Dear Mother:—

We have had a long day on the rifle range, slow fire at three hundred, five hundred, and six hundred yards, working for a total of 50 on each target, and a possible grand total of 250 when, some other day, we have our two tries at rapid fire. The work was hard for some of us, the coaches and scorers, exciting for the rest. The captain worked hard from first to last, trying to make it possible for us, with our slight preparation, to qualify as marksmen, with a total of 160, or perhaps even to do better, as sharpshooters scoring 190, or as expert riflemen with 210 points. Our new overcoats, for which we have him to thank, saved the lives of many of us, for there was the keenest little north wind blowing. I lay down in mine once, and slept very comfortably; and all the fellows were grateful for the protection. There isn’t a man in the company that hasn’t done his best today for the captain’s sake, if not for his own.

Our company were waked a little early, and were extra prompt to breakfast, which was extra good (eggs and bacon!)—again the captain’s foresight. He started us promptly for the range, surely the oddest sight that we have presented so far. In front went a huddle of men with benches, chairs, and tables, lamps for blacking the sights (lest they glitter and confuse the eye), the captain’s megaphone, and the ammunition. We followed at route step in our greatcoats, some of us carrying ponchos, and except for our rifles and belts, no other equipment. Discipline was relaxed today, for the captain, hopeful of good scores, was as gentle as a lamb.

Of the three dozen targets we had twelve for our share, and companies I and J used the remainder. In front of our section of the line the company flag was set up, the benches were placed, the scorers took their seats, the platoons were ranged for their turns. Companies I and J came marching on, and before very long we were rapidly getting used to the orderly disorder of the range. The coaches were called up for their opening try, and suddenly I heard the order for the first round to begin. The shots began to rap out, sharp and heavy.

Behind each set of three targets a platoon was stationed. The men stood and watched, or sat and waited, or lay and tried their squeeze. Orderlies, sergeants, and platoon commanders hurried to and fro. Loretta came to our group and said “Don’t stand there, men, like a flock of sheep”; but when we paid no attention, faded away. The Captain’s powerful voice was every few moments heard: “Another man here on target 36. Fleming in hospital? Then send up the next man. We must waste no time.” “Ammunition here at No. 27.” “Every man ready with his score card and his score book.” In but a few minutes the firing, which at the first was so noticeable, became a commonplace, yet it was worth listening to. From along the line came scattered reports, like the blows of a heavy rod on very heavy carpet, now slowly separate, now close together, now sharply double. In answer the whip-like echoes slashed out from the woods. The drab men stood, or sauntered, or hurried; the figures of the shooters lay prone, each with an eager coach crouching over him, correcting his position, urging steadiness, repeating “Squeeze! Squeeze!” Behind the line sat scorers at their wooden stands, behind them the first sergeant received the records. The company flags, marking the line beyond which the waiting men might not advance, flapped steadily in the breeze.

And in front of all, three hundred yards away, stood up the gray sandbank, the stopper of the bullets. Some shots went over, to land in the distant woods beyond, whose encircling signs warn all wanderers to keep out. “There are hornets in those woods today, gentlemen,” said the captain yesterday as we passed beyond the range. “We will keep away.” There are thirty-six blackboards numbered in order, and between them are the great targets of manila paper, with their circles and the heavy spot at the centre. As a man shoots his target sinks, its mate immediately rises in the same spot, and then upon its face appears, moved by the markers concealed in the pit below, the record of the shot. A red flag slowly waved—a miss!—a black cross on a white circle, a red disk, or best of all, a white disk that obliterates “the bull.” The scorers interpret. “A four at three o’clock,” “a three at nine o’clock,” “a clean five, high up,” “a nipper four at twelve o’clock,” and with a little chuckle, “a ricochet five!”

Over it all, behind the butts, against the low clouds, rose a silent blue hill, one of the distant Adirondacks.

In spite of our new greatcoats it grew chilly waiting. I took my time, wrote notes of this for you, listened, watched. At last I was called to the bench among those whose turn was next. There at the smoking lamp I blackened my sights, and then carefully laying the gun on the rack I sat down, still in my greatcoat, and while others fidgeted with impatience, or shivered in their sweaters, I remembered that after all I was only a civilian, and remained calm.

My name being called at last, I went forward to the little rise where, beside a white stake, I was to shoot. I adjusted my sling and lay down to the left of the stake; to the right was Lucy, tense and pale. My coach was a stranger; his was good Clay. My coach tried in vain to get me to take the position he preferred; it hurt and strained me, and he gave up. As I slowly got the position I was used to, working my elbows into the sand, bracing my toes, keeping my body close to the ground, my left hand twisted in the sling and supporting the barrel, my right at the trigger and stock, and my cheek at the butt, to my left a rifle heavily spoke, and in spite of cotton my ear rang. Then Lucy shot. I heard the scorer say, “Mr. Farnham, a miss!” and I chuckled as I prepared to shoot.

My coach knelt over me and repeated “Squeeze!” I got the sights in line, the bull in place above the front sight, which was—or should have been—on a line with the top of the U of the open sight, for I was afraid of the peep sight. “Are you shooting on twenty-eight?” asked the coach. I verified the number of my target, then tried to hold the wavering muzzle steady, and for the first time tightened my hand-grip on the trigger of a rifle capable of killing at two miles. It jumped sharply in my hands, I saw the red flame at the muzzle as I heard the report, and felt myself kicked smartly in the shoulder. Then, spent with all this tension, I relaxed my grip and collapsed on my face.

There was a discouraging pause as I lay, waiting to hear the hit announced. Then the scorer cried “Mark Twenty-eight!” The man at the field telephone repeated the order. I knew the fact—at the butts the marker had not heard over his head the ripping crack of the bullet, and had to be told that I had fired. I imagined the slow waving of the red flag. Then I heard the scorer briefly announce, “Mr. Godwin, miss!”

Well, I shot two more shots, both on the target, but both poor. My coach did not seem able to help me. Then Clay, who in spite of his work with Lucy had kept an eye on me, spoke in a low voice to my coach, who rose and departed. In a moment the captain came, a great relief to me, depressed with such failure. He looked at my score, asked a couple of questions as to my sight and aim, took the gun and adjusted the sights, and stayed to coach me himself.

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.

This was at five hundred yards. If you will consider that I was shooting from our house across the meadow, across the railroad bridge, at a circle twenty inches in diameter (about the size of our largest pewter platter) you will understand my task. But I was fussed to begin with, for someone had taken my rifle from the rack, and I had therefore not blacked the sights, nor adjusted the sling, of the one that I hastily borrowed. As I came to the stand I was met by an artillery corporal, evidently a kind of super-coach, who curtly ordered me to do the one thing and the other, and hurried me to my place. I told him how the captain had wanted the sights set for this distance; I had put them so. “That doesn’t go here,” he said, readjusted them himself, and ordered me to lie down. He was so overbearing, and I was so uncertain of my rights, that I took my position and fired my shot. A miss! He blamed me severely, and in general treated me like the dirt under my feet. At my next shot, a poor two, he said, “There you go, thinking you know all about it, and jerking your trigger again.” I said, “On the contrary, I’m not used to the pull of this trigger, and the gun went off before I expected.” From that time on I paid no more attention to him, and perhaps from my manner he saw that it was just as well to let me alone; but he attacked the other man on this target, who feebly protested, and who made a wretched score. My score was coaxed along by our company coach, a nice chap named Haynes, who was most interested and sympathetic. As for me, the artilleryman vexed me so that I shot to kill him, and by imagining him at the target made a thirty-six.

It was an entirely new sensation, to be so bedevilled by such a man, and to know that in wartime I could not reply. When at noon we were marched back to camp and dismissed I sought out Haynes and asked, “What is your opinion of that artillery coach?” Said he, “I’m going to speak to the captain about him.” “Thanks,” I said. “You’ll save me the trouble.” And when again I came back to the post in the afternoon, though the corporal was there, he was very quiet and good.

This incident makes me doubt the value, for such volunteers as we, of the regular non-coms whom they hope to have here next year, if by that time the troops are off the border. What help could such an overbearing conceited drill-master, with no inkling of our difficulties or our point of view, give to such a squad as ours? Would he last a week out of hospital, or we a week out of arrest? No, give us a Plattsburg veteran of one camp as corporal, and appoint as sergeants those who have served two, and we shall come on faster. Further, more men would thus be trained for responsible positions.

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!”

Here is a story of Lieutenant Pendleton, told me by a man who watched the incident. Our top-sergeant was scoring badly at six hundred yards, and the lieutenant said, “Let me try your gun.” So he lay down, and without putting his arm in the sling, rested the gun on the bag, drew it tightly into the shoulder by a hand-grip of the strap, and fired. It was a “two at one o’clock,” which means that the shot struck the outer side of the target about the line, on a clock face, between one o’clock and the centre. “Your sight is too high,” said he, and corrected it. Then he tried again, and got a “three at three o’clock,” which means that he struck on the level of the bull, but still out at the right. “You must correct for windage,” said he then. “I’ll give her one and a quarter.” So once more, with the same rest and grip, he fired. Before the targets could be changed and the shot marked the lieutenant got up, gave the gun to the sergeant, and walked away, saying, “That’s a bull’s eye. You can depend on that sighting, sergeant.” Then the scorer called the shot. A bull’s eye it was, and the sergeant went on to shoot a string of them.

There is some pleasure in being drilled by such men as our officers. I wish you could see the lieutenant on parade, in his best clothes, which somehow are more becoming to him than the undress uniform, in which Kirby shows best. Watch Pendleton walking with his springy, tireless step, always with his eye on us. A dandy he is then, but one of the fighting dandies, an athlete in good training, and a man that knows his business.

Our day was so completely taken up by the shooting that at the end it was too late even for Retreat, and we in the middle of our washing up watched the other battalion at parade, stood at attention while the band played the Star-Spangled Banner, and saluted at the end. I have spent much of the evening writing; and now, the first call having blown, the camp is getting ready for bed. In the inner company tent I am left alone, the other letter-writers and diarists having drifted away. In the outer, open tent, where the conferences are held, three men are sitting at a corner of the big table, still discussing their scores, their rifles, the squeeze, the kick, the serious mistake it is to cant the gun. And here is a fact for you. Captain Kirby declares that the rifles do not kick, and in his own case he is probably right. But I got today a very sharp recoil each time I fired, so that by noon my arm was lame to the elbow, and my shoulder sore. I expected much difficulty in the afternoon, and the first shot hurt consumedly; but whether or not I learned to hold the rifle better, or whether the gradual toning up of my muscles is accustoming me to what comes, the rest of the kicks seemed to act as a sort of massage, so that I forgot about them, and tonight I am entirely free of lameness.

Outside, at the head of the company street, the fire is gradually dying down. Wood is always provided for it, a hole is dug, the men feed it as long as they please, and in the morning the police squad, I suppose, smooth the ground. On benches or on the ground the men sit about the fire, sing, discuss, or chat in groups. There is in the store tent an easy chair made of rough lumber and sacking; when the captain can be induced to stay after conference the men bring it out, seat him in it, and make him talk. On his own doings he is silent, but on the work of the camp, the formations, drill, skirmish work, patrolling, outpost duty, and especially just now the ways of his beloved tool, the rifle, he has much to say. Around him are men often much older than he, others who in civil life command several times his pay, fellows who have every luxury at command, as well as chaps bred and indeed wedded to the most peaceable pursuits. But they all are here for a purpose; they never talk patriotism but they all act it; and everything he can tell them that bears on their efficiency as soldiers they will pump from him if they possibly can. It is fine to see how they recognize in him complete mastery of the subject that occupies us all, and how they sit at his feet for instruction.

But he has left us nearly half an hour ago, and the groups that remain are slowly separating, as one by one the men go to their tents. I can tell you just what is happening in ours. The lantern is lighted and hanging on the pole. Clay is probably finishing a letter to his “mother.” Bannister is doubtless already abed, but ready from his cot to add a sleepy jest to the quiet talk that is slowly going on. Reardon is putting the last stamps on the sheaf of post-cards that he daily sends, for he, you must understand, has more correspondents at home than any of the rest of us. Rather big and burly, the quietest of men, with a very active eye but very intensely committed to the minding of his own business, I know him to be the most popular man in his own little town, where as the managing clerk of the grocery he knows every man, woman, and child in the place. He knows the taste of each, what he habitually needs or demands, whether to trust or require cash. He gets through his day without a clash with anyone. And knowing both his customers and the market he looks after the needs of the town, warns of a rise in prices, calls attention to special bargains, advises to lay in a stock of this or that. They miss him now that he’s gone; I know it by the pleasure he takes in the letters and post-cards that come daily, bits from which he cannot help reading out to us—from the Civil War veteran who half believes in Plattsburg, and half doesn’t; the drug-store clerk that has to go off on his vacation alone; the “boss” that has nothing personal to say, but quotes the market changes; the neighbor who doesn’t quite venture to trust to the post the doughnuts she wishes she might send. And nightly Reardon sits on his cot and writes in the dim light careful answers to every message.

Lucy and Corder are putting themselves to bed most systematically, Corder because of his middle-aged habit, Lucy on account of that aristocratic cleanliness in which he has been scrupulously bred. They have their system and their order, the toilet, the costume, the making of the bed, all very careful and precise. Knudsen, still dressed, is lolling on his cot and jollying; this is the time of day when he most comes out of himself, and I know that presently when I approach the tent it will be his ringing tenor that I shall hear. He is poking fun at the others, cursing that last shot on the range, interrupting Reardon and Clay in their writing, philosophizing on his favorite subject, baseball. Yet if you get a little closer to him you find that he has interests that it takes a little coaxing to disclose: religious convictions that he has changed with his growth, curious hard business experiences that make him declare that he is a self-seeker, while you have only to watch him with Lucy to know that he is not. Yet he sedulously knocks and batters at every feminine quality that the boy discloses, and will exaggerate any statement if he thinks you suspect him of tenderness.

I shall presently make a dash, for the tent, snatch my tooth-brush and make for the spigot, and bring back a basin of water for my feet. Then Knudsen will bestir himself and race me for bed, at the same time that Reardon lays by his pen and accepts our warning. We crawl between the blankets, nine over us tonight. I shall put my poncho over me next, and my overcoat on that, and with the tent-wall looped up shall be practically outdoors.

Last of all Pickle will come slipping in from some rendezvous with friends. He sleeps in his clothes, minus shoes and leggings, and he is likely to be curled up before I am.

And then float to us the notes of Taps. “Love, good night. Must thou go...?” It is the signal. The last one of us puts out the lantern, and it is soon “Good night, boys,” and silence. Usually I go to sleep at once; if not I soon hear the feet of two of the sergeants in the street and see the gleam of their lantern. They come from tent to tent, enter ours and throw the light on each cot, and pass on. Often I hear from the neighboring tents a sleepy “Good night, sergeant,” but never yet the question “Who sleeps in that cot?” A high average, then, of obedience to the rules. The men are here for business.

I have lingered almost too long. Good night!