Now The Habit In Africa Is To Let Your Gunbearers Carry All Your
Guns.
You yourself stride along hand free.
It is an English idea,
and is pretty generally adopted out there by every one, of
whatever nationality. They will explain it to you by saying that
in such a climate a man should do only necessary physical work,
and that a good gunbearer will get a weapon into your hand so
quickly and in so convenient a position that you will lose no
time. I acknowledge the gunbearers are sometimes very skilful at
this, but I do deny that there is no loss of time. The instant of
distracted attention while receiving a weapon, the necessity of
recollecting the nervous correlations after the transfer, very
often mark just the difference between a sure instinctive
snapshot and a lost opportunity. It reasons that the man with the
rifle in his hand reacts instinctively, in one motion, to get his
weapon into play. If the gunbearer has the gun, HE must first
react to pass it up, the master must receive it properly, and
THEN, and not until then, may go on from where the other man
began. As for physical labour in the tropics: if a grown man
cannot without discomfort or evil effects carry an eight-pound
rifle, he is too feeble to go out at all. In a long Western
experience I have learned never to be separated from my weapon;
and I believe the continuance of this habit in Africa saved me a
good number of chances.
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