100 Malicious Little Mysteries

Every Fifth Man by Edward D. Hoch

You probably wonder why I’m still alive after all that has happened, and I suppose it is quite a story. I’d been living and training with the exiles for two years before the attempted coup, knowing — as we all knew — the penalty for failure. There were months of hand-to-hand combat and paratrooper training and even some explosives practice before we were ready for the big day, the day we returned to Costanera.

I’d lived the twenty-five years of my life in the cities and towns and jungle villages of Costanera. It was my country, worth fighting for, every inch of it. We left with the coming of General Diam, but now we were going back. We would drop from the skies by night, join the anti-Diam military, and enter the capital city in triumph.

That was the plan. Somehow it didn’t work out that way. The military changed their minds about it, and we jumped from our planes into a withering crossfire from General Diam’s forces. More than half of our liberation force of sixty-five were dead before we reached the ground, and the others were overrun quickly. By nightfall we found ourselves prisoners of the army in the great old fortress overlooking Azul Bay.

There were twenty-three of us taken prisoner that day, and of these one man — Tomas — had a bad wound in his side. We were crowded into a single large cell at the fortress and left to await our fate. It was hot in there, with the sweat of bodies and a mustiness of air that caught at my throat and threatened to choke me. I wanted to remove my black beret and shirt and stretch out on the hard stone floor, but I did not. Instead I bore it in silence and waited with the others.

A certain custom has existed in the country, a custom which has been observed in revolutions for hundreds of years. Always faced with the problem of the defeated foe, governments had traditionally sent down the order: Kill every fifth man and release the others. It was a system of justice tempered with a large degree of mercy, and acted as a deterrent while still allowing something of an opposition party to exist within the country. Of course, the eighty percent who were released often regrouped to revolt again, but the threat that hung over them was sometimes enough to pacify their activities.

This, then, was the fate that awaited us — twenty-three prisoners in a gloomy fortress by the blue waters of a bay. We had reason to hope, because most of us had the odds on our side, but we had reckoned without the cold-blooded calculation of General Diam. The order came down early the following morning, and it was read to us through the bars of the cell. It was as we had expected: Every fifth man will be executed immediately. The remaining prisoners will be released in twenty-four hours.

But then came the jolting surprise. The officer in charge kept reading, and read the same message four times more. General Diam had sent down five identical executive orders. No one was to survive the executions.

I knew something had to be done, and quickly. As the guards unlocked the cell door I went to the officer in charge. Using my deepest voice I tried to reason with him. “You cannot execute all twenty-three of us. It would be contrary to orders.”

He looked down at me with something like scorn. “Be brave, little fellow. Die like a soldier!”

“But the first order says that every fifth man should be executed immediately. It means just that. They should be executed before you read the second order.”

The officer sighed. “What difference does it make? The day will be hot. Who wants to die under the noonday sun? At least now there is a bit of breeze out there.”

“You must obey the orders,” I insisted. “Each order must be executed separately.”

You can see, of course, the reason for my insistence. If the five executive orders were lumped together and carried out at once (as General Diam no doubt intended), all twenty-three of us would be shot. But if they were carried out separately, the orders would allow nine of us to live. I’d always been good at mathematics, and this was how I figured it — every fifth man would be taken from the original 23, a total of 4, leaving 19. The process would be repeated a second time, killing 3, leaving 16. On the third round another 3 would die, and 13 would be left. Then 2 shot, 11 left. A final 2 shot, and 9 of us would walkout of the fortress as free as the air.

You say the odds were still against me? Not at all — if the officer agreed to my argument, I was certain to survive. Because consider — how would the fifth man be picked each time? Not by drawing straws, for this was the military. We would line up in a single column and count off. And in what order would we line up — alphabetically? Hardly, when they did not even know our names. We would line up in the old military tradition — by height.

And I had already established during the night in the cell that I was the shortest of the twenty-three prisoners!

If they started the count-off at the short end of the line — which was unlikely — I would always be safe, for I would always be Number One. More likely, they would start at the tall end, and for the five count-offs I would always be last — numbers 23, 19, 16, 13, 11, and 9. Never a number divisible by 5 — never one of the doomed prisoners!

The officer stared down at me for what seemed an eternity. Finally he glanced through the orders in his hand once more and reached a decision. “All right, we will carry out the first order.”

We lined up in the courtyard — by height — with two men supporting the wounded Tomas, and started the count-off. Of the 23 of us, 4 were marched over to the sea wall and shot. The rest of us tried not to look.

Again — and 3 of our number died against the sea wall. One of the remaining 16 was starting to cry. He had figured out his position in the line.

The officer formally read the third executive order, and 3 more went to the wall. I was still last in the line.

After the fourth order 2 of the 13 were marched to their death. Even the firing squad was beginning to look hot and bored. The sun was almost above us. Well, only one more count-off and then 9 of us would be free.

“Wait!” the officer shouted, as the first man began to count off again. I turned my neck in horror. Tomas had fallen from the line and the blood was gushing from his side. He was dead, and the 11 was suddenly reduced to 10.

I was the tenth one as the last count began!

The fifth man stepped out of line — then six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I didn’t move.

“Come, little fellow,” the officer said. “It is your turn now.”

You ask how I come to be sitting here, when I was so surely doomed, when my careful figuring had gone for nothing. I stood there in that moment, looking death in the face, and did what I had kept from doing all night and morning. I knew the officer would obey General Diam’s order to the letter — to execute every fifth man — and that was what saved me.

I took the beret from my head, let my hair fall to my shoulders, and showed them I was a woman.