Free Basic Training by Kurt Vonnegut Page B

of her lips against his forehead, and heard her voice by his ear. “I just wanted to tell you that I’ll miss you terribly when I go away, Haley, and that I can’t bear the idea of your being so unhappy.” She turned her back on him. “Please don’t be unhappy,” she said in a high, faint voice. “Things will get better for you, Haley, really they will.”
     
    Haley’s thoughts, painful, angry ones, raging at his being pitiable, remained unspoken, scattered by the sound of a seemingly distant cough, coming perhaps from the stalls beneath the loft.
     
    “The General!” whispered Hope.
     
    “Shush,” said Haley. “He’ll be up here in a minute. Hide!” He slid aside the bale that blocked the tunnel entrance, and crawled into the secret chamber. Hope followed, pulling the bale back into place, remaining prone in the tunnel. They lay motionless in the darkness, their hearts throbbing against the floor.
     
    Suddenly the cough came again — explosive and sharp in Haley’s ear. “Run!” he shouted. His cry ended in a gurgle, as a pair of powerful arms closed over his throat and chest. He drove his head backwards into the face of his assailant, and struck out with the steel-shod heels of his work shoes. The arms relaxed for an instant. Haley wriggled free and scrambled for the exit. The portal bale was tumbled to one side, leaving a square of light to guide him. Hope had fled.
     
    Panting heavily, he thrust his head and shoulders through the doorway. Hands seized his ankles, and started to drag him back in. He kicked again, savagely, rolled from the tunnel, and raced down the channel between bales, down the loft ladder, and toward the house.
     
    Hope’s silhouette danced before him, sprinting up the kitchen steps. She cried for help as she ran. Haley turned his head to look quickly at the black hole of the barn door, to see a figure dart from it, and to lengthen his panic-driven stride and shout, “He’s after us!”
     
    He overtook Hope as she rushed through the darkened kitchen, and the two of them burst into the sunroom together. The General was on his feet, and Annie’s eyes were wide with terror.
     
    “Banghart!” panted Haley, pointing toward the barn. The General snatched his pistol belt from the tabletop, and fumbled with the catch on the holster. “Keep calm,” he commanded. “If I can’t handle this, the police can. I phoned them right after supper, and they’ll be here any minute.”
     
    “Drop it,” ordered a voice from the kitchen shadows. The pistol fell back on the table with a thump. Annie whimpered. Haley turned to face the speaker. Mr. Banghart winked at him over the sights of the shotgun they had left leaning against the kitchen doorframe. He stepped into the light, and, as he swung the muzzle from Haley to the General, Haley saw his face as a red-eyed nightmare, sweat-streaked with the brown dust of the barn, and bristling with stiff, glistening beard.
     
    “Haley, now don’t you and the girls be scared,” said Mr. Banghart, nervously apologetic. “It’s the old devil I’m here to settle up with. One shot’s all I’ve got, and that’s for his honor over there.”
     
    Annie, Hope, and Haley had flattened themselves against the wall to Mr. Banghart’s right. The General stood alone in the middle of the room, rigid, unblinking. “Banghart, I order you to put that gun down this instant,” he said, glaring.
     
    “Not until you apologize,” said Mr. Banghart.
     
    “For what?” asked the General angrily.
     
    “For the way you treated me and Haley and the girls.”
     
    The General laughed quietly and shrugged, master of the situation. “I’m deeply apologetic for the terrible way I have treated all of you. Will that do?”
     
    “Now pray.”
     
    Haley, stupefied with horror, watched the General’s stern features sag and whiten into fear. “Our Father, Who art in Heaven; hallowed be Thy Name, Thy—”
     
    “Pray on your knees.”
     
    The General