Another great opening:
His face was crossed with a rancorous scar: a nearly perfect ashen arc which sank into his temple on one side and his cheek on the other. His real name is of no importance: in Tacuarembo everyone knew him as the Englishman of La Colorada. (p. 117)
Of the elements of writing, Borges hits quite a few right here. There is a question immediately posed by the horrendous scar, and our curiousity is piqued by this mystery. As innocent as the next two sentences may seem, they are the crux of the mystery. Borges provides a cover for the twist of the ending by not naming this character. How everyone "knew" him, is not who he must be–just who everyone thought he was and this turns out to be untrue. As a matter of fact, Borges cleverly clarifies this misconception within a few paragraphs:
I said that a country with the spirit of England was invincible. My interlocutor agreed, but he added with a smile that he was not English. (p. 118)
The story then switches to the point of view of the "Englishman" as he tells the original first person narrator the story of his scar.
This section of the tale is one of war and rebellion, and the Englishman tells of meeting a sardonic, opinionated yet cowardly young man named John Vincent Moon. The two are caught up in the action, and while the narrator takes the initiative Moon obviously avoids any physical danger, though he is injured slightly and is assisted by the Englishman. Moon, in order to secure his own safety, betrays the Englishman and arranges for his assassination but is overheard and attacked by him prior to his own arrest.
Borges has in fact given away the twist of the ending in the opening lines of his story but as with other of his stories, the puzzle pieces you are handed at the beginning don’t make sense until the image is complete. While the story is not all that unusual in its premise of misindentification, the way Borges handles it is what makes it shine, the structure, the plotting, the ease with which the reader is pulled into the story unwittingly knowing the ending. Another terrific little technique he employs here is the naming of the narrator (original) as himself as the Englishman finishes his account:
From one of the general’s mounted sets of arms I snatched down a cutlass; with the steel half-moon I sealed his face, forever, with a half-moon of blood. Borges, I have confessed this to you, a stranger. Your contempt will not wound me as much. (p. 122)
Stranger still, Borges gives the reader more credit than he gives himself as writer. The reader has caught on at the point above, and yet Borges, as narrator, asks the "Englishman", "And Moon?"
Barthes probably would have loved that.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology