A farewell to arms
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.
CHAPTER VIII
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.
CHAPTER IX
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.