The Generals Read Online Free PDF Page A

let the chain reaction continue and go on and get hold of twenty-five thousand or two hundred and fifty thousand at once. A said: Why not a hand-picked élite consisting of less than a quarter per thousand of the population of the world?
    Where would she get the élite from? A’s main objection is however still the same. Can’t we even rely on each other? Answer: Naturally,first and foremost as we’ve gone into this for years and know that it’s only a matter of agreeing on a few main points; once we’ve started, our successes and mutual respect will mean that the rest will come by itself.
    A: Of course we can rely on each other today, but what will it look like in a few years’ time. Even I don’t know that I will be the same then as I am now; our cells are said to be renewed every seven years and then one’s character perhaps will suddenly be different? Answer: Shit. And also it wouldn’t matter. See above.
    A: L is drinking even more than before, but that doesn’t matter. Answer: Perfectly correct observations, both of them. This about A.
    Discussed with H and O again the in itself insignificant matter of why we feel more repugnance and distaste for this well-behaved country in which we happen to have landed, than if it had been a Catholic Fascist feudal state or a pure dictatorship, on the lines of Stalin’s in the thirties. The answers were the same old ones; but happily we now say
it
instead of
we
: it is collapsing from well-being and galloping democracy. It understands everything except for the fact that human individuals do not necessarily have to be looked after and treated as if they were leek plants. It maintains continuously and in all connections that it is best and everyone likes it very much there, despite the fact that everyone knows that everyone dislikes it, to a degree of deadly boredom. Exhausted by its own futility, it lulls itself to sleep by boasting about order and numbing welfare. In its nightmares it boasts about abolishing war two hundred years ago and, in the same snore, about its powerful and extremely expensive armed forces, élite defences with warships and tanks, which naturally are also the best in the world, not to mention the soldiers. Then it wakes up with a belch and lies there with its suicidal thoughts, with its simulated socialism, on its home-made bed of nails of mindless laws and meaningless regulations, regretting that the rest of humanity cannot enjoy the fruits of the same rich life. It is the kind of state which can be bluffed and caught unawares by anyone who wants to. It will be a pleasure to do it.
    H has once again taken up the question of the militia and arming it. The thought is abominably objectionable. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. But I see that he is right. So does A.
    L and O seldom talk about this. Who will look after it? Who
could
do it? A suggested a kind of guard service for everyone; it would only mean a day a month for each person. A bit like organising a rota. Something for the future?
    Lieutenant Brown
: The notes end there.
    Colonal Orbal
: What in the world was all that about? I didn’t understand a thing.
    Major von Peters
: There’s just one small point I’d like to know about. What are those incomprehensible letters and figures in front of each paper?
    Captain Schmidt
: That’s easy to explain. V 1/42xx means, for instance, Velder Investigation/Volume 1/forty-second item/second appendix.
    Major von Peters
: Easy to explain? Is that supposed to be an insinuation that I ought to have understood such a simple thing by myself?
    Captain Schmidt
: Not at all. I apologise for expressing myself so badly.
    Captain Endicott
: Does the accused still have to stand to attention?
    Colonel Orbal
: What? Of course. We shall be adjourning shortly, anyhow.
    Major von Peters
: Well, Kampenmann, you’re just coming to, are you? Presumably you like all this literary stuff just about as much as I do. Bet you didn’t hear much of Brown’s