About a week into the rangers' mission the weather finally broke, and Marvin Atqittuq decided it was time to shoot Russians. He and Sgt. Dean Lushman, a former Canadian infantryman who had become an instructor with the ranger program, hauled out a sheaf of brownish paper targets, stapled them to sticks, and planted half a dozen in the snow outside our camp. Each bore the printed image of a charging soldier, his mouth open in a yell, his rifle mounted with a bayonet. Lushman called them his "Commie squad."
在加入騎警一周后,天氣終于放晴,馬爾文·阿提庫決定要去打俄羅斯人。他和盧什曼,一位前加拿大步兵現騎警教員,拉出一捆棕色的紙靶,把它們釘在木樁上,在帳篷外樹了6個。每一個上面都是一張打印的照片,上面是一個正在往前沖的士兵,他的嘴大張著在喊著什么,來復槍上裝著刺刀。盧什曼把他們叫做“科密小隊”。
The targets had been developed for NATO forces during the Cold War. Standing shoulder to shoulder at the foot of a small hill, they were the tallest objects around for miles, so obvious against the snow it didn't seem possible to miss.
這些靶子在冷戰(zhàn)期間曾為北約做過改進。他們肩并肩站在一座小山的山腳下,方圓幾里內他們是最高的目標,跟雪地一對比簡直明顯到不可能打不中。
Atqittuq drew a line in the snow 100 yards away and arranged his troops along it. He gave each a handful of bullets, and the rangers knelt onto sealskins or parkas and began firing their clumsy, antique rifles. Atqittuq said age was their only advantage: The old rifles had so few moving parts that they usually didn't freeze.
阿提庫在100碼遠的雪地上畫了一條線,并把軍隊安排在這里。他給了每個人一把子彈,士兵們于是跪在皮衣上,開始用笨拙的古老的步槍射擊。阿提庫說年紀是他們唯一的優(yōu)勢:老版的來復槍沒什么可活動的部分,基本不會被凍住。