"Hemingway, Ernest - Across the River and Into the Trees" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hemingway Ernest)

УI was thinking about the Rapido, sir, I didnТt mean to be insolent or lacking in respect.Ф
УYou werenТt,Ф the Colonel said. УYou were just thinking about the Rapido. Listen, Jackson, everybody whoТs soldiered a long time has had their Rapidos and more than one.Ф
УI couldnТt take more than one, sir.Ф
The car went through the cheerful town of San Dona di Piave. It was built up and new, but no more ugly than a middle western town, and it was as prosperous and as cheery as Fossalta, just up the river, is miserable and gloomy, the Colonel thought. Did Fossalta never get over the first war? I never saw it before it was smacked, he thought. They shelled it badly before the big fifteenth of June offensive in eighteen. Then we shelled it really badly before we retook it. He remembered how the attack had taken off from Monastier, gone through Fornace, and on this winter day he remembered how it had been that summer.
A few weeks ago he had gone through Fossalta and had gone out along the sunken road to find the place where he had been hit, out on the river bank. It was easy to find because of the bend of the river, and where the heavy machine gun post had been, the crater was smoothly grassed. It had been cropped, by sheep or goats, until it looked like a designed depression in a golf course. The river was slow and a muddy blue here, with reeds along the edges, and the Colonel, no one being in sight, squatted low, and looking across the river from the bank where you could never show your head in daylight, relieved himself in the exact place where he had determined, by triangulation, that he had been badly wounded thirty years before.
УA poor effort,Ф he said aloud to the river and the river bank that were heavy with autumn quiet and wet from the fall rains. УBut my own.Ф
He stood up and looked around. There was no one in sight and he had left the car down the sunken road in front of the last and saddest rebuilt house in Fossalta.
УNow IТll complete the monument,Ф he said to no one but the dead, and he took an old Sollingen clasp knife such as German poachers carry, from his pocket. It locked on opening and, twirling it, he dug a neat hole in the moist earth. He cleaned the knife on his right combat boot and then inserted a brown ten thousand lira note in the hole and tamped it down and put the grass that he had cored out, over it.
УThat is twenty years at 500 lira a year for the Medaglia dТArgento al Valore Militare. The V.C. carries ten guineas, I believe. The D.S.C. is non-productive. The Silver Star is free. IТll keep the change,Ф he said.
ItТs fine now, he thought. It has merde, money, blood; look how that grass grows; and the ironТs in the earth along with GinoТs leg, both of RandolfoТs legs, and my right kneecap. ItТs a wonderful monument. It has everything. Fertility, money, blood and iron. Sounds like a nation. Where fertility, money, blood and iron is, there is the fatherland. We need coal though. We ought to get some coal.
Then he looked across the river to the rebuilt white house that had once been rubble, and he spat in the river. It was a long spit and he just made it.
УI couldnТt spit that night nor afterwards for a long time,Ф he said. УBut I spit good now for a man who doesnТt chew.Ф
He walked slowly back to where the car was parked. The driver was asleep.
УWake up, son,Ф he had said. УTurn her around and take that road toward Treviso. We donТt need a map on this part. IТll give you the turns.Ф

CHAPTER IV
NOW, on his way into Venice, keeping strictly controlled and unthinking his great need to be there, the big Buick cleared the last of San Dona and came up onto the bridge over the Piave.
They crossed the bridge and were on the Italian side of the river and he saw the old sunken road again. It was as smooth and undistinguished now, as it was all along the river. But he could see the old positions. And now, along each side of the straight, flat, canal-bordered road they were making time on, were the willows of the two canals that had contained the dead. There had been a great killing at the last of the offensive and someone, to clear the river bank positions and the road in the hot weather, had ordered the dead thrown into the canals. Unfortunately, the canal gates were still in the AustriansТ hands down the river, and they were closed.
So there was little movement to the water, and the dead had stayed there a long time, floating and bloating face up and face down regardless of nationality until they had attained colossal proportions. Finally, after organization had been established, labor troops hauled them out at night and buried them close to the road. The Colonel looked for added greenness close to the road but could not note any. However, there were many ducks and geese in the canals, and men were fishing in them all along the road.
They dug them all up anyway, the Colonel thought, and buried them in that big ossario up by Nervesa.
УWe fought along here when I was a kid,Ф the Colonel told the driver.
УItТs a God-damn flat country to fight in,Ф the driver said. УDid you hold that river?Ф
УYes,Ф the Colonel said. УWe held it and lost it and took it back again.Ф
УThere isnТt a contour here as far as you can see.Ф
УThat was the trouble,Ф the Colonel said. УYou had to use contours you couldnТt see, they were so small, and ditches and houses and canal banks and hedgerows. It was like Normandy only flatter. I think it must have been something like fighting in Holland.Ф
УThat river sure doesnТt look anything like the Rapido.Ф
УIt was a pretty good old river,Ф the Colonel said. УUp above, it had plenty of water then, before all these hydroelectric projects. And it had very deep and tricky channels in the pebbles and shingle when it was shallow. There was a place called the Grave de Papadopoli where it was plenty tricky.Ф
He knew how boring any manТs war is to any other man, and he stopped talking about it. They always take it personally, he thought No one is interested in it, abstractly, except soldiers and there are not many soldiers. You make them and the good ones are killed, and above they are always bucking for something so hard they never look or listen. They are always thinking of what they have seen and while you are talking they are thinking of what they will say and what it may lead to in their advancement or their privilege. There was no sense boring this boy, who, for all his combat infantryman badge, his Purple Heart and the other things he wore, was in no sense a soldier but only a man placed, against his will, in uniform, who had elected to remain in the army for his own ends.
УWhat did you do in civil life, Jackson?Ф he asked.
УI was partners with my brother in a garage in Rawlins, Wyoming, sir.Ф
УAre you going back there?Ф
УMy brother got killed in the Pacific and the guy who was running the garage was no good,Ф the driver said. УWe lost what we had put in it.Ф
УThatТs bad,Ф the Colonel said.
УYouТre God-damned right itТs bad,Ф the driver said and added, Уsir.Ф
The Colonel looked up the road.
He knew that if they kept on this road they would come, shortly, to the turn that he was waiting for; but he was impatient.
УKeep your eyes open and take a left hand turn on the road leading off this pike,Ф he told the driver.
УDo you think those low roads will be good with this big car, sir?Ф
УWeТll see,Ф the Colonel said. УHell, man, it hasnТt rained in three weeks.Ф
УI donТt trust those side roads in this low country.Ф
УIf we get stuck, IТll haul you out with oxen.Ф
УI was only thinking about the car, sir.Ф
УWell, think about what I told you and turn off on the first left side road you see if it looks practicable.Ф
УThat looks like one coming up, from the hedges,Ф the driver said.
УYouТre all clear behind. Pull up just ahead of it and IТll go over and have a look.Ф
He stepped out of the car and walked across the wide, hard-surfaced road and looked at the narrow dirt road, with the swift flowing canal beside it, and the thick hedge beyond. Beyond the hedge, he saw a low red farmhouse with a big barn. The road was dry. There were not even cart ruts sunk in it. He got back into the car.
УItТs a boulevard,Ф he said. УQuit worrying.Ф
УYes, sir. ItТs your car, sir.Ф
УI know,Ф the Colonel said. УIТm still paying for it. Say, Jackson, do you always suffer so much any time you go off a highway onto a secondary road?Ф
УNo, sir. But thereТs a lot of difference between a jeep, and a car as low hung as this. Do you know the clearance you have on your differential and your body frame on this?Ф