The wounded were coming into the post, some were carried on stretchers, some walking and some were brought on the backs of men that came across the field. They were wet to the skin and all were scared. We filled two cars with stretcher cases as they came up from the cellar of the post and as I shut the door of the second car and fastened it I felt the rain on my face turn to snow. The flakes were coming heavy and fast in the rain.
When daylight came the storm was still blowing but the snow had stopped. It had melted as it fell on the wet ground and now it was raining again. There was another attack just after daylight but it was unsuccessful. We expected an attack all day but it did not come until the sun was going down. The bombardment started to the south below the long wooded ridge where the Austrian guns were concentrated. We expected a bombardment but it did not come. It was getting dark. Guns were firing from the field behind the village and the shells, going away, had a comfortable sound.
We heard that the attack to the south had been unsuccessful. They did not attack that night but we heard that they had broken through to the north. In the night word came that we were to prepare to retreat. The captain at the post told me this. He had it from the Brigade. A little while later he came from the telephone and said it was a lie. The Brigade had received orders that the line of the Bainsizza should be held no matter what happened. I asked about the break through and he said that he had heard at the Brigade that the Austrians had broken through the twenty-seventh army corps up toward Caporetto. There had been a great battle in the north all day.
‘If those bastards let them through we are cooked,’ he said.
‘It’s Germans that are attacking,’ one of the medical officers said. The word Germans was something to be frightened of. We did not want to have anything to do with the Germans.
‘There are fifteen divisions of Germans,’ the medical officer said. ‘They have broken through and we will be cut off.’
‘At the Brigade, they say this line is to be held. They say they have not broken through badly and that we will hold a line across the mountains from Monte Maggiore.’
‘Where do they hear this?’
‘From the Division.’
‘The word that we were to retreat came from the Division.’
‘We work under the Army Corps,’ I said. ‘But here I work under you. Naturally when you tell me to go I will go. But get the orders straight.’
‘The orders are that we stay here. You clear the wounded from here to the clearing station.’
‘Sometimes we clear from the clearing station to the field hospitals too,’ I said. ‘Tell me, I have never seen a retreat—if there is a retreat how are all the wounded evacuated?’
‘They are not. They take as many as they can and leave the rest.’
‘What will I take in the cars?’
‘Hospital equipment.’
‘All right,’ I said.
The next night the retreat started. We heard that Germans and Austrians had broken through in the north and were coming down the mountain valleys toward Cividale and Udine. The retreat was orderly, wet and sullen. In the night, going slowly along the crowded roads we passed troops marching under the rain, guns, horses pulling wagons, mules, motor trucks, all moving away from the front. There was no more disorder than in an advance.
That night we helped empty the field hospitals that had been set up in the least ruined villages of the plateau, taking the wounded down to Plava on the river-bed: and the next day hauled all day in the rain to evacuate the hospitals and clearing station at Plava. It rained steadily and the army of the Bainsizza moved down off the plateau in the October rain and across the river where the great victories had commenced in the spring of that year. We came into Gorizia in the middle of the next day. The rain had stopped and the town was nearly empty. As we came up the street they were loading the girls from the soldiers’ whorehouse into a truck. There were seven girls and they had on their hats and coats and carried small suitcases. Two of them were crying. Of the others one smiled at us and put out her tongue and fluttered it up and down. She had thick full lips and black eyes.
I stopped the car and went over and spoke to the matron. The girls from the officers’ house had left early that morning, she said. Where were they going? To Conegliano, she said. The truck started. The girl with thick lips put out her tongue again at us. The matron waved. The two girls kept on crying. The others looked interestedly out at the town. I got back in the car.
‘We ought to go with them,’ Bonello said. ‘That would be a good trip.’
‘We’ll have a good trip,’ I said.
‘We’ll have a hell of a trip.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ I said. We came up the drive to the villa.
‘I’d like to be there when some of those tough babies climb in and try and hop them.’
‘You think they will?’
‘Sure. Everybody in the Second Army knows that matron.’
We were outside the villa.
‘They call her the Mother Superior,’ Bonello said. ‘The girls are new but everybody knows her. They must have brought them up just before the retreat.’
‘They’ll have a time.’
‘I’ll say they’ll have a time. I’d like to have a crack at them for nothing. They charge too much at that house anyway. The government gyps us.’
‘Take the car out and have the mechanics go over it,’ I said. ‘Change the oil and check the differential. Fill it up and then get some sleep.’
‘Yes, Signor Tenente.’
The villa was empty. Rinaldi was gone with the hospital. The major was gone taking hospital personnel in the staff car. There was a note on the window for me to fill the cars with the material piled in the hall and to proceed to Pordenone. The mechanics were gone already. I went out back to the garage. The other two cars came in while I was there and their drivers got down. It was starting to rain again.
‘I’m so —— sleepy I went to sleep three times coming here from Plava,’ Piani said. ‘What are we going to do, Tenente?’
‘We’ll change the oil, grease them, fill them up, then take them around in front and load up the junk they’ve left.’
‘Then do we start?’
‘No, we’ll sleep for three hours.’
‘Christ I’m glad to sleep,’ Bonello said. ‘I couldn’t keep awake driving.’
‘How’s your car, Aymo?’ I asked.
‘It’s all right.’
‘Get me a monkey suit and I’ll help you with the oil.’
‘Don’t you do that, Tenente,’ Aymo said. ‘It’s nothing to do. You go and pack your things.’
‘My things are all packed,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and carry out the stuff that they left for us. Bring the cars around as soon as they’re ready.’
They brought the cars around to the front of the villa and we loaded them with the hospital equipment which was piled in the hallway. When it was all in, the three cars stood in line down the driveway under the trees in the rain. We went inside.
‘Make a fire in the kitchen and dry your things,’ I said.
‘I don’t care about dry clothes,’ Piani said. ‘I want to sleep.’
‘I’m going to sleep on the major’s bed,’ Bonello said. ‘I’m going to sleep where the old man corks off.’
‘I don’t care where I sleep,’ Piani said.
‘There are two beds in here.’ I opened the door.
‘I never knew what was in that room,’ Bonello said.
‘That was old fish-face’s room,’ Piani said.
‘You two sleep in there,’ I said. ‘I’ll wake you.’
‘The Austrians will wake us if you sleep too long, Tenente,’ Bonello said.
‘I won’t oversleep,’ I said. ‘Where’s Aymo?’
‘He went out in the kitchen.’
‘Get to sleep,’ I said.
‘I’ll sleep,’ Piani said. ‘I’ve been asleep sitting up all day. The whole top of my head kept coming down over my eyes.’
‘Take your boots off,’ Bonello said. ‘That’s old fish-face’s bed.’
‘Fish-face is nothing to me.’ Piani lay on the bed, his muddy boots straight out, his head on his arm. I went out to the kitchen. Aymo had a fire in the stove and a kettle of water on.
‘I thought I’d start some pasta asciutta,’ he said. ‘We’ll be hungry when we wake up.’
‘Aren’t you sleepy, Bartolomeo?’
‘Not so sleepy. When the water boils I’ll leave it. The fire will go down.’
‘You’d better get some sleep,’ I said. ‘We can eat cheese and monkey meat.’
‘This is better,’ he said. ‘Something hot will be good for those two anarchists. You go to sleep, Tenente.’
‘There’s a bed in the major’s room.’
‘You sleep there.’
‘No, I’m going up to my old room. Do you want a drink, Bartolomeo?’
‘When we go, Tenente. Now it wouldn’t do me any good.’
‘If you wake in three hours and I haven’t called you, wake me, will you?’
‘I haven’t any watch, Tenente.’
‘There’s a clock on the wall in the major’s room.’
‘All right.’
I went out then through the
