Thus, with the assistance of the corporal and of his comrades, the new conscript settles to his work. Within a couple of months he has begun to understand the principle of this marching business, and, in common with all youngsters, he takes a pride in his new accomplishment. It is a tiring business, _certainement_, but then, what would you? A man must be taught, and, after all, it is only for two years, at the end of which one may go back to the cow or the goats, or the kerbstone, or the life of one who sits above these things--and Pierre, who occupies the corner bed, is an amusing rascal; it is not so bad, this military life, after all, but one would there were a little more money and a little more time. However....
The conscript must be taught to shoot. First of all, and not infrequently as a matter of necessity, he is taught the difference between the butt and the muzzle of a rifle. He is taught how to hold the thing, how to clean it, how to press its trigger, how to load it, and how to adjust its sights. He is made familiar with the weapon in the fullest sense of the word "familiar," for shooting is not altogether a matter of blazing away ammunition; the good shot is the man who has a thorough knowledge of the various parts of his weapon, and who has been taught to nurse it and care for it just as the Breton lad nursed and cared for his cow. The equivalent of the British Morris tube is requisitioned to instruct the conscript in the first elements of firing a rifle. Across a large white target a thin black line is drawn horizontally, and the conscript is set to firing at this target until he can make reasonably consistent practice on the black line. His corporal is at hand to correct defects, and his sergeant is there too, to instruct and ever to instruct. By and by the conscript begins to feel with regard to his shooting as he feels about the marching. One must learn, and rifle shooting is not an unpleasant business, though the cleaning of the rifle is another matter, and they are wonderfully particular about the way in which it is done. That corporal and that sergeant must have eyes behind them.
Instruction in the use of the bayonet is very largely a similar sort of business, a matter of perpetual care on the part of the instructors and of gradually increasing efficiency on the part of the conscript. Then there is the gymnastic class, by means of which limbs are made supple, and muscles strengthened--it is only by continuous training that the marvellous efficiency to which the French conscript attains in the short space of two years is compassed. There is no "furlough season" as British troops know it; the conscript goes up to work all the time, and in that period of work he is transformed from hobbledehoy to man.