“No, I don’t know enough to be a general. A general’s got to know a hell of a lot. You guys think there ain’t anything to war. You ain’t got brains enough to be a second-class corporal.”
“Thank God I don’t have to be,” Simmons said.
“Maybe you will if they round up all you slackers. Oh, boy, I’d like to have you two in my platoon. Mac too. I’d make you my orderly, Mac.”
“You’re a great boy, Ettore,” Mac said. “But I’m afraid you’re a militarist.”
“I’ll be a colonel before the war’s over,” Ettore said.
“If they don’t kill you.”
“They won’t kill me.” He touched the stars at his collar with his thumb and forefinger. “See me do that? We always touch our stars if anybody mentions getting killed.”
“Let’s go, Sim,” said Saunders standing up.
“All right.”
“So long,” I said. “I have to go too.” It was a quarter to six by the clock inside the bar. “Ciaou, Ettore.”