THE TWO thirty-eights roared simultaneously.
The walls of the underground room took the crash of sound and batted it to and fro between them until there was silence. James Bond watched the smoke being sucked from each end of the room towards the central Ventaxia fan. The memory in his right hand of how he had drawn and fired with one sweep from the left made him confident. He broke the chamber sideways out of the Colt Detective Special and waited, his gun pointing at the floor, while the Instructor walked the twenty yards towards him through the half-light of the gallery.
Bond saw that the Instructor was grinning. "I don't believe it," he said. "I got you that time."
The Instructor came up with him. "I'm in hospital, but you're dead, sir," he said. In one hand he held the silhouette target of the upper body of a man. In the other a polaroid film, postcard size. He handed this to Bond and they turned to a table behind them on which there was a green-shaded desk-light and a large magnifying glass.
Bond picked up the glass and bent over the photograph. It was a flash-light photograph of him. Around his right hand there was a blurred burst of white flame. He focused the glass carefully on the left side of his dark jacket. In the centre of his heart there was a tiny pinpoint of light.
Without speaking, the Instructor laid the big white man-shaped target under the lamp. Its heart was a black bullseye, about three inches across. Just below and half an inch to the right was the rent made by Bond's bullet.
"Through the left wall of the stomach and out at the back," said the Instructor, with satisfaction. He took out a pencil and scribbled an addition on the side of the target. "Twenty rounds and I make it you owe me seven-and-six, sir," he said impassively.
Bond laughed. He counted out some silver. "Double the stakes next Monday," he said.