CAMP HUMOUR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2638, 8 December 1915, Page 6

CAMP HUMOUR

GUNS WITH FOUR SIGHTS

THE SERGEANT OF THE GUARD

In one of the military camps an officer rodo up to headquarters and tied hia horse outside. Presently he heard a clatter and stamping of hoofs, and rushed out to find his steed had broken a rein and gone. He hurried along to find and secure it, and' met a soldier gazing interestedly into the distance. "Did you see the way my horse went?" the officer asked. "Did I not!" the man replied. "I never saw anything finer. Took two fences and—look! There he goes over the third, and still going strong. That's what I call a horse " Suddenly remembering himself, he saluted and said to the amazed officer: "Beg pardon, sir. Forgot myself; a bit of a rider myself. Shall I go after him?" He did so, and moreover, so 'tis said, rode the jumper back, over the fences. THE FORESIGHTS. _ Much has been written about the practice, obtaining in some armies, of sight Ing the rides to throw the bullets low, in order to counteract the tendency of excited men to fire high. But it is doubtful whether any rifles, thus deliberately made untrue, could equal tho performance of a rifle served out to a well-known New Zealand rifle shot in camp recently. The officer in charge of the squad of men was also a good rifle shot. The recruits were firing at a 25 yards' range, and doing badly; but the worst of all was the crack.shot. It is tho rule that all who do badly must remain and fire again with the nest squad. This tho rifleman had done, and still he could not find the target. At last he said to the officer:

"I don't know, sir, but there musi be something wrong with this rifle; 1 ought to do bettor than that."

"Let me have it," the officer said. He fired and missed; raised the sight and fired again; at last, with the sight at 300 yards he got an "outer." "It is the rifle's fault," he said. "I'll have it adjusted."

Other men then declared they were not such poor shots as the rifles made them appear. The officer tested their rifles, too. ■ "Yes," he agreed, "there must be something wrong; probably it's the foresights." It was then that a raw shot who had missed consistently said: "Four sights. Why, bless me, my gun's only got two, and I can't hit it either." "SERGEANT OF THE GUASQI" It was a windy day. < Hie sergeant of the guard at the camp, gates was leaning across the wire fence, close to the guard tent, talking to a pretty girl. Tlio conversation was absorbing. A fatigue party was picking up planks a few yards away. 'Each soldier looked enviously at tho burly sergeant and his companion; they talked away themselves about him, but he heard nothing. Presently lie was wanted at the guard tent. A corporal called: "Sergeant of the guard!" But it was very windy. The sergeant watched tho girl's face and she bridled and laughed at what he was sliving. "Sergeant of the guard!" Still the wind blew the, voice in the other direction. One of the fatigue party paused, with his plank poised half-way between the pile of timber and his shoulder. It was about time the sergeant heard the call, but it was not his place to call him. Still, something would have to be done to break up the tete-a-tete. So he held the plank high and let it fall with a crash on the pile. The girl jumped, and the sergeant turned angrily, only to catch the excited gestures of his corporal.

"Excuse me," he said hurriedly, and wont to the tent. It was the plankdropper's chance.

"Fine day, miss!" "Yes, it is," the girl replied, in some confusion.

"But very windy," he added. "Yes," she agreed, as the man and the plank made off in an elated manner.

NOT PERMITTED. The sight of the battalion quarterguard fascinated the young recruit. He watched the two sentries stiff as machinery, march to the ends of their beats, halt, and turn, march back till they met, halt face to face, and then turn and pace away. "I say," said the young recruit to. another of the fatigue party he belonged to, "are those blokes allowed to speafc to one another when they stop like that?" The old hand regarded him keenly to see whether he was springing a- joke on him. Seeing that the boy was earnest and innocent, he replied: "No, son. They daren't even cough in one another's faces."