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On Thu, 5/4/17, Richard Aiken <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: Patton's sword & belaying pin, was Re: [TML] What if the cutlass is not a cutlass?
 To: "tml" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 Date: Thursday, May 4, 2017, 7:20 PM

 On Thu, May 4, 2017 at 9:16
 PM, Bruce  Johnson <xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
 wrote:
 Of course
 if these things were real they’d be more cautious.

 Not so sure about that. In a fight
 devoid of armor, speed would be your best
 asset.
 I remember the
 sword fight between a master duelist and three street
 toughs, described by one of the writers in the Ring of Fire
 books and supposedly based upon an actual historical
 incident. All four combatants regard each other for a frozen
 second, then the blades come out and a VERY rapid exchange
 of blows - too rapid for the 20th-century observer to
 separate into discrete movements - follows . . . then the
 duelist steps back with a deep puncture wound slowly pulsing
 blood from his thigh, as the three bravos slump to the
 ground dead. 
 -- 
 Richard Aiken

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If that was too far 'way-back-when' then the 'survivor' could very easily have been a 'dead-man-walking' due to that  deep puncture!

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