"Gunner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... battery was trained upon Sumter, and the gunner stood ready at the lanyard, but the old man with the long white hair and the keen, eager face, stepping forward, begged General Beauregard to allow him the honor of firing the first shot. The General consented at once, and the old man pulled ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... roadside. We listened and searched the locality thoroughly, but to no avail. The next day I gave Mr. Lincoln his hat and called his attention to the bullet hole. He rather unconcernedly remarked that it was put there by some foolish gunner, and was not intended for him. He said, however, that he wanted the matter kept quiet, and admonished us to say nothing about it. We all felt confident that it was an attempt to kill him, and a well-nigh successful one, too. The affair was kept quiet, in ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... useful to me; as, first, in the carpenter's stores I found two or three bags full of nails and spikes, a great screw-jack, a dozen or two of hatchets, and, above all, that most useful thing called a grindstone. All these I secured, together with several things belonging to the gunner, particularly two or three iron crows, and two barrels of musket bullets, seven muskets, and another fowling-piece, with some small quantity of powder more; a large bag full of smallshot, and a great roll of sheet lead; but this last was so heavy I could ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... which a vessel lies. For each square the direction and elevation of the guns is calculated beforehand. The enemy can therefore be continuously located and fired at, although from smoke or other cause the object may be quite invisible to the gunner. ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... down alongside, and two other vessels had taken refuge on shore in a sinking state. In Hawke's words, they had "taken a great deal of drubbing." The captain and crew thought they had done about enough; but Greenville was not of this opinion; he gave orders to the master gunner, whom he knew to be a fellow after his own stamp, to scuttle the REVENGE where she lay. The others, who were not mortally wounded like the Admiral, interfered with some decision, locked the master gunner in his cabin, after having deprived him of his sword, for he manifested ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that 'those of the 28th Regiment are our "boys,"' gunner Purs, of Benatky, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. He was sent in chains to the military prison ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... stone vomiting fire from the heights of Gettysburg,—nailed to our position through three long days of mortal Hell,—did we ask each other whether that brave officer who fell while gallantly leading the counter-charge—whether that cool gunner steadily serving his piece before us amid the storm of shot and shell—whether the poor wounded, mangled, gasping comrades, crushed and torn, and dying in agony around us—had voted for Lincoln or Douglas, for Breckenridge or Bell? We then were full ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • 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
... men. If you don't go at them like bull-dogs, you'll walk the plank before sunset every man of you. Now, go forward, and double-shot your muskets and pistols, and stick as many of the latter into your belts as they will hold. Mr. Thompson, let the gunner double-shot the four big guns, and load the little carronade with musket-balls to the muzzle. If they do try to board us, ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... 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
... themselves down by an Oath to agree to what such Officers and he should determine: This they readily gave into. The School-Master they chose for second Lieutenant, Jean Besace they nominated for third, and the Boatswain, and a Quarter-Master, named Matthieu le Tondu, with the Gunner, they desired might be their ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... Thetis, almost invulnerable, darted impetuously ahead of his men and reached the summit of the defence. Useless bravery! In an instant a volley point blank swept away the charging men behind him, and a gunner's sabrethrust bore him to the ground within the works, where he lay stunned and bleeding beside the gun he had striven so hard to take. The man who had captured him, wild with excitement and maddened with the powder that blackened him and the hot blood ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... frigate furl sail after sail for her own security, and yet she seemed under nearly bare poles to gain slowly on the schooner, and was now ranging within long shot distance, and commenced now and then to fire from her bow ports. But gunner, ever uncertain on the water, is doubly so in a gale, and nearly all her shot were thrown away, one now and then hitting the clipper, and causing a shower of splinters to fly into the air as though the spray ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... bound to Jamaica. He had been taken out of his ship by Blackbeard, somewhere off the Azores, and compelled to enlist or walk the plank. At first he was made cook's scullion but because he was well-grown and active, the chief gunner had taken him over ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... a couple of hundred paces, but the good little mare set that right before we could have passed two milestones. It was in vain that he spurred and thrashed like a gunner driver on a soft road. His hat flew off with his exertions, and his bald head gleamed in the moonshine. But do what he might, he still heard the rattle of the hoofs growing louder and louder behind him. I could not have been twenty yards from ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was levelled to his mind, and then his movements were as quick as they had hitherto been slow. In a moment he stood erect in the half-fencing attitude of a gunner, and his linstock at the touch-hole: a huge tongue of flame, a volume of smoke, a roar, and the iron thunderbolt was on its way, and the Colonel walked haughtily, but rapidly, back to the trenches: for in all this no bravado. ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the autumn, when November frosts begin to attract snipes to the withybeds and water meadows by the Coln, the unambitious gunner may often enjoy the charm of a ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... of a few instances in World War II when bomber crews and antiaircraft gunners had loosed a few bursts at Venus. But this was mostly at night, when the planet was at peak brilliance. And more than one gunner later admitted firing to relieve long hours of boredom. Since enemy planes did not carry lights, there was no authentic case, to my knowledge, where plane or ground gunners actually believed Venus ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... observed Mr Triggs, the gunner, noticing me looking at these "long thirty-twos," as they were styled, and wondering at the light and airy fashion in which the men handled them, tossing them about like shuttlecocks, so it seemed to me. "They can do more than bark; though, they can ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... read, does not find himself governed by them he fears, and believes can kill or hurt him when he obeys not? or, who believes that the law can hurt him, which is but words and paper, without the hands and swords of men?" I confess that the magistrate upon his bench is that to the law which a gunner upon his platform is to his cannon. Nevertheless, I should not dare to argue with a man of any ingenuity after this manner. A whole army, though they can neither write nor read, are not afraid of a platform, which they know is but earth or stone; nor of a cannon, which, without a hand to give ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... the heaving billows. In the mean time it blew and snowed and froze. The water turned to ice on their clothes, and made them many times like coats of iron. Edward Tilley had like to have "sounded" with cold. The gunner, too, was sick unto death, but "hope of trucking" kept him on his feet,—a Yankee, it should seem, when he first touched the shore of New England. Most, if not all, got colds and coughs, which afterwards turned to scurvy, whereof ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... stationed he invariably interested himself in the local archaeological and historical associations. Thus at Santos he explored the enormous kitchen middens of the aboriginal Indians; but the chief attraction was the site of a Portuguese fort, marked by a stone heap, where a gunner, one Hans Stade, was carried off by the cannibals and all but eaten. Burton used to visit the place by boat, and the narrative written by Hans Stade so fascinated him that he induced a Santos friend, Albert Tootal, to ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Francis, and those of the crew on shore with him, soon beat off the natives; inflicting some loss upon them. These took to the woods, in which they could not be followed; and Captain Francis, mourning for the loss of his three adventurers, and of the gunner killed by his side; and despairing of ever recovering the bodies of those who were, as he believed, cut off and murdered; embarked on board ship, and sailed down the coast. A few days later he put in to another bay, and there remained ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... German soldier, nearly new, and with horseshoes on the heels. Caron entrusted them to Poterloo when he was sent back on account of his arm. Caron had taken them himself from a Bavarian machine-gunner, knocked out near the Pylones road. I can hear Caron telling about ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... editor of Bradford's "Historie" (ed.1865), makes, in indexing, the clerical error of referring to Coppin as the "master-gunner," an error doubtless occasioned by the fact that in the text referred to, the words, "two of the masters-mates, Master Clarke and Master Coppin, the master-gunner," etc., were run so near together that the mistake ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... sphere one of the most useful. That sphere, there is no doubt, is that indicated by his name, and it is in a country of bogs and marshes, like the south and west of Ireland, of which he was originally a native, where snipe and wildfowl provide the staple sport of the gunner, that he is in his element and seen at his best, though, no doubt, he can do excellent work as an ordinary retriever, and ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... 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
... artillery did not succeed in hitting the crippled ship again. Three more shells were fired, but each projectile screamed harmlessly far out to sea. A trained gunner, noting these facts, would reason that the shore battery made good practice in the first instance solely because its ordnance was trained at a known range. Indeed, he might even hazard a guess that the Andromeda's warm reception was arranged long before her ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... gun's tube, a portion of steel flying and striking Private Reynolds, almost decapitating him. Nicholas Young, of Pottsville, Penna., acting as Number 2 man on the gun-crew, sustained a compound fracture of the leg. Gunner-Corporal John Chardell, of Hazleton, Penna., sustained injuries about the body which confined him to the camp ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... was at Havre," Aurelle remarked, "a gunner went to ask the Engineers for some searchlights that were rotting away in some store or other. 'Quite impossible,' said the engineer; 'they're the war reserve; we're forbidden to touch them.' He could never be brought to understand that the war we were carrying on over here was the one that was ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... at Nieuport, when the German shells seemed to be falling in every street and on every house, I saw this car again, going forward at not less than forty miles an hour. The turret was being swung to bring the gun-muzzle forward, as if the gunner were expecting to go into action almost immediately. As the last of the Belgian trenches were just the other side of the town, I have ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... deprecation that would have made it seem quite cruel to disagree with him, even if it were raining hard. He never contradicted his Tabitha: poor man, he knew too well what would come of it! It would have been as easy for him to walk up to the mouth of a loaded cannon when the gunner was applying the match, as to remark to her, in however mild a tone, that he preferred his mutton boiled when he knew she liked it roasted. Yet he was a good man, in his meek unobtrusive way, and Christie liked her Uncle Thomas next best to ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... tons; her extreme length on deck ninety feet ten inches; extreme breadth twenty-four feet three inches; and height in the hold under the beams at the main hatchway ten feet three inches. In the cockpit were the cabins of the surgeon, gunner, botanist, and clerk, with a steward-room and storerooms. The between decks was divided in the following manner: the great cabin was appropriated for the preservation of the plants and extended as far forward as ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... 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 choice of ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... sergeant, first class, Signal Corps; electrician sergeant, first class, Coast Artillery Corps; electrician sergeant, Artillery Detachment, United States Military Academy; assistant engineer, Coast Artillery Corps; (c) master gunner, Coast Artillery Corps; master gunner, Artillery Detachment, United States Military Academy; band sergeant and assistant leader, United States Military Academy band; assistant band leader; sergeant bugler; ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... tall tree, called the Mora, when dead, is the favorite resort of the Toucan, where it cannot be reached by the gunner. It seems to fancy itself more beautiful, when its tail is trimmed, and it therefore uses its beak to do this, as the barber employs his scissors to trim our hair. When asleep, the Toucan takes great care of its bill, covering it nicely with the back plumage, so that ...
— Charley's Museum - A Story for Young People • Unknown
... Ride through the Enchanted Forest, 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, under a ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... Marv Motel, whats gunner on my piece, is busy all day fixin things up. He says if were goin to be here the rest of our lives we mights well have things homelike. He dug up an old rug an a lace curtin somewhere that the Germans had missed. The rug hes got in the gun pit an the curtin over the trail of ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... man called Berlyng in the force—a gunner—who was round at the other side of the fort that was to be taken before night, two miles away ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... crash gave 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 Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... was 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 ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... powder and dumped 'em on to the platform, my dear master's hand went up and he rubbed the back of his head in pure delight. After that— as I thought, for nothing but frolic—he even let 'em load and train the gun for us, and only lifted his musket when the gunner—a dark-faced fellow with a red cap on his head—was act'lly walking up with the match ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... pilot is sufficient for the ships; that the troops should be under the command of the captain or master of the ship, without increase of salary to said captain or master. Thus the aforesaid officers of the troops may be dispensed with, and one gunner suffices for each piece or every two ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... will become you to look about sharp for her, and with all your Eyes, I do assure you. And here my first Instruction shall be, where she may most probably be found: For he is a bad Huntsman who would beat about the Royal Exchange for a Hare or a Fox; and not a much better Gunner or Fisherman, who goes a shooting in Somerset-Gardens, or attempts to angle in the magnificent Bason there. As these all know the Places where their Game resort, so ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... our pilot came on board with 4 of our men that had left us when the Cap'n turned Edward Sampford ashore. At 2 P.M. the Cap'n ordered our gunner to deliver arms to them that had none. 25 hands fitted themselves. Great firing at our buoy, supposing him a Spaniard. I hope to God their courage may be as good, if ever they meet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... the Gunner, bare-headed and clad only in a shirt and trousers, was, single-handed, loading and firing a twelve-pounder as fast as he could snap the breech to and lay the gun. His face was distorted with rage, and ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... 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; ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... that the corporal with whom I had previously spoken was the best gunner in the command, and to him had been entrusted the work ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... protected by a hinged shutter made of flat iron chiefly taken from the sugar troughs, covered with strips of rawhide from the commissary's, the space stuffed tight with loose cotton, and a hole made through all, big enough for the gunner's eye, but too small for the sharp-shooter's bullet. Such was substantially the plan simultaneously adopted at three or four different points and afterwards followed everywhere. The ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... by an 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 he dispatched his secretary ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... moment before I made up my mind which to try and save, and the thought of Lizzy Green came in my mind, and I said to myself: "I love her too well to give her pain," when, giving up Captain Dyer, I aimed at the gunner by ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... suffering, it 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 shun 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 ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was this battery placed, and so accurate the aim of its gunner, that the very first shot dismounted one of the eighteen-pounders in the fort. The second again struck the gun and completely disabled it. The besieged mounted their second heavy gun in its place, and were preparing ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... us, and after some clatter offered us a rent of five pounds for the right to shoot here, and even tabled the cash that moment, and would not pocket it again. Money easilier won never sat in my pocket; money for delivering us from a great nuisance, for now I will tell every gunner applicant, 'I cannot, sir; it is let.' Our third happiness was the arrival of a certain young unknown friend, named Emerson, from Boston, in the United States, who turned aside so far from his British, French, and Italian travels to see me here! ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... crowd on the boat and the crowd on the wharf made patriotic noises 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 were ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... your whole life, and are most intimate with in fiction, you must surprise. They no more court observance than the birds in whose seasonable slaughter society from the King down delights. In fact, it is probable that, if you looked for both, you would find the gunner shyer than the gunned. The pheasant and the fox are bred to give pleasure by their chase; they are tenderly cared for and watched over and kept from harm at the hands of all who do not wish to kill them for the joy of killing, and they are not so elusive but they can be seen by easy ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... t' other day. He is goin' t' Boston t' command the Raleigh, a thirty-two gunner. But one's no good. He ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... court-martialled, but it all come out all right When they signalled us to join the main command. There was every round expended, there was every gunner tight, An' the Captain waved a corkscrew in 'is 'and. But the Captain ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... 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 best friend ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... with the Cyane and Levant I was walking back and forth with this sword under my arm, the hilt slightly projecting in front of my chest, when a grapeshot slipped it off, as it grazed me. The hilt which it now has was put there by my gunner." ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... a grape-shot smashed his sword off short in his hand. The Sepoy artillerymen stood to their guns and fought fiercely as the British rushed upon them. Ned caught up the musket of a man who fell dead by his side, and bayoneted a gunner; he saw another man at four paces off level a rifle at him, felt a stunning blow, and fell, but was up in a minute again, having been knocked down by a brick hurled by some Sepoy from a dwelling close behind the guns—a blow which probably saved his life. Two of the guns where spiked while ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... Fleet Street to collect his rents. At every door the jovial collectors winded the Temple horn, and if at the second blast the door was not courteously opened, my lord cried majestically, "Give fire, gunner," and a sturdy smith burst the pannels open with a huge sledge-hammer. The horrified Lord Mayor being appealed to soon arrived, attended by the watch of the ward and men armed with halberts. At eleven o'clock on the Sunday night the two monarchs came into collision in Hare Alley (now Hare Court). ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... leather case slung over his shoulder. No. 2 Platoon watched their approach with eager anticipation, and strained ears and attention to catch the conversation that passed between their officer and the artilleryman. And a thrill of disappointment pulsed down the line at the gunner's answer to the first question put to him. 'No,' he said, 'I have orders not to fire unless they come out of the trenches to attack. We'll give 'em gyp if they try it. My guns are laid on their front trench and I can sweep the whole ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... behind them by 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 ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... alluding to the gunner's accounts, wherein the articles consumed are charged under the title of ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... war with France. The battle of June 1st, 1794. Flinders as gunner. Pasley wounded. Flinders' journal of the engagement. Effect of Pasley's wound ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... 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 ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... sight and sound of him the old heart jump and throat ache had returned. He fought it down, however, and listened to the names as the men gave them: William Hawkes, seaman; George Davis, seaman; John Kelly, gunner's mate; Percy Daniels, ship's cook, and Thomas ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... beginning of 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 ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... drawn back a little, and then you should have repeated the salute, remarking, 'How's his royal nibs?' asking cautiously after his wife and family, and requesting to be introduced to the gunner's daughter." ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... ray out over the North Sea, keeping their stations accurately apart. At a given signal all the guns are trained on a target which (the master gunner counts the seconds, watch in hand—at the sixth he looks up) flames into splinters. With equal nonchalance a dozen young men in the prime of life descend with composed faces into the depths of the sea; and there ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... struck No. 5 gun on the hub, killing Cannoneer No. 2, who was thumbing the vent, and filling No. 1 gunner with splinters of iron, whirling him into eternity amid a fountain of dirt and flying hub-tires. Then a shell blew a gun-team into fragments, plastering the men's faces with bloody shreds of flesh; and the boyish ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... activity of her human crew we had speedily further sign; for, almost as I answered, there was some belching of flame from her turret, and this time the shell, hurtling through the air with that hissing song which every gunner knows so well, crashed full upon the fore-part of the great liner, and we heard the shout of terror which rose from those upon her decks. The men appeared at the signal-mast of the pursuer, and rapidly made signals ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Hanscom. "The man who fired that shot rode a sorrel blaze-faced pony and was a crack gunman. To drop a running horse at that distance is pretty tolerable shooting, and it ought to be easy to prove who the gunner was. I've heard ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... kind fortune has 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, let us be off. The ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... I've been thinking," said the gunner. "I ain't an ornamental soldier, but I've a good deal of cosmic kinetic optimism, and it's the cosmic kinetic optimist what comes through. Now these Wenuses don't want to wipe us all out. It's the ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... his grandmother, who vainly tried to keep the over-gallant First Gentleman of Europe out of mischief. Our autobiographer gives us a plain, blunt, not to say bald record of what must have been an interesting life. He was at Eton under KEATE; a cadet at Woolwich, where he saw a gunner receive two hundred lashes; a gunnery subaltern in the Crimea, where he saw many queer and unedifying things; a successful administrator in Madagascar, Mauritius and Penang, and finally Governor of the Straits Settlements, with a K.C.M.G. and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... a large number of heavy shells can be held in reserve, and in the action of the gun these slip down to their places and are fired at the rate of fourteen a minute, an improvement on the Maxim gun of four shots. The gun is elevated upon a revolving turret with electrical connections, enabling the gunner to direct the action of the machine with a touch of his finger. Firing, reloading and ejection of shells are all effected by electricity, and a child could conduct the work of manning the gun as ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... the men I expect to get does. He has served his time on board an English man-of-war and knows all about howitzers, and such things. We couldn't get along without a gunner, you know. If we didn't have one, how would we bring the ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... due season, I found I had contrived to miss the Chief Gunner's lecture on the great guns, whereupon who so agitated and bitterly apologetic as my Midshipmite, who there and then ushered me hastily down more awkward stairs and through narrow openings into a place of glistening, gleaming polish ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... the jungle. This one had a recoilless rifle mounted on the roof. The driver and the gunner waved and fell in ...
— The Green Beret • Thomas Edward Purdom
... to play, the Convalescents, who had shown great form, required only twelve runs to win the match. Kippy and Gunner Toady shared the batting. A pretty glance to leg for two by the Gunner was all that could be taken out of the penultimate over, and Kippy at the pergola end faced Mark Styles, the postman, to take the first ball of the last over. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... 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 were supported by posts as well as by rafters and cross-beams leaning ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... (There, too, they were busy enough, God knows.) The men came very willingly. I spoke a few words from the text 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' for that benediction was meant also for those lads who had just struck so brave a blow for a decent world. A gunner said afterwards, 'Do you know, I have only heard two sermons since I came out ten months ago. The other was by the Bishop of London, and he took the same text!' It is, as a matter of fact, very difficult to serve the gunners ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... persuade them to advance. The king's forces, as well horse and artillery as foot, had now full time to assemble. The duke had no longer cavalry in the field, and though his artillery, which consisted only of three or four iron guns, was well served under the directions of a Dutch gunner, it was by no means equal to that of the royal army, which, as soon as it was light, began to do great execution. In these circumstances the unfortunate Monmouth, fearful of being encompassed and made prisoner by the ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... gunner rides on horseback, he lives in luxury, The sapper has his dug-out as cushy as can be, The flying man's a sportsman, but his home's a long way back, In painted tent or straw-spread barn or cosy little shack; Gunner and sapper ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... [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
... them and soon caught up with them. Then I swerved and dipped up to them, for I thought them a little strange. I got up closer, and, wow! all three dived at me like a rock and bullets flew by me, cutting my plane, so I pulled up at them, fired, swerved so my gunner could let them have it also and then saw the iron cross flash by, so I knew it was the Huns. I started getting altitude and went up high and then the boches got the sun between them and my plane and came again, but I thought this would ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... charge the guns. By the explosion, the wad-nets and other loose things took fire between decks, and the whole ship was so filled with smoke that the men, in their confusion, cried out she was on fire in the gunner's store-room, imagining from the shock they had felt from the balls that a shell had actually fallen into her. This notion struck a panic into the greater part of the crew, and 70 or 80 jumped out of the port-holes into the boats that were alongside the ship. The French presently saw this confusion ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... to their necks, and were under the fire of the artillery and musketry of their pursuers. Those who succeeded in crossing drew up with a few guns, but the fire of the artillery caused their speedy departure, leaving their cannon behind. Lieutenant Holmes, of the irregular cavalry, and gunner Scott, of the 2nd brigade horse-artillery, here performed a gallant exploit; they swam their horses across the stream, and spiked the guns, exposed to the fire of the enemy's skirmishers, but covered by the British fire from the left bank. The conflict of Aliwal was over, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... was tedious work, however, as "Long Tom" was exceedingly heavy, and it usually took twenty men to serve it. The mouth was raised from the "kastion" by means of a pulley, and the former taken away; then and not till then could the gunner properly get the range. The carriage vacuum sucking apparatus had to be well fixed in hard ground ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... and in divers ways displayed their intelligence and efficiency in the Navy. Take, for instance, the case of John Jordan, a Negro of Virginia, who was chief gunner's mate on Admiral Dewey's flagship the "Olympia" during the Spanish-American war, and was the man who fired the first shot at the enemy at Manila Bay. A Negro chief electrician, Salisbury Brooks, was the originator of inventions which were adopted without reservation ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... though in the stress of recent events it had slipped my memory; and yet it would have been as plain as the nose on the face to any gunner, even to the youngest. For if Czerny must hold his house against the world, how should he hold it with one door of two open to the sea? That devilish gun, swung there on a peak of the rock, could sweep the waters, turn where you might. It was going ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... gunner, having dined, To show his guest the glories of his art 'Poops off a round or two,' which burst behind, But fail to drown the beating of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... Whayer hev ye been? I thought ye wuz gone fur good. Shure Oi saved him from a murtherin' gunner," she explained. "(Bad scran to the baste! I belave he was an Or'ngeman.) But he's all right now an' comes an' goes like he owned the place. Now, Jack, you git out av that wather pail," as the beautiful bird leaped into the half-filled drinking ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... gaping on girded Harfleur. Suppose the ambassador from the French comes back; Tells Harry—that the king doth offer him Katharine his daughter; and with her, to dowry, Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms. The offer likes not: and the nimble gunner With linstock[5] now the devilish ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... do they send such delicate boys into the Service to be knocked on the head for?—much better make civilians of them." Then turning to me, "Well, youngster," said he, with a good-humoured smile, "you'll dine in the gun room with us at three o'clock." He then sent for the gunner, and requested him to take me into his mess, who grinned assent. This last was a square, broad-shouldered Welshman, with an open countenance, and of no little consequence. I descended to his cabin, which was under water, and I could, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... Swabber, the Boate-swaine & I; The Gunner, and his Mate Lou'd Mall, Meg, and Marrian, and Margerie, But none of vs car'd for Kate. For she had a tongue with a tang, Would cry to a Sailor goe hang: She lou'd not the sauour of Tar nor of Pitch, Yet a Tailor might scratch her where ere she did itch. Then to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... post on his way into "neutral" country. The General, the G.S.O.1, the D.A.Q.M.G. and the A.D.C. got out, shining, gorgeous and beflowered with foreign decorations, to chat to the sentry (you've seen pictures of it; it's always being done), Nijinsky, who had already turned back two innocuous Gunner Colonels (armed with sporting guns) that morning, sauntered up, drunk with newly acquired confidence, his rifle slung on his right shoulder and his hat over ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... confidence, had contrived to bring up at a point where not a single gun from the batteries could be brought to bear on him; while his own shot, had he been disposed to hostilities, would have completely raked the little haven. But Vito Viti, though so enthusiastic an admirer of the art, was no gunner himself, and little liked to dwell on the effect of shot, except as it applied to others, and not at all ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... end to trail on the ground. This made a noise on the pavement, and looked rather dashing, so of course I had to adopt this way of doing things. Thus it happened that as we went into this garden, the end of my scabbard came in contact with the foot of an enormous horse-gunner, who was sprawled on his chair with his legs sticking out. The horse artillery had been formed at the beginning of the revolutionary wars from men taken from the companies of Grenadiers, who took advantage of the occasion to get rid of their most troublesome ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... 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 ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... 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 ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... 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
... was granted, but as he turned to go he was shot dead. Another of the name of Rambert tried to escape by disguising himself as a woman, but was recognised and shot down a few yards outside his own door. A gunner called Saussine was walking in all security along the road to Uzes, pipe in mouth, when he was met by five men belonging to Trestaillon's company, who surrounded him and stabbed him to the heart with their knives. The elder of two brothers named Chivas ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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, and worthily accorded, all the honours of war. So Grenville was carefully taken ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... and the Lieutenant of the Tower bade him come to us, for he had nothing to do with it; and yesterday comes Captain Crew, of one of the fireships, and told me that the officers of the Ordnance would deliver his gunner's materials, but not ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... you see the ranks of "the great" laid low. Alas! one fears that, instead of biting the dust, those courtiers, with the king in the midst of them to set the example, only cried bravo in their hearts at the skill of the gunner:— ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... colleagues he seems to have been the son of Mohammedan parents, tillers of the earth. Being adventurous by nature, he took service as a boy in the Turkish fleet and became "a good pilot and a most excellent gunner." At last he contrived to purchase and man a galleot, with which he cruised the waters of the Levant, where his intimate acquaintance with all the coasts and islands enabled him to seize and dispose of many ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... 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. ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... Women's Laager, to show the people there that she doesn't mind killin' females and children if she can't get men—most of 'em are meant for Maxim Outpost South; and one of 'em may get home sometimes, when the German gunner isn't thinking of his sweetheart. Then, if you find yourself soarin' heavenwards in a kind of scattered anatomical puzzle-map of little bits, don't blame me for ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... spoken about, Tom and Peter would have had but little sleep that night. The first lieutenant related the circumstances to the other lieutenants; the second lieutenant, whose watch it was, told the gunner, who related it to the petty officers; the doctor told his mates, who retailed the story to the midshipmen; and so gradually it went over the whole ship, and officers and men agreed that it was one of the pluckiest and ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... of 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 ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... was a landmark crowning the Ridge; as fair a target as ever artillery ranged on—a gunner's delight. After having been knocked into splinters the splinters were spread about by high explosives which reduced the stone base ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... hats and cheered lustily as the schooner rushed down the ways and plunged stern foremost into the sparkling sea; the gun went off with a sharp bang, and the native gunner instantly, with a terrific yell, sprang over the side of the cutter, and struck out for the shore with all the vigour and activity that fear could ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... But Gunner's Mate, O. C. Ingram, did not hurry forward; he rushed aft and began to throw overboard the boxes of explosives. He did not stop to see how near the torpedo had come and how much time he had; he simply set to work to save ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood |
