“Daughter,” he said. “Do you want me to really tell you, so you will know, if I am not rough telling it?”
“I would rather have you tell me than anything. Then we can share it.”
“It cuts pretty thin for sharing,” the Colonel said. “It’s all yours, Daughter. And it’s only the high-lights. You wouldn’t understand the campaigns in detail, and few others would. Rommel might. But they always had him under wraps in France and, besides, we had destroyed his communications. The two tactical air-forces had; ours and the RAF. But I wish I could talk over certain things with him. I’d like to talk with him and with Ernst Udet.”
“Just tell me what you wish and take this glass of Valpolicella and stop if it makes you feel badly. Or don’t tell it at all.”
“I was a spare-parts Colonel at the start,” the Colonel explained carefully. “They are hang-around Colonels, which are given to a Division Commander to replace one that he may have killed, or that are relieved. Almost none are killed; but many are relieved. All the good ones are promoted. Fairly fast when the thing starts to move sort of like a forest fire.”
“Go on, please. Should you take your medicine?”
“The hell with my medicine,” the Colonel said. “And the hell with SHAEF.”
“You explained that to me,” the girl said.
“I wish the hell you were a soldier with your straight true brain and your beauty memory.”
“I would wish to be a soldier if I could fight under you.”
