There was nothing in it now.  D Company had finished.  The last two representatives of A were firing, and subalterns with note-books were performing prodigies of arithmetic.  Bobby Little calculated that if these two scored eighteen points each they would pull the Company’s total average up to fifteen precisely, beating D by a decimal.

The two slender threads upon which the success of this enterprise hung were named Lindsay and Budge.  Lindsay was a phlegmatic youth with watery eyes.  Nothing disturbed him, which was fortunate, for the commotion which surrounded him was considerable.  A stout sergeant lay beside him on a waterproof sheet, whispering excited counsels of perfection, while Bobby Little danced in the rear, beseeching him to fire upon the proper target.

“Now, Lindsay,” said Captain Whitson, in a trembling voice, “you are going to get into a good comfortable position, take your time, and score five bulls.”

The amazing part of it all was that Lindsay very nearly did score five bulls.  He actually got four, and would have had a fifth had not the stout sergeant, in excess of solicitude, tenderly wiped his watery eye for him with a grubby handkerchief just as he took the first pull for his third shot.

Altogether he scored nineteen; and the gallery, full of congratulations, moved on to inspect the performance of Private Budge, an extremely nervous subject:  who, thanks to the fact that public attention had been concentrated so far upon Lindsay, and that his ministering sergeant was a matter-of-fact individual of few words, had put on two bulls—­eight points.  He now required to score only nine points in three shots.

Suddenly the hapless youth became aware of the breathless group in his rear.  He promptly pulled his trigger, and just nicked the outside edge of the target—­two points.

“I doot I’m gettin’ a thing nairvous,” he muttered apologetically to the sergeant.

“Havers!  Shut your held and give the bull a bash!” responded that admirable person.

The twitching Budge, bracing himself, scored an inner—­three points.

“A bull, and we do it!” murmured Bobby Little.  Fortunately Budge did not hear.

“Ye’re no daen badly,” admitted the sergeant grudgingly.

Budge, a little piqued, determined to do better.  He raised his foresight slowly; took the first pull; touched “six o’clock” on the distant bull—­luckily the light was perfect—­and took the second pull for the last time.

Next moment a white disc rose slowly out of the earth and covered the bull’s-eye.

So Bobby Little was able next morning to congratulate his disciples upon being “the best-shooting platoon in the best-shooting Company in the best-shooting Battalion in the Brigade.”

Not less than fifty other subalterns within a radius of five miles were saying the same thing to their platoons.  It is right to foster a spirit of emulation in young troops.