Bunker

“ A litter of coal and oily scum showers from angles of the wrecked bunker and stokehold to the floor of the dock, and leaves the fractured beams and tubes to stand out in gaunt twist and deformity. Through the breaches the shattered cylinders and broken columns of the engines lie distorted in a piled raffle of wrenched pipe sections, valves and levers, footplates, skeleton ladders, and shafting. The mass of distorted metal has still a shine and token of polish, and these signs of late care and attention only serve to make the ruin seem the more complete and irremediable. ”

“ Few things are more terrifying than the first hole at Brancaster on a cold, raw, windy morning, when our wrists are stiff and our beautiful steely-shafted driver feels like a poker. There is a bunker—really a very big, deep bunker—right in front of our noses, and stretching away for a hundred yards or so, and the early morning ‘founder’ that would send the ball ricochetting away for miles at the first hole at Hoylake or St. Andrews brings us to immediate grief. There is nothing very thrilling about the second shot, and the next two holes, although good enough, must remain unsung. ”

“ The subtlety of the short holes is the thing that will probably impress the advanced student, while the more elementary will retain vivid recollections of the knotted horrors of the Sea hole and the utter hopelessness of the eighteenth bunker. Certainly that eighteenth bunker—we never ought to get in it—is a pit of desolation; its sides are so steep and so smooth that wherever the ball may pitch down it will roll to the bottom, ultimately to repose in a footmark. To the man who has a good medal score in prospect, it looms vast and uncarryable—a thing against which it is useless to struggle. ”

“ In our second shot we shall have to decide whether or not to carry a bunker that stretches across our path, and then comes the crucial shot, the approach on to that dreadful green that slopes right away from us to the sea—without the ghost of a charitable back wall. It is so frightening that we are strongly tempted to approach it on the instalment system, and it is really wonderful how many instalments may be necessary, as with limbs palsied with terror, we push and poke the ball over that treacherous and slippery surface. ”

“ I had heard the muskets’ rattle of the April running battle;
Lord Percy’s [1] hunted soldiers, I can see their red coats still;
But a deadly chill comes o’er me, as the day looms up before me,
When a thousand men lay bleeding on the slopes of Bunker’s Hill. ”

“ Certainly that bunker in front of the green is sufficiently desperate, and to be compelled to approach the hole with a brassey may well inspire fear, but a good drive on a calm day should leave us little more than a firm half-iron shot to play, and then we can afford to treat the bunker almost with contempt. ”

“ In the middle distance a glorious sycamore draws you to the left, and a file of elms beckon the sliced way to a marsh, wilderness of grass and an overgrown gully whence no balls return. In front, one hundred and twenty yards away, is a formidable bunker, running up to which is a tract of long grass, which two or three times a year is barbered by a charitable enterprise. ”

“ Neither is the second an easy shot, for the green is sloping and treacherous, and there are bunkers to right and left. At the sixteenth—the ‘Cardinal’s Back’—there is an insidious little pot-bunker in the middle of the course, and we must drive either to the right or left of it, or perhaps, wisest of all, aim straight at it in the sure and certain hope of a sufficient measure of inaccuracy. ”

“ On the Urbana front, where the terrain did not support tanks, the fighting remained a desperate tree-by-tree, bunker-by-bunker struggle. Extremes of heroism were called for, and the troops responded. On the day before Christmas, Company I, 127th Infantry, had just cleaned out an enemy bunker only to be pinned down by a supporting strongpoint nearby. ”

“ Ah, brave the show as they ranged a-row on the eve of Bunker Hill.
Then a deep voice lifted a prayer to God of the brave and the true
And the heads of the men were bare in the gathering dusk and dew;
The heads of a thousand men were bowed as the pleading rose,—
Smite Thou, Lord, as of old Thou smotest Thy people’s foes!
Oh, nerve Thy Servants’ arms to work with a mighty will!
A hush, and then a loud Amen! on the eve of Bunker Hill!
Now they are gone through the night with never a thought of fame,
Gone to the field of a fight that shall win them deathless name ”

“ They proceed, I understand, From a bunker full of sand, Where a golfer, club in hand, Freely swears As he hacks with all his might, Till his countenance is quite As vermilion as the bright Coat he wears. ”

“ I don't wish to be wearisome to the benevolent reader, but I want to put his finger, so to speak, on the inanity of the objection raised by the expert. A bunker is an enclosed space for holding coals, generally located against the ship's side, and having an opening, a doorway in fact, into the stokehold. Men called trimmers go in there, and by means of implements called slices make the coal run through that opening on to the floor of the stokehold, where it is within reach of the stokers' (firemen's) shovels. ”

“ The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn’t have a chance.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“I’ll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain—”
“If they’re down inside the bunker you won’t be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don’t realize.”
“What do you suggest?”
Klaus considered. “I don’t know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see.”
Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. “Let’s get started.”
Klaus signalled to Tasso. ”

“ It is of no use to hope that your drive will jump the bunker at the fifth: I have tried the long, low, raking shot here many times, but the bunker is too high and too far away to be run through successfully; it is much better to slice unblushingly into comparative safety. ”

“ There is no bunker on the straight line, but there are bunkers to right and left and a somewhat narrow space between, and a shot that is very, very nearly well hit sometimes finds a resting-place in one or other of them. It is a poor thing, however, to demand perfect immunity for any respectable drive, and the shot that is placed where it ought to be gives the chance for a really fine second shot between more bunkers on to a green of fascinating but fiendish undulations. ”

“ The deepening color of the badge seemed the one visible thing in a strange glaring world. He walked along the row of bunkers, realizing he need not check if they were full or empty—the Lhari wouldn't live long enough to harvest their better-than-graphite lubricant. They'd be dead.
The last bunker was empty. He looked at his orange badge and stepped inside, heart pounding so loudly he thought it was an external sound—it was an external sound, a step.
"Don't move one inch," said a voice in Universal, and Bart froze, trembling. ”

“ It is possible, of course, to play an approach shot straight on the bee line to the flag, and if we play it to absolute perfection all may go well; but let it only be crooked by so much as a yard, or let the ball, as it often will do, get an unkind kick, and the bunker will infallibly be our portion. Consequently the prudent man will agree with Willy Smith of Mexico, who declared that it was unwise to “tease the bunkers”; he will not attempt to avoid these greedy, lurking enemies by inches or even feet, but he will give them a good wide berth and avoid them by yards. ”

“ At the eleventh, however, we come to a really splendid hole, at which each shot has infinite terrors. The tee-shot has to be played down a narrow spit of land, with thick, rough grass on the right, a bunker encroaching on the left, and a continuation of the same bunker straight ahead of us. Nor must the ubiquitous wall, also on the left, be entirely despised. The very least hook will plunge us into the left-hand end of the bunker, a slice means the long grass, and a very long, straight ball may go too far and meet a sandy fate. ”

“ The sixteenth is a fine straight-hitting two-shot hole over undulating country. The seventeenth brings us face to face with the big bunker, and if the wind be favourable we may hope to reach the green with a really good hit, but the green is curly, tricky, and difficult of access. Finally, we have another drive over the big bunker for the last, taking care to avoid being stymied by a clump of firs, and then we may pitch comfortably home across the road with a four well in sight. ”

“ We were all in a buck basket about half-way between the swing and the gate; and I can still see the Pirate Squadron heave in sight upon the weather bow.
I wrote a piece besides on Giant Bunker; but I was not happily inspired, and it is condemned. Perhaps I'll try again; he was a horrid fellow, Giant Bunker! and some of my happiest hours were passed in pursuit of him. You were a capital fellow to play: how few there were who could! None better than yourself. I shall never forget some of the days at Bridge of Allan; they were one golden dream. ”

“ On the left-hand side, eating its way into the very heart of the green, is another bunker, very deep and shored up by precipitous black timbers, and the very slightest pull on our approach shot will land us in it. The obvious thing to do would appear to be to push our approach out to the right at any cost, but that will not do either, for on a bank on the right hand side grows a perfect thicket of thorn bushes, where there is very snug lying for the ball and great scope for the niblick. ”

“ On the very next tee another bunker of terrible aspect lies before us, this time a towering mountain of sand, and the ball is soon out of sight. However, at the second shot we get a good view of the green, away in the distance perched up on a plateau hard up against a fence. There is rough to the right and a bunker almost in the line to the left, but a good shot will carry it, and, after the ball has vanished for a moment, it will reappear, trickling gently along the plateau to the hole side; it is really a grand two-shot hole. ”

“ It had been shovelled into a sack of coal, hoisted in the latter to the deck, dumped into a chute, finally to work out of the bottom of a bunker into the stokehold and be thrown under the boilers. A man can make the descent from the deck through an empty bunker to the stokehold without great discomfort, but would hardly survive being shut up in the former for long with the coal. ”

“ The ‘Hilbre’ we may hope to reach with a drive and a cunning run up, and then we have a chance of another three at the ‘Rushes.’ Here we have nothing to do but play quite a short pitch over a cross-bunker and a little wilderness of rushes, but the hole is very close to the bunker, and the green is hard and full of unkind kicks, and a three is not to be despised. ”

“ I knew that there was no one in the building but Bunker and myself, and Bunker was one of those rollicking souls who are in a continuous condition of cheerful impecuniosity. There was not a place open in the neighborhood except the saloons, and there I was not known. Clearly, I could not raise any money for her that day; but I promised her the use of my studio for the two following nights, when I should be home in the country, and I agreed to induce Bunker, who slept in his boarding-house, to put her up in his place for that night. ”

“ We mount a high tee on one side of an enormous bunker, and must hit a sheer carry of goodness knows how many yards on to a green also perched high in the air upon the further side. It is a distinctly heroic hole; and the seventeenth and eighteenth, in trying to live up to its standard, have grown so long as to be just a little bit dull. They are, however, I believe, to be lopped and pruned of their superfluous yards, and should then make a fine finish. ”

“ These coolies carried their baskets on their heads, as you often see women carrying loads in other countries. As each one passed the bunker he tipped the contents of his basket in, and then went under a little archway, and crossed out by the second gangway for a new load. Now there was one man of my company—a Bulgarian—who was under confinement for some slight offence against discipline, and, as the heat was almost unbearable, he had been brought up by the guard—acting with the commandant's permission, be it well understood—and allowed to sit under this archway during the heat of the day. ”

“ There has been a slight explosion in a bunker. One compartment--the for'ard stokehold--is flooded. For the present the men will remain on deck. The cooks will issue a hot ration. Stand at ease!"
Out came pipes and cigarettes. The men began chatting and yarning, discussing the possibilities and chances of the catastrophe. The explosion had been an internal one, sufficient to cripple the vessel's engines. ”

“ The ‘Redan’ is a beautiful one-shot hole on the top of a plateau, with a bunker short of the green to the left and another further on to the right, and we must vary our mode of attack according to the wind, playing a shot to come in from the right or making a direct frontal attack. ”

“ Bunker adds, in a soothing tone, "I shouldn't like to have you along, even at that price."
He immediately goes to putting the room to rights.
"Horrible breath that man had," says Bunker when we come out: "did you notice it?"
"Yes."
"Take that breath around with us on the Continent! Why, if he was in Cologne itself, his breath would be in the majority."
I had my umbrella in the billiard-room, and next morning I can't find it anywhere. At breakfast I ask the pompous head-waiter if he knows of my umbrella. He states that he does not. After breakfast I look in the billiard-room. It is not there. ”

“ In epitome he says to the student of architecture—"Bunker your course so that every bad shot is punished; place your bunkers so that every shot must be played and played well; make the length of your holes such that if a shot is foozled it costs you a stroke; guard your greens right and left, and even to the very edge and into the green itself, if necessary, but this must of course depend on the length of shot to be played; and at one-shot holes make the green a very fort of surrounding bunkers, and guard the tee shot. ”