Colonel Moodus was General Dreedle's son-in-law, and General Dreedle, at the insistence of his wife and against his own better judgment, had taken him into the military business.

Полковник Модэс был зятем генерала Дридла. Уступая настояниям жены, генерал Дридл приобщил зятя к военному бизнесу.

General Dreedle gazed at Colonel Moodus with level hatred.

Генерал Дридл взирал на полковника Модэса с неизменной ненавистью.

He detested the very sight of his son-in-law, who was his aide and therefore in constant attendance upon him.

Один лишь вид зятя, который постоянно находился при нем в качестве помощника, вызывал у генерала отвращение.

He had opposed his daughter's marriage to Colonel Moodus because he disliked attending weddings.

Он возражал против брака дочери с полковником Модэсом, потому что терпеть не мог свадебных церемоний.

Wearing a menacing and preoccupied scowl, General Dreedle moved to the full-length mirror in his office and stared at his stocky reflection.

С угрожающим видом генерал Дридл приблизился к большому, высотой в человеческий рост, зеркалу и, насупившись, уставился на свое грузное отражение.

He had a grizzled, broad-browed head with iron-gray tufts over his eyes and a blunt and belligerent jaw.

Он видел широколобую голову с сильной проседью, кустистые седеющие брови и тупую, воинственно выдвинутую вперед нижнюю челюсть.

He brooded in ponderous speculation over the cryptic message he had just received.

Генерал напряженно размышлял над только что полученным загадочным сообщением.

Slowly his face softened with an idea, and he curled his lips with wicked pleasure.

Наконец его осенило, лицо генерала оживилось, губы скривились в садистской улыбке.

'Get Peckem,' he told Colonel Moodus.

- Соедините-ка меня с Пеккемом, - сказал он полковнику Модэсу.

'Don't let the bastard know who's calling.'

- Только не говорите, кто спрашивает.

'Who was it?' asked Colonel Cargill, back in Rome.

- ...Кто это был? - спросил в Риме полковник Карджилл.

'That same person,' General Peckem replied with a definite trace of alarm.

- Тот же самый человек, - ответил явно встревоженный генерал Пеккем.

'Now he's after me.'

- Теперь ему понадобился я.

' What did he want?'

- Что ему нужно?

'I don't know.'

- Не знаю.

'What did he say?'

- А что он сказал?

' The same thing.' '"T. S. Eliot"?'

- То же самое. - "Т.С. Эллиот"?

'Yes,

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"T. S. Eliot." That's all he said.'

"Т.С. Эллиот" - и все.

General Peckem had a hopeful thought. 'Perhaps it's a new code or something, like the colors of the day.

- Генералу Пеккему пришла в голову обнадеживающая идея: - Может быть, это какой-то новый шифр или пароль дня?

Why don't you have someone check with Communications and see if it's a new code or something or the colors of the day?'

Поручите-ка кому-нибудь проверить в отделе связи, не введен ли новый шифр или что-нибудь вроде пароля дня.

Communications answered that T. S. Eliot was not a new code or the colors of the day.

Служба связи ответила, что "Т.С. Эллиот" не является ни новым шифром, ни паролем.

Colonel Cargill had the next idea.

Полковник Карджилл высказал еще одно предположение:

'Maybe I ought to phone Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters and see if they know anything about it.

- Не позвонить ли мне в штаб двадцать седьмой воздушной армии? Может быть, они что-нибудь знают?

They have a clerk up there named Wintergreen I'm pretty close to.

У них там служит некий Уинтергрин, я с ним довольно близко знаком.

He's the one who tipped me off that our prose was too prolix.'

Это он подсказал мне однажды, что наши тексты слишком многословны.

Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen told Cargill that there was no record at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters of a T. S. Eliot.

Экс-рядовой первого класса Уинтергрин сообщил полковнику Карджиллу, что штаб двадцать седьмой воздушной армии не располагает сведениями о Т.С. Эллиоте.

'How's our prose these days?' Colonel Cargill decided to inquire while he had ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen on the phone.

- Ну а как наши тексты сегодня? - решил заодно поинтересоваться полковник Карджилл.

'It's much better now, isn't it?'

- Намного короче, чем прежде, верно?

' It's still too prolix,' ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen replied.

- Воды еще хватает, - ответил Уинтергрин.

'It wouldn't surprise me if General Dreedle were behind the whole thing,' General Peckem confessed at last. 'Remember what he did to that skeet-shooting range?' General Dreedle had thrown open Colonel Cathcart's private skeet-shooting range to every officer and enlisted man in the group on combat duty. General Dreedle wanted his men to spend as much time out on the skeet-shooting range as the facilities and their flight schedule would allow. Shooting skeet eight hours a month was excellent training for them. It trained them to shoot skeet. Dunbar loved

shooting skeet because he hated every minute of it and the time passed so slowly. He had figured out that a single hour on the skeet-shooting range with people like Havermeyer and Appleby could be worth as much as eleven-times-seventeen years. 'I think you're crazy,' was the way Clevinger had responded to Dunbar 's discovery. 'Who wants to know?' Dunbar answered. 'I mean it,' Clevinger insisted. 'Who cares?' Dunbar answered. 'I really do. I'll even go so far as to concede that life seems longer I-' '-is longer I-' '-is longer-Is longer? All right, is

longer if it's filled with periods of boredom and discomfort, b-' 'Guess how fast?' Dunbar said suddenly. 'Huh?' 'They go,' Dunbar explained. 'Years.' 'Years.' 'Years,' said Dunbar.

'Years, years, years.' 'Clevinger, why don't you let Dunbar alone?' Yossarian broke in. 'Don't you realize the toll this is taking?' 'It's all right,' said Dunbar magnanimously. 'I have some decades to spare. Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?' 'And you shut up also,' Yossarian told Orr, who had begun to snigger. 'I was just thinking about that girl,' Orr said. 'That girl in Sicily. That girl in Sicily with the bald head.' 'You'd better shut up also,' Yossarian warned him. 'It's your fault,' Dunbar said to Yossarian. 'Why don't you let him snigger if he wants to? It's better than having him talking.' 'All right. Go ahead and snigger if

you want to.' 'Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?' Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. 'This long.' He snapped his fingers. 'A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man.' 'Old?' asked Clevinger with surprise. 'What are you talking about?' 'Old.' 'I'm not old.' 'You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow time down?' Dunbar was almost angry when he finished. 'Well, maybe it is true,' - Нисколько не буду удивлен, если узнаю, что за всей этой историей стоит генерал Дридл, -признался наконец генерал Пеккем.