Part 8 (1/2)

”Bersaglierino, I would have believed anything but that words change their meaning in this way. With these idiots you have to pay attention to what you say. They made me swallow so much ditch-water that it will be a miracle if I don't have little fish swimming around in my stomach.”

It stopped raining, but as if the Austrians didn't want to give the bersaglieri time to repair the damages caused by the bad weather, they began a furious bombardment of the trench. The ”mosquitoes” kept up a terrible singing. Huge projectiles churned up the ground all around, digging out deep holes, raising whirls of earth, throwing off shreds of stone and steel in every direction. One sh.e.l.l had fallen near the telephone and had done great damage. The soldiers couldn't venture any distance from the dugout to aim at the enemy who was firing at them with such accuracy. Mud prevented their movements. They couldn't change their positions because the slippery earth offered no foothold.

It was impossible to excavate deep because the earth slid down. It was a critical moment. Several men had been killed, the wounded were moaning bitterly, the dying were groaning.... But the Italian bersaglieri did not lose courage and stood up against the foe, showing a genuine disregard for their lives. Pinocchio longed to cry. He wasn't thinking of the danger to himself, but of the fact that if this devilish fire kept up much longer all his bersaglieri would be killed.

Wasn't there anybody to look out for them? What was our artillery doing? Did they really intend to let them all be ma.s.sacred?

He had scarcely thought this when he heard behind him the thunder of Italian guns. A quarter of an hour later and the Austrians were quite quiet. But the situation hadn't improved. Orders had come from the second line to hold out at all costs because it wouldn't be possible to relieve them until the next evening. An attack in force was expected every minute.

The captain a.s.sembled his company and said: ”Men, we must stick and be ready for anything. We can't have reinforcements, but to-night they will send us _chevaux de frise_ and barbed wire. But I don't want to be caught like a bird in a net. We have plenty of 'jelly.' If two would volunteer to carry a couple of pounds of it under the entanglements of those gentlemen over yonder we might be able to change our lodgings. They have a fine trench of reinforced concrete with rooms and good beds and bathroom. We'd be better off there than in this mud. What do you say, boys? Is there any one who ...”

They didn't even let him finish. All stepped forward, and, if I am to tell you the truth, Pinocchio, too, but no one noticed him. Mollica and the Bersaglierino were chosen.

It grew dark. Some of them, completely worn out, dozed leaning up against the side of the trench. The Bersaglierino was writing rapidly a letter in pencil. Mollica had pulled out of his knapsack the old newspapers his father had sent him and seemed about to take up his old studies of fingerprints. There were tears in his eyes.

”Heh! Mollica, you look as if you weren't pleased with the duty the captain has given you.”

”Well?”

”But you ought to let me go.”

”You? But how do you suppose they would let a boy like you carry jelly?”

”Do you think I would eat it all up? I won't say that I mightn't taste it, especially if it is that golden-yellow kind that s.h.i.+vers like a paralytic old man, but I would carry out the order like any one else.... Only, I can't understand how for a little bit of jelly those scoundrels will give up their comfortable trench. It's true that they eat all sorts of miserable kinds of food and that Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, but ...”

”Shut up, you chatterbox! You'll see what will happen. I'll explain to you that 'jelly' in war-time is what we call a mixture of stuff that when put in a pipe under the wire entanglements and set off by a fuse will blow you up sky-high in a thousand pieces, if you don't take to your heels in time.”

”And you ... want to go and be blown up?”

”No. I hope to come back safe and sound, and I have still to send your letter to Franz Joey.”

Pinocchio was silent and hid himself in a corner without another word.

I can't tell you exactly if he had some sad presentiment or if his disillusion resulting from Mollica's technical explanation of ”jelly”

had put him in a bad humor. There was no doubt about it--war had changed the dictionary. He was still more certain of this when, an hour later, he saw the ”Frisian horses” arrive. He was expecting beasts with at least four legs, and instead he saw them drag in front of the trenches a huge roll of iron wound up in an enormous skein of barbed wire. But there was still a greater surprise in store for him.

That very night he was to find out that in war-time not only the value of words changes, but that there are some which are canceled from certain persons' vocabulary.

It was night ... and there was nothing to be seen and you couldn't even hear the traditional fly. From the Austrian trench there came a dull regular noise. It seemed as if a lot of pigs were squealing.

Instead, it was the Croats who were snoring. No one slept in the Italian trenches. There was a strange coming and going, a fantastic flittering of shadows. There was low talking, commands were pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth and whispered in the ear--every one was making preparations. Mollica and the Bersaglierino had put steel helmets on their heads and had s.h.i.+elds of the same metal on their arms.

”But what are you going to do? You look like the statue of Perseus in the costume of a soldier.”

”I would almost rather be in his place and with no more clothes than he has on instead of in this get-up ... but what's there to be done about it? I promised you to take the letter to Franz Joey.”

A little later Mollica and Bersaglierino left the trench and wriggled along the ground like serpents, carrying with them big metal boxes.

The bersaglieri took their places behind the loopholes, their muskets in position, and stood there motionless, anxious, and restless.

Pinocchio, too, wanted to see what was happening, and, taking advantage of his guardians' carelessness, slipped out of the trench and squatted down in a big hole which an enemy projectile had hollowed out twenty yards away.