We Were Soldiers

16. Target Practise

The journey back to camp wasn't the swift race Bucky had been expecting. The tank did alright on the dusty road—it did better than the jeeps, in fact, because its wide tracks meant no wheels to fall into potholes—but as soon as they left the road, the tank lost about a third of its speed. Bucky, who'd been hanging back behind it on the road to avoid the huge cloud of dust it tossed up, had to shift down a gear so that he didn't overtake across fields. And Dancing, who was leading in his jeep, was forced to slow so that he didn't leave the rest of the small convoy behind.

It was later afternoon before they reached their destination. Bucky wanted nothing more than to crawl into whatever tent had been set up as a temporary barracks, and lie in the dark for a few hours. The steel helmets afforded no real facial screen, because that would have compromised a soldier's field of vision. As a result, the uncompromising Mediterranean sun had found them all, burning them on their cheeks and noses.

Sadly, a lie down in a dark tent wasn't to be. The camp was in disarray. The colonel's command tent had been raised, along with the medical tent and a couple of other structures, but the tents which were to house the troops were still in the process of being erected. As soon as they pulled up by the other vehicles, Dancing jumped out of his jeep.

"I'm going to inform the colonel of our return. Help the rest of the men assemble the tents."

He was off immediately, no doubt to see whether the success of recovering the tank would lead to an immediate promotion. Bucky shook his head. The guy had no idea about how to lead.

He turned to the team, who were just as dust-covered and sunburned as he. "Good work," he told them. "Take five, get a drink of water, then find something to do. If you're not busy, at least look it, or someone might assign you to something less pleasant than putting up tents."

They found the 107th on the edge of the camp, busy putting up the tents which were to be their home for the next few hours. A pang of guilt gnawed at Bucky when he realised these tents, and all the others, were probably the large items of equipment that the 370th had carried from the last camp site. Heavy tents, on top of their own gear. It didn't seem fair. He decided, then, that the 107th would carry their own tents tomorrow.

The summer sun had been no less harsh on the men who'd been forced to walk rather than ride in a jeep. If anything, it had been more harsh; they were all red-faced and sweating, and if the sky didn't cloud over soon, it was only gonna get worse. He greeted a few of the men and offered encouraging words as he passed by with his his team of intrepid jeep riders, and found Wells assembling a series of poles, which Carrot and a couple of the others were inserting into the tent's rigid sleeves.

"Don't s'pose you found a pub along the way, and picked us up some nice, cold beers?" Wells asked. He used the shoulder of his jacket to wipe his forehead before sweat could trickle down into his eyes, then winced as the rough jacket material rubbed against his sunburned skin.

"Sorry, all we found was a tank."

"Pity." He tossed another pole to Carrot, then flashed Bucky a grin. "After dinner, Phillips is holding a friendly inter-regiment competition to find the best marksmen. I entered you in it in your absence."

"Me? Why?"

"Well, you're good at darts, and good at baseball, so I figure you must be a good shot with a gun, too."

"One of these days, you volunteering me for stuff is gonna get me in trouble."

"One of these days, maybe. But not today."

"Alright," he agreed. A little competition might be fun. He generally did well at whatever he put his mind to, but he always did better when he had someone to challenge him. "Who else is in it?"

"Dunno." Wells stood up and dusted his hands off against his pants. It only made them dirtier. "Phillips only wanted five entrants from each regiment. Weiss has put one of his guys forward… Private Hall. Do you know him?" Bucky shook his head. "Anyway, you and Hall makes two. I figured we'd see who else wants to sign up."

"I'm the best marksman around," said Hodge. He strode forward with his chest all puffed up. "I never miss anything I aim for."

"Except Agent Carter," Mex reminded him with a snicker.

"Stuff it, Hernandez, that's a work in progress," Hodge shot back. "Just sign me up, Sarge, and I'll win that competition for the 107th."

"Ah wouldn't mind giving it a try," drawled Tex. "My grandpa says Ah'm a pretty good shot. He used to take me huntin', back before he lost his leg in the rodeo."

"What'd you hunt?" Wells asked him.

"Anything that moved."

"That'll do, I guess," Bucky said. "You two help the guys finish putting this tent up, and I'll tell Phillips you're in the contest." As the two privates jumped to work, he turned to his friend. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Don't you wanna enter the competition too?"

Wells offered a noncommittal shrug. "Nah. I'm as good a shot as the next guy, but I'm nothing special. Now, if it were a darts competition, I'd be there and kick your ass," he grinned.

"In your dre—"

"Ah, Sergeant Barnes, Sergeant Wells," said Dancing. He appeared looking like the cat who'd got the cream… and then discovered the proverbial fly in his cream, when he looked at Bucky and Wells. Probably got high praise for playing fetch with a tank. Probably didn't mention how Davies was the one who'd figured out how to bribe the ferry operator. "Why is it that whenever I see the two of you, you're always standing around doing nothing but talking? In case you hadn't noticed, this is the army, not a ladies' tea circle. Now, Colonel Hawkswell wants two foxholes dug on this side of the camp, and he wants it done an hour ago. You'll man them tonight in two-man teams, and no napping on the job."

Dancing turned and left. Wells pulled out his entrenching tool and fit the blade into the handle, gripping it tightly. "Do you think anybody would miss Lieutenant Brown-Nose tomorrow, if we buried him in a shallow foxhole grave tonight?" He shot a look of pure hatred at the departing lieutenant's back.

Bucky didn't have the energy left in him to try to cheer his friend up. He was tired, dusty, sunburned, and now he was gonna have to dig a trench and stay up all night on top of that. "Who do you want in your foxhole?" he asked, unable to stop the weary sigh that followed.

"Agent Carter."

"Realistically who do you want in your foxhole?"

"Ugh. I hate reality. Gimme Franklin, I guess. He's probably one of the least annoying to sit in a hole with for six hours."

"I'll take Carrot, then." He pulled out his own entrenching tool, and wished that he had something bigger to dig with. "Let's get started."

Digging a hole in the ground large enough for two men to crouch in would have been difficult at the best of times. Now, with the ground baked hard by the midday sun, and with shovels too short to allow them to be held in the hands and driven into the ground with a foot, it was an even bigger challenge. Five minutes into his hole, and Bucky was streaming with sweat and his lungs felt like they were on fire. There was simply no cool air to be had.

Thankfully, the cavalry arrived. A group from the 107th finished putting up the tents and joined in the digging, and before too long they had two fully serviceable foxholes spaced twenty-five metres apart. After the frenzy of digging was over, they all sank down to catch their breath. Lieutenant Nestor found them recovering there a moment later.

"Um, Sergeants, there's a, um, small river some forty metres north-west of the camp. You should all go get washed up and cooled down. It's not a good idea to work so hard without a break in this heat; you might get heat stroke, you know."

"That man's a genius," Bucky said drily. "But a soak in a river sounds like heaven right now. C'mon you lot, you heard the man; let's take a break."

It wasn't much of a river, not compared to the Rhône, but its water looked crystal clear, and it had a rocky bed, rather than a silty one. They'd collected more of the 107th along the way, and some forty men advanced to the stony bank and began stripping down to their underwear. Bucky took off his tags and placed them on top of his pile of clothes, so he could find them again afterwards. Then, he stepped into the water.

At first it took his breath away, but as he slowly waded out, to his calves, then his knees, then to the middle of the river where it came just over waist height, he realised the water wasn't really all that cold; it was his body that was too hot. He splashed water over his face, and god it felt so good! His burning skin felt like it was sizzling where the cool water touched it, and all around he heard similar gasps of relief as more of the regiment waded out to clean up and soothe their aches.

"C'mon, Tipper," Carrot called. "It's not very deep; even I can't drown in this."

Bucky looked to the bank, and saw Tipper standing there, his scrawny body shivering at the sight of the water.

Tipper's head shook violently from side to side. "I've heard stories," he called back, "of these little fish things that live in rivers and can swim up your johnson and get stuck there using these hook things that they have."

"That's South America, Tipper," said Wells. Bucky wondered if his friend was bullshitting again; he'd never even heard of anything that could swim up your johnson and get stuck there. "You're even safer from those fish over here than you were back home."

"You can't forego bathing forever, Tipper," Bucky pointed out. "Get in here."

"I dunno, Sarge—"

He didn't get chance to finish, because Wells splashed a load of water right at him, and as Tipper stood there looking shocked, everyone else joined in, until the young private was dripping wet and finally gave up resisting. He waded into the river, but that only meant the men who'd focused on Tipper now had to find somebody else to splash. Davies started it; he aimed a huge splash at Wells, but Wells ducked aside and Bucky got it instead. Even as he spluttered on the unanticipated river water, he was splashing back, and soon the whole river was a roiling, churning mass of flying water and falling bodies as men lost their footing on the stony bed.

"What the hell's going on here?!" a shrill voice demanded.

Everybody stopped. The laughter and jeering and sound of splashing water died away. Lieutenant Danzig was on the bank, hands on his hips, scowling his displeasure down onto the men in the river.

"You're supposed to be getting cleaned up, not having a pool party! Are you children, or are you men?"

Wrong answer, Bucky groaned. They really are just big goddamn kids.

He didn't have to look at the faces around him to know what was coming next. He could sense it in the air, a sort of malevolent haze underpinned by the sweet taste of revenge. There was nothing he could have done to stop it, and frankly, he didn't care to. The men had been tried hard, these past three weeks. They'd been on a long, boring, nausea-inducing sea journey, then been tortured with laps and drill at an ungodly hour of the morning, had to endure warm beer in England, and now they were in a foreign country occupied by a dangerous enemy, far from home. This was the first real reprieve they'd had in a weeks. A chance to unwind, and relax, and enjoy themselves away from the prying eyes of their superiors. And now Dancing was trying to take that away from them.

He had no idea who made the first splash, because within a heartbeat, everybody was making waves which came crashing over Dancing in a veritable deluge. Coughing, spluttering, clearly too shocked to chew them all out, Dancing retreated back to camp, waddling damply all the way. A victorious cheer arose from the river.

"I suspect we'll all pay for that with laps, at some point," Wells said. "But damn, it was worth it."

"Yeah." He aimed a splash at Wells, who closed his eyes and bore it better than Dancing had. "What time's that competition thing starting, anyway?"

"Dunno. After dinner, whenever that is. I guess we'll smell it cooking. I spoke to one of the mess staff; they said we're having some sort of stew and bread."

"It's probably spam stew."

"Probably. But it's better than grits."

Better than grits. That wasn't hard. Anything that wasn't grits automatically qualified for better than grits. Ah well; spam stew or spam in a can. Right now, he didn't care. Soon he'd have to spend a night keeping watch in a foxhole, but for the moment he had a whole river of blessedly cool water to enjoy, and he was going to make the most of every minute of it.

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

Colonel Phillips' instructions had been very clear. A maximum of five entrants from each regiment, carrying only their sidearms. Everybody was free to watch, but only the official entrants could step beyond the participation line.

When Bucky stepped beyond that line with Tex, Hodge, Hall and another of Weiss' guys by the name of Baker, he discovered Phillips hadn't been idle whilst the rest of the company set up camp. A makeshift target range had been organised, with paper targets pinned to nearby tree trunks at varying heights and distances. Phillips wasn't the only one present. Stark was standing off to one side, scribbling things down in a small notepad. Maybe he was working on improvements to that flying car Bucky had seen at the Expo in New York… or maybe he'd given that up for something more useful to the army.

Hawkswell was beside Stark, a silent observer to the proceedings, and a sergeant he didn't recognise was next to him, but it was the fifth person who drew Bucky's attention. Who drew the attention of most of the entrants, actually. Agent Carter was standing behind Phillips, still wearing the uniform that Bucky now knew probably belonged to some British division, and up close, she was even more stunning than he'd realised. As soon as this contest was over, he'd need to find some way to talk to her before Wells really did get there first.

Almost all of the company had turned out to watch the competition. Damn near eight-hundred men were clustered to one side of the target range, and quite a lot had climbed the tanks and jeeps to get a better view over the crowd. Bucky's friends had managed to get themselves to the front of the audience, and Carrot and Tipper waved excitedly whenever he glanced over to them.

One group was conspicuously absent from the mass of olive drab army uniforms and the smattering of white medic uniforms. Bucky hadn't seen anything of those German soldiers since he'd left on the mission with Dancing. Wherever Phillips was keeping them, it was certainly somewhere well out of sight.

"For those who don't know me," Colonel Phillips called out, his voice carrying not just to the contest's participants, but also to the audience, "I am Colonel Chester Phillips, commanding officer of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, to which you are all currently attached. The SSR's primary mission is highly classified. Suffice it to say that our objective is to undermine Hitler's scientific operations through new and experimental strategies.

"Agent Carter here is responsible for seeing that my orders are obeyed in a timely fashion, and to ensure smooth running of this camp regardless of whether we're on the move. I'm sure most of you will recognise Howard Stark—" Stark looked up and offered a brief, distracted wave before returning to his work, "—who is the SSR's lead scientist. Mr. Stark is here to field test several of his designs before they are approved for general use."

Field testing? Surely there were safer fields for Stark to test his designs on.

"As you probably already know, I'm holding this competition today to find the best marksmen from each regiment. You will notice targets, in the form of a human shadow, have been set on trees. On these targets are a series of concentric circles which must be hit to earn points. The outer circle is worth ten, and that increases in increments of ten as the circles get smaller; the smallest circle, in the middle of the head, is worth fifty. Bullets which hit outside the body area are worth the same as Hitler's chances of winning this war; exactly zero."

A loud round of laughter erupted from the crowd, and a couple of men clapped. Phillips stepped aside, and Agent Carter stepped forward, loading a clip into her sidearm as the colonel continued.

"Agent Carter will be setting a base score. To qualify for winning this contest, her score has to be beaten. It doesn't matter how high a soldier scores in relation to his fellow competitors; if he can't beat Carter's score, he's out."

"This should be easy," Bucky heard Hodge whisper quietly to Tex.

But he wasn't so sure he agreed with Hodge's assessment. If Carter was Phillips' XO, she had to be pretty competent at her job, and so far she'd proven herself to be fearless, too. He was pretty sure Phillips wouldn't bring someone to the front lines if they were gonna be a liability, which meant Agent Carter had probably been through the same training as every other soldier there, including the officers. If she shot a pistol as effortlessly as she drove a jeep towing a howitzer across a rickety bridge, he didn't fancy his chances of winning this competition. And it was only when Carter stepped forward to take aim on the first target that he even thought to wonder why Phillips wanted to find the best marksmen.

Bang.

Carter's first shot hit the nearest target dead centre of the smallest circle, immediately earning her fifty points. The smile of smug superiority melted from Hodge's face.

Bang.

Another fifty points. Agent Carter merely re-aimed and pulled the trigger again. No hesitation, no delay. Her face was calm, her gaze focused, and she ignored the heckling, the calls of 'Go on, darlin', show 'em how it's done!'

Bang.

Fifty points.

Bang.

Forty.

Bang.

Forty.

Bang.

Forty.

Bang.

Thirty.

Bang.

Thirty.

"Very good, Agent Carter," said Phillips, when the chamber of her gun was empty. Every bullet had hit. "I make that 330 points out of a possible 400."

330 points! Even hitting a forty on every target meant being ten points short, and if even one single shot missed scoring anything, almost every other shot would have to hit a fifty to make up the difference. And the worst thing was, he wasn't entirely sure that Agent Carter hadn't purposely aimed for a lower score than she was capable of just to give the competitors a slim chance of winning.

"Haven, put up new targets!" Phillips called. The sergeant standing beside Colonel Hawkswell dashed out to stick new targets over Carter's. Bucky guessed the guy must've been with the 9th, since he'd made a point of remembering the faces of the sergeants who'd come over with him from Plymouth. "Now." Phillips turned to the competitors from the three regiments who'd entered the contest. "You've seen the score you have to beat. The 69th will go first, followed by the 107th, and then the 370th. I can't imagine any of you should have any questions about shooting paper targets, but if you have any, ask them now. None? Good. Let's get started."

Out of the five members of the 69th, the only one Bucky recognised was Sergeant Dugan. The big man rolled his shoulders as a private stepped up to the firing line.

"Don't fancy my chances," Dugan said. "I always feel like I'm shooting with a toy, when I pick up a pistol. Put a shotgun in my hands, though, and I'll hit any target you point me at."

"Not at this distance you won't," Bucky said. All but two of the targets were outside a shotgun's range, and they weren't exactly the most accurate of weapons in the first place.

"You keep telling yourself that, Barnes. But unless you've got some sorta ace up your sleeve, this competition's ours, easy." Dugan clapped the shoulder of the man standing next to him. "Pfc. Armer here is a first class marksman. Ain't that right, Armer?"

"That's right, Sarge," the man grinned.

"You'll be eating those words for dinner when the 107th win," Hodge told him.

The banter continued as each of the 69th Infantry took their turns, scoring pretty decently. So far, only one had managed to beat Carter's score, and he'd only beaten it by ten. When Dugan's turn came, he sighed and stepped forward, and began picking off targets one by one. His gloomy prediction turned out to be correct; he scored 300. Not a bad score at all, but not quite good enough to put him in the runnings. Finally, Armer took his turn, and scored 360. A loud cheer erupted from the 69th members watching from the audience.

"Not bad," Bucky admitted. Their score would certainly give his regiment a run for their money.

"Alright, next up is the 107th," said Phillips. "Haven, put up more targets."

"Who wants to go first?" Bucky asked the other four with him. Tex shrugged, and the two Weiss had put forward didn't look particularly bothered. "Alright then, you can go first, Hodge. Then Baker, then me, then Tex, then Hall." Maybe going first would shut Hodge up. Every other word out of his mouth was a brag about how he was gonna get the highest score, and Bucky was starting to tire of hearing the same song. Of course, if Hodge really did get the highest score, he'd have to listen to every other word about that, too.

"Don't worry, I'll get us started on the right foot," Hodge said, standing a little taller as he stepped towards the line.

Hodge took the same approach to shooting as Agent Carter had; point and shoot without hesitation. At first, it seemed to work for him; the closest two targets he hit, he scored fifties. But then his accuracy started to slip, so that he was getting forties and thirties, and on the furthest target, he scored a twenty, which took him to a grand total of 320. Despite the fact that he'd missed Carter's score by ten, he didn't seem disappointed.

"That last target moved slightly, just as I was firing," he said, holstering his spent pistol. "Otherwise I would've hit a forty for sure."

"Ah call bullshit," said Tex. "Trees is trees. They don't move."

"Sure they do, when the wind blows them."

"Hodge," Bucky said, "there's not even so much as a gentle breeze right now." He wished there was. The evening air was still stiflingly hot, and it was starting to get humid, too.

"It's deceptively windy over by those trees."

"There there, Hodge," said Tex. He gave the guy a reassuring shoulder pat. "It doesn't matter that you're not quite good enough." A grin pulled at his lips. "Again."

"Guess that makes two of us, then. I'm not the only one who washed out of the Project," Hodge scowled back.

Bucky shook his head. Why'd Hodge have to take everything so personal? "Shh," he instructed them, as Baker stepped forward. There was already enough heckling from the audience to contend with.

Baker didn't do too badly, but he only scored a total of 300. When Bucky stepped forward to take his place at the line, he suddenly felt the weight of everybody watching him. He was watched from behind, by his fellow participants. He was watched from the side, by the 107th, who cheered for him, and everybody else, who heckled him. And he was watched by Agent Carter, whose gaze seemed to burn right through his skull. Normally, he enjoyed being the centre of a dame's attention, but this dame had just scored higher on target practise than most soldiers were probably capable of, and she hadn't even broken a sweat doing it. He could feel her weighing him up with her eyes… and was struck by the strong desire to not be found wanting.

Lifting his Colt, he took aim at the first target. At ten paces, it wasn't exactly point blank range, but it was pretty damn close, and so far nobody had scored less than a forty on it. Bucky followed suit, and scored fifty. Then he scored fifty on the second, and the third. A decent start.

He knew he'd aimed badly on the fourth target even before his finger had finished squeezing the trigger. Sure enough, the bullet hit the twenty ring, and Bucky felt his forehead prickle with a sweat that had nothing to do with the evening heat. He'd just lost thirty points. He couldn't afford another mistake like that. On his next shot, he spent a little longer aiming, made sure he squeezed as gently as possible, and was rewarded with the bullet hitting the forty ring. He hit a forty again, and then another.

Before his last shot, he said a swift, silent prayer. The final target was the furthest away, and he had to hit a forty just to match the benchmark. He was no stranger to stress, and no stranger to competition, but he felt like he had the 107ths' reputation riding on this contest. Like if they could win something, the other regiments would quit their jokes and take the guys from New York a little more seriously. And, if he was entirely honest with himself, he wanted to impress Agent Carter. He wanted her to smile at him and congratulate him on beating her score.

Prayer over, he pulled the trigger, and time seemed to slow. He could feel every heartbeat—all one of them—that it took for the bullet to hit its target. And when it did, it hit a fifty. A cheer rose from the 107th, and Bucky let out the breath he'd been holding. He was through. At least the 107th were in with a chance of winning.

Then Tex stepped forward, and blew everybody's score out of the water. Bucky had no idea how the guy did it, but he scored 390, and only a 40 on the closest target stopped him from getting a perfect full score. Tex merely shrugged as he holstered his pistol.

"Ah always was far-sighted," he drawled.

Hall came next, and he scored one fifty and then seven solid forties, to match Carter's score. After a moment of deliberation, Phillips agreed that was enough to get through and the 107th cheered again.

"It'll be a shame if we lose now," said Baker, eyeing up the first of the 370th to step up to the firing line. As soon as Haven had finished putting targets up, the guy took aim and began firing. "I wonder what the final round will involve."

They didn't have to wait long to find out. Three of the 370th Infantry surpassed Carter's score, though none of them scored as highly as Tex. Once the round finished, Phillips beckoned the winners over.

"Stark, how many prizes have we got?"

Prizes? Bucky felt one eyebrow climb up, and when he looked at Tex and Hall, he found similar expressions of surprise on their faces. He'd thought this was just a friendly competition; he hadn't seriously expected there to be any sort of reward for performing well.

"Only six, Colonel."

"Hmph. In that case, the two from each regiment with the highest scores can go with Agent Carter and Mr. Stark to be issued with prizes."

"This way, gentlemen," said Agent Carter. Her voice was rich and cultured, and he suddenly understood what Wells meant about English dames making his spine tingle. He could feel his spine tingling right the way down to his toes.

Bucky and Tex followed Carter, Stark and the rest of the competition winners into one of the large tents. A couple of engineers were busy working on one of the howitzers, but it was to a table that the pair led them, to a collection of metal boxes piled there. They all waited patiently whilst Stark opened up one of the boxes, and Agent Carter pulled something out of it.

It was a gun. A long, sleek looking gun that she held expertly, as if she'd been holding guns like that right out of the cradle.

"Welcome to a new era in long-distance tactical firing solutions," said Stark. He gestured to the rifle, and bestowed upon it the sort of loving smile that a guy might reserve for his firstborn child. "The Stark Sniper Rifle 01 model. This is the latest piece of kit designed by Stark Industries—that is to say, me—and you fellas have been selected for field testing. The SSR-01 sniper rifle combines traditional rifle design with all new technological advancements to provide greater accuracy and unparalleled stability. Using a traditional bolt-action mechanism—please show the guys the bolt-action mechanism, Agent Carter, thank you—the SSR-01 can fire up to eight rounds and hit targets a thousand yards away. Upper range limits have yet to be determined, but I suspect it will be close to a mile, with negligible loss of accuracy at that distance. Agent Carter will now demonstrate its use, if you'd care to step out the back."

Bucky found he cared very much to step out the back, and not just because it gave him a chance to step a little closer to Agent Carter. He wanted so badly to try that rifle for himself that right then, he would have agreed to anything. Of course, he hoped it was more reliable than that flying car…

"There's a target pinned to a tree, a thousand yards in that direction," Agent Carter said, gesturing to something off in the distance, past multiple tree trunks and bushes. "You'll each get a chance to try out your rifles, so don't worry that you can't see the target from here; once you get your eye on the scope, you'll see it easily enough. Now, Mr. Stark recommends the use of the rifle sling, to improve accuracy. He's also modified the stock so that it should sit more comfortably against the shoulder." She loaded a round into the rifle, and demonstrated sighting down it. "You should find that kickback is reduced considerably, thanks to many improvements which, if you're very unfortunate, Howard will explain in great detail."

"I just like people to appreciate my work, Peg," he grinned. "Now, fire the damn thing and then these guys can take their turns at telling me how amazing I am."

Agent Carter rolled her eyes and turned back to the target nobody but she could see. She lifted the rifle, took aim down the telescopic sight, and pulled the trigger. Bucky had prepared himself for the loud bang which always accompanied gunfire, but instead there was only a quiet crack.

"Oh, I forgot to mention," said Stark, "I've included a flash suppressor and a silencer, and I've done so without compromising accuracy and adding only minimal weight. If you come with me, we'll get you kitted out with your guns, then you can see if you can hit the same target as Agent Carter. If you can, then there may be some hope for you as sharpshooters."

The weapon placed into Bucky's hands was lighter than his M1, and at least half as long again. It would be cumbersome to carry, but god, it felt like it had been made for him! When it came his turn to try it out, he lifted the gun and looked down the scope and immediately found the target Carter had mentioned. Clearly, Stark did a better job on his sniper rifles than he did his flying cars. He hit the target on his first shot, the weapon so responsive in his hands that it seemed to be reading his mind. Hopefully it didn't actually do that.

Could Stark design guns which did that?

"Don't go getting any ideas about servicing these guns," said Stark, when they'd all taken a turn at trying out the weapons and caressed Stark's ego with lavish praise for a few minutes. "They're highly experimental and very complex. Eventually, everyone who uses them will be trained to service them, but for now, I want you to bring them back to me for routine service, maintenance and any faults which may arise—probably due to user error, I imagine. What I'm looking for most of all is feedback. How they perform in the field. Problems they might cause you. Any improvements you might suggest. After every mission you use the SSR-01 on, I want a performance review." He rubbed his hands together and smiled beneath his moustache. "So. Go have fun and kill stuff."

"Wait," Agent Carter said, stopping them all with one frosty word. She'd returned from somewhere and now carried a bunch of papers in her hands. "Under normal circumstances, sharpshooters undergo rigorous training in the use of their weapons. Since these aren't normal circumstances, here are the U.S. and British Army manuals covering the use of long-range weapons. Please take particular note of the sections outlining cover and camouflage. Just because Howard has installed flash suppressors on these guns doesn't mean you won't be spotted. The enemy has snipers too, and if you shoot out of cover, you stand a good chance of coming back in a body-bag."

She thrust two manuals into each soldier's hands. Then turned back to Stark.

"Perhaps it would also be prudent to provide the men with ammunition?"

"Oh, right, of course. Guns need bullets. I knew there was something I was forgetting." He dashed into the tent and returned a moment later with six wooden boxes. "Don't go to the quartermaster for ammo, come to me. These are prototype weapons, and they use special ammo. You try to load standard army fare into it, and it's gonna jam up the firing mechanism. You don't feed your racehorse poor quality oats and expect it to finish a race in first place." He looked around at the soldiers' faces. "Okay, I guess most of you probably haven't owned racehorses, but you can take my word on that. Agent Carter, am I forgetting anything else?"

"No, I believe that just about covers it, Mr. Stark."

"Good, good." He nodded, and made a shoo'ing motion. "Remember, performance reports after every mission."

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

"This isn't just a weapon," said Wells half an hour later, as he sighted down the scope of Bucky's new rifle outside the regimental tent, "it's a work of art."

"I've always thought snipers to be overrated, personally," Hodge sniffed dismissively.

"Good job you didn't win the competition then, eh?" grinned Mex. He was hefting the gun Tex had been given, and he too glanced down the scope. "Nice! I think I can see my house from here."

"I mean, this is a finely crafted instrument of death," Wells continued, oblivious to the conversation of the others. "You shoot someone with this, and you're gonna see it as if you were stood in front of him."

"Yeah," Bucky agreed. That thought had crossed his mind, too. The thought that he was going to have to shoot people with it. To take lives. To end them. One moment, people would be living. Then Bucky would come along with the SSR-01, and those people wouldn't be living any longer. And at the end of the mission, he'd go back to base and report to Stark on how well his gun terminated human beings.

God, that sounded even worse.

As much as he wanted to speak his concerns and fears aloud, he couldn't. Pretty soon, they'd have to start going on missions. The men in his regiment needed to know they could count on him. They wouldn't be able to do their jobs if they were constantly worrying that their sergeant was battling his own conscience. That he was having second thoughts about everything. That he was having second thoughts about his second thoughts.

None of them, not a single one, seemed rattled by the thought of killing. Somehow, they all seemed to have justified it in their minds. Or maybe they just hadn't thought about it yet. Maybe they wouldn't think about it until after they'd taken their first life and killed their first man. Maybe then, they would feel how Bucky felt now. Maybe then he would look into their eyes and see his own unease echoed back.

"And you say Agent Carter was pretty handy with one of these?" asked Wells, giving back the gun now that everybody who wanted had got a good look at it.

"Very handy." He accepted the gun that he both loved and hated, and stored it away in its case.

"Hmm."

"I think she has something going on with Stark, though. They're on a first name basis and everything." Might as well burst his friend's bubble whilst it was still pretty small.

"Pft, what does he have that I don't?"

"Billions of dollars, several mansions, and unlimited genius? Something about racehorses, too."

"I don't think Agent Carter and Stark are like that, Sarge," said Mex. The private had quickly slipped into the role of camp gossip. His information might not always be as detailed as Davies', but he tended to get it faster. "Y'see, there was this guy back in the Project, and she seemed pretty sweet on him."

"What guy?" Wells scowled.

"A guy we can't talk about," Hodge said, rather hotly. "Right, Mex?"

"Oh. Yeah. Non-disclosures and all. Anyway, I haven't see him around here, so maybe the project failed, or maybe he died, or somethin'."

"In that case, someone else's loss is my gain. Tomorrow," said Wells, "I'm gonna make my move."

"If you're so confident," Hodge gloated, "why not make your move tonight?"

"Because tonight, Private, I have a date with Franklin in France's most swanky foxhole. Unless, of course, you'd like to trade places."

"Wouldn't dream of depriving you, Sarge," the private grinned.

"Then it's settled. Franklin, grab your stuff and let's go. I've got a feeling Dancing's gonna make a tour of the foxholes, just to make sure we're really suffering in there."

Wells grabbed his rifle, and Bucky reluctantly picked up his, too. He gestured for Carrot to join him, and they followed Franklin and Wells out into the night. A few weeks ago, he'd been excited to get his M1, and his Colt. It had made him feel like a proper soldier. And now, he felt like a proper soldier even more. Soon, the killing would start. And once it started, who knew when it would end?

Author's note: For more information about fish which can allegedly swim up your johnson, please consult your friendly neighbourhood wikipedia on the subject of 'Candiru.' Is it true that basically anything is better than grits? No. We'll discover in a future chapter something much worse than that. The SSR-01 isn't the gun Bucky is seen using in CA:TFA, but it is an earlier version of it.

In case you're wondering, this story does have a plot… I just want Our Heroes to have a little fun before people start dying :-( And speaking of fun, for the next chapter my aims are to make you: 1) Laugh (or at least grin stupidly), 2) Love Bucky just a little bit more. I'll update again next Friday.