"We’ll make you the highest ranking sergeant that ever made a private’s life miserable." Working slowly but more safely, Rip figured that slightly more than two and a half tubes would do the trick. Now to fire them. That meant finding a thorium crystal properly placed and big enough. There were plenty of crystals, so that was no problem.

Once, we accompanied our principal, by special invitation, to the Hasenheide, to witness the rifle practice, civil and military, among its heather and sandy hollows. Officers and rank and file alike were there; the officer practising with the private’s heavy gewehr, and the private in his turn with the light weapon of his superior in grade. There were some capital shots among them.