Chapter 11: Damn!

I think my arm is going to fall off ... and maybe my pecker ... and my tongue.

I'm going to take a nap.

'Nope. You are going to teach us to shoot.'

'AAARRRGGGHHH!!!'

'He whimpers nicely.'

'He's a big baby.'

I stirred my stumps.

I found the crate with the Italian rifles.

What?

I didn't want to use the toy guns!

Plastic and die cast?

Reliable? Don't give me that.

They rely on hot explosive gases to thump the bolt back. Besides, they're a bitch to clean. And they're too damn loud!

I unbolted the crate, took out six BM 59's, 12 spare mags, 4 cleaning kits, the armorers kit and 10 or so man silhouette targets. I bolted the crate back together. I hunted up the crate with the Winchester loose ammo, popped the mags out of the rifles, handed 4 mags to each of the girls and said,

"You're looking for anything broken or bent on these magazines. Compare all of them. When you're done, switch. If you even suspect it's wrong, tell me."

They picked them up and immediately set them back down. "Eww! Greasy."

"Of course they're greasy. They've been packed in cosmoline. Cosmoline is your friend ... it's keeping the rifles from rusting. Rusting is bad. Cosmoline is good. The rifles were placed in barrels of hot cosmoline and let stand for a few minutes ... unless the workers were going to lunch. When we get the rifles apart you can tell me if the workers went to lunch or just dipped them.

"This is new cosmoline. You can mostly wipe it off but, to make sure, we're going to disassemble these 5 of these rifles and clean them. I'm going to inspect them after you think they're clean enough.

"If I were a Drill Sargent I'd be wearing white gloves and woe betide anyone whose rifle left grease stains on my gloves. You'd be digging a 12x12x12 foot pit in the hardpan with two of you shoveling the dirt back in the hole."

"Paint thinner works great to remove the cosmo ... we don't have any. Boiling water works really good too. We have some ammo cans we can use to boil water for small parts, but the receivers and barrels are too big for the cans so you have to find something to boil water in that's big enough to put the barreled receivers in."

"Why did you get six rifles?"

"Six rifles... 4 ... one each for us. One so we can remember what it looks like assembled correctly and one to see what it looks like in pieces. Six.

"These are military rifles. The Italians started assembling them in 1959 ... since they're so new, these are probably stolen. The other reason I think they're stolen is the parts, except the receiver, are all US marked. That means they're some of the first ones made.

"In a normal military situation there would be training films and a giant rifle that's been cut away so you can see how it works.

"All we have are some books in Italian with some of the worst pictures I've ever seen describing how to take one apart. While you ladies are boiling water, I'm going to see if I can get one of the damn things apart.

"Part of learning how to shoot is learning how to clean what you just shot. To get it clean you need to learn how to take it apart."

Several hours later I had the rifle in three major pieces ... and I didn't even have to bust it up ... too badly.

The ladies had some water boiling in an ammo can from the junk in the bathroom. They had also done some rummaging back there and found the storage can for one of the bazookas'. Smart chicks. The can was hinged so it folded open in two parts. Water tight ... they had it on the fire too.