“You don’t have to buy me.”
“I know about that. That was not what we were discussing. We were discussing your gait.”
“Tell me,” she said. “What happens to those men? That’s one of the things I don’t know about fighting. Shouldn’t I have stayed and cared for them?”
“Never,” the Colonel told her. “Remember that; never. I hope they split a good concussion between them. They can rot. They caused the accident. There is no question of civil responsibility. We were all insured. If I can tell you one thing, Renata, about fighting.”
“Tell me please.”
“If you ever fight, then you must win it. That’s all that counts. All the rest is cabbage, as my old friend Dr. Rommel put it.”
“Did you really like Rommel?”
“Very much.”
“But he was your enemy.”
“I love my enemies, sometimes, more than my friends. And the Navy, you know, wins all their fights always. This I learned in a place called the Pentagon building when I was still permitted to enter that building by the front door. If you like we can stroll back down this street, or walk it fast, and ask those two that question.”
“I tell you truly, Richard. I have seen enough fighting for one night.”
“Me too, to tell the truth,” the Colonel said. But he said it in Italian and it started, “Anche io. Let’s go to Harry’s for one, and then I will walk you home.”
