They talked too much at the mess and I drank wine because to-night we were not all brothers unless I drank a little and talked with the priest about Archbishop Ireland who was, it seemed, a noble man and with whose injustice, the injustices he had received and in which I participated as an American, and of which I had never heard, I feigned acquaintance. It would have been impolite not to have known something of them when I had listened to such a splendid explanation of their causes which were, after all, it seemed, misunderstandings. I thought he had a fine name and he came from Minnesota which made a lovely name: Ireland of Minnesota, Ireland of Wisconsin, Ireland of Michigan. What made it pretty was that it sounded like Island. No that wasn’t it. There was more to it than that. Yes, father. That is true, father. Perhaps, father. No, father. Well, maybe yes, father. You know more about it than I do, father. The priest was good but dull. The officers were not good but dull. The King was good but dull. The wine was bad but not dull. It took the enamel off your teeth and left it on the roof of your mouth.
“And the priest was locked up,” Rocca said, “because they found the three per cent bonds on his person. It was in France of course. Here they would never have arrested him. He denied all knowledge of the five per cent bonds. This took place at Béziers. I was there and reading of it in the paper, went to the jail and asked to see the priest. It was quite evident he had stolen the bonds.”
“I don’t believe a word of this,” Rinaldi said.
“Just as you like,” Rocca said. “But I am telling it for our priest here. It is very informative. He is a priest; he will appreciate it.”
The priest smiled. “Go on,” he said. “I am listening.”
“Of course some of the bonds were not accounted for but the priest had all of the three per cent bonds and several local obligations, I forget exactly what they were. So I went to the jail, now this is the point of the story, and I stood outside his cell and I said as though I were going to confession, ‘Bless me, father, for you have sinned.’ ”
There was great laughter from everybody.
“And what did he say?” asked the priest. Rocca ignored this and went on to explain the joke to me. “You see the point, don’t you?” It seemed it was a very funny joke if you understood it properly. They poured me more wine and I told the story about the English private soldier who was placed under the shower bath. Then the major told the story of the eleven Czecho-slovaks and the Hungarian corporal. After some more wine I told the story of the jockey who found the penny. The major said there was an Italian story something like that about the duchess who could not sleep at night. At this point the priest left and I told the story about the travelling salesman who arrived at five o’clock in the morning at Marseilles when the mistral was blowing. The major said he had heard a report that I could drink. I denied this. He said it was true and by the corpse of Bacchus we would test whether it was true or not. Not Bacchus, I said. Not Bacchus. Yes, Bacchus, he said. I should drink cup for cup and glass for glass with Bassi, Fillipo Vincenza. Bassi said no that was no test because he had already drunk twice as much as I. I said that was a foul lie and, Bacchus or no Bacchus, Fillipo Vincenza Bassi or Bassi Fillippo Vicenza had never touched a drop all evening and what was his name anyway? He said was my name Frederico Enrico or Enrico Federico? I said let the best man win, Bacchus barred, and the major started us with red wine in mugs. Half-way through the wine I did not want any more. I remembered where I was going.
“Bassi wins,” I said. “He’s a better man than I am. I have to go.”
“He does really,” said Rinaldi. “He has a rendezvous. I know all about it.”
“I have to go.”
“Another night,” said Bassi. “Another night when you feel stronger.” He slapped me on the shoulder. There were lighted candles on the table. All the officers were very happy. “Good-night, gentlemen,” I said.
Rinaldi went out with me. We stood outside the door on the patch and he said, “You’d better not go up there drunk.”
“I’m not drunk, Rinin. Really.”
“You’d better chew some coffee.”
“Nonsense.”
“I’ll get some, baby. You walk up and down.” He came back with a handful of roasted coffee beans. “Chew those, baby, and God be with you.”
“Bacchus,” I said.
“I’ll walk down with you.”
“I’m perfectly all right.”
We walked along together through the town and I chewed the coffee. At the gate of the driveway that led up to the British villa, Rinaldi said good-night.
“Good-night,” I said. “Why don’t you come in?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said, “I like the simpler pleasures.”
“Thank you for the coffee beans.”
“Nothing, baby. Nothing.”
I started down the driveway. The outlines of the cypresses that lined it were sharp and clear. I looked back and saw Rinaldi standing watching me and waved to him.
I sat in the reception hall of the villa, waiting for Catherine Barkley to come down. Some one was coming down the hall-way. I stood up, but it was not Catherine. It was Miss Ferguson.
“Hello,” she said. “Catherine asked me to tell you she was sorry she couldn’t see you this evening.”
“I’m so sorry. I hope she’s not ill.”
“She’s not awfully well.”
“Will you tell her how sorry I am?”
“Yes, I will.”
“Do you think it would be any good to try and see her to-morrow?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Thank you very much,” I said. “Good-night.”
I went out the door and suddenly I felt lonely and empty. I had treated seeing Catherine very lightly, I had gotten somewhat drunk and had nearly forgotten to come but when I could not see her there I was feeling lonely and hollow.
The next afternoon we heard there was to be an attack up the river that night and that we were to take four cars there. Nobody knew anything about it although they all spoke with great positiveness and strategical knowledge. I was riding in the first car and as we passed the entry to the British hospital I told the driver to stop. The other cars pulled up. I got out and told the driver to go on and that if we had not caught up to them at the junction of the road to Cormons to wait there. I hurried up the driveway and inside the reception hall I asked for Miss Barkley.
“She’s on duty.”
“Could I see her just for a moment?”
They sent an orderly to see and she came back with him.
“I stopped to ask if you were better. They told me you were on duty, so I asked to see you.”
“I’m quite well,” she said, “I think the heat knocked me over yesterday.”
“I have to go.”
“I’ll just step out the door a minute.”
“And you’re all right?” I asked outside.
“Yes, darling. Are you coming to-night?”
“No. I’m leaving now for a show up above Plava.”
“A show?”
“I don’t think it’s anything.”
“And you’ll be back?”
“To-morrow.”
She was unclasping something from her neck. She put it in my hand. “It’s a Saint Anthony,” she said. “And come to-morrow night.”
“You’re not a Catholic, are you?”
“No. But they say a Saint Anthony’s very useful.”
“I’ll take care of him for you. Good-by.”
“No,” she said, “not good-by.”
“All right.”
“Be a good boy and be careful. No, you can’t kiss me here. You can’t.”
“All right.”
I looked back and saw her standing on the steps. She waved and I kissed my hand and held it out. She waved again and then I was out of the driveway and climbing up into the seat of the ambulance and we started. The Saint Anthony was in a little white metal capsule. I opened the capsule and spilled him out into my hand.
“Saint Anthony?” asked the driver.
“Yes.”
“I have one.” His right hand left the wheel and opened a button on his tunic and pulled it out from under his shirt.
“See?”
I put my Saint Anthony back in the capsule, spilled the thin gold chain together and put it all in my breast pocket.
“You don’t wear him?”
“No.”
“It’s better to wear him. That’s what it’s for.”
“All right,” I said. I undid the clasp of the gold chain and put it around my neck and clasped it. The saint hung down on the outside of my uniform and I undid the throat of my tunic, unbuttoned the shirt collar and dropped him in under the shirt. I felt him in his metal box against my chest while we drove. Then I forgot about him. After I was wounded I never found him. Some one probably got it at one of the dressing stations.
We drove fast when we were over the bridge and soon we saw the dust of the other cars ahead down the road. The road curved and we saw the three cars looking quite small, the dust rising from the wheels and going off through the trees. We caught them and passed them and turned off on a road that climbed up into the hills. Driving in convoy is not unpleasant if you are the first car and I settled back in the seat and watched the country. We were in the foot-hills on the near side of the river and as the road mounted there were the high mountains off to the north with snow still on the tops. I looked back and saw the three cars all climbing, spaced by the interval of their dust. We passed a long column of loaded mules, the drivers walking along beside the mules wearing red fezzes. They were bersaglieri.
Beyond the mule train the road was empty and we climbed through the hills and then went down over the shoulder of a long hill into a river-valley. There were trees along both sides of the road and through the right line of trees I saw the river, the water clear, fast and shallow. The river was low and there were stretches of sand and pebbles with a narrow channel of water and sometimes the water spread like a sheen over the pebbly bed. Close to the bank I saw deep pools, the water blue like the sky. I saw arched stone bridges over the river where tracks turned off from the road and we passed stone farmhouses with pear trees candelabraed against their south walls and low stone walls in the fields. The road went up the valley a long way and then we turned off and commenced to climb into the hills again. The road climbed steeply going up and back and forth through chestnut woods to level finally along a ridge. I could look down through the woods and see, far below, with the sun on it, the line of the river that separated the two armies. We went along the rough new military road that followed the crest of the ridge and I looked to the north at the two ranges of mountains, green and dark to the snow-line and then white and lovely in the sun. Then, as the road mounted along the ridge, I saw a third range of mountains, higher snow mountains, that looked chalky white and furrowed, with strange planes, and then there were mountains far off beyond all these that you could hardly tell if you really saw. Those were all the Austrians’ mountains and we had nothing like them. Ahead there was a rounded turn-off in the road to the right and looking down I could see the road dropping through the trees. There were troops on this road and motor trucks and mules with mountain guns and as we went down, keeping to the side, I could see the river far down below, the line of ties and rails running along it, the old bridge where the railway crossed to the other side and across, under a hill beyond the river, the broken houses of the little town that was to be taken.
It was nearly dark when we came down and turned onto the main road that ran beside the river.
The road was crowded and there were screens of corn-stalk and straw matting on both sides and matting over the top so that it was like the entrance at a circus or a native village. We drove slowly in this matting-covered tunnel and came out onto a bare cleared space where the railway station had been. The road here was below the level of the river bank and all along the side of the sunken road there were holes dug in the bank with infantry in them. The sun was going down and looking up along the bank as we drove I saw the Austrian observation balloons above the hills on the other side dark against the sunset. We parked the cars beyond a brickyard. The ovens and some deep holes had been equipped as dressing stations. There were three doctors that I knew. I talked with the major and learned that when it should start and our cars should be loaded we would drive them back along the screened road and up to the main road along the ridge where there would be a post and other cars to clear them. He hoped the road would not jam. It was a one-road show. The road was screened because it was in sight of the Austrians across the river. Here at the brickyard we were sheltered from rifle or machine-gun fire by the river bank. There was one smashed bridge across the river. They were going to put over another bridge when the bombardment started and some troops were to cross at the shallows up above at the bend of the river. The major was a little man with upturned mustaches. He had been in the war in Libya and wore two wound-stripes. He said that if the thing went well he would see that I was decorated. I said I hoped it would go well but that he was too kind. I asked him if there was a big dugout where the drivers could stay and he sent a soldier to show me. I went with him and found the dugout, which was very good. The drivers were pleased with it and I left them there. The major asked me to have a drink with him and two other officers. We drank rum and it was very friendly. Outside it was getting dark. I asked what time the attack was to be and they said as soon as it was dark. I went back to the drivers. They were sitting in the dugout talking and when I came in they stopped. I gave them each a package of cigarettes, Macedonias, loosely packed cigarettes that spilled tobacco and needed to have the ends twisted before you smoked them. Manera lit his lighter and passed it around. The lighter was shaped like a Fiat radiator. I told them what I had heard.
“Why didn’t we see the post when we came down?” Passini asked.
“It was just beyond where we turned off.”
“That road will be a dirty mess,” Manera said.
“They’ll shell the —— out of us.”
“Probably.”
“What about eating, lieutenant? We won’t get a chance to eat after this thing starts.”
“I’ll go and see now,” I said.
“You want us to stay here or can we look around?”
“Better stay here.”
I went back to the major’s dugout and he said the field kitchen would be along and the drivers could come and get their stew. He would loan them mess tins if they did not have them. I said I thought they had them. I went back and told the drivers I would get them as soon as the food came. Manera said he hoped it would come before the bombardment started. They were silent until I went out. They were all mechanics and hated the war.
I went out to look at the cars and see what was going on and then came back and sat down in the dugout with the four drivers. We sat on the ground with our backs against the wall and smoked. Outside it was nearly dark. The earth of the dugout was warm and dry and I let my shoulders back against the wall, sitting on the small of my back, and relaxed.
“Who goes to the attack?” asked Gavuzzi.
“Bersaglieri.”
“All bersaglieri?”
“I think so.”
“There aren’t enough troops here for a real attack.”
“It is probably to draw attention from where the real attack will be.”
“Do the men know that who attack?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Of course they don’t,” Manera said. “They wouldn’t attack if they did.”
“Yes they would,” Passini said. “Bersaglieri are fools.”
“They are brave and have good discipline,” I said.
“They are big through the chest by measurement, and healthy. But they are still fools.”
“The granatieri are tall,” Manera said. This was a joke. They all laughed.
“Were you there, Tenente, when they wouldn’t attack and they shot every tenth man?”
“No.”
“It is true. They lined them up afterward and took every tenth man. Carabinieri shot them.”
“Carabinieri,” said Passini and spat on the floor. “But those grenadiers; all over six feet. They wouldn’t attack.”
“If everybody would not attack the war would be over,” Manera said.
“It wasn’t that way with the granatieri. They were afraid. The officers all came from such good families.”
“Some of the officers went alone.”
“A sergeant shot two officers who would not get out.”
“Some troops went out.”
“Those that went out were not lined up when they took the tenth men.”
“One of those shot by the carabinieri is from my town,” Passini said. “He was a big smart tall boy to be in the granatieri. Always in Rome. Always with the girls. Always with the carabinieri.” He laughed. “Now they have a guard outside his house with a bayonet and nobody can come to see his mother and father and sisters and his father loses his civil rights and cannot even vote. They are all without law to protect them. Anybody can take their property.”
“If it wasn’t that that happens to their families nobody would go to the attack.”
“Yes. Alpini would. These V. E. soldiers would. Some bersaglieri.”
“Bersaglieri have run too. Now they try to forget it.”
“You should not let us talk this way, Tenente. Evviva l’esercito,” Passini said sarcastically.
“I know how you talk,” I said. “But as long as you drive the cars and behave——”
“—and don’t talk so other officers can hear,” Manera finished.
“I believe we should get the war over,” I said. “It would not finish it if one side stopped fighting. It would only be worse if we stopped fighting.”
“It could not be worse,” Passini said respectfully. “There is nothing worse than war.”
“Defeat is worse.”
“I do not believe it,” Passini said still respectfully. “What is defeat? You go home.”
“They come after you. They take your home. They take your sisters.”
“I don’t believe it,” Passini said. “They can’t do that to everybody. Let everybody defend his home. Let them keep their sisters in the house.”
“They hang you. They come and make you be a soldier again. Not in the auto-ambulance, in the infantry.”
“They can’t hang every one.”
“An outside nation can’t make you be a soldier,” Manera said. “At the first battle you all run.”
“Like the Tchecos.”
“I think you do not know anything about being conquered and so you think it is not bad.”
“Tenente,” Passini said. “We understand you let us talk. Listen. There is nothing as bad as war. We in the auto-ambulance cannot even realize at all how bad it is. When people realize how bad it is they cannot do anything to stop it because they go crazy. There are some people who never realize. There are people who are afraid of their officers. It is with them that war is made.”
“I know it is bad but we must finish it.”
“It doesn’t finish. There is no finish to a war.”
“Yes there is.”
Passini shook his head.
“War is not won by victory. What if we take San Gabriele? What if we take the Carso and Monfalcone and Trieste? Where are we then? Did you see all the far mountains to-day? Do you think we could take all them too? Only if the Austrians stop fighting. One side must stop fighting. Why don’t we stop fighting? If they come down into Italy they will get tired and go away. They have their own country. But no, instead there is a war.”
“You’re an orator.”
“We think. We read. We are not peasants. We are mechanics. But even the peasants know better than to believe in a war. Everybody hates this war.”
“There is a class that controls a country that is stupid and does not realize anything and never can. That is why we have this war.”
“Also they make money out of it.”
“Most of them don’t,” said Passini. “They are too stupid. They do it for nothing. For stupidity.”
“We must shut up,” said Manera. “We talk too much even for the Tenente.”
“He likes it,” said Passini. “We will convert him.”
“But now we will shut up,” Manera said.
“Do we eat yet, Tenente?” Gavuzzi asked.
“I will go and see,” I said. Gordini stood up and went outside with me.
“Is there anything I can do, Tenente? Can I help in any way?” He was the quietest one of the four. “Come with me if you want,” I said, “and we’ll see.”
It was dark outside and the long light from the search-lights was moving over the mountains. There were big search-lights on that front mounted on camions that you passed sometimes on the roads at night, close behind the lines, the camion stopped a little off the road, an officer directing the light and the crew scared. We crossed the brickyard, and stopped at the main dressing station. There was a little shelter of green branches outside over the entrance and in the dark the night wind rustled the leaves dried by the sun. Inside there was a light. The major was at the telephone sitting on a box. One of the medical captains said the attack had been put forward an hour. He offered me a glass of cognac. I looked at the board tables, the instruments shining in the light, the basins and the stoppered bottles. Gordini stood behind me. The major got up from the telephone.
“It starts now,” he said. “It has been put back again.”
I looked outside, it was dark and the Austrian search-lights were moving on the mountains behind us. It was quiet for a moment still, then from all the guns behind us the bombardment started.
“Savoia,” said the major.
“About the soup, major,” I said. He did not hear me. I repeated it.
“It hasn’t come up.”
A big shell came in and burst outside in the brickyard. Another burst and in the noise you could hear the smaller noise of the brick and dirt raining down.
“What is there to eat?”
“We have a little pasta asciutta,” the major said.
“I’ll take what you can give me.”
The major spoke to an orderly who went out of sight in the back and came back with a metal basin of cold cooked macaroni. I handed it to Gordini.
“Have you any cheese?”
The major spoke grudgingly to the orderly who ducked back into the hole again and came out with a quarter of a white cheese.
“Thank you very much,” I said.
“You’d better not go out.”
Outside something was set down beside the entrance. One of the two men who had carried it looked in.
“Bring him in,” said the major. “What’s the matter with you? Do you want us to come outside and get him?”
The two stretcher-bearers picked up the man under the arms and by the legs and brought him in.
“Slit the tunic,” the major said.
He held a forceps with some gauze in the end. The two captains took off their coats. “Get out of here,” the major said to the two stretcher-bearers.
“Come on,” I said to Gordini.
“You better wait until the shelling is over,” the major said over his shoulder.
“They want to eat,” I said.
“As you wish.”
Outside we ran across the brickyard. A shell burst short near the river bank. Then there was one that we did not hear coming until the sudden rush. We both went flat and with the flash and bump of the burst and the smell heard the singing off of the fragments and the rattle of falling brick. Gordini got up and ran for the dugout. I was after him, holding the cheese, its smooth surface covered with brick dust. Inside the dugout were the three drivers sitting against the wall, smoking.
“Here, you patriots,” I said.
“How are the cars?” Manera asked.
“All right.”
“Did they scare you, Tenente?”
“You’re damned right,” I said.
I took out my knife, opened it, wiped off the blade and pared off the dirty outside surface of the cheese. Gavuzzi handed me the basin of macaroni.
“Start in to eat, Tenente.”
“No,” I said. “Put it on the floor. We’ll all eat.”
“There are no forks.”
“What the hell,” I said in English.
I cut the cheese into pieces and laid them on the macaroni.
“Sit down to it,” I said. They sat down and waited. I put thumb and fingers into the macaroni and lifted. A mass loosened.
“Lift it high, Tenente.”
I lifted it to arm’s length and the strands cleared. I lowered it into the mouth, sucked and snapped in the ends, and chewed, then took a bite of cheese, chewed, and then a drink of the wine. It tasted of rusty metal. I handed the canteen back to Passini.
“It’s rotten,” he said. “It’s been in there too long. I had it in the car.”
They were all eating, holding their chins close over the basin, tipping their heads back, sucking in the ends. I took another mouthful and some cheese and a rinse of wine. Something landed outside that shook the earth.
“Four hundred twenty or minnenwerfer,” Gavuzzi said.
“There aren’t any four hundred twenties in the mountains,” I said.
“They have big Skoda guns. I’ve seen the holes.”
“Three hundred fives.”
We went on eating. There was a cough, a noise like a railway engine starting and then an explosion that shook the earth again.
“This isn’t a deep dugout,” Passini said.
“That was a big trench-mortar.”
“Yes, sir.”
I ate the end of my piece of cheese and took a swallow of wine. Through the other noise I heard a cough, then came the chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh—then there was a flash, as when a blast-furnace door is swung open, and a roar that started white and went red and on and on in a rushing wind. I tried to breathe but my breath would not come and I felt myself rush bodily out of myself and out and out and out and all the time bodily in the wind. I went out swiftly, all of myself, and I knew I was dead and that it had all been a mistake to think you just died. Then I floated, and instead of going on I felt myself slide back. I breathed and I was back. The ground was torn up and in front of my head there was a splintered beam of wood. In the jolt of my head I heard somebody crying. I thought somebody was screaming. I tried to move but I could not move. I heard the machine-guns and rifles firing across the river and all along the river. There was a great splashing and I saw the star-shells go up and burst and float whitely and rockets going up and heard the bombs, all this in a moment, and then I heard close to me some one saying “Mama Mia! Oh, mama Mia!” I pulled and twisted and got my legs loose finally and turned around and touched him. It was Passini and when I touched him he screamed. His legs were toward me and I saw in the dark and the light that they were both smashed above the knee. One leg was gone and the other was held by tendons and part of the trouser and the stump twitched and jerked as though it were not connected. He bit his arm and moaned, “Oh mama mia, mama Mia,” then, “Dio te salve, Maria. Dio te salve, Maria. Oh Jesus shoot me Christ shoot me mama mia mama Mia oh purest lovely Mary shoot me. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Oh Jesus lovely Mary stop it. Oh oh oh oh,” then choking, “Mama mama mia.” Then he was quiet, biting his arm, the stump of his leg twitching.
“Porta feriti!” I shouted holding my hands cupped. “Porta Feriti!” I tried to get closer to Passini to try to put a tourniquet on the legs but I could not move. I tried again and my legs moved a little. I could pull backward along with my arms and elbows. Passini was quiet now. I sat beside him, undid my tunic and tried to rip the tail of my shirt. It would not rip and I bit the edge of the cloth to start it. Then I thought of his puttees. I had on wool stockings but Passini wore puttees. All the drivers wore puttees but Passini had only one leg. I unwound the puttee and while I was doing it I saw there was no need to try and make a tourniquet because he was dead already. I made sure he was dead. There were three others to locate. I sat up straight and as I did so something inside my head moved like the weights on a doll’s eyes and it hit me inside in back of my eyeballs. My legs felt warm and wet and my shoes were wet and warm inside. I knew that I was hit and leaned over and put my hand on my knee. My knee wasn’t there. My hand went in and my knee was down on my shin. I wiped my hand on my shirt and another floating light came very slowly down and I looked at my leg and was very afraid. Oh, God, I said, get me out of here. I knew, however, that there had been three others. There were four drivers. Passini was dead. That left three. Some one took hold of me under the arms and somebody else lifted my legs.
“There are three others,” I said. “One is dead.”
“It’s Manera. We went for a stretcher but there wasn’t any. How are you, Tenente?”
“Where is Gordini and Gavuzzi?”
“Gordini’s at the post getting bandaged. Gavuzzi has your legs. Hold on to my neck, Tenente. Are you badly hit?”
“In the leg. How is Gordini?”
“He’s all right. It was a big trench-mortar shell.”
“Passini’s dead.”
“Yes. He’s dead.”
A shell fell close and they both dropped to the ground and dropped me. “I’m sorry, Tenente,” said Manera. “Hang onto my neck.”
“If you drop me again.”
“It was because we were scared.”
“Are you unwounded?”
“We are both wounded a little.”
“Can Gordini drive?”
“I don’t think so.”
They dropped me once more before we reached the post.
“You sons of bitches,” I said.
“I am sorry, Tenente,” Manera said. “We won’t drop you again.”
Outside the post a great many of us lay on the ground in the dark. They carried wounded in and brought them out. I could see the light come out from the dressing station when the curtain opened and they brought some one in or out. The dead were off to one side. The doctors were working with their sleeves up to their shoulders and were red as butchers. There were not enough stretchers. Some of the wounded were noisy but most were quiet. The wind blew the leaves in the bower over the door of the dressing station and the night was getting cold. Stretcher-bearers came in all the time, put their stretchers down, unloaded them and went away. As soon as I got to the dressing station Manera brought a medical sergeant out and he put bandages on both my legs. He said there was so much dirt blown into the wound that there had not been much hemorrhage. They would take me as soon as possible. He went back inside. Gordini could not drive, Manera said. His shoulder was smashed and his head was hurt. He had not felt bad but now the shoulder had stiffened. He was sitting up beside one of the brick walls. Manera and Gavuzzi each went off with a load of wounded. They could drive all right. The British had come with three ambulances and they had two men on each ambulance. One of their drivers came over to me, brought by Gordini who looked very white and sick. The Britisher leaned over.
“Are you hit badly?” he asked. He was a tall man and wore steel-rimmed spectacles.
“In the legs.”
“It’s not serious I hope. Will you have a cigarette?”
“Thanks.”
“They tell me you’ve lost two drivers.”
“Yes. One killed and the fellow that brought you.”
“What rotten luck. Would you like us to take the cars?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you.”
“We’d take quite good care of them and return them to the Villa. 206 aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a charming place. I’ve seen you about. They tell me you’re an American.”
“Yes.”
“I’m English.”
“No!”
“Yes, English. Did you think I was Italian? There were some Italians with one of our units.”
“It would be fine if you would take the cars,” I said.
“We’ll be most careful of them,” he straightened up. “This chap of yours was very anxious for me to see you.” He patted Gordini on the shoulder. Gordini winced and smiled. The Englishman broke into voluble and perfect Italian. “Now everything is arranged. I’ve seen your Tenente. We will take over the two cars. You won’t worry now.” He broke off, “I must do something about getting you out of here. I’ll see the medical wallahs. We’ll take you back with us.”
He walked across to the dressing station, stepping carefully among the wounded. I saw the blanket open, the light came out and he went in.
“He will look after you, Tenente,” Gordini said.
“How are you, Franco?”
“I am all right.” He sat down beside me. In a moment the blanket in front of the dressing station opened and two stretcher-bearers came out followed by the tall Englishman. He brought them over to me.
“Here is the American Tenente,” he said in Italian.
“I’d rather wait,” I said. “There are much worse wounded than me. I’m all right.”
“Come come,” he said. “Don’t be a bloody hero.” Then in Italian: “Lift him very carefully about the legs. His legs are very painful. He is the legitimate son of President Wilson.” They picked me up and took me into the dressing room. Inside they were operating on all the tables. The little major looked at us furious. He recognized me and waved a forceps.
“Ça va bien?”
“Ça va.”
“I have brought him in,” the tall Englishman said in Italian. “The only son of the American Ambassador. He can be here until you are ready to take him. Then I will take him with my first load.” He bent over me. “I’ll look up their adjutant to do your papers and it will all go much faster.” He stooped to go under the doorway and went out. The major was unhooking the forceps now, dropping them in a basin. I followed his hands with my eyes. Now he was bandaging. Then the stretcher-bearers took the man off the table.
“I’ll take the American Tenente,” one of the captains said. They lifted me onto the table. It was hard and slippery. There were many strong smells, chemical smells and the sweet smell of blood. They took off my trousers and the medical captain commenced dictating to the sergeant-adjutant while he worked, “Multiple superficial wounds of the left and right thigh and left and right knee and right foot. Profound wounds of right knee and foot. Lacerations of the scalp (he probed—Does that hurt?—Christ, yes!) with possible fracture of the skull. Incurred in the line of duty. That’s what keeps you from being court-martialled for self-inflicted wounds,” he said. “Would you like a drink of brandy? How did you run into this thing anyway? What were you trying to do? Commit suicide? Anti-tetanus please, and mark a cross on both legs. Thank you. I’ll clean this up a little, wash it out, and put on a dressing. Your blood coagulates beautifully.”
The adjutant, looking up from the paper, “What inflicted the wounds?”
The medical captain, “What hit you?”
Me, with the eyes shut, “A trench mortar shell.”
The captain, doing things that hurt sharply and severing tissue—“Are you sure?”
Me—trying to lie still and feeling my stomach flutter when the flesh was cut, “I think so.”
Captain doctor—(interested in something he was finding), “Fragments of enemy trench-mortar shell. Now I’ll probe for some of this if you like but it’s not necessary. I’ll paint all this and—Does that sting? Good, that’s nothing to how it will feel later. The pain hasn’t started yet. Bring him a glass of brandy. The shock dulls the pain; but this is all right, you have nothing to worry about if it doesn’t infect and it rarely does now. How is your head?”
“Good Christ!” I said.
“Better not drink too much brandy then. If you’ve got a fracture you don’t want inflammation. How does that feel?”
Sweat ran all over me.
“Good Christ!” I said.
“I guess you’ve got a fracture all right. I’ll wrap you up and don’t bounce your head around.” He bandaged, his hands moving very fast and the bandage coming taut and sure. “All right, good luck and Vive la France.”
“He’s an American,” one of the other captains said.
“I thought you said he was a Frenchman. He talks French,” the captain said. “I’ve known him before. I always thought he was French.” He drank a half tumbler of cognac. “Bring on something serious. Get some more of that Anti-tetanus.” The captain waved to me. They lifted me and the blanket-flap went across my face as we went out. Outside the sergeant-adjutant knelt down beside me where I lay, “Name?” he asked softly. “Middle name? First name? Rank? Where born? What class? What corps?” and so on. “I’m sorry for your head, Tenente. I hope you feel better. I’m sending you now with the English ambulance.”
“I’m all right,” I said. “Thank you very much.” The pain that the major had spoken about had started and all that was happening was without interest or relation. After a while the English ambulance came up and they put me onto a stretcher and lifted the stretcher up to the ambulance level and shoved it in. There was another stretcher by the side with a man on it whose nose I could see, waxy-looking, out of the bandages. He breathed very heavily. There were stretchers lifted and slid into the slings above. The tall English driver came around and looked in, “I’ll take it very easily,” he said. “I hope you’ll be comfy.” I felt the engine start, felt him climb up into the front seat, felt the brake come off and the clutch go in, then we started. I lay still and let the pain ride.
As the ambulance climbed along the road, it was slow in the traffic, sometimes it stopped, sometimes it backed on a turn, then finally it climbed quite fast. I felt something dripping. At first it dropped slowly and regularly, then it pattered into a stream. I shouted to the driver. He stopped the car and looked in through the hole behind his seat.
“What is it?”
“The man on the stretcher over me has a hemorrhage.”
“We’re not far from the top. I wouldn’t be able to get the stretcher out alone.” He started the car. The stream kept on. In the dark I could not see where it came from the canvas overhead. I tried to move sideways so that it did not fall on me. Where it had run down under my shirt it was warm and sticky. I was cold and my leg hurt so that it made me sick. After a while the stream from the stretcher above lessened and started to drip again and I heard and felt the canvas above move as the man on the stretcher settled more comfortably.
“How is he?” the Englishman called back. “We’re almost up.”
“He’s dead I think,” I said.
The drops fell very slowly, as they fall from an icicle after the sun has gone. It was cold in the car in the night as the road climbed. At the post on the top they took the stretcher out and put another in and we went on.
In the ward at the field hospital they told me a visitor was coming to see me in the afternoon. It was a hot day and there were many flies in the room. My orderly had cut paper into strips and tied the strips to a stick to make a brush that swished the flies away. I watched them settle on the ceiling. When he stopped swishing and fell asleep they came down and I blew them away and finally covered my face with my hands and slept too. It was very hot and when I woke my legs itched. I waked the orderly and he poured mineral water on the dressings. That made the bed damp and cool. Those of us that were awake talked across the ward. The afternoon was a quiet time. In the morning they came to each bed in turn, three men nurses and a doctor and picked you up out of bed and carried you into the dressing room so that the beds could be made while we were having our wounds dressed. It was not a pleasant trip to the dressing room and I did not know until later that beds could be made with men in them. My orderly had finished pouring water and the bed felt cool and lovely and I was telling him where to scratch on the soles of my feet against the itching when one of the doctors brought in Rinaldi. He came in very fast and bent down over the bed and kissed me. I saw he wore gloves.
“How are you, baby? How do you feel? I bring you this—” It was a bottle of cognac. The orderly brought a chair and he sat down, “and good news. You will be decorated. They want to get you the medaglia d’argento but perhaps they can get only the bronze.”
“What for?”
“Because you are gravely wounded. They say if you can prove you did any heroic act you can get the silver. Otherwise it will be the bronze. Tell me exactly what happened. Did you do any heroic act?”
“No,” I said. “I was blown up while we were eating cheese.”
“Be serious. You must have done something heroic either before or after. Remember carefully.”
“I did not.”
“Didn’t you carry anybody on your back? Gordini says you carried several people on your back but the medical major at the first post declares it is impossible. He has to sign the proposition for the citation.”
“I didn’t carry anybody. I couldn’t move.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Rinaldi.
He took off his gloves.
“I think we can get you the silver. Didn’t you refuse to be medically aided before the others?”
“Not very firmly.”
“That doesn’t matter. Look how you are wounded. Look at your valorous conduct in asking to go always to the first line. Besides, the operation was successful.”
“Did they cross the river all right?”
“Enormously. They take nearly a thousand prisoners. It’s in the bulletin. Didn’t you see it?”
“No.”
“I’ll bring it to you. It is a successful coup de main.”
“How is everything?”
“Splendid. We are all splendid. Everybody is proud of you. Tell me just exactly how it happened. I am positive you will get the silver. Go on tell me. Tell me all about it.” He paused and thought. “Maybe you will get an English medal too. There was an English there. I’ll go and see him and ask if he will recommend you. He ought to be able to do something. Do you suffer much? Have a drink. Orderly, go get a corkscrew. Oh you should see what I did in the removal of three metres of small intestine and better now than ever. It is one forThe Lancet. You do me a translation and I will send it toThe Lancet. Every day I am better. Poor dear baby, how do you feel? Where is that damn corkscrew? You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.” He slapped his gloves on the edge of the bed.
“Here is the corkscrew, Signor Tenente,” the orderly said.
“Open the bottle. Bring a glass. Drink that, baby. How is your poor head? I looked at your papers. You haven’t any fracture. That major at the first post was a hog-butcher. I would take you and never hurt you. I never hurt anybody. I learn how to do it. Every day I learn to do things smoother and better. You must forgive me for talking so much, baby. I am very moved to see you badly wounded. There, drink that. It’s good. It cost fifteen lire. It ought to be good. Five stars. After I leave here I’ll go see that English and he’ll get you an English medal.”
“They don’t give them like that.”
“You are so modest. I will send the liaison officer. He can handle the English.”
“Have you seen Miss Barkley?”
“I will bring her here. I will go now and bring her here.”
“Don’t go,” I said. “Tell me about Gorizia. How are the girls?”
“There are no girls. For two weeks now they haven’t changed them. I don’t go there any more. It is disgraceful. They aren’t girls; they are old war comrades.”
“You don’t go at all?”
“I just go to see if there is anything new. I stop by. They all ask for you. It is a disgrace that they should stay so long that they become friends.”
“Maybe girls don’t want to go to the front any more.”
“Of course they do. They have plenty of girls. It is just bad administration. They are keeping them for the pleasure of dugout hiders in the rear.”
“Poor Rinaldi,” I said. “All alone at the war with no new girls.”
Rinaldi poured himself another glass of the cognac.
“I don’t think it will hurt you, baby. You take it.”
I drank the cognac and felt it warm all the way down. Rinaldi poured another glass. He was quieter now. He held up the glass. “To your valorous wounds. To the silver medal. Tell me, baby, when you lie here all the time in the hot weather don’t you get excited?”
“Sometimes.”
“I can’t imagine lying like that. I would go crazy.”
“You are crazy.”
“I wish you were back. No one to come in at night from adventures. No one to make fun of. No one to lend me money. No blood brother and roommate. Why do you get yourself wounded?”
“You can make fun of the priest.”
“That priest. It isn’t me that makes fun of him. It is the captain. I like him. If you must have a priest have that priest. He’s coming to see you. He makes big preparations.”
“I like him.”
“Oh, I knew it. Sometimes I think you and he are a little that way. You know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do sometimes. A little that way like the number of the first regiment of the Brigata Ancona.”
“Oh, go to hell.”
He stood up and put on his gloves.
“Oh I love to tease you, baby. With your priest and your English girl, and really you are just like me underneath.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, we are. You are really an Italian. All fire and smoke and nothing inside. You only pretend to be American. We are brothers and we love each other.”
“Be good while I’m gone,” I said.
“I will send Miss Barkley. You are better with her without me. You are purer and sweeter.”
“Oh, go to hell.”
“I will send her. Your lovely cool goddess. English goddess. My God what would a man do with a woman like that except worship her? What else is an Englishwoman good for?”
“You are an ignorant foul-mouthed dago.”
“A what?”
“An ignorant wop.”
“Wop. You are a frozen-faced ... wop.”
“You are ignorant. Stupid.” I saw that word pricked him and kept on. “Uninformed. Inexperienced, stupid from inexperience.”
“Truly? I tell you something about your good women. Your goddesses. There is only one difference between taking a girl who has always been good and a woman. With a girl it is painful. That’s all I know.” He slapped the bed with his glove. “And you never know if the girl will really like it.”
“Don’t get angry.”
“I’m not angry. I just tell you, baby, for your own good. To save you trouble.”
“That’s the only difference?”
“Yes. But millions of fools like you don’t know it.”
“You were sweet to tell me.”
“We won’t quarrel, baby. I love you too much. But don’t be a fool.”
“No. I’ll be wise like you.”
“Don’t be angry, baby. Laugh. Take a drink. I must go, really.”
“You’re a good old boy.”
“Now you see. Underneath we are the same. We are war brothers. Kiss me good-by.”
“You’re sloppy.”
“No. I am just more affectionate.”
I felt his breath come toward me. “Good-by. I come to see you again soon.” His breath went away. “I won’t kiss you if you don’t want. I’ll send your English girl. Good-by, baby. The cognac is under the bed. Get well soon.”
He was gone.
It was dusk when the priest came. They had brought the soup and afterward taken away the bowls and I was lying looking at the rows of beds and out the window at the tree-top that moved a little in the evening breeze. The breeze came in through the window and it was cooler with the evening. The flies were on the ceiling now and on the electric light bulbs that hung on wires. The lights were only turned on when some one was brought in at night or when something was being done. It made me feel very young to have the dark come after the dusk and then remain. It was like being put to bed after early supper. The orderly came down between the beds and stopped. Some one was with him. It was the priest. He stood there small, brown-faced, and embarrassed.
“How do you do?” he asked. He put some packages down by the bed, on the floor.
“All right, father.”
He sat down in the chair that had been brought for Rinaldi and looked out of the window embarrassedly. I noticed his face looked very tired.
“I can only stay a minute,” he said. “It is late.”
“It’s not late. How is the mess?”
He smiled. “I am still a great joke,” he sounded tired too. “Thank God they are all well.”
“I am so glad you are all right,” he said. “I hope you don’t suffer.” He seemed very tired and I was not used to seeing him tired.
“Not any more.”
“I miss you at the mess.”
“I wish I were there. I always enjoyed our talking.”
“I brought you a few little things,” he said. He picked up the packages. “This is mosquito netting. This is a bottle of vermouth. You like vermouth? These are English papers.”
“Please open them.”
He was pleased and undid them. I held the mosquito netting in my hands. The vermouth he held up for me to see and then put it on the floor beside the bed. I held up one of the sheaf of English papers. I could read the headlines by turning it so the half-light from the window was on it. It was theNews of the World.
“The others are illustrated,” he said.
“It will be a great happiness to read them. Where did you get them?”
“I sent for them to Mestre. I will have more.”
“You were very good to come, father. Will you drink a glass of vermouth?”
“Thank you. You keep it. It’s for you.”
“No, drink a glass.”
“All right. I will bring you more then.”
The orderly brought the glasses and opened the bottle. He broke off the cork and the end had to be shoved down into the bottle. I could see the priest was disappointed but he said, “That’s all right. It’s no matter.”
“Here’s to your health, father.”
“To your better health.”
Afterward he held the glass in his hand and we looked at one another. Sometimes we talked and were good friends but to-night it was difficult.
“What’s the matter, father? You seem very tired.”
“I am tired but I have no right to be.”
“It’s the heat.”
“No. This is only the Spring. I feel very low.”
“You have the war disgust.”
“No. But I hate the war.”
“I don’t enjoy it,” I said. He shook his head and looked out of the window.
“You do not mind it. You do not see it. You must forgive me. I know you are wounded.”
“That is an accident.”
“Still even wounded you do not see it. I can tell. I do not see it myself but I feel it a little.”
“When I was wounded we were talking about it. Passini was talking.”
The priest put down the glass. He was thinking about something else.
“I know them because I am like they are,” he said.
“You are different though.”
“But really I am like they are.”
“The officers don’t see anything.”
“Some of them do. Some are very delicate and feel worse than any of us.”
“They are mostly different.”
“It is not education or money. It is something else. Even if they had education or money men like Passini would not wish to be officers. I would not be an officer.”
“You rank as an officer. I am an officer.”
“I am not really. You are not even an Italian. You are a foreigner. But you are nearer the officers than you are to the men.”
“What is the difference?”
“I cannot say it easily. There are people who would make war. In this country there are many like that. There are other people who would not make war.”
“But the first ones make them do it.”
“Yes.”
“And I help them.”
“You are a foreigner. You are a patriot.”
“And the ones who would not make war? Can they stop it?”
“I do not know.”
He looked out of the window again. I watched his face.
“Have they ever been able to stop it?”
“They are not organized to stop things and when they get organized their leaders sell them out.”
“Then it’s hopeless?”
“It is never hopeless. But sometimes I cannot hope. I try always to hope but sometimes I cannot.”
“Maybe the war will be over.”
“I hope so.”
“What will you do then?”
“If it is possible I will return to the Abruzzi.”
His brown face was suddenly very happy.
“You love the Abruzzi!”
“Yes, I love it very much.”
“You ought to go there then.”
“I would be too happy. If I could live there and love God and serve Him.”
“And be respected,” I said.
“Yes and be respected. Why not?”
“No reason not. You should be respected.”
“It does not matter. But there in my country it is understood that a man may love God. It is not a dirty joke.”
“I understand.”
He looked at me and smiled.
“You understand but you do not love God.”
“No.”
“You do not love Him at all?” he asked.
“I am afraid of him in the night sometimes.”
“You should love Him.”
“I don’t love much.”
“Yes,” he said. “You do. What you tell me about in the nights. That is not love. That is only passion and lust. When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”
“I don’t love.”
“You will. I know you will. Then you will be happy.”
“I’m happy. I’ve always been happy.”
“It is another thing. You cannot know about it unless you have it.”
“Well,” I said. “If I ever get it I will tell you.”
“I stay too long and talk too much.” He was worried that he really did.
“No. Don’t go. How about loving women? If I really loved some woman would it be like that?”
“I don’t know about that. I never loved any woman.”
“What about your mother?”
“Yes, I must have loved my mother.”
“Did you always love God?”
“Ever since I was a little boy.”
“Well,” I said. I did not know what to say. “You are a fine boy,” I said.
“I am a boy,” he said. “But you call me father.”
“That’s politeness.”
He smiled.
“I must go, really,” he said. “You do not want me for anything?” he asked hopefully.
“No. Just to talk.”
“I will take your greetings to the mess.”
“Thank you for the many fine presents.”
“Nothing.”
“Come and see me again.”
“Yes. Good-by,” he patted my hand.
“So long,” I said in dialect.
“Ciaou,” he repeated.
It was dark in the room and the orderly, who had sat by the foot of the bed, got up and went out with him. I liked him very much and I hoped he would get back to the Abruzzi some time. He had a rotten life in the mess and he was fine about it but I thought how he would be in his own country. At Capracotta, he had told me, there were trout in the stream below the town. It was forbidden to play the flute at night. When the young men serenaded only the flute was forbidden. Why, I had asked. Because it was bad for the girls to hear the flute at night. The peasants all called you “Don” and when you met them they took off their hats. His father hunted every day and stopped to eat at the houses of peasants. They were always honored. For a foreigner to hunt he must present a certificate that he had never been arrested. There were bears on the Gran Sasso D’Italia but it was a long way. Aquila was a fine town. It was cool in the summer at night and the spring in Abruzzi was the most beautiful in Italy. But what was lovely was the fall to go hunting through the chestnut woods. The birds were all good because they fed on grapes and you never took a lunch because the peasants were always honored if you would eat with them at their houses. After a while I went to sleep.