After perhaps fifteen minutes he got up and asked Commander Masaryk to be relieved, saying that he felt ill. The executive officer, who knew a thing or two, looked hard at him and said, "If you've got any sense, you'll be careful what you say to him."
Brunner nodded, and walked slowly out into the main corridor, then through several passages before reaching the short hallway that ran before his Commanding Officer's chamber.
Remaining a short distance from the doorway, he hesitated. He gathered his courage, turned the corner and entered the room.
"Sir, may I speak—-" He stopped, seeing the older man sitting quietly at a wooden table, a bottle and glass in front of him. "I'm sorry, sir….. Excuse me." So far as he (or anyone) knew, the Colonel never drank.
"No, no. Come in. You have not discovered a terrible secret. I have an artificial liver; didn't you know? I can turn it higher whenever I wish—-the first sign of combat—-and be sober in two minutes time. A waste of good liquor, really. Please. Sit down." Brunner approached hesitantly, sat in the wooden chair opposite.
"Besides," the man continued. "Didn't you know that all good field commanders were drunks? Take the famous Ulysses S. Grant. They say that on the day of a battle he was rarely sober by mid afternoon. Probably why he was so successful: he could send his men off to the slaughter without a second thought. Some even go so far as to say he tried to end all his battles in a single day, so that the next morning, when he was apt to be sick, he could sleep and give no orders. But you look surprised. Is all of this new to you?"
"I was never much on the American Civil War," said the young man evasively, not liking (or understanding) the tone of sarcasm in the older man's voice.
"Oh, really? That's too bad. It is filled with such irony. For example, the saying, 'War is hell.' Very true, but do you know who said it? The equally famous General Sherman. And he should know, since he did everything in his power to make it so—-burned and pillaged like a regular barbarian. A nation of 'heroes'." He cleared his throat, continued.
"And these same, gentlemen soldiers—-Grant (then President, no less), Sherman, Sheridan and Custer, next turned their expertise upon the pesky Native Americans, who had the gall to defend their land, their women and their children. Wasn't it Sheridan who said, 'The only good Indian is a dead Indian?' Massacred and starved an entire population into submission, innocents slaughtered without a second thought."
"Colonel….."