september - october - Fort Sill

THE FIELD ARTILLERY JOURNAL
their loads down, stood bathed in sweat and struggling for breath. At long
intervals, when breath was available, they swore composedly at the guns,
employing epithets from a dozen dialects. One noticed, however, that they
continued to handle their charges tenderly, almost reverentially. So are the
mighty served.
Occasionally the head of the toiling line uttered a loud cry of "Bato,
bato!" The cry was repeated down the mountainside. When they heard this
the men, suddenly transformed from weary plodders, became alert and
poised. Close upon the cry came a boulder, dislodged by some incautious
foot. Rolling slowly at first, it was a mere stone. As its speed increased it
became animate, like Victor Hugo's cannon. It gathered speed like a jack
rabbit, bounding in great arcs. When it touched the mountainside, it
changed direction with a devilish agility. The men watched its progress
keenly and with apprehension. Now and then, one made a sudden leap to
evade the onset. When it had thundered past, each man gave a sigh of relief
and resumed the struggle.
Occasionally as some hidden reservoir of strength became available a
man would make a short rush. After several quick, desperate steps, the
little surge of energy went out of him and he was forced back into a
snail's pace.
After some hours, vitality wilted. It had poured out as prodigally as the
streams of perspiration. The storage batteries of energy were exhausted.
The officers cried "Pundo!" and the men prepared to go down. When they
went they looked back at the guns. The latter lay scattered up the slope like
the litter of bodies which marks an assault. Their muzzles still grinned,
indomitable and threatening, at the mountain-top.
The next morning the men returned. They had lain on the earth and like
Antaeus, found their strength renewed. They resumed the assault. They
raged and sweated at their task. They poured out their strength like water
and at the end of the day were spent. But at the end of the day the guns
rested at the top of the slope.
The men wore expressions of satisfaction. They crept up to the edge
of the crater and peered over. There was only an immense void,
containing silence. In a final convulsion one side of the mountain had
blown cleanly out. It looked as though some mighty knife had removed a
segment, much as one cuts a cheese. The sides of the crater stood naked
and vertical for hundreds of feet. Even tropical verdure had failed to
secure a foothold. From time to time, a pebble became dislodged and the
eye instinctively followed its dreadful descent. The pebble was followed
by a trickle of sand and gravel. The men reflected that the earth under
their feet might suddenly give way and that with it they might go roaring into
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