We continued our pursuit the next day. After moving past Croce Sant’Antonio, the advance-guard battalion proceeded through the forest toward the grassy basin of Casara Zebio and Mount Zebio. As it advanced, it appeared more and more probable that the largest part of the enemy force had stopped in the highlands. Their resistance had become tenacious again. It was clear that the last Austrian units, in contact with our patrols, were supported by troops nearby. Given the slowness of our progress, my battalion, once we’d crossed the Val di Nos, remained inactive the whole day, waiting to be called into action.
The advance-guard 2nd Battalion received orders to stop and dig in. During the night, our battalion replaced it. When we arrived, one trench line had already been dug, hurriedly, on the outer edge of the woods. There were still some fir trees in front of us, but few and far between, as they always are on the edges of high-altitude fir woods. The terrain was still covered with bushes. Further away and higher up, several hundred meters ahead, some rocky mountain peaks loomed among the tops of the last fir trees. We could probably expect the stiffest resistance at their feet.
At dawn, Captain Canevacci and I were on the line with the 9th Company. We were waiting for the arrival of the machine-gun unit, which had stayed behind. The captain in command of the 9th was keeping watch over the terrain in front of the line with a group of sharpshooters. We were next to him, lying on the ground, behind a mound. Canevacci was looking through his binoculars.
Among the bushes, less than a hundred meters away, an enemy patrol came into view. There were seven of them, walking in single file. Convinced they were nowhere near our line, out of sight, they were proceeding parallel to our trench, walking straight up, rifles in hand, packs on their backs. They were exposed from their knees up. The captain of the 9th gestured to the sharpshooters, gave the order to fire, and the patrol crumbled to the ground.
“Bravo!” exclaimed Captain Canevacci.
One of our squads moved out of the trench on all fours. Behind them the entire line had their rifles pointed. The squad disappeared, slithering on their bellies, into the bushes.
We were expecting the squad to come back in carrying the fallen, but time was going by. Our men had to advance very cautiously to avoid an ambush. Captain Canevacci was losing patience. The machine-gun unit still hadn’t arrived. What if they’d gotten lost in the forest, in the middle of the other units? To keep from losing more time I went back to look for them.
I found them half a kilometer farther back, in contact with the units of the 2nd Battalion. When I saw them, a dramatic scene was being played out, General Leone, alone on his mule, was climbing up a rocky slope between the 2nd Battalion and the machine-gun unit. As the mule was moving along the edge of a steep drop, about sixty-five feet, it stumbled and the general fell to the ground. The mule, unperturbed, kept walking along the edge of the cliff. The general was still hanging on to the reins, with half of his body dangling over the precipice. With each step, the mule yanked its head from side to side, trying to shake him off. At any moment the general might fall off the cliff. There were a lot of soldiers nearby who saw him, but nobody made a move. I could see them all very clearly; some of them winked at each other, smiling.
Any minute now the mule would free itself of the general. A soldier rushed out from the ranks of the machine-gun unit and threw himself down on the ground in time to save him. Without losing his composure, as though he had trained especially for accidents of this kind, the general remounted his mule, continued on his way, and disappeared. The soldier, back on his feet, looked around, satisfied. He had saved the general.
When his comrades from the machine-gun unit reached him, I witnessed a savage assault. They mauled him furiously, pummeling him with punches. The soldier fell to the ground on his back. His comrades jumped on top of him.
“Son of a bitch! You miserable bastard!”
“Leave me alone! Help!”
Punches and kicks slammed into the poor wretch, who was powerless to defend himself.
“Here! Take that! Who paid you to be the imbecile?”
“Help!”
“Save the general! Admit that you were paid by the Austrians!”
“Leave me alone! I didn’t do it on purpose. I swear I didn’t do it on purpose.”
The commander of the machine-gun unit was nowhere to be seen. The beating had gone on too long. Since nobody, neither officers nor NCOs, intervened to stop it, I ran over to them.
“What’s going on?” I shouted in a loud voice.
My presence surprised everyone. The aggressors dispersed. Only a couple of them remained where they were and stood at attention. I went over to the victim, held out my hand, and helped him up. By the time he was back on his feet, those few who had stayed had disappeared. I was standing there alone with the soldier. He had a black eye and a cheek covered with blood. He’d lost his helmet.
“What happened?” I asked him. “Why did they come after you like that?”
“It’s nothing, lieutenant,” he muttered under his breath.
And he turned his frightened gaze right and left, looking for his helmet, but also out of fear of being heard by his comrades.
“What do you mean, it’s nothing? What about the black eye? And the blood on your face? You’re half dead and it’s nothing?”
Standing at attention, embarrassed, the soldier didn’t respond. I insisted, but he didn’t say another word.
We were both relieved of our embarrassment by the arrival of the commander of the machine gunners, Lieutenant Ottolenghi, the one who in the battle on Mount Fior, with just one gun still working, had saved the day. We were the same rank, but I was more senior. Without saying even a word to me, he went up to the soldier and yelled at him, “You imbecile! Today you dishonored our unit.”
But what was I supposed to do, lieutenant?”
“What were you supposed to do? You should have done what everybody else did. Nothing. You should have done nothing. And even that was too much. A dumbass like you I don’t even want him in my unit. I’m going to have you thrown out.”
The soldier had found his helmet and was putting it back on his head.
“What were you supposed to do?” the lieutenant said again, with disdain. “You wanted to do something? Well then, you should have taken your bayonet and cut the reins and made the general fall off the cliff.”
“What?” the soldier muttered. “I should have let the general die?”
“Yes, you cretin, you should have let him die. And if he wasn’t going to die, then—since you wanted to do something no matter what the cost—you should have helped him die. Go back to the unit, and if the rest of them kill you, you’ll have got what you deserve.”
“Look,” I said to him after the soldier had gone, “you’d better take things a little more seriously. In a few hours the whole brigade will know what happened.”
“Whether they know or don’t know makes no difference to me. On the contrary, it’s better if they do know. That way, somebody might just get the idea to take a shot at that vampire.”
He went on talking, still indignant. He stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled out a coin, tossed it into the air, and said to me, “Heads or tails?”
I didn’t answer.
“Heads!” he shouted.
It was tails.
“You’re lucky,” he went on. “Tails. If it had been heads … if it had been heads …”
“What?” I asked.
“If it had been heads.… Well! Let’s leave it for the next time.”
As the machine-gun unit was joining the battalion, the squad from 9th Company was coming back to the trench, dragging the bodies of the fallen patrol. Six were dead, one was still alive. Their corporal was one of the dead. From their papers we determined they were Bosnians. The two captains were satisfied. Especially Canevacci, who was hoping they could obtain some useful information by interrogating the survivor. He had him taken to the first-aid station and immediately informed the division command, where an interpreter was on staff.
The six dead men were lying on the ground, one next to the other. We contemplated them, deep in thought. Sooner or later, for us, too, the time would come. But Captain Canevacci was too pleased. He stopped next to the body of the corporal and said to him, “Hey! My friend, if you had learned how to command a patrol you wouldn’t be here right now. When you’re out on patrol, the commander, first of all, has to see …”
He was interrupted by the captain of the 9th. With a finger on his mouth and a thin thread of a voice, he invited him to keep quiet. In front of us, from the same direction in which the patrol had fallen, but closer, there was a sound, like the buzzing of people having an argument. The captain looked to the front. The sharpshooters aimed their rifles. The battalion commander and I also kept quiet and made our way silently up to the line to have a look.
The sound was coming from the trunk of a big fir tree, illuminated in patches by the sunlight shining through the treetops. Two squirrels were jumping along the trunk, a few meters off the ground. Quick and nimble, they chased each other, hid, chased each other again, and hid again. Short little shrieks, like uncontainable laughter, marked their encounters each time they launched themselves with little hops from opposite sides of the trunk, the one against the other. And every time they stopped themselves in a circle of sunlight on the trunk, they stood straight up on their hind legs and, using their paws like hands, appeared to be offering each other compliments, caresses, and congratulations. The sunlight shone brightly on their white bellies and the tufts of their tails, which stood straight up like two brushes.
One of the sharpshooters looked over at the captain of the 9th and muttered,
“Shall we shoot?”
“Are you crazy?” the captain answered in surprise. “They’re so cute.”
Captain Canevacci went back over to the line of dead bodies.
“The patrol commander must see and not be seen …,” he said, continuing his sermon to the Bosnian corporal.