Through Russian Snows (19 page)

"That is quite true, now I come to think of it," Frank said; "though I
never gave it a thought before. Yes, I see that the left hand is the
most useful one, and I will practice with that as well as with the
other. Well, what hour will suit you?"

"It don't make much difference to me, sir; the evenings are getting
longer; you can see well enough until five."

"Well, then, shall we say half-past four?"

"Half-past four will suit very well, Mr. Wyatt. It is four o'clock now,
so if you like to take your first lesson to-day I will meet you at the
shed in half an hour. You cannot miss the place, it is on the right side
of the road and stands by itself, and there is my name over the door."

"Thank you; I will be there," Frank replied.

"I may as well come with you, Wyatt," Captain Lister said. "I will fire
a few shots myself, for I have had no practice for the last two years,
and I have a fancy to see what I can do with my left hand. I have never
tried with it, and I quite agree with Woodall that it is the left hand
that a cavalry-man should use."

Frank was a good deal surprised at first to see how much more difficult
it was to hit a mark, even at the distance of twelve paces, than he
imagined that it would be. Woodall would not allow him to take aim.

"You will never get a chance to do that, Mr. Wyatt, in a fight; you have
got to whip out your pistol, to throw up your arm and fire. It has got
to be done by instinct rather than by aim. It is all very well to aim
when you are on your feet and standing perfectly steady, but on a horse
half-mad with excitement, and perhaps going at a gallop, you could no
more hold your arm steady on a mark than you could fly. Put down the
pistol for a time. Now you know, sir, when you point at a thing with
your first finger extended, however quickly you do it, you will be there
or thereabout, and it is the same thing if you have got a pistol in your
hand. You see that black patch on the wall to the right of the target.
Now turn your back to it. Now, when I give the word, turn on your heels,
and the moment your eye catches that patch throw up your arm with your
forefinger extended and point to it. When you get it up there, hold it
as steady as you can. Now, sir!"

Frank did as he was ordered.

"Now, sir, look along your arm. You see you are pointing very nearly at
the centre of the patch. You are just a little high. Now try it with
your left. There, you see, you are not quite so accurate this time—you
are six inches to the left of the patch, and nearly a foot high.
Remember that it's always better to aim a little low than a little high,
for the tendency of the hand in the act of pulling the trigger is to
raise the muzzle. Now, sir, try that half a dozen times, using the hands
alternately. Very good! Now take this empty pistol—no, don't hold it
like that! Not one man in twenty, ay, not one in a hundred, holds a
pistol right, they always want to get the first finger on the trigger.
Now, you want the first finger to point with, the second finger is quite
as good to pull with, in fact better, for going straight, as it does,
with the arm, there is less tendency to throw up the muzzle. Now take it
like this; you see my forefinger lies along in the line of the barrel,
that is the really important point. Get into the way of always grasping
your pistol so that the first finger is in an exact line with the
barrel, then, you see, just as your finger naturally follows your eye
and points at the spot, so your pistol must be in the same line. It is
best to have the middle and third fingers both on the trigger, and the
little finger and thumb alone grasping the butt.

"You will find that a little difficult at first, but you will soon get
accustomed to it, and your little finger will rapidly gain strength,
and, you see, the hold of your first finger along the barrel helps the
other two to steady it. By having the middle and third fingers both on
the trigger, you give a pressure rather than a pull to it, and they will
soon come to give that pressure at the very moment when the first finger
gets on the mark aimed at. Now try it half a dozen times with the pistol
unloaded, and after pressing the trigger keep your hand and arm in as
nearly the same position, so as to see if it is pointing truly at the
mark. Very good! Now try with the left hand. There, you see, that hand
is not so accustomed to its work, and though you might have hit the
target, I doubt if either of the shots would have struck the inner
circle. Now we will try with the pistol loaded."

Six shots were fired alternately with the right and left hand. Those of
the former were all within a few inches of the bull's-eye, while none of
the others went wide of the outside.

"Very good, indeed," the gunsmith said. "I don't hesitate to say that in
a very short time you will become a fair shot, and at the end of three
months, if you practise regularly, a first-class one. Your hand is very
steady, your eye true, and you have plenty of nerve. Now, sir, I should
advise you to keep that unloaded pistol in the drawer of your table, and
whenever you have nothing else to do, spend five minutes in taking quick
aims at marks on the wall, using your hands alternately. Now, Captain
Lister, will you try a few shots?"

Taking a steady aim, Captain Lister put his bullets almost every time
into the bull's-eye, but, to Frank's surprise, when he came to try
quick firing in the way he had himself done, the captain's shooting was
much less accurate than his own.

"It is a question of eye," the gunsmith said next day, when Frank was
alone with him. "You see Captain Lister's shooting was fair when he took
a steady aim, but directly he came to fire as he would in action, and
that without the disturbing influences of excitement and of the motion
of his horse, he was nowhere. He did not even once hit the target in
firing with his left hand. He would certainly have missed his man and
would have got cut down a moment later, and even with his right hand his
shooting was very wild."

Captain Lister himself was evidently disconcerted at finding how useless
his target practice would be to him in the field, and, two or three
times in the next week, went with Frank to practise. He improved with
his right hand, but did not seem to obtain any accuracy in firing with
his left, while Frank, at the end of a month, came to shoot as well with
one hand as with the other.

Frank worked steadily at Russian, and although he found it extremely
difficult at first, soon began to make progress under his teacher, who
took the greatest pains with him. He soon got over the good-tempered
chaff of the subalterns of his detachment, who, finding that he was at
other times always ready to join in anything going on, and was wholly
unruffled by their jokes, soon gave it up. They agreed among themselves
that he was a queer fellow, and allowed him to go his own way without
interference. At the end of three months he was discharged from drill
and riding school, and had thenceforth a great deal more time on his
hands, and was able to devote three hours of a morning and two of an
afternoon to Russian.

He was delighted with his master, whom he came to esteem highly, finding
him a most intelligent companion as well as an unwearied teacher.
Strelinski, indeed, would have been glad to have devoted twelve hours a
day instead of five, could Frank have afforded the time. He was a very
different man now to what he was when he had first called at Sir Robert
Wilson's lodgings. He looked well and happy; his cheeks had filled out,
and he carried himself well; he dressed with scrupulous care, and when
Frank had no engagement with his comrades, the Pole accompanied him on
long rides on his spare charger, he having been accustomed to riding
from his childhood. From him Frank learned a great deal of the state of
things in Poland and Russia, and gained a considerable insight into
European politics, besides picking up a more intimate colloquial
knowledge of Russian than he gained at his lessons. Of an evening Frank
not unfrequently went to parties in the town. The gallant deeds of our
troops in Spain had raised the military to great popularity throughout
the country, and the houses of all the principal inhabitants of
Canterbury were hospitably opened to officers of the garrison.

Many of the young men preferred billiards and cards in the mess-room,
but Frank, who declined to play billiards, and had not acquired
sufficient skill at cards to take a hand at whist, was very glad to
accept these invitations. He specially enjoyed going to the houses of
the clergy in the precincts of the cathedral; most of them were very
musical, and Frank, who had never heard much music at Weymouth, enjoyed
intensely the old English glees, madrigals, and catches performed with a
perfection that at that time would have been hard to meet with except in
cathedral towns.

After three months the gunmaker no longer accompanied Frank to his
shooting-gallery.

"It would be robbing you to go on with you any longer, Mr. Wyatt. When a
man can turn round, fire on the instant and hit a penny nine times out
of ten at a distance of twelve paces, there is no one can teach him
anything more. You have the best eye of any gentleman I ever came
across, and in the twenty years that I have been here I have had
hundreds of officers at this gallery, many of them considered crack
shots. But I should go on practising, if I were you, especially with
your left hand. It is not quite so good as the right yet, although very
nearly so. I will come down once a week or so and throw up a ball to you
or spin a penny in the air; there is nothing like getting to hit a
moving object. In the meantime you can go on practising at that plummet
swinging from the string. You can do that as well by yourself as if I
were with you, for when you once set it going it will keep on for five
minutes. It is not so good as throwing up a penny, because it makes a
regular curve; but shooting, as you do, with your back to it, and so not
able to tell where it will be when you turn round, that don't so much
matter."

"What is the best shooting you ever heard of?"

"The best shot I ever heard tell of was Major Rathmines. He could hit a
penny thrown up into the air nineteen times out of twenty."

"Well, I will go on practising until I can do that," Frank said. "If a
thing is worth doing it is worth doing well."

"And you will do it, Mr. Wyatt; there is nothing you could not do with
practice."

"There is one thing I wish you would do for me—that figure you have got
painted as a target is ridiculous. I wish you would get some one who has
an idea of painting to do another figure. I want it painted, not
standing square to me, but sideways, as a man stands when he fights a
duel. I want it drawn with the arm up, just in the same position that a
man would stand in firing. I hope I shall never be called upon to fight
a duel. I think it is a detestable practice; but unfortunately it is so
common that no one can calculate on keeping out of it—especially in the
army."

"Well, sir, you need not be afraid of fighting a duel, for you fire so
mighty quick that you would be certain of getting in the first shot,
and if you got first shot there would be an end of it."

"Yes, but that would be simple murder—neither more nor less, whatever
people might call it—and I doubt whether, accustomed as I am to fire
instantly the moment I catch sight of a thing, that I could help hitting
a man in the head. Now what I want to become accustomed to is to fire at
the hand. I should never forgive myself if I killed a man. But if ever I
did go out with a notorious duellist who forced the duel upon me, I
should like to stop his shooting for the rest of his life. So I want to
be able to hit his hand to a certainty. Of course the hand is an easy
enough mark, and by getting accustomed to the height and the exact
position it would be in, I should get to hit it without fail."

"A very good idea, sir. The hand is not much of a mark when holding a
pistol, still it is a good bit bigger than a penny piece, and you would
soon get to hit it just as certainly."

For the next three months Frank fired fifty shots a day—twenty-five
with each hand—and at the end of that time could hit a penny thrown up
by Woodall, eighteen times out of twenty.

"That is good enough," he said; "now I shall only practise once a week,
to keep my hand in."

Frank had not been without an incentive to gain exceptional proficiency
with a pistol. Although he got on very well with his comrades of his own
depôt, there was a captain of a lancer regiment who had not unfrequently
taxed his patience to its farthest limit. The man was a noted duellist,
and was known to be a dead shot. On the strength of this, he was in the
habit of making remarks so offensive, that they would have at once been
taken up, if uttered by anyone else in barracks. For the last two months
he had made a special butt of a young cornet, who had recently joined
the depôt of the Dragoons. He was a pleasant lad, with plenty of spirit
and pluck, but he had a slight impediment in his speech, although when
giving the word of command he never hesitated. It was this defect that
was the object of Captain Marshall's ill-natured remarks. The lad tried
to laugh them off and to ignore the offensiveness of the tone, but he
felt them deeply, and confided to Frank—to whom he had specially
taken—that he could not stand it much longer.

"I never used a pistol in my life until you advised me the other day to
take some lessons from Woodall, and of course he would put a bullet
through my head; but I can't help that. As it is, everyone must think me
a coward for standing it, and at any rate I can show them that I am not
that."

"Don't you mind, Wilmington," Frank said one day, "and don't make a fool
of yourself. You put up with it a little longer, and something may occur
to put a stop to it. He may go away on leave, or he may get a hint that
he had better retire from the service. I have heard that it is likely
enough that he will get a hint the next time he has an affair of this
sort. The last two were with civilians, and I believe that is the reason
why so few accept our invitations to mess; but I fancy if he gets into
trouble again with one of ourselves he will have to go."