They only looked down and went on toward the open sea.
They must really be rafted up out there, the Colonel thought. There's probably some punt gunner trying to sneak up on them now.
They will be pretty close into the lee with the wind and someone is sneaking onto them now surely.
Well, when he makes his shot some may break back this way.
But with it frozen-up I suppose I really ought to pull out instead of staying here like a fool.
I have killed enough and I have shot as well or better than I can shoot.
Better hell, he thought. Nobody shoots better than you here except Alvarito and he's a kid and shoots faster.
But you kill fewer ducks than many bad and fair shots.
Yes, I know about that.
I know about that and why and we don't go by the numbers anymore and we threw away the book too, remember?
He remembered how, by some miracle of chance in a war, he had been with his best friend for a moment in action in the Ardennes and they were pursuing.
It was early fall and it was on a high upland with sandy roads and trails and the trees were scrub oak and pines.
The enemy tank and half track prints showed clearly in the moist sand.
It had rained the day before, but now it was clearing and visibility was good and you could see well across all the high, rolling country and he and his friend were glassing it as carefully as though they were hunting game.
The Colonel, who was a General then, and an assistant divisional commander, knew the individual print of each tracked vehicle they were pursuing.
He also knew when the enemy vehicles had run out of mines and approximately the number of rounds that remained to them.
He also had figured where they had to fight before they reached the Siegfried.
He was sure they would not fight at either of these two places but would race for where they were going.
''We're pretty far up for people of our exalted rank, George,'' he said to his best friend.
''Ahead of the point, General.''
''It's okay,'' the Colonel had said. ''Now we throw away the book and chase for keeps.''
''I couldn't agree more fully, General.
Because I wrote the book myself,'' his best friend said. ''But suppose they had left something there?''
He pointed to the logical place to defend.
''They didn't leave anything there,'' the Colonel had said. ''They haven't enough stuff left even for a chicken-shit fire-fight.''
''Everybody's right until he's wrong,'' his best friend said, adding, ''General.''
''I'm right,'' the Colonel said.
He was right, too, although in obtaining his exact knowledge he had not fulfilled the complete spirit of the Geneva Convention which was alleged to govern the operation of war.
''Let's really chase,'' his best friend had said.
''There's nothing holding us up and I guarantee they won't stop at either of those two.
I didn't get that from any kraut either.
That's from my head.''
He looked over the country once more, and heard the wind in the trees and smelled the heather under their boots and looked once more at the tracks in the wet sand and that was the end of that story.
I wonder if she'd like that? he thought. No.
It builds me up too much.
I'd like to get somebody else to tell it to her though and build me solid. George can't tell it to her.
He's the only one that could tell it to her and he can't.
He sure as hell can't.
I've been right over ninety-five percent of the time and that's a hell of a batting average even in something as simple as war.
But that five percent when you are wrong can certainly be something.
I'll never tell you about that, Daughter.
That's just a noise heard off stage in my heart.
My lousy chicken heart.
That bastard heart certainly couldn't hold the pace.
Maybe he will, he thought, and took two of the tablets and a swallow of gin and looked across the gray ice.
I'm going to get that sullen character in now and pick up and get the hell to the farm house or the lodge, I suppose that I should call it.
The shooting's over.
CHAPTER 42
THE COLONEL had signalled the boatman in by standing up, in the sunken barrel, firing two shots toward the empty sky, and then waving him toward the blind.
The boat came in slowly, breaking ice all the way, and the man picked up the wooden decoys, caught the calling hen and put her in her sack, and, with the dog slithering on the ice, picked up the ducks.