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Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury), 1876-1944

"Paths of Glory Impressions of War Written at and Near the Front"


"He got away again," said the colonel regretfully, seeing us at the
window. "Plucky fellow, that! I hope we kill him soon. The airmen say
he is a Frenchman, but my guess is that he is English." And then he went
on reading.
Getting back to the afternoon before, I must add that it was not a bomb
which the flying man threw into the edge of the woods. He had a
surprise for his German adversaries that day. Soon after we left the
stand of the field guns a civilian Red Cross man halted our machines to
show us a new device for killing men. It was a steel dart, of the
length and thickness of a fountain pen, and of much the same aspect. It
was pointed like a needle at one end, and at the other was fashioned
into a tiny rudder arrangement, the purpose of this being to hold it
upright---point downward--as it descended. It was an innocent-looking
device--that dart; but it was deadlier than it seemed.
"That flyer at whom our guns were firing a while ago dropped this,"
explained the civilian.


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