"Fritz Leiber - The Oldest Soldier" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

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From Fritz LeiberтАЩs
The Mind Spider and Other Stories




THE OLDEST SOLDIER


Fritz Leiber



The one we called the Lieutenant took a long swallow of
his dark Lowensbrau. He'd just been describing a battle
of infantry rockets on the Eastern Front, the German
and Russian positions erupting bundles of flame.

Max swished his paler beer in its green bottle and his
eyes got a faraway look and he said, "When the rockets
lolled their thousands in Copenhagen, they laced the sky
with fire and lit up the steeples in the city and the masts
and bare spars of the British ships like a field of crosses."

"I didn't know there were any landings in Denmark,"
someone remarked with an expectant casualness.

тАЬThis was in the Napoleonic wars," Max explained.
"The British bombarded the city and captured the Danish
fleet. Back in 1807."

"Vas you dere, Maxie?" Woody asked, and the gang
around the counter chuckled and beamed. Drinking at a
liquor store is a pretty dull occupation and one is grateful
for small vaudeville acts.

"Why bare spars?" someone asked.

"So there'd be less chance of the rockets setting the
launching ships afire,'* Max came back at him. "Sails
burn fast and wooden ships are tinder anywayтАФthat's
why ships firing red-hot shot never worked out. Rockets
and bare spars were bid enough. Yes, and it was Con-
greve rockets made the *red glare* at Fort McHenry,"
he continued unruffled, "while the 'bombs bursting in
air' were about the earliest precision artillery shells,
fired from mortars on bomb-ketches. There's a condensed
history, of arms in the American anthem." He looked
around smiling.