[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

'Excuse me, we must argue if you do not accept my point. My war, as I pardonably regard it, is still
being waged, is break-ing out afresh, and may soon even return to its fatherland. What does it all mean if
not victory for me and my ideals?'
Moved if not convinced, I felt I was in touch with greatness.
'Always the old warrior, Geoff! You've never despaired, have you?'
'Despair! Who can afford to despair? Besides, the world has given me little real cause for despair. Men
of warrior caste are still alive everywhere.'
'I suppose so. But I was a bit surprised by what you were saying just now about General Le May. I
understood that you basically had little respect for the American spirit?'
Sipping his drink, he looked at me with reproach in his eyes.
'Let's be fair to the Americans. I know as well as you do that their whole continent is over-run by a
rabble of Slavs and Jews and Mexicans and Spaniards and the sweepings of Africa and Scandinavia; but
fortunately there is a backbone of Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon military morale there too. They aren't all
semi-Asiatic ghetto-infesting-decadents like Roosevelt. I know a back-street racially-inferior
lackey-mentality has often prevailed in the past, but just recently a more upright no-nonsense elementis
coining to the fore and triumphing over the flabby democratic processes. I have been extremely
encouraged to see the vigorous uncompromising attitudes of American leaders like Reagan and Governor
Wallace. President Nixon also has his better side. Of course, the American practice-war in Vietnam is
hopelessly ill-run and...'
'Namby-pamby ?'
'Yes, good, namby-pamby ... Namby-pamby. Except for poor old de Gaulle, the French are
namby-pamby, eh? What was I saying? Yes, a more realistic spirit growing in America. They failed in
logic by hesitating to use thermonuclear weapons in Vietnam, but that obscurantist attitude is altering and
soon I expect to see them employing such solutions to restore discipline within their own frontiers.'
'Incurably the grand strategist!' I smiled. 'Do you find your-self reliving your old campaigns over and
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
over?'
'I don't think so, not more than most people. Himmler was terribly sentimental, but not I. I'd say I was a
pretty average sort of person. I like to keep up with current events. A friend in England sends meThe
Times every day. And, as I believe I told you, I'm now writing some poetry.' He smiled modestly, with a
twitch of his moustache.
'Don't know how you'll take this, Geoff, but do you think I could possibly see some of your poetry some
time? Just take a peek at it?'
He sat back and looked at me, half-laughing - yet I thought there was a mist in his eyes, as if my interest
had touched him.
"What possible interest could an old man's poetry have for you?'
Perhaps the watered-down wine was having its due effect. Hunching my shoulders over the table, I said,
'You can hardly imagine what a deep impression you made on me when I was a kid, Geoff. In England,
we never had a strong leader like you in the thirties and, by god, we desperately need one again now
-Harold Wilson's much too mild and permissive! I - okay, I know it sounds sentimental - but you were a
father-figure to me, Geoff, and to thousands like me who had the luck to fight in the war. All those
marvellous torch-light processions you used to have, and the shouting, and the beautiful deep-bosomed
frauleins, and the way your troops kept so faultlessly in step! And then the dramatic way you just swept
across Europe in thelate thirties and early forties. It was wonderful to watch! Imean, it didn'tmatter that
we were on opposite sides; we knew you were really a friend of the British Empire.'
'A better friend to you than the decadent Americans proved.' He looked down at his glass, and I could
not help but note the tired lines round his mouth. 'Yes, Brian, those were great days, no denying that.
You needn't reproach yourself for feeling as you do about them. Nobody's in quite the same class today
- the Russians, the South Africans, the Rhodesians, the Portuguese. ... They're just not in the same class.'
He shook his head. For a moment, we were both too full of emotion to speak, wondering perhaps if the
great days of Earth were not gone for ever. Then I asked, softly, 'Do you ever wish things had worked
out differently, Geoff? I mean - for you personally?'
I shall never forget his answer. He didn't look up, just went on clutching his glass with hands that shook
slightly (his old disease still troubled him occasionally) and staring down at the wine.
In a voice from which he strove to hold back tears, he said, 'I'm getting old and sentimental, as you
know. But sometimes I despair of the world ever getting put to rights. The permanent East-West
confrontation is well enough, and the two mutually inter-dependent persecution manias of America and
Russia have served to maintain the world's battle-alertness over some other-wise lack-lustre years. But...'
. He sighed. No man should look as isolated as he did at that minute. He resembled a mystic staring
down a telescope the wrong way at a golden dream.
'But... ', Iprompted. 'You had a master plan?'
'I've had emissaries come to me over the years, Brian. I may as well tell you. They come humbly to me,
exiled here in Ostend. Soviet and American - and British too, to begin with. They've come swarming to
me in secret. Yes, and the little tin-pot rulers too. Nasser, Papa Doc, that Rhodesian fellow - Jones?
Smith? - that ingrate Chou En Lai, Castro - filthy little Communist! All on their knees here! Even - yes,
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
even General Dayan of Israel. Not a bad fellow, considering - They've allbegged me to take charge of
their war aims, clarify them, imple-ment them. "You can have the whole Pacific if you'll help me take
Peking". That's what - h'm, memory's going  Soekarno said. Always it wasme they wanted. It's the old
charisma - '
'Either you've got it or you haven't,' I agreed. 'Why didn't you accept their offers - America's and
Russia's, I mean?'
'Because the imbeciles asked me to rule them and yet wouldn't give me full power!' He struck the table
with his fist. 'They wanted me and yet they were afraid of me! LBJ and I met in this very cafe ... person
to person - remember LBJ? This is confidential, mind you, and I don't want it to go any further.'
'You can trust me,' I assured him fervently. My eyes were starting out of my head. 'You actually met
LBJ here?'
'He paid for the drinks. Insisted on it. Rather big-mouthed, said his wife had sent him! He was in trouble [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • annablack.xlx.pl
  •