"Big gun" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... say anything more of either Todd or Cotton? Todd entered the Sixth when the summer holidays were over, and Phil Bourne writes me often and tells me what a big gun Todd is in the schools. Jim Cotton was entered upon the roll-call of some celebrated "crammer" near the Crystal Palace. If crammers' hearts could be broken, Jim, I should say, will accomplish the feat. But if ever James Cotton does get ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... of sea and land warfare appealed the more vividly to one fresh from the front in France. What infinite labour for an army to get one big gun into position! How heralded the snail-like travels of the big German howitzer! Here was ship after ship, whose guns seemed innumerable. One found it hard to realize the resisting power of their armour, painted to look as liquid as the sea, and the stability of their construction, which was ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... time in the day for fighting," said Pennington, "without borrowing of the night. Hear that big gun over there on our right! Why do they want to be firing cannon balls at such ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Labram. When the Boers invested the town they had the great advantage of superiority in weight of metal. Thanks to Britain's lack of preparedness, Kimberley only had a few seven pounders, while the Boers had "Long Toms" that hurled hundred pounders. At Rhodes' suggestion Labram manufactured a big gun capable of throwing a thirty-pound shell and it gave the besiegers a big and destructive surprise. This gun, which was called "Long Cecil," was built and booming in exactly twenty-eight days. Tragically enough, Labram was killed ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... peculiar dances to the sound of twenty or thirty tomtoms, or great drums, six feet long. The whole thing made the most extraordinary clatter and uproar. When we got near the fort, the crowd executed a sham assault on it, the big gun in the citadel was fired, and I made my triumphal entry between two rows of soldiers in red Danish uniforms. Nothing could have ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... The officer was aiming the big gun at the base of the monument, and was just giving the word to fire when the heavy bronze door swung open, and between the two bronze soldiers appeared Elias A. Smith, a white-haired veteran, over ninety years old, with a bronze medal on his breast and the Stars ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... everywhere.' We decided to row near the forest, so that in case of necessity we might gain the shelter of the trees. The silence was broken by occasional rifle reports from the direction of Pinsk, and a big gun roared now and then. Once a shell flew overhead, hissing as it went. But this was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... thunder of the big gun that hastened their final preparations and made McGuire tremble with suppressed excitement where he helped Sykes to draw off a syrupy ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... For basement read a tier of casemates, each with a black Cyclops of a big gun peering out; while above in the open air, with not even a parasol over their backs, lie the barbette guns, staring without a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... fleet of his war-canoes, with a thousand men, to break up and burn the schooner; whereupon the captain smiled sarcastically, and going up to the chief gazed sternly in his face, while he said, "I have only to raise my little finger just now, and my big gun will blow your whole village to atoms in five minutes!" Although the chief was a bold man, he quailed before the pirate's glance and threat, and made no reply; but a bad feeling had been raised and ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Marcel wise man. Cy wise man. Not care for wolf. Oh, no. So him look much. Him take him bone an' look. Him find him head—two. Maybe Marcel—maybe Cy. Him find him hole. Little hole—big hole. Same like each. Then him find gun. Two much little gun. Two big gun. Little gun him both shoot. Two time—three time. Him say big fight—plenty. So. It easy. Oh, yes. Marcel him no fight plenty. Oh, no. Him so as brother with Cy. Cy him not so. An-ina know. Cy him steal, steal, so," An-ina bent ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... opposite the Falls, a fort is being constructed with a ditch all round. When finished, it will be capable of holding the whole garrison and supplies for eighteen months. It is of course, only constructed as a defence against native attacks and is not built strong enough to resist big gun fire. ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... Fernando when left alone near the big gun; "gone and not a word said about Morgianna. What will she say, what will she think, when she knows it is I who came ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... to tell you that. Why, about a year ago, I wrote an answer to a communication signed by a Big Gun in one of the scientific papers. It was a question in Probability—you wouldn't understand it. My answer was printed, and the Big Gun wrote privately to me—a very flattering letter. That correspondence led to my appointment; the Big ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... a big gun on the top of that high hill they call Talana. We saw the flash of light, and directly after heard the report, and a rushing sound. I suppose it was a shot overhead; if it had been a shell we should have heard ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... out of the way Mrs. Griffis ran close up to the combatants. The bear was being kept too busy to spare her any attention whatever. Coolly setting the muzzle of the big gun (which was loaded with buckshot) close to the beast's side, just behind the fore-shoulder, she pulled the trigger. There was a roar that filled the hollow like the firing of a cannon, and the bear collapsed sprawling, with a great ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... fortress at West Point. In order to call the militia out, he arranged a system of signals. On a high hill overlooking the British camp, sentries kept constant watch. If the enemy moved, warning was to be given by firing a big gun. When the gun boomed, fires were to be lighted on the hills within hearing. As soon as these were seen from more distant hills, other fires were to be lighted, until every hilltop blazed and all the countryside was roused and men warned to hurry to ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay
... twentieth; anyhow, it continued to rain, and at daybreak it rained yet, and the regiment moved on to Mingo Flats; drove in the rebel pickets; heard the Secesh varmints beat the long roll; knew they were scared; and still it rained! Colonel Sullivan, of the Indiana regiment, was in, command: sent out a big gun; boys went on a big hill; found the enemy were eight or ten thousand strong; big gun ordered back, and as we only had two thousand men, remembered the axiom about "discretion being the better part of valor;" obeyed the aforesaid axiom. Still, recollect, it ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... perfectly, as accurately as a gun-pointer can fire a 12-inch gun; and if gun and target be moving, and the wind be blowing, and the range only approximately known, as is always the case in practice, the advantage of the big gun in accuracy ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... assemblage heard the deep boom of the big gun belonging to the local artillery company, every eye was instantly focussed on the bend of the road half a mile away. Yes, a runner had suddenly turned the corner, and was heading in a direct line ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... hidden from the sight of those on the river, we had thought that the ships could do nothing; but they shot great balls up into the air, and they came down inside the stockade, where they burst with an explosion like the noise of a big gun; and killed so many that the troops could not remain under so terrible a fire, and went away, leaving it to your people to enter the stockade, ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty |
