It is like a bit of coke, bristling with
edged and pointed facets, and he dances it in his hand so as not to
burn himself.
There is a hissing noise. Paradis sharply bows his head and we
follow suit. "The fuse!--it has gone over." The shrapnel fuse goes
up and then comes down vertically; but that of the percussion shell
detaches itself from the broken mass after the explosion and usually
abides buried at the point of contact, but at other times it flies
off at random like a big red-hot pebble. One must beware of it. It
may hurl itself on you a very long time after the detonation and by
incredible paths, passing over the embankment and plunging into the
cavities.
"Nothing so piggish as a fuse. It happened to me once--"
"There's worse things," broke in Bags of the 11th, "The Austrian
shells, the 130's and the 74's. I'm afraid of them. They're
nickel-plated, they say, but what I do know, seeing I've been there,
is they come so quick you can't do anything to dodge them. You no
sooner hear em snoring than they burst on you.
"The German 105's, neither, you haven't hardly the time to flatten
yourself. I once got the gunners to tell me all about them."
"I tell you, the shells from the naval guns, you haven't the time to
hear 'em. Got to pack yourself up before they come."
"And there's that new shell, a dirty devil, that breaks wind after
it's dodged into the earth and out of it again two or three times in
the space of six yards.
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