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| Dinner call (infantry). |
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[186]
As the drilling of a battery was done for the most part by sounding the commands upon a bugle, it became necessary for cannoneers and drivers to learn the calls; and this they did after a short experience.
Even the horses became perfectly familiar with some of these calls, and would proceed to execute them without the intervention of a driver.
Cavalry horses, too, exhibited great sagacity in interpreting bugle signals.
Sometimes the lieutenants who were chiefs of sections were sent out with their commands for special drill.
A section comprised two guns with their caissons.
There was little enthusiasm in this piecemeal kind of practice, especially after familiarity and experience in the drill of the full battery; but it performed a part in making the men selfpossessed and expert in their special arm of the service.
Beyond that, it gave men and horses exercise, and appetite for government food, which, without the exercise, would have been wanting, to a degree at least, and occupied time that would otherwise have been devoted to the soldier's pastime of grumbling.
At twelve o'clock the Dinner Call was sounded.
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