Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur (книги онлайн без регистрации полностью .TXT) 📗
which takes a great deal of money, food and drink to nourish. On the
pale skin his body hair was dark and curly and crisp as newly picked
lettuce leaves. It grew in a light cloud across his shoulders,
and then descended his back to disappear at last like a wisp of smoke
into the cleft of his milky buttocks that showed coyly above the
waistband of his shorts.
Now the smoothness of his body was spoiled by the ugly red abrasions
and new purple bruises which flowered upon his ribs and blotched his
legs and arms.
He groaned with a mixture of agony and gratification as Gino knelt over
him, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and worked the liniment into
his shoulder. His dark sinewy fingers sank deeply into the sleek pale
flesh, and the stench of liniment stung the eyes and nostrils.
"Not so hard, Gino. Not so hard, I am badly hurt."
"I am sorry,
my Colonel," and he worked on in silence while the Count groaned and
grunted and wriggled on the bed under him.
"My Colonel, may I speak?"
"No," grunted the Colonel. "Your salary is already liberal.
No, Gino, already I pay you a prince's ransom."
"My Colonel, you do me wrong. I would not speak of such a mundane
subject at this time."
"I am delighted to hear it," groaned the Count. "Ah!
There! That spot! That's it!" Gino worked on the spot for a few
seconds. "If you study the lives of the great Italian Generals Julius
Caesar and-" Gino paused here while he searched his mind and more
recent history for another great Italian General; the silence stretched
out and Gino repeated, "Take Julius Caesar, as an example."
"Yes?"
"Even Julius Caesar did not himself swing the sword. The truly great
commander stands aside from the actual battle.
He directs, plans, commands the lesser mortals."
"That is true,
Gino."
"Any peasant can swing a sword or fire a gun, what are they but mere
cattle!"
"That is also true."
"Take Napoleon Bonaparte, or the
Englishman Wellington." Gino had abandoned his search for the name of
a victorious Italian warrior within the last thousand years or SO.
"Very well, Gino, take them?"
"When they fought, they themselves were remote from the actual
conflict. Even when they confronted each other at Waterloo, they stood
miles apart like two great chess masters,
directing, manoeuvring, commanding-"
"What are you trying to say,
Gino?"
"Forgive me, my coUnt, but have you not perhaps let your courage blind
you, have not your warlike instincts, your instinct to tear the jugular
from your enemy ... have you not perhaps lost sight of a commander's
true role the duty to stand back from the actual fighting and survey
the overall battle?" Gino waited with trepidation for the
Count's reaction. It had taken him all his courage to speak, but even
the Count's wrath could not outweigh the terror he felt at the prospect
of being plunged once more into danger. His place was at the Count's
side; if the Count continued to expose them both to all the terrors and
horrors of this barren and hostile land, then Gino knew that he could
no longer continue.
His nerves were trampled, raw, exposed, his nights troubled with dreams
from which he woke sweating and trembling.
He had a nerve below his left eye that had recently begun to twitch
without control. He was fast reaching the end of his nervous strength.
Soon something within him might snap.
"Please, my Count. For the good of all of us you must all curb your
impetuosity." He had touched a responsive chord in his master. He had
voiced precisely the Count's own feelings, feelings which had over the
last few weeks" desperate adventures, become deep-seated convictions.
He struggled up on one elbow, lifted his noble head with its anguished
brow and looked at the little sergeant.
"Gino," he said. "You are a philosopher."
"You do me too much honour, my Count."
"No! No! I mean it. You have a certain gutter wisdom, the
perceptions of the streets, a peasant philosopher." Gino would not
himself have put it quite that way, but he bowed his head in
acquiescence.
"I have been unfair to my brave boys," said the Count, and his whole
demeanour changed, becoming radiant and glowing with good will,
like that of a reprieved prisoner. "I have thought only of myself my
own glory, my own honour, recklessly I have plunged into danger,
without reckoning the cost. Ignoring the terrible risk that I might
leave my brave boys without a leader orphans without a father." Gino
nodded fervently. "Who could ever replace you in their hearts, or at
their head?"
"Gino." The Count clapped a fatherly hand to his shoulder.
"I must be less selfish in the future."
"My Count, you cannot know how much pleasure it gives me to hear it,"
cried Gino, and he trembled with relief as he thought of long,
leisurely days spent in peace and security behind the earthworks and
fortifications of Chaldi camp.
"Your duty is to command!"
"Plan! said the Count.
"Direct!" said Gino.
"I fear it is my destiny."
"Your God-given duty." Gino backed him up, and as the Count sank down
once more upon the cot, he fell with renewed vigour upon the injured
shoulder.
"Gino," said the Count at last. "When last did we speak of your
wages?"
"Not for many months, my Count."
"Let us discuss it now," said
Aldo Belli comfortably. "You are a jewel without price. Say, another
hundred lire a month."
"The sum of one hundred and fifty had crossed MY
mind, murmured Gino respectfully.
The Count's new military philosophy was received with unbounded
enthusiasm by his officers, when he explained it to them that evening
in the mess tent, over the liqueurs and cigars. The idea of leading
from the rear seemed not only to be practical and sensible, but
downright inspired. This enthusiasm lasted only until they learned
that the new philosophy applied not to the entire officer cadre of
the
Third Battalion, but to the Colonel only. The rest of them were to be
given every opportunity to make the supreme sacrifice for God, country
and Benito Mussolini. At this stage the new philosophy lost much
popular support.
In the end, only three persons stood to benefit from the rearrangement
the Count, Gino and Major Luigi Castelani.
The Major was so overjoyed to learn that he now had what amounted to
unfettered command of the battalion that for the first time in many
years he took a bottle of grappa to his tent that evening, and sat
shaking his head and chuckling fruitily into his glass.
The following morning's burning, blinding headache that only grappa can
produce, combined with his new freedom, made the Major's grip on the
battalion all the more ferocious. The new spirit spread like a fire in
dry grass. Men cleaned their rifles, burnished their buttons and
closed them to the neck, stubbed out their cigarettes and trembled a
little while Castelani rampaged through the camp at
Chaldi, dealing out duties, ferreting out the malingerers and
