"Butt Pairty, '_shun!_ Forrm fourrs! Right! By your left, quick
_marrch_!"
--on a bleak and cheerless morning in late October. It is not yet
light; but a depressed party of about twenty-five are falling into
line at the acrid invitation of two sergeants, who have apparently
decided that the pen is mightier than the Lee-Enfield rifle; for each
wears one stuck in his glengarry like an eagle's feather, and carries
a rabbinical-looking inkhorn slung to his bosom. This literary pose is
due to the fact that records are about to be taken of the performances
of the Company on the shooting-range.
A half-awakened subaltern, who breakfasted at the grisly hour of a
quarter-to-six, takes command, and the dolorous procession disappears
into the gloom.
Half an hour later the Battalion parades, and sets off, to the sound
of music, in pursuit. (It is perhaps needless to state that although
we are deficient in rifles, possess neither belts, pouches, nor
greatcoats, and are compelled to attach, our scanty accoutrements to
our persons with ingenious contrivances of string, we boast a fully
equipped and highly efficient pipe band, complete with pipers, big
drummer, side drummers, and corybantic drum-major.)
By eight o'clock, after a muddy tramp of four miles, we are assembled
at the two-hundred-yards firing point upon Number Three Range. The
range itself is little more than a drive cut through, a pine-wood.
It is nearly half a mile long. Across the far end runs a high
sandy embankment, decorated just below the ridge with, a row of
number-boards--one for each target. Of the targets themselves nothing
as yet is to be seen.
"Now then, let's get a move on!" suggests the Senior Captain briskly.
"Cockerell, ring up the butts, and ask Captain Wagstaffe to put up the
targets."
The alert Mr. Cockerell hurries to the telephone, which lives in a
small white-painted structure like a gramophone-stand. (It has been
left at the firing-point by the all-providing butt-party.) He turns
the call-handle smartly, takes the receiver out of the box, and
begins....
There is no need to describe the performance which ensues. All
telephone-users are familiar with it. It consists entirely of the
word "Hallo!" repeated _crescendo_ and _furioso_ until exhaustion
supervenes.