The Sniper
Liam O’Flaherty
Connect with your life: What causes people to become enemies? Why is world peace so difficult to achieve? Think
about different issues that might cause one person or a group of people to become your enemy.
Build Background: “The Sniper” takes place in Dublin, Ireland, during a civil war that erupted in 1922-1923. This
war, which killed many innocent civilians, resulted from internal opposition to Ireland’s move toward
independence from England. The Irish Free Staters wanted Ireland to govern itself but still remain a part of the
British Empire. The Irish Republican Army (or the Republicans) wanted complete independence from England.
The long June twilight faded into night. Dublin lay enveloped in darkness, but for the dim light of the moon, that
shone through fleecy clouds, casting a pale light as of approaching dawn over the streets and the dark water of the Liffey.
Around the beleaguered Four Courts the heavy guns roared. Here and there thoughout the city machine guns and rifles
broke the silence of the night, spasmodically, like dogs barking on lone farms. Republicans and Free Staters were waging
civil war.
On a roof-top near O’Connel Bridge, a Republican sniper lay watching. Beside him lay his rifle and over his
shoulders were slung a pair of field-glasses. His face was the face of a student – thin and ascetic, but his eyes had the cold
gleam of the fanatic. They were deep and thoughtful, the eyes of a man who is used to looking at death.
He was eating a sandwich hungrily. He had eaten nothing since morning. He had been too excited to eat. He
finished the sandwich, and taking a flask of whiskey from his pocket, he took a short draught. Then he returned the flask
to his pocket. He paused for a moment, considering whether he should risk a smoke. It was dangerous. The flash might
be seen in the darkness and there were enemies watching. He decided to take the risk. Placing a cigarette between his
lips, he struck a match, inhaled the smoke hurriedly and put out the light. Almost immediately, a bullet flattened itself
against the parapet of the roof. The sniper took another whiff and put out the cigarette. Then he swore softly and crawled
away to the left.
Cautiously he raised himself and peered over the parapet. There was a flash and a bullet whizzed over his head.
He dropped immediately. He had seen the flash. It came from the opposite side of the street.
He rolled over the roof to a chimneystack in the rear, and slowly drew himself up behind it, until his eyes were
level with the top of the parapet. There was nothing to be seen – just the dim outline of the opposite housetop against the
blue sky. His enemy was under cover. Just then an armored car came across the ridge and advance slowly up the street.
It stopped on the opposite side of the street fifty yards ahead. The sniper could hear the dull panting of the motor. His
heart beat faster. It was an enemy car. He wanted to fire but he knew it was useless. His bullets would never pierce the
steel that covered the grey monster.
Then round the corner of a side street came an old woman, her head covered by a tattered shawl. She began to
talk to the man in the turret of the car. She was pointing to the road where the sniper lay. An informer.
The turret opened. A man’s head and shoulders appeared, looking towards the sniper. The sniper raised his rifle
and fired. The head fell heavily on the turret wall. The woman darted toward the side street. The sniper fired again. The
woman whirled round and fell with a shriek into the gutter.
Suddenly from the opposite roof a shot rang out and the sniper dropped his rifle with a curse. He rifle clattered to
the roof. The sniper thought the noise would wake the dead. He stopped to pick the rifle up. He couldn’t lift it. His
forearm was dead…. He muttered, “I’m hit.”
Dropping flat on to the roof, he crawled back to the parapet. With his left hand he felt the injured right forearm.
The blood was oozing through the sleeve of his coat. There was no pain – just a deadened sensation, as if the arm had
been cut off.
Quickly he drew his knife from his pocket, opened it on the breastwork of the parapet and ripped open the sleeve.
There was a small hole where the bullet had entered. On the other side there was no hole. The bullet had lodged in the
bone. It must have fractured it. He bent the arm below the wound. The arm bent back easily. He ground his teeth to
overcome the pain.
enveloped (adjective) covered; wrapped
beleaguered (adjective) surrounded; besieged
spasmodically (adverb) at irregular intervals; intermittently
ascetic (adjective) severe; stern
fanatic (noun) a person who supports a cause or pursues an interest with extreme enthusiasm
parapet (noun) a low wall along the edge of a roof or balcony
lodged (verb) to become embedded or stuck
Then, taking out his field dressing, he ripped open the packet with his knife. He broke the neck of the iodine
bottle and let the bitter fluid drip into the wound. A paroxysm of pain swept through him. He placed the cotton wadding
over the wound and wrapped the dressing over it. He tied the end with his teeth.
Then he lay still against the parapet, and closing his eyes, he made an effort of will to overcome the pain.
In the street beneath all was still. The armored car had retired speedily over the bridge, with the machine
gunner’s head hanging lifeless over the turret. The woman’s corpse lay still in the gutter.
The sniper lay for a long time nursing his wounded arm and planning escape. Morning must not find him
wounded on the roof. The enemy on the opposite roof covered his escape. He must kill that enemy and he could not use
his rifle. He had only a revolver to do it. Then he thought of a plan.
Taking off his cap, he placed it over the muzzle of his rifle. Then he pushed the rifle slowly upwards over the
parapet, until the cap was visible from the opposite side of the street. Almost immediately there was a report, and a bullet
pierced the center of the cap. The sniper slanted the rifle forward. The cap slipped down into the street. Then, catching
the rifle in the middle, the sniper dropped his left hand over the roof and let it hang, lifelessly. After a few moments he let
the rifle drop to the street. Then he sank to the roof, dragging his hand with him.
Crawling quickly to the left, he peered up at the corner of the roof. His ruse had succeeded. The other sniper
seeing the cap and rifle fall, thought that he had killed his man. He was now standing before a row of chimney pots,
looking across, with his head clearly silhouetted against the western sky.
The Republican sniper smiled and lifted his revolver above the edge of the parapet. The distance was about fifty
yards – a hard shot in the dim light, and his right arm was paining him…He took a steady aim. His hand trembled with
eagerness. Pressing his lips together, he took a deep breath through his nostrils and fired. He was almost deafened with
the report and his arm shot with the recoil.
Then, when the smoke cleared, he peered across and uttered a cry of joy. His enemy had been hit. He was reeling
over the parapet in his death agony. He struggled to keep his feet. But he was slowly falling forward, as if in a dream.
The rifle fell from his grasp, hit the parapet, fell over, bounded off the pole of a barber’s shop beneath and then clattered
on to the pavement.
Then the dying man on the roof crumpled up and fell forward. The body turned over and over in space and hit the
ground with a dull thud. Then it lay still.
The sniper looked at this enemy falling and he shuddered. The lust of the battle died in him. He became bitten by
remorse. The sweat stood out in beads on his forehead. Weakened by his wound and the long summer day of fasting and
watching on the roof, he revolted from the sight of the shattered mass of his dead enemy. His teeth chattered. He began
to gibber to himself, cursing the war, cursing himself, cursing everybody.
He looked at the smoking revolver in his hand and with an oath he hurled it to the roof at his feet. The revolver
went off with the concussion, and the bullet whizzed past the sniper’s head. He was frightened back to his senses by the
shock. His nerves steadied. The cloud of fear scattered from his mind and he laughed.
Taking the whiskey flask from his pocket, he emptied it at a draught. He felt reckless under the influence of the
spirits. He decided to leave the roof and look for his company commander to report. Everywhere around was quiet.
There was not much danger in going through the streets. He picked up his revolver and put it in his pocket. Then he
crawled down through the sky-light to the house underneath.
When the sniper reached the laneway on the street level, he felt a sudden curiosity as to the identity of the enemy
sniper whom he had killed. He decided that he was a good shot whoever he was. He wondered if he knew him. Perhaps
he had been in his own company before the split in the army. He decided to risk going over to have a look at him. He
peered around the corner into O’Connell Street. In the upper part of the street there was heavy firing, but around here all
was quiet.
The sniper darted across the street. A machine gun tore up the ground around him with a hail of bullets, but he
escaped. He threw himself face downwards beside the corpse. The machine gun stopped.
Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face.
paroxysm (noun) sudden attack
report (noun_ an explosive noise; bang
ruse (noun) a trick
reel (verb) to fall off balance; lurch
remorse (noun) bitter regret
gibber (verb) to speak rapidly and incoherently
The First Appendectomy
William A. Nolen
The road to becoming a doctor is long and full of pressure. After graduating
from college, one must complete four years of medical school and then one year of a
supervised internship at a hospital. Those who specialize next embark on at least
three years of training as a hospital resident. Interns and residents work long hours
and gain as much experience as possible. As you read this selection, compare the
pressures that you feel with the young doctor’s pressure to perform.
The patient, or better, victim, of my first major surgical venture was a man I’ll
call Mr. Polansky. He was fat, he weight one hundred and ninety pounds and was five
feet eight inches tall. He spoke only broken English. He had had a sore abdomen with
all the classical signs and symptoms of appendicitis for twenty-four hours before he came
to Bellevue.
After two months of my internship though I had yet to do anything that could be
decently called an “operation,” I had had what I thought was a fair amount of operating
time. I’d watched the assistant residents work, I’d tied knots, cut sutures and even, in
order to remove a skin lesion, mad an occasional incision. Frankly, I didn’t think that
surgery was going to be too damn difficult. I figured that I was ready, and I was
chomping at the bit to go, so when Mr. Polansky arrived I greeted him like a long-lost
friend. He was overwhelmed at the interest I showed in his case. He probably couldn’t
understand why any doctor should be so fascinated by a case of appendicitis; wasn’t it a
common disease? It was just as well that he didn’t realize my interest in him was so
personal. He might have been frightened, and with good reason.
At any rate, I set some sort of record in preparing Mr. Polansky for surgery. He
had arrived on the ward at four o’clock. By six I had examined him, checked his blood
and urine, taken his chest x-ray and had him ready for the operating room.
George Walters, the senior resident on call that night, was to “assist” me during
the operation. George was older than the rest of us. I was twenty-five at this time and he
was thirty-two. He had taken his surgical training in Europe and was spending one year
as a senior resident in and American hospital to establish eligibility of the American
College of Surgeons. He had had more experience than the other residents and it took a
lot to disturb his equanimity in the operating room. As it turned out this made him the
ideal assistant for me.
It was ten o’clock when we wheeled Mr. Polansky to the operating room. At
Bellevue, at night, only two operating rooms were kept open – there were six or more
going all day – so we had to wait our turn. In the time I had to myself before the
operation I had reread the section on appendectomy in the Atlas of Operative Technique
in our surgical library, and had spend half and hour tying knots on the bedpost in my
room. I was, I felt, “ready.”
I delivered Mr. Polansky to the operating room and started an intravenous going
in his arm. Then I left him to the care of the anesthetist. I had ordered a sedative prior to
surgery, so Mr. Polansky was drowsy. The anesthetist, after checking his chart, soon had
him sleeping.
Once he was asleep, I scrubbed the enormous expanse of Mr. Polansky’s
abdomen for ten minutes. Then, while George placed the sterile drapes, I scrubbed my
own hands for another five, mentally reviewing each step of the operation as I do so.
Donning gown and gloves I took my place on the right side of the operating-room table.
The nurse handed me the scalpel. I was ready to begin.
Suddenly, my entire attitude changed. A split second earlier I had been
supremely confident; now, with the knife finally in my hand, I stared down at Mr.
Polansky’s abdomen and for the life of me could not decide where to make the incision.
The “landmarks” had disappeared. There was too much belly.
George waited a few seconds, then looked up at me and said, “Go ahead.”
“What?” I asked.
“Make the incision,” said George.
“Where?” I asked.
“Where?”
“Yes,” I answered, “where?”
“Why, here, of course,” said George and drew an imaginary line on the abdomen
with his fingers.
I took the scalpel and followed where he had directed. I barely scratched Mr.
Polansky.
“Press a little harder,” George directed. I did. The blade went through the skin to
a depot of perhaps one sixteenth of an inch.
“Deeper,” said George.
There are five layers of tissue in the abdominal wall: skin, fat, fascia (a tough
membranous tissue), muscle and peritoneum (the smooth, glistening, transparent inner
lining of the abdomen). I cut down into the fat. Another sixteenth of an inch.
“Bill,” said George, looking up at me, “this patient is big. There’s at least three
inches of fat to get through before we even reach the fascia. At the rate you’re going, we
won’t be into the abdomen for another four hours. For God’s sake, will you cut?”
I made up my mind not to be hesitant. I pressed down hard on the knife, and
suddenly we were not only trough the fat but through the fascia as well.
“Not that hard,” George shouted, grabbing my right wrist with his left hand while
with his other hand he plunged a gauze pack into the wound to stop the bleeding. “Start
clamping,” he told me.
The nurse handed us hemostats and we applied them to the numerous vessels I
had so hastily opened. “All right,” George said, “start tying.”
I took the ligature material from the nurse and began to tie off the vessels. Or
rather, I tried to tie off the vessels, because suddenly my knot-tying proficiency had
melted away. The casual dexterity I had displayed on the bedpost a short hour ago was
nowhere in evidence. My fingers, greasy with fat, simply would not perform. My ties
slipped off the vessels, the sutures snapped in my fingers, at one point I even managed to
tie the end of my rubber glove into the wound. It was, to put it bluntly, a performance in
fumbling that would have made Robert Benchley blush.
Here I must give my first paean of praise to George. His patience during the
entire performance was nothing short of miraculous. The temptation to pick up the catgut
and do the tying himself must have been strong. He could have tied off all the vessels in
two minutes. It took me twenty.
Finally, we were ready to proceed. “Now,” George directed, “split the muscle.
But gently, please.”
I reverted to my earlier tack. Fiber by fiber I spread the muscle which was the last
layer but one that kept us from the inside of the abdomen. Each time I separated the
fibers and withdrew my clamp, the fibers rolled together again. After five minutes, I was
no nearer the appendix than I had been at the start.
George could stand it no longer. But he was apparently afraid to suggest I take a
more aggressive approach, fearing I would stick the clamp into, or possibly through, the
entire abdomen. Instead he suggest that the help me by spreading eh muscle in one
direction while I spread it in the other. I made my usually infinitesimal attack on the
muscle. In one feel swoop, George spread the rest.
“Very well done,” he complimented me. “Now let’s get in.”
We each took a clamp and picked up the tissue-paper-tin peritoneum. After two
or three hesitant attacks with the scalpel I finally opened it. We were in the abdomen.
“Now,” said George, “put your fingers in, feel the cecum (the portion of the
bowel to which the appendix is attached) and bring it into the wound.”
I stuck my right hand into the abdomen. I felt around – but what was I feeling? I
had no idea.
It had always looked so simple when the senior resident did it. Open the
abdomen, reach inside, pull up the appendix. Nothing to it. But apparently there was.
Everything felt the same to me. The small intestine, the large intestine, the cecum
– how did one tell them apart without seeing them? I grabbed something and pulled it
into the wound. Small intestine. No good. Put it back. I grabbed again. This time it
was the sigmoid colon. Put it back. On my third try I had the small intestine again.
“The appendix must be in an abnormal position,” I said to George. “I can’t seem
to find it.”
“Mind if I try?” he asked.
“Not at all,” I answered. “I wish you would.”
Two of his fingers disappeared into the wound. Five seconds later they emerged,
cecum between them, with the appendix flopping from it.
“Stuck down a little bit,” he said kindly. “That’s probably why you didn’t feel it.
It’s a hot one,” he added. “Let’s get at it.”
The nurse handed me the hemostats, and one by one I applied them to the
mesentery of the appendix – the veil of tissue in which the blood vessels run. With
George holding the veil between his fingers I had no trouble; I took the ligatures and tied
the vessels without a single error. My confidence was coming back.
“Now,” George directed,” put in your purse string.” (The cecum is a portion of
the bowel which has the shape of half a hemisphere. The appendix projects from its
surface like a finger. In an appendectomy the routine procedure is to tie the appendix at
its base and cut it off a little beyond the tie. Then the remaining stump is inverted into
the cecum and kept there by tying the purse-string stitch. This was the stitch I was now
going to sew.)
It went horribly. The wall of the cecum is not very thick – perhaps one eighth of
an inch. The suture must be placed deeply enough in the wall so that it won’t cut through
when tied, but not so deep as to pass all the way through the wall. My sutures were
alternately too superficial or too deep, but eventually I got the job done.
“All right,” said George, “let’s get the appendix out of here. Tie off the base.”
I did.
“Now cut off the appendix.”
At least in this, the definitive act of the operation, I would be decisive. I took the
knife and with one quick slash cut through the appendix – too close to the ligature.
“Oh oh, watch it,” said George. “That tie is going to slip.”
It did. The appendiceal stump lay there, open. I felt faint.
“Don’t panic,” said George. “We’ve still go the purse string. I’ll push the stump
in – you pull up the stitch and tie. That will take care of it.”
I picked up the two ends of the suture and put in the first stitch. George shove the
open stump into the cecum. It disappeared as I snugged my tie. Beautiful.
“Two more knots,” said George. “Just to be safe.”
I tied the first knot and breathed a sigh of relief. The appendiceal stump remained
out of sight. On the third knot – for the sake of security – I pulled a light tighter. The
stitch broke; the open stump popped up; the cecum disappeared into the abdomen. I
broke out in a cold sweat and my knees started to crumble.
Even George momentarily lost his composure. “Bill,” he said, grasping
desperately for the bowel, “what did you have to do that for?” The low point of the
operation had been reached.
By the time we had retrieved the cecum, Mr. Polansky’s peritoneal cavity had
been contaminated. My self-confidence was shattered. And still George let me continue.
True, he all but held my hand as we retied and resutured, but the instruments were in my
hand.
The closure was anticlimactic. Once I had the peritoneum sutured, things went
reasonably smoothly. Two hours after we began, the operation was over. “Nice job,”
George said, doing his best to sound sincere.
“Thanks,” I answered, lamely.
The scrub nurse laughed.
Mr. Polansky recovered, I am happy to report, though not without a long and
complicated convalescence. His bowel refused to function normally for two weeks and
he became enormously distended. He was referred to at our nightly conferences as “Dr.
Nolen’s pregnant man.” Each time the reference was made, it elicited a shudder from
me.
During his convalescence I spent every spare moment I could at Mr. Polansky’s
bedside. My feelings of guilt and responsibility were overwhelming. If he had died I
think I would have given up surgery for good.
“The Tell-Tale Heart”
by Edgar Allan Poe
TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you
say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses--not destroyed--not dulled them.
Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard
many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily--how calmly I
can tell you the whole story.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted
me day and night. Object, there was none. Passion, there was none. I loved the old man. He had
never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his
eye! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture--a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever
it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees--very gradually--I made up my mind to
take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have
seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded--with what caution--with what
foresight—w ith what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than
during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of
his door and opened it--oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my
head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my
head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly--very,
very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole
head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! Would a madman
have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern
cautiously--oh, so cautiously--cautiously (for the hinges creaked)--I undid it just so much that a
single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights--every night just at
midnight--but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was
not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went
boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone,
and inquiring how he had passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old
man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.
Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's
minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of
my own powers--of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that
there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or
thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed
suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back--but no. His room was as black as
pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and
so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily,
steadily.
I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin
fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out, “Who's there?"
I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the
meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening;--just as I have
done, night after night, hearkening to the deathwatches in the wall.
Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a
groan of pain or of grief--oh, no!--it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the
soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when
all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the
terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him,
although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise,
when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been
trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself--"It is nothing but
the wind in the chimney--it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which
has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but
he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his
black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the
unperceived shadow that caused him to feel--although he neither saw nor heard--to feel the
presence of my head within the room.
When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved
to open a little--a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it--you cannot imagine how
stealthily, stealthily --until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out
the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.
It was open--wide, wide open--and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect
distinctness--all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones;
but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by
instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.
And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the
senses?--Now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes
when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It
increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.
But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I
tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart
increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror
must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment!--Do you mark me well? I
have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the
dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.
Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I
thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me--the sound would be heard by a
neighbour! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped
into the room. He shrieked once--once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor and pulled
the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes,
the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard
through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined
the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there
many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.
If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise
precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in
silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.
I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between
the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye--not even
his--could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out--no stain of any kind-no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all--ha! ha!
When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock--still dark as midnight. As
the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a
light heart,--for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves,
with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the
night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office,
and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.
I smiled,--for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was
my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all
over the house. I bade them search--search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed
them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into
the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity
of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse
of the victim.
The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease.
They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt
myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears:
but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct. It continued and became
more distinct. I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling, but it continued and gained
definiteness--until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears.
No doubt I now grew very pale;--but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice.
Yet the sound increased--and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound--much such a
sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath--and yet the officers heard
it not. I talked more quickly--more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and
argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily
increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if
excited to fury by the observations of the men--but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! What
could I do? I foamed--I raved--I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and
grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder-louder--louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not?
Almighty God!--No, no! They heard!--They suspected!--They knew!--They were making a
mockery of my horror!--This I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony!
Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer!
I felt that I must scream or die! And now--again!--Hark! Louder! Louder! Louder! Louder!
"Villains!" I shrieked, "Dissemble no more! I admit the deed!--Tear up the planks! Here,
here!--It is the beating of his hideous heart!"
“Memories of Dating”
by DAVE BARRY
As a mature adult, I feel an obligation to help the younger
generation, just as the mother fish guards her unhatched eggs, keeping
her lonely vigil day after day, never leaving her post, not even to go
to the bathroom, until her tiny babies emerge and she is able, at last,
to eat them. ``She may be your mom, but she's still a fish,'' is a
wisdom nugget that I would pass along to any fish eggs reading this
column.
But today I want to talk about dating. This subject was raised in a
letter to me from a young person named Eric Knott, who writes:
``I have got a big problem. There's this girl in my English class
who is really good looking. However, I don't think she knows I exist. I
want to ask her out, but I'm afraid she will say no, and I will be the freak
of the week. What should I do?''
Eric, you have sent your question to the right mature adult, because
as a young person I spent a lot of time thinking about this very
problem. Starting in about eighth grade, my time was divided as follows:
Academic Pursuits: 2 percent.
Zits: 16 percent
Trying to Figure Out How to Ask Girls Out: 82 percent.
The most sensible way to ask a girl out is to walk directly up to her
on foot and say, ``So, you want to go out? Or what?'' I never did this.
I knew, as Eric Knott knows, that there was always the possibility that
the girl would say no, thereby leaving me with no viable option but to
leave Harold C. Crittenden Junior High School forever and go into the
woods and become a bark-eating hermit whose only companions would
be the gentle and understanding woodland creatures.
``Hey, ZITFACE!'' the woodland creatures would shriek in cute
little Chip 'n' Dale voices while raining acorns down upon my head.
``You wanna DATE? HAHAHAHAHAHA.''
So the first rule of dating is: Never risk direct contact with the
girl in question. Your role model should be the nuclear submarine,
gliding silently beneath the ocean surface, tracking an enemy target
that does not even begin to suspect that the submarine would like to
date it. I spent the vast majority of 1960 keeping a girl named Judy
under surveillance, maintaining a minimum distance of 50 lockers to
avoid the danger that I might somehow get into a conversation with her,
which could have led to disaster:
Judy: Hi.
Me: Hi.
Judy: Just in case you have ever thought about having a date with
me, the answer is no.
Woodland Creatures: HAHAHAHAHAHA.
The only problem with the nuclear-submarine technique is that it's
difficult to get a date with a girl who has never, technically, been
asked. This is why you need Phil Grant. Phil was a friend of mine who
had the ability to talk to girls. It was a mysterious superhuman power
he had, comparable to X-ray vision. So, after several thousand hours of
intense discussion and planning with me, Phil approached a girl he knew
named Nancy, who approached a girl named Sandy, who was a direct
personal friend of Judy's and who passed the word back to Phil via
Nancy that Judy would be willing to go on a date with me. This
procedure protected me from direct humiliation, similar to the way
President Reagan was protected from direct involvement in the Irancontra scandal by a complex White House chain of command that at one
point, investigators now believe, included his horse.
Thus it was that, finally, Judy and I went on an actual date, to see
a movie in White Plains, N.Y. If I were to sum up the romantic
ambience of this date in four words, those words would be: ``My mother
was driving.'' This made for an extremely quiet drive, because my
mother, realizing that her presence was hideously embarrassing, had to
pretend she wasn't there. If it had been legal, I think she would have got
out and sprinted alongside the car, steering through the window. Judy
and I, sitting in the back seat about 75 feet apart, were also silent, unable
to communicate without the assistance of Phil, Nancy and Sandy.
After what seemed like several years we got to the movie theater,
where my mother went off to sit in the Parents and Lepers Section. The
movie was called ``North to Alaska,'' but I can tell you nothing else
about it because I spent the whole time wondering whether it would be
necessary to amputate my right arm, which was not getting any blood
flow as a result of being perched for two hours like a petrified snake on
the back of Judy's seat exactly one molecule away from physical contact.
So it was definitely a fun first date, featuring all the relaxed
spontaneity of a real-estate closing, and in later years I did regain
some feeling in my arm. My point, Eric Knott, is that the key to
successful dating is self-confidence. I bet that good-looking girl in
your English class would LOVE to go out with you. But YOU have to
make the first move. So just do it! Pick up that phone! Call Phil Grant.
1
The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant - W. D. Wetherell
There was a summer in my life when the only
creature that seemed lovelier to me than a
largemouth bass was Sheila Mant. I was fourteen.
The Mants had rented the cottage next to ours on
the river; with their parties, their frantic games of
softball, their constant comings and goings, they
appeared to me denizens of a brilliant existence.
“Too noisy by half,” my mother quickly decided,
but I would have given anything to be invited to one
of their parties, and when my parents went to bed I
would sneak through the woods to their hedge and
stare enchanted at the candlelit swirl of white
dresses and bright, paisley skirts.
Sheila was the middle daughter—at seventeen, all
but out of reach. She would spend her days
sunbathing on a float my Uncle Sierbert had moored
in their cove, and before July was over I had learned
all her moods. If she lay flat on the diving board
with her hand trailing idly in the water, she was
pensive, not to be disturbed. On her side, her head
propped up by her arm, she was observant,
considering those around her with a look that
seemed queenly and severe. Sitting up, arms tucked
around her long, suntanned legs, she was
approachable, but barely, and it was only in those
glorious moments when she stretched herself prior
to entering the water that her various suitors found
the courage to come near.
These were many. The Dartmouth heavyweight
crew would scull by her house on their way upriver,
and I think all eight of them must have been in love
with her at various times during the summer; the
coxswain would curse them through his
megaphone, but without effect—there was always a
pause in their pace when they passed Sheila’s float.
I suppose to these jaded twenty-year-olds she
seemed the incarnation of innocence and youth,
while to me she appeared unutterably suave, the
epitome of sophistication. I was on the swim team
at school, and to win her attention would do endless
laps between my house and the Vermont shore,
hoping she would notice the beauty of my flutter
kick, the power of my crawl. Finishing, I would
boost myself up onto our dock and glance casually
over toward her, but she was never watching, and
the miraculous day she was, I immediately climbed
the diving board and did my best tuck and a half for
her and continued diving until she had left and the
sun went down and my longing was like a madness
and I couldn’t stop.
It was late August by the time I got up the nerve to
ask her out. The tortured will-I’s, won’t-I’s, the
agonized indecision over what to say, the false
starts toward her house and embarrassed retreats—
the details of these have been seared from my
memory, and the only part I remember clearly is
emerging from the woods toward dusk while they
were playing softball on their lawn, as bashful and
frightened as a unicorn.
Sheila was stationed halfway between first and
second, well outside the infield. She didn’t seem
surprised to see me—as a matter of fact, she didn’t
seem to see me at all.
“If you’re playing second base, you should move
closer,” I said.
She turned—I took the full brunt of her long red
hair and well-spaced freckles.
“I’m playing outfield,” she said, “I don’t like the
responsibility of having a base.”
“Yeah, I can understand that,” I said, though I
couldn’t. “There’s a band in Dixford tomorrow
night at nine. Want to go?”
One of her brothers sent the ball sailing over the
left-fielder’s head; she stood and watched it
disappear toward the river.
“You have a car?” she said, without looking up.



Scull – row, as in a rowboat.
Coxswain – person steering a racing shell and calling out the
rhythm of the strokes for the crew.
Epitome – embodiment; one that is representative of a type or
class.
2
I played my master stroke. “We’ll go by canoe.”
I spent all of the following day polishing it. I turned
it upside down on our lawn and rubbed every inch
with Brillo, hosing off the dirt, wiping it with
chamois until it gleamed as bright as aluminum
ever gleamed. About five, I slid it into the water,
arranging cushions near the bow so Sheila could
lean on them if she was in one of her pensive
moods, propping up my father’s transistor radio by
the middle thwart so we could have music when
we came back. Automatically, without thinking
about it, I mounted my Mitchell reel on my Pfleuger
spinning rod and stuck it in the stern.
I say automatically, because I never went anywhere
that summer without a fishing rod. When I wasn’t
swimming laps to impress Sheila, I was back in our
driveway practicing casts, and when I wasn’t
practicing casts, I was tying the line to Tosca, our
springer spaniel, to test the reel’s drag, and when I
wasn’t doing any of those things, I was fishing the
river for bass.
Too nervous to sit at home, I got in the canoe early
and started paddling in a huge circle that would get
me to Sheila’s dock around eight. As automatically
as I brought along my rod, I tied on a big Rapala
plug, let it down into the water, let out some line,
and immediately forgot all about it.
It was already dark by the time I glided up to the
Mants’ dock. Even by day the river was quiet, most
of the summer people preferring Sunapee or one of
the other nearby lakes, and at night it was a solitude
difficult to believe, a corridor of hidden life that ran
between banks like a tunnel. Even the stars were
part of it. They weren’t as sharp anywhere else; they
seemed to have chosen the river as a guide on their
slow wheel toward morning, and in the course of
the summer’s fishing, I had learned all their names.
I was there ten minutes before Sheila appeared. I
heard the slam of their screen door first, then saw
her in the spotlight as she came slowly down the
path. As beautiful as she was on the float, she was
even lovelier now—her white dress went perfectly
with her hair, and complimented her figure even
more than her swimsuit.
.
It was her face that bothered me. It had on its
delightful fullness a very dubious expression.
“Look,” she said. “I can get Dad’s car.”
“It’s faster this way,” I lied. “Parking’s tense up
there. Hey, it’s safe. I won’t tip it or anything.”
She let herself down reluctantly into the bow. I was
glad she wasn’t facing me. When her eyes were on
me, I felt like diving in the river again from agony
and joy.
I pried the canoe away from the dock and started
paddling upstream. There was an extra paddle in the
bow, but Sheila made no move to pick it up. She
took her shoes off and dangled her feet over the
side.
Ten minutes went by.
“What kind of band?” she said.
“It’s sort of like folk music. You’ll like it.”
“Eric Caswell’s going to be there. He strokes
number four.”
“No kidding?” I said. I had no idea whom she
meant.
“What’s that sound?” she said, pointing toward
shore.
“Bass. That splashing sound?”
“Over there.”
“Yeah, bass. They come into the shallows at night
to chase frogs and moths and things. Big
largemouths. Micropterus salmoides,” I added,
showing off.
⇒
⇒
⇒
Chamois – soft leather used for polishing.
Middle thwart – brace across the middle of a canoe.
Micropterus salmoides – the scientific name for a largemouth bass.
3
“I think fishing’s dumb,” she said, making a face. “I
mean, it’s boring and all. Definitely dumb.”
Now I have spent a great deal of time in the years
since wondering why Sheila Mant should come
down so hard on fishing. Was her father a
fisherman? Her antipathy toward fishing nothing
more than normal filial rebellion? Had she tried it
once? A messy encounter with worms? It doesn’t
matter. What does is that at that fragile moment in
time I would have given anything not to appear
dumb in Sheila’s severe and unforgiving eyes.
She hadn’t seen my equipment yet. What I should
have done, of course, was push the canoe in closer
to shore and carefully slide the rod into some
branches where I could pick it up again in the
morning. Failing that, I could have surreptitiously
dumped the whole outfit overboard, written off the
forty or so dollars as love’s tribute. What I actually
did do was gently lean forward, and slowly, ever so
slowly, push the rod back through my legs toward
the stern where it would be less conspicuous.
It must have been just exactly what the bass was
waiting for. Fish will trail a lure sometimes, trying
to make up their mind whether or not to attack, and
the slight pause in the plug’s speed caused by my
adjustment was tantalizing enough to overcome the
bass’s inhibitions. My rod, safely out of sight at last,
bent double. The line, tightly coiled, peeled off the
spool with the shrill, tearing zip of a high-speed
drill.
Four things occurred to me at once. One, that it was
a bass. Two, that it was a big bass. Three, that it was
the biggest bass I had ever hooked. Four, that Sheila
Mant must not know. “What was that?” she said,
turning half around.
“Uh, what was what?”
need to—it was already solidly hooked.
Downstream, an awesome distance downstream, it
jumped clear of the water, landing with a
concussion heavy enough to ripple the entire river.
For a moment, I thought it was gone, but then the
rod was bending again, the tip dancing into the
water. Slowly, not making any motion that might
alert Sheila, I reached down to tighten the drag.
While all this was going on, Sheila had begun
talking, and it was a few minutes before I was able
to catch up with her train of thought.
“I went to a party there. These fraternity men.
Katherine says I could get in there if I wanted. I’m
thinking more of UVM or Bennington. Somewhere
I can ski.”
The bass was slanting toward the rocks on the New
Hampshire side by the ruins of Donaldson’s
boathouse. It had to be an old bass—a young one
probably wouldn’t have known the rocks were
there. I brought the canoe back into the middle of
the river, hoping to head it off.
“That’s neat,” I mumbled. “Skiing. Yeah, I can see
that.”
“Eric said I have the figure to model, but I thought I
should get an education first. I mean, it might be a
while before I get started and all. I was thinking of
getting my hair styled, more swept back? I mean,
Ann-Margret? Like hers, only shorter.”
She hesitated. “Are we going backward?”
We were. I had managed to keep the bass in the
middle of the river away from the rocks, but it had
plenty of room there, and for the first time a chance
to exert its full strength. I quickly computed the
weight necessary to draw a fully loaded canoe
backward—the thought of it made me feel faint.
“That buzzing noise.”
“Bats.”
She shuddered, quickly drew her feet back into the
canoe. Every instinct I had told me to pick up the
rod and strike back at the bass, but there was no
“It’s just the current,” I said hoarsely. “No sweat or
anything.”
⇒
⇒
UVM or Bennington – University of Vermont or Bennington
College, Bennington Vermont.
Ann-Margret – (1941- ) Movie star, very popular at the time of this
story.
4
I dug in deeper with my paddle. Reassured, Sheila
began talking about something else, but all my
attention was taken up now with the fish. I could
feel its desperation as the water grew shallower. I
could sense the extra strain on the line, the frantic
way it cut back and forth in the water. I could
visualize what it looked like—the gape of its mouth,
the flared gills and thick, vertical tail. The bass
couldn’t have encountered many forces in its long
life that it wasn’t capable of handling, and the
unrelenting tug at its mouth must have been a
source of great puzzlement and mounting panic.
Me, I had problems of my own. To get to Dixford, I
had to paddle up a sluggish stream that came into
the river beneath a covered bridge. There was a
shallow sandbar at the mouth of this stream—weeds
on one side, rocks on the other. Without doubt, this
is where I would lose the fish.
“I have to be careful with my complexion. I tan, but
in segments. I can’t figure out if it’s even worth it. I
wouldn’t even do it probably. I saw Jackie
Kennedy in Boston, and she wasn’t tan at all.”
Taking a deep breath, I paddled as hard as I could
for the middle, deepest part of the bar. I could have
threaded the eye of a needle with the canoe, but the
pull on the stern threw me off, and I
overcompensated—the canoe veered left and
scraped bottom. I pushed the paddle down and
shoved. A moment of hesitation . . . a moment
more. . . . The canoe shot clear into the deeper water
of the stream. I immediately looked down at the
rod. It was bent in the same tight arc—
miraculously, the bass was still on.
The moon was out now. It was low and full enough
that its beam shone directly on Sheila there ahead of
me in the canoe, washing her in a creamy, luminous
glow. I could see the lithe, easy shape of her figure.
I could see the way her hair curled down off her
shoulders, the proud, alert tilt of her head, and all
these things were as a tug on my heart. Not just
Sheila, but the aura she carried about her of parties
and casual touchings and grace. Behind me, I could
feel the strain of the bass, steadier now, growing
weaker, and this was another tug on my heart, not
just the bass but the beat of the river and the slant of
the stars and the smell of the night, until finally it
seemed I would be torn apart between longings,
split in half. Twenty yards ahead of us was the road,
and once I pulled the canoe up on shore, the bass
would be gone, irretrievably gone. If instead I stood
up, grabbed the rod, and started pumping, I would
have it—as tired as the bass was, there was no
chance it could get away. I reached down for the
rod, hesitated, looked up to where Sheila was
stretching herself lazily toward the sky, her small
breasts rising beneath the soft fabric of her dress,
and the tug was too much for me, and quicker than
it takes to write down, I pulled a penknife from my
pocket and cut the line in half.
With a sick, nauseous feeling in my stomach, I saw
the rod unbend.
“My legs are sore,” Sheila whined. “Are we there
yet?”
Through a superhuman effort of self-control, I was
able to beach the canoe and help Sheila off. The rest
of the night is much foggier. We walked to the
fair—there was the smell of popcorn, the sound of
guitars. I may have danced once or twice with her,
but all I really remember is her coming over to me
once the music was done to explain that she would
be going home in Eric Caswell’s Corvette.
“Okay,” I mumbled.
For the first time that night she looked at me, really
looked at me.
“You’re a funny kid, you know that?”
Funny. Different. Dreamy. Odd. How many times
was I to hear that in the years to come, all spoken
with the same quizzical, half-accusatory tone Sheila
used then. Poor Sheila! Before the month was over,
the spell she cast over me was gone, but the
memory of that lost bass haunted me all summer
and haunts me still. There would be other Sheila
Mants in my life, other fish, and though I came
close once or twice, it was these secret, hidden
tuggings in the night that claimed me, and I never
made the same mistake again.
⇒
Jackie Kennedy (1929-1994)First Lady during the administration of
President John F. Kennedy; greatly admired by the public for her dignity
and sense of style.
5
Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?
Tim O’Brien
Connect to Your Life: Some people seem to have nerves of steel. They always appear calm, no matter what they are
feeling inside. Most people, however, show their feelings when they are very afraid or extremely anxious. What are
some ways of showing fear or anxiety that you have observed in yourself or others? Which of them seem “normal”
and which are surprising?
Build Background: This story takes place in the Southeast Asian country of Vietnam during a war in which nearly
58,000 Americans died. The Vietnam War grew out of a conflict over communism. South Vietnamese rebels, with
the aid of Communist-ruled North Vietnam, began trying to take over South Vietnam in 1957. To help prevent the
spread of communism, the United States entered the war as an ally of the South Vietnamese government in 1964.
Between 1965 and 1973, over 2 million Americans were sent to Vietnam. Although the soldiers were give special
training, few were prepared for the kind of fear and anxiety they would face in the jungles and rice fields of that
unfamiliar land.
The platoon of twenty-six soldiers moved slowly in the dark, single file, not talking. One by one, like sheep in a
dream, they passed through the hedgerow, crossed quietly over a meadow and came down to the rice paddy. There they
stopped. Their leader knelt down, motioning with his hand, and one by one the other soldiers squatted in the shadows,
vanishing in the primitive stealth of warfare. For a long time they did not move. Except for the sounds of their
breathing…the twenty-six men were very quiet: some of them excited by the adventure, some of them afraid, some of
them exhausted from the long night march, some of them looking forward to reaching the sea where they would be safe.
At the rear of the column, Private First Class Paul Berlin lay quietly with his forehead resting on the black plastic stock of
his rifle, his eyes closed. He was pretending he was not in the war, pretending he had not watched Billy Boy Watkins die
of a heart attack that afternoon. He was pretending he was a boy again, camping with his father in the midnight summer
along the Des Moines River. In the dark, with his eyes pinched shut, he pretended. He pretended that when he opened his
eyes, his father would be there by the campfire and they would talk softly about whatever came to mind and then roll into
their sleeping bags, and that later they’d wake up and it would be morning and there would not be a war, and that Billy
Boy Watkins had not died of a heart attack that afternoon. He pretended that he was not a soldier.
In the morning, when they reached the sea, it would be better. The hot afternoon would be over, he would bathe
in the sea and he would forget how frightened he had been on his first day at the war. The second day would not be so
bad. He would learn.
There was a sound beside him, a movement and then a breathed: “Hey!”
He opened his eyes, shivering as if emerging from a deep nightmare.
“Hey!” a shadow whispered. “We’re moving…Get up.”
“Okay.”
“You sleepin’, or something?”
“No.” He could not make out the soldier’s face. With clumsy, concrete hands he clawed for his rifle, found it,
found his helmet.
The soldier-shadow grunted, “You got a lot to learn buddy. I’d shoot you if I thought you was sleepin’. Let’s
go.”
Private First Class Paul Berlin blinked.
Ahead of him, silhouetted against the sky he saw the string of soldiers wading into the flat paddy, the black
outline of their shoulders and packs and weapons. He was comfortable. He did not want to move. But he was afraid, for
it was his first night at the war, so he hurried to catch up, stumbling once, scraping his knee, groping as though blind; his
boots sank into the thick paddy water and he smelled it all around him. He would tell his mother how it smelled: mud and
algae and cattle manure and chlorophyll, decay, breeding mosquitoes and leeches as big as mice, the fecund warmth of the
paddy waters rising up to his cut knee. But he would not tell how frightened he had been.
Once they reached the sea, things would be better. They would have their rear guarded by three thousand miles of
ocean, and they would swim and dive into the breakers and hunt crayfish and smell the salt, and they would be safe.
He followed the shadow of the man in front of him. It was a clear night. Already the Southern Cross was out.
And other stars he could not yet name – soon he thought, he would learn their names. And puffy night clouds. There was
not yet a moon. Wading through the paddy, his boots made sleepy, sloshing sounds, like a lullaby, and he tried not to
think. Though he was afraid, he now knew that fear came in many degrees and types and peculiar categories, and he
knew
silhouetted (adjective) outlined as a dark shape against a lighter background
fecund (adjective) producing much growth; fertile
that his fear not was not so bad as it had been in the hot afternoon, when poor Billy Boy Watkins got killed by a heart
attack. His fear now was diffuse and unformed: ghosts in the tree line, nighttime fears of a child, a boogieman in the
closet that his father would open to show empty, saying “See? Nothing there, champ. Now you can sleep.” In the
afternoon it had been worse: the fear had been bundled and tight and he’d been on his hands and knees, crawling like an
insect, and ant escaping a giant’s footsteps and thinking nothing, brain flopping like wet cement in a mixer, not thinking at
all, watching while Billy Boy Watkins died.
Now as he stepped out of the paddy onto a narrow dirt path, now the fear was mostly the fear of being so terribly
afraid again.
He tried not to think.
There were tricks he’d learned to keep from thinking. Counting: he counted his steps, concentrating on the
numbers, pretending that the steps were dollar bills and that each step through the night made him richer and richer, so
that soon he would become a wealthy man, and he kept counting and considered the ways he might spend the money after
the war and what he would do. He would look his father in the eye and shrug and say, “It was pretty bad at first, but I
learned a lot and I got used to it.” Then he would tell his father the story of Billy Boy Watkins. But he would never let on
how frightened he had been. “Not so bad,” he would say instead, making his father feel proud.
Songs, another trick to stop from thinking: Where have you gone, Billy Boy, Billy Boy, Oh, where have you gone,
charming Billy? I have gone to seek a wife, she’s the joy of my life, but she’s a young thing and cannot leave her mother,
and other songs that he sang in his thoughts as he walked toward the sea. And when he reached the sea he would dig a
deep hole in the sand and he would sleep like the high clouds, and he would not be afraid anymore.
The moon came out. Pale and shrunken to the size of a dime.
The helmet was heavy on his head. In the morning he would adjust the leather binding. He would lean his rifle,
too. Even though he had been frightened to shoot it during the hot afternoon, he would carefully clean the breech and the
muzzle and the ammunition so that next time he would be ready and not so afraid. In the morning, when they reached the
sea, he would begin to make friends with some of the other soldiers. He would learn their names and laugh at their jokes.
Then when the war was over he would have war buddies, and he would write to them once in a while and exchange
memories.
Walking, sleeping in his walking, he felt better. He watched the moon come higher.
Once they skirted a sleeping village. The smells again – straw, cattle, mildew. The men were quiet. On the far
side of the village, buried in the dark smells, a dog barked. The column stopped until the barking died away; then they
marched fast away from the village, through a graveyard filled with conical-shaped burial mounds and tiny altars made of
clay and stone. The graveyard had a perfumy smell. A nice place to spend the night, he thought. The mounds would
make fine battlement, and the smell was nice and the place was quiet. But they went on, passing through a hedgerow and
across another paddy and east toward the sea.
He walked carefully. He remembered what he’d been taught: Stay off the center of the path, for that was where
the land mines and booby traps were planted, where stupid and lazy soldiers like to walk. Stay alert, he’d been taught.
Better alert than inert. Ag-ile, mo-bile, hos-tile. He wished he’d paid better attention to the training. He could not
remember what they’d said about how to stop being afraid; they hadn’t given any lesson in courage – not that he could
remember – and they hadn’t mentioned how Billy Boy Watkins would die of a heart attack, his face turning pale and the
veins popping out.
Private First Class Paul Berlin walked carefully.
Stretching ahead of him like dark beads on an invisible chain, the string of shadow-soldiers whose names he did
not yet know moved with the silence and slow grace of smoke. Now and again moonlight was reflected off a machine
gun or wristwatch. But mostly the soldiers were quiet and hidden and far-away-seeming in a peaceful night, strangers on
a long street, and he felt quite separate from them, as if trailing behind like the caboose on a night train, pulled along by
inertia, sleepwalking, and afterthought to the war.
So he walked carefully, counting his steps. When he counted to three thousand, four hundred and eighty-five, the
column stopped.
One by one the soldiers knelt or squatted down.
The grass along the path was wet. Private First Class Paul Berlin lay back and turned his head so that he could
lick at the dew with his eyes closed, another trick to forget the war. He might have slept. “I wasn’t afraid,” he was
screaming or dreaming, facing his father’s stern eyes. “I wasn’t afraid,” he was saying. When he opened his eyes, a
soldier was sitting beside him, quietly chewing a stick of Doublemint gum.
diffuse (adjective) unfocused
inert (adjective) lifeless, dead
inertia (noun) the tendency of an object to keep moving once it has started moving
“You sleepin’ again?” the soldier whispered.
“No,” said Private First Class Paul Berlin…the soldier grunted, chewing his gum. Then he twisted his cap off his
canteen, took a swallow and handed it through the dark.
“Take some,” he whispered.
“Thanks.”
“You’re the new guy?”
“Yes.” He did not want to admit it, being new to the war.
The soldier grunted and handed him a stick of gum. “Chew it quietly – okay? Don’t blow no bubbles or
nothing.”
“Thanks. I won’t.” He could not make out the man’s face in the shadows.
They sat still and Private First Class Paul Berlin chewed the gum until all the sugars were gone; then the soldier
said, “Bad day today, buddy.”
Private First Class Paul Berlin nodded wisely, but he did not speak.
“Don’t think it’s always so bad,” the soldier whispered. “I don’t wanna scare you. You’ll get used to it soon
enough…They been fighting wars a long time, and you get used to it.”
“Yeah.”
“You will.”
They were quiet awhile. And the night was quiet, no crickets or birds, and it was hard to imagine it was truly a
war. He searched for the soldier’s face but could not find it. It did not matter much. Even if he saw the fellow’s face, he
would not know the name; and even if he knew the name, it would not matter much.
“Haven’t got the time?” the soldier whispered.
“No.”
“Rats…Don’t matter, really. Goes faster if you don’t know the time, anyhow.”
“Sure.”
“What’s your name, buddy?”
“Paul.”
“Nice to meet ya,” he said, and in the dark beside the path they shook hands. “Mine’s Toby. Everybody calls me
Buffalo though. Sometimes they just call me Buff,” he said.
And again they were quiet. They lay in the grass and waited. The moon was very high now and very bright, and
they were waiting for cloud cover.
The soldier suddenly snorted.
“What is it?”
“Nothin’,” he said, but then he snorted again. The big soldier hissed at him to shut up, but he could not stop
giggling and remembering the hot afternoon, and poor Billy Boy, and how they’d been drinking Coca-Cola from brightred aluminum cans, and how they’d started on the day’s march, and how a little while later poor Billy Boy stepped on the
mine, and how Billy Boy stood there with his mouth wide-open, looking down at where his foot had been blown off, and
how finally Billy Boy sat down very casually, not saying a word, with his foot lying behind him, most of it still in the
boot.
He giggled louder – he could not stop. He bit his arm, trying to stifle it, but remembering: “War’s over, Billy,”
the men had said in consolation, but Billy Boy got scared and started crying and said he was about to die. “Nonsense,”
the medic said, Doc Peret, but Billy Boy kept bawling, tightening up, his face going pale and transparent and his veins
popping out. Scared stiff. Even when Doc Peret stuck him with morphine, Billy Boy kept crying.
“Shut up!” the big soldier hissed, but Private First Class Paul Berlin could not stop. Giggling and remembering,
he covered his mouth. His eyes stung, remembering how it was when Billy Boy died of fright.
“Shut up!”
But he could not stop giggling, the same way Billy boy could not stop bawling that afternoon.
Afterward Doc Peret had explained: “You see, Billy Boy really died of a heart attack. He was scared he was
gonna die – so scared, he had himself a heart attack - and that’s what really killed him. I seen it before.”
So they wrapped Billy in a plastic poncho, his eyes still wide-open and scared stiff, and they carried him over the
meadow to a rice paddy, and then when the Medevac helicopter arrived they carried him through the paddy and put him
aboard, and the mortar rounds were falling everywhere, and the helicopter pulled up and Billy Boy came tumbling out,
falling slowly and then faster, and the paddy water sprayed up as if Billy Boy had just executed a long and dangerous
dive, as if trying to escape Graves Registration, where he would be tagged and sent home under a flag, dead of a heart
attack.
execute (verb) to perform; carry out
“Shut up,…!” the soldier hissed, but Paul Berlin could not stop giggling, remembering: scared to death.
Later they waded in after him, probing for Billy Boy with their rifle butts, elegantly and delicately probing for
Billy Boy in the stinking paddy, singing – some of them – Where have you gone, Billy Boy, Billy Boy, Oh, where have you
gone, charming Billy? Then they found him. Green and covered with algae, his eyes still wide open and scared stiff,
dead of a heart attack suffered while –
“Shut up,…!” the soldier said loudly shaking him.
But Private First Class Paul Berlin could not stop. The giggles were caught in his throat, drowning him in his
own laughter: scared to death like Billy Boy.
Giggling, lying on his back, he saw the moon move, or the clouds moving across the moon. Wounded in action,
dead of fright. A fine war story. He would tell it to his father, how Billy Boy had been scared to death, never letting
on…He could not stop.
The soldier smothered him. He tried to fight back, but he was weak from the giggles.
The moon was under the clouds and the column was moving. The soldier helped him up. “You okay now,
buddy?”
“Sure.”
“What was so bloody funny?”
“Nothing.”
“You can get killed, laughing that way.”
“I know. I know that.”
“You got to stay calm, buddy.” The soldier handed him his rifle. “Half the battle, just staying calm. You’ll get
better at it,” he said. “Come on now.”
He turned away and Private First Class Paul Berlin hurried after him. He was still shivering.
He would do better once he reached the sea, he though, still smiling a little. A funny war story that he would tell
to his father, how Billy Boy Watkins was scared to death. A good joke. But even when he smelled salt and heard the sea,
he could not stop being afraid.
The Most Dangerous Game
by Richard Connell
"OFF THERE to the right--somewhere--is a large island," said Whitney." It's rather a mystery--"
"What island is it?" Rainsford asked.
"The old charts call it `Ship-Trap Island,"' Whitney replied." A suggestive name, isn't it? Sailors have a
curious dread of the place. I don't know why. Some superstition--"
"Can't see it," remarked Rainsford, trying to peer through the dank tropical night that was palpable as it
pressed its thick warm blackness in upon the yacht.
"You've good eyes," said Whitney, with a laugh," and I've seen you pick off a moose moving in the brown
fall bush at four hundred yards, but even you can't see four miles or so through a moonless Caribbean
night."
"Nor four yards," admitted Rainsford. "Ugh! It's like moist black velvet."
"It will be light enough in Rio," promised Whitney. "We should make it in a few days. I hope the jaguar
guns have come from Purdey's. We should have some good hunting up the Amazon. Great sport, hunting."
"The best sport in the world," agreed Rainsford.
"For the hunter," amended Whitney. "Not for the jaguar."
"Don't talk rot, Whitney," said Rainsford. "You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a
jaguar feels?"
"Perhaps the jaguar does," observed Whitney.
"Bah! They've no understanding."
"Even so, I rather think they understand one thing--fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death."
"Nonsense," laughed Rainsford. "This hot weather is making you soft, Whitney. Be a realist. The world is
made up of two classes--the hunters and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are hunters. Do you think we've
passed that island yet?"
"I can't tell in the dark. I hope so."
"Why? " asked Rainsford.
"The place has a reputation--a bad one."
"Cannibals?" suggested Rainsford.
"Hardly. Even cannibals wouldn't live in such a God-forsaken place. But it's gotten into sailor lore,
somehow. Didn't you notice that the crew's nerves seemed a bit jumpy today?"
"They were a bit strange, now you mention it. Even Captain Nielsen--"
"Yes, even that tough-minded old Swede, who'd go up to the devil himself and ask him for a light. Those
fishy blue eyes held a look I never saw there before. All I could get out of him was `This place has an evil
name among seafaring men, sir.' Then he said to me, very gravely, `Don't you feel anything?'--as if the air
about us was actually poisonous. Now, you mustn't laugh when I tell you this--I did feel something like a
sudden chill.
"There was no breeze. The sea was as flat as a plate-glass window. We were drawing near the island then.
What I felt was a--a mental chill; a sort of sudden dread."
"Pure imagination," said Rainsford.
"One superstitious sailor can taint the whole ship's company with his fear."
"Maybe. But sometimes I think sailors have an extra sense that tells them when they are in danger.
Sometimes I think evil is a tangible thing--with wavelengths, just as sound and light have. An evil place
can, so to speak, broadcast vibrations of evil. Anyhow, I'm glad we're getting out of this zone. Well, I think
I'll turn in now, Rainsford."
"I'm not sleepy," said Rainsford. "I'm going to smoke another pipe up on the afterdeck."
"Good night, then, Rainsford. See you at breakfast."
"Right. Good night, Whitney."
There was no sound in the night as Rainsford sat there but the muffled throb of the engine that drove the
yacht swiftly through the darkness, and the swish and ripple of the wash of the propeller.
Rainsford, reclining in a steamer chair, indolently puffed on his favorite brier. The sensuous drowsiness of
the night was on him." It's so dark," he thought, "that I could sleep without closing my eyes; the night
would be my eyelids--"
An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and his ears, expert in such matters, could not be
mistaken. Again he heard the sound, and again. Somewhere, off in the blackness, someone had fired a gun
three times.
Rainsford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified. He strained his eyes in the direction from
which the reports had come, but it was like trying to see through a blanket. He leaped upon the rail and
balanced himself there, to get greater elevation; his pipe, striking a rope, was knocked from his mouth. He
lunged for it; a short, hoarse cry came from his lips as he realized he had reached too far and had lost his
balance. The cry was pinched off short as the blood-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea dosed over his head.
He struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash from the speeding yacht slapped him in the
face and the salt water in his open mouth made him gag and strangle. Desperately he struck out with strong
strokes after the receding lights of the yacht, but he stopped before he had swum fifty feet. A certain cool
headedness had come to him; it was not the first time he had been in a tight place. There was a chance that
his cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht, but that chance was slender and grew more slender
as the yacht raced on. He wrestled himself out of his clothes and shouted with all his power. The lights of
the yacht became faint and ever-vanishing fireflies; then they were blotted out entirely by the night.
Rainsford remembered the shots. They had come from the right, and doggedly he swam in that direction,
swimming with slow, deliberate strokes, conserving his strength. For a seemingly endless time he fought
the sea. He began to count his strokes; he could do possibly a hundred more and then-Rainsford heard a sound. It came out of the darkness, a high screaming sound, the sound of an animal in an
extremity of anguish and terror.
He did not recognize the animal that made the sound; he did not try to; with fresh vitality he swam toward
the sound. He heard it again; then it was cut short by another noise, crisp, staccato.
"Pistol shot," muttered Rainsford, swimming on.
Ten minutes of determined effort brought another sound to his ears--the most welcome he had ever heard-the muttering and growling of the sea breaking on a rocky shore. He was almost on the rocks before he saw
them; on a night less calm he would have been shattered against them. With his remaining strength he
dragged himself from the swirling waters. Jagged crags appeared to jut up into the opaqueness; he forced
himself upward, hand over hand. Gasping, his hands raw, he reached a flat place at the top. Dense jungle
came down to the very edge of the cliffs. What perils that tangle of trees and underbrush might hold for him
did not concern Rainsford just then. All he knew was that he was safe from his enemy, the sea, and that
utter weariness was on him. He flung himself down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into the
deepest sleep of his life.
When he opened his eyes he knew from the position of the sun that it was late in the afternoon. Sleep had
given him new vigor; a sharp hunger was picking at him. He looked about him, almost cheerfully.
"Where there are pistol shots, there are men. Where there are men, there is food," he thought. But what kind
of men, he wondered, in so forbidding a place? An unbroken front of snarled and ragged jungle fringed the
shore.
He saw no sign of a trail through the closely knit web of weeds and trees; it was easier to go along the
shore, and Rainsford floundered along by the water. Not far from where he landed, he stopped.
Some wounded thing--by the evidence, a large animal--had thrashed about in the underbrush; the jungle
weeds were crushed down and the moss was lacerated; one patch of weeds was stained crimson. A small,
glittering object not far away caught Rainsford's eye and he picked it up. It was an empty cartridge.
"A twenty-two," he remarked. "That's odd. It must have been a fairly large animal too. The hunter had his
nerve with him to tackle it with a light gun. It's clear that the brute put up a fight. I suppose the first three
shots I heard was when the hunter flushed his quarry and wounded it. The last shot was when he trailed it
here and finished it."
He examined the ground closely and found what he had hoped to find--the print of hunting boots. They
pointed along the cliff in the direction he had been going. Eagerly he hurried along, now slipping on a
rotten log or a loose stone, but making headway; night was beginning to settle down on the island.
Bleak darkness was blacking out the sea and jungle when Rainsford sighted the lights. He came upon them
as he turned a crook in the coast line; and his first thought was that be had come upon a village, for there
were many lights. But as he forged along he saw to his great astonishment that all the lights were in one
enormous building--a lofty structure with pointed towers plunging upward into the gloom. His eyes made
out the shadowy outlines of a palatial chateau; it was set on a high bluff, and on three sides of it cliffs dived
down to where the sea licked greedy lips in the shadows.
"Mirage," thought Rainsford. But it was no mirage, he found, when he opened the tall spiked iron gate. The
stone steps were real enough; the massive door with a leering gargoyle for a knocker was real enough; yet
above it all hung an air of unreality.
He lifted the knocker, and it creaked up stiffly, as if it had never before been used. He let it fall, and it
startled him with its booming loudness. He thought he heard steps within; the door remained closed. Again
Rainsford lifted the heavy knocker, and let it fall. The door opened then--opened as suddenly as if it were
on a spring--and Rainsford stood blinking in the river of glaring gold light that poured out. The first thing
Rainsford's eyes discerned was the largest man Rainsford had ever seen--a gigantic creature, solidly made
and black bearded to the waist. In his hand the man held a long-barreled revolver, and he was pointing it
straight at Rainsford's heart.
Out of the snarl of beard two small eyes regarded Rainsford.
"Don't be alarmed," said Rainsford, with a smile which he hoped was disarming. "I'm no robber. I fell off a
yacht. My name is Sanger Rainsford of New York City."
The menacing look in the eyes did not change. The revolver pointing as rigidly as if the giant were a statue.
He gave no sign that he understood Rainsford's words, or that he had even heard them. He was dressed in
uniform--a black uniform trimmed with gray astrakhan.
"I'm Sanger Rainsford of New York," Rainsford began again. "I fell off a yacht. I am hungry."
The man's only answer was to raise with his thumb the hammer of his revolver. Then Rainsford saw the
man's free hand go to his forehead in a military salute, and he saw him click his heels together and stand at
attention. Another man was coming down the broad marble steps, an erect, slender man in evening clothes.
He advanced to Rainsford and held out his hand.
In a cultivated voice marked by a slight accent that gave it added precision and deliberateness, he said, "It is
a very great pleasure and honor to welcome Mr. Sanger Rainsford, the celebrated hunter, to my home."
Automatically Rainsford shook the man's hand.
"I've read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet, you see," explained the man. "I am General
Zaroff."
Rainsford's first impression was that the man was singularly handsome; his second was that there was an
original, almost bizarre quality about the general's face. He was a tall man past middle age, for his hair was
a vivid white; but his thick eyebrows and pointed military mustache were as black as the night from which
Rainsford had come. His eyes, too, were black and very bright. He had high cheekbones, a sharp cut nose, a
spare, dark face--the face of a man used to giving orders, the face of an aristocrat. Turning to the giant in
uniform, the general made a sign. The giant put away his pistol, saluted, withdrew.
"Ivan is an incredibly strong fellow," remarked the general, "but he has the misfortune to be deaf and dumb.
A simple fellow, but, I'm afraid, like all his race, a bit of a savage."
"Is he Russian?"
"He is a Cossack," said the general, and his smile showed red lips and pointed teeth. "So am I."
"Come," he said, "we shouldn't be chatting here. We can talk later. Now you want clothes, food, rest. You
shall have them. This is a most-restful spot."
Ivan had reappeared, and the general spoke to him with lips that moved but gave forth no sound.
"Follow Ivan, if you please, Mr. Rainsford," said the general. "I was about to have my dinner when you
came. I'll wait for you. You'll find that my clothes will fit you, I think."
It was to a huge, beam-ceilinged bedroom with a canopied bed big enough for six men that Rainsford
followed the silent giant. Ivan laid out an evening suit, and Rainsford, as he put it on, noticed that it came
from a London tailor who ordinarily cut and sewed for none below the rank of duke.
The dining room to which Ivan conducted him was in many ways remarkable. There was a medieval
magnificence about it; it suggested a baronial hall of feudal times with its oaken panels, its high ceiling, its
vast refectory tables where twoscore men could sit down to eat. About the hall were mounted heads of
many animals--lions, tigers, elephants, moose, bears; larger or more perfect specimens Rainsford had never
seen. At the great table the general was sitting, alone.
"You'll have a cocktail, Mr. Rainsford," he suggested. The cocktail was surpassingly good; and, Rainsford
noted, the table appointments were of the finest--the linen, the crystal, the silver, the china.
They were eating borsch, the rich, red soup with whipped cream so dear to Russian palates. Half
apologetically General Zaroff said, "We do our best to preserve the amenities of civilization here. Please
forgive any lapses. We are well off the beaten track, you know. Do you think the champagne has suffered
from its long ocean trip?"
"Not in the least," declared Rainsford. He was finding the general a most thoughtful and affable host, a true
cosmopolite. But there was one small trait of .the general's that made Rainsford uncomfortable. Whenever
he looked up from his plate he found the general studying him, appraising him narrowly.
"Perhaps," said General Zaroff, "you were surprised that I recognized your name. You see, I read all books
on hunting published in English, French, and Russian. I have but one passion in my life, Mr. Rainsford, and
it is the hunt."
"You have some wonderful heads here," said Rainsford as he ate a particularly well-cooked filet mignon. "
That Cape buffalo is the largest I ever saw."
"Oh, that fellow. Yes, he was a monster."
"Did he charge you?"
"Hurled me against a tree," said the general. "Fractured my skull. But I got the brute."
"I've always thought," said Rainsford, "that the Cape buffalo is the most dangerous of all big game."
For a moment the general did not reply; he was smiling his curious red-lipped smile. Then he said slowly,
"No. You are wrong, sir. The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous big game." He sipped his wine. "Here
in my preserve on this island," he said in the same slow tone, "I hunt more dangerous game."
Rainsford expressed his surprise. "Is there big game on this island?"
The general nodded. "The biggest."
"Really?"
"Oh, it isn't here naturally, of course. I have to stock the island."
"What have you imported, general?" Rainsford asked. "Tigers?"
The general smiled. "No," he said. "Hunting tigers ceased to interest me some years ago. I exhausted their
possibilities, you see. No thrill left in tigers, no real danger. I live for danger, Mr. Rainsford."
The general took from his pocket a gold cigarette case and offered his guest a long black cigarette with a
silver tip; it was perfumed and gave off a smell like incense.
"We will have some capital hunting, you and I," said the general. "I shall be most glad to have your
society."
"But what game--" began Rainsford.
"I'll tell you," said the general. "You will be amused, I know. I think I may say, in all modesty, that I have
done a rare thing. I have invented a new sensation. May I pour you another glass of port?"
"Thank you, general."
The general filled both glasses, and said, "God makes some men poets. Some He makes kings, some
beggars. Me He made a hunter. My hand was made for the trigger, my father said. He was a very rich man
with a quarter of a million acres in the Crimea, and he was an ardent sportsman. When I was only five years
old he gave me a little gun, specially made in Moscow for me, to shoot sparrows with. When I shot some of
his prize turkeys with it, he did not punish me; he complimented me on my marksmanship. I killed my first
bear in the Caucasus when I was ten. My whole life has been one prolonged hunt. I went into the army--it
was expected of noblemen's sons--and for a time commanded a division of Cossack cavalry, but my real
interest was always the hunt. I have hunted every kind of game in every land. It would be impossible for
me to tell you how many animals I have killed."
The general puffed at his cigarette.
"After the debacle in Russia I left the country, for it was imprudent for an officer of the Czar to stay there.
Many noble Russians lost everything. I, luckily, had invested heavily in American securities, so I shall
never have to open a tearoom in Monte Carlo or drive a taxi in Paris. Naturally, I continued to hunt-grizzliest in your Rockies, crocodiles in the Ganges, rhinoceroses in East Africa. It was in Africa that the
Cape buffalo hit me and laid me up for six months. As soon as I recovered I started for the Amazon to hunt
jaguars, for I had heard they were unusually cunning. They weren't." The Cossack sighed. "They were no
match at all for a hunter with his wits about him, and a high-powered rifle. I was bitterly disappointed. I
was lying in my tent with a splitting headache one night when a terrible thought pushed its way into my
mind. Hunting was beginning to bore me! And hunting, remember, had been my life. I have heard that in
America businessmen often go to pieces when they give up the business that has been their life."
"Yes, that's so," said Rainsford.
The general smiled. "I had no wish to go to pieces," he said. "I must do something. Now, mine is an
analytical mind, Mr. Rainsford. Doubtless that is why I enjoy the problems of the chase."
"No doubt, General Zaroff."
"So," continued the general, "I asked myself why the hunt no longer fascinated me. You are much younger
than I am, Mr. Rainsford, and have not hunted as much, but you perhaps can guess the answer."
"What was it?"
"Simply this: hunting had ceased to be what you call `a sporting proposition.' It had become too easy. I
always got my quarry. Always. There is no greater bore than perfection."
The general lit a fresh cigarette.
"No animal had a chance with me any more. That is no boast; it is a mathematical certainty. The animal had
nothing but his legs and his instinct. Instinct is no match for reason. When I thought of this it was a tragic
moment for me, I can tell you."
Rainsford leaned across the table, absorbed in what his host was saying.
"It came to me as an inspiration what I must do," the general went on.
"And that was?"
The general smiled the quiet smile of one who has faced an obstacle and surmounted it with success. "I had
to invent a new animal to hunt," he said.
"A new animal? You're joking." "Not at all," said the general. "I never joke about hunting. I needed a new
animal. I found one. So I bought this island built this house, and here I do my hunting. The island is perfect
for my purposes--there are jungles with a maze of traits in them, hills, swamps--"
"But the animal, General Zaroff?"
"Oh," said the general, "it supplies me with the most exciting hunting in the world. No other hunting
compares with it for an instant. Every day I hunt, and I never grow bored now, for I have a quarry with
which I can match my wits."
Rainsford's bewilderment showed in his face.
"I wanted the ideal animal to hunt," explained the general. "So I said, `What are the attributes of an ideal
quarry?' And the answer was, of course, `It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to
reason."'
"But no animal can reason," objected Rainsford.
"My dear fellow," said the general, "there is one that can."
"But you can't mean--" gasped Rainsford.
"And why not?"
"I can't believe you are serious, General Zaroff. This is a grisly joke."
"Why should I not be serious? I am speaking of hunting."
"Hunting? Great Guns, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder."
The general laughed with entire good nature. He regarded Rainsford quizzically. "I refuse to believe that so
modern and civilized a young man as you seem to be harbors romantic ideas about the value of human life.
Surely your experiences in the war--"
"Did not make me condone cold-blooded murder," finished Rainsford stiffly.
Laughter shook the general. "How extraordinarily droll you are!" he said. "One does not expect nowadays
to find a young man of the educated class, even in America, with such a naive, and, if I may say so, midVictorian point of view. It's like finding a snuffbox in a limousine. Ah, well, doubtless you had Puritan
ancestors. So many Americans appear to have had. I'll wager you'll forget your notions when you go
hunting with me. You've a genuine new thrill in store for you, Mr. Rainsford."
"Thank you, I'm a hunter, not a murderer."
"Dear me," said the general, quite unruffled, "again that unpleasant word. But I think I can show you that
your scruples are quite ill founded."
"Yes?"
"Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if needs be, taken by the strong. The weak of the
world were put here to give the strong pleasure. I am strong. Why should I not use my gift? If I wish to
hunt, why should I not? I hunt the scum of the earth: sailors from tramp ships--lassars, blacks, Chinese,
whites, mongrels--a thoroughbred horse or hound is worth more than a score of them."
"But they are men," said Rainsford hotly.
"Precisely," said the general. "That is why I use them. It gives me pleasure. They can reason, after a
fashion. So they are dangerous."
"But where do you get them?"
The general's left eyelid fluttered down in a wink. "This island is called Ship Trap," he answered.
"Sometimes an angry god of the high seas sends them to me. Sometimes, when Providence is not so kind, I
help Providence a bit. Come to the window with me."
Rainsford went to the window and looked out toward the sea.
"Watch! Out there!" exclaimed the general, pointing into the night. Rainsford's eyes saw only blackness,
and then, as the general pressed a button, far out to sea Rainsford saw the flash of lights.
The general chuckled. "They indicate a channel," he said, "where there's none; giant rocks with razor edges
crouch like a sea monster with wide-open jaws. They can crush a ship as easily as I crush this nut." He
dropped a walnut on the hardwood floor and brought his heel grinding down on it. "Oh, yes," he said,
casually, as if in answer to a question, "I have electricity. We try to be civilized here."
"Civilized? And you shoot down men?"
A trace of anger was in the general's black eyes, but it was there for but a second; and he said, in his most
pleasant manner, "Dear me, what a righteous young man you are! I assure you I do not do the thing you
suggest. That would be barbarous. I treat these visitors with every consideration. They get plenty of good
food and exercise. They get into splendid physical condition. You shall see for yourself tomorrow."
"What do you mean?"
"We'll visit my training school," smiled the general. "It's in the cellar. I have about a dozen pupils down
there now. They're from the Spanish bark San Lucar that had the bad luck to go on the rocks out there. A
very inferior lot, I regret to say. Poor specimens and more accustomed to the deck than to the jungle." He
raised his hand, and Ivan, who served as waiter, brought thick Turkish coffee. Rainsford, with an effort,
held his tongue in check.
"It's a game, you see," pursued the general blandly. "I suggest to one of them that we go hunting. I give him
a supply of food and an excellent hunting knife. I give him three hours' start. I am to follow, armed only
with a pistol of the smallest caliber and range. If my quarry eludes me for three whole days, he wins the
game. If I find him "--the general smiled--" he loses."
"Suppose he refuses to be hunted?"
"Oh," said the general, "I give him his option, of course. He need not play that game if he doesn't wish to. If
he does not wish to hunt, I turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once had the honor of serving as official knouter to
the Great White Czar, and he has his own ideas of sport. Invariably, Mr. Rainsford, invariably they choose
the hunt."
"And if they win?"
The smile on the general's face widened. "To date I have not lost," he said. Then he added, hastily: "I don't
wish you to think me a braggart, Mr. Rainsford. Many of them afford only the most elementary sort of
problem. Occasionally I strike a tartar. One almost did win. I eventually had to use the dogs."
"The dogs?"
"This way, please. I'll show you."
The general steered Rainsford to a window. The lights from the windows sent a flickering illumination that
made grotesque patterns on the courtyard below, and Rainsford could see moving about there a dozen or so
huge black shapes; as they turned toward him, their eyes glittered greenly.
"A rather good lot, I think," observed the general. "They are let out at seven every night. If anyone should
try to get into my house--or out of it--something extremely regrettable would occur to him." He hummed a
snatch of song from the Folies Bergere.
"And now," said the general, "I want to show you my new collection of heads. Will you come with me to
the library?"
"I hope," said Rainsford, "that you will excuse me tonight, General Zaroff. I'm really not feeling well."
"Ah, indeed?" the general inquired solicitously. "Well, I suppose that's only natural, after your long swim.
You need a good, restful night's sleep. Tomorrow you'll feel like a new man, I'll wager. Then we'll hunt,
eh? I've one rather promising prospect--" Rainsford was hurrying from the room.
"Sorry you can't go with me tonight," called the general. "I expect rather fair sport--a big, strong, black. He
looks resourceful--Well, good night, Mr. Rainsford; I hope you have a good night's rest."
The bed was good, and the pajamas of the softest silk, and he was tired in every fiber of his being, but
nevertheless Rainsford could not quiet his brain with the opiate of sleep. He lay, eyes wide open. Once he
thought he heard stealthy steps in the corridor outside his room. He sought to throw open the door; it would
not open. He went to the window and looked out. His room was high up in one of the towers. The lights of
the chateau were out now, and it was dark and silent; but there was a fragment of sallow moon, and by its
wan light he could see, dimly, the courtyard. There, weaving in and out in the pattern of shadow, were
black, noiseless forms; the hounds heard him at the window and looked up, expectantly, with their green
eyes. Rainsford went back to the bed and lay down. By many methods he tried to put himself to sleep. He
had achieved a doze when, just as morning began to come, he heard, far off in the jungle, the faint report of
a pistol.
General Zaroff did not appear until luncheon. He was dressed faultlessly in the tweeds of a country squire.
He was solicitous about the state of Rainsford's health.
"As for me," sighed the general, "I do not feel so well. I am worried, Mr. Rainsford. Last night I detected
traces of my old complaint."
To Rainsford's questioning glance the general said, "Ennui. Boredom."
Then, taking a second helping of crêpes Suzette, the general explained: "The hunting was not good last
night. The fellow lost his head. He made a straight trail that offered no problems at all. That's the trouble
with these sailors; they have dull brains to begin with, and they do not know how to get about in the woods.
They do excessively stupid and obvious things. It's most annoying. Will you have another glass of Chablis,
Mr. Rainsford?"
"General," said Rainsford firmly, "I wish to leave this island at once."
The general raised his thickets of eyebrows; he seemed hurt. "But, my dear fellow," the general protested,
"you've only just come. You've had no hunting--"
"I wish to go today," said Rainsford. He saw the dead black eyes of the general on him, studying him.
General Zaroff's face suddenly brightened.
He filled Rainsford's glass with venerable Chablis from a dusty bottle.
"Tonight," said the general, "we will hunt--you and I."
Rainsford shook his head. "No, general," he said. "I will not hunt."
The general shrugged his shoulders and delicately ate a hothouse grape. "As you wish, my friend," he said.
"The choice rests entirely with you. But may I not venture to suggest that you will find my idea of sport
more diverting than Ivan's?"
He nodded toward the corner to where the giant stood, scowling, his thick arms crossed on his hogshead of
chest.
"You don't mean--" cried Rainsford.
"My dear fellow," said the general, "have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting? This is
really an inspiration. I drink to a foeman worthy of my steel--at last." The general raised his glass, but
Rainsford sat staring at him.
"You'll find this game worth playing," the general said enthusiastically." Your brain against mine. Your
woodcraft against mine. Your strength and stamina against mine. Outdoor chess! And the stake is not
without value, eh?"
"And if I win--" began Rainsford huskily.
"I'll cheerfully acknowledge myself defeat if I do not find you by midnight of the third day," said General
Zaroff. "My sloop will place you on the mainland near a town." The general read what Rainsford was
thinking.
"Oh, you can trust me," said the Cossack. "I will give you my word as a gentleman and a sportsman. Of
course you, in turn, must agree to say nothing of your visit here."
"I'll agree to nothing of the kind," said Rainsford.
"Oh," said the general, "in that case--But why discuss that now? Three days hence we can discuss it over a
bottle of Veuve Cliquot, unless--"
The general sipped his wine.
Then a businesslike air animated him. "Ivan," he said to Rainsford, "will supply you with hunting clothes,
food, a knife. I suggest you wear moccasins; they leave a poorer trail. I suggest, too, that you avoid the big
swamp in the southeast corner of the island. We call it Death Swamp. There's quicksand there. One foolish
fellow tried it. The deplorable part of it was that Lazarus followed him. You can imagine my feelings, Mr.
Rainsford. I loved Lazarus; he was the finest hound in my pack. Well, I must beg you to excuse me now. I
always' take a siesta after lunch. You'll hardly have time for a nap, I fear. You'll want to start, no doubt. I
shall not follow till dusk. Hunting at night is so much more exciting than by day, don't you think? Au
revoir, Mr. Rainsford, au revoir." General Zaroff, with a deep, courtly bow, strolled from the room.
From another door came Ivan. Under one arm he carried khaki hunting clothes, a haversack of food, a
leather sheath containing a long-bladed hunting knife; his right hand rested on a cocked revolver thrust in
the crimson sash about his waist.
Rainsford had fought his way through the bush for two hours. "I must keep my nerve. I must keep my
nerve," he said through tight teeth.
He had not been entirely clearheaded when the chateau gates snapped shut behind him. His whole idea at
first was to put distance between himself and General Zaroff; and, to this end, he had plunged along,
spurred on by the sharp rowers of something very like panic. Now he had got a grip on himself, had
stopped, and was taking stock of himself and the situation. He saw that straight flight was futile; inevitably
it would bring him face to face with the sea. He was in a picture with a frame of water, and his operations,
clearly, must take place within that frame.
"I'll give him a trail to follow," muttered Rainsford, and he struck off from the rude path he had been
following into the trackless wilderness. He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his trail again
and again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, and all the dodges of the fox. Night found him leg-weary,
with hands and face lashed by the branches, on a thickly wooded ridge. He knew it would be insane to
blunder on through the dark, even if he had the strength. His need for rest was imperative and he thought, "I
have played the fox, now I must play the cat of the fable." A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread
branches was near by, and, taking care to leave not the slightest mark, he climbed up into the crotch, and,
stretching out on one of the broad limbs, after a fashion, rested. Rest brought him new confidence and
almost a feeling of security. Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace him there, he told
himself; only the devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But
perhaps the general was a devil-An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake and sleep did not visit Rainsford, although
the silence of a dead world was on the jungle. Toward morning when a dingy gray was varnishing the sky,
the cry of some startled bird focused Rainsford's attention in that direction. Something was coming through
the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming by the same winding way Rainsford had come. He flattened
himself down on the limb and, through a screen of leaves almost as thick as tapestry, he watched. . . . That
which was approaching was a man.
It was General Zaroff. He made his way along with his eyes fixed in utmost concentration on the ground
before him. He paused, almost beneath the tree, dropped to his knees and studied the ground. Rainsford's
impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther, but he saw that the general's right hand held something
metallic--a small automatic pistol.
The hunter shook his head several times, as if he were puzzled. Then he straightened up and took from his
case one of his black cigarettes; its pungent incense like smoke floated up to Rainsford's nostrils.
Rainsford held his breath. The general's eyes had left the ground and were traveling inch by inch up the
tree. Rainsford froze there, every muscle tensed for a spring. But the sharp eyes of the hunter stopped
before they reached the limb where Rainsford lay; a smile spread over his brown face. Very deliberately he
blew a smoke ring into the air; then he turned his back on the tree and walked carelessly away, back along
the trail he had come. The swish of the underbrush against his hunting boots grew fainter and fainter.
The pent-up air burst hotly from Rainsford's lungs. His first thought made him feel sick and numb. The
general could follow a trail through the woods at night; he could follow an extremely difficult trail; he must
have uncanny powers; only by the merest chance had the Cossack failed to see his quarry.
Rainsford's second thought was even more terrible. It sent a shudder of cold horror through his whole
being. Why had the general smiled? Why had he turned back?
Rainsford did not want to believe what his reason told him was true, but the truth was as evident as the sun
that had by now pushed through the morning mists. The general was playing with him! The general was
saving him for another day's sport! The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainsford
knew the full meaning of terror.
"I will not lose my nerve. I will not."
He slid down from the tree, and struck off again into the woods. His face was set and he forced the
machinery of his mind to function. Three hundred yards from his hiding place he stopped where a huge
dead tree leaned precariously on a smaller, living one. Throwing off his sack of food, Rainsford took his
knife from its sheath and began to work with all his energy.
The job was finished at last, and he threw himself down behind a fallen log a hundred feet away. He did not
have to wait long. The cat was coming again to play with the mouse.
Following the trail with the sureness of a bloodhound came General Zaroff. Nothing escaped those
searching black eyes, no crushed blade of grass, no bent twig, no mark, no matter how faint, in the moss.
So intent was the Cossack on his stalking that he was upon the thing Rainsford had made before he saw it.
His foot touched the protruding bough that was the trigger. Even as he touched it, the general sensed his
danger and leaped back with the agility of an ape. But he was not quite quick enough; the dead tree,
delicately adjusted to rest on the cut living one, crashed down and struck the general a glancing blow on the
shoulder as it fell; but for his alertness, he must have been smashed beneath it. He staggered, but he did not
fall; nor did he drop his revolver. He stood there, rubbing his injured shoulder, and Rainsford, with fear
again gripping his heart, heard the general's mocking laugh ring through the jungle.
"Rainsford," called the general, "if you are within sound of my voice, as I suppose you are, let me
congratulate you. Not many men know how to make a Malay mancatcher. Luckily for me I, too, have
hunted in Malacca. You are proving interesting, Mr. Rainsford. I am going now to have my wound dressed;
it's only a slight one. But I shall be back. I shall be back."
When the general, nursing his bruised shoulder, had gone, Rainsford took up his flight again. It was flight
now, a desperate, hopeless flight, that carried him on for some hours. Dusk came, then darkness, and still
he pressed on. The ground grew softer under his moccasins; the vegetation grew ranker, denser; insects bit
him savagely.
Then, as he stepped forward, his foot sank into the ooze. He tried to wrench it back, but the muck sucked
viciously at his foot as if it were a giant leech. With a violent effort, he tore his feet loose. He knew where
he was now. Death Swamp and its quicksand.
His hands were tight closed as if his nerve were something tangible that someone in the darkness was
trying to tear from his grip. The softness of the earth had given him an idea. He stepped back from the
quicksand a dozen feet or so and, like some huge prehistoric beaver, he began to dig.
Rainsford had dug himself in in France when a second's delay meant death. That had been a placid pastime
compared to his digging now. The pit grew deeper; when it was above his shoulders, he climbed out and
from some hard saplings cut stakes and sharpened them to a fine point. These stakes he planted in the
bottom of the pit with the points sticking up. With flying fingers he wove a rough carpet of weeds and
branches and with it he covered the mouth of the pit. Then, wet with sweat and aching with tiredness, he
crouched behind the stump of a lightning-charred tree.
He knew his pursuer was coming; he heard the padding sound of feet on the soft earth, and the night breeze
brought him the perfume of the general's cigarette. It seemed to Rainsford that the general was coming with
unusual swiftness; he was not feeling his way along, foot by foot. Rainsford, crouching there, could not see
the general, nor could he see the pit. He lived a year in a minute. Then he felt an impulse to cry aloud with
joy, for he heard the sharp crackle of the breaking branches as the cover of the pit gave way; he heard the
sharp scream of pain as the pointed stakes found their mark. He leaped up from his place of concealment.
Then he cowered back. Three feet from the pit a man was standing, with an electric torch in his hand.
"You've done well, Rainsford," the voice of the general called. "Your Burmese tiger pit has claimed one of
my best dogs. Again you score. I think, Mr. Rainsford, Ill see what you can do against my whole pack. I'm
going home for a rest now. Thank you for a most amusing evening."
At daybreak Rainsford, lying near the swamp, was awakened by a sound that made him know that he had
new things to learn about fear. It was a distant sound, faint and wavering, but he knew it. It was the baying
of a pack of hounds.
Rainsford knew he could do one of two things. He could stay where he was and wait. That was suicide. He
could flee. That was postponing the inevitable. For a moment he stood there, thinking. An idea that held a
wild chance came to him, and, tightening his belt, he headed away from the swamp.
The baying of the hounds drew nearer, then still nearer, nearer, ever nearer. On a ridge Rainsford climbed a
tree. Down a watercourse, not a quarter of a mile away, he could see the bush moving. Straining his eyes,
he saw the lean figure of General Zaroff; just ahead of him Rainsford made out another figure whose wide
shoulders surged through the tall jungle weeds; it was the giant Ivan, and he seemed pulled forward by
some unseen force; Rainsford knew that Ivan must be holding the pack in leash.
They would be on him any minute now. His mind worked frantically. He thought of a native trick he had
learned in Uganda. He slid down the tree. He caught hold of a springy young sapling and to it he fastened
his hunting knife, with the blade pointing down the trail; with a bit of wild grapevine he tied back the
sapling. Then he ran for his life. The hounds raised their voices as they hit the fresh scent. Rainsford knew
now how an animal at bay feels.
He had to stop to get his breath. The baying of the hounds stopped abruptly, and Rainsford's heart stopped
too. They must have reached the knife.
He shinned excitedly up a tree and looked back. His pursuers had stopped. But the hope that was in
Rainsford's brain when he climbed died, for he saw in the shallow valley that General Zaroff was still on
his feet. But Ivan was not. The knife, driven by the recoil of the springing tree, had not wholly failed.
Rainsford had hardly tumbled to the ground when the pack took up the cry again.
"Nerve, nerve, nerve!" he panted, as he dashed along. A blue gap showed between the trees dead ahead.
Ever nearer drew the hounds. Rainsford forced himself on toward that gap. He reached it. It was the shore
of the sea. Across a cove he could see the gloomy gray stone of the chateau. Twenty feet below him the sea
rumbled and hissed. Rainsford hesitated. He heard the hounds. Then he leaped far out into the sea. . . .
When the general and his pack reached the place by the sea, the Cossack stopped. For some minutes he
stood regarding the blue-green expanse of water. He shrugged his shoulders. Then be sat down, took a
drink of brandy from a silver flask, lit a cigarette, and hummed a bit from Madame Butterfly.
General Zaroff had an exceedingly good dinner in his great paneled dining hall that evening. With it he had
a bottle of Pol Roger and half a bottle of Chambertin. Two slight annoyances kept him from perfect
enjoyment. One was the thought that it would be difficult to replace Ivan; the other was that his quarry had
escaped him; of course, the American hadn't played the game--so thought the general as he tasted his afterdinner liqueur. In his library he read, to soothe himself, from the works of Marcus Aurelius. At ten he went
up to his bedroom. He was deliciously tired, he said to himself, as he locked himself in. There was a little
moonlight, so, before turning on his light, he went to the window and looked down at the courtyard. He
could see the great hounds, and he called, "Better luck another time," to them. Then he switched on the
light.
A man, who had been hiding in the curtains of the bed, was standing there.
"Rainsford!" screamed the general. "How in God's name did you get here?"
"Swam," said Rainsford. "I found it quicker than walking through the jungle."
The general sucked in his breath and smiled. "I congratulate you," he said. "You have won the game."
Rainsford did not smile. "I am still a beast at bay," he said, in a low, hoarse voice. "Get ready, General
Zaroff."
The general made one of his deepest bows. "I see," he said. "Splendid! One of us is to furnish a repast for
the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed. On guard, Rainsford." . . .
He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided.
It was Easter Sunday in Chicago, and my sister Amy and I were
attending an afternoon dinner at the home of our friend John. The
weather was nice, and he'd set up a table in the backyard so that we
might sit in the sun. Everyone had taken their places, when I
excused myself to visit the bathroom, and there, in the toilet, was
the absolute biggest turd I have ever seen in my life - no toilet
paper or anything, just this long and coiled specimen, as thick as a
burrito.
I flushed the toilet, and the big turd trembled. It shifted position,
but that was it. This thing wasn't going anywhere. I thought briefly
of leaving it behind for someone else to take care of, but it was too
late for that. Too late, because before getting up from the table, I'd
stupidly told everyone where I was going. "I'll be back in a minute,"
I'd said. "I'm just going to run to the bathroom." My whereabouts
were public knowledge. I should have said I was going to make a
phone call. I'd planned to urinate and maybe run a little water over
my face, but now I had this to deal with.
The tank refilled, and I made a silent promise. The deal was that if
this thing would go away, I'd repay the world by performing some
unexpected act of kindness. I flushed the toilet a second time, and
the big turd spun a lazy circle. "Go on," I whispered. "Scoot! Shoo!" I
turned away, ready to perform my good deed, but when I looked
back down, there it was, bobbing to the surface in a fresh pool of
water.
Just then someone knocked on the door, and I stated to panic.
"Just a minute."
At an early age my mother sat me down and explained that
everyone has bowel movements. "Everyone," she'd said. "Even the
president and his wife." She'd mentioned our neighbors, the priest,
and several of the actors we saw each week on television. I'd gotten
the overall picture, but natural or not, there was no way I was going
to take responsibility for this one.
"Just a minute."
I seriously considered lifting this turd out of the toilet and tossing it
out the window. It honestly crossed my mind, but john lived on the
ground floor and a dozen people were seated at a picnic table ten
feet away. They'd see the window open and notice something
dropping to the ground. And these were people who would surely
gather round and investigate. Then there I'd be with my
unspeakably filthy hands, trying to explain that it wasn't mine. But
why bother throwing it out the window if it wasn't mine? No one
would have believed me except the person who had left it in the
first place, and chances were pretty slim that the freak in question
would suddenly step forward and own up to it. I was trapped.
"I'll be out in a second!"
I scrambled for a plunger and used the handle to break the turd
into manageable pieces, all the while thinking that it wasn't fair,
that this was technically not my job. Another flush and it still didn't
go down. Come on, pal. Let's move it. While waiting for the tank to
refill, I thought maybe I should wash my hair. It wasn't dirty, but I
needed some excuse to cover the amount of time I was spending in
the bathroom. Quick, I thought. Do something. By now the other
guests were probably thinking I was the type of person who uses
dinner parties as an opportunity to defecate and catch up on my
reading.
"Here I come. I'm just washing up."
One more flush and it was all over. The thing was gone and out of
my life. I opened the door, to find my friend Janet, who said, "Well,
it's about time." And I was left thinking that the person who'd
abandoned the huge turd had no problem with it, so why did I? Why
the big deal? Had it been left there to teach me a lesson? Had a
lesson been learned? Did it have anything to do with Easter? I
resolved to put it all behind me, and then I stepped outside to begin
examining the suspects.