"Gunner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... earthquakes, and so forth, for your element. Well, brother, something or other I did or said—I can't tell what—How the devil should I, when I was as drunk as David's sow, you know? But I was punished, my lad—made to kiss the wench that never speaks but when she scolds, and that's the gunner's daughter, comrade. Yes, the minister's son of no matter where—has the cat's scratch on his back! This roused me, and when we were ashore with the boat, I gave three inches of the dirk, after a stout tussle, to the fellow I blamed most, and took ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... master hath at last turned roundhead with a vengeance, and therefore I, to whom the rogue is necessary, am here, on the brink of nowhere. To think that so much merit may be quenched by the mechanical art of a base gunner, who hath no fear in his actions; for I take it that a discreet reverence for the body we live in, which the vulgar term fear, shows the best proof of the value of the individual. Egad! life here is as cheap as the grass on an empty common, where there is no democracy of goose to hiss ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... until you come to the Castle where the Youngest Prince—who rescued one of the Fetherstonhaugh girls from a giant and married her—used to live. The Castle's to let now; she is an ambulance driver in Salonika, and he a gunner—just got his battery, I believe. Below the outer wall of the Castle you will see the Daisified Path, and that leads you straight to the gate of Higgins Farm, ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... tribesmen at this point were armed with rifles. The others threw stones and burning bhoosa into the midst of the little garrison. By its light they took good aim. Everybody got under such cover as was available. There was not much. Gunner Nihala, a gallant native soldier, repeatedly extinguished the burning bhoosa with his cloak at the imminent peril of his life. Lieutenants Watson and Colvin, with their sappers and the twelve men of the Buffs, forced their way into the village, and tried to ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... A gunner opened the great tube as Summers led Pauline into the torpedo room. Obediently she entered the strange passageway ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... shaving off the beards of the Persian soldiers that the king was inexorable; nor would the sacrifice have ever taken place had it not happened that, in discharging the guns before the prince, a powder-horn exploded in the hand of a gunner who had been gifted with a very long beard, which in an instant was blown away from his chin. Lieutenant Lindsay, availing himself of this lucky opportunity to prove his argument on the inconvenience of beards to soldiers, immediately produced the scorched gunner before the prince, who ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... time in the olden days when we welcomed gunner-officers, but those days are unhappily past since we met Major Jones. Learn then the perfidy of the Major and ex ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... cut across his arm and he jumped, startled, pieces of his thoughts crashing into ruin around him. The gunner had cracked the first-aid box and was swabbing his arm with antiseptic. The knife wound was long, but not deep. Brion shivered while the bandage was going on, then quickly slipped into his coat. The air conditioner whined industriously, bringing ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... connects the 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 shuns 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 as man; for do we not say of one who has no tenderness ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... 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, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was the steel rain that the little force was put out of action at once. Harry had never beheld a more terrifying scene. Most of the horses and men around the first cannon were killed. One horse and one gunner fell dead across its wheels. Other horses, wounded and screaming with pain and fright, rushed into the dense undergrowth and were caught by the trailing vines and thrown down. Some of the cavalrymen themselves were knocked out of the saddle ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... farther east. But there is a Gunner's Mess about two hundred yards from here, in that house which you passed ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... May, 1819, the Hecla and Griper were towed down the river; the guns and gunner's stores were received on board on the 6th; and the instruments and chronometers were embarked on the evening of the 8th, when the two ships anchored at the Nore. The Griper, being a slower sailer, was occasionally taken in tow by the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... miles. Four pursuit planes of the Japs attacked simultaneously at each side. Four were shot down with the side guns. During this fight, the bomber's radio operator was killed, the engineer's right hand was shot off, and one gunner was crippled, leaving only one man available to operate both side guns. Although wounded in one hand, this gunner alternately manned both side guns, bringing down three more Japanese "Zero" planes. While this was going on, one engine on the American bomber ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... venture 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 ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... 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
... had passed two hours, absorbed in the most cruel reflections, the master gunner of the frigate wishing to go to the front of the raft, went out of our tent; scarcely had he put his head out, when he turned towards us, uttering a loud cry; joy was painted on his countenance, his hands ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... 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. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... 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 ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... few months, or maybe have intermissions of a year or two, when the average falls are short. Thence it is we have so many "Winterbournes" in the counties of Wilts, Hants, and Dorset; as Winterbourne-basset, Winterbourne-gunner, Winterbourne-stoke, &c. (Vide Lewis's Topog. Dict.) The highest sources of the Test, Itchen, and some other of our southern rivers which take their rise in the chalk, are often dry for months, and their channels void of water for miles; failing altogether when the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... habitually read Greek in the original was Lord Cromer, and he had not had a classical education. He left a private day-school in London to go straight to Chatham, where he was prepared for entry into the artillery. And at Chatham they did not teach Greek. Therefore when, as a gunner subaltern, he went to the Ionian Islands on the staff of Sir Henry Storks, he was without any knowledge of Greek. He wanted, however, as he told me, to know modern Greek, as the language of the islands. Also, like the natural Englishman he was, to be ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... in a quarter of an hour they were at work again, and we began to gain upon her. While I was standing at the pumps, cheering the people, the carpenter's mate came running to me with a face as long as my arm: "O, Sir! the ship has sprang a leak in the gunner's room." "Go, then, and tell the carpenter to come to me, but don't speak a word to any one else." "Mr. Goodinoh, I am told there is a leak in the gunner's room; go and see what is the matter, but don't alarm any ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... utility of this corps must appear obvious when it is considered that the only person supposed to be qualified and experienced in gunnery on board His Majesty's ships, is the gunner, who, too often ignorant of his own duty, is totally unable to instruct others. In the quarter bills of most ships, it is well known that a very small proportion of the marines are reserved for musketry, the greater part being ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... more than 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' I'll have ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... 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 hand, would ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... out in 1617 by private adventurers, and two ships—the Unity and the Horn—sailed from the Texel under the command of a rich Amsterdam merchant named Isaac Le Maire and a clever navigator, Cornelius Schouten of Horn. Having been provided with an English gunner and carpenter, the ships were steered boldly across the Atlantic. Hitherto the object of the expedition had been kept a secret, but on crossing the line the crews were informed that they were bound for the Terra Australis del Espirito Santo of Quiros. The men had never heard ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... easy victory. The fort was abandoned. The enemy had probably been apprised of the attack. A detachment from the ships had landed some hours before—had dismantled the fort, dismounted the cannon, and withdrawn the garrison; retreating in safety to the ships. A gunner and three men only, fell into the hands of the provincials. The very day that this event occurred, Lord William Campbell, the Governor, fled to the Tamar sloop of war. His flight was no doubt hastened by a proceeding so decisive. That evening ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... and disposed the decoys about it. Two hundred painted wooden ducks, each anchored by a small weight that was attached by a cord to the breast, bowed and sidled and rode the water, and did everything but feed, in a bed many yards long. The shooting-box is a kind of coffin, in which the gunner is interred amid the decoys,—buried below the surface of the water, and invisible, except from a point above him. The box has broad canvas wings, that unfold and spread out upon the surface of the water, four or five feet each way. These steady it, and keep ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... would have blown the unfortunate Gerald to atoms, when suddenly an officer, whose uniform bespoke him to be of some rank, and to whose quick eye it was apparent the rash assailant was utterly unsupported, sprang upon the bastion, and, dashing the fuze from the hand of the gunner, commanded that a small sally-port, which opened into the trench a few yards beyond the point where he stood, should be opened, and the brave soldier taken prisoner without harm. So prompt was the execution of this order, that, before Gerald could succeed in clambering up the ditch which, with ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... him another chilly feeling. He understood that it must be the explosion of a shrapnel shell, not more than fifty feet behind them. The gunner may have been on the hill with the gathering troops; but in calculating the distance he had failed to take into consideration the speed which the ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... 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 declared that he sent ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... [parliamentary] general of their ordnance [was] taken prisoner. This man, one Weemes, a Scotchman, had been as much obliged by the King, as a man of his condition could be, and in a manner very unpopular: for he was made master-gunner of England,... and having never done the King the least service, he took the first opportunity to disserve him.—Swift. A cursed, hellish Scot! Why was not ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... corps a careful slant and chosen Jeff as the best bet. Afterward some of the experts believed that the New York manager, by way of showing a delicate bit of courtesy to a guest, had accorded Connie the privilege of naming New York's gunner. Certainly Tesreau was the best player Philadelphia had and the Athletics were seriously crippled when he retired in the seventh, just after Baker had knocked Doyle's right leg out ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... furnish another and quite new set of dainties. Then the span-long, ripe, 'salt' oyster is to be had for the raking of their more solidly-bottomed basins; and all along their more retired nooks and harbors, the gunner, by taking proper precautions, may bring to bag the somewhat 'sedgy' but still well-flavored black duck, the tender widgeon, the buttery little bufflehead, the incomparable canvas-back, and the loud-shrieking, sharp-eyed ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... few parting words with us. The first shell came along, making the mad noise they do, whooping and screaming to itself, and plunged into the ground with a loud snort only about thirty or forty yards off. The gunner, having got his range, was not long in sending down another, and when the white curl of smoke appeared lying again on the hillside, one guessed that the individual now on his way would prove a warmish customer. It burst with a most almighty ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... him t' other day. He is goin' t' Boston t' command the Raleigh, a thirty-two gunner. But one's no good. ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... rapidly built up the component parts of what, upon completion, proved to be a Maxim gun, constructed entirely of aethereum, with an aethereum shield or turret, cylindrically shaped in such a manner as to protect completely the entire person of the gunner, the whole affair being so arranged that the gun could be trained in any direction by the inmate of the shield. The mounting of this gun and shield, and the placing in position of an entire case of cartridges in readiness for firing, occupied the two men but a bare quarter of an hour, at the ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... make the running, and his rider, Will Gunner, knew his mount well. He had not the slightest doubt about winning; everything was in the horse's favor. Peet Craker looked through his glasses, saw his colors a couple of lengths in front, and lowered ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... the story was that Captain Brand and his gunner, and Captain Malyoe of the Adventure and the sailing master of the Adventure all went ashore together with a chest of money (no one of them choosing to trust the other three in so nice an affair), and buried the ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... wary of approaching him in his last agony. Sir Richard seeing that it was past hope, having fought for fifteen hours, and "having by estimation eight hundred shot of great artillery through him," "commanded the master gunner, whom he knew to be a most resolute man, to split and sink the ship, that thereby nothing might remain of glory or victory to the Spaniards; seeing in so many hours they were not able to take her, having had above fifteen hours time, above ten thousand men, and ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... Gunner!" was the last order Grenville gave. But meanwhile the only two officers left alive, both badly wounded, had taken boat to treat for terms; and the terms had been agreed upon. Don Bazan promised, ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... the jungle, and they 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 the ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... who had been an old artilleryman, takes the place of a wounded gunner, lifts the big sixty-eight pound balls, rams them home, and handles the linstock as coolly as if on parade. "Bless the Lord!" he said to a comrade while the piece was being pointed, "I am ready to live or die; it's no odds to me. For me ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... know that 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
... four days' rest. On Christmas Eve we moved to our old quarters at Ypres, and the following night we had an excellent Christmas dinner thanks to the good services of Lieut. Behrens, our French interpreter, an old machine-gunner of Verdun. On December 28 we again went to the front area and held the line for four days. It was always the custom for one of the officers of the Brigade to keep awake on duty during part of the ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... 28th, owing to light winds, we were not clear of the islands, and at night I directed my course towards Tofoa. The master had the first watch; the gunner the middle watch; and Mr. Christian, one of the mates, the morning watch. This was the turn of duty for ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... Nelson. A public funeral was decreed, and a public monument. Statues and monuments also were voted by most of our principal cities. The leaden coffin, in which he was brought home, was cut in pieces, which were distributed as relics of Saint Nelson,—so the gunner of the Victory called them,—and when, at his interment, his flag was about to be lowered into the grave, the sailors who had assisted at the ceremony, with one accord rent it in pieces, that each might preserve a fragment ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... say as how I 'zactly hates the Frenchmen," observed Mr Rammage, the gunner; "but it's my opinion that the sea is not big enough for both of us, and the sooner we drives them off it, the sooner we ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... the men, among whom was the gunner's mate, the surgeon's assistant, and two carpenters, applying to the chief mate told him, that as the captain had given them leave to go on shore to their comrades, they begged that he would speak to the captain not to take it ill that they were desirous to go and die with their ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... you," he said, as he knelt down, took off his dripping gloves, and held his blue fingers to the flame. "What a night! It isn't fit for a dog to be out in. 'Pon my soul, gunner, I feel ashamed to come in and get shelter, and leave my poor boys in ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... chief recollection of him that night was of his careful attentiveness to everything said by our own colonel on the science of present-day war—the understanding deference paid by a splendid young leader to the knowledge and grasp and fine character of a very complete gunner. ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... The gunner was again fortunate in his aim, and it was seen that the solid shot cleaned off the carriage upon which the soldiers were at work. With the aid of the glass it was found that two of the men had been killed or wounded. The work on that gun was suspended, but the officer ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... since Conyers, in a moment of unusual expansion, had laid before him the invention at which he had been working for so many silent years. The thing even then, though complete in all essentials, had lacked finish, and this final touch young Palliser, himself a gunner with a positive passion for guns, had been able to supply. He had seen the value of the invention and had given it his ardent support. He had, moreover, friends in high places, and could obtain a fair and thorough ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the ordnance on their carriages, With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur; ... and the nimble gunner With linstook now the devilish cannon touches, And down goes ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... glad to hear it, too," replied the gunner. "I'd hate to see a white woman, especially an English lady, married to a native. I wonder how that girl comes to be travelling with ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... ripe age, although he had chosen them for no worse reason than that they had served in his Majesty's Navy and were by consequence the best marksmen in the two towns. Not even this excuse, however, could be pleaded on behalf of Gunner Israel Spettigew (commonly known as Uncle Issy), a septuagenarian who owed his inclusion entirely to the jokes he cracked. They had been greatly relished on parade: as indeed they had made him for forty years past ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... realism in Seaman Gunner Brown's letter to the parents who waited for tidings in their cottage on ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... 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 ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... about 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 then fell down and wept with his face ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... cables. Argall bore down on them, with a furious din of drums and trumpets, showed his broadside, and replied to their hail with a volley of cannon and musket shot. "Fire! Fire!" screamed Fleury. But there was no gunner to obey, till Du Thet seized and applied the match. "The cannon made as much noise as the enemy's," writes Biard; but, as the inexperienced artillerist forgot to aim the piece, no other result ensued. Another storm of musketry, and Brother Gilbert du Thet ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... to the 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; ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... you feel sure of influencing. Don't waste your time on the lukewarm or cowardly. Away with you. Here, Williams," he added, turning to another man who was already in the plot, "go below and send up the gunner's mate, I want him; then call John Adams,—I feel sure that Reckless Jack will join; but do it softly. No ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... Field-gun warfare of to-day—mathematics, telephones and mud—with little more of old-time dash and jingle than the hope that some to-morrow may revive them in the Great Pursuit—this is his theme; and above all the loyalty of the gunner to his guns. Even the story-book part in the middle of the volume speaks of this finely and movingly; but here and there amongst his personal experiences comes a passage less consciously composed that tells it even better in the bareness of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various
... day made George Elliot, post; Lieutenant Pettit, a master and commander; and Mr. Hindmarsh, gunner's son, of the Bellerophon, who behaved so well this ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... under teachers, consisting of Vralman (Liar), a former gunner, who is supposed to be teaching him French and all the sciences; Tzyfirkin (Cipherer), a retired army-sergeant, who instructs him in arithmetic, and Kuteikin, who, as his name implies, is the son of a petty ecclesiastic, and teaches him reading and writing, ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... 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 a slap on the cheek like a cold hand. He made shift ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... the last came the 1st of May. Alabama received two new ministers, Revs. A. J. Headen and C. L. Harris, and two new churches, those of Birmingham and Tecumseh, places of large iron and coal interests. Louisiana received the Church of Chocahula and Rev. Byron Gunner. The meetings of Alabama have come to the dignity of State Anniversaries, those of the Sunday-school Association, of the Association of Churches, and of the Woman's Missionary Association, which this year transferred its ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various
... subsided; and, each name bringing forth a response, the reader called off: "Seldom Helward, Shiner O'Toole, Senator Sands, Jump Black, Yampaw Gallagher, Sorry Welch, Yorker Jimson, General Lannigan, Turkey Twain, Gunner Meagher, ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... to assist him in person. The cannonier told Mr. Welch, that they behoved to dismount the gun upon the rising ground, else they were surely lost; Mr. Welch desired him to aim well, and he would serve him, and God would help him; the gunner fell to work, and Mr. Welch ran to fetch powder for a charge, but, as he was returning, the king's gunner fired his piece, which carried the laddle with the powder out of his hands: This did not discourage him, for having left the laddle, he filled his hat with powder, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... sufficiently well-known fact that in the excitement of approaching action the sense of danger is subdued, even in a man who has not the strong nerves that endure the passive expectation of death. "On one occasion Midshipman Isaacs came up to the captain and reported that a quarter-gunner named Roach had deserted his post. The only reply of the captain, addressed to me, was: 'Do your duty, sir!' I seized a pistol and went in pursuit of the fellow, but did not find him. It appeared subsequently that when the ship was reported to be on fire he ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... 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
... of the rapid-fire machine gun with the swift mobility and tirelessness of the gasoline-driven motor car. Protected behind almost impregnable steel armor plate, the driver may dash ahead of the advancing lines and enable the gunner, almost completely protected, to mow down the ranks of the enemy with a sweeping stream of rifle bullets, played along a line of men much as one would play a stream of water from a fire hose. The car may be in motion all this time, ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... "'Prepare!' The gunner's mate stands on your toes, and tells you to lean forward and thrust your tongue out of your mouth. You hear the creaking of machinery. It is a moment of intense suspense. Gradually a glimmer of light—an inch—a flood! The shield passes from the opening; ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... short distances, are ragged yawning apertures, all formed by the 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 array against this singular fortress ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... a big, husky Yank in "I" Company was brokenly "parlevooing" with a little French gunner, who was seen to leap excitedly into the air and drape himself about the doughboy's neck exclaiming with joy, "My son, my son, my dear sister's son." This is the truth. And he took the Yank over to his ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... her wits about her as we say, without panic and without presumption. The trial of Jeanne is indeed almost more miraculous than her fighting; a girl not yet nineteen, forsaken of all, without a friend! It is less wonderful that she should have developed the qualities of a general, of a gunner, every gift of war—than that in her humiliation and distress she should thus hold head against all the most subtle intellects in France, and bear, with but one moment of faltering, a continued cross-examination of three months, without losing her ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... The gunner was yearning for this, and the bellow of his piece responded to the captain's words. But the shot only threw up a long path of fountains, and the bilander ploughed ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... should tell you now, How fairly armed, and ordered how, The soldiers of the guard, With musket, pike, and morion, To welcome noble Marmion, Stood in the castle-yard; Minstrels and trumpeters were there, The gunner held his linstock yare, For welcome-shot prepared: Entered the train, and such a clang, As then through all his turrets rang, Old ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... also: his name was Ismael, which they call Muley, or Moely; so I called to him - "Moely," said I, "our patron's guns are on board the boat; can you not get a little powder and shot? It may be we may kill some alcamies (a fowl like our curlews) for ourselves, for I know he keeps the gunner's stores in the ship." "Yes," says he, "I'll bring some;" and accordingly he brought a great leather pouch, which held a pound and a half of powder, or rather more; and another with shot, that had five or six pounds, with some bullets, and put all into ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... III. The gunner, under direction of the executive officer, will dismount all guns, and strike them into the hold. The reasons for this action will be at once apparent to commanders of vessels, when they reflect that, in case of collision, the guns would be useless as signals, owing to the extraordinary deafness ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... practice I could be a gunner, and that now, with a very heavy charge, he thought I could kill ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... about England 'nd the medal, 'Beauty,'" chirrups a Sydney gunner, "but I know what they'll give us in Australia if we go back ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... across the way paused in the act of tapping a cigarette on his case. "Little gunner man, wore red plush bags and a blue velvet hat? Yes, up in the salient ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... 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 longitude. ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... slowly, the gunner tracked it with his sights. There was a driver and three passengers. Jason waited until he was positive who ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... 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
... roads. The difficulty of all this work was not diminished 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
... Away to the 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 our gunner. 'Two and a half ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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
... lines gathered about Mrs. Trask's eyes. "There's something exhilarating about a good fight. I've always thought that if I couldn't be a gunner I could get a lot of thrills out of just handing up the ammunition.... Well, Rob went on with the contract. With the first crib hung up on a boulder and the water coming in so fast they couldn't pump it out fast ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... had a tame crow that was not afraid of a gun; therefore he concluded that the old crows must instill the fear of guns into their young! Why should the crow be afraid of a gun, if it had learned not to be afraid of the gunner? ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... active. Ben a few days afterwards received, to his satisfaction, his warrant as boatswain, his zeal being considerably enlivened thereby. He, before long, managed to pick up a number of prime hands from among his old shipmates, on whom he could thoroughly depend. The gunner and carpenter joined the same day he got his warrant. The former, Timothy Ebbs, was a little man, but he had a big voice and a prodigious pair of black whiskers, which, sticking out on either side of his face, gave him a sufficiently ferocious aspect to inspire ship-boys and other ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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. While their artillery was ...
— 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
... 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)
... studied in this same high school. It is even said by those in a position to know that he opened the battle of Manila. It is certain, however, that he was placed in charge of a crew of gunners in a forward turret, and that he was afterward promoted to the position of chief gunner's mate. For a time he was in Annapolis instructing classes in ordnance, the members of which were, of course, practically all white. Just a short time ago he was retired. Frank Stewart, another graduate of this school, served with distinction ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... 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 Bismarck would have called iron painted to look like ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... servant had come. The man was riding his master's horse—what need was there to ask any questions?—the colonel was dead, cut in two by a shell. Before the evening was out the youngest son's servant arrived—the youngest had died on the eve of the battle. At midnight came a gunner with tidings of the death of the last; upon whom, in those few hours, the poor father had centered all his life. ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... aspect, and he walked up the street towards his lodging like one drunk or in a dream. For you must remember that "John Malyoe" was the captain of the Adventure galley—he who had shot Barnaby's own grandfather—and "Abram Dowling," I must tell you, had been the gunner of the Royal Sovereign—he who had been shot at the same time that Captain Brand met his tragical end. And yet these names he had heard spoken—the one from one boat, and the other from the other, so that he could not but wonder what sort of beings they ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... court of justice, and its government apart. The authority of its custos, or constable, extended, beyond London, over twenty-one hamlets. As in Great Britain legal singularities engraft one upon another the office of the master gunner of England was derived from the Tower of London. Other legal customs seem still more whimsical. Thus, the English Court of Admiralty consults and applies the laws of Rhodes and of Oleron, a French island which ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... said before, and with a Spanish Garrison) behav'd very gallantly; insomuch, that what was said of the Prince of Hesse, when he so bravely defended Gibraltar against the joint Forces of France and Spain, might be said of him, that he was Governor, Engineer, Gunner, and Bombardier all in one; For no Man could exceed him, either in Conduct or Courage; nor were the Spaniards under him less valiant or vigilant; for in case the Place was taken, expecting but indifferent Quarter, they ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... mate was very sedate, Yet fond of amusement, too; And he played hop-scotch with the starboard watch While the captain tickled the crew. And the gunner we had was apparently mad, For he sat on the after-rail, And fired salutes with the captain's boots, In the teeth ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... story out of a scarecrow, giving it odd attributes. From different points of view, it should appear to change,—now an old man, now an old woman,—a gunner, a farmer, or the ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... a 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
... Otherwise, have no more talk.' He showed him the roof of a 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 high and spread abroad and lie ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... Shaykh Sultn. About ten years ago he allowed the tribe to indulge in such dangerous amusements as "cutting the road" and plundering merchants. It is even asserted, privily, that they captured the fort of El-Wijh, by bribing the Turkish Topji ("head gunner"), to fire high—like the half-caste artilleryman who commanded the Talpr cannoneers at Sir Charles Napier's Battle of "Meeanee." A regiment of eight hundred bayonets was sent from Egypt, and the Shaykh was secured by ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... and set over them a guard of as many Protestants; having taken this admirable method of defending himself against his infidel opponents, he goes upon deck, reminds the sailors in a very bitter harangue, that they are of different religions; exhorts the Episcopal gunner not to trust to the Presbyterian quartermaster; issues positive orders that the Catholics should be fired at upon the first appearance of discontent; rushes through blood and brains, examining his men in the Catechism and thirty-nine Articles, and positively ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... accounts of the strength of the place, and the multitude of 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 ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... 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 down the torso. Their skins were slate-gray ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... 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 ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... of the same general principles are used by airmen in search of a landing for himself or for a destructive bomb; in signaling to a gunner, and in many other ways. They are simple in construction because they need not withstand the stresses of being fired from a gun; they are merely dropped from the aircraft. The mechanism of ignition and the cycle ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... ambulance carts, to keep the marauders away from the wounded. Once I had a narrow escape from being captured by the Bavarians. It was at a skirmish of artillery. A couple of French and a couple of German pieces were in position. The French were quickly disabled by the Germans, and even the head gunner was severely wounded. I took him on my shoulders, and got him out of the line of fire. The Bavarians sent another shrapnell shell after us, and, as the projectile burst over our heads, I felt a blow on the leather rim ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... killed a woman and child who were standing in a garden, and then one of our machine guns got him. The plane, a three passenger one, came tumbling down into the public square. The pilot was caught with both legs under the engine and was badly hurt, but the observer and the gunner were uninjured. An infuriated Frenchman, who had seen the killing of the woman and child, rushed up and killed the gunner as they lifted him out. I got these facts from an American staff car driver who assisted ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... seen Strangwise for six months, Spencer," said Desmond over his second cocktail. "Seeing him reminds me how astonishing it is the way fellows drop apart in war. Old Maurice was attached to the Brigade of which I am the Brigade Major as gunner officer, and we lived together for the best part of three months, wasn't it, Maurice? Then he goes back to his battery and the next thing I hear of him is that he is missing. And then I'm damned if ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... advances, while balloons might be set on fire, dumps blown up, or leave cancelled at special rates. There might also be an assortment of inexpensive and amusing side-shows, such as a Second-in-command trying to check a monthly return of dripping, or a conscientious gunner calculating the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... water front. Iberville posted his sixty-six Indians along the walls with muskets rammed through the loopholes. Then, with an unearthly yell, the Le Moyne brothers were over the tops of the pickets, swords in hand, before the English soldiers had awakened. The English gunner reeled from his cannon at the main gate with head split to the collar bone. The gates were thrown wide, trees rammed the doors open, and Iberville had dashed halfway up the stairs of the main house ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... the woods ring by the rattling of its bill against a tree. This is a large handsome bird, (the picus principalis of Linnaeus), it is sometimes called here the wood-cock. Pigeons, squirrels, and turtle-doves abound in all these forests, and my friend being an expert gunner, we had always plenty of game for dinner. The morning was still grey when we ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... 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, ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... marry a proud gunner, An' a proud gunner I'm sure he'll be, An' the very first schot that ere he schoots, He'll schoot baith my young ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... sir, you are as cunning as a dead pig; but you forgot one thing. My friend is a left-handed gunner, though never a bit the worse for that; so you see there is no odds as far as the ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... however, sent back likewise to Chrisy, and the whole Division passed a most uncomfortable night. The rain never ceased from pouring, and a gale sprang up, which made matters worse. We slept in a loft with a number of Cheshire and Bedford officers, and didn't get dinner till past nine. Some gunner officers turned up, with no food at all, and we fed them; but there wasn't much at the best of times, for we had no rations and had to depend on the contents of our Mess basket, which consisted only of Harvey sauce, knives and forks, an old ham-bone, ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... leave with a heavy bag and a heavier conscience. On the boat he was greeted hilariously by Gillow the gunner and Sparkes the sapper, who invited him below to drink success to the voyage. In order to give the voyage no chance of failure they continued to drink success to it until the vessel backed into Folkestone Harbour, when they felt their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... wiser, nothing tenderer, and his humanity was not for humanity alone. He abhorred the dull and savage joy of the sportsman in a lucky shot, an unerring aim, and once when I met him in the country he had just been sickened by the success of a gunner in bringing down a blackbird, and he described the poor, stricken, glossy thing, how it lay throbbing its life out on the grass, with such pity as he might have given a wounded child. I find this a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells |
