Target Practice (Stout, Rex)

by Rex Stout

  Then he understood, for he drew back and changed color.

  “Joseph—” he said, and stopped.

  Then there was another silence, while we stood looking at each other.

  I do not know how it was, monsieur; but there seemed to be no room for pity or affection in me. It was the war, I think, and rage at Théodore that he had tried to make a fool of me. Day after day we had heard nothing but France, France, France, until I believe everyone in the fort was crazy. May the good God forgive me, I had a feeling of pride that I was strong enough to do the thing I meant to do!

  “Monsieur,” I said—I was theatrical, I called him monsieur—“monsieur, I am a soldier of France, and I must perform my duty. By your own admission you are a spy of the German government. You will understand why I prefer not to arrest you myself. I shall lock you in this room and report your presence to the officer in command.”

  I started to back away; and then suddenly I weakened, when Théodore smiled, just as he used to smile in the old days together, and he spoke calmly; there wasn’t a trace of anger or reproach in his voice.

  “Joseph,” he said, “I am a soldier, too, and I would be the last to blame you for performing your duty. But this means death for me, you know; and, after all, I am a Bonnot—I am your brother. Here is the pad—you may search me, I have nothing else—and let me go.”

  I shall never forget the way he smiled at me as he said that, monsieur. It went straight to my heart. I took a step away from the door.

  “Théodore, my brother!” I cried, and opened my arms.

  But as I did so the sound of voices reached my ears from without, rolling over the parapet and echoing throughout the fort. A hundred voices raised all at once.

  It was my comrades singing as they marched to the barracks for noon mess:

  “Allons enfants de la patrie,

  Le jour de gloire est arrivé!

  Contre nous de la tyrannie,

  L’étendard sanglant est levé—

  L’étendard sanglant est levé.

  Entendez-vous dans ces campagnes

  Mugir ces féroces soldats?

  Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras

  Egorger nos fils, nos compagnes—”

  We stood in silence while the song swelled to its climax. I felt my heart bursting within me. My arms dropped to my side.

  When the last echo had died away I turned without a word—without a look, without a sign, monsieur—walked out of the gun room, locked the door behind me, my brother a prisoner, and started for the office of the officer in command.

  I never saw Théodore again—but yes—wait—

  Just as I reached the door of the office Captain Janvour appeared on the threshold. I fell back a step and saluted.

  “What is it, Bonnot?” he asked pleasantly.

  And then, monsieur, I realized that I couldn’t say it. “My brother is locked in the gun room. He is a German spy.” The words would not come out.

  I hesitated, confused, feeling my face grow red while the captain looked at me.

  “Nothing sir,” I ended by stammering.

  “Nothing! What the devil did you come here for?”

  “Why, sir—to ask—may my brother go to mess, sir?”

  “Certainly! You know it wasn’t necessary to ask that.”

  The captain gave me a queer look before he walked off in the direction of the officers’ quarters. When he had gone I sighed with thankfulness and relief, and tears came to my eyes.

  Then the next instant I was cursing myself for a weak fool.

  I tell you what, monsieur, this war has made us all crazy. Nobody is the same. The men at the fort eat like hogs, like wild beasts, and they yell around at night, and the officers smile and say it’s the fighting spirit.

  I went to the mess room in the barracks, trying to think what to do. I sat down at the table and ate with the rest of them. Chanin asked me where my brother was, but I didn’t answer. They were all so noisy they didn’t notice my silence.

  After the meal I went out to the yard and lit my pipe and walked around a long time—half an hour, maybe. I couldn’t decide what to do.

  Then suddenly I thought of mother—somehow I hadn’t thought of her before—and then I turned and ran through the yard and barracks and over the traverse to the gun room. My fingers trembled so I could scarcely unlock the door, and I stumbled and nearly fell as I sprang inside.

  Monsieur, the gun room was empty! Théodore was not there. I could not believe my eyes.

  I called his name in a low tone, then louder, but there was no answer. I couldn’t understand it. Of course, he could not have left by the door, locked as it was, with the key in my pocket.

  The only other way of escape was to climb the ladder to the parapet, walk along that till he came to another gun room, and then slide down. But I knew the doors of all the gun rooms were kept locked; so he couldn’t have got out.

  I mounted the parapet and ran along the ledge, looking in each gun room as I passed. There was no sign of him, and all the doors were closed tight. In several of the rooms were gunners and privates getting ready for target practise, and they were surprised to see me on the parapet and asked what I was doing, but I paid no attention.

  I ran on to the end, where the bastion face breaks off and the new orillons are placed. From the edge of the parapet to the first orillon there is a space about eighteen feet wide, and the trench is thirty feet deep. A sentry is supposed to be stationed there, but I couldn’t see him anywhere.

  Had Théodore leaped the trench and escaped over the wall on the other side? It appeared to be impossible, but there was no other solution.

  Then, struck by a sudden thought, I ran back along the parapet to my gun room and slid down the ladder. I ran to the corner where I had dropped the pad of paper. It was gone.

  I swore at myself then. If I had only taken it with me when I went to report to the captain! But had Théodore really escaped? I could not think it possible that he had leaped that trench, and there was no other way.

  But, then, where was he?

  I was half crazy, monsieur. I told myself that I had betrayed my country.

  I see now that I exaggerated everything. After all, he had nothing but a scrap of paper with a few figures on it, and of this fort, too, which could never be attacked except from the sea. But you know what the war fever is; and besides, I was enraged that he had outwitted me.

  I started to climb the ladder to the parapet, thinking to look through the other gun rooms again.

  As I did so I heard the door open behind me. It was some privates bringing the loading carriages with ammunition for target practise.

  “Hello, Bonnot!” they called. “Come and give us a hand!”

  I slid back to the floor.

  “Mon Dieu!” exclaimed one of them—Biron—looking over at me. “What’s the matter, man? Your face is white as a German’s liver!”

  I mumbled something—I don’t know what—and began to help them wheel in the carriages. It took us quite a while to get them forward and in position.

  Captain Janvour came in to ask if everything was ready. I said we hadn’t loaded yet.

  “Why the devil don’t you hurry up, then?” he said. “We’re waiting for you. Signal when you’re ready. The blue pennant is yours. Ten rounds at five-minute intervals, using only one gun. Get a move on.”

  For the next ten minutes I forgot everything but my work, and I kept the men at it so that by the end of that time everything was in place.

  I hadn’t oiled up my mechanism that day, and so I hadn’t decided which gun to use. I think I told you there were three in the room. I climbed up to No. 1, opened her up, and looked down the bore. It looked rough, so I went on to No. 2, but she was even worse.

  When I climbed up to No. 3, I saw that the breechblock was swung half open.

  That doesn’t mean anything to you, monsieur, but you’re not a gunner. I knew I hadn’t left it that way, for I take better care of my guns than any oth
er man in the fort.

  I opened her wide and looked down the bore.

  It was black as night! Completely choked up. I couldn’t understand it.

  One of the men handed up a candle, and I poked it in. It took me a few seconds to get it set right on account of the reflection; and then, monsieur, I saw what made me start so that I nearly fell off the platform.

  It was the top of a man’s head, covered with curly brown hair. It was my brother Théodore. There he was, like a rat in a hole!

  I felt the blood leave my face, and my hand shook so that the candle knocked against the steel and went out. For ten seconds I stood there without breathing.

  My first thought was to close the breech and use one of the other guns. Then suddenly my head grew hot, as though my brain were on fire; and then, quite as suddenly, I felt cool and calm as ice.

  I thrust my arm farther into the bore to see if there were room for loading, and my fingers brushed against Theodore’s hair. Then I drew my hand out and turned to the men below.

  “We’ll use No. 3,” I called out in a steady voice. “Here, quick! Up with the lever, Biron.” It would ruin the gun, I knew—

  Biron leaped up beside me, and together we raised the projectile from the loading-carriage and inserted it. Then the charge and primer.

  He jumped down. I swung the breechblock to and turned the translating-screw, then twisted the locking screw till she was closed tight.

  The cold steel felt warm to my hands, and I felt drops of sweat coming out on my forehead, but I worked steadily and calmly.

  Calling to Biron to press the signal button, I mounted the sighting platform and began turning the side crank. Off across the water I could see the mud-colored target, tossing up and down on the waves; and to the right, at the end of the embankment, a group of officers and privates were gathered around the foot of the pennant staff.

  I worked the lever slowly and firmly, with my eye glued to the glass.

  “Take your time, mon vieux,” came Biron’s voice from below.

  Suddenly a blue pennant went fluttering up to the top of the staff. I gave the lever one little turn to the right, locked it, dropped my hand to the guard—then closed my eyes tight and pressed the trigger.

  I heard nothing and saw nothing after that, monsieur. My brain seemed to be on fire again, and they say I fell from the platform to the floor and was picked up senseless.

  Anyway, that is my story. You understand now what I meant when I said I was not French. It was not I who killed my brother, monsieur, it was France. I am of no nation; I am Joseph Bonnot.

  You will see my mother—you will tell her what I say—I love her, monsieur, and I love my brother Theodore, but I hate war and I hate all nations—all.

  As he uttered the last word Joseph Bonnot’s head sank back on the pillow and his arm, raised in a menacing gesture, fell across his breast. I sat for some time pondering on what he had said.

  Finally I was aroused by the arrival of Dr. Dumain. As he saw the still and inert form on the cot a look of comprehension entered his eyes. He stepped to the side of the cot and placed his ear against the gunner’s breast.

  After a minute he looked up with solemn eyes, shaking his head sorrowfully.

  “The end,” he said in a low voice. “I wonder,” he added reflectively, “what possible reason a fine, strong man like Bonnot could have to commit suicide?”

  The Pay Yeoman

  PAYMASTER GARWAY ROSS, attached to and serving on board the United States steamship Helena, possessed in an eminent degree all of the qualifications mentioned as appertaining to his position.

  He also possessed one or two of the flexible virtues and a bitter knowledge of the sourness of the fruit of life. This last it was that drove him to seek the salty masculinity of the wardroom.

  On a certain day of the year Paymaster Garway Ross, moved by the inherent laziness of man and a careless irresponsibility peculiar to himself, did a very foolish thing. He gave the combination of the office safe to his yeoman.

  The pay yeoman, generally speaking, is the man who does the work of the paymaster. Particularly was this true in the case of Yeoman James Martin and Paymaster Garway Ross.

  To the latter a monthly statement was a fearsome labyrinth and a quarterly return a snare of the devil. Also, he hated to count money, always having had so much of his own that he had never been under the necessity of counting it.

  Finally, after a year of growing confidence in his yeoman, he entrusted him with the daily balance of the cash and sighed with immense relief.

  For two years all was harmony. Paymaster Garway Ross read novels, wore out the lounge in the wardroom, invented mysterious and tantalizing cocktails, while Yeoman Martin wrote and ruled in the pay office two decks below.

  Then, on a day in August (the Helena was at dry dock in New York), Martin announced his intention of applying for a furlough. The paymaster heartily approved, though he realized it meant a temporary burden on his own shoulders.

  By a tactful word to the captain he got Martin’s week of liberty extended to two; and in his effort to show his appreciation of his yeoman’s services, even went so far as to present him with a treasury note of poetic denomination.

  This gift, however, Martin steadfastly refused, seemingly on the grounds of personal dignity. The paymaster pocketed the note with great reluctance and waved a cheerful au revoir as Martin went down the gangway.

  About three o’clock on the following afternoon the paymaster, by a tremendous effort of the will, lifted himself from the wardroom lounge, proceeding to the pay office, made an entry in the provision return, opened the safe, and balanced the cash.

  That is, he tried to balance it. It was eight thousand dollars short.

  For the remainder of that day, and the whole of the next, Paymaster Garway Ross was thoroughly stunned.

  He was conscious of an immense incredulity. This was not based on any real knowledge of Martin’s character or belief in his honesty, but originated in and proceeded from the paymaster himself. His mind, limited by its own habits, was incapable of registering so sudden and complete a reversal of conception.

  In short, the thing was incredible.

  But when, on the morning of the third day and for the fortieth time, he checked up the contents of the safe and found the shortage actually existent he forced himself to recognize the truth and prepare for action.

  Owing to certain of the naval regulations, his dilemma was a curious one, for had it become known that he had entrusted the combination of the safe to his yeoman the paymaster would have been court-martialed and probably dismissed from the service; so runs the rule. Obviously, therefore, he could not expose Martin’s guilt without at the same time admitting his own.

  But the paymaster’s sympathies had been smothered by an overwhelming fact—he disliked, as he expressed it to himself, being made the goat for anyone. For a long hour he sat perched on the edge of the office stool, smoking a huge black cigar, revolving schemes innumerable and rejecting each in its turn.

  Exactly in proportion as his helplessness became apparent his anger increased, and the cold anger of a brain slow to conceive and strong to retain is to be feared.

  It was well for Jimmie Martin that he was many miles away from the berth-deck of the Helena when Paymaster Ross emerged from the pay office and mounted the officers’ ladder to his own room.

  The following morning he visited his bankers in Cedar Street, and in exchange for a personal check received eight hundred ten-dollar bills. These he took to the ship and placed in the safe, after which he balanced the cash. He then drew forth a private account-book and turned to a clean page, which he headed, “James Martin.”

  Beneath this he wrote: “To experience supplied—$8000.”

  He knew nothing of bookkeeping, however, and the sense of the entry appeared to be somewhat obscure. Accordingly, after a minute of thought, he wrote in the middle of the page in pencil the words: “Account not closed.”

  One hot
June morning the United States steamship Helena, with her shining decks and her rakish stack, boomed forth a salute to the commandant and weighed anchor in the harbor of San Juan.

  Within half an hour her boats were lowered and her starboard gangway made fast, and a few minutes later the steam launch glided away, headed for the naval station wharf.

  The passengers were the captain, paying a call to the commandant; the surgeon, whose errand was personal; and Paymaster Garway Ross, in search of fresh meat. The commissary was paying for a little indiscretion by reposing in solitary grandeur in the brig.

  For two years and six months, since the disappearance of Jimmie Martin, the Helena had roamed the seas and paraded the coast. She had escorted a floating dry dock from Cherbourg to Norfolk, honored a New Orleans Mardi Gras with her presence, twice attended the annual maneuvers at Guantanamo, and made herself generally handy and useful. She was at San Juan in obedience to an order to relieve the Chester.

  More than two years ago it was that the new pay yeoman had placed a big red “D” opposite Jimmie Martin’s name on the crew payroll, for Martin’s furlough, already extended by himself from two weeks to thirty months, seemed likely to become permanent.

  Perhaps some day some country deputy would appear at Norfolk or Brooklyn with Martin in one hand and an expense list in the other, and, pocketing the reward for apprehension of a deserter, leave Martin to be sentenced for three dreary years to the prison ship at Portsmouth; but he remained as yet on the list of the wanted. His billet had been filled, his bag and hammock sold at auction, and he had become but a vague and unrecognized number to the roll and the crew of the United States steamship Helena.

  With one exception.

  Paymaster Garway Ross did neither forget nor forgive. Perhaps it would be not exactly just to call him vindictive; yet he desired revenge. Almost unconsciously he nursed his anger and the wish for vengeance.

  It had never taken the form of active investigation or pursuit. But it was there, smoldering, waiting; just as, according to the scientists, we each harbor within us the sleeping germ of insanity, ready to be raised at any moment to dreadful activity by something that is not within us.