When he was ten feet away, the range officer spotted him and saluted, raising his arm crisply until the fingers touched the stiff brim of his campaign hat.
"Good morning, sir," he barked.
"Good morning," Stecker said.
"Is there something special, sir?" the range officer asked.
"Just checking," Stecker said. "But how are the young gentlemen doing?"
"Not bad, sir," the range officer said. "I think we have two who are going to shoot High Expert."
"And the low end?"
"I think they're all going to qualify, sir," the range officer said.
"You think, Lieutenant?" Stecker asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he had just seen Maggie's Drawers (A red flag waved before a target to show a complete miss).
"Yes, sir," the range officer said.
"Think won't cut it, Lieutenant," Stecker said. "If one of the young gentlemen fails to qualify first time out, that means his instructors haven't been doing their job."
"Aye, aye, sir," the range officer said.
"I'm going to have a look around," Stecker said. "I won't need any company, and I don't want the pit officer to know I'm here."
"Aye, aye, sir," the range officer repeated.
Stecker walked erectly to the end of the firing line. There were twenty firing points, each occupied by two platoon leader candidates, one firing and one serving as coach. For each two firing points, there was a training NCO, so-called even though most of them were PFCs and not noncommissioned officers. A half dozen NCOs, all three stripe buck sergeants, moved up and down the line keeping an eye on the training NCOs and the firers.
The firing was near the end of the prescribed course. The young gentlemen were about to fire slow fire prone at bull's-eye targets five hundred yards down range. The course of fire would be twenty shots, with sixty seconds allotted for each one. The targets would be pulled and marked after each string of ten shots.
What they were doing now was firing "sighters." They had changed range and were permitted trial shots to see how they had done changing their sights.
The target before which Maggie's Drawers had flown was down in the pits. As Stecker watched, it came up. There was a black marker high on the right side of the target outside the scoring rings.
This young gentleman, Stecker thought wryly, had probably never held a gun in his hands before he became associated with the Marine Corps. Some people learned easily, and some didn't.
"Bullshit!" the firer said when he saw the marker, more in anger than embarrassment.
"Watch your mouth, Mister!" the training NCO snapped. The firer turned his head in annoyance. And then he recognized Stecker as an officer and looked down the range again. He didn't recognize me. Except as an officer. But I recognize him. That's the China Marine with the LaSalle convertible. That's surprising. A Marine noncom ought to be at least able to get them inside the scoring rings.
He watched as McCoy single-loaded another round. At least he knows enough not to mess with the sights, Stecker thought. That was probably a flier.
He watched as McCoy slapped the stock of the Garand into the socket of his arm and wiggled his feet to get in the correct position. And he thought he could detect the expelling of half a breath just before the Garand went off again.
The target dropped from sight. When it appeared again, there was another black marker, this time low and left-in other words on the opposite side of the target from the last spotter disk.
"Oh, bullshit!" McCoy said, furious.
His coach, another young gentleman, jabbed him with his elbow to remind him that he was being watched by an officer.
Stecker gave in to the impulse. He reached out and kicked the sole of the coach's boot. When the coach looked up at him in surprise, he gestured for him to get up.
Stecker lay down beside McCoy.
When McCoy looked at him, there was recognition in his eyes.
"All sorts of people get to be officers these days," Stecker said softly. "What seems to be your trouble?"
"Beats the shit out of me," McCoy said, still so angry- and perhaps surprised to see Stecker-that it was a moment before he appended, "Sir."
Stecker reached up and tried to wiggle the rear sight. Sometimes they came loose. But not there. And neither was the front sight when he tried it.
"Try it again," Stecker ordered, turning and holding his hand out for another loose round.
When McCoy reached for it, Stecker saw his hands. They were unhealthy white, and covered with open blisters.
"What did you do to your hands?"
"I've sanded a couple of decks (Sanding decks (cleaning them with sand and a brick) went back to the days of wooden-decked sailing ships. Now it was used as a punishment) lately, Captain," McCoy said.
Stecker wondered what McCoy had done to deserve punishment. The boy probably had an automatic mouth.
Stecker watched carefully as McCoy fired another round. There was nothing in his firing technique that he could fault. And while they were waiting for the target to be marked, he saw that McCoy had wads of chewed-up paper in his ears. It wasn't as good as Haiti earplugs, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing. And it reminded Stecker that this boy had been around a rifle range enough to know what he was doing. There was no explanation for his shooting all over the target, much less missing it completely, except that there was something really wrong with the rifle.
When the target appeared, the marker was black, just outside the bull's-eye.
"That's a little better," Stecker said.
"I should have split the peg with that one," McCoy said, furiously.
By that he meant that he was confident of his shot, knew where it had gone.
That's either bravado, or he means it. And there's only one way to find out.
"Get out of your sling," Stecker ordered. "And hand me the rifle."
As McCoy pulled the leather sling off his arm, Stecker turned to the training NCO and signaled that he wanted a clip of ammunition. When McCoy handed him the Garand, Stecker put the strap on his own arm and squirmed into the correct position.
"Call my shot," he said to McCoy. "I'm going to take out your two-hundred-yard target number."
McCoy looked at him in surprise. So there would be no confusion about which was the correct target, there were markers at each distance with four-inch-high numbers painted on short, flat pieces of wood. They were not designed as targets.
Stecker himself wondered why he was going to fire at the target number, then realized that he thought somebody might be fucking around with McCoy's target in the pits. If that was the case, which now seemed likely, he would have the ass of the pit officer.
You just don't fuck around in the pits. The Marine Corps does not think rifle marksmanship is an area for practical jokes.
Stecker lined up his sights and squeezed one off.
"You took a chip out of the upper-right corner, Captain," McCoy reported.
Maggie's Drawers flew in front of McCoy's target.
Stecker fired again.
"You blew it away, Captain," McCoy reported. Stecker snapped the safety in front of the trigger guard on, then slipped out of the sling.
"The piece is loaded," he said. "Be careful. Have a shot at the target marker. Number eighteen."
"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.
The target number disappeared with McCoy's first shot.
"Nineteen," Stecker ordered.
McCoy fired again. Half of the target number disappeared when the bullet split it.
"Do you think you can hit what's left?" Stecker asked.
He saw Maggie's Drawers being waved furiously in front of the target.
McCoy fired again, and the narrow half remaining of the target number disappeared.
"At targets of opportunity, fire at will," Stecker ordered, softly.