Guns That Gallop

Northern Advocate, 4 May 1940, Page 9

Guns That Gallop

The movement the so-called “nomad” guns make as they go across country suggests galloping, says a message from Richard Capell, who is with the French Army, to the London “Daily Telegraph.” They fear no sort of surface, but plunge' through snowdrifts and across ditches and dykes with never a hitch. The little car in which I have been following them towards the scene of action is helpless, and the only thing is to get out and stagger on foot in their wake. A new German battery position has been detected, and the nomads are out to send it a few dozen samples of their shells. We are fairly near the frontier, and the scene of action is one that would quickly become unhealthy for a solitary ensconced battery. But the nature of the 1 nomads is to settle down nowhere. They have come along for a visit of only a few minutes. The point is that though the German artillery is not at the moment inclined to be very enterprising, it does, after a time, express resentment when its industrious labours are interrupted. And other things being equal, it is as well to be a few miles away when that resentment takes explosive form. One mercy about the performance is that horses are utterly out qf the picture. If galloping is suggested by the movement of the guns up to their positions, it is a fanciful use of the word. These are mechanised nomads which advance to the appointed spot with an appearance of gay recklessness. The spectator is free to enjoy the sight as he could not if horses, lashed and straining, had to dO' the job. He cannot help reflecting, as the great tractors go pitching nonchalantly across the land, on the mercy that horses are being eliminated from the scene of war. The whole performance is a wonder of expeditiousness. Within a few minutes of the arrival all is ready. Then the earth seems to shake as the monsters discharge their first shell. Within a quarter of an hour there have been changes in the landscape so'mewhere in Germany. It is time to pack up and go. Never was a camp broken up more swiftly. The tractors make off. and it is fantastic to see the pace of the huge things.