The Pistol by James Jones

wind he had become.
    It was here that little Corporal Winstock, his perpetually sly look still upon his thin rodent-like face, sought him out and sat down beside him. Even then, Mast had wondered why.
    “Sure is nice, ain’t it?” Winstock said, smiling craftily and looking out under the palms at the peaceful, sunny bay whose quiet water rippled and glinted in the sunshine. “Hell, I thought I was deef, by God, when I first got here outta that wind.” He rubbed his hand lingeringly over his freshly shaved, sharp chin. “Sure wish they hadn’t of closed the jookjoint, don’t you?” he added sorrowfully.
    “Yeah,” Mast said. “It’s hell to think of having to go back out there again, ain’t it?” he added absently. He was emotionally blanked out too, like the rest of them, here in this quiet sheltered place.
    “Whyn’t you get yourself a job in the orderly room?” Winstock said craftily. “With your education. Then y’could stay here all the time.” He got up lazily and went down the dancehall steps and out onto the closely clipped grass that led down to the sand beach under the palms, and walked around to Mast’s right side.
    “I don’t want a job in the orderly room,” Mast said.
    Winstock had stopped and was standing looking at Mast. “Hey, Mast! I never knew you had a pistol. How come? When you’re a rifleman. You ain’t supposed to have a pistol.”
    That Winstock could stand there and barefacedly say such a thing was immediately suspicious to Mast. Winstock could not have failed to notice the pistol during the past three weeks. Everyone on the position knew about it, excepting only the young lieutenant and the two platoon sergeants who were in charge. Certainly Winstock would have heard about it from O’Brien. Mast turned to look at the crafty face carefully.
    “I bought it off a guy from the 8th Field who had it and wanted to sell it, back before the war,” he said.
    “No kiddin’!” Winstock exclaimed with great surprise. “You’re lucky!” Then he rubbed his newly shaved chin again, thoughtfully. “But that’s buyin’ and receiving stolen property, ain’t it? That guy, or somebody, ‘course it might not of been him, had to steal that pistol.” Again he paused, then wrinkled up his crafty face into a rueful look. “Gee, I don’t know what I ought to do about that, Mast.” It was the first time Mast could remember hearing Winstock use the word ‘Gee.’ Usually Winstock swore explosively.
    “What do you mean: ‘Do’?” Mast said, his suspicions rising further.
    “Well, you know.” Winstock shrugged apologetically. “That’s an Army pistol, you know. ‘Course you yourself are innocent, I know that. But however you got it, and however that guy who sold it to you got it, in the beginning some body had to steal it—and from the Army. Now what kind of a position does that put me in?”
    “It doesn’t put you in any kind of a position, as far as I can see,” Mast said narrowly.
    “It don’t? Oh, but it does, Mast; it does. Don’t you see? You’re in my detail and I’m in charge of you. That makes it my responsibility. Not only to myself but to the Army too. Don’t you see that?”
    “What the hell?” Mast growled. “You’re not in command of me. I’m not even in the same platoon you are. My squad leader’s the guy that’s in command of me. I’m only under you temporarily, on a little temporary detail, to do a definite, temporary job.”
    “That’s just my point,” Winstock said. “’Course it’s only temporary, and as long as you’re there, long as you’re in my detail, you’re my responsibility, and so: so is that pistol.” He paused again and stared off thoughtfully, and rubbed again that freshly shaven chin that he, like Mast, was obviously still unused to. “I’m just going to have to figure out what to do, I guess. That’s all.”
    “Do?” Mast growled nervously. “Do! What the hell do you mean: Do ?”
    “Well, whether to make you