Part 16 (1/2)

”We've taken it, sir.”

”Who told you?”

”I read it myself.”

”Where?”

”On ... on ...”

”Well?”

”I don't want to be lacking in respect, sir, to my superior officer, no matter what the occasion may be ...”

”Stupid! Tell me where you read it.”

”On the frontispiece of a book without words belonging to an Austrian soldier who ...”

Draghetta didn't succeed in getting out another word. Something interposed between him and the lieutenant with a lightning-like rapidity ... and he felt a terrible kick in the s.h.i.+ns which made him roll over on the ground with pain.

”Mr. Lieutenant, it is I ... the scout Pinocchio, under Captain Teschisso's protection. I took part in the campaign on the Isonzo and left a leg there and in its place I now have a wooden leg of perfect Italian manufacturing. He told you what he thought was so, but I beg to convince you of the contrary. But the news about the Col di Lana is true, as true as can be. Here is the _Corriere_ which was on the frontispiece ... of my book without words, in the seat of my trousers.

But, as I can't stand the cold, I beg you to have a patch put on and to have served to me a plate of that pastry cooked under the snow, because I am so hungry I could eat even you.”

Shortly after the delighted Pinocchio sat in front of a dish piled high with spaghetti, and surrounded by soldiers of the company who never stopped asking him questions about how the war was going down in the plains. With his mouth full he kept turning to this one and that one, uttering inarticulate sounds that might have come from a sucking pig.

The arrival of Captain Teschisso was the signal for a furious attack.

He had seen in the distance a long file of the enemy clad in white s.h.i.+rts moving across the snow; he had hurried to the dugout to give the alarm and, taking command of the company, had flung himself on the foe, who, relying too much on the secrecy of his attack, was beaten and put to flight.

Pinocchio had a.s.sisted in the action at a loophole in the trench, armed with the finest of spy-gla.s.ses. The Alpine troops had performed prodigious deeds of valor. The captain came back with two prisoners, one a Hungarian and one a Croat, whom he held by the collars as if they were two mice surprised while robbing tripe from the larder.

”Heavens! What blows!” he cried, happily, to the soldiers who surrounded him, rejoicing. ”But, boys, I won't let them sleep to-night. We must get ready for an attack in force. We must make these pigs sing!”

There was no time to pay any attention to them. A few moments later a rain of sh.e.l.ls began to fall around the neighborhood of the dugout.

The Austrians wanted to revenge themselves from a distance for their sudden rout. Teschisso ordered four mountain guns which had just arrived by the _filovia_ to be mounted on the gun-carriages, a.s.sembled his men, and ran to take up his position in an excavation nearly a mile away whence it was possible to observe the enemy's position.

Pinocchio and Ciampanella, the company cook, remained behind to guard the dugout, and to them had been a.s.signed the care of the two prisoners from whom Teschisso hoped later to obtain some definite information.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CIAMPANELLA, THE COMPANY COOK]

CHAPTER VIII

_How Pinocchio Made Two Beasts Sing--Contrary to Nature_

Excuse me, my children, for not having presented Ciampanella to you before. Ciampanella was a pure-blooded Roman, born under the shadow of the Capitol, like--the wolf kept at the cost of the City Commune. If Francis Joseph had seen him he would have appointed him at once as royal hangman because he had a gallows countenance and a body like a gigantic negro. Yet he was the best-hearted man in the world, so good that he wouldn't harm a fly.

This evening he was in such a good humor that he made even Pinocchio laugh, whom the charge of the prisoners had made as serious as a judge.