"Yes, sirr."
"Very good. Let the platoon practise describing targets to one another, Mr. Little. Don't be too elaborate. Never employ either the clock or finger method if you can describe your target without. For instance: Left of windmill—triangular cornfield. At the nearest corner—six hundred—rapid fire! is all you want. Carry on, Mr. Little."
And leaving Bobby and his infant class to practise this new and amusing pastime, Captain Wagstaffe strolls away across the square to where the painstaking Waddell is contending with another squad.
They, too, have a landscape target—a different one. Before it half a dozen rifles stand, set in rests. Waddell has given the order: Four hundred—at the road, where it passes under the viaduct—fire! and six privates have laid the six rifles upon the point indicated. Waddell and Captain Wagstaffe walk down the line, peering along the sights of the rifles. Five are correctly aligned: the sixth points to the spacious firmament above the viaduct.
"Hallo!" observes Wagstaffe.
"This is the man's third try, sir," explains the harassed Waddell. "He doesn't seem to be able to distinguish anything at all."
"Eyesight wrong?"
"So he says, sir."
"Been a long time finding out, hasn't he?"
"The sergeant told me, sir," confides Waddell, "that in his opinion the man is 'working for his ticket.'"