II
From this it is a mere step to—
"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.
Presently Mr. Cockerell reports to the Captain—
"Telephone out of order, sir."
"I never knew a range telephone that wasn't," replies the Captain, inspecting the instrument. "Still, you might give this one a sporting chance, anyhow. It isn't a wireless telephone, you know! Corporal Kemp, connect that telephone for Mr. Cockerell."
A marble-faced N.C.O. kneels solemnly upon the turf and raises a small iron trapdoor—hitherto overlooked by the omniscient Cockerell—revealing a cavity some six inches deep, containing an electric plug-hole. Into this he thrusts the terminal of the telephone wire. Cockerell, scarlet in the face, watches him indignantly.
Telephonic communication between firing-point and butts is now established. That is to say, whenever Mr. Cockerell rings the bell some one in the butts courteously rings back. Overtures of a more intimate nature are greeted either with stony silence or another fantasia on the bell.
Meanwhile the captain is superintending firing arrangements.
"Are the first details ready to begin?" he shouts.
"Quite ready, sir," runs the reply down the firing line.
The Captain now comes to the telephone himself. He takes the receiver from Cockerell with masterful assurance.
"Hallo, there!" he calls. "I want to speak to Captain Wagstaffe."
"Honkle yang-yang?" inquires a ghostly voice.
"Captain Wagstaffe! Hurry up!"
Presently the bell rings, and the Captain gets to business.
"That you, Wagstaffe?" he inquires cheerily. "Look here, we're going to fire Practice Seven, Table B,—snap-shooting. I want you to raise all the targets for six seconds, just for sighting purposes. Do you understand?"
Here the bell rings continuously for ten seconds. Nothing daunted, the
Captain tries again.
"That you, Wagstaffe? Practice Seven, Table B!"
"T'chk, t'chk!" replies Captain Wagstaffe.
"Begin by raising all the targets for six seconds. Then raise them six times for five seconds each.—no, as you were! Raise them five times for six seconds each. Got that? I say, are you there? What's that?"
"Przemysl" replies the telephone—or something to that effect. "Czestochowa! Krsyszkowice! Plock!"
The Captain, now on his mettle, continues:—
"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.