couldn’t be blamed for having this picture. You can’t get the truth except from the boys who come home and finally limp out of the hospitals and even then the truth is bent by their anger.
But I can tell you perfectly calmly that General Marvin showed himself during the invasion to be a bad man, something worse than what our troops were trying to throw out.
By the time it was nine days old, the invasion was developing very successfully. The American beachheads were secure. One heavy counterattack had been thrown back, and our troops began to go ahead all along the line.
On the ninth morning, General Marvin was driving along the road toward Vicinamare and came to the town of Adano. From time to time along the road his driver had had to slow down behind the little Italian twowheeled carts of the countryside until traffic from the opposite direction had gone by. Then he passed the carts.
As they passed each cart, General Marvin waved his riding crop in such a way as to indicate that the cart should move over. Since there was nothing to move over into except the ditch, which at intervals along the road expanded into tank traps, the carts never did move over. The General grew angrier and angrier.
Now it happened that just as he came to the Fiume Rosso, or Red River, just before Adano, the General’s armored car was obliged to slow down for a cart which meandered along right in the center of the road.
The General stood up in his car and shouted in his deep bass voice (you’ve read about that voice in the supplements; it’s famous; one writer said it was like “a foghorn gone articulate”) : “Goddam you goddam cart get off the road!”
Unfortunately the driver of the cart was one Errante Gaetano, who earlier that morning had sold three dozen eggs to American soldiers at fourteen times the proper price, had immediately sunk most of his profits in the wine of his friend Mattaliano, and was now sleeping a deep and happy sleep on the seat of his cart. At this particular moment, he was dreaming about eating the nicer parts of a fish nine feet long. Naturally he did not pay much attention to the voice of General Marvin, no matter how famous the voice, because he could not hear it.
General Marvin roared at his driver: “Blow your horn. Blow that bastard off the road.”
The driver, a nice boy from Massachusetts, put the heel of his hand on the horn button against his own wish. He was in no hurry, and knew that no matter how fast they went, he would only have to wait when they got wherever they were going.
The mind of Errante did not react to the horn, even though the horn was something urgent called a klaxon. The cart kept right down the middle of the road, inasmuch as Errante’s mule was a cautious creature, just as wary of ditches on the right as of ditches on the left. This was a quality in his mule of which Errante Gaetano often boasted to his friends. “Give me none of your lopsided mules,” he would say, “give me a mule with a sense of the middle.”
This sense was going to be the undoing of his mule just now, because General Marvin’s face was beginning to grow dark, and some veins which have never been described in the supplements began to wriggle and pound on his forehead.
“I’ve had enough of these goddam carts,” the General shouted. He was standing up in the car, waving his riding crop around. “Do they think they’re going to stop the goddam invasion with goddam carts?”
Errante slept beautifully. He was coming to the grey part of the fish just under the ribs. It melted in the mouth of his dream. There was, however, a sound of thunder in the distance which made him think perhaps he had better cover the fish and finish eating the nice parts after the rain.
General Marvin roared: “Do these goddam Italians think they’re going to stop a bunch of goddam tanks with a bunch of goddam wooden carts?”
Colonel Middleton, the General’s Chief of Staff, and Lieutenant Byrd, his aide, could see
But I can tell you perfectly calmly that General Marvin showed himself during the invasion to be a bad man, something worse than what our troops were trying to throw out.
By the time it was nine days old, the invasion was developing very successfully. The American beachheads were secure. One heavy counterattack had been thrown back, and our troops began to go ahead all along the line.
On the ninth morning, General Marvin was driving along the road toward Vicinamare and came to the town of Adano. From time to time along the road his driver had had to slow down behind the little Italian twowheeled carts of the countryside until traffic from the opposite direction had gone by. Then he passed the carts.
As they passed each cart, General Marvin waved his riding crop in such a way as to indicate that the cart should move over. Since there was nothing to move over into except the ditch, which at intervals along the road expanded into tank traps, the carts never did move over. The General grew angrier and angrier.
Now it happened that just as he came to the Fiume Rosso, or Red River, just before Adano, the General’s armored car was obliged to slow down for a cart which meandered along right in the center of the road.
The General stood up in his car and shouted in his deep bass voice (you’ve read about that voice in the supplements; it’s famous; one writer said it was like “a foghorn gone articulate”) : “Goddam you goddam cart get off the road!”
Unfortunately the driver of the cart was one Errante Gaetano, who earlier that morning had sold three dozen eggs to American soldiers at fourteen times the proper price, had immediately sunk most of his profits in the wine of his friend Mattaliano, and was now sleeping a deep and happy sleep on the seat of his cart. At this particular moment, he was dreaming about eating the nicer parts of a fish nine feet long. Naturally he did not pay much attention to the voice of General Marvin, no matter how famous the voice, because he could not hear it.
General Marvin roared at his driver: “Blow your horn. Blow that bastard off the road.”
The driver, a nice boy from Massachusetts, put the heel of his hand on the horn button against his own wish. He was in no hurry, and knew that no matter how fast they went, he would only have to wait when they got wherever they were going.
The mind of Errante did not react to the horn, even though the horn was something urgent called a klaxon. The cart kept right down the middle of the road, inasmuch as Errante’s mule was a cautious creature, just as wary of ditches on the right as of ditches on the left. This was a quality in his mule of which Errante Gaetano often boasted to his friends. “Give me none of your lopsided mules,” he would say, “give me a mule with a sense of the middle.”
This sense was going to be the undoing of his mule just now, because General Marvin’s face was beginning to grow dark, and some veins which have never been described in the supplements began to wriggle and pound on his forehead.
“I’ve had enough of these goddam carts,” the General shouted. He was standing up in the car, waving his riding crop around. “Do they think they’re going to stop the goddam invasion with goddam carts?”
Errante slept beautifully. He was coming to the grey part of the fish just under the ribs. It melted in the mouth of his dream. There was, however, a sound of thunder in the distance which made him think perhaps he had better cover the fish and finish eating the nice parts after the rain.
General Marvin roared: “Do these goddam Italians think they’re going to stop a bunch of goddam tanks with a bunch of goddam wooden carts?”
Colonel Middleton, the General’s Chief of Staff, and Lieutenant Byrd, his aide, could see
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