But we've got some good ones, too.''
''Do you think they would have done Grappa, Pasubio and the Basso Piave as we did?''
''The good ones, yes.
Maybe better.
But you know, in our army, they don't even shoot for self-inflicted wounds.''
''Jesus,'' said the Gran Maestro.
He and the Colonel both remembered the men who decided that they did not wish to die; not thinking that he who dies on Thursday does not have to die on Friday, and how one soldier would wrap another's puttee-ed leg in a sandbag so there would be no powder burns, and loose off at his friend from as far a distance as he figured he could hit the calf of the leg without hitting bone, and then fire twice over the parapet to alibi the shot.
They had this knowledge shared between them and it was for this reason and for a true, good hatred of all those who profited by war that they had founded the Order.
They knew, the two of them, who loved and respected each other, how poor boys who did not want to die, would share the contents of a match box full of gonorrheal pus to produce the infection that would keep them from the next murderous frontal attack.
They knew about the other boys who put the big ten centime pieces under their arm-pits to produce jaundice.
And they knew, too, about the richer boys who, in different cities, had paraffin injected under their knee-caps so they would not have to go to the war.
They knew how garlic could be used to produce certain effects which could absent a man from an attack, and they knew all, or nearly all, of the other tricks; for one had been a sergeant and the other a lieutenant of infantry and they had fought on the three key points, Pasubio, Grappa, and the Piave, where it all made sense.
They had fought, too, in the earlier stupid butchery on the Isonzo and the Carso.
But they were both ashamed of those who had ordered that, and they never thought about it except as a shameful, stupid thing to be forgotten and the Colonel remembered it technically as something to learn from.
So, now, they had founded the Order of Brusadelli; noble, military and religious, and there were only five members.
''What is the news of the Order?'' the Colonel asked the Gran Maestro.
''We have ascended the cook at the Magnificent to the rank of Commendatore.
He comported himself as a man three times on his fiftieth birthday.
I accepted his statement without corroboration.
He never lied ever.''
''No.
He never lied.
But it is a topic on which you must be chary in your credibility.''
''I believed him.
He looked ruined.''
''I can remember him when he was a tough kid and we called him the cherry buster.''
''Anch' io.''
''Have you any concrete plans for the Order during the Winter?''
''No, Supreme Commander.''
''Do you think we should give a homage to the Honorable Pacciardi?''
''As you wish.''
''Let's defer it,'' the Colonel said.
He thought a moment, and signalled for another dry Martini.
''Do you think we might organize a homage and manifestation in some historic place such as San Marco or the old church at Torcello in favor of our Great Patron, Brusadelli, the Revered One?''
''I doubt if the religious authorities would permit it at this moment.''
''Then let us abandon all ideas of public manifestations for this winter, and work within our cadres, for the good of the Order.''
''I think that is soundest,'' the Gran Maestro said. ''We will re-group.''
''And how are you, yourself?''
''Awful,'' the Gran Maestro said. ''I have low blood pressure, ulcers, and I owe money.''
''Are you happy?''
''All the time,'' the Gran Maestro said. ''I like my work very much, and I meet extraordinary and interesting characters, also many Belgians.
They are what we have instead of the locusts this year.
Formerly we had the Germans.
What was it Caesar said,
‘And the bravest of these are the Belgians.'
But not the best dressed.
Do you agree?''
''I've seen them quite well costumed in Brussels,'' the Colonel said. ''A well fed, gay capital. Win, lose, or draw. I have never seen them fight though everyone tells me that they do.''
''We should have fought in Flanders in the old days.''
''We were not born in the old days,'' the Colonel said. ''So we automatically could not have fought then.''