alled out excitedly:

"Not that way! Not that way! I said 'file right,' and you're going
left."

"We are filing right," answered some in the company. "You're turned
around; that's what's the matter with you."

So it was. He had forgotten that when standing facing the men, he must
give them orders in reverse from what the movement appeared to him. This
increased his confusion, until all his drill knowledge seemed gone from
him. The sight of his young lady friends, clad in masses of primary
colors, stimulated him to a strong effort to recover his audacity, and
bracing himself up, he began calling out the guide and step, with a
noisy confidence that made him heard all over the parade ground:

"Left! left! left! Hep! hep! hep! Cast them head and eyes to the right!"

Trouble loomed up mountainously as he approached the line. Putting a
company into its place on parade is one of the crucial tests of tactical
proficiency. To march a company to exactly the right spot, with every
man keeping his proper distance from his file-leader--"twenty-eight
inches from back to breast," clear down the column, so that when the
order "front" was given, every one turns, as if on pivot, and touches
elbows with those on each side of him, in a straight, firm wall of men,
without any shambling "closing up," or "side-stepping" to the right or
left,--to do all this at word of command, looks very simple and easy
to the non-military spectator, as many other very difficult things look
simple and easy to the inexperienced. But really it is only possible
to a thoroughly drilled company, held well in hand by a competent
commander. It is something that, if done well, is simply done well, but
if not done well, is very bad. It is like an egg that is either good or
utterly worthless.

Alspaugh seemed fated to exhaust the category of possible mistakes.
Coming on the ground late he found that a gap had been left in the line
for his company which was only barely sufficient to receive it when it
was aligned and compactly "dressed."

In his nervousness he halted the company before it had reached the right
of the gap by ten paces, and so left about one-quarter of the company
lapping over on the one to his left. Even this was done with an
unsightly jumble. His confusion as to the reversal of right and left
still abode with him. He commanded "right face" instead of "front," and
was amazed to see the whole one hundred well-drilled men whirl their
backs around t