"Do your duty, my son. The Lacours inherit warrior traditions. Remember
our ancestor, the Deputy of the Convention who covered himself with
glory in the defense of Mayence!"
While he was discoursing, they had started forward, doubling a point of
the greenwood in order to get behind the cannons.
Here the racket was less violent. The great engines, after each
discharge, were letting escape through the rear chambers little clouds
of smoke like those from a pipe. The sergeants were dictating numbers,
communicated in a low voice by another gunner who had a telephone
receiver at his ear. The workmen around the cannon were obeying
silently. They would touch a little wheel and the monster would raise
its grey snout, moving it from side to side with the intelligent
expression and agility of an elephant's trunk. At the foot of the
nearest piece, stood the operator, rod in hand, and with impassive
face. He must be deaf, yet his facial inertia was stamped with a
certain authority. For him, life was no more than a series of shots and
detonations. He knew his importance. He was the servant of the tempest,
the guardian of the thunderbolt.
"Fire!" shouted the sergeant.
And the thunder broke forth in fury. Everything appeared to be
trembling, but the two visitors were by this time so accustomed to the
din that the present uproar seemed but a secondary affair.
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