“This is beginning to look like real war, now,” said Ned in delight, as he and his chums got their guns and bayonets ready for the work.
“What is it to be, trench or with the bags?” asked Bob.
“Bags,” answered Jerry, who had been reading the orders. “The trench work comes later.”
There are several kinds of bayonet drill and exercise, and among them are trench and bag work. In the former, which is only used after the youths have become somewhat familiar with the weapon, there are two lines of soldiers. One is down in a trench, and they are “attacked” by another line standing above them, the theory being that the party outside the trench is the attacking one.
Bag bayonet work is something on the same scale as tackling the dummy in football practice. On a wooden framework a number of canvas bags, filled with sawdust, shavings, hay or other soft material, are suspended. On each bag, which swings freely by two ropes, are painted two white dots. These, in a measure, correspond to the scarlet heart on the buffer of a fencer.
Standing in a row before the swinging bags, with leveled bayonets, the young soldiers endeavor to stab through the object as near the white spots as possible. This is to train their eyes.
Ned, Bob, and Jerry, with their comrades, were marched to the practice ground, and then, after some preliminary instruction and illustrative work by men proficient in the drill, the lads were allowed to do it themselves.
“It looks easy, but it’s hard,” declared Bob, when he had made several wild lunges, to the no small danger of the man next him.