"Straught up!"
"Right. Where is nine o'clock?"
"Over tae the left."
"Very good. And so on with all the other hours. Now, supposing I were
to say, _End of mansion-house_--_six o'clock_--_white gate_--you would
carry your eye straight _downward_, through the garden, until it
encountered the gate. I would thus have enabled you to recognise a
very small object in a wide landscape in the quickest possible time.
See the idea?"
"Yes, sirr."
"All right. Now for our fold in the ground. _End of
mansion-house_--_eight o'clock_--got that?"
There is an interested murmur of assent.
"That gives you the direction from the house. Now for the distance!
_End of mansion-house_--_eight o 'clock_--_two finger-breadths_--what
does that give you, Lance-Corporal Ness?"
"The corrner of a field, sirr."
"Right. This is _our_ field. We have picked it correctly out of about
twenty fields, you see. _Corner of field. In the middle of the field,
a fold in the ground. At nine hundred--at the fold in the ground--five
rounds--fire_! You see the idea now?"
"Yes, sirr."
"Very good. Let the platoon practise describing targets to one
another, Mr. Little. Don't be too elaborate. Never employ either the
clock or finger method if you can describe your target without. For
instance: _Left of windmill_--_triangular cornfield. At the_ _nearest
corner_--_six hundred_--_rapid fire!_ is all you want. Carry on, Mr.
Little."
And leaving Bobby and his infant class to practise this new and
amusing pastime, Captain Wagstaffe strolls away across the square to
where the painstaking Waddell is contending with another squad.
They, too, have a landscape target--a different one. Before it half a
dozen rifles stand, set in rests. Waddell has given the order: _Four
hundred_--_at the road, where it passes under the viaduct_--_fire!_
and six privates have laid the six rifles upon the point indicated.
Waddell and Captain Wagstaffe walk down the line, peering along the
sights of the rifles. Five are correctly aligned: the sixth points to
the spacious firmament above the viaduct.
"Hallo!" observes Wagstaffe.
"This is the man's third try, sir," explains the harassed Waddell. "He
doesn't seem to be able to distinguish anything at all."
"Eyesight wrong?"
"So he says, sir."
"Been a long time finding out, hasn't he?"
"The sergeant told me, sir," confides Waddell, "that in his opinion
the man is 'working for his ticket.'"
"Umph!"
"I did not quite understand the expression, sir," continues the honest
youth, "so I thought I would consult you."
"It means that he is trying to get his discharge. Bring him along:
I'll soon find out whether he is skrim-shanking or not."
Private M'Sweir is introduced, and led off to the lair of that
hardened cynic, the Medical Officer. Here he is put through some
simple visual tests. He soon finds himself out of his depth. It
is extremely difficult to feign either myopia, hypermetria, or
astigmatism if you are not acquainted with the necessary symptoms, and
have not decided beforehand which (if any) of these diseases you are
suffering from. In five minutes the afflicted M'Sweir is informed,
to his unutterable indignation, that he has passed a severe ocular
examination with flying colours, and is forthwith marched back to his
squad, with instructions to recognise all targets in future, under
pain of special instruction in the laws of optics during his leisure
hours. Verily, in K (1)--that is the tabloid title of the First
Hundred Thousand--the way of the malingerer is hard.
Still, the seed does not always fall upon stony ground. On his way to
inspect a third platoon Captain Wagstaffe passes Bobby Little and his
merry men. They are in pairs, indicating targets to one another.
Says Private Walker (oblivious of Captain Wagstaffe's proximity) to
his friend, Private M'Leary--in an affected parody of his instructor's
staccato utterance--
"_At yon three Gairman spies, gaun' up a close for tae despatch some
wireless telegraphy_--_fufty roonds_--_fire_!"