‘I trust you all know what this is...’
‘Ask Charlton, his dad makes them,’ half-whispered Carmichael to the subalterns around him. One or two sniggered at the snobbish little dig, but the others were intent upon the new weapon.
‘...and the principle upon which it fires its ball?’ Hume frowned at Carmichael but wasn’t going to be distracted. There followed a ten-minute discourse on a rifle that, if they ever got their hands on it, would reduce their enemies’ life expectancy very dramatically indeed.
Morgan wondered if all this talk would ever really translate into war. There would be little difficulty in loading, gauging the range, aiming and firing one of these weapons—but at another Christian?
***
In the name of all that was holy why had he agreed to this? The rite-of-passage that wa
