But the noise was horrible and appalling.

Men whose nerves had been steeled to the crash of the big guns, or the monotonous roar of Maxims and the rattle of Mauser fire, found a new terror in the malignant 'ploop-plooping' of the automatic quick-firer.

The Maxim of the Scots Guards was caught in the hell-blizzard from this thing--each shell no bigger than a large walnut, but flying in strings of a score--and men and gun were destroyed in an instant.

As to the rifle bullets the air was humming and throbbing with them, and the sand was mottled like a pond in a shower.

To advance was impossible, to retire was hateful.