Divvy up

By MILT LESSER
ILLUSTRATED by VARGA
Here's a fine, hard story of the inverted ethical system of the post-war world, where inhumanity is the norm and cruelty pays dividends.
Hardesty fondled the sight picture with his right eye, squinting shut his left eye, caressing the trigger of his rifle with the index finger of his right hand and waiting for the squad leader to issue his commands.
Ready, called the squad leader.
At times like this, Hardesty observed, time seemed suspended. He wondered if it worked that way for the condemned man, too. The sun was just coming up over the rim of the bomb crater, splashing the rubble there with rose and gold. A hungry dog howled somewhere north of the crater.
Aim....
A dozen rifles were pointed at various parts of the condemned man's anatomy. Hardesty always selected the stomach, although there invariably was a softie in each firing squad to spoil the fun. The hungry dog began to yelp. Someone had probably left ground glass for it.
Before the squad leader could shout the command to fire, a rifle shot cracked flatly, with a complete lack of resonance, across the bomb crater. The condemned man jerked upward, then strained forward in death against the fetters which bound him to the firing post.
Damn it! swore the squad leader. Who the hell did that?
Jumping the gun had started some years ago strictly as a sport. Now it was business, though, and profitable if you could get away with it and trust your confederate.
Who did that? screamed the squad leader.