Langham caught it by the throat as though it were human, and did not feel the hot metal burning the palms of his hands as he choked it and pointed its muzzle toward the Palace, while the others dragged at the spokes of the wheel.It was fighting at close range now, close enough to suit even Langham.He found himself in the front rank of it without knowing exactly how he got there.Every man on both sides was playing his own hand, and seemed to know exactly what to do.He felt neglected and very much alone, and was somewhat anxious lest his valor might be wasted through his not knowing how to put it to account.He saw the enemy in changing groups of scowling men, who seemed to eye him for an instant down the length of a gun-barrel and then disappear behind a puff of smoke.He kept thinking that war made men take strange liberties with their fellow-men, and it struck him as being most absurd that strangers should stand up and try to kill one another, men who had so little in common that they did not even know one another's names.The soldiers who were fighting on his own side were equally unknown to him, and he looked in vain for Clay.He saw MacWilliams for a moment through the smoke, jabbing at a jammed cartridge with his pen-knife, and hacking the lead away to make it slip.He was remonstrating with the gun and swearing at it exactly as though it were human, and as Langham ran toward him he threw it away and caught up another from the ground.Kneeling beside the wounded man who had dropped it and picking the cartridges from his belt, he assured him cheerfully that he was not so badly hurt as he thought.
``You all right?'' Langham asked.
``I'm all right.I'm trying to get a little laddie hiding behind that blue silk sofa over there.He's taken an unnatural dislike to me, and he's nearly got me three times.I'm knocking horse-hair out of his rampart, though.''