Target Practice

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The man lay on a cot near a window in one of the wards of the French army hospital at Toulon. Dr. Dumain, who was showing me through the hospital and who had been called away to attend a delirious patient in another ward, had told me that the man’s name was Bonnot, and that he had shot himself in the breast two days before in the barracks at the fort.

I had started after the doctor, thinking to take advantage of the opportunity to make my escape — I had had enough of hospital for the day — and had nearly reached the door, when a hoarse, agitated voice sounded from behind.

“Monsieur!”

I halted. The man on the cot had turned his head to look at me with eyes that positively startled me with their expression of poignant, intense suffering.

The outline of his body under the white sheet and the knotty appearance of his arms, which lay outside, showed him to be a big, muscular fellow; his bare shoulders were brown and massive. His chest and neck were swathed in bandages; but these details did not enter my consciousness till later.

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