“We’ll see,” said the Sergeant. “This wind ought to test ’em!”
Down in the hollow it rushed like a boulder-choked river, driving quick clouds across the sun: so that one minute, the eight-inch Bisley bull leaped forth like a headlight, and the next shrunk back into the grey-green grass of the butt like an engine backing up the line.
“Look here!” said the Sergeant, as the boys dropped into their places at the firing-point. “I warn you it’s a three-foot wind on the target, and freshening. You’ll get no two shots alike. Any boy that thinks he won’t do himself justice can wait for a better day.”
Nothing moved except one grin from face to face.
“No,” said the Sergeant, after a pause. “I don’t suppose a thunder-storm would shift you young birds. Remember what I’ve been telling you all this spring. Sighting shots, from the right!”
They went on one by one, carefully imitating the well-observed actions of their elders, even to the tapping of the cartridge on the rifle-butt. They scowled and grunted and compared notes as they set and reset their sights. They brought up their rifles just as shadow gave place to sun, and, holding too long, fired when the cheating cloud returned. It was unhappy, cold, nose-running, eye-straining work, but they enjoyed it passionately. At the end they showed up their score-cards; one twenty-seven, two twenty-fives, a twenty-four, and two twenty-twos. Boy Jones, his hands on his knees, had made no remark from first to last.
“Could I have a shot?” he began in a strangely meek voice.
But the chilled Sergeant had already whistled the marker out of the butt. The wind-flags were being collected by the youngsters, and, with a tinkle of spent cartridge-cases returned to the Sergeant’s bag, shooting ended.
“Not so bad,” said the Sergeant.
“One of those boys was hump-backed,” said Boy Jones, with the healthy animal’s horror of deformity.