“Sure,” said the nurse.
The lieutenant leaned toward her. “A private in
my outfit got it pretty straight. Somebody knocked off the Duce.”
“How do you mean?”
The second lieutenant shuffled and passed the
deck for cut. “Got him. That’s what I mean. Cut his throat. I hope he bled
some.”
The nurse ignored the cards. She frowned. “I
wonder whether he really had power or whether he was just a figurehead.”
“Why? What difference does it make if he’s
dead?”
“Well, said the nurse, “if he had power, than
the Fascists go out with him gone. They’ll all get killed. There’ll be a
revolution. That’s what I mean.”
“I guess you’re right,” said the lieutenant.
“You want to keep score ...?”
The captain lay on his back in his bunk in the
crowded stateroom. He talked to the bunk above him. “You’ve got to hand it to
those Wops,” he said. “When they’ve got something to fight for, they sure put
up a fight.”
A major’s head appeared over the edge of the
upper bunk. “What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you hear? After Mussolini got bumped
off, the Wops revolted. They’ve got the nicest little revolution going you ever
heard. Rome is a shambles. They’re hunting down the Fascists like rats.”
“God Almighty,” said the major, “this would be
the right time to invade. From a military point of view, you couldn’t ask for a
better time. I wonder if we’ve got the stuff ready to do it?”
A steward lingered in the passageway near the
icebox. A KP came furtively near. “Stay out of those strawberries,” the
steward said sternly.
“We ain’t got no strawberries,” said the
furtive one. “The nurses went through them strawberries like we’re going
through Italy. I didn’t get none of them strawberries.”
“Have we got into Italy?”
“Got in? Where you been? We’re halfway up the
calf right now. There’s MPs walkin’ the streets of Rome this minute and the
Wops puttin’ flowers in the hair.”
The captain interrupted the sleepy poker game.
“We’ve got to have a drink on this,” he said. “Who’s got some whisky?”
“Don’t be silly,” said a lieutenant colonel.
“We haven’t had any whisky since the second day out. What are you drinking to? The
invasion of Italy?”
“Invasion, hell. Italy is in our hands.”
“I’ve got a bottle,” said the lieutenant
colonel, and he climbed over legs and dug in his briefcase. They stood together
and clinked the glasses and tossed off the whisky. The captain turned and threw
his glass out of the porthole. “That’s a pretty important drink,” he said. “I
wouldn’t want any common drink to get into that glass.” He peered out the
porthole. “A seagull picked us up. We can’t be very far out,” he said.
