Mothers seated on the steps may well start and clutch each other’s arms, for field guns are being dragged on now by straw-hatted detachments, and, to a brisk air from the band, tugged by long ropes around and around the deck.
“There he is,” cries Miss Threepenny, excitedly. “There he is again. And there he is once more.”
No time for Robert to take notice of the little woman’s shrill comments, even if the bustle allowed him to hear, for field guns are things that demand attention jealously. An order pulls them up short; Robert with eight other lads stopping their gun on the starboard side. Every boy panting; every boy with his flushed face directed towards the chief officer on the poop. A shrill whistle.
“Dismount!” shouts the chief officer.
Fierce attack on the guns, wheels off, axles unpinned, guns lifted, remainder of carriage pulled to pieces, all down flat on the deck, boy seated on them and looking up at the poop for comment.
“Fifteen seconds, Mr. Waltham.”
“Fifteen, sir,” says the chief officer respectfully; “fifteen as near as a toucher.”
“They did it in less time last week, Mr. Waltham.”
“They did it in less time last week, sir,” replies the chief officer.
The old captain shakes his head first at the scarlet-faced lads seated on the portions of their gun carriages and then at his watch, as though inclined to blame the watch as much as the boys. The instructor goes from one set of lads to another growling a word of advice.