But this was not Captain Kirby of the drill field, abrupt and peremptory. He knelt beside me, coaxed, encouraged, purred. "Now, Mr. Godwin, this time you will do better." And actually I did, a four at seven o'clock. Once more he adjusted the sights and gave advice as to aim. "And squeeze!" he said. "Squeeze!" I made a five at six o'clock--only a nipper, but still a bull! Someone else coming for him, he left me with a "See, you're shooting better!" And I believed him. That is what he was doing all day, correcting, advising, giving confidence. Every man after shooting brought his score-book to him, and was told how to improve his work. But it was too late for me to make a good score on this target: I made but twenty-two. Yet other men did worse, nine, eleven, and even four! Corder, disgusted, reported a twenty. Knudsen was quietly pleased with his thirty-nine. Then I hunted up David, and found him just as Randall approached with a "Lucy, what did you make?" David acknowledged a twenty-one, and Randall gloated over his own forty-two. When he had gone, I said "He ought to shoot, being pure animal. He has no nerves." "Hasn't he?" demanded David, meaning, "I know he has." But he would say no more. I found that the men with low scores were more troubled about the effect on the company total, and the captain's record, than they were for their own credit. But as for this game of shooting, it is certainly a test of nerve. Nothing else can quite equal it--the strain to get position, to line the sights just right, to hold steady, and then to squeeze. By me on the firing-line the irregular shots were loud and startling, and people were talking and calling all around. Golf, with its reverence for the man about to play, is mild compared to this. The nervous strain of firing is greater, the bodily shock is abrupt and jarring, you have no real chance to make up for a miss by later brilliance or by any luck. No, golf teaches patience and it requires poise, but--as played by the ordinary man--it is no such game as this. And as between the experts, target shooting is still the bigger sport. The knowledge and judgment required to meet the varying conditions, the steadiness demanded, the fact that the rifleman is preparing himself to meet his country's greatest emergencies--these put golf (and you know I have loved the game) into the lower place. I put on my greatcoat again, took the nap that longed to be taken, and then, refreshed and more confident, went to my next turn.