They drink up, exhaust the circle of rounds owed I'm going to tell you men something, Brown says, a lot of people think we might have a soft job selling, but the God's honest truth of it is that we work hard as any man jack, am I right?
None harderNow when I was up at the university before I flunked out, I flunked out I want you to know 'cause I think a man's a goddam fool if he's got false pride, I don't believe in making out you're exactly what you ain'tI'm as ordinary as an old shoe and I'll admit it to anyone who asks me Brown, you're a good old sonofabitch Well, now, I'm glad to hear you say that, Jennings, because I know you mean it, and it means a lotA man works his fool ass off and he wants to have some friends, people he knows will trust him and like him, 'cause if he ain't got that what's the point to his working?
That's exactly it I'm pretty fortunate, I'll say that to any man in his face, but of course I've had my troubles, who the hell hasn't, but we're not here to cry about that tonight, now, are
omega geneve we? I want to tell you men, I got a beautiful wife, now, that's the truth One of the gang guffawsBrown, I got a beautiful wife too, but I swear after you been married two years a woman might just as well look like a coon dog for all the good it does you I can't quite agree, Freeman, but there's a point to what you sayHe feels his words dribbling out of his mouth, lost in the babel of glasses and conversation Come on, let's be goin' over to Eloise's
And the inevitable coming back Freeman, you said something a while ago that kinda put a stir in me, but I want to tell you I got a beautiful wife, and there's no one could improve on her a bitI think it's a goddam shame the way we go around screwing God knows what, and then goin' back to our wives, it's a helluva note I want to tell you thatWhen I think of her and then what I do I'm pretty goddam ashamed of myselfIt's a hell of a noteYou'd think we have some sense, but the damn truth of it is we just go around screwing and drinking and And having a hell of a good time Having
chanel cambon tote a hell of a good time, Brown finishesThat's exactly what I was gonna say, Jennings, but you beat me to itHe stumbles, sits down on the pavement He wakes up in his bed with Beverly undressing himI know what you're gonna say, honey, he mumbles, but I got my troubles, you just keep pushing something through, trying to make ends meet, trying to produce 'cause that's what you gotta pay off on, and it takes a long time, it's, it's a hard life, as the preacher says And in the morning, massaging his headache, examining an estimate, he wonders what Beverly did last night (The sly winks, the droll expressions of anguish among the men who had gone out the night beforeAt ten in the lavatory, Freeman joins him
Oh, what a bag I got on I feel rocky today, Brown saysWhat the hell we do it for?
Got to get out of the rut, I guessOh, man!
6
THIS SAME night, on the other side of the mountain range, Cummings was making a tour of his positionsThe attack had been progressing favorably for a day and a half, and his line
black fendi spy bag companies had advanced from a quarter to a half mileThe division was moving again, more successfully than he had expected, and the long wet month of inactivity and stagnation seemed to have endedF Company had made contact with the Toyaku Line, and according to the last report Cummings had received that afternoon, a reinforced platoon from E Company had captured a Japanese bivouac on F Company's flankFor the next few days the attack would teeter from enemy counterattacks, but if they held, and he was going to see that they held, the Toyaku Line might be breached within two weeks Secretly, he was a little surprised at the advanceHe had prepared the attack for over a month, hoarded his supplies, revised his battle plans from day to day through all the eventless weeks that had followed the aborted Japanese attack across the riverHe had done everything a commander could do, and yet he had been gloomyThe memory of the bivouacs at the front with their covered foxholes and duckwalks through the mud had depressed him more than once