When first trying it this necessity to get used to antic.i.p.ating your adversary"s movements is very apparent, a man who can shoot very quickly and coolly at an iron target when standing side by side with his opponent does not see the other man, he is thinking only of time.
When facing his opponent and shooting at him he watches his opponent"s hand and tries to time him, that, is to say fire just before the moment his adversary"s arm is absolutely level to shoot, just as you time a pigeon out of a trap for when he is well clear and yet before he can make his dart.
A well-known pigeon shot said, "I do not understand all this talk about easy and difficult birds, all birds are easy if you time them right."
The same with duelling, if you take your opponent just _before_ he can get his swing on to you he is properly "timed" and "an easy bird."
CHAPTER LXI
POLICE PISTOLS
I modelled a statuette of a mounted cowboy and gave it as a challenge trophy to be shot for with revolvers, open to all citizens of the United States.
It was won first by Dr. Louis Bell, then after two others had won it, it was finally won in 1894 by Roundsman Petty of the New York Police Force, who twice successfully defended his t.i.tle to it, and thus it became his own property.
Since then the police in several states have regular police compet.i.tions.
I also gave a statuette modelled by myself as a challenge pistol trophy to the State of Maryland (my native state).
For years I tried to induce the police authorities of London, England, to let me give a challenge cup for the police to shoot for, but without success, till, by perseverance, I, in 1915, induced them to do so.
In 1917 an automatic pistol won it, till then it was shot for only with revolvers.
I am sure the better the police can shoot, the less apt they will be to draw a pistol unnecessarily; they are confident in their skill; it is the man who is given a pistol for the first time who looses off and hits the wrong man.
I think it is a mistake to arm police with a .38 or .32 pistol instead of a full-size .44 or .45 military one. A policeman has often to face great odds and a mob will not, like enemy soldiers in battle, spare him when down. A mob will kick him to death. It is wrong therefore to give him a less powerful weapon than a soldier is given.
I suppose he is given the smaller pistol, as in some countries the police do not carry a pistol openly as part of their equipment so when they do carry pistols they have them concealed.
I think also this concealment is a mistake; if a pistol is carried openly and the carrier is known to be a good shot, he can keep order without shooting, whereas a man with no visible pistol may be ill-treated because he appears unarmed and therefore harmless; and he has to draw in order to maintain his authority or in self-defence.
In the case of my Challenge Trophies given in the United States, the compet.i.tions are changed from revolver into automatic pistol compet.i.tions as the revolver is obsolete.
If a policeman is unarmed, he cannot be expected to keep as cool and have as good judgment in an emergency when his own life is in danger as he can be when armed with a good large calibre pistol that he knows how to shoot to such good effect that he is in no personal danger.
If, when a riot starts, he can instantly drop a ring-leader each time the crowd attempts a rush, or break the arm of any man trying to throw a stone, he can get the mob under control with much less bloodshed than if they get out of hand with impunity and the military have finally to be called out.
A cool deadly shot can keep a big mob at bay. It is when police shoot and miss that the crowd begin to jeer and lose all fear of the police.
It is a great mistake to fire over the head of a man to stop him, it only makes him think you are a bad shot.
My servant got me out of a very nasty predicament when we were travelling one pitch dark night through a forest we had never been in before. We were being led by a guide who we felt sure was taking us in the wrong direction in order to lead us into an ambush and rob us. We had been walking away from where the compa.s.s told us was our proper direction for hours.
My servant without a word loaded my rifle and handed it to me.
The guide immediately turned and in half an hour we were back at our lodgings.
He had seen me kill a galloping bear in thick high cover a few hours before, and he did not like the look of my double-barrel rifle pointing at his back.
CHAPTER LXII
INVENTORS
There are several types of inventors of firearms, including those who invent real improvements, and those who delay invention by making all sorts of things which are not only useless but are even dangerous.
Inventors, to do any good work, must be conversant with their subject, and, if possible, skilled mechanics as well.
This is the difficulty when shooting experts, who are not gunmakers, try to invent anything.
The shooter knows what is necessary, often far better than the gunmaker.
The shooter has to use the firearm, and often finds details in them, which are very beautiful perhaps, from a mechanical point of view, but which are very awkward or even impossible from the practical shooting point of view.
A noisy bolt action for example.
The shooter knows what he wants but cannot put it into practical shape; the gunmaker, if he is not a shooting man as well, does not know of this want.
The best way out of the difficulty is for the shooter to collaborate with the skilled mechanic and then between them they can evolve something really useful. This is the way most improvements are evolved, the shooter constantly testing the invention and pointing out its _faults_ to the gunmaker who alters till the thing works well.
If an expert mechanic (even if he is a gunmaker), who is not a shooting man tries to invent a firearm improvement by himself, and he finds it works in the workshop, he thinks that is all that is necessary, and the invention is a failure as no shooting man will use it.
The expert shot who is unmechanical, cannot put his ideas into practical shape, and if he does not go to a gunmaker and ask his help, the invention never takes shape; in this way some invaluable inventions never see the light, for want of a little mechanical knowledge.
But there is a third type of inventor, who is absolutely hopeless and the despair of any shooting man he shows his invention to.
This is the man who knows nothing about shooting but he has his own ideas as to how shooting is done, and is too conceited ever to try to learn anything.
He is the type of man who says "Oh, we will muddle through."
Such a man has a vague idea that, as he himself cannot shoot, therefore his own individual difficulties if he tried to handle a firearm are the difficulties which all shooting experts labour under.
He does not know that an expert laughs at the difficulties of a beginner, which never trouble a man when he has become expert.
As well might a man the first time he is put on a horse imagine that, because he has to fly up and down off the saddle at each movement of a cantering horse, that the expert also has to take care not to fall off.
The expert can sit on a cantering horse without the least lifting from the saddle, whereas the beginner flops up and down.
In the same way the expert shot has pa.s.sed the stage which the inexpert inventor tries to invent against.
A horseman would not buy a saddle with straps to tie down the rider, invented by a man who did not ride.