"Andy Duncan - Fortitude" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Andy)

grateful that I could regain my strength sitting down.
"Yes, General, yes, delighted to have you look around, visit with the men,
a great morale-booster, we're very honored ... "
Before I followed him in, feeling better but still a little shaky, I
looked back at the old volcano and thought, Mims, better you should have
driven me to the edge of the crater and over the side.
"You'll have to duck your head here, I'm afraid, General. That's right.
Attention!"
Ah, hell. If I had let Mims drive on by, I'd have been running away from a
fight, wouldn't I? And who's to say I wouldn't have run into the same
goddamned malingerer, ten miles down the road? No, much better to face my
future, and stand up to it.
Sicily might have been cleaned free of krauts all the way to Messina, but
as I walked through those canvas wards, chatting and smiling and patting
boys on the shoulder, I was as tense as I had been during the invasion. As
if I were braced for one of the patients to lift a pistol and shoot me
where I stood. Goddamn fear! Goddamn nerves!
"How are you feeling, soldier?"
"I'm all right, General. Don't you worry about me."
"Oh, I'm not worried about you, soldier. I'll let the goddamned Huns worry
about you, when you're back on your feet again with a gun in your hand.
Right?"
"That's right. You tell 'em, General."
More differences. Before, there had been a soldier with staring eyes, his
face badly burned, who lay on his belly in a cot and kept moving his arms
and legs as if crawling. "Poor soul kept that up all night," the nurse had
said. But now I didn't see the wretch anywhere.
"What happened to you, son?"
"Hell, General, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's
all. The docs are fixing me up, though. I'll be back out there with you
soon."
"I'm glad for that, son. You're a fine soldier, and you and I have a lot
of killing left to do. You ready for that?"
"You say the word, General!"
"God bless you, soldier."
Others were where I expected them. Here was the poor bastard with his head
half blown off, who couldn't talk but who reached out to shake my hand and
then gave me a thumbs-up sign. Here was the nurse who gave me her pan and
washcloth and let me bathe an unconscious man's fevered forehead. "When he
comes to, he's never gonna believe it," she kept saying. "Never in a
million billion years." Here was the big nigger comedian, bandaged head to
foot, who made us all laugh when he said, "Hey General -- You oughtta see
the other guy."
"God, I love my army!" I said, and those who could cheered.
When I entered the last ward, by now at the head of a little jostling
procession of doctors and nurses, I immediately looked to the bunk where I
knew the yellow bastard would be. He wasn't there.
Could it be? Would I be spared?
"Where you from, soldier?"
"South Carolina, sir."