Rapid firing is "the alarm," and would mobilise a brigade of infantry within an hour or two.
On one occasion we were shooting at a somewhat difficult object about one hundred and fifty yards away. We were trying to hit it, standing, and had not succeeded. A group of some twenty men had collected, and they soon began to make facetious remarks. One offered to bring the target nearer. Another said he would stand target for a few shots—we shouldn't hit him. So we gave one or two of them our rifles and told them to hit it. Immediately they selected stones as rests, and lay down for their shot.
"Ah," said we, "we can do that; shoot as we do, standing, and without a rest."
"That," they said, "is not shooting—who shoots like that in war?"
But we were inexorable, and needless to say they failed to hit anywhere near.
The Montenegrins are good shots enough, if they can take long and deliberate aim, steadying their rifles on walls or rocks, but otherwise they are miserable marksmen.
Quite close to Podgorica there lives a hermit, a wonderful man who has hewn out of the living rock a tiny chapel, a store-room, and a passage leading to the chapel. He has only just completed it, and we inscribed our names in his new book as his first visitors.
VOIVODA MARKO