The Pistol

by James Jones

  Quietly Mast drew back the slide of the pistol and let it scoop a shell up into the empty chamber into firing position. He put it on safety.

  “You be careful of that damned thing, Mast,” O’Brien whispered nervously.

  “I will,” Mast promised, and noted that he was holding it rather gingerly himself. No one on the position was allowed to carry a weapon with a round actually loaded in the chamber, only in the clip or magazine. And Mast couldn’t help feeling guilty as if he were doing something wrong by loading it. “Maybe it’s only a cow?” he added as an afterthought.

  “Nah,” O’Brien whispered. “They come and took all five of them cows outta there a week ago.”

  “Then I’ll have to take a look,” Mast said toughly, but he nonetheless felt the same uneasy, vague nervousness he had felt the day of the attack and his back muscles had begun to twitch again. But he wasn’t going to let O’Brien know that. “You cover me from here with your rifle. You got one in it?”

  “No.”

  “Well, put one in. And for God’s sake be careful with it. For God’s sake don’t shoot me.”

  In the deep dark, their faces only a few inches apart, and in spite of the evident nervousness on O’Brien’s face, Mast could see a sudden, very subtle hint of craftiness come into the Irishman’s pale green eyes.

  “Tell you what,” O’Brien whispered. “You gimme the pistol and let me go over and look and you cover me with your rifle.”

  Alarm for his pistol tingled all through Mast spontaneously, automatically. “Oh, no,” he said quickly. “No. I don’t mind. I’ll do it.”

  “But I’m a lot bigger than you. And stronger.”

  “That doesn’t matter as long as I got my pistol. Now look, you cover me. And for God’s sake don’t shoot me. I may be gone quite a while, so if you don’t hear from me don’t worry or shoot or anything.”

  “Don’t worry, old pal,” O’Brien whispered. “I’ll be right here backing you up you get in any kind of trouble.”

  It made Mast feel very warm toward him, and as he crawled off feeling quite brave, if a little nervous, he heard the quiet sound of the Springfield rifle bolt being withdrawn and levering a shell up into it.

  Actually, it all came to nothing. At the fence, expecting to be shot in the face at any moment, Mast made himself stand up to climb it wishing now that he had let O’Brien borrow the pistol and do it. After that he crawled around in the field for perhaps five minutes being whipped in the face by the dried grass stems and getting seeds in his nose while his clothes got soaked from the dew. He saw nothing and heard nothing. Finally, he stood up, cautiously at first, and then walked back openly to the fence feeling foolish but still worried about O’Brien shooting him.

  “It’s me!” he called in a hoarse whisper. “For God’s sake don’t shoot me, now.”

  “Come on,” O’Brien called softly.

  It was Mast’s first experience in combat against an enemy, if it could actually be called that, and he felt he had conducted himself very well. Even if it had turned out there wasn’t any enemy. He also felt a great warmth of friendship for O’Brien, having shared this experience with him.

  “What’d you find?” O’Brien said when he got back. He was still crouched down with his rifle.

  “Nothing,” Mast said in a normal voice. “It must have been just a piece of loose rock that fell off.”

  O’Brien unloaded his piece and stood up. He laughed, still a little nervously, and slapped Mast on the back heavily. “I don’t mind tellin’ ya it sure made me nervous.”

  “Me too,” Mast grinned warmly.

  “But a pistol like that’s perfect for that kind of a job,” O’Brien said enviously.

  “Sure is.” Mast released the clip from it and then ejected the live shell in the chamber into the palm of his other hand, always an awkward procedure.

  “Here, let me help you,” O’Brien offered. “I’ll hold it while you put the round back in the clip.”

  “Sure,” Mast grinned and handed him the pistol. And that was when it happened. When Mast looked up from replacing the shell in the clip and held out his hand, it was to find O’Brien standing two paces off with the pistol stuck in his belt.

  “Hey, come on,” Mast protested, “Quit horsing around,” and reached for his pistol. O’Brien stepped back a couple of more steps and stood grinning at him toothily and impudently.

  “I got it now,” he said. “And I mean to keep it, And whatta ya gonna do about it?”

  “But you can’t do something like that!” Mast said. He was deeply and sincerely shocked, if only at the sheer dishonesty, sheer trickery, of it. Only a moment before they had been warm buddies sharing a danger. He still could not believe O’Brien could really do it. He had to be joking. ‘You just can’t!” he said.

  “Can’t I?” O’Brien grinned complacently. “I did, didn’t I? And what you gonna do? You can’t take it away from me. And you know it. You couldn’t whip me in a fight, Mast.” He grinned again. “So what are you gonna do?”

  “I can turn you in to Sergeant Pender,” Mast said, disliking himself for saying it; but a fury of blind rage, that worst of all angers which is the anger of outraged helplessness, was rising in him steadily.

  O’Brien merely grinned. “For what? For taking a pistol off you that you ain’t supposed to have? That pistol’s not on the records, and you know it. You told me you bought it. So: that pistol was stole from the Army. By somebody. All’s would happen would be Pender’d take it away from both of us.” Once again, O’Brien grinned, toothily, and settled the pistol more firmly into his belt. “Anyway, you wouldn’t turn me in and be a pigeon, would you now, Mast? ’Cause I’d have to beat hell outta you, then. And I don’t want ta do that.”

  Mast stood rooted, every moral ethic in him violated. Not only to have done it by such a sneaky subterfuge, but to have done it immediately after they had warmly shared a danger that might have been truly serious, was incredible. It was inconceivable to him. And then to threaten him with a beating, too! Because it was true that he would stand no chance in a fist fight with O’Brien, no chance at all. Helpless outrage flamed all through Mast.

  “Maybe you can beat me up. And maybe you will. But at least you won’t get to keep that pistol, I promise you that. It’s mine. And I bought it. And I want it back.”

  “Ah, come on now, Mast. You don’t mean that. Come on, you might as well give me the holster and the clips. They won’t do you no good without the pistol.”

  “You’ll never get them. You’ll have to take them off me first, if you do. And I’ll throw them over the cliff first.” The thought of his pistol gone, taken, no longer his, and taking with it his margin of safety, his chance of being saved, brought a hollow, sick feeling to the pit of Mast’s stomach. “Of all the dirty, sneaking, lying, cheating, lowdown sneakthieves in the world, you’re the worst, O’Brien. You take the cake.” But the words were useless, worse than useless. What were words?

  O’Brien apparently felt the same thing, because he merely grinned at Mast. “Call me anything you want. Come on, gimme them clips and holster.”

  “No.”

  O’Brien shrugged. “Okay. I can pick some up someplace else. I got the important thing, and that’s the pistol.

  “Look, Mast. I’ll try to be reasonable with you. And you try to be reasonable. Okay?” O’Brien squared his shoulders, patted his new pistol, grinned briefly, and settled himself to talk intelligently. “You don’t need this pistol, Mast. What do you need this pistol for? You’re a rear-rank rudy in the third squad a the third platoon. A ordinary rifleman. I’m the first scout in my platoon. You know what that means? I’ll be the first guy in, anywhere we go, me and my partner the second scout. I’m the guy who’ll be sneaking through the brush getting my ass shot off. What if I got captured? Did you ever see them Samurai sabers them Jap officers carry? You know what they do to prisoners? They cut them in two with them sabers. And I’m the first scout. I really need this pistol. It migh
t be just the extra edge might save my life someday. It might really actually save my life, save me.” O’Brien paused weightily, to let this sink in. “You realize what that means? to a first scout?” He paused again. “While look at you: a rear-rank rudy of a rifleman with a education: with a education yet! Why, you might even be working in the orderly room someday. You might be. You might really be working in the orderly room. So what do you need with this pistol?” He stopped and plumped his knuckles powerfully on his hips, his argument complete.

  Mast listened to him with outraged, furious astonishment. O’Brien really thought he had a right to his, Mast’s, pistol. Had a right to just take it. O’Brien had convinced himself he was morally right in his barefaced thievery. Not only morally right, but righteous, he was! And what was more, he really believed it. Furiously, ardently, Mast wished he was big enough or strong enough to whip him, to beat him up, and take his pistol back. But he wasn’t.

  “Now, I’d like to be fair with you, Mast,” O’Brien said. “I really would. Hell, I’d even give you ten bucks for it, if I hadn’t lost almost all my money playing poker, I really would. Now, be a good boy, and gimme them clips and holster.”

  “You’ll never get them.” Suddenly an idea struck Mast, a clever idea. He had seen it in a movie once. He might not be able to whip O’Brien, but there was no reason he couldn’t outsmart him. Making himself look defeated, Mast stepped back and turned around to pick up his rifle where it lay alongside O’Brien’s. “And don’t think you can take them off me,” he said. “If you try, I’ll buttstroke you so help me God.” Bending to pick up his rifle as he spoke, he caught it at the balance with his right hand and at the same time picked up a large, loose rock with his left, concealing it against his leg. Then he stepped back, dejectedly.

  “Don’t worry,” O’Brien grinned at him toothily. “I can awys git clips.” He sidled up to his own rifle. “Just you don’t try nothing yourself, that’s all. I wouldn’t want to have to sock you. But as for butt-stroking a guy,” he said righteously, “I myself wouldn’t never even considra doing something like that to a guy who was on my own country’s side in this war.” He grinned, and confident of his physical superiority turned his face away from Mast, down toward where his rifle lay, offering his back.

  It was Mast’s moment, the one Mast had hoped for. Quickly, he lifted his left arm and tossed the heavy rock as if putting a shot, off over O’Brien’s head toward the fence, then shifted his rifle to his left hand to be ready. The rock crashed down on the rocky slope, making a loud noise they could hear even above the buffeting of the wind, and O’Brien leaped up crouching, bringing up his rifle.

  “What was that?” he whispered.

  “Did you hear it too?” Mast whispered. He took one step forward quietly and bending forward a little, reached with his right hand in under O’Brien’s right arm that was holding the pistol-grip of his rifle up at the ready. He snatched his pistol back, out of O’Brien’s belt, and backed off with it.

  O’Brien spun around and looked at Mast disbelievingly.

  “Don’t come near me,” Mast said. “Or I’ll brain you with it. Sure as hell.” He nodded in answer to the unspoken question. “Yes, it was me. I tossed that rock out over your head.”

  Slowly O’Brien swung his massive head around toward where the rock had fallen, then swung it back again, his pale green eyes staring at Mast. “You dirty bastard!” he said furiously. For a moment it looked as though he might lay his rifle down and charge. “You dirty, sneaking, cheating bastard!” But the upraised pistol in Mast’s hand ready to mash down on him was clearly too much odds to give away to any man.

  “Come on,” Mast taunted, gaining confidence from O’Brien’s hesitation. “Come on, O’Brien. You want my pistol, I’ll give it to you—Right in the jaw.” All his frustrated outrage and helpless fury of before boiled up in him, and for a moment he wished O’Brien really would come on, so he could smash him with it.

  O’Brien straightened up leisurely and set his riflebutt on the bare rock underfoot and leaned on the muzzle, an attempt at a nonchalance that did not entirely come off. “Smart guy!” was all he said. “Goddamn smart guy!” But the chagrin and sense of loss he felt couldn’t be entirely hidden. In just the short space he had had it, had felt it there, securely, in his belt, the pistol had obviously become his. It was his own pistol he had lost back to Mast.

  “Smarter than you, at any rate,” Mast said, and allowed himself a grin. “By any counts. Now get on back to your own damned post and walk it like you’re supposed to do and get off of mine. Thief.”

  “Go to hell, smart guy,” O’Brien sneered. But he went. “Just watch out, smart guy, that’s all,” he called back ominously.

  “I’ll watch,” Mast called. “Especially you I’ll watch.”

  Happily, just simply physiologically content at possessing it once again, but at the same time burning with fury and violated ethics whenever he thought of what O’Brien had tried to pull, Mast rubbed his pistol affectionately for a few moments and inspected it, feeling creep over him again comfortingly that sense of possible salvation, of that extra little margin which people without pistols didn’t have, that chance of being saved. Sheer horror assailed him when he thought of how close he really had come to losing it. He worked the slide back and forth a couple of times, as he had been so carefully taught by the Army, to make sure there was no forgotten round in the chamber, then slammed the cartridge-heavy clip back up into the butt, then hefted it in his hand.

  It was really beautiful, by God! As an afterthought Mast pulled out of his hip pocket the oily issue handkerchief he kept there for going over both his weapons, and he rubbed the pistol all over vigorously with it. He wanted to get any taint of O’Brien’s greasy, sweat-salty hands off it.

  Mast realized clearly, for perhaps the first time, just how very careful he was going to have to be from now on, not to lose it. Those seven or eight offers to buy it, plus the two nocturnal attempts to steal it, should have prepared him for what happened tonight with O’Brien. That had been a gross error, and he had not been prepared. But he would be prepared from now on. The pistol would not only not get out of his sight from now on, it would not even get out of his hands. Nobody would trick Mast again.

  Toughly, confidently, Mast slapped it back down into its holster and latched the flap shut over it. He slung his rifle and resumed walking his post, repeating over his promise to himself.

  Four

  IT WAS A FEW DAYS after the episode with O’Brien that the supply room clerk, who had issued Mast the pistol in the first place and whose name was Musso, came out to the Makapuu Head position for the first time. His supply room had been set up in a couple of tents at the company command post, and Mast and the others at Makapoo had not seen him since the day of the attack. He came to bring two new aircooled .50-caliber machine guns, the first Mast’s company had ever had, which the company commander had decided were to be set up in the two most important pillboxes at Makapoo, the company’s most important position. Up to then they had had only the .30-caliber water-cooled to repel invasion.

  Mast knew he was coming with them, of course. Everyone knew about the new guns. And it worried Mast considerably: What if Musso remembered the pistol he had refused to have back the day of the attack? Mast knew, by gossip from the kitchen trucks, which on most days were the only outside contact Makapoo had with the world, that the other three men who had been on guard with him that Sunday had finally been returned to the company. Mast had, in fact, made a point of finding out about them. Presumably, since they were delivered to the company CP from Schofield en masse, they had been required to turn in their pistols and other guard equipment before they were distributed off to their assigned beach positions. If so, Mast could only reason that such would be the logical time for someone to come out from the command post to pick up his pistol, too. But no one had come. Why? Had his been overlooked, as he had hoped? And if so, what if Musso came out with the big fifties and saw Mast still
wearing his guard pistol? Where could Mast hide it that it would be safe? And anyway, what if Musso only saw Mast himself, without the pistol? Might he not even then still remember? And demand it?

  It was an almost impossible thought, Mast’s mind just simply balked and refused to accept it, that he might now, at this late date, after becoming so used to it, be forced to give up his little margin of safety, his slight chance of being saved over men who did not have pistols, his heavy powerful beautiful blue-nosed savior, which would be his salvation.

  Mast brooded over this considerably after he learned Musso was coming with the new guns. It was a strange double reaction that he had, because while he knew he had got the pistol from Musso and his supply room, he could also distinctly remember now that he had bought it. And if he felt a frightened guilt at the way he knew he really had come by his salvation, he also felt a radiant happiness over the other way, the way which he had convinced himself he had come by it. He not only could call up at will now the face of the man from the 8th Field Artillery from whom he had bought it, he could remember the exact transaction that took place and the exact spot and scene where it was consummated. He clung to this and just simply forgot Musso.

  So when Mast came up out of the uppermost, or number six, hole where he had been on post at one of the machine guns, and saw far down below him on the highway the little weapons carrier with Musso in the front beside the driver and the long snouts of the fifties sticking up in back, he suffered a strange mixed double feeling which quickly turned into a definite fright.

  Actually, during those few days from the incident with O’Brien to the coming of Musso, Mast had had almost no trouble at all where the pistol was concerned. There had been no more nocturnal attempts to steal it, since everyone knew by now that Mast slept with it in his waist belt and buttoned down under his shirt. And there had been only three offers to buy it from him, two of them by former would-be buyers who had won at poker and were coming back with a higher offer.