Hay Foot 1942

Dodo Doubleday, the raw recruit who quickly rose to sergeant thanks to his encyclopedic memory and a few lucky accidents, has been inexplicably reduced from first sergeant to staff sergeant and is back serving as an orderly to his regimental commander Colonel Barkley. Sergeant Ames is still a buck sergeant who hates Dodo because he outranked Ames within Dodo’s first 24 hours in the army. Charlie Cobb, Dodo’s former comrade in arms, is also a buck sergeant. As both Cobb and Ames are the regiment’s best marksmen but constantly boast of their prowess, the colonel seeks to find an expert who can outshoot them.

Though possessing a photographic memory that enabled him to advance from private to senior non-commissioned officer in less than 24 hours, Dodo has one weakness: though his book knowledge enables him to give lectures on weapons disassembly and ballistics, he is gun shy and an incompetent marksman. After nearly shooting several of his fellow soldiers on the pistol range, with the actual target being the safest place to hide, Dodo is ordered to go into the woods to practice. There his missed shots impress the picnicking colonel and his daughter Betty Barkley when Dodo accidentally shoots a hawk through the eye whilst in flight and, after the colonel catches a fish who breaks the line and is in the process of rolling back into the water, an accidental discharge from Dodo’s pistol shoots the fish through its eye. Eager to deflate the boasting Ames and Cobb, the colonel bets a month’s pay that Dodo can outshoot Ames and Cobb.

Ames and Cobb’s hatred of Dodo increases when, in the interests of promoting democracy in the United States Army, Betty invites Dodo to dinner at the colonel’s quarters, but Ames and Cobb believe they have been invited as well.