Squad, stand easy, and tell me what you can see on
that target. Lance-Corporal Ness, show me a pit-head."
Lance-Corporal Ness steps briskly forward and lays a grubby forefinger
on Bobby's "mine."
"Private Mucklewame, show me a burn."
The brook is at once identified.
"Private M'Leary, shut your eyes and tell me what there is just to the
right of the windmill."
"A wee knowe, sirr," replies M'Leary at once. Bobby recognises his
"low knoll"--also the fact that it is no use endeavouring to instruct
the unlettered until you have learned their language.
"Very good!" says Captain Wagstaffe. "Now we will go on to what is
known as Description and Recognition of Targets. Supposing I had sent
one of you forward into that landscape as a scout.--By the way, what
is a scout?"
Dead silence, as usual.
"Come along! Tell me, somebody! Private Mucklewame?"
"They gang oot in a procession on Setter-day efternoons, sirr, in
short breeks," replies Mucklewame promptly.
"A procession is the very last thing a scout goes out in!" raps
Wagstaffe. (It is plain to Mucklewame that the Captain has never been
in Wishaw, but he does not argue the point.) "Private M'Micking, what
is a scout?"
"A spy, sirr," replies the omniscient one.
"Well, that's better; but there's a big difference between the two.
What is it?"
This is a poser. Several men know the difference, but feel quite
incapable of explaining it.
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