‘Das Boot’
“Cowardly bastards!” Trumann growls, then rises laboriously and staggers off between the tables. He returns with a toilet brush in his hand.
“What the hell’s that thing for?” the old man blurts out. But Trumann only staggers closer. He places himself in front of Thomsen with his left hand propped on our table, breathes deeply a couple of times, and at the top of his voice roars: “Silence in the cathouse!”
Instantly, the music stops. Trumann moves the dripping toilet brush up and down, right in front of Thomsen’s face, and babbles tearfully:
“Our magnificent, esteemed, abstinent, and unwed Führer, who in his glorious ascension from painter’s apprentice to the greatest battleleader of all time… is something wrong?”
Trumann wallows for a few seconds in boozy emotion, before going on to exclaim:
“The great naval expert, the unexcelled ocean strategist, to whom it has occurred in his infinite wisdom… how does it go from there?”
Trumann throws a questioning glance around the circle, belches deeply, and starts up again:
“The great naval leader who showed that English bedwetter, that cigar-smoking syphilitic… ha, what else has he dreamed up? Let’s see… has shown that asshole of a Churchill just who knows which end is up!”
Trumann lets himself sink back into his chair, exhausted, and blows his Cognac breath straight into my face. In the bad light he looks green.
“…we dub him knight—we consecrate the new knight! The shitty clown and the shitty Churchill!”