Behind each shutter, a beke was aiming at us, a beke was plotting, a beke was loading bullets, through cracks of the louvered shutters.

It was a slow, steady roll of fire as the sharpshooters who lay prone behind the battlement fired, opened their rifle breeches to load bullets and linen cartridges, sealed and fired again.

And loading bullets for black-powder guns, even replica models made of higher quality steel, with closer tolerances, was nowhere near as simple as shoving a cartridge into a six-shooter and pulling the trigger.

Philemon showed her how to load bullets into the magazine and how to wipe the gun afterwards, to remove fingerprints.

From the convoy, as if in reply, comes the sound of rifle bolts snapping into place, loading bullets into chambers.

A relatively small number of shooters still load paper-patched bullets at velocities up to about 600 meters (2000 feet) per second.

Six men sat around the open crate, in the process of loading bullets into long, single-stack maga- zines.

In the middle of it all, one soldier, loading bullets, declared: "I don't know why we're fighting.

When the battle began the British officer ordered his troops to fire without loading bullets.

His nine-year-old son sat behind, loading bullets from boxes into fresh new magazines.