ensign dropped like a limp rag; the muzzles of the long six inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech---and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives---he called them enemies!---hidden out of sight somewhere (21). Conrad is teaching us something extremely important. Berthoud points out that the "intelligibility of what men do depends upon the context in which they do it." Marlow is watching this occurrence. He sees the Europeans firing "tiny projectiles" and their cannons producing a "pop". The Europeans, however, see themselves fighting an all out war against the savage enemies in the name of imperialism! The Europeans feel that this is an honorable battle, and therefore, all get emotionally excited and fight with all they have. Marlow, however, sees it differently. He is now in Africa where reality broods. It's lurking everywhere. The only thing one has to do to find it is open his mind to new and previously 'unheard' of ideas. He looks at this event and reduces it from the European's image of a supposedly intense battle, with smoke and enemies everywhere, to a futile firing of "tiny projectiles "into an empty forest. For the first time, Marlow recognizes the falsity of the European mentality, and their inability to characterize an event for what it is. At the end of the passage, his fellow European crewmember is assuring Marlow that the allied ship is defeating the "enemies"...
