"Artilleryman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them on fire. Then the English burst through the flames, and made again for the river. Seven out of the twelve who got through the fire reached the river, but of these two were shot before they had swum far. Three miles lower down, one of the survivors, an artilleryman, swimming on his back, went too near the bank and was killed. Six miles lower down the firing ceased, and soon afterward the four survivors were hailed by natives, who shouted to them to come ashore, as their master, the rajah, was friendly to the English. They did so, and were most ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... loading of bombs, and even the serving of cannon were jealously guarded trade secrets. Gunnery was a closed corporation, and the gunner himself a guildsman. The public looked upon him as something of a sorcerer in league with the devil, and a captured artilleryman was apt to be tortured and mutilated. At one time the Pope saw fit to excommunicate all gunners. Also since these specialists kept to themselves and did not drink or plunder, their behavior was ample proof to the good soldier of the old days that ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... siege of Toulon, in 1793, the Emperor being then only colonel of artillery, a cannoneer was killed at his gun; and Colonel Bonaparte picked up the rammer and rammed home the charge several times. The unfortunate artilleryman had an itch of the most malignant kind, which the Emperor caught, and of which he was cured only after many years; and the doctors thought that his sallow complexion and extreme leanness, which lasted ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... with a considerable number of musketeers and arquebusiers, and four light pieces. They discharged their arquebuses and muskets at the Spaniards, and threw cane spears hardened in fire, and bacacaes, [27] after their fashion. The Spaniards assaulted the shed, whereupon a Dutch artilleryman trying to fire a large swivel-gun, with which he would have done great damage, being confused did not succeed, and threw down the linstock, turned, and fled. The enemy did the same after him, and abandoned the shed, fleeing in all directions. Those who would do so embarked with the king and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... a portable telephone in a 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. ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... story?" said Olympe. "Well, the son of the old sexton at Blangy, a splendid fellow, so the people about here tell me, was drafted at the great conscription. In 1809 young Niseron was still only an artilleryman, in a corps d'armee stationed in Illyria and Dalmatia when it received sudden orders to advance through Hungary and cut off the retreat of the Austrian army in case the Emperor won the battle of Wagram. Michaud told me all about Dalmatia, for he was there. Niseron, being so handsome ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... "despond" to us, draining to the Chickahominy. The enemy held the high ground beyond, and artillery fire was continuous, but no infantry was engaged. There was no change until nightfall, when we bivouacked where we were. Our loss, one artilleryman mortally wounded, proved that no serious effort to pass the slough was made; yet a prize was in reach worth the loss of thousands. While we were idly shelling the wood, behind which lay Franklin's corps—the right of McClellan's army—scarce ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... Ranulph had drawn near. He watched the enthusiasm with which the crowd received every little detail of the egregious history. Everybody believed the old man, who was safe, no matter what happened to himself, Ranulph Delagarde, ex-artilleryman, ship-builder— and son of a criminal. At any rate the worst was over now, the first public statement of the lifelong lie. He drew a sigh of relief and misery in one. At that instant he caught sight of the flushed face of Detricand, who broke into a laugh ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... metal lay an old cast-iron field-piece, a relic of the battle which had one day raged hotly on the hillside across the creek. A hundred times the iron-master had been on the point of breaking it up for re-melting, and as often the old artilleryman in him ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... reduct, whence the gun's mouth projected over a sloping embrasure. The two officers, in cocked hats and full staff uniform, attended to take charge of the proceedings. The gun was maneuvered in strict accordance with the rules of "The Artilleryman's ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... were twenty-five thousand of the best troops in the world of every arm, and a park of ordnance charged to the muzzle frowned upon the dense masses which swarmed the Place du Carrousel. The watchful artilleryman stood at his cannon's breech, with the lighted linstock in his hand, which he kept alive by constant motion. He awaited but a word from the pale, firm lips of General Lamoriciere, and that vast and magnificent space now swarming with ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... grocer, in his National Guard uniform, who showed his head above the walls. While I was in the attics a gun above the city gate fired at the battery below. I ran down a few minutes later to see the result. One artilleryman had been killed. He was already laid under the gun-carriage, his head ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... there; that one had gone into the army and become a sergeant, and had written many long interesting letters to the institution, which he still loved as being his early and only "home;" that another had become an artilleryman; another a man-of-war's man; and another a city missionary, who commended the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ to those very outcasts from among whom he had himself been plucked. The superintendent also explained to his rugged but much interested and intelligent visitor that they had a flourishing ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... taking Schweidnitz under the eyes of the King by a clever coup-de-main, and had not a heroic Prussian artilleryman set fire to a powder-magazine, observing as he did so, "All of ye shall not get into the town!" and blown himself with an immense number of Austrians into the air, he would have made himself master of this important stronghold ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... where volunteers from New England and the Long Island villages had already encamped. The other two, coming up with full sail passed in front of Fort Amsterdam and anchored between it and Nutten Island.[2] Standing on one of the angles of the fortress—an artilleryman with a lighted match at his side—the director watched their approach. At this moment the two domines Megapolensis, imploring him not to begin hostilities, led Stuyvesant from the rampart, who then, with a hundred of the garrison, went into the city to resist the landing of the English. Hoping ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... have been committed in taking more artillerymen and sailors than were necessary, and some of them useless, in the trading ships from Filipinas to Nueva Espana. We order that this be avoided and remedied. For each piece of artillery, only one artilleryman, and no more, shall be taken and superfluous pay shall not be given. [Felipe III—Valladolid, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... the mortars and huge couillards of the Burgundians he replied with his artillery, and notably with those little copper culverins which did such good service.[2105] If the gay cannoneer of Orleans and Jargeau, Maitre Jean de Montesclere, were absent, there was a shoemaker of Valenciennes, an artilleryman, named Noirouffle, tall, dark, terrible to see, and terrible to hear.[2106] The townsfolk of Compiegne, like those of Orleans, made unsuccessful sallies. One day Louis de Flavy, the governor's brother, was killed by a Burgundian ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... seared themselves into his face, aging it distressingly, and the mouth was drawn as that of a man who has been called back from the margin of death. But his eyes held an unwavering fire and his jaw was set in the pattern of battle. Mary remembered a painting of a solitary and wounded artilleryman leaning against a shattered field gun amid the bodies of his fallen comrades. The painter had put sternly into the face an expression of one who awaits death, but denies defeat. Here, too, was such a face. The man, hastening out, halted suddenly. Then he stepped ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... time an artilleryman might lose a game and go out and fire a gun to vent his spleen or to keep his hand in. And the snipers might begin to notice that the rain was over, and that there was suspicious activity at the House of the Barrier. And, to take away the impression of perfect peace, ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... could not dress her baby as a sailor, as a lancer, as an artilleryman of the National Guard, as a Highlander with naked legs and a cap and feather, in a jacket, in a roundabout, in a velvet sack, in boots, in trousers: that she could not buy him toys enough, nor mechanical moving mice and Noah's ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... this was accomplished, we were under cover, and the stranger had the benefit of the discharge, of which he took no more notice than if he had borne a charmed life. Again we heard the crack of his rifle, and when, having reloaded, we once more ascended the bank, he was taking aim at the last artilleryman, who fell, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... in battle, they are, of course, unable to observe anything except that which goes on immediately in their neighborhood. The artilleryman fires his gun under the direction of some observer, often far away, who telephones to him to lower or elevate his piece, or deflect it to the tight or left. The infantryman advances as the barrage lifts, and rushes forward according to orders, firing or using his bayonet as the case may be, ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... too wide for the road. Some other means must be devised. The trunks of pines were hollowed and the guns inserted. At one end was a rope to pull them, at the other a tiller to guide them. Twenty grenadiers took the cables. Twenty others carried the baggage of those who drew them. An artilleryman commanded each detachment with absolute power, if need be, over life and death. The iron mass in such a case was far more precious than the flesh ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... took off his coat and neck-handkerchief, the latter of which he tied tight round his waist, then taking a rammer from the hand of a soldier who had just fallen, he ordered, or rather signed to the artilleryman to draw ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... worthy of credit has related to us the following fact:—A cantiniere of the 44th Battalion (from the Batignolles quarter), was in the act of pouring out a glass of brandy for an artilleryman of the Fort of Vanves, when suddenly the artilleryman was out in two by a Versailles shell; the brave cantiniere drank off the contents of the glass just poured out for the dead man who lay in bits at her feet, and took his ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... a man to be gentlemanly and kind. You have got to learn to be a soldier—an artilleryman, not a molly. But, there, don't you be uneasy about that. I'll see that you are not spoiled. ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... artilleryman, dying in great pain, relapsed into coma. Waiting beside him, she wrote to his parents, enclosing the little keepsakes he had designated when conscious, while his life flickered with the flickering candle. Her letter and his life ended together; dawn made the candle-light ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... doubloons for, this morning. And sure it's droll enough. How expensive an amusement it is to kill the French! Here's half a dollar I gave for the soul of a cuirassier that I kilt yesterday, and nearly twice as much for an artilleryman I cut down at the guns; and because the villain swore like a heythen, Father Pedro told me he'd cost more nor if he died like a ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... a small room, well shielded from the draughts which raged through the building in winter; and here Sergeant Archelaus had lit a fire to-night and sat before it, sewing an artilleryman's stripe upon the ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... artilleryman here who knows how to fire or cast artillery, nor is there any artillery. I am writing to the viceroy our needs in this matter. Having learned that the Moros of this country had artillery, I told them that ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... other some years younger, stood in the door of the station room, their faces swoln and discolored with weeping. Their mother, pale and sad, stood near them; while the father, a fine looking, strongly-built man of forty, in the uniform of an artilleryman, went forward to see to the stowage of his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... who hasn't a taste for artillery, it occurs to me, my friend, you are keeping up a pretty lively fire on my inner works. But go on. Cynicism is a small brass field-piece that eventually bursts and kills the artilleryman. ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... an artilleryman was shot at his post. His wife, Mary Pitcher, while bringing water to her husband from a spring, saw him fall and heard the commander order the piece to be removed from the field. Instantly dropping the pail, she hastened ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... plunged in bareheaded amongst their ranks, the belief that he was sheltered by some Satanic charm. He notes on the Alma the singular pause of sound maintained by both armies just before the cannonade began; the first death—of an artilleryman riding before his gun—a new sight to nine-tenths of those who witnessed it; {18} the weird scream of exploding shells as they rent the air around. He crossed the Alma close behind Lord Raglan, cantering after him to the summit of a conspicuous hillock in the heart of ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... All I can say is that if this was the intention there must have been someone in command at Mont Valerien who failed to carry it into effect, and who amused himself by knocking the best part of Paris to pieces out of mischief, for no artilleryman could have been so incapable as to fire from hill to hill when intending to fire down into that which, viewed from Mont Valerien, looks like a hole. In 1841, curiously enough, Thiers had been accused, at the time of the erection of the forts of which Mont Valerien was one, of making it possible ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... An artilleryman, perspiring and mud-spattered from shell-bursts, who came across the fields, said: "They knocked off the corner of our gun-pit and got two men. That's all." His eyes were shining; he was in the elation of battle. Casualties were an incident in the preoccupation of his work and of the ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... of artilleryman, and every day performed some extraordinary feat, whereby the credit and the favour I acquired with the Pope was something indescribable. There never passed a day but what I killed one or another of our enemies in the besieging ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... had he run such imminent danger for he saw the artilleryman apply the match, and the gun go off—but, at the very nick, a man of tall stature, dressed as a peasant, and whom he had not before remarked, threw himself in front of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... brisk figure of the young doctor, and pondering over these new responsibilities which had come upon her. When she turned a tall, brown-faced artilleryman, with the three gold chevrons of sergeant upon his arm, was standing, carbine in ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... carry lumber or to face our road. (Remember that the last third of my road, about a mile, is all made out of a bridle- track by my boys - and my dollars.) It was supposed a white man had been found - an ex-German artilleryman - to drive this last; he proved incapable and drunken; the gallant Henry, who had never driven before, and knew nothing about horses - except the rats and weeds that flourish on the islands - volunteered; Moors accepted, proposing to follow and supervise: despatched his work and started after. ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... what the lawyer from Souvigny told us the other day is so touching, and what that great artilleryman did when he was quite little was so good, so good, that this evening I shall seek for an opportunity of telling him what I think of it, and ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... could follow his example. It is thus that the personal affection which he felt for these generals led him to commit once more the error which he had previously made in giving command of an army to the artilleryman Marmont. ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... commented Nelson. "I'm not much of an artilleryman, but I'm wondering how you take ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... preceding; soldier of the Republic and of the Empire; while an artilleryman in 1809, he seduced, at Zahara, a young Montenegrin, Zena Kropoli, who died, at Vincennes, early in the year 1810, leaving him an infant daughter. Thus he could not realize his purpose of marrying her. He himself ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... with provisions to a battery near the Portello gate. The gunners had all been killed, and, as the citizens held back, "Augustina sprang over the dead and dying, snatched a match from the hand of a dead artilleryman, and fired off a twenty-six pounder; then, jumping upon the gun, made a solemn vow never to quit it ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... the good-natured youth: he called some soldiers, and ordered them to carry the wounded man carefully into the trench, sent for the surgeon, and had the operation performed before his eyes. At night, when all was quiet, the artilleryman sat by the side of his dying prisoner, and watched him with interest by the dim light of the lantern. The serpent-marks of sorrow, graven on his cheek by tears, the wrinkles on his forehead, dug, not by years but passions, and bloody scratches, disfigured his handsome ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... inferior cafe near the Boulak Station, he discovered Jock, an artilleryman he knew, and together they satisfied their thirst; neither had formed any plan for the afternoon, so both welcomed the idea of spending it in company. They adjourned to the barber's. Shaving in Sahara sand appealed not to Mac's heart, and, failing visits to Cairo, mornings ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... zero to make them burst at the mouth of the guns and act as case shot. They tore some gaps in the yeomen's ranks, but nothing could stop that charge. The Midlanders rode straight at the guns and sabred every artilleryman at his piece. The Londoners say they heard all the guns stop dead at the same moment and they knew they had been silenced in true Balaclava style. Having wiped out the batteries the yeomen again answered the call of their leader and swept up a ridge to deal effectively with three machine guns, ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... of different weapons throughout the battle preserved the stance and the facial expression characteristic of themselves. And as the artilleryman has neither the cavalry's extravagance, nor the infantry's impatience, but attentive to command, fast and accurate amid all the commotion, appearing calm, though his eyes burned with the smoke, bloodshot, eyebrows furrowed, face pale, ...
— My First Battle • Adam Mickiewicz
... Sixth Army, once commanded by Castelnau, but now by a famous artilleryman, General Fayolle, lay from Maricourt astride the Somme to opposite Fay village. It comprised the very flower of the French armies, including the Twentieth Corps, which had won enduring fame at Verdun under the command of General Balfourier. It was principally composed ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... fresh from the N.E. This helped us to make about a mile through the narrow channel, hemmed in by thick and high grass. Another soldier died. As usual, this poor fellow was an artilleryman. These men came direct from Cairo with their guns, and not being acclimatized, they cannot resist the fever. The Egyptian troops give in and lose all heart; but there is much allowance to be made for them, as it is a fearful country, and far beyond my worst ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... spotted with shot-marks, plaques broken by the shock of the Gun Club, balls, assortments of rammers and sponges, chaplets of shells, necklaces of projectiles, garlands of howitzers—in a word, all the tools of the artilleryman surprised the eyes by their wonderful arrangement, and induced a belief that their real purpose was ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... a dozen voices. The shot was fired, and the clumsy artilleryman had to cast bullets all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... action was at the hottest, one of the small guns in front (all of which had been fearfully exposed), was left without a single artilleryman. Availing themselves of this circumstance, the enemy, who were unprovided with artillery of any description, made a movement as if to possess themselves of, and turn it against the attacking force, then closing rapidly to dispute ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... said that he was present when Foster was physically examined, and he never saw a man with a whiter skin; there wasn't a mark on him anywhere then that he could remember. Bidden to tell what he knew of Foster, the young artilleryman was given a seat, and somewhat feebly proceeded. Foster was bound to enlist, he said, was of legal age and looked it; gave his full name, his home and business; said he owned a ranch down in New Mexico near Fort Averill; didn't know enough to go in for a commission and was determined to enlist ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... saw her no more, so he did not!" commented the Cardiff stoker as the pipe travelled from hand to hand to be smelt at, dandled, worshipped by every man in turn. Only the Sergeant-gunner, the grey-headed ex-Royal Field Artilleryman, maintained self-command by dint of looking very hard the other way. Then said ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... not avoid shrieking. A surgeon came up at once, and scolded them for not being more careful. That is all I remember that night; for I became delirious, and raved constantly of Catharine, Monsieur Goulden, and Aunt Gredel, as my neighbor, an old artilleryman, whom my cries prevented from sleeping, afterward told me. I awoke the next morning at about eight o'clock, at the first roll of the drum, and saw the hall better, and then learned that I had the bone of my left shoulder broken. A dozen surgeons were around me; one of them, ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... horses dragging the swaying gun that in this tempest of motion alone seemed passive and helpless with an awful foreknowledge of its power. As in obedience to a signal from the officer they crashed through the hedge after him, a sudden jolt threw an artilleryman from the limber before the wheel. A driver glanced back on the tense chain and hesitated. "Go on!" yelled the prostrate man, and the wheel went over him. Another and another gun followed out of the dust ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... wrote in 1514: "While two forts are being constructed, one in Puerto Rico and the other in San German, where, in case of rebellion, our treasure will be secure, you will give arms and ammunition to Ponce de Leon for our account, with an artilleryman, that he may have them in his house, which is to do duty as a fortress." And on May 14, 1515, he wrote from Medina del Campo: " ... Deliver ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... performance of the most difficult manoeuvres. His imitativeness gave him facility in handling his musket and sabre; and his love of domestic animals, and natural strength made him a graceful cavalryman and an efficient artilleryman. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... first passage, where young Lauriston had thrown himself into the river, in order more promptly to execute the orders of Napoleon, a little boat, carrying a mother and her two children, was upset and sank under the ice: an artilleryman, who, like the others, was struggling on the bridge to open a passage for himself, observed the accident, and all at once, unmindful of his own life, he threw himself into the river, and by great exertion succeeded in saving one of the three victims. It was the youngest ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... came he was a good deal annoyed—at the Major, not at the person who had made the mistake. He was rather brusque, and took the same position which the conductor had taken in the beginning; but he failed to move the soft-spoken artilleryman, who still insisted that he must have his car. However, it was plain that there was only one strong side in this case, and that that side was the Major's. The station-master banished his annoyed manner, and became pleasant and even half-apologetic. This made a good opening for a compromise, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... a six-gun battery opposite our chateau; and we employed ourselves in strengthening the works, as a precautionary measure, though we had not much to dread from it, as they were so strictly within range of our rifles, that he must have been a lucky artilleryman who stood there to fire ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid |
