A farewell to arms
ducks tied to carts. There was a sewing-machine on the cart ahead of us
in the rain. They had saved the most valuable things. On some carts the
women sat huddled from the rain and others walked beside the carts
keeping as close to them as they could. There were dogs now in the
column, keeping under the wagons as they moved along. The road was
muddy, the ditches at the side were high with water and beyond the trees
that lined the road the fields looked too wet and too soggy to try to
cross. I got down from the car and worked up the road a way, looking for
a place where I could see ahead to find a side-road we could take across
country. I knew there were many side-roads but did not want one that
would lead to nothing. I could not remember them because we had always
passed them bowling along in the car on the main road and they all
looked much alike. Now I knew we must find one if we hoped to get
through. No one knew where the Austrians were nor how things were going
but I was certain that if the rain should stop and planes come over and
get to work on that column that it would be all over. All that was
needed was for a few men to leave their trucks or a few horses be killed
to tie up completely the movement on the road.
The rain was not falling so heavily now and I thought it might clear. I
went ahead along the edge of the road and when there was a small road
that led off to the north between two fields with a hedge of trees on
both sides, I thought that we had better take it and hurried back to the
cars. I told Piani to turn off and went back to tell Bonello and Aymo.
“If it leads nowhere we can turn around and cut back in,” I said.
“What about these?” Bonello asked. His two sergeants were beside him on
the seat. They were unshaven but still military looking in the early
morning.
“They’ll be good to push,” I said. I went back to Aymo and told him we
were going to try it across country.
“What about my virgin family?” Aymo asked. The two girls were asleep.
“They won’t be very useful,” I said. “You ought to have some one that
could push.”
“They could go back in the car,” Aymo said. “There’s room in the car.”
“All right if you want them,” I said. “Pick up somebody with a wide back
to push.”
“Bersaglieri,” Aymo smiled. “They have the widest backs. They measure
them. How do you feel, Tenente?”
“Fine. How are you?”
“Fine. But very hungry.”
“There ought to be something up that road and we will stop and eat.”
“How’s your leg, Tenente?”
“Fine,” I said. Standing on the step and looking up ahead I could see
Piani’s car pulling out onto the little side-road and starting up it,
his car showing through the hedge of bare branches. Bonello turned off
and followed him and then Piani worked his way out and we followed the
two ambulances ahead along the narrow road between hedges. It led to a
farmhouse. We found Piani and Bonello stopped in the farmyard. The house
was low and long with a trellis with a grape-vine over the door. There
was a well in the yard and Piani was getting up water to fill his
radiator. So much going in low gear had boiled it out. The farmhouse was
deserted. I looked back down the road, the farmhouse was on a slight
elevation above the plain, and we could see over the country, and saw
the road, the hedges, the fields and the line of trees along the main
road where the retreat was passing. The two sergeants were looking
through the house. The girls were awake and looking at the courtyard,
the well and the two big ambulances in front of the farmhouse, with
three drivers at the well. One of the sergeants came out with a clock in
his hand.
“Put it back,” I said. He looked at me, went in the house and came back
without the clock.
“Where’s your partner?” I asked.
“He’s gone to the latrine.” He got up on the seat of the ambulance. He
was afraid we would leave him.
“What about breakfast, Tenente?” Bonello asked. “We could eat something.
It wouldn’t take very long.”
“Do you think this road going down on the other side will lead to
anything?”
“Sure.”
“All right. Let’s eat.” Piani and Bonello went in the house.
“Come on,” Aymo said to the girls. He held his hand to help them down.
The older sister shook her head. They were not going into any deserted
house. They looked after us.
“They are difficult,” Aymo said. We went into the farmhouse together. It
was large and dark, an abandoned feeling. Bonello and Piani were in the
kitchen.
“There’s not much to eat,” Piani said. “They’ve cleaned it out.”
Bonello sliced a big white cheese on the heavy kitchen table.
“Where was the cheese?”
“In the cellar. Piani found wine too and apples.”
“That’s a good breakfast.”
Piani was taking the wooden cork out of a big wicker-covered wine jug.
He tipped it and poured a copper pan full.
“It smells all right,” he said. “Find some beakers, Barto.”
The two sergeants came in.
“Have some cheese, sergeants,” Bonello said.
“We should go,” one of the sergeants said, eating his cheese and
drinking a cup of wine.
“We’ll go. Don’t worry,” Bonello said.
“An army travels on its stomach,” I said.
“What?” asked the sergeant.
“It’s better to eat.”
“Yes. But time is precious.”
“I believe the bastards have eaten already,” Piani said. The sergeants
looked at him. They hated the lot of us.
“You know the road?” one of them asked me.
“No,” I said. They looked at each other.
“We would do best to start,” the first one said.
“We are starting,” I said. I drank another cup of the red wine. It
tasted very good after the cheese and apple.
“Bring the cheese,” I said and went out. Bonello came out carrying the
great jug of wine.
“That’s too big,” I said. He looked at it regretfully.
“I guess it is,” he said. “Give me the canteens to fill.” He filled the
canteens and some of the wine ran out on the stone paving of the
courtyard. Then he picked up the wine jug and put it just inside the
door.
“The Austrians can find it without breaking the door down,” he said.
“We’ll roll,” I said. “Piani and I will go ahead.” The two engineers
were already on the seat beside Bonello. The girls were eating cheese
and apples. Aymo was smoking. We started off down the narrow road. I
looked back at the two cars coming and the farmhouse. It was a fine,
low, solid stone house and the ironwork of the well was very good. Ahead
of us the road was narrow and muddy and there was a high hedge on either
side. Behind, the cars were following closely.
CHAPTER XXIX
At noon we were stuck in a muddy road about, as nearly as we could
figure, ten kilometres from Udine. The rain had stopped during the
forenoon and three times we had heard planes coming, seen them pass
overhead, watched them go far to the left and heard them bombing on the
main highroad. We had worked through a network of secondary roads and
had taken many roads that were blind, but had always, by backing up and
finding another road, gotten closer to Udine. Now, Aymo’s car, in
backing so that we might get out of a blind road, had gotten into the
soft earth at the side and the wheels, spinning, had dug deeper and
deeper until the car rested on its differential. The thing to do now was
to dig out in front of the wheels, put in brush so that the chains could
grip, and then push until the car was on the road. We were all down on
the road around the car. The two sergeants looked at the car and
examined the wheels. Then they started off down the road without a word.
I went after them.
“Come on,” I said. “Cut some brush.”
“We have to go,” one said.
“Get busy,” I said, “and cut brush.”
“We have to go,” one said. The other said nothing. They were in a hurry
to start. They would not look at me.
“I order you to come back to the car and cut brush,” I said. The one
sergeant turned. “We have to go on. In a little while you will be cut
off. You can’t order us. You’re not our officer.”
“I order you to cut brush,” I said. They turned and started down the
road.
“Halt,” I said. They kept on down the muddy road, the hedge on either
side. “I order you to halt,” I called. They went a little faster. I
opened up my holster, took the pistol, aimed at the one who had talked
the most, and fired. I missed and they both started to run. I shot three
times and dropped one. The other went through the hedge and was out of
sight. I fired at him through the hedge as he ran across the field. The
pistol clicked empty and I put in another clip. I saw it was too far to
shoot at the second sergeant. He was far across the field, running, his
head held low. I commenced to reload the empty clip. Bonello came up.
“Let me go finish him,” he said. I handed him the pistol and he walked
down to where the sergeant of engineers lay face down across the road.
Bonello leaned over, put the pistol against the man’s head and pulled
the trigger. The pistol did not fire.
“You have to cock it,” I said. He cocked it and fired twice. He took
hold of the sergeant’s legs and pulled him to the side of the road so he
lay beside the hedge. He came back and handed me the pistol.
“The son of a bitch,” he said. He looked toward the sergeant. “You see
me shoot him, Tenente?”
“We’ve got to get the brush quickly,” I said. “Did I hit the other one
at all?”
“I don’t think so,” Aymo said. “He was too far away to hit with a
pistol.”
“The dirty scum,” Piani said. We were all cutting twigs and branches.
Everything had been taken out of the car. Bonello was digging out in
front of the wheels. When we were ready Aymo started the car and put it
into gear. The wheels spun round throwing brush and mud. Bonello and I
pushed until we could feel our joints crack. The car would not move.
“Rock her back and forth, Barto,” I said.
He drove the engine in reverse, then forward. The wheels only dug in
deeper. Then the car was resting on the differential again, and the
wheels spun freely in the holes they had dug. I straightened up.
“We’ll try her with a rope,” I said.
“I don’t think it’s any use, Tenente. You can’t get a straight pull.”
“We have to try it,” I said. “She won’t come out any other way.”
Piani’s and Bonello’s cars could only move straight ahead down the
narrow road. We roped both cars together and pulled. The wheels only
pulled sideways against the ruts.
“It’s no good,” I shouted. “Stop it.”
Piani and Bonello got down from their cars and came back. Aymo got down.
The girls were up the road about forty yards sitting on a stone wall.
“What do you say, Tenente?” Bonello asked.
“We’ll dig out and try once more with the brush,” I said. I looked down
the road. It was my fault. I had led them up here. The sun was almost
out from behind the clouds and the body of the sergeant lay beside the
hedge.
“We’ll put his coat and cape under,” I said. Bonello went to get them. I
cut brush and Aymo and Piani dug out in front and between the wheels. I
cut the cape, then ripped it in two, and laid it under the wheel in the
mud, then piled brush for the wheels to catch. We were ready to start
and Aymo got up on the seat and started the car. The wheels spun and we
pushed and pushed. But it wasn’t any use.
“It’s ——ed,” I said. “Is there anything you want in the car, Barto?”
Aymo climbed up with Bonello, carrying the cheese and two bottles of
wine and his cape. Bonello, sitting behind the wheel, was looking
through the pockets of the sergeant’s coat.
“Better throw the coat away,” I said. “What about Barto’s virgins?”
“They can get in the back,” Piani said. “I don’t think we are going
far.”
I opened the back door of the ambulance.
“Come on,” I said. “Get in.” The two girls climbed in and sat in the
corner. They seemed to have taken no notice of the shooting. I looked