tfulness.

"Four bulls and one inner, I _think_, sir. I'm afraid I pulled that
last one off a bit."

The Captain is already at the telephone. For the moment this most
feminine of instruments is found to be in an accommodating frame of
mind. Captain Wagstaffe's voice is quickly heard.

"That you, Wagstaffe?" inquires the Captain. "I'm so sorry to bother
you, but could you make inquiries and ascertain when the marker on
Number Seven is likely to come out of the chloroform?"

"He has been sitting up and taking nourishment for some hours,"
replies the voice of Wagstaffe. "What message can I deliver to him?"

"None in particular, except that he has not signalled a single one of
Sergeant-Major Pumpherston's shots!" replies the Captain of D, with
crushing simplicity.

"Half a mo'!" replies Wagstaffe.... Then, presently--

"Hallo! Are you there, Whitson?"

"Yes. We are still here," Captain Whitson assures him frigidly.

"Right. Well, I have examined Number Seven target, and there are no
shots on it of any kind whatever. But there are ten shots on Number
Eight, if that's any help. Buck up with the next lot, will you? We are
getting rather bored here. So long!"

There was nothing in it now. D Company had finished. The last two
representatives of A were firing, and subalterns with note-books were
performing prodigies of arithmetic. Bobby Little calculated that if
these two scored eighteen points each they would pull the Company's
total average up to fifteen precisely, beating D by a decimal.

The two slender threads upon which the success of this enterprise hung
were named Lindsay and Budge. Lindsay was a phlegmatic youth with
watery eyes. Nothing disturbed him, which was fortunate, for the
commotion which surrounded him was considerable. A stout sergeant
lay beside him on a waterproof sheet, whispering excited counsels of
perfection, while Bobby Little danced in the rear, beseeching him to
fire upon the proper target.

"Now, Lindsay," said Captain Whitson, in a trembling voice, "you are
going to get into a good comfortable position, take your time, and
score five bulls."

The amazing part of it all was that Lindsay very nearly did score five
bulls. He actually got four, and would have had a fifth had not the
stout sergeant, in excess of solicitude, tenderly wiped his watery eye
for him with a grubby handkerchief just as he took the first pull for
his third shot.

Altogether he scored nineteen; and the galler