On any given day there were three or four instructors, young men themselves, who all grew beards to make themselves look older. They fashioned lumpy enemy soldiers out of tablecloths and old clothes stuffed with grass. It was difficult to see how the clothes cast aside for this purpose were any worse than what most of these men wore themselves. The boys learned to beat the dummies with sticks and fists. But whenever the instructors’ attention was elsewhere the boys turned to pushing and hitting each other, an exercise they appeared to enjoy a great deal more. Somehow the instructors never seemed to notice. Then came the weapons. At some point each day, one of the instructors brought out to the tennis courts a crate of old guns, which the boys practiced taking apart and reassembling and running around pointing at one another. In lieu of bullets, they made explosive gurgling sounds with their throats as they dodged behind the straw dummies, taking improbable shots.
