DESPATCH.

"Stand fast!" the instructor bellowed, and while the detachment
stiffened to immobility he went on, without stopping to draw breath,
bellowing other and less printable remarks. After he had finished these
he ordered "Detachment rear!" and taking more time and adding even more
point to his remarks, he repeated some of them and added others,
addressing abruptly and virulently the "Number" whose bungling had
aroused his wrath.

"You've learnt your gun drill," he said, "learned it like a
sulphur-crested cockatoo learns to gabble 'Pretty Polly scratch a
poll'; why in the name of Moses you can't make your hands do what your
tongue says 'as me beat. You, Donovan, that's Number Three, let me hear
you repeat the drill for Action Front."

Donovan, standing strictly to attention, and with his eyes fixed
straight to his front, drew a deep breath and rattled off:

"At the order or signal from the battery leader or section commander,
'Halt action front!' One orders 'Halt action front!'--At the order from
One, the detachment dismounts, Three unkeys, and with Two lifts the
trail; when the trail is clear of the hook, Three orders 'Limber drive
on.'"

The instructor interrupted explosively.

"You see," he growled, "you know it. Three orders 'Limber drive on.'
You're Three! but did you order limber drive on, or limber drive off,
or drive anywhere at all? Did you expect drivers that would be sitting
up there on their horses, with their backs turned to you, to have eyes
in the backs of their heads to see when you had the trail lifted, or
did you be expectin' them to thought-read that you wanted them to drive
on!"

Three, goaded at last to a sufficiency of daring, ventured to mutter
something about "was going to order it."

The instructor caught up the phrase and flayed him again with it. "'Was
going to,'" he repeated, "'was going to order it.' Perhaps some day,
when a bullet comes along and drills a hole in your thick head, you
will want to tell it you 'was going to' get out of the way. You maybe
expect the detachment to halt and stand easy, and light a cigarette,
and have a chat while you wait to make up your mind what you're going
to say, and when you're going to say it! And if ever you get past
recruit drill in the barracks square, my lad, and smell powder burnt in
action, you'll learn that there's no such thing as 'going to' in your
gun drill. If you're slow at it, if you fumble your fingers, and tie
knots in you