Эрнест Хемингуэй - Across the River and Into the Trees

'No. I do not think so either. Please tell me some more about the meeting, or the assembly. I think I could recognize a pistol–slapper now. But I would like to be checked out more thoroughly.'

'Well, the pistol–slappers, in all the pride of their pistol–slappery, were awaiting the arrival of the great General who was to explain the operation.

'The correspondents were muttering, or twittering, and the intelligent ones were glum or passively cheerful. Everybody sat on folding chairs as for a Chautauqua lecture. I'm sorry about these local terms; but we are a local people.

'In comes the General. He is no pistol–slapper, but a big business man; an excellent politician, the executive type. The Army is the biggest business, at that moment, in the world. He takes the half–assed pointer, and he shows us, with complete conviction, and without forebodings, exactly what the attack will be, why we are making it, and how facilely it will succeed. There is no problem.'

'Go on,' the girl said. 'Please let me fill your glass and you, please look at the light on the ceiling.'

'Fill it and I'll look at the light and I will go on.

'This high pressure salesman, and I say this with no disrespect, but with admiration for all his talents, or his talent, also told what we would have of the necessary. There would be no lack of anything. The organization called SHAEF was then based on a town named Versailles outside of Paris. We would attack to the east of Aachen a distance of some 380 kilometres from where they were based.

'An army can get to be huge; but you can close up a little bit. They finally went as far forward as Rheims which was 240 kilometres from the fighting. That was many months later.

'I understand the necessity of the big executive being removed from contact with his working people. I understand about the size of the army and the various problems. I even understand logistics which is not difficult. But no one ever commanded from that far back in history.'

'Tell me about the town.'

'I'll tell you,' the Colonel said. 'But I don't want to hurt you.'

'You never hurt me. We are an old town and we had fighting men, always. We respect them more than all others and I hope we understand them a little. We also know they are difficult. Usually, as people, they are very boring to women.'

'Do I bore you?'

'What do you think?' the girl asked.

'I bore myself, Daughter.'

'I don't think you do, Richard, you would not have done something all your life if you were bored by it. Don't lie to me, please, darling, when we have so little time.

'I won't.'

'Don't you see you need to tell me things to purge your bitterness?'

'I know I tell them to you.'

'Don't you know I want you to die with the grace of a happy death? Oh, I'm getting all mixed up. Don't let me get too mixed up.'

'I won't, Daughter.'

'Tell me some more, please, and be just as bitter as you want.'

'Listen, Daughter,' the Colonel said. 'Now we will cut out all references to glamour and to high brass, even from Kansas, where the brass grows higher than osage–orange trees along your own road. It bears a fruit you can't eat and it is purely Kansan. Nobody but Kansans ever had anything to do with it; except maybe us who fought. We ate them every day. Osage oranges,' he added. 'Only we called them K Rations. They weren't bad. C Rations were bad. Ten in ones were good.

'So we fought. It is dull but it is informative. This is the way it goes if anyone is ever interested; which I doubt.

'It goes like this: 1300 Red S–3: White jumped off in time. Red said they were waiting to tie in behind White. 1305 (that is one o'clock and five minutes after in the afternoon, if you can remember that, Daughter) Blue S–3, you know what an S–3 is, I hope, says, "Let us know when you move." Red said they were waiting to tie in behind White.

'You can see how easy it is,' the Colonel told the girl. 'Everybody ought to do it before breakfast.'

'We cannot all be combat infantrymen,' the girl told him softly. 'I respect it more than anything except good, honest fliers. Please talk, I'm taking care of you.'

'Good fliers are very good and should be respected as such,' the Colonel said.

He looked up at the light on the ceiling and he was completely desperate at the remembrance of his loss of his battalions, and of individual people. He could never hope to have such a regiment, ever. He had not built it. He had inherited it. But, for a time, it had been his great joy. Now every second man in it was dead and the others nearly all were wounded. In the belly, the head, the feet or the hands, the neck, the back, the lucky buttocks, the unfortunate chest and the other places. Tree burst wounds hit men where they would never be wounded in open country. And all the wounded were wounded for life.

'It was a good regiment,' he said. 'You might even say it was a beautiful regiment until I destroyed it under other people's orders.'

'But why do you have to obey them when you know better?'

'In our army you obey like a dog,' the Colonel explained. 'You always hope you have a good master.'

'What kind of masters do you get?'

'I've only had two good ones so for. After I reached a certain level of command, many nice people, but only two good masters.'

'Is that why you are not a General now? I would love it if you were a General.'

'I'd love it too,' the Colonel said. 'But maybe not with the same intensity.'

'Would you try to sleep, please, to please me?'

'Yes,' the Colonel said.

'You see, I thought that if you slept you might get rid of them, just being asleep.'

'Yes. Thank you very much,' he said.

There was nothing to it, gentlemen. All a man need ever do is obey.

'You slept quite well for a time,' the girl told him, lovingly and gently. 'Is there anything you would like me to do?'

'Nothing,' the Colonel said. 'Thank you.'

Then he turned bad and he said, 'Daughter, I could sleep good straight up and down in the electric chair with my pants slit and my hair clipped. I sleep as, and when, I need it.'

'I can never be like that,' the girl said, sleepily. 'I sleep when I am sleepy.'

'You're lovely,' the Colonel told her. 'And you sleep better than anyone ever slept.'

'I am not proud of it,' the girl said, very sleepily. 'It is just something that I do.'

'Do it, please.'

'No. Tell me very low and soft and put your bad hand in mine.'

'The hell with my bad hand,' the Colonel said. 'Since when was it so bad?'

'It's bad,' the girl said. 'Badder, or worse, than you will ever know. Please tell me about combat without being too brutal.'

'An easy assignment,' the Colonel said. 'I'll skip the times. The weather is cloudy and the place is 986342. What's the situation? We are smoking the enemy with artillery and mortar. S–3 advises that S–6 wants Red to button up by 1700. S–6 wants you to button up and use plenty of artillery. White reports that they are in fair shape. S–6 informs that A company will swing around and tie in with B.

'B Company was stopped first by enemy action and stayed there of their own accord. S–6 isn't doing so good. This is unofficial. He wants more artillery but there isn't any more artillery.

'You wanted combat for what? I don't know really why. Or really know why. Who wants true combat? But here it is, Daughter, on the telephone and later I will put in the sounds and smells and anecdotes about who was killed when and where if you want them.'

'I only want what you will tell me.'

'I'll tell you how it was,' the Colonel said, 'and General Walter Bedell Smith doesn't know how it was yet. Though, probably, I am wrong, as I have been so many times.'