“I don’t know, John,” I said. “I got in pretty bad shape along early last spring and at night it bothers me.”
“Just like I am,” he said. “I shouldn’t have ever got in this war. I’m too nervous.”
“Maybe it will get better.”
“Say, Signor Tenente, what did you get in this war for, anyway?”
“I don’t know, John. I wanted to, then.”
“Wanted to,” he said. “That’s a hell of a reason.”
“We oughtn’t to talk out loud,” I said.
“They sleep just like pigs,” he said. “They can’t understand the English language, anyway. They don’t know a damn thing. What are you going to do when it’s over and we go back to the States?”
“I’ll get a job on a paper.”
“In Chicago?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you ever read what this fellow Brisbane writes? My wife cuts it out for me and sends it to me.”
“Sure.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“No, but I’ve seen him.”
“I’d like to meet that fellow. He’s a fine writer. My wife don’t read English but she takes the paper just like when I was home and she cuts out the editorials and the sport page and sends them to me.”
“How are your kids?”
“They’re fine. One of the girls is in the fourth grade now. You know, Signor Tenente, if I didn’t have the kids I wouldn’t be your orderly now. They’d have made me stay in the line all the time.”
“I’m glad you’ve got them.”
“So am I. They’re fine kids but I want a boy. Three girls and no boy. That’s a hell of a note.”
“Why don’t you try and go to sleep?”
