FullReads

Sacred to the Memory of
W. H. Lands
78 + 6 = 84
Who Sliced Himself
to Pieces

Forty yards beyond, another obituary confronted them:

In Loving Memory of
J. C. Nappin
78 + 10 = 88
Died of a Broken Mashie
And of Such is the
Kingdom of Heaven

“Ha!” said General Bullwigg. “He little realizes that here where he has pinned his little joke in the lap of mother earth I have seen the dead men lie as thick as kindlings in a wood-yard. Sir, across this very fair green there were no less than three desperate charges, unremembered and unsung, of which I may say without boasting that Magna Pars Fui. But for the desperation of our last charge the battle must have been lost—-“

Damn the memory of
E. Hewett
78 + 10 = 88
Couldn’t Put

Here Lies
G. Norris
78 + 10 = 88
A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted

The little tombstones came thick and fast now. The fairway to the seventeenth, most excellent of all four-shot holes, was dotted with them, and it actually began to look as if General Bullwigg or Major Jennings (they were now on even terms) might be the winner.

It was that psychological moment when of all things a contestant most desires silence. Major Jennings was determined to triumph over his boastful companion. And he was full of courage and resolve. They had reached the seventeenth green in the same number of strokes from the first tee. That is to say, each had used up ninety-five of his allotted ninety-eight. Neither holed his approach put, and the match, so far as they two were concerned, resolved itself into a driving contest. If General Bullwigg drove the farther with his one remaining stroke he would beat the major, and vice versa. As for the other competitors, there was but one who had reached the eighteenth tee, and he, as his tombstone showed, had played his last stroke neither far nor well.

For the major the suspense was terrible. He had never won a tournament. He had never had so golden an opportunity to down a boaster. But it was General Bullwigg’s honor, and it occurred to him that the time was riper for talk than play.

“You may think that I am nervous,” he said. “But I am not. During one period of the battle of Aiken the firing between ourselves on this spot and the enemy intrenched where the club-house now stands, and spreading right and left in a half-moon, was fast and furious. Once they charged up to our guns; but we drove them back, and after that charge yonder fair green was one infernal shambles of dead and dying. Among the wounded was one of the enemy’s general officers; he whipped and thrashed and squirmed like a newly landed fish and screamed for water. It was terrible; it was unendurable. Next to me in the trench was a young fellow named–named Jennings—-“

“Jennings?” said the major breathlessly. “And what did he do?”

“He,” said General Bullwigg. “Nothing. He said, however, and he was careful not to show his head above the top of the trench: ‘I can’t stand this,’ he said; ‘somebody’s got to bring that poor fellow in.’ As for me, I only needed the suggestion. I jumped out of the trench and ran forward, exposing myself to the fire of both armies. When, however, I reached the general officer, and my purpose was plain, the firing ceased upon both sides, and the enemy stood up and cheered me.”

General Bullwigg teed his ball and drove it far.

Major Jennings bit his lip; it was hardly within his ability to hit so long a ball.

“This–er–Jennings,” said he, “seems to have been a coward.”

General Bullwigg shrugged his shoulders.

“Have I got it straight?” asked Major Jennings. “It was you who brought in the general officer, and not–er–this–er–Jennings who did it?”

“I thought I had made it clear,” said General Bullwigg stiffly. And he repeated the anecdote from the beginning. Major Jennings’s comment was simply this:

“So that was the way of it, was it?”

A deep crimson suffused him. He looked as if he were going to burst. He teed his ball. He trembled. He addressed. He swung back, and then with all the rage, indignation, and accuracy of which he was capable–forward. It was the longest drive he had ever made. His ball lay a good yard beyond the General’s. He had beaten all competitors, but that was nothing. He had beaten his companion, and that was worth more to him than all the wealth of Ormuzd and of Ind. He had won the second battle of Aiken.

In silence he took his tombstone from his caddie’s hand, in silence wrote upon it, in silence planted it where his ball had stopped. General Bullwigg bent himself stiffly to see what the fortunate winner had written. And this was what he read:

Sacred to the Memory of
E. O. Jennings
78 + 20 = 98
Late Major in the Gallant 29th, Talked to
Death by a Liar

As for the gallant major (still far from mollified), he turned his back upon a foe for the first time in his life and made off–almost running.