The Last Bridge

Chapter Twenty-eight 1120 Hours

The heat of the oil lamp burned against his face, and Eddie Kreizler sat half alive in the chair. The room moved crazily around him. He tossed his head back, throwing hair back from his eyes; he met the Vietnamese Colonel’s amused glance with unvanquished eyes.

Bruises were stiff all over his body. His nose was crushed against his face. Both arms throbbed, unwelcome parts of him. His right eye was half closed; his scalp was cut open, soft and sticky to the touch of a knuckle-crushed finger. His lips were squashed raw and stinging against his teeth. Dull red flames pulsed, coloring his vision.

The Colonel said, “My methods have been crude, wouldn’t you say, Captain?”

“Fuck yourself.” Kreizler could hardly talk.

“Be calm,” the Colonel purred. “My friend, you are letting the misguided blindness of your stupid loyalties lead you around like a trained bear. I would suggest for your consideration that the only way to preserve your own self-respect and freshness of character is to act impulsively. When a man stops to think about whether it is prudent, then he loses his dignity — he loses it to the dictates of caution and public opinion. Like most children, you have been trained to think in certain rigid patterns, and you have a dyspeptic terror of anything out of the ordinary — exactly like a spoiled child’s fear of new foods. I had hoped you were more imaginative.”

The Colonel chuckled politely. “Of course, you feel that I am not part of your world, that I have no business advising you. But the truth is that we all live in the same world. It’s easy enough to despise it, to be sure. But find yourself another one. The trick, my friend, is to make something of life as you find it. It’s no good hiding behind illusions — that’s a treadmill. The values that meant something in America mean nothing here. No one will condemn you for speaking up. I can promise you the greatest comforts. A soft bed, Captain. Medical attention, a pliable nurse perhaps. Good food and drink.”

Kreizler sat in his own pain as if it were excrement. His eyes were not focused. The Colonel leaned forward and slapped his face. “Please pay attention, Captain.” The voice was effeminate, soft, cajoling. “My methods of persuasion will become less subtle as the hours wear on. Do you honestly believe yourself capable of withstanding me?”

Kreizler purposefully concentrated on a haze of swaying recollected visions, colors dimmed by pain. He slumped. The lamp’s dusty shafts of chalk light fell on the Vietnamese Colonel’s complacent face, the uniform meticulously pressed, the black bill of his cap polished with wax, the hollows of the eyes glowing. The Colonel’s high-pitched voice suddenly thrashed at him:

“I lose patience with you, Captain! Resistance will gain you only unbearable pain. You must talk now.”

“Come ahead, then,” Kreizler said drunkenly. “Try me.”