Of goats and men

This is a bit from my novel, R&R:

“He picked up his binoculars, carefully scanned the horizon.  There was nothing to be seen in the direction the tank came from, except the raggedy oil trail it left while staggering into the village.

Two little boys cautiously walked up to watch him.  He looked at them and smiled.  They giggled and grinned back.  One of the boys pointed his finger at Willis.  “Boom boom.”

Willis shook his head no.  “No boom boom, boom boom sucks.”  But realized it was probably a lost cause to try to convince them, in the middle of a war, that war wasn’t the answer.

He offered to let them look through the binoculars.  “Here, you guys want to take a look.”

The first little boy jumped at the chance.  “Prego!”

Willis responded with the only Italian he knew.  “Spaghetti.”

The first boy eagerly looked through them and smiled.  “Ohh.  Fantastico.”

The second boy kept nudging the first boy.  After a bit, the boy handed them to his companion.  The kid nodded to Willis and looked out over the wall.  “Grazie.  Grazie.”

Willis laughed.  “Spaghetti, ravioli.”

The boys traded the binoculars back and forth taking turns looking.

“Okay, you’re now my official watch dogs.”  Willis leaned against the wall and relaxed.  “You’ll let me know if you see any Germans, okay?”

The boys look at him blankly.

“Germans?  Krauts?  Nazis!  Boom boom?”  He pointed his finger over the wall.

“Ah, Tedesco.”  The boys suddenly got it and eagerly nodded, okay.

“That’s my boys.  You let me know if you see any fricken Tedescos.”  Willis chuckled, got comfortable and closed his eyes.

After a bit, the boys glanced at each other, grinned, nodded, and ran away with the binoculars.

“Hey.  Come back here you little Tortellini’s.”  Willis clambered up and ran after the two boys.

They screamed and laughed as they ran.

Willis was catching up.  He almost had them.  Suddenly, they cut between two buildings.  Willis almost skidded past, recovered and rounded the corner after them.

The two boys ran back out onto the road past the next building.  But no Willis.

In the back, a goat had cornered Willis.  He used his rifle to fend off the goat's head butts but the goat was very determined.  “Ah crap.  Get away from me you hillbilly goat.”  After fending off three or four head butts Willis growled.  “Stop it, dammit --“ Suddenly Willis’s eyes got crazy.  “I’m warning you.  I’m warning you!”

A few paragraphs later the goat is seen staggering around the village and Willis’s rifle is in two pieces.