The General of the Dead Army Read Online Free PDF

they’ve turned to killing one another. Have you heard about their vendettas?”
    “Yes.”
    “It’s an atavistic instinct that drives them into war. Their nature requires war, cries out for war. In peace, the Albanian becomes sluggish and only half alive, like a snake in winter. It is only when he is fighting that his vitality is at full stretch.”
    The general nodded approvingly.
    “War is the normal condition of this country,” the priest went on. “That’s why its inhabitants are so wild, so formidable, and why when they have once begun to fight there is no limit to how far they are prepared to go.”
    “In other words,” the general said, “if what you say about this thirst for destruction - or rather for self-destruction - is true, then as a people they are doomed to disappear from the face of the earth.”
    “Of course.”
    The general took another drink. He was beginning to have slight difficulty in articulating his words.
    “Do you hate the Albanians?” he asked suddenly. The grimace the priest gave was intended as a smile. “No. Why do you ask?”
    The general leant forward to whisper into his ear. The priest gave a tiny start of revulsion as he smelt the alcohol-impregnated breath.
    “What do you mean, ‘Why?’?” the general said very quietly. “I know perfectly well that you do hate them. Just as I do. But you’re right, it’s not in our interests to go round saying so just now.”

4
    W HEN THEY HAD WISHED one another good night and the general had closed the door of his room behind him he sat down at a little table lit by the light falling from a shaded lamp.
    Despite the late hour he did not feel sleepy. His briefcase lay on the table, and he stretched out a mechanical hand to pick it up.
    He pulled out the lists of dead soldiers and began leafing through them. They made a big bundle, stapled together in batches of four, five - up to ten sheets. He glanced through them, re-reading for the hundredth time the headings typed in capitals at the beginning of each list: “Old Glory Regiment”, “Second Division”, “Iron Division”, “3rd Alpine Battalion”, “4th Regiment of Guards”, “Victory Division”, “7th Infantry Division”, “Blue Battalion” (a punitive unit) … He paused for a moment over this last one. The first name on the list was that of Colonel Z., followed by the names, listed in alphabetical order, of all the other dead, officers, N.C.O.s, privates, all classified according to their troops and companies. “Blue Battalion” - a pretty name, the general thought to himself.
    The typing of the lists had been started in the spring. Young girls, their hair and clothes strictly in accord with the latest fashions, had sat in the long offices at the Ministry, by the tall windows, tapping at the keys of their machines with slender fingers. It was almost as though, beneath the indifferent stares of those mascaraed eyes, the soldiers were being machine-gunned down yet again.
    He laid aside the master lists of names and drew out another bundle, this time copiously annotated and bearing occasional little red crosses in the margins. These were the lists containing all the available facts that might be of help in the search for the remains. On these lists the dead soldiers were no longer grouped according to regiment, division, etc., but according to the places where they had fallen; and beside each name there was a set of co-ordinates referring to one of the maps, together with the man’s height and a description of his dentition. The names of those already recovered were marked with small red crosses; but these were still very few in number.
    I ought to transcribe these results onto the master lists and work out the figures of our first tour, the general thought to himself, but it is very late.
    Unable to think of anything else to do, almost without thinking he continued his perusal of the lists. On those giving the location details, all the place names were followed by