Secrets of the Sword

I

The next day found us lighting our cigars as usual. Brilliant conversation, you know, cannot be maintained without something to smoke. Our talk this evening was to be about the methods of attack and defence, which offer the most likely chances of success in an actual duel.

I began at once: – “Yesterday,” I said, “I was speaking of the whole duty of seconds. I endeavoured to describe as clearly and fully as possible, what they ought to do and provide for, and I showed why it is essential that they should follow every stage and every incident of the fight with the utmost keenness, for the onus of responsibility is rightly held to rest on them.

“The preliminaries are now settled; the antagonists, armed with swords of equal length, stand face to face. One of the seconds is stationed between them. He addresses to each in turn the venerable formula: – ‘Are you ready? – On guard.’ Upon their assenting he steps back and gives the fatal word: – ‘Go.’

“The fighting is about to begin, and the two men stand expectant, neither stirring yet, each sheltering his life behind a few inches of cold steel.

II

“There are only three contingencies that we need consider, which naturally divide the discussion under three heads. The first arises, when a man who has never touched a sword finds himself opposed to an old hand. The second, when both antagonists are alike unskilled. The third, when both are adepts.

“I may say at once with regard to this last case, that in a duel between two skilful opponents the advantage of superior science which one or the other of them may possess vanishes more often than not, and is compensated for by difference of temperament. For I cannot remind you too often, that in actual fighting it is not a question of hitting your opponent often, or of placing your point artistically, but of striking somehow and anyhow one blow and only one.

“Swords are not worn now, and swordsmanship as a necessary part of polite education has gone out of fashion. Our more punctilious ancestors prided themselves on never wounding their antagonist except with some thrust ingeniously conceived and brilliantly executed. Perhaps it was better so. It was certainly more picturesque, more chivalrous and magnificent. To mistake your sword for a spit, though you might succeed in running your antagonist through and through, would have been voted a blackguardly proceeding, unworthy of a gentleman. Molière’s principle is good enough for us: – ‘Hit the other man, and don’t be hit yourself.’ Our object is to hit no matter where, – no matter how. The art of fence is now so much neglected that it seldom happens when two men go out to fight, that they have even a passable knowledge of their weapon.

III

“When a man knows nothing about fencing, either because he has never touched a sword, or because he has only knocked about with his friends in a rough way and very occasionally, his first thought when he has to fight is to call on a professor, and endeavour to obtain some ideas which will enable him to defend himself on the field of battle. I will describe one of these lessons which the professor is expected to give, and I shall try to point out the only sort of advice that is of universal application in such cases.

“The novice explains that he has to go out the next morning, and requests the professor to be good enough to give him a hint or two.

‘Do you know anything about fencing?’ enquires the professor.

‘No, practically nothing.’

‘You know that one holds the sword by the hilt and tries to hit the other man with the point, and that is about all, I suppose,’ continues the professor, who will have his little joke. And he takes down a pair of swords provided with buttons, hands one to his pupil, and the lesson begins.

“One wonders how often this same lesson has been repeated. It never varies, and it never ought to vary. Its whole value lies in its simplicity.

“The ignorant fencer can do nothing without a cool head and steady nerve, which are the more effective, when they are opposed, as they often are, to bluster and over-confidence.

“First and foremost the professor must make his pupil understand the absolute necessity of standing firmly on his feet with an easy balance that allows perfect freedom of movement. The position, whatever it may be, that your extempore pupil falls into naturally, is the position you must accept. It is important to give him confidence in it and to modify it only so far as is absolutely necessary to enable him to move about easily. Your business is to make the best of this position, and if possible turn even its defects to account.

“The body should be inclined forwards rather than backwards. In this somewhat crouching attitude the upper part of the body, that is to say the chest, by its advanced position with the sword arm held in front, acts as a kind of natural rampart or shield to cover the lower part, where a wound is almost certain to prove mortal.

“Keep in view from the very first the importance of inspiring confidence in the unpractised fencer. For confidence alone implies some sort of self-possession and reacts immediately on nerve and muscle. He soon begins to feel somewhat more at ease. Some slight modifications are all that is required to correct the glaring faults that are most obviously dangerous.

“I am not afraid of putting the truth of my statement to a practical test. If you will now, all of you, take one of those swords which I see hanging on the wall and place yourselves on guard, not in what you imagine to be a fencing attitude, but as you would stand if you were seriously threatened, you will find that the attitudes you assume will all be very much alike, apart from such slight variations as are due to differences of physique.”

IV

“Come, I’ll be your shocking example,” said one of my hearers. “I have never touched a sword in my life. See what you can make of me.”

“Very good,” I replied, rising as I spoke; and taking down a pair of swords I handed him one. Then without giving him time to think, I made a quick movement and threatened him with the point.

Instinctively he threw himself on guard.

“There, that will do,” I said, “stay as you are; I only wish you could be photographed to illustrate the instinctive attitude. Oh, don’t be too conceited; I do not mean to say that your position is faultless, – very far from that; but the attitude in which you are standing is the origin of the orthodox guard as taught in the fencing-room, because it is essentially the attitude that accords with our natural fighting instincts.”

“I am getting tired of this,” observed my patient, who had scrupulously stuck to his position.

“One moment,” I replied. “You are tired because your arm is too much extended. Draw it back a trifle, to relax the muscles and give them their natural play. Carry yourself more upright by slightly raising the body. Your left foot is too far from the right; bring it rather more forward; sink down a little on your legs, so as to be ready either to spring quickly to the rear or to advance.

“Bring your right shoulder forward, in order to expose your chest less, but not further than you can manage with comfort. You see I am not very exacting.

“There, that will do very well.

“Now, if I make a movement, straighten your arm boldly, and step back.

“Very well done.

“And yet you tell me you have never touched a sword, or even a foil in a fencing-room. Then all I can say is that I could not have chosen a better subject for my demonstration.

“We will now put the swords back in their place, and return to our discussion. Perhaps I may have occasion to trouble you again by and by.”

“I am entirely at your disposal, Professor,” replied my obliging pupil.

V

“The rest of the lesson may be summed up in a convenient formula. For so far as I know, there is only one really useful tip that a professor can give to the uninstructed novice who says: – ‘This afternoon or to-morrow morning I have to go out.’

“The professor will make a great mistake if he attempts to teach him some fancy stroke, for he will only disturb the natural working of his instinct, without controlling it. He must remember that the excitement of fighting does not leave much room for thought, and he must accordingly take care to limit his instruction to the simplest and clearest ideas, easy to understand and easy to put into practice, such as arise naturally out of the instinctive sense of self-preservation.

“These remarks of course do not apply to those dull and inert creatures, cursed with a temperament so heavy, and so sluggish, that they do not know what it is to move briskly and can never rise to the occasion. You can put nothing into such as these and can get nothing out of them.

“When swords are crossed, the thing to do is simply what our friend here did just now: – Retire. I say ‘retire’ in order to avoid saying ‘run away.’ Retire always, retire incessantly, but retire little by little, so as not to consume once and for all the entire hinterland; retire in short, not like a man in a panic, but like one who is watching his opportunity.

“Never forget this, – the only principle that at the critical moment is available for him who cannot count on science to assist him: —Get back and straighten the arm; – or in other words: —Defend yourself by threatening your opponent. Never attack; that is the point on which your attention must be concentrated.”

“But,” exclaimed one of my hearers, “what do you mean by ‘threatening?’ It is not so easy to threaten when you are an absolute duffer.”

VI

“The naked point of a sword resolutely offered at the body or at the face is always a threat. No one who sees it directed straight at him with a set fixity of purpose and a suggestive glitter can fail to be alarmed by it or can afford to disregard it, more especially perhaps if he knows that the man behind it is unsophisticated, and cannot be depended upon to obey the ordinary rules, that he has no deep design or artful scheme in the background, but just one idea – to keep his point always there, like a sentry at his post.

“Put shortly, my advice amounts to this: – Defend yourself by retreating; threaten by offering the point. Offering the point, that is to say straightening the arm, is the attack of the incapable fencer.

“By retreating you maintain the distance between yourself and your opponent, and make it difficult for him to get command of your blade on a simulated attack.

“There is only one other movement that I should teach to a novice, who came to me for advice in these circumstances. I should tell him – as he retires and straightens his arm – to change the line occasionally; that is to say to pass his point under his opponent’s blade and threaten him on the other side, in fact a simple disengagement. It is the easiest thing in the world to understand, and anyone, however little he may be skilled in the art of fencing, can do it with the greatest ease; the act of retiring itself facilitates the execution of the movement. An hour’s practice will make him familiar with this change of line, which as I remarked just now answers the double purpose of attack and defence.

“I should make my pupil repeat this very simple performance over and over again, instructing him to straighten his arm, sometimes with his point held high on a level with the chest, attacking the high lines, sometimes with the point lowered, attacking the low lines. You understand of course what is meant by the high and low lines. It is the A – B – C of fencing.

“Notice that my lesson is simplified to a degree that is almost ludicrous. I dissect every movement and explain how the parts are put together, being particularly careful to avoid the use of technical terms, for my imaginary pupil is supposed to be completely ignorant, and he would be hopelessly puzzled by them. If on the other hand he happens to have some smattering of knowledge he will appreciate more fully and derive all the more benefit from the lesson thus reduced to its simplest expression.”

VII

“You say nothing,” remarked one of my hearers, “about the movement, which consists in reversing the lunge.”

“No,” I answered; “because I believe that this device, which is only proper in certain exceptional circumstances, is likely to prove very dangerous if it is employed at the wrong moment or at random. If it does not come off, you are left without defence at your opponent’s mercy.

“To put the matter shortly: – if you adopt my plan, you retire and at the same moment offer your point either with a straight thrust or with a disengagement; then you immediately recover your guard and bring your forearm back to its original position. Whether your thrust has succeeded or not, you are always provided with a sound defence, you are set firmly on your legs, your balance is undisturbed, and upon your opponent’s advance you can repeat the process again and again.

“Now suppose that you decide to lunge to the rear; that is to say, to reverse the lunge by throwing the left leg back to its full extent and dropping the body, without moving the right foot; well, when will you do this and how?

“You are not an expert. What secret instinct will inform you that the opportune moment has come for executing this manoeuvre? For after you have executed it, you must recover, and recover smartly, if you are to regain your guard; no easy matter, I assure you. In attempting to perform a movement so complicated, you with your want of experience can hardly fail to be thrown into disorder, to the great advantage of your adversary, who will seize the opportunity to press you briskly and get command of your blade.

“Even supposing that you escape from this danger, you cannot go on repeating the process continually; you cannot repeat it indifferently on every attack, or on every semblance of an attack that is made upon you. You must judge your opportunity. Now fencing judgment, especially in a duel, implies knowledge, and remember we are arguing on the assumption that you are ignorant.

“For these reasons I should never think of recommending the lunge to the rear to anyone who has not acquired some familiarity with his weapon.

VIII

“If we now turn from the man whose only chance lies in his getting a rule of thumb to work by to the man who is more or less used to fencing, the case is different. The scope of the lesson is enlarged. The pupil knows a few words of the language, we must try to turn his knowledge to account.

“My advice to him would be: – In the first place, take the same guard as that already indicated; but make a little play with your point, by changing the line occasionally from inside to outside and so on, in order to bother your opponent. Make a show of attacking now and then, in order to recover any ground that you may have lost by retreating. But be very careful never on any account to attack in real earnest. You must be doubly strong and doubly sure of all your movements to enable you to attack without getting out of your depth, and perhaps throwing yourself away in a moment of inadvertence.

“And then I should go on to say: – Sometimes, but always accompanying the movement with a short step to the rear, make a parry of counter quarte and circle, a sweeping parry which cuts all the lines, and is bound to find the blade somewhere. Come back to your first position at once, holding your point well in front of your body. Then if you find that your opponent means to develope his attack fully, and that his point is directed high, throw your left foot back boldly, remembering to drop your head and body at the same moment, in order to avoid the point which would otherwise strike you in the upper part of the chest or in the face. Above all, recover as smartly as you can by springing quickly to the rear, so as to regain your defensive position before your adversary, if he has avoided or parried your thrust, can take advantage of his opportunity.

“But once more I must caution you that this sort of thing requires such training and judgment as I should not expect anyone to possess who has not by regular practice made himself thoroughly at home with the sword.”

IX

“We are allowed to criticise, I believe,” remarked the Comte de C. after a pause which followed these remarks.

“By all means,” I replied; “I not only allow but invite criticism. In working out an idea, I may very likely neglect some side of it that ought not to be passed over.”

“Well, you seem to me inconsistent. You said the other day, and I quite agreed with you: – ‘The first and fundamental rule of fencing is to parry;’ and now you tell us on the contrary not to attempt to parry.”

“That is fair criticism,” I answered, “but I do not admit the inconsistency. You will remember that we were then talking of scientific fencing, that is to say of the systematic study of swordsmanship. But that has nothing to do with the present question. The whole art of fencing cannot be learnt in three or four hours.

“Let me give you an analogy, for an analogy often serves to put an argument simply. Two men are on a sinking ship; one of them knows how to swim, the other only knows how to go to the bottom and stay there. Meanwhile the danger is immediate. Would you say to the man who cannot swim a stroke: – ‘Look here, this is the way to swim; you move your arms like this, and at the same time you move your legs like that’? Do you mean to tell me that he will be able to put into practice straight away what you have just shown him? Or do you suppose, that thanks to your demonstration he will be able to swim when he finds himself in the water? No, of course you are not so foolish as to suppose anything of the sort. You would of course tell him to catch hold of something or other, anything – a spar, an oar, or a plank, and to support himself on it as best he can; that is his only chance.

“Well, my case is on all fours with that. My pupil is in imminent peril of his life. My business is to give him the spar or the plank, which may serve to keep him afloat. I don’t bother about teaching him to swim.

X

“Of course there is nothing to prevent one from showing one or two parries to the novice who has to fight a duel at short notice. But the only parries that would be of any use to him are the comprehensive and rather complicated parries, which sweep through all the lines. What would be the result?

“His parries would be weak, undecided, and slow. Instead of tripping neatly round the blade, they would labour painfully after it in wide circles. To deceive them would be the merest child’s play, and the poor novice, encountering nothing but empty air, would let his blade fly into space, and send his arm after it, leaving himself completely exposed.

“Even supposing that his opponent does not take advantage of his opportunity, the novice realises how helpless he is, and racks his brains for some device to avoid the danger when he is again attacked. Then he does not know what to do, what not to do; he loses his head and is seized with panic; he strikes wildly at his opponent’s blade, as a drowning man strikes wildly at the water, and nothing remains to be done but to wait for the finishing thrust, or to rush blindly at his opponent, with the probability that he will run upon his point. Those are my reasons for not attempting to teach an untutored novice things which he cannot possibly perform.

“Now, on the other hand, consider in detail the measures that I do put at his disposal. By retiring he evades the point. Evading the point, by drawing the body back or by springing to the rear, may not be the same thing as parrying, but it amounts to much the same in the end, since you retire out of range and are not hit. Or if you are hit, at the worst you can be only lightly touched, because by retiring you make your opponent lose the ground which he reckoned on gaining by his attack.