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.Actually, Colonel Cathcart did not have a chance in hell of becoming a general.For one thing, there was ex-P.F.C.Wintergreen, who also wanted to be a general and who always distorted, destroyed, rejected or misdirected any correspondence by, for or about Colonel Cathcart that might do him credit.For another, there already was a general, General Dreedle who knew that General Peckem was after his job but did not know how to stop him.General Dreedle, the wing commander, was a blunt, chunky, barrel-chested man in his early fifties.His nose was squat and red, and he had lumpy white, bunched-up eyelids circling his small gray eyes like haloes of bacon fat.He had a nurse and a son-in law, and he was prone to long, ponderous silences when he had not been drinking too much.General Dreedle had wasted too much of his time in the Army doing his job well, and now it was too late.New power alignments had coalesced without him and he was at a loss to cope with them.At unguarded moments his hard and sullen face slipped into a somber, preoccupied look of defeat and frustration.General Dreedle drank a great deal.His moods were arbitrary and unpredictable.“War is hell,” he declared frequently, drunk or sober, and he really meant it, although that did not prevent him from making a good living out of it or from taking his son-in-law into the business with him, even though the two bickered constantly.“That bastard,” General Dreedle would complain about his son-in-law with a contemptuous grunt to anyone who happened to be standing beside him at the curve of the bar of the officers’ club.“Everything he’s got he owes to me.I made him, that lousy son of a bitch! He hasn’t got brains enough to get ahead on his own.”“He thinks he knows everything,” Colonel Moodus would retort in a sulking tone to his own audience at the other end of the bar.“He can’t take criticism and he won’t listen to advice.”“All he can do is give advice,” General Dreedle would observe with a rasping snort.“If it wasn’t for me, he’d still be a corporal.”General Dreedle was always accompanied by both Colonel Moodus and his nurse, who was as delectable a piece of ass as anyone who saw her had ever laid eyes on.General Dreedle’s nurse was chubby, short and blonde.She had plump dimpled cheeks, happy blue eyes, and neat curly turned-up hair.She smiled at everyone and never spoke at all unless she was spoken to.Her bosom was lush and her complexion clear.She was irresistible, and men edged away from her carefully.She was succulent, sweet, docile and dumb, and she drove everyone crazy but General Dreedle.“You should see her naked,” General Dreedle chortled with croupy relish, while his nurse stood smiling proudly right at his shoulder.“Back at Wing she’s got a uniform in my room made of purple silk that’s so tight her nipples stand out like bing cherries.Milo got me the fabric.There isn’t even room enough for panties or a brassière underneath.I make her wear it some nights when Moodus is around just to drive him crazy.” General Dreedle laughed hoarsely.“You should see what goes on inside that blouse of hers every time she shifts her weight.She drives him out of his mind.The first time I catch him putting a hand on her or any other woman I’ll bust the horny bastard right down to private and put him on K.P.for a year.”“He keeps her around just to drive me crazy,” Colonel Moodus accused aggrievedly at the other end of the bar.“Back at Wing she’s got a uniform made out of purple silk that’s so tight her nipples stand out like bing cherries.There isn’t even room for panties or a brassière underneath.You should hear that rustle every time she shifts her weight.The first time I make a pass at her or any other girl he’ll bust me right down to private and put me on K.P.for a year.She drives me out of my mind.”“He hasn’t gotten laid since we shipped overseas,” confided General Dreedle, and his square grizzled head bobbed with sadistic laughter at the fiendish idea.“That’s one of the reasons I never let him out of my sight, just so he can’t get to a woman.Can you imagine what that poor son of a bitch is going through?”“I haven’t been to bed with a woman since we shipped overseas,” Colonel Moodus whimpered tearfully.“Can you imagine what I’m going through?”General Dreedle could be as intransigent with anyone else when displeased as he was with Colonel Moodus.He had no taste for sham, tact or pretension, and his credo as a professional soldier was unified and concise: he believed that the young men who took orders from him should be willing to give up their lives for the ideals, aspirations and idiosyncrasies of the old men he took orders from.The officers and enlisted men in his command had identity for him only as military quantities.All he asked was that they do their work; beyond that, they were free to do whatever they pleased
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