The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway - Ernest Hemingway [309]
“Keep them covered, Red,” I said. They advanced steadily and then raised the bottles high above their heads, one bottle in each hand as they came in.
“For Christ sake, get down,” I called, and they got down and came crawling through the grass with the bottles tucked under their arms.
“Nous sommes des copains,” one called in a deep voice, rich with alcohol.
“Advance, rum-dumb copains, and be recognized,” Claude answered.
“We are advancing.”
“What do you want out here in the rain?” Onèsime called.
“We bring the little presents.”
“Why didn’t you give the little presents when I was over there?” Claude asked.
“Ah, things have changed, camarade.”
“For the better?”
“Rudement,” the first rummy camarade said. The other, lying flat and handing us one of the bottles, asked in a hurt tone, “On dit pas bonjour aux nouveaux camarades?”
“Bonjour,” I said. “Tu veux battre?”
“If it’s necessary. But we came to ask if we might have the vélos.”
“After the fight,” I said. “You’ve made your military service?”
“Naturally.”
“Okay. You take a German rifle each and two packs of ammo and go up the road two hundred yards on our right and kill any Germans that get by us.”
“Can’t we stay with you?”
“We’re specialists,” Claude said. “Do what the captain says.”
“Get up there and pick out a good place and don’t shoot back this way.”
“Put on these arm bands,” Claude said. He had a pocket full of arm bands. “You’re Franc-tireurs.” He did not add the rest of it.
“Afterwards we can have the vélos?”
“One apiece if you don’t have to fight. Two apiece if you fight.”
“What about the money?” Claude asked. “They’re using our guns.”
“Let them keep the money.”
“They don’t deserve it.”
“Bring any money back and you’ll get your share. Allez vite. Débine-toi.”
“Ceux, sont des poivrots pourris,” Claude said.
“They had rummies in Napoleon’s time too.”
“It’s probable.”
“It’s certain,” I said. “You can take it easy on that.”
We lay in the grass and it smelled of true summer and the flies, the ordinary flies and the big blue flies started to come to the dead that were in the ditch and there were butterflies around the edges of the blood on the black-surfaced road. There were yellow butterflies and white butterflies around the blood and the streaks where the bodies had been hauled.
“I didn’t know butterflies ate blood,” Red said.
“I didn’t either.”
“Of course when we hunt it’s too cold for butterflies.”
“When we hunt in Wyoming the picket pin gophers and the prairie dogs are holed up already. That’s the fifteenth of September.”
“I’m going to watch and see if they really eat it,” Red said.
“Want to take my glasses?”
He watched and after a while he said, “I’ll be damned if I can tell. But it sure interests them.” Then he turned to Onèsime and said, “Piss pauvre Krauts, Onie. Pas de pistol, pas de binoculaire. Fuck-all rien.”
“Assez de sous,” Onèsime said. “We’re doing all right on the money.”
“No fucking place to spend it.”
“Some day.”
“Je veux spend maintenant,” Red said.
Claude opened one of the two bottles with the cork screw on his Boy Scout German knife. He smelled it and handed it to me.
“C’est du gnôle.”
The other outfit had been working on their share. They were our best friends but as soon as we were split they seemed like the others and the vehicles seemed like the rear echelon. You split too easy, I thought. You want to watch that. That’s one more thing you can watch.
I took a drink from the bottle. It was very strong raw spirits and all it had was fire. I handed it back to Claude who gave it to Red. Tears came into his eyes when he swallowed it.
“What do they make it out of up here, Onie?”
“Potatoes, I think, and parings from horses’ hooves they get at the blacksmith shop.”
I translated to Red. “I taste everything but the potatoes,” he said.
“They age it