Part 9 (2/2)
”I want my leg!”
”Be good.”
”Fatina, I beg you, make them make me another one. Write to Geppetto to make me another one, even of wood, but I want to be able to walk and run. I want to go back to the war, I do!”
The patient on the left jumped out of his bed and, in giving him a kiss, brushed his face with his bushy beard.
”There, you are a brave boy. You please me.... We will have another leg made for you, and if you want to go back to see the Boches you can come with me. Sister Fatina, is it not true that they're going to make him a new leg?”
”Certainly.”
”Of wood?”
”And with machinery inside so that you can move it as if it were a real leg.”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
”Then ...”
”Will you be good?”
”Yes ... but as soon as I catch sight of Major Cutemup I'll tell him a few things I think of him.”
”How are you, Bersaglierino?”
”Better, Fatina dear.”
”Be brave.”
Then she moved softly away, as noiseless as a dream.
”Did you see, Pinocchio? Fatina kept her word. She had scarcely heard that I was wounded before she hurried to my bed. She is an angel and I am quite happy. But I owe it to you that I am alive. I had four bullets in my back.... Those dogs had got the range on me, and if you hadn't come to my aid they would have finished me.... And you weren't lucky, either--they shot your leg to pieces, and if the company hadn't appeared ... But we won! Hurrah for Italy!”
”And Mollica?”
”Dead. They found him near the wire, surrounded by a heap of dead enemies. He made a regular slaughter. He had your letter to Franz Joseph stuck on the end of his bayonet. Every time that he hit a foe he cried, 'Beast of a potato-eater, take this letter and carry it to your Joey.'”
”Poor Mollica! If I am able to get back there I'll avenge you.”
”I told you I wanted you with me. You will see what we'll do to those creatures. I am Captain Teschisso, of the Second Regiment of Alpine Troops. What fights we have had! How we have 'strafed' them! A sh.e.l.l splinter gave me a whack and carried off one of my ears, but if you join me we'll have dozens of them every day.”
”Will I go with you? Yes, indeed, if the Bersaglierino ...”
”As far as I am concerned, do what you've a mind to. I shall never return to the regiment now.... You can't make war without an arm, but ...”
Just at this moment the door of the little white room opened and Major Cutemup, followed by two young lieutenants, Fatina, and some men nurses, came in. He was a short, squatty little man, with smooth face and tiny eyes hidden behind gold-rimmed gla.s.ses, and with a stomach that would have made an alderman jealous. He looked more like a cab-driver than like an officer, and even more like a butcher who has risen to be master of a shop by selling old beef for veal.
<script>