Part 8 (2/2)

The poor youngster was very sad. The black night, the silence everywhere, the preparations he had watched and could not understand, were the causes of his melancholy.

”But how under the sun did it ever enter Bersaglierino's head to offer himself for this expedition?” he thought. ”He might have let some one else go. Not so bad for Mollica. He'll eat up the Austrians like waffles. If any one dares to play a trick on him he'll land him a few good blows and put him where he belongs, but Bersaglierino ... so little and so frail.... If any misfortune happens to him ...”

Some time went by, I can't say how long, but it was quite a little while, because Pinocchio had almost fallen asleep, when the air was shaken by two tremendous explosions. He woke with a start, saw two red flashes s.h.i.+ning for an instant on a shower of fragments thrown up to a great height ... then blackness and the fiendish rattling of the machine-guns and crackle of musket fire. Suddenly a long white shaft of light broke the darkness, coming from no one knew where, waving to the right and to the left, and fixing itself on the ground between the two trenches, which were immediately showered by sh.e.l.ls.

”And Bersaglierino? And Mollica?” Pinocchio asked himself, anxiously, feeling his throat tighten up.

Suddenly a black shadow was outlined in the gleam of a searchlight that was operated from a distance. It crawled along the ground, moving by starts. They had seen it, too, from the trenches and there were confused cries of, ”Come on!” ... ”Bravo!” ... ”A few more steps!” ...

”Stick to it!”

And the figure seemed to gain new strength and to bound like a wild beast. But who was it? Surely the Bersaglierino. The form was small, slender, and very quick. Mollica was large and slow. What had become of him? Between the roar of the explosions and the whistle of the sh.e.l.ls there came a shrill cry of anguish. The little shadow slid along, then a leap in the silvery ray, and it was lost in the blackness of the earth torn by the rain of steel.

”Oh, beasts that they are! They have murdered him!” Pinocchio screamed. ”Enough! Enough! Wretches! Don't you see that he has ceased to move? Stop shooting.... Give him time to recover.... Perhaps he is wounded.”

It seemed that the Austrian fire grew even more murderous.

Pinocchio, beside himself with fury, rushed out of his hiding-place and in a couple of bounds was back in the trench.

”They have wounded Bersaglierino.... He is there ... out there in the No Man's Land.... Help him ... don't let him die so.”

They sprang over the top to rescue their wounded comrades, but had scarcely gone a step before they were lost to him.

Pinocchio lost his head. He sprang out of the dugout and ran as fast as he could into the spot still illuminated by the ray of silver. He stumbled, fell, got up again, fell once more, but kept on crawling on his hands and knees.... He heard a groan, felt a body, lifted it in his arms, and, gathering all his strength together, began to drag it toward the trench. All at once he felt his legs give way and he let out a yell of terror. He was answered by another from a hundred valiant throats; he saw a strange flash, felt a hurricane strike him, a wave roll over him ... but before losing his senses there came to him the cry of victory. The Italian bersaglieri had bayoneted those who had wounded Bersaglierino and had won from the enemy one more portion of their country.

A little later the stretcher-bearers were able to gather up the wounded from the field of honor.

CHAPTER V

_In Which Pinocchio Discovers That Sometimes When You Want to Advance You Have to Take a Step Backward_

For a long while Pinocchio didn't know whether he was alive or dead.

Then after a time he seemed to be dreaming, but the dreams were so queer that ... just imagine, he thought he was a puppet again, asleep on a chair with his feet resting on a brazier full of lighted charcoal, that one of his feet was on fire and that the flame, little by little, was creeping up his leg. And, just as once before when something similar had happened, the dream became a painful reality.

However, there was another dream that comforted him. A lovely woman's smiling face would come close to him and he would hear soft, affectionate words. It was the queerest thing possible! It seemed to him that this face was set in a lovely frame of light-blue hair which came down like a veil, like a cape enfolding the graceful form of a young girl. Some one had told him that her name was Fatina, and he kept repeating the name, as once ... when he was still a little puppet and the girl with blue hair ... But what had happened to him?

One morning he opened his eyes and discovered that he was in a little white bed in a white room, and that to right and left of him in two other beds were two wounded men all enveloped in bandages.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

”Bersaglierino! Bersaglierino!” cried Pinocchio, trying to raise himself up in bed. But a horrid pain made him fall back on the pillow and forced him to scream loudly. The door of the little room opened and a Red Cross nurse in her blue uniform entered swiftly.

”Oh! At last! But be good and don't try to move! The Bersaglierino is here on your right; he is better, but you must let him be quiet, and you, too, need to rest.”

”Tell me, Fatina, is the Bersaglierino really alive?”

”Don't you see him? Here he is. When he wakes up you can say a few words to him. Yesterday he was so eager to know about you, but you couldn't speak to him.”

”Listen, Fatina, and I ... am I really alive?”

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