Military Training Camp for Business and Professional Men (Plattsburgh, N.Y.); Military education -- Fiction; New York (State) -- Fiction
In the afternoon we shot at 600 yards. We now had sandbag rests for our
left hands (not for our guns) and once more the captain showed his
foresight. He had us bring intrenching shovels and a dozen new burlap
bags, and soon we were provided with the best sandbags on the range. I
had the same nice little Haynes who had coached me on my second target.
Unsatisfied as I still am with my showing, I think he drilled into me
some idea of my errors, and my score again improved, standing at forty. I
feel better than if it had wavered up and down, even if the total had
been the same, and can reasonably argue that if the captain kept on
increasing the distance, say to 2000 yards, I should make a perfect
score. But many men, I find, did their worst at this distance, Randall
ending up at 24. Lucy has pegged steadily along, and got into the
thirties.
The supper-tables buzzed tonight as never before, every man having his
tale to tell, generally a tale of woe. Poor Knudsen is very sore, as his
last shot went into his neighbor's bullseye, and though the neighbor had
finished shooting, the shot could not be credited to Knudsen. There are
many other stories of misses that spoiled the score, and on the other
hand when a man has made a ricochet hit he is not inclined to brag of it.
Even those who from my point of view did very well are a little inclined
to grumble; and the only really satisfied man is Percy of Squad Nine, who
holds today's record.
Concerning Knudsen's miss, I now have the whole story. He had as scorer
an artillery sergeant who read the flags through field-glasses, and was
an unusually long time in scoring the last shot. At last he said "A
bull," and scored a five, which gave Knudsen a perfect record; but he,
suspecting something, made the man admit that the bulleye was in the
wrong target. Knudsen changed the score himself, a bit of personal
heroism that roused the wonder of Pickle, who told me the tale, and ended
"Chee, I couldn't a done it!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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