As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had
been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther down
stream nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished
reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as
they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust
into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently
and ineffectually...
..."The officer," he reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error a
second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He
has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help
me, I cannot dodge them all!"
Prior to this section, Farquar was shot at simultaneously, so he dove to avoid the bullets. As stated in this section, when each soldier finished reloading, he would fire without waiting for the others. This, Farquar noted, was bad for him because he could safely avoid numberless bullets by diving under the water and coming up when he heard the volley end, but as long as the bullets came randomly, he obviously couldn't dive under each shot. So the chance of his being hit was greatly increased.
Dude, this guy was mental! I would just swim.
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ReplyDeleteLydia, for some reason I can't get on to your blog and I need to to comment on it. You might have changed some security settings on your account yesterday. So if you can undo the changes, or allow the group access, we can comment on stuff you've blogged. Thanks!
DeleteYes, he likely would've been hit once or twice. But, it being a dream, he kept believing he wasn't touched.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that I have anything to add after that last line. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteTrue, the whole post was just a technical thought.
Deletemental is right just swimming would make more sense.
ReplyDelete