Goodbye Soldier Read Online Free PDF

Signori tak tea, yes?”
    Yes, please! We sipped our tea and smoked.
    “Sooo,” says Mulgrew. “This is New York.”
    I unpack.
    “You know, Johnny, you look taller in bed.”
    “What are you suggesting? I only meet people lying down?”
    “Well, yes. You can get up for shaking hands and then lie down again.”
    There was a silence and Mulgrew blew smoke ceiling-wards.
    “I wonder where that silly bugger Hall is.”
    It was a worry. Hall had this horror film visage – he was lucky no one had tried to drive a stake through his heart. We were to open in Venice tomorrow. Would Hall make it?
    “I mean, the streets are made of water. No good trying to run,” says Mulgrew, scratching his groins.
    “Is it the old trouble?” I say.
    “That was a wee smasher who brought in the tea,” he said.
    More groin scratching. Aloud, he starts to read the notice on the door – anything to save buying a book.
    “Dinner between eight and ten-thirty, unless a late meal is requested.”
    There it is at the bottom…Arghhhhhhh Cold Collation! It’s followed me, there are special Cold Collation units that are following me.
    “Sir, he’s heading for Padua.”
    “Quick, send a despatch rider with several Cold Collations, and hurry.”
    I run a bath; I undress in front of the mirror. The more clothes I remove, the more I look like a Belsen victim. I immerse what is called a body in the bath. I sing merrily, adjusting the taps with my toes.
    I spruce up and take the lift down to see Toni, who is walking down the stairs to meet me. I go down to meet her, she comes up to meet me, and so on until we make it. A lovers’ stroll through the town: being a university town, there are numerous book shops and the cafés are full of students talking excitedly. Toni stops at a sweet shop and buys coloured sugared almonds.
    “Thee blues ones are for your eyes.”
    Gad, I must have been lovely then. One thing for sure, she must never see me naked. I had a body that invited burial, that and my ragged underwear.
    We walked and talked. Sometimes, we stood still and talked – that’s like walking with your legs together (eh?).
    Back to the Blancoed Lion and dinner. Gnocchi? What’s a Gnocki? Who’s that Gnocking at my door? It was the first time I’d had it.
    “Eeet is a Roman speciality,” says Toni.
    She asks me if I’ve ever been to Venice. I say no, but I’ve seen it in a book. “All the city built on – how you say?”
    “Piles,” I said.
    Yes, the whole of Venice suffered from damp piles. She doesn’t understand.
    Lieutenant Priest approaches, “Is everything all right?”
    Yes, molto buono .
    He tells us that Chalky White has gone forward with the scenery, which will be transported to the theatre by barge. Priest laughs at the thought.
    “My God, he had difficulty unloading on dry land.”
    We repair to the lounge bar where most of the cast are drinking.
    “What will you have?” says Bornheim.
    “I will have a Cognac and Toni will have a lemonade.”
    “Well, I’m sure the barman will serve you,” he laughed – the swine! “Sorry, Spike, I’m broke. You’ll have to lash out.”
    “You sure Bornheim isn’t a Jewish name?” I said. “So, what’ll you have?”
    Of course, it’s double whisky, isn’t it. Wait, what’s this? Through the door, covered in dust, unshaven, his fiddle case under his arm, is the late Gunner Bill Hall.
    “Ere, they didn’t bleedin’ wait for me,” he says. “I bin cadging lifts all day. My bloody thumb’s nearly coming off.”
    He wants to know if dinner is still on. I gaze at my Aztec gold watch and, holding it in a position for the whole room to see, I tell him he is just on the right side of ten-thirty. He departs, him and his reeking battledress – the jacket is open from top to waist, over a crumpled shirt (off-white shirt). Because of his thin legs he wears two pairs of trousers – they billow out like elephants’ legs. God, what a strange man, but a genius of a musician. When