HOW TO PREPARE A NOVICE IN HALF AN HOUR FOR A DUEL

A duel takes place only a few hours after the challenge, generally early next morning, to prevent interruption.

Suppose a man has never had a pistol in his hand. How should he be trained in the half-hour at his disposal?

This is easy—if he is experienced with the shotgun at game or clay pigeons.

Show him the hind sight of the pistol; tell him it is merely to assist him in aligning the pistol.

Tell him that as there is only one barrel, it would be difficult to align it without this sight, pointing out to him that his double barrel shotgun can be aligned without this aid as in that case he looks along the rib.

Tell him to imagine he is using a shotgun, and to use his pistol exactly as he would use his gun if shooting at a rabbit which sat up on its hind legs for a moment, to listen.

Tell him he must be careful to keep the butt end of his pistol against his thigh, till he hears the word “un,” and that he must not fire after the word “trois”; in fact, he must not fire a poking shot.

On no account, unless he unfortunately knows it already, let him know the pistol may be raised after the word “feu.”

If he is a good snap shot with a gun, he is sure to shoot quickly enough.

Show him that keeping his arm straight corresponds to keeping the left arm well out in shotgun shooting.

Tell him that “attention, feu!” will first be said by the master of the duel, just as “Are you ready? pull!” are said in pigeon shooting, but that it will be a “no bird” if he lifts his pistol before the word “un,” or if he fires after “trois,” his adversary being considered “out of bounds” at the word “trois.”

Load the pistol and hand it to him, and tell him to cock it.

See that he is standing with the butt properly against his thigh.

Say “attention, feu!”—with a good interval apart, then sharply “un, deux, trois.”

He is almost certain to hit the figure, and well before the word “trois.”

Say, “I knew you would find it very easy,” and take him away at once: do not on any account let him have another shot.

This one successful shot is all that is necessary, even for an expert duellist before a duel.If your pupil should miss, explain to him his fault, and chaff him as to his inability to hit a “sitter.” Above all do not let him get to aiming.

If he hits next shot, his lesson is finished.

In the very improbable event of his again missing, then you will have to continue your instruction as for one of the below class of pupil.

It is of vital importance to give him absolute confidence in his ability to hit his man.

He should on no account be allowed to see others pistol shooting.

The most difficult pupil to instruct in half an hour is the man who is an expert pistol shot at a stationary target, but who has never attempted to shoot rapid-firing or at a moving target.

If he has besides never used a shotgun, his is almost a hopeless case.

He is certain not to raise his pistol before the word “feu,” but it must be drummed into him that if he cannot let off his pistol before the word “trois” he must not shoot at all, or he will be hung for murder.

Then the half hour can be spent in trying to get him to squeeze and let off in time, but probably the only result will be terribly wild shots, and he will finish with a feeling of despair as to his ability to hit his opponent.

I think it is best with such men not to let them have any practice but merely to tell them that they must keep the butt of their pistol to their thigh, till the word “feu” and that they will be hung if they fire after the word “trois.”

In the actual duel, they will either miss or, what is more likely, lift the pistol well up to the sky, begin slowly to lower it, and that will be all, as they will not have fired before the word “trois” is spoken.

They will be fortunate if they do not let off involuntarily after the word “trois,” but if they are of the sort who keep their finger outside the trigger guard till they have had a ten seconds’ aim, there will be no danger of that.

I have just been reading a book in which the hero “aimed for well over thirty seconds before firing straight at the light”; he must have had an arm of steel to be able to fire “straight at” it after aiming for over thirty seconds.

Another type of pupil is one who has shot both shotgun and rifle, but both on entirely different principles.

He is a splendid man with a shotgun, quick as lightning in snap-shooting, or a “tall” bird coming down wind.

He scorns to take advantage of a cantering hare, or a low bird. But the moment he has a pistol or rifle in his hands, he alters his method entirely.

Unless he is an officer who has had “field firing” practice, and a few rounds out of a revolver, he has only shot a rifle at a stationary bull’s-eye target, or at a stationary stag in Scotland, and all his shooting has been done in the prone position.There is a convention in Scotland that a rifle shall not be fired at a deer unless the deer is absolutely stationary. A man shooting driven deer or deer galloping is according to this convention “not quite a sportsman,” though he may be a deadly shot at galloping deer.

It is called “not quite cricket.” That is not a happy simile; Cricketers do not, I am told, hit at a ball whilst it is stationary, but when at full speed.

“Not quite golf” seems to me more appropriate; in golf the poor little ball is treacherously hit whilst sitting on its little nest, basely built for it by the very hand that strikes it.

A man who is a crack shot with the gun, and who unfortunately is also a crack shot with the rifle in its restricted conventional sense, at slow deliberate aim, can perhaps be prepared for a duel by impressing on him to forget all he knows about rifle-shooting, and to imagine he is using a shotgun, but the moment he sees the back sight of his pistol in the actual duel, he will try to use it for deliberate aim and miss. The habit of a lifetime cannot be altered in half an hour.

The shotgun man who has never fired a rifle, has no need to be told not to “poke.”

Dwelling on the aim must be entirely drummed out of the target rifle shot, and he must be again reminded just before he shoots in his duel.

The “shotgun man” on the contrary has to be told—“Don’t pay any attention to the director of the duel, if he tells you you can fire after the word ‘feu.’ You fire after the word ‘un’; you do not need all day to hit a sitter; show them what snap-shooting is.”

It is hopeless to try to instruct in half an hour for a duel, the utter novice, the man who has never had firearms in his hands. He is either of those who are frightened at firearms; are sure “it will explode” when “examined,” or “when you do not know if it is loaded,” or is of the type who is “not the least afraid” of it. He cocks it pointing at you, turns to speak to you whilst familiarly poking you with the muzzle to emphasize the joke. He is of the type that rides at a five barred gate with spikes on top of it.

It is the courage of ignorance, to use the polite term, but to put it bluntly—it is because he is “a d—d fool.”

All that can be done with such men is to try to prevent their shooting the seconds or themselves, and “losing off” at unexpected and inopportune moments.

They may even in an excess of caution “fire into the air.”

People are very fond of doing this in crowded neighbourhoods “merely to frighten a man,” and are very much surprised when someone gets hit.