Gun-brig

“ My companion appeared actually frightened, and I could hardly credit my senses when I saw him suddenly throw his gun to his shoulders and fire both barrels at the agitated grass! Before the smoke of the discharge had cleared away I heard a loud savage cry—a scream like that of a wild animal—and, flinging his gun upon the ground, Morgan sprang away and ran swiftly from the spot. At the same instant I was thrown violently to the ground by the impact of something unseen in the smoke—some soft, heavy substance that seemed thrown against me with great force. ”

“ With an oath, his hand swept under his coat, and came out armed. Red Newton had been equally swift, and for an instant the two men stood facing each other with leveled pistols.
At that cue, the clicking of scores of rifle-hammers ran along the waiting lines. Yet, for a second or two, there followed no other sound. The knowledge that to draw a trigger indubitably meant to fall oneself in the same breath, was holding them in check for an undecided breathing space. If a gun cracked now, it meant wholesale carnage along those ranks. ”

“ Already some were casting loose the lashings of the signal-gun and rigging tackle to hoist the rust-red old four-inch piece to the after-deck. Others fell to work with Mr. Crevay, rigging the kedge-anchor or lowering away the long-boat. Another gang leaped to the task of getting above-decks all the rifles, cutlasses, powder, ball-shot and iron junk, the axes and revolvers; of loading everything, even of laying belaying-pins handy as a last line of hand-to-hand weapons.
Briggs supervised all details, even to the arming of each man with the butchering-tool he claimed to be most expert with. ”

“ Ahead, in the semi-darkness, I could just see the forms of men running out into the fields on either side of the road in extended order, and beyond them a continuous heavy crackling of rifle-fire showed me the main direction of the attack. A few men had gone down already, and no wonder—the air was thick with bullets. The machine-gun officer of one of the other regiments in the brigade was shot right through the head as he went over the brow of the hill. ”

“ All the guns but one were masked by the trees of an orchard; that one—it seemed a bit of impudence—was on an open lawn directly in front of a rather grandiose building, the planter's dwelling. The gun was safe enough in its exposure—but only because the Federal infantry had been forbidden to fire. Coulter's Notch—it came to be called so—was not, that pleasant summer afternoon, a place where one would "like to put a gun."
Three or four dead horses lay there sprawling in the road, three or four dead men in a trim row at one side of it, and a little back, down the hill. ”

“ He now made no further attempt to evade the menacing stare of the gun barrel. If he turned away his eyes an instant it was to look for assistance (although he could not see the ground on either side the ruin) , and he permitted them to return, obedient to the imperative fascination. If he closed them it was from weariness, and instantly the poignant pain in his forehead—the prophecy and menace of the bullet—forced him to reopen them.
The tension of nerve and brain was too severe; nature came to his relief with intervals of unconsciousness. ”

“ They're going to emplace that gun somewhere up on the hill-side, and pepper our people on their way back.'
Roy nodded.
'That's about the size of it. Well, it's up to us to spoil their little game. We must work up along the next gully parallel with them and get a slap at 'em over the edge.'
'That's the tip,' said Ken, 'but mind, we've got to bust up the gun itself as well as the men with it.'
Bending double so as not to be seen, the two scurried up the parallel gully until they reckoned that they must be on a level with the gun and its crew. ”

“ It was hardly profitable to be curious about guns which had the trick of the cuttlefish, and the season of observation had been brief. At its conclusion—a short remove backward from where it began—occurred the conversation already partly reported. "It is the only place," the general repeated thoughtfully, "to get at them."
The colonel looked at him gravely. "There is room for only one gun, General—one against twelve."
"That is true—for only one at a time," said the commander with something like, yet not altogether like, a smile. "But then, your brave Coulter—a whole battery in himself." ”

“ A number of German guns turned on it, battered it with heavy high-explosive, lashed it with shrapnel, rent and tore and disrupted it with a torrent of light and heavy shells, a scorching whirlwind of fire, with blasts of leaping flame, with storms of splinters and bullets. One after another guns of the Brigade were put out of action, with guns destroyed or overthrown, with ammunition waggons blown up, with gun detachments killed or wounded. Gun by gun the fighting strength of the Brigade waned ”

“ A thought came to him, and he drew his revolver, which, luckily, was still in the holster at his side. He pointed it aloft and was about to pull the trigger when he hesitated. Then, with a gesture of despair, he shoved the gun back into the holster. He could not waste the ammunition. If night caught him here, it was probable that he would need all his bullets for defense against the animals which might seek out that spring. They would not wantonly attack him, he knew, but if they thought he was trying to keep them from water, they might attempt to make an onset on him. ”

“ No canoe lay in the crack, and the man who owned that firearm must have gone his way. But no man is likely to abandon his rifle without a very good reason, especially in our jungle, where a gun is life itself. So, leaving the weapon where it lay, Pedro and I dug our toes into the clay and mounted to the top of the slope, carrying our guns ready. ”

“ It has to be constructed at night, without sound; but posts have to be driven into the earth; someone will inevitably slip, accompanied by a loud clatter. Then—ping, ping, ping!!! A hundred rounds fly whining through the night from a Fritz machine-gun.
The utter wretchedness of that wiring; the sickening knowledge that any moment a trail of bullets may spring without warning at you—and if ONE machine-gun shot gets you, another FIVE will be somewhere in your body before you reach the turf. It appears an impossibility to carry on alive in such an undertaking from night to night ”

“ Rayburn repeated. "We may have a chance to pull through if we don't rile these follows; but if we go killing any of them now it's all day with us, for sure. We'd better let 'em have our guns; but there's something mighty odd in their having found out all of a sudden what a gun is."
Very reluctantly Young surrendered his rifle to the officer, who looked at it contemptuously, as though he considered it but a poor sort of weapon in case real fighting was to be done. ”

“ Charming Billy looked at her, opened his mouth and closed it without speaking. He laid the gun down on the table and turned to go. "If anything scares yuh," he repeated stubbornly, "shoot it. Yuh don't want to count too much on that dawg."
He discovered then that Flora Bridger was an exceedingly willful young woman. She picked up the gun, overtook him, and fairly forced it into his hands. "Don't be silly; I don't want it. I'm not such a coward as all that. You must have a very poor opinion of women. I—I'm deadly afraid of a gun!" ”

“ It seemed as if I had hardly closed my eyes, though in fact it was near midday, when I was awakened by the report of a rifle, the bullet striking the bowlder just above my body. A band of Indians had trailed me and had me nearly surrounded; the shot had been fired with an execrable aim by a fellow who had caught sight of me from the hillside above. The smoke of his rifle betrayed him, and I was no sooner on my feet than he was off his and rolling down the declivity. Then I ran in a stooping posture, dodging among the clumps of sage-brush in a storm of bullets from invisible enemies. ”

“ Jason said, "but how do I draw? Do I whistle or something for the gun to pop out?"
"No, it is not sonic control," Brucco answered with a sober face. "It is much more precise than that. Here, take your left hand and grasp an imaginary gun butt. Tense your trigger finger. Do you notice the pattern of the tendons in the wrist? Sensitive actuators touch the tendons in your right wrist. They ignore all patterns except the one that says hand ready to receive gun. After a time the mechanism becomes completely automatic. When you want the gun—it is in your hand. When you don't—it is in the holster." ”

“ They won’t fire until they’re more angry than they are now, and especially when they see I haven’t got a gun. Don’t worry. I’ll settle this thing!”
[158]
It seemed that he was right, for when the redmen saw that Harvey Brill had left his rifle with Ned, their murmurs subsided, and the chief lowered his gun.
“We’ll decide this right now, Standing Horse,” went on the Westerner. “I’ll cut out the bullets and prove to you that I’m right, and that this young man killed the bear. Come on, now, be a sport and take part in this post mortem examination.” ”

“ When the block is in the gun in position for firing the screw of the breech-block is interlocked with the corresponding threads in the interior of the gun, so that the breech-block is held so firmly to the gun itself as to be substantially a solid body of metal. ”

“ As soon as his hand was well away from the gun butt, one of the men at the bar snatched at his six-gun and brought it up to fire.
No ordinary man with ordinary guns could have moved fast enough to do anything. But Brek was no ordinary man, and his weapons were far from ordinary; both man and guns were the product of a science far in advance of the nineteenth century.
Brek's hands blurred, and his weapons seemed to leap from their holsters as the little robot mechanisms secreted in their butts responded to the electroneural commands of their owner. ”

“ The bullet is the bold—fearless—and often cruel companion of the report of the gun, and loses in its velocity the farther it flies, being impeded and resisted by the air, and at last is left flattened and out of shape, a dead weight, while the report of the gun passes on very swiftly, and dies away in the distance to be heard no more. I have often heard the reports of guns very plainly that were fired at ducks on Detroit River, six or seven miles away. ”

“ Presently the gendarme Plagnolles returned with Bruno’s gun. It was a primitive weapon, both as to appearance and use, and under the breech the copper cap was covered with verdigris. It was not necessary for a man to be a connoisseur to observe that this weapon had been idle for more than a month.
“The young man has deceived us,” said the magistrate. “This gun has not been used recently.”
“Ah, here it is,” exclaimed Jean Manant, at this juncture, bringing to light another rifle. ”

“ Also he had learned that a man or boy without a terrible gun is quite harmless, and he had learned that hunters with terrible guns are tricky and sometimes hide from those they seek to kill, so that in the dreadful hunting season it is best to look sharply before approaching any place.
On this afternoon, as he drew near the Big River, he saw a man who seemed to be very busy on the shore of the Big River, at a place where wild rice and rushes grew for some distance out in the water, for just there it was shallow far out from the shore. Blacky looked sharply for a terrible gun. ”

“ The breech block must be very strong, and held firmly in place, or the terrific force of the powder would blow it out, wreck the gun and kill those behind it. You see, the breech block really stands a great part of the strain. The powder is between it and the projectile, and there is a sort of warfare to see which will give way—the projectile or the block. In most cases the projectile gracefully bows, so to speak, and skips out of the muzzle of the gun, though sometimes the big breech block will be shattered.
With eager eyes Tom and Ned watched the preparations for firing the big gun. ”

“ The knife-blade clicked on the planking, like the clicking of his teeth that showed black through slavering lips.
“Allah! il Allah!” he gulped, heaving himself up on one hand, slashing with the other.
Why do men, in a crisis, so often do stupid, unaccountable things? Why did Briggs kick at him, with a roaring oath, instead of shooting? Briggs felt the bite of steel in his leg. That broke the numbing spell of unreason. The captain’s pistol, at point-blank range, shattered the yellow man’s skull. Blood, smeared with an ooze of brain, colored the stewing deck. ”

“ A half-dozen hasty shots were fired at him, and the foremost man—a fellow of heroic stature, hatless and bare-breasted—made a vicious sweep at his head with a clubbed rifle. The officer parried the blow at the cost of a broken arm and drove his sword to the hilt into the giant's breast. As the body fell the weapon was wrenched from his hand and before he could pluck his revolver from the scabbard at his belt another man leaped upon him like a tiger, fastening both hands upon his throat and bearing him backward upon the prostrate Governor, still struggling to rise. ”

“ All night long the work of death and vengeance went on; the grey lines ever closing in nearer and nearer upon the dwindling remnants of the Russian army. Hour after hour the hail of bullets never slackened. There was no random firing on the part of the Federation soldiers. Every man had been trained to use his rifle rapidly but deliberately, and never to fire until he had found his mark; and the consequence was that the long nickel-tipped bullets, fired point-blank into the dense masses of men, rent their way through half a dozen bodies before they were spent. ”