s 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 strai