"I'd like to be in the artillery, too," he said, "but I don't know anything about guns, and that's a fact. But the infantry?"
"You'd be no better there," Croquier answered frankly. "You couldn't even pack your kit. You don't understand the orders. You've never drilled. You don't know the first thing about it. With continuous work eight hours a day, it takes at least two years to make a real soldier. You don't know how to use a single weapon. You couldn't fix a bayonet. You don't know the workings of a Lebel rifle, which, by the way, is the only repeating rifle used in modern armies."
"What are all the rest?"
"Magazine rifles."
"What's the difference?"
This time Croquier was at fault. He called to a soldier who was strolling near by, smoking his pipe.
"As a matter of fact," the soldier said, when the question was put to him, "all magazine rifles are repeaters, though they are not called so. The Lebel is an old type and has a tube fitted in the rifle under the barrel, the cartridge being fed onto the carrier by a spiral spring and plunger, the advancing bolt carrying the cartridge into the chamber."
"And the other armies, what gun have they got?"
"Germans and Belgians have a Mauser, Austrians use a Mannlicher—and the British have a short Lee-Enfield. All of them have magazines under the bolt way for containing cartridges and can be loaded with a clip, which is quicker."