was completely loyal—I instructed him to shoot for the shoulder, so some blood would be showing."
"The other soldiers were stupid recruits from the country. They would never realize that their cartridges were undercharged."
While the scrubwoman worked past us again the Colonel remained silent. She finished by the door and took her pail back for fresh water.
"I warned the son first, of course," the Colonel continued, "that he might not die of fright. And so our plot was complete."
The Colonel loosened his scarf and pulled his tunic open wider. He took another drink and then spoke again.
"A perfect plan, hein?" He nodded and smiled. "Yes, perfect. I see that the boy lives. The Lieutenant tells his mother. She pretends to have a funeral and everyone is satisfied. Fortunately, there was a shortage of physicians at the time. Death did not have to be certified."
The Colonel stopped to refill our glasses. He looked again to see if the woman was near.
"And so it worked," he continued softly. "Better than I had hoped. The boy fainted from the shock of being hit in the shoulder. It was a piece of luck, that, unconscious, he was hardly likely to give us away. I stepped up to administer the coup de grace. I fired my Steyr into the ground on the far side of his head—it looked quite convincing from where the firing squad stood. The concussion might have broken his eardrum, but that was a small price for life in those days.
"It only remained for the mother to pick up the 'body' and spirit her boy out of the country. There were many exits." The Colonel wiped some Cognac from his mustache and continued.
"I found it—convenient," he said wryly, "to leave the country shortly thereafter. Shooting one's old friends is not a pastime I enjoy. There was also some question of my hands being too well manicured." The Colonel studied his long, knotted fingers with their square cut nails. The lines around his mouth hardened.
(Continued on page 88)
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