The Tenth Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

volunteer. We must draw lots.’ He added, ‘Unless it is thought that we should go by ages—the oldest first.’
    ‘No, no,’ one of the others said, ‘that would be unjust.’
    ‘It’s the way of nature.’
    ‘Not even the way of nature,’ another said. ‘I had a child who died when she was five …’
    ‘We must draw lots,’ the mayor said firmly. ‘It is the only fair thing.’ He sat with his hands still pressed over his stomach, hiding his watch, but all through the cell you could hear its blunt tick tock tick. He added, ‘On the unmarried. The married should not be included. They have responsibilities …’
    ‘Ha, ha,’ Pierre said, ‘we see through that. Why should the married get off? Their work’s finished. You, of course, are married?’
    ‘I have lost my wife,’ the mayor said, ‘I am not married now. And you …’
    ‘Married,’ Pierre said.
    The mayor began to undo his watch: the discovery that his rival was safe seemed to confirm his belief that as the owner of time he was bound to be the next victim. He looked from face to face and chose Chavel—perhaps because he was the only man with a waistcoat fit to take the chain. He said, ‘Monsieur Chavel , I want you to hold this watch for me in case …’
    ‘You had better choose someone else,’ Chavel said. ‘I am not married.’
    The elderly clerk spoke again. He said, ‘I’m married. I’ve got the right to speak. We are going the wrong way about all this. Everyone must draw lots. This isn’t the last draw we shall have, and picture to yourselves what it will be like in this cell if we have a privileged class—the ones who are left to the end. The rest of you will soon begin to hate us. We shall be left out of your fear …’
    ‘He’s right,’ Pierre said.
    The mayor refastened his watch. ‘Have it your own way,’ he said. ‘But if the taxes were levied like this …’ He gave a gesture of despair.
    ‘How do we draw?’ Krogh asked.
    Chavel said, ‘The quickest way would be to draw marked papers out of a shoe …’
    Krogh said contemptuously, ‘Why the quickest way? This is the last gamble some of us will have. We may as well enjoy it. I say a coin.’
    ‘It won’t work,’ the clerk said, ‘You can’t get an even chance with a coin.’
    ‘The only way is to draw,’ the mayor said.
    The clerk prepared the draw, sacrificing for it one of his letters from home. He read it rapidly for the last time, then tore it into thirty pieces. On three pieces he made a cross in pencil, and then folded each piece. ‘Krogh’s got the biggest shoe,’ he said. They shuffled the pieces on the floor and then dropped them into the shoe.
    ‘We’ll draw in alphabetical order,’ the mayor said.
    ‘Z first,’ Chavel said. His feeling of security was shaken. He wanted a drink badly. He picked at a dry piece of skin on his lip.
    ‘As you wish,’ the lorry-driver said. ‘Anybody beat Voisin? Here goes.’ He thrust his hand into the shoe and made careful excavations as though he had one particular scrap of paper in mind. He drew one out, opened it, and gazed at it with astonishment. He said, ‘This is it.’ He sat down and felt for a cigarette, but when he got it between his lips he forgot to light it.
    Chavel was filled with a huge and shameful joy. It seemed to him that already he was saved—twenty-nine men to draw and only two marked papers left. The chances had suddenly grown in his favour from ten to one to—fourteen to one: the greengrocer had drawn a slip and indicated carelessly and without pleasure that he was safe. Indeed from the first draw any mark of pleasure was taboo: one couldn’t mock the condemned man by any sign of relief.
    Again a dull disquiet—it couldn’t yet be described as a fear—extended its empire over Chavel’s chest. It was like a constriction: he found himself yawning as the sixth man drew a blank slip, and a sense of grievance nagged at his mind when the tenth man had drawn—it was the one