"I want you to signal the results on the rear targets as the front
ones go down. After that we will fire--oh, _curse_ the thing!"
He hastily removes the receiver, which is emitting sounds suggestive
of the buckling of biscuit-tins, from his ear, and lays it on its
rest. The bell promptly begins to ring again.
"Mr. Cockerell," he says resignedly, "double up to the butts and ask
Captain Wagstaffe--"
"I'm here, old son," replies a gentle voice, as Captain Wagstaffe
touches him upon the shoulder. "Been here some time!"
After mutual asperities, it is decided by the two Captains to dispense
with the aid of the telephone proper, and communicate by bell alone.
Captain Wagstaffe's tall figure strides back across the heather; the
red flag on the butts flutters down; and we get to work.
Upon a long row of waterproof sheets--some thirty in all--lie the
firers. Beside each is extended the form of a sergeant or officer,
tickling his charge's ear with incoherent counsel, and imploring him,
almost tearfully, not to get excited.
Suddenly thirty targets spring out of the earth in front of us, only
to disappear again just as we have got over our surprise. They are not
of the usual bull's-eye pattern, but are what is known as "figure"
targets. The lower half is sea-green, the upper, white. In the centre,
half on the green and half on the white, is a curious brown smudge.
It might be anything, from a splash of mud to one of those mysterious
brown-paper patterns which fall out of ladies' papers, but it really
is intended to represent the head and shoulders of a man in khaki
lying on grass and aiming at us. However, the British private, with
his usual genius for misapprehension, has christened this effigy "the
beggar in the boat."
With equal suddenness the targets swing up again. Crack! An
uncontrolled spirit has loosed off his rifle before it has reached
his shoulder. Blistering reproof follows. Then, after three or four
seconds, comes a perfect salvo all down the line. The conscientious
Mucklewame, slowly raising his foresight as he has been taught to do,
from the base of the target to the centre, has just covered the beggar
in the boat between wind and water, and is lingering lovingly over
the second pull, when the inconsiderate beggar (and his boat) sink
unostentatiously into the abyss, leaving the open-mouthed marksman
with his finger on the trigger and an unfired cartridge still in the
chamber. At the dentist's Time crawls; in snap-shooting contests he
sprints.
Another set of targets slide up as the first go down, and upon these
the hits are recorded by a forest of black or white discs, waving
vigorously in the air. Here and there a red-and-white flag flaps
derisively. Mucklewame gets one of these.
The marking-targets go down to half-mast again, and then comes another
tense pause. Then, as the firing-targets reappear, there is another
volley. This time Private Mucklewame leads the field, and decapitates
a dandelion. The third time he has learned wisdom, and the beggar in
the boat gets the bullet where all mocking foes should get it--in the
neck!
Snap-shooting over, the combatants retire to the five-hundred-yards
firing-point, taking with them that modern hair-shirt, the telephone.
Presently a fresh set of targets swing up--of the bull's-eye variety
this time--and the markers are busy once more.