But about an hour after dark there came some hasteners a good deal more urgent and effective than the officers. All afternoon and early evening a number of shells had been coming over and falling somewhere out from the dump, but the faintness of their whistle and sigh, and the dull thump of their burst, told that they were far enough off not to be worth worrying about. But now there came the ominous shriek, rising into a louder but a fuller and deeper note, that told of a shell dropping dangerously near the listeners. As the shriek rose to a bellowing, vibrating roar, the workers amongst the boxes ducked and ran in to crouch beside or under the lorries, or flatten themselves close up against the piles of ammunition. At the last second, when every man was holding his breath, and it seemed that the shell was on the point of falling fairly on top of them, they heard the deafening roar change and diminish ever so slightly, and next instant the shell fell with an earth-shaking crash just beyond the dump and the main road. Some of the splinters sang and hummed overhead, and the workers were just straightening from their crouched positions and turning to remark to one another, when again there came to them the same rising whistle and shriek of an approaching shell. But this time, before they could duck back, the voice of the “O.C. Dump,” magnified grotesquely through a megaphone, bellowed at them, “Gas masks at alert position every man. Sharp now.”
A good many of the men had stripped off gas masks and coats, because the masks swinging and bobbing about them were awkward to work in, and the night was close and heavy enough to call for as little hampering clothing as possible in the job of heaving and hauling heavy boxes about.
A word from Vickers to the A.S.C. officer explained his shout. “If one of those shells splashes down on top of that stack of gas-shells of ours, this won’t be a healthy locality without a mask on.” The men must have understood or remembered the possibility, because, heedless of the roar of the approaching shell, they grabbed hastily for their masks and hitched them close and high on their chests, or ran to where they had hung them with their discarded tunics, and slung them hastily over shoulder, and ready.
