckage and a ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... right, nearly three miles off, is a small red house, dim to the eye but clear in the glasses, which is suspected as a German post. It is to go up this afternoon. The gun is some distance away, but I hear the telephone directions. '"Mother" will soon do her in,' remarks the gunner boy cheerfully. 'Mother' is the name of the gun. 'Give her five six three four,' he cries through the 'phone. 'Mother' utters a horrible bellow from somewhere on our right. An enormous spout of smoke rises ten seconds later from near the house. 'A little short,' says ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... exchange as prisoner a year later, Washington restored him to his rank as captain-lieutenant, and he served honorably to the end of the war. Harmanus Rutgers, one of the patriotic Rutgers brothers in New York, serving, it would seem, as a gunner, was struck in the breast by a cannon-shot, and fell dead at his post. The tradition preserved in his family is that he was the first man killed in the battle. Knox, hearing how well his men had done, wrote to his wife: "I have met with some loss in my regiment. They fought like ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... is going on board the Tigre in five minutes, and he said that we could go on board with him, and we had better do so, as there was no time to be lost. Mason, one of the gunner's mates, is to go with us. We are to have sixty blue-jackets and five marines for sentries, and so on. He thinks that we can't do better than take the Turk who has been cooking for him, and our cook here. They ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... Capitana, was not the only one that befell the Spaniards. While Oquendo was absent from his galleon a quarrel arose among the officers, who were furious at the ill result of the day's fighting. The captain struck the master-gunner with a stick; the latter, a German, rushed below in a rage, thrust a burning fuse into a powder barrel, and sprang through a port-hole into the sea. The whole of the deck was blown up, with two hundred sailors and soldiers; but the ship was so strongly ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... observe this little improvement for restoring the breech to its place, which is original. The grand feature of my invention, however, is this secret chamber in the breech, which is intended to hold an explosive of high potency, with a fuse coming out below. The gunner, finding his piece in danger, ignites this fuse, and takes refuge in flight. At the moment the enemy seizes the gun the contents of the secret chamber explode, demolishing the piece and ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... paused, and finding that he expected an answer, we turned our eyes with one consent upon Gunner Sobey, the ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... coming in. It seemed to Henry and me that we were not so badly frightened as we knew we were. For we kept a running fire going of airy persiflage—which was like the noise of boys whistling through a graveyard. Henry said: "That German gunner is playing by ear! His time is bad, or else it's syncopated." Then to Major Murphy: "Nice sightly location that Hill 304; but I noticed real estate going up a good deal in the neighbourhood!" And to the assembled company in the dugout he remarked ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... field-glasses, would select the three guns he had decided would give him the effect he wanted to produce, and he would produce that effect. When the shot struck plump in the Turkish lines, and we could see the earth leap up into the air like geysers of muddy water, and each gunner would wave his cap and cheer, Frantzis would only smile uncertainly, and begin again, with the aid of his field-glasses, to ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... A gunner opened the great tube as Summers led Pauline into the torpedo room. Obediently she entered the strange passageway of peril and ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... gunner of the Sirius, who had been left at Port Jackson on duty, when she sailed for Norfolk Island, died also at Batavia: he had been put on board the Supply, in order to be landed at Norfolk Island, if she should be able to reach that place in her way ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... I hand-picked them myself. The one with the white hair is Corporal Nels Pederson. He's a Swede. I served with him at Marsport, and he's a real rough space spickaroo in a fight. The other corporal is little Paulo Santos. He's a Filipino, and the best snapper-boat gunner you ever saw." ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... below, A fav'rite morsel with the Rook and Crow; From field to field the flock increasing goes; To level crops most formidable foes: Their danger well the wary plunderers know, And place a watch on some conspicuous bough; Yet oft the sculking gunner by surprise Will scatter death amongst them as they rise. These, hung in triumph round the spacious field, At best will but a short-lived terror yield: Nor guards of property; (not penal law, But harmless riflemen of rags and straw); Familiariz'd to these, they boldly ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... depopulated, in spite of two watchers, who, with Bolt, guarded for seven nights successively the slumbers of the infant settlement. So insolent was the assault that bang, bang! went the felonious gun,—behind, before, within but a few yards of the sentinels,—and the gunner was off and the prey seized, before they could rush to the spot. The boldness and skill of the enemy soon proclaimed him, to the experienced watchers, to be Will o' the Wisp; and so great was their ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... attention to the fact that in the very height of the danger, Green, Charles Clerke, and Forwood, the gunner, were engaged in taking a Lunar for the ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... shortening here; Strange warnings now and then, as 'twere within me, Which, though I fear them not, I recognize!... However, by God's help, I'll live to meet These foreign boasters; yea, I'll finish them; And then—well, Gunner Death may ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... for something he might kill, and he found a wounded pigeon which had fluttered into his refuge from the shot of some gunner. But he could not bring himself to eat it raw, and if he could have kindled a fire to cook it, he reflected, it would have betrayed him to his pursuers who must now be searching the woods for him. He wrung the pigeon's neck and flung it into the bushes, and ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... no quarter. I see the decks are swarming with men. If you don't go at them like bull-dogs, you'll walk the plank before sunset every man of you. Now, go forward, and double-shot your muskets and pistols, and stick as many of the latter into your belts as they will hold. Mr. Thompson, let the gunner double-shot the four big guns, and load the little carronade with musket-balls to the muzzle. If they do try to board us, ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... cub of rude Boreas; In tight little pumps, with the grand dames in rout, A-flinging his shapely foot all about; His watch-chain with love's jeweled tokens abounding, Curls ambrosial shaking out odors, Waltzing along the batteries, astounding The gunner glum and ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... Charles Fox, who was as national as Nelson, went to his death with the firm conviction that England had made Napoleon. He did not mean, of course, that any other Italian gunner would have done just as well; but he did mean that by forcing the French back on their guns, as it were, we had made their chief gunner necessarily their chief citizen. Had the French Republic been left alone, it would probably have followed the example of most other ideal experiments; ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... therefore better to go around, although it would be late. We went on board the ship with the captain, in order to look through her. She pleased us very much, as she was larger than the Charles, in which we came over. We bespoke a berth in the gunner's room, on the starboard side. The ship was said to be a good sailer, and the captain to be one of the most discreet navigators of this country. All that was agreeable to us. In the evening Ephraim's wife's sister and her husband called ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... with their own plots in meddling with great affairs of state. They commonly do as the ape, that saw the gunner put bullets in the cannon, and was pleased with it, and he would be doing so too; at last he puts himself into the piece, and so both ape and bullet were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various
... I can. See them reloading the cannon. You take the fellow with the sponge and I'll attend to the gunner himself." ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... gun up there," he said. "Looks like a four-pounder. Brass. I knew that smith-shop was also a foundry. See that little curl of smoke? That's the gunner's slow-match. ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... unwatched in the court- yard. Servants were not dismissed for carelessness in those days, but soundly flogged, a punishment considered suitable to the "blackguard" at any age, even under the mildest rule. The gunner, being somewhat higher in position, and not in charge at the moment, was not called to account, but the next question was, how the "Mother of the Maids"—the gouvernante in charge of the numerous damsels who formed the train of the Lady of ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... certify that better than I can myself," replied the officer modestly. "As a boy I was brought up at Dinard in Normandy. I served two years in the French Army as a volunteer, a gunner. Then I went to St. Cyr, but England, the home of my father, claimed me, and I was given a commission in the Artillery. That was two years ago. I volunteered for the Flying Corps, served in it at the outbreak of war, but was invalided after that confounded accident which spoilt ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... levelled to his mind, and then his movements were as quick as they had hitherto been slow. In a moment he stood erect in the half-fencing attitude of a gunner, and his linstock at the touch-hole: a huge tongue of flame, a volume of smoke, a roar, and the iron thunderbolt was on its way, and the Colonel walked haughtily, but rapidly, back to the trenches: for in all this no bravado. He was there to make a shot,—not to ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... considerable number of "prematures" were taking place, and, on one occasion, we ascribed this wounding of two gunners to this cause, but afterwards found out our mistake. An S.O.S. went up after dark, and, at the time of firing No. 3 gun, the layer and another gunner were both badly hit by what appeared to be a "premature" just outside the bore of the piece. Throughout this period we were firing nothing but high explosive shells. Great therefore was our surprise ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... moon, as it hung over the southernmost shore of Esthwaite, with Gunner's How, as seen from Hawkshead rising up boldly to the spectator's left ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... certain white house which stood back three kos [six miles] in the enemy country, a little underneath a hill with woods on each side. Consider this, measuring three kos in your mind along the Amritsar Road. The Gunner Officer said:—'By God, I accept this bargain.' He issued orders and estimated the distance. I saw him going back and forth as swiftly as a lover. Then fire was delivered and at the fourth discharge the watchers through their glasses saw the house spring ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... Booneville, Carthage, Wilson's Creek, and Lexington. His descriptions of these engagements were animated and interesting, his point of view presenting matters in a novel light. He spoke particularly of a gunner stationed at the first piece in Totten's battery, saying that his energy and coolness made him one of the most conspicuous figures of the day. "Our sharp-shooters did their best, but they failed to bring him down. There he was all day long, doing his duty as if on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... turned into a narrow track leading to a strong gate ridiculously disproportionate to the strength of the stockade. Artillery might have battered in vain at the gate: one might force the walls with the gunner's ramrod. As they swung around the last twisting angle of the path, a flutter of white contrasted with the dark greenery for an instant, then came the sound of a gate crashing shut, and ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... shall obey civil Command; the Captain shall have one full Share and a half in all Prizes; the Master, Carpenter, Boatswain and Gunner shall have ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... But one curious disadvantage which would not at first suggest itself to the lay mind was the fact that the roar of the propeller was so great that no possible communication could pass between the pilot and the gunner. Their co-operation must be entirely instinctive or there could be no unity of action—and in practice it was found that there was little indeed. The smaller machine, carrying but one man, was quicker in the get-away and could rise higher ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... swept, calling and shouting to itself, over the Carolinas, where clouds were hatching in men's minds, banked up the waters of the Chesapeake so that there was a great high tide and the ducks were sent scudding to the decoys of the nearest gunner, went roaring into the oaks and hickories of New York, warmed the veins of New England fruit-trees, and finally coming to the giant fog, rent it apart by handfuls as you pluck feathers from a goose, and hurled it this way and that, until once more the sky and land could look each other ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... adaption which man has brought about in his domesticated animals is found in our pointers and setters. In these groups the dogs have been taught, in somewhat diverse ways, to indicate the presence of birds to the gunner. Although the modes of action of these two breeds are closely related, they are sufficiently distinct to meet certain differences of circumstances. The peculiarities of their actions, it should be noted, are altogether related to the qualities of our ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... moment before I made up my mind which to try and save, and the thought of Lizzy Green came in my mind, and I said to myself: "I love her too well to give her pain," when, giving up Captain Dyer, I aimed at the gunner ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... to be enjoying the sport most heartily were two boys, one of whom was the son of our old gunner; and, in a laughing mood, they started out from the sail ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... family of man into one household, by that feeling which, more perhaps than any other, distinguishes us from the brute creation—I mean the feeling to which we give the name of sympathy—the feeling for each other! The herd of deer shun the stag that is marked by the gunner; the flock heedeth not the sheep that creeps into the shade to die; but man has sorrow and joy not in himself alone, but in the joy and sorrow of those around him. He who feels only for himself, abjures his very nature ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... I believe, at that season of the year. It lasted two days. When the weather cleared, we saw a huge, lumbering thing tumbling about at the distance of three or four miles from us. It looked, as Fleming the gunner remarked, "like a Martello ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... seized and carried as a prisoner into the city, nor would they consent to his release till the criminal was given up, whom, after a short inquiry, they strangled. The recent affair of the unfortunate gunner is well known. An affray happened in Macao a few years ago, in which a Chinese was killed by the Portuguese. A peremptory demand was made for one of the latter, to expiate the death of the former. The government of this place, either unable or unwilling to fix on the delinquent, proposed ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... into the wood. Captain Francis, and those of the crew on shore with him, soon beat off the natives; inflicting some loss upon them. These took to the woods, in which they could not be followed; and Captain Francis, mourning for the loss of his three adventurers, and of the gunner killed by his side; and despairing of ever recovering the bodies of those who were, as he believed, cut off and murdered; embarked on board ship, and sailed down the coast. A few days later he put in to another bay, and ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... when November frosts begin to attract snipes to the withybeds and water meadows by the Coln, the unambitious gunner may often enjoy the charm of a small and select ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... obey them with love and fear. So they make preparations to build the fortress, with provision of bread and wine for more than a year, with seeds for sowing, the ship's boat, a caulker and carpenter, a gunner and cooper. Many among these men have a great desire to serve your Highnesses and to please me, by finding out where the mine is whence the gold is brought. Thus everything is got in readiness to begin the work. Above all, it was so calm that there was scarcely wind or wave when the ship ran aground." ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... Captain O'Brien reached the fort, he ordered out the field-pieces and commenced shelling the enemy. Being a very expert gunner, he directed the fire of the guns so effectively as to kill a large number of savages. A crowd of redskins had gathered round some open boxes of raisins and barrels of sugar, when a shell burst in the midst of them, killing thirteen, as was afterward ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... a gunner to bring mother in a wagon from Pennsylvania all the way here, and he kept wolves, bears, Indians, and Gypsies from her, and shot things for food. Yes sir, my father can shoot if he wants to, better than any ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... directed the battery to go on firing at that elevation, while I was called upon by the commanding officer to devote myself to some men with muskets. I have seen this passion so strong that a major-general commanding an army corps would dismount and act the part of a gunner to a field-piece, apparently oblivious to the battle raging all along the ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... the gunner, "go forward to the long gun; Tailtackle, I've no great liking for that chap, ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... latitudes twice before; a Surgeon and his Mate, or Loblolly Boy; Self as Secretary and Purser; two young lawyers, designed to act as Midshipmen; Giles Cash, as Reformado,—that was the title of courtesy given to those who were sent to sea in lieu of being hanged; a Gunner and his crew; a Boatswain, cooper, carpenter, sailmaker, smith, and armourer, ship's corporal, Sergeant of Marines, cook; a Negro that could shave and play the fiddle; and the Ship's company as aforesaid, one-third of whom were foreigners of every nation under the Sun; and of those that were ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... daylight; he never was one to bide in bed, let be that the gale by this time was pretty near lifting the thatch over his head. Besides which, he'd fenced a small 'taty-patch that winter, down by Lowland Point, and he wanted to see if it stood the night's work. He took the path across Gunner's Meadow—where they buried most of the bodies afterward. The wind was right in his teeth at the time, and once on the way (he's told me this often) a great strip of oarweed came flying through the darkness and fetched him ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... execution of the command was immediately followed by an explosion in the gun's tube, a portion of steel flying and striking Private Reynolds, almost decapitating him. Nicholas Young, of Pottsville, Penna., acting as Number 2 man on the gun-crew, sustained a compound fracture of the leg. Gunner-Corporal John Chardell, of Hazleton, Penna., sustained injuries about the body which confined him to the camp hospital ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... about the old city, and a gunner piloted me through the galleries of the rock as far as a stranger is permitted to go. There is no excavation in the world, for military purposes, at all approaching these of Gibraltar in conception or execution. Viewing the stupendous works, it became hard to realize ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... gunner boy with a septic leg and an undaunted smile, except when I dressed his leg and he said "Oh, damn!" The other bad one was wounded in the shoulder. They kept me busy till Sister —— came back, and then I went to my beloved ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... far as could be in fighting order all night, yet there was "clearing of decks, lacing of nettings, making of bulwarks, fitting of waistcloths, arming of tops, tallowing of pikes, slinging of yards, doubling of sheets and tacks." Amyas took charge of the poop, Cary of the forecastle, and Yeo, as gunner, of the main-deck, while Drew, as master, settled himself in the waist; and all was ready, and more than ready, before the great ship was within two miles ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... remedie through the light of the night, whereby we might well discerne to flee from such imminent dangers, which we auoyded with 14. Bourdes in one watch the space of 4 houres. [Sidenote: Richard Cox, Master gunner. Master Iackman. Andrew Dier.] If we had not incurred this danger amongst those monstrous Islands of yce, we should haue lost our Generall and Master, and the most of our best sailers, which were on shoare destitute ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... the big guns would knock them about like cards; but Caspar reminded him that every time the ball from a cannon, culvering, or saker missed the parapet, it remained a sufficient bar to the bullet that might equally avail to carry off the defenceless gunner. The earl, however, although he yielded, maintained that the flying of the wall when struck was ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... his mind. The state of the market had something to do with his merciless point of view; increasing irritability, due to loss of sleep, and his habits had more. The outburst over, Jack said in a calm direct voice, watching the effect of the words as a gunner watches a shell from ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... by the Town Major, who provided them with quarters in Fort William, or had gone to stay with friends, and the only other Artilleryman (Stewart) went direct to Dum-Dum, where he had a brother, also a gunner, who, poor follow, was murdered with his young wife five years later by the mutineers at Gwalior. I was still more depressed later on by finding myself at dinner tete-a-tete with a first-class specimen of the results of an Indian climate. He ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... behind the front, an audience of soldiers had listened to the ordinary items, a performance, as Mr. Kirk says, 'clean, bright, and amusing', which means of course silly and ugly. Then the orchestra played the introduction to the Keys of Heaven, and a gunner remarked—'Sounds like a bloody hymn.' That was his fear of beauty, his false shame. But when the Keys of Heaven was ended, the whole audience, including the gunner, gave a sigh of content; and after that they went to hear it time ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... managed to fire the big gun without a platform. It was tedious work, however, as "Long Tom" was exceedingly heavy, and it usually took twenty men to serve it. The mouth was raised from the "kastion" by means of a pulley, and the former taken away; then and not till then could the gunner properly get the range. The carriage vacuum sucking apparatus had to be well fixed in hard ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... this period, the "child" delighted in trying to hit the head-gear of the Premier Mine. Whether it was the red flag that floated at the top or the thing itself he sought to tatter is uncertain. At any rate, it was no easy matter to hit the head-gear, as the gunner had long since discovered, nor, could he hit it, to smash it. Hundreds of shells were thrown at it, but it was never struck, and to damage it materially it would be necessary to strike it more than once. Its substance was tough—what ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... gunners at the third shot broke down the standard, which stood on the top of a great tower, on which the Turks made great rejoicings and published the news with much exultation throughout the fleet. The gunner was rewarded ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... and in divers ways displayed their intelligence and efficiency in the Navy. Take, for instance, the case of John Jordan, a Negro of Virginia, who was chief gunner's mate on Admiral Dewey's flagship the "Olympia" during the Spanish-American war, and was the man who fired the first shot at the enemy at Manila Bay. A Negro chief electrician, Salisbury Brooks, was the originator ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... horse soldier; cavalry, horse, artillery, horse artillery, light horse, voltigeur[Fr], uhlan,mounted rifles, dragoon, hussar; light dragoon, heavy dragoon; heavy; cuirassier[Fr]; Foot Guards, Horse Guards. gunner, cannoneer, bombardier, artilleryman[obs3], matross[obs3]; sapper, sapper and miner; engineer; light infantry, rifles,chasseur[Fr], zouave; military train, coolie. army, corps d'armee[Fr], host, division, battalia[obs3], column, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... reputation than by person to a wide circle of cousins and kinsfolk. And the reputation was an unpleasant one. The numerous other Wilfrids in the family were distinguished one from another chiefly by the names of their residences or professions, as Wilfrid of Hubbledown, and young Wilfrid the Gunner, but this particular scion was known by the ignominious and expressive label of Wilfrid the Snatcher. From his late schooldays onward he had been possessed by an acute and obstinate form of kleptomania; he had the acquisitive instinct ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... over to the gunner, who reported that it was the chest in which we kept our cutlasses and pistols, of both of which there was a sufficient supply to give every man one of each. There were also several horns of powder, and a bag of bullets; ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... boat and the crowd on the wharf made patriotic noises until they were hoarse. At midnight our supporters had nearly all gone away. We who had seen our motor-cycles carefully hoisted on board ate the buns and apples provided by "Friends in Dublin" and chatted. A young gunner told me of all his amours, and they ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... ray out over the North Sea, keeping their stations accurately apart. At a given signal all the guns are trained on a target which (the master gunner counts the seconds, watch in hand—at the sixth he looks up) flames into splinters. With equal nonchalance a dozen young men in the prime of life descend with composed faces into the depths of the sea; and there impassively (though with perfect mastery of machinery) suffocate uncomplainingly ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... ships of war in ordinary, in one of which this man was reported to be, are those, which are out of commission, and which are laid up in the different rivers and waters in the neighbourhood of the King's dock-yards. Every one of these has a boatswain, gunner, carpenter, and assistants on board. They lie usually in divisions of ten or twelve; and a master in the navy has ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... officers,—for all felt a spirit of mischief after the last night's adventure,—when, just as we had fairly swung out into the stream and were under way, there came, like the sudden burst of a tropical tornado, a regular little hail-storm of bullets into the open end of the boat, driving every gunner in an instant from his post, and surprising even those who were looking to be surprised. The shock was but for a second; and though the bullets had pattered precisely like the sound of hail upon the iron cannon, yet nobody was hurt. With very respectable promptness, order was restored, our own ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the Pauoses to bring word whether they would come to the ship or not, the wind then at Northeast with fogge. The 11 day the winde Northerly with fogge, the ship rode still. The 12 day Amos Riall, Christopher Fawcet, and a new gunner came to the ship, and with them the M. Thomas Hudson returned; but the Stroog with the gunners remained at the Chetera Bougori; and from thence (when it begun to freese) returned to Astracan. Amos Riall ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... the vessel had depended on their individual exertions. Several minutes elapsed in the particular mess of the dead man, before a word was spoken; all eating with appetites that were of proof, but no one breaking the silence. At length an old quarter-gunner, named Tom Sponge, who generally led the discourse, said in a sort of ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... fights lives underground, or under water, and rarely sees his foe. There is something strangely terrible, something peculiarly inhuman, in the silent stealth of this war of the blind. The General sits in a quiet room far behind the lines, planning a battle he will never see. The gunner aims by level and compass with faultless precision, and hurls his awful engines of destruction to destroy ten miles away a house which is to him only a dot on a map. And the soldier sitting in his trench hears the shells whistling ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... ton and a half of gun cotton. The terrific power of the explosion was equal to the maniac determination of the fire. Captain MacBride was in charge of the squad. Chief Gunner Adamson placed the charges, and the ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... has placed in his way, begs to be recommended to me for future custom; his stand is on the quay; his number is 415, inscribed in French characters on the lantern of his vehicle (we have a number 415 on board, one Le Goelec, gunner, who serves the left of one of my guns; happy thought! I shall remember this); his price is sixpence the journey, or five-pence an hour, for his customers. Capital! he shall have my custom, that is promised. And now, let us be ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... such as physical jerks, bomb throwing, and rifle practice, but the orders issued on the subject were, we fear, honoured rather in the breach than the observance! We did, however, appreciate the opportunity given us in these days of sending Officers from time to time to our Gunner friends to learn something of the elements of artillery work, and though these visits were very short, it was certainly not the fault of the Gunners if we were not wiser for the instruction they gave us. We on our part were ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... several embrasures, were stationed the gunners required for the batteries, under a non-commissioned officer also, and the whole under the direction of a superior officer of that arm, who now walked to and fro, conversing in a low voice with Major Blackwater. One gunner at each of these divisions of the artillery held in his hand a blazing torch, reflecting with picturesque yet gloomy effect the bright bayonets and equipment of the soldiers, and the anxious countenances of the women ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... three months." A pessimistic garrison gunner from Malta, who was playing patience, cheated savagely. "I tell you no European country could stand it." Undoubtedly the fatuous drivel of certain writers had influenced even the Army itself. "Peace will be declared before Christmas. An' ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... of the bombing planes, for I had once been privileged to help load one of the monster Handley-Page British bombing planes. It weighed seven tons, including its load of sixteen 100-pound bombs, and was manned by two pilots and a machine gunner. ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... pavement, and looked rather dashing, so of course I had to adopt this way of doing things. Thus it happened that as we went into this garden, the end of my scabbard came in contact with the foot of an enormous horse-gunner, who was sprawled on his chair with his legs sticking out. The horse artillery had been formed at the beginning of the revolutionary wars from men taken from the companies of Grenadiers, who took advantage ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... measures. Either a cadet passed or he failed. It wasn't healthy to fail. By the end of his second year Eric was well up in his class. He had qualified as a corporal in the military drills, he had secured the coveted honor of gunner's mate, and he was even looked upon with favor by "Tattoo Tim," alias ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... sir? Ow de do? By all means ow de do? Lemme introjuice you all round. I'm Mr. Lanyon, commonly called Lushy, because? one? me failins: Gunner aboard this packet by rights, and Actin Fust Lieutenant by the grace o God—there bein no one else to act, see? This ere," he continued, smacking the bulwark, "is His—Majesty's—ship—Tremendous, well known and respected between the Lizard and the Nore. Not lookin her sauciest just ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... the Clarion hires me to go out and shoot at invisible invaders from another planet, but if I don't go with you, I expect you'd just about call up the Echo or the Gazette and ask them for a gunner." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Washington for gun and dog, his interest in fisheries, and especially his fondness for horse and hound, in the chase of the red fox, have furnished the theme for many a writer; and recently Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Harrison have been more or less celebrated in the newspapers, Mr. Harrison as a gunner, and Mr. Cleveland for his angling, as well as ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... they followed up with two kegs of powder and dumped 'em on to the platform, my dear master's hand went up and he rubbed the back of his head in pure delight. After that— as I thought, for nothing but frolic—he even let 'em load and train the gun for us, and only lifted his musket when the gunner—a dark-faced fellow with a red cap on his head—was act'lly walking up with the match ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... decision. Tang, tang, tang, tang, tang, spat the machine-gun in the black night, now rasping out bullets at the rate of three hundred a minute, as the gunner under the excitement of the hour and his surroundings forgot his instructions, now steadying to a slow second fire. This was something like a counter-excitement; we were beginning to speak at last. We were delighted. It was not so much the gun reports which thrilled us as the resonant ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale |
