A farewell to arms
“Yes,” Piani said. “That’s why I think the war will go on.”
“The Germans could come on,” I said. “I wonder why they don’t come on.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this kind of war.”
“They have to wait for their transport I suppose.”
“I don’t know,” Piani said. Alone he was much gentler. When he was with
the others he was a very rough talker.
“Are you married, Luigi?”
“You know I am married.”
“Is that why you did not want to be a prisoner?”
“That is one reason. Are you married, Tenente?”
“No.”
“Neither is Bonello.”
“You can’t tell anything by a man’s being married. But I should think a
married man would want to get back to his wife,” I said. I would be glad
to talk about wives.
“Yes.”
“How are your feet?”
“They’re sore enough.”
Before daylight we reached the bank of the Tagliamento and followed down
along the flooded river to the bridge where all the traffic was
crossing.
“They ought to be able to hold at this river,” Piani said. In the dark
the flood looked high. The water swirled and it was wide. The wooden
bridge was nearly three-quarters of a mile across, and the river, that
usually ran in narrow channels in the wide stony bed far below the
bridge, was close under the wooden planking. We went along the bank and
then worked our way into the crowd that were crossing the bridge.
Crossing slowly in the rain a few feet above the flood, pressed tight in
the crowd, the box of an artillery caisson just ahead, I looked over the
side and watched the river. Now that we could not go our own pace I felt
very tired. There was no exhilaration in crossing the bridge. I wondered
what it would be like if a plane bombed it in the daytime.
“Piani,” I said.
“Here I am, Tenente.” He was a little ahead in the jam. No one was
talking. They were all trying to get across as soon as they could:
thinking only of that. We were almost across. At the far end of the
bridge there were officers and carabinieri standing on both sides
flashing lights. I saw them silhouetted against the sky-line. As we came
close to them I saw one of the officers point to a man in the column. A
carabiniere went in after him and came out holding the man by the arm.
He took him away from the road. We came almost opposite them. The
officers were scrutinizing every one in the column, sometimes speaking
to each other, going forward to flash a light in some one’s face. They
took some one else out just before we came opposite. I saw the man. He
was a lieutenant-colonel. I saw the stars in the box on his sleeve as
they flashed a light on him. His hair was gray and he was short and fat.
The carabiniere pulled him in behind the line of officers. As we came
opposite I saw one or two of them look at me. Then one pointed at me and
spoke to a carabiniere. I saw the carabiniere start for me, come through
the edge of the column toward me, then felt him take me by the collar.
“What’s the matter with you?” I said and hit him in the face. I saw his
face under the hat, upturned mustaches and blood coming down his cheek.
Another one dove in toward us.
“What’s the matter with you?” I said. He did not answer. He was watching
a chance to grab me. I put my arm behind me to loosen my pistol.
“Don’t you know you can’t touch an officer?”
The other one grabbed me from behind and pulled my arm up so that it
twisted in the socket. I turned with him and the other one grabbed me
around the neck. I kicked his shins and got my left knee into his groin.
“Shoot him if he resists,” I heard some one say.
“What’s the meaning of this?” I tried to shout but my voice was not very
loud. They had me at the side of the road now.
“Shoot him if he resists,” an officer said. “Take him over back.”
“Who are you?”
“You’ll find out.”
“Who are you?”
“Battle police,” another officer said.
“Why don’t you ask me to step over instead of having one of these
airplanes grab me?”
They did not answer. They did not have to answer. They were battle
police.
“Take him back there with the others,” the first officer said. “You see.
He speaks Italian with an accent.”
“So do you, you ——,” I said.
“Take him back with the others,” the first officer said. They took me
down behind the line of officers below the road toward a group of people
in a field by the river bank. As we walked toward them shots were fired.
I saw flashes of the rifles and heard the reports. We came up to the
group. There were four officers standing together, with a man in front
of them with a carabiniere on each side of him. A group of men were
standing guarded by carabinieri. Four other carabinieri stood near the
questioning officers, leaning on their carbines. They were wide-hatted
carabinieri. The two who had me shoved me in with the group waiting to
be questioned. I looked at the man the officers were questioning. He was
the fat gray-haired little lieutenant-colonel they had taken out of the
column. The questioners had all the efficiency, coldness and command of
themselves of Italians who are firing and are not being fired on.
“Your brigade?”
He told them.
“Regiment?”
He told them.
“Why are you not with your regiment?”
He told them.
“Do you not know that an officer should be with his troops?”
He did.
That was all. Another officer spoke.
“It is you and such as you that have let the barbarians onto the sacred
soil of the fatherland.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the lieutenant-colonel.
“It is because of treachery such as yours that we have lost the fruits
of victory.”
“Have you ever been in a retreat?” the lieutenant-colonel asked.
“Italy should never retreat.”
We stood there in the rain and listened to this. We were facing the
officers and the prisoner stood in front and a little to one side of us.
“If you are going to shoot me,” the lieutenant-colonel said, “please
shoot me at once without further questioning. The questioning is
stupid.” He made the sign of the cross. The officers spoke together. One
wrote something on a pad of paper.
“Abandoned his troops, ordered to be shot,” he said.
Two carabinieri took the lieutenant-colonel to the river bank. He walked
in the rain, an old man with his hat off, a carabiniere on either side.
I did not watch them shoot him but I heard the shots. They were
questioning some one else. This officer too was separated from his
troops. He was not allowed to make an explanation. He cried when they
read the sentence from the pad of paper, and they were questioning
another when they shot him. They made a point of being intent on
questioning the next man while the man who had been questioned before
was being shot. In this way there was obviously nothing they could do
about it. I did not know whether I should wait to be questioned or make
a break now. I was obviously a German in Italian uniform. I saw how
their minds worked; if they had minds and if they worked. They were all
young men and they were saving their country. The second army was being
re-formed beyond the Tagliamento. They were executing officers of the
rank of major and above who were separated from their troops. They were
also dealing summarily with German agitators in Italian uniform. They
wore steel helmets. Only two of us had steel helmets. Some of the
carabinieri had them. The other carabinieri wore the wide hat. Airplanes
we called them. We stood in the rain and were taken out one at a time to
be questioned and shot. So far they had shot every one they had
questioned. The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion
to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of
it. They were questioning a full colonel of a line regiment. Three more
officers had just been put in with us.
“Where was his regiment?”
I looked at the carabinieri. They were looking at the newcomers. The
others were looking at the colonel. I ducked down, pushed between two
men, and ran for the river, my head down. I tripped at the edge and went
in with a splash. The water was very cold and I stayed under as long as
I could. I could feel the current swirl me and I stayed under until I
thought I could never come up. The minute I came up I took a breath and
went down again. It was easy to stay under with so much clothing and my
boots. When I came up the second time I saw a piece of timber ahead of
me and reached it and held on with one hand. I kept my head behind it
and did not even look over it. I did not want to see the bank. There
were shots when I ran and shots when I came up the first time. I heard
them when I was almost above water. There were no shots now. The piece
of timber swung in the current and I held it with one hand. I looked at
the bank. It seemed to be going by very fast. There was much wood in the
stream. The water was very cold. We passed the brush of an island above
the water. I held onto the timber with both hands and let it take me
along. The shore was out of sight now.
CHAPTER XXXI
You do not know how long you are in a river when the current moves
swiftly. It seems a long time and it may be very short. The water was
cold and in flood and many things passed that had been floated off the
banks when the river rose. I was lucky to have a heavy timber to hold on
to, and I lay in the icy water with my chin on the wood, holding as
easily as I could with both hands. I was afraid of cramps and I hoped we
would move toward the shore. We went down the river in a long curve. It
was beginning to be light enough so I could see the bushes along the
shore-line. There was a brush island ahead and the current moved toward
the shore. I wondered if I should take off my boots and clothes and try
to swim ashore, but decided not to. I had never thought of anything but
that I would reach the shore some way, and I would be in a bad position
if I landed barefoot. I had to get to Mestre some way.
I watched the shore come close, then swing away, then come closer again.
We were floating more slowly. The shore was very close now. I could see
twigs on the willow bush. The timber swung slowly so that the bank was
behind me and I knew we were in an eddy. We went slowly around. As I saw
the bank again, very close now, I tried holding with one arm and kicking
and swimming the timber toward the bank with the other, but I did not
bring it any closer. I was afraid we would move out of the eddy and,
holding with one hand, I drew up my feet so they were against the side
of the timber and shoved hard toward the bank. I could see the brush,
but even with my momentum and swimming as hard as I could, the current
was taking me away. I thought then I would drown because of my boots,
but I thrashed and fought through the water, and when I looked up the
bank was coming toward me, and I kept thrashing and swimming in a
heavy-footed panic until I reached it. I hung to the willow branch and
did not have strength to pull myself up but I knew I would not drown
now. It had never occurred to me on the timber that I might drown. I
felt hollow and sick in my stomach and chest from the effort, and I held
to the branches and waited. When the sick feeling was gone I pulled into
the willow bushes and rested again, my arms around some brush, holding
tight with my hands to the branches. Then I crawled out, pushed on
through the willows and onto the bank. It was half-daylight and I saw no
one. I lay flat on the bank and heard the river and the rain.
After a while I got up and started along the bank. I knew there was no
bridge across the river until Latisana. I thought I might be opposite
San Vito. I began to think out what I should do. Ahead there was a ditch
running into the river. I went toward it. So far I had seen no one and I
sat down by some bushes along the bank of the ditch and took off my