Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [54]
Having been praised so recently, Major Joppolo was stung by this dispraise.
“What do you want?” he said sharply. “Stop this babbling and tell me what you want.”
“I don’t want anything. What I have lost I can never get back, so how can I want anything?”
“If you don’t want anything, why are you taking up my time?”
Quattroccbi spoke sarcastically: “I’m sorry if your time is so valuable, Your Worship.” And then he spoke angrily: “I have lost some things which were valuable to me, too. I went to my house this morning, to get some things I had left behind. And what did I find? I found that your barbarians had smashed my terra cotta head, it was done by the Florentine Camilliani in the sixteenth century. What value can you place on that? They tore my Venus; it was by Giorgione. What is the price of that? They smashed the glasses in which my mother drank her bridal toasts in Venice. How many lira do you think they were worth to me?”
Quattrocchi began to cry, and became incoherent. Major Joppolo was furious. He called up Captain Purvis and said: “Purvis, what the hell’s the matter with your men? Did you know they’d been behaving like a bunch of wild men in their billet? This fellow was good enough to let them use his house and some of the stuff in it, why the hell did they have to abuse it? I want you to find out who busted up the stuff down at your billet and have them in your office in fifteen minutes.” And he hung up without waiting for the astonished Captain to take a deep breath.
Major Joppolo walked around to the other side of his desk and patted the sobbing Quattrocchi on the shoulder. He said: “Come, Quattrocchi, let’s go down to your house and see exactly what they did.”
So the two men walked down the street to the beautiful house. Quattrocchi led the Major through the rooms on the second floor and showed him the broken things. Major Joppolo was terribly depressed by what he saw. “There is no excuse for it,” he said softly to Quattrocchi, who was beyond fury.
Major Joppolo took Quattrocchi up to the M.P. headquarters. Captain Purvis had Chuck, Bill and Polack there. As soon as the Major came in, the three boys stood at attention.
“At ease,” Major Joppolo said, “but listen.” The three boys stood at ease.
“You fellows ought to be sent home to the States,” he said. “What kind of an example do you think you men are for the people here? How do you think well ever persuade them that we’re decent people if you behave like we all live in the woods and have shaggy fur?”
Polack said: “We didn’t mean no hurt, Major.”
The Major said: “Your intentions don’t make the slightest bit of difference. It’s the result that matters.” Polack said: “We was doin’ it for you, Major.” “What do you mean, doing it for me? How could you think I would want you to do anything like that?” Polack said: “We was lookin’ for a present for you, sir.” Polack thought that if the Major stacked up to all the boasting Chuck Schultz had done about him the night before, he ought to be able to talk their way out of this fix.
The Major said: “Why in God’s name would you want to get me a present? I’ve never seen you before.” Polack said: “We’re just enlisted men. We seen you before.”
Major Joppolo said: “I still want to know how you thought you were getting me a present, and why you were.”
Polack said: “It was goin’ to be a gom’-away present.”
The Major said: “Who’s going away?”
Polack said: “Well, Corporal Schultz here said-”
Chuck Schultz said: “You let me handle this, Polack.”
Major Joppolo turned on Corporal Schultz: “Say, what is this all about anyway?”
Chuck Schultz saw that there was no way out. He said: “There wasn’t no excuse for what we done, Major. We was very drunk. I think Polack here’s still a little drunk.”
Polack raised a threatening fist and said: “Why you..:’
Major Joppolo said: “What’s all this about a present?” Chuck said: “Sir, we just got some kind of a drunk idea that you was about the best officer we ever seen, and we figured we wanted to give you a present.