THE BIG SCENE
Nothing could be done! No power on earth could stop that projectile now
until it had spent itself, or until it had struck something and
exploded.
Horror-stricken, those near the big gun looked across the intervening
space. How many would survive what was to follow?
The man who had pulled the lanyard sank to the ground, covering his face
with his hands.
For a brief instant Paul, leading his men, looked back at the sound of
the unexpected shot. He had been told that no more were to be fired.
Doubtless, this was an extra one to make the pictures more realistic.
But when he saw, in a flash, something black and menacing leaping
through the air toward him and his men, instinctively he cried:
"Duck, everybody! Duck!"
He fell forward on his face and those of his men who heard and
understood did likewise.
Ruth, Alice and Estelle, who were watching the scene from a distant
knoll, hardly understood what it was all about. They had thought no more
shots would be fired when Paul began his charge, but one had boomed out,
and surely that was a projectile winging its way toward the partly
demolished hill.
"That is carrying realism a little too far," said Ruth. "I hope----"
"Paul has fallen!" cried Alice. "Oh--something has happened!"
One must realize that all this took place at the same time. The firing
of the shot, the realization that it was a mistake, Paul's flash of the
oncoming projectile, his command to his men and the vision had by the
girls. All in an instant, for a shot from a big gun does not leave much
margin of time between starting and arriving even when fired with only a
small charge of powder for moving picture purposes.
And, so quickly had it happened that Russ had not stopped turning the
crank of his camera, nor had an assistant on the hillside, where he had
been stationed to film Paul and his soldiers.
And then the projectile struck. Into the soft dirt of the hillside it
buried its head, and then, as the explosion came, up went a shower of
earth and stones. And ever afterward the gunner who inserted that
charge blessed himself and an ever-watchful Providence that he had put
in but half a charge, the last of the powder.
For it was this half-charge that saved Paul and his men. The projectile
struck in the hill a hundred feet below where Paul was leading his force
up the slope, and though they were well-nigh buried beneath a rain of
sand and gravel, they were not otherwise hurt--scratches and bruises
being their portion.
"What are they trying to do, kill us?" cried a man, staggering to his
feet, blood streaming from a cut on his cheek.
"This is too much like real war for me!" yelled another throwing down
his gun. "I'm going to quit!"
"No you don't!" shouted Paul. "Come on. It was a mistake. They won't
fire any more. It will make a great scene on the film. Come on!"
He gave one look back toward the Union battery and saw Mr. Pertell
fluttering a white flag which meant safety. Waving his sword above his
head, Paul yelled again:
"Come on! Come on! It's all right! Up the hill with you! That shot was
only to put a little pep in you!"
"Pep! More like sand! I got a mouthful!" muttered a sergeant.
"Get every inch of that. It's the best scene we've had yet, though it
was a close call!" telephoned Mr. Pertell to the operator on the side of
the hill. "Film every inch of it!"
"All right! I'm getting it," answered the camera man and he went on
grinding away at his crank.
The explosion of the shell had, for the moment, stopped the advance of
Paul and his men up the hill, but this momentary halt only made it look
more realistic--as though they really feared they were in danger, as
indeed they had been. Now the director called:
"It's all right, Paul! Go ahead! Keep on just as if that was part of the
show."
"It was a lively part all right!" and Paul laughed grimly. "Come on,
boys!"
And the charge was resumed.
Back of the dismantled battery, whence they had presumably been driven
by the fire from the big gun, the Confederates were massed. They were
waiting for Paul's charge, and they, too, had been a little surprised by
the unexpected firing of the shell.
But now, in response to a signal on the field telephone, they prepared
to resist the assault.
"Come on, boys! Beat the Yankees back!" was the battle cry that would be
flashed on the screen.
Then came the fierce struggle, and it was nearly as fierce as it was
indicated in the pictures. Real blows were given, and more than one man
went down harder than he had expected to. There were duels with clubbed
rifles, and fencing combats with swords, though, of course, the
participants took care not to cut one another.
In spite of this, several received minor hurts. But this result only
added to the effectiveness of the scene, though it was painful. But in
providing realism for motion pictures more than one conscientious player
has been injured, and not a few have lost their lives. It is devotion of
no small sort to their profession.
Back and forth surged the fight, sometimes Paul's men giving way, and
again driving the Confederates back from the crest of the hill. Small
detachments here and there fired volleys of blank cartridges from their
rifles, but there was not as much of this for the close-up pictures as
there had been for the larger battle scenes. For while smoke blowing
over a big field on which hundreds of men and horses are massed makes a
picture effective, if seen at too close range it hides the details of
the fighting.
And Mr. Pertell wanted the details to come out in this close-up scene.
Back and forth surged the fight until it had run through a certain
length of film. Then the orders came that the Confederates were to give
up and retreat. Before this, however, a number of them had been killed,
as had almost as many Union soldiers.
Then came a spirited scene. Paul, leading his men, leaped up on the
earthworks of the Confederate battery, cut down the Southern flag--the
stars and bars. In its place he hoisted the stars and stripes, and with
a wild yell that made the fight seem almost real, he and his men
occupied the heights.
"Well done!" cried Mr. Pertell, enthusiastically, when he came over from
the ramparts of the big gun. "Are you sure none of you was hurt when
that shell exploded?"
"None of us," answered Paul. "It fell short, luckily, and the dirt was
soft. No big rocks were tossed up, fortunately, and we came out of it
very nicely."
"Glad to hear it. I've discharged the man who fired the gun."
"That's too bad!"
"Well, I hired him over again--but to do something else less dangerous.
I can't afford to take chances with big cannon. But I think the scene
went off very well. That stopping and the bursting of the shell made it
look very real."
"That's good," Paul said, wiping some of the dirt and blood off his
face, for he had been scratched by the point of some one's bayonet.
That ended this particular scene for the day, and the players could take
a much-needed rest. Plenty of powder had been burned, and the air was
rank and heavy with the fumes.
"Are you sure you're all right, Paul?" asked Alice, when he came up to
the farmhouse later in the day.
"Well, I think I'd be better if you would feel my pulse," he said,
winking at Russ. "And you don't need to be in a hurry to let go my hand.
I sha'n't need it right away."
"Silly!" exclaimed Alice, as she turned, blushing, away.
"It must have been a shock to you," said Ruth.
"It was. But it was over so quickly I didn't have time to be shocked
long. Now, let's talk about something nice. Come on in to the town, and
I'll buy you all ice-cream."
"That will be nice!" laughed Estelle.
It was several days later that Mr. Pertell, coming to where the moving
picture girls and their friends were seated on the porch, said:
"The big scene is for to-morrow. In the hospital. This is where you are
looking after the wounded officer, Ruth, and Alice, on pretense of
being a nurse seeking to give aid, comes in to get the papers. I want
this very carefully done, as it is one of the climaxes of the whole
play. So we'll have some rehearsals in the morning."
"Am I to do that riding act?" asked Estelle.
"Yes, you'll do the horse stunt as usual. There's to be a cavalry
charge, Miss Brown, so don't get in their way and be run down."
"I'll try not to," she answered.