When we cleaned it up we found they had good observation for their mortars there too.
This was a comparatively safe place, I'm really not lying, not me nor anybody else.
You can't fool those that were in Hurtgen, and if you lied they would know it the minute you opened your mouth, Colonel or no Colonel.
We met a truck at this place and slowed up, and he had the usual gray face and he said, ''Sir, there is a dead GI in the middle of the road up ahead, and every time any vehicle goes through they have to run over him, and I'm afraid it is making a bad impression on the troops.''
''We'll get him off the road.''
So we got him off the road.
And I can remember just how he felt, lifting him, and how he had been flattened and the strangeness of his flatness.
Then there was one other thing, I remember.
We had put an awful lot of white phosphorus on the town before we got in for good, or whatever you would call it.
That was the first time I ever saw a German dog eating a roasted German kraut.
Later on I saw a cat working on him too.
It was a hungry cat, quite nice looking, basically.
You wouldn't think a good German cat would eat a good German soldier, would you Daughter?
Or a good German dog eat a good German soldier's ass which had been roasted by white phosphorus.
How many could you tell like that?
Plenty, and what good would they do?
You could tell a thousand and they would not prevent war.
People would say we are not fighting the krauts and besides the cat did not eat me nor my brother Gordon, because he was in the Pacific.
Maybe land crabs ate Gordon.
Or maybe he just deliquesced.
In Hurtgen they just froze up hard; and it was so cold they froze up with ruddy faces.
Very strange.
They all were gray and yellow like wax-works, in the summer.
But once the winter really came they had ruddy faces.
Real soldiers never tell any one what their own dead looked like, he told the portrait. And I'm through with this whole subject.
And what about that company dead up the draw?
What about them, professional soldier?
They're dead, he said. And I can hang and rattle.
Now who would join me in a glass of Valpolicella?
What time do you think I should wake your opposite number, you girl?
We have to get to that jewelry place.
And I look forward to making jokes and to talking of the most cheerful things.
What's cheerful, portrait?
You ought to know.
You're smarter than I am, although you haven't been around as much.
All right, canvas girl, the Colonel told her, not saying it aloud, we'll drop the whole thing and in eleven minutes I will wake the live girl up, and we will go out on the town, and be cheerful and leave you here to be wrapped.
I didn't mean to be rude.
I was just joking roughly.
I don't wish to be rude ever because I will be living with you from now on.
I hope, he added, and drank a glass of the wine.
CHAPTER 36
IT was a sharp, cold bright day, and they stood outside the window of the jeweler's shop and studied the two small negro heads and torsos that were carved in ebony and adorned with studded jewels.
One was as good as the other, the Colonel thought.
''Which do you like the best, Daughter?''
''I think the one on the right.
Don't you think he has the nicer face?''
''They both have nice faces.
But I think I would rather have him attend you if it was the old days.''
''Good.
We'll take him.