“Good,” said the Colonel.
He was not, either, because just then he saw, beyond the line of close-bunched brown trees ahead, a sail moving along. It was a big red sail, raked sharply down from the peak, and it moved slowly behind the trees.
Why should it always move your heart to see a sail moving along through the country, the Colonel thought Why does it move my heart to see the great, slow, pale oxen? It must be the gait as well as the look of them and the size and the color.
But a good fine big mule, or a string of pack mules in good condition, moves me, too. So does a coyote every time I ever see one, and a wolf, gaited like no other animal, gray and sure of himself, carrying that heavy head and with the hostile eyes.
“Ever see any wolves out around Rawlins, Jackson?”
“No, sir. Wolves were gone before my time; they poisoned them out. Plenty coyotes, though.”
“Do you like coyotes?”
“I like to hear them nights.”
“So do I. Better than anything, except seeing a ship sailing along through the country.”
“There’s a boat doing that over there, sir.”
“On the Sile canal,” the Colonel told him. “She’s a sailing barge going to Venice. This wind is off the mountains now and she makes it along pretty good. It’s liable to turn really cold tonight if this wind holds and it ought to bring in plenty ducks. Turn to your left here and we’ll run along the canal. There’s a good road.”
“They didn’t have much duck shooting where I came from. But there was plenty of it in Nebraska along the Platte.”
“Do you want to shoot where we’re going?”
“I don’t believe so, sir. I’m not much of a shot, and I’d rather stay in that sack. It’s a Sunday morning, you know.”
“I know,” the Colonel said. “You can stay in the sack until noon if you want.”
“I brought my repellent. I ought to sleep O.K.”
“I’m not sure you’ll need it,” the Colonel said. “Did you bring any K-rations or Ten in One? They’re liable to eat Italian food, you know.”
“I brought a few cans to help out and a little stuff to give away.”
“That’s good,” the Colonel said.
He was looking ahead now to see where the canal road joined the main highway again. There he knew that he would see it on a clear day such as this was. Across the marshes, brown as those at the mouths of the Mississippi around Pilot Town are in winter, and with their reeds bent by the heavy north wind, he saw the squared tower of the church at Torcello and the high campanile of Burano beyond it. The sea was a slate blue and he could see the sails of twelve sailing barges running with the wind for Venice.
I’ll have to wait until we cross the Dese River above Noghera to see it perfectly, he thought. It is strange to remember how we fought back there along the canal that winter to defend it and we never saw it. Then one time, I was back as far as Noghera and it was clear and cold like today, and I saw it across the water. But I never got into it. It is my city, though, because I fought for it when I was a boy, and now that I am half a hundred years old, they know I fought for it and am a part owner and they treat me well.
Do you think that’s why they treat you well, he asked himself.
Maybe, he thought. Maybe they treat me well because I’m a chicken colonel on the winning side. I don’t believe it, though. I hope not, anyway. It is not France, he thought.
There you fight your way into a city that you love and are very careful about breaking anything and then, if you have good sense, you are careful not to go back because you will meet some military characters who will resent your having fought your way in. Vive la France et les pommes de terre frites. Liberté, Venalité, et Stupidité. The great clarté of the French military thinking. They haven’t had a military thinker since du Picq. He was a poor bloody Colonel, too. Mangin, Maginot and Gamelin. Take your choice, Gentlemen. Three schools of thought. One; I hit them on the nose. Two; I hide behind this thing which does not cover my left flank. Three; I hide my head in the sand like an ostrich, confident in the greatness of France as a military power and then take off.