to grip the small of the stock
with the full hand, the thumb along the side, and with the forefinger to
take up the slack of the trigger till it engages the mechanism, and then
to take a little more, till presently the gun will go off. At this point,
while using the sling to secure a good aim, the shooter should squeeze,
that is, he should slowly and steadily contract his whole hand, all the
fingers together, till in a moment--Bang!

It sounds so easy!

On the galleries, then, we were tested for our understanding of this new
art. The size of the target and the distance, considered in relation to
the power of the two rifles, were about equal to service conditions at
five hundred yards. The weight and size of the gun made the test a fair
one. We tried out the two chief postures, sitting and prone, and had both
slow and rapid fire, or as the captain prefers to say, slow and
deliberate.

These are summaries and general facts. Personal details are: long service
in the two gangs, long waits for my turn, and five minutes with the gun.
"Be sure to shoot on Number Twelve target," warned the coach as he helped
me adjust the sling. "Now get your position right. Now put in the clip.
And now remember your squeeze." I was trying slow fire, handling a gun
for the first time since I was a boy. "The top of the U of the open sight
an inch below the bull," chanted the coach. "But the bullseye," I
complained, "dances all about." "Of course," said the coach. "Make it
dance less, hold as steady as you can, squeeze when the front sight is
under it.--There, you jerked!" So I did, but I squeezed a little better
as time went on, till I was pretty sure I was doing all right. The gun
didn't kick, and by my tenth shot I was fairly steady. I gave up the gun
after making sure it was empty, waited till all the rest had finished,
and at the order we walked forward with new targets, hung them in place
of the old, tore ours off the frames, and gave the frames over to the
tacking squad, while at the same time trying to compute our scores before
we filed up to the captain.

I was amazed and disgusted to find that three of my shots had missed the
target quite. To the captain, as he studied my target, I expressed my
mortification. "What target were you shooting on?" he asked, in the lingo
proper to our trade. I answered "Number Twelve." "Three shots shy," said
the captain, "and here's Number Fourteen lacking two hits. Where's Number
Thirteen?" "Here, sir