Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/59

Rh wire if a friend of Colonel Stimson's hadn't presented the regiment with sixty miles or so of heavy twisted pair. Yet we were quite proud of that net. We had done our best according to the sacred precepts of Volume III. One shudders trying to conceive what it would have done to us at the front. Anyway it worked most of that afternoon in the winter peace of Long Island. We limited our faith, however. On nearby crests lonely figures etched against a sullen sky the broad strokes of the semaphore code. We had even erected two wireless stations, using Lieutenant Church's home-made set. They didn't work particularly, but they looked exactly as well as if they had. It took an expert to know one way or the other.

The men, standing waist-deep in the underbrush, shaking from the cold, and, probably, a little, too, from the excitement, craned their necks in the direction of the target, 2,000 yards away.

The white flag on the hill continued to flutter, advertising that there was no firing and that the range was safe. We knew, until white was replaced by red, nothing of interest to us would happen. The gray afternoon waned. Cannoneers blew impatiently on their hands. The ranks in the underbrush stamped their feet and waved their arms, setting up a crackling like the advance of a vast army. Little groups ran up and down the road to keep warm. Whispers lost their stealth, became audible, burst into an impatient chorus.

“Why don't they shoot and let us go home?"

Through the mysterious army channels of rumor drifted down a fact.

"Somebody was seen on the range nearly an hour ago, and they haven't been able to find him."

"Where's Hoyt? Why doesn't Hoyt get him off?"

"Hoyt's on the range, seeking the cheerful villain."

The executive strode to a man stretched beneath a