A Winter's Night (11 page)

He handed Floti a bench, took a pack of cigarettes from his vest pocket and held it out to Floti. He lit one up himself and took a long pull.

“Lieutenant, sir,” began Floti, having checked the rank on the doctor's shoulder, “outside there's a boy who's just twenty years old. He's got an infected wound and he's at risk of dying. Can't you do something for him?”

“You know that if I stop to look at him, someone else will die in his place, don't you?”

“Each of us is concerned with those who we're close to and who we care about, sir. And that's a good thing.”

“Right.
Mors tua vita mea
,” said the doctor, quoting in Latin.

“In three minutes, you've spoken three different languages, sir,” commented Floti, “but one is enough for me, you can answer me in dialect if you want. Can you give this kid a look, yes or no?”

The doctor ground out the cigarette stub under his boot and replied: “Have him brought in.”

Floti motioned to his fellow soldiers, who lifted the stretcher and transferred the boy onto the table, just after a nurse had thrown a bucket of water over it to rinse it off. The doctor cut the bandages with scissors and exposed the wound. The boy's arm was swollen and inflamed and the infection had obviously worsened; the stink it gave off was unmistakable.

“I have to amputate,” said the doctor, “or he'll die of gangrene.”

The boy had heard everything and terror filled his eyes as they spilled over with tears.

There was a bottle of strong grappa on a nearby table. “It's all I have,” said the doctor, “have him drink as much as he can.” He wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve, then told his assistant to give the boy a piece of leather to bite down on and to hold him down.

“Blindfold him,” he added. “It's better he doesn't see this.”

Floti had the courage to watch while the doctor cut through the boy's flesh to the bone, then set down the saw and with a single thrust snapped the bone right above the elbow.

The boy's scream, muffled by the leather stuffed in his mouth, sounded like the moaning of a butchered animal. The doctor clamped the veins that were spurting blood a meter away, disinfected the cut with alcohol and tincture of iodine and started to stitch up the wound. When he had finished he turned the boy over to the nurses and walked outside, exhausted, to breathe in the morning air.

Floti watched him while he lit up a cigarette; it was hard to believe that a human being could be capable of so much.

“How much of a chance does he have?” Floti asked him.

“Of surviving? Fifty, maybe sixty percent . . . depends on when he'll be able to get to a hospital. Without amputating, zero.”

Floti nodded as if to approve the decision that had been made, then took his leave. “Maybe we'll see each other back home . . . after this is over. My name's Bruni, Raffaele Bruni. Who have I had the pleasure of meeting, sir?”

“Name's Munari,” replied the officer. “Alberto Munari.”

Floti looked back into the tent and caught a glimpse of the white bandages swaddling his comrade's fresh wound. He remembered that he didn't even know the boy's name, but what did it matter anyway? He looked at Lieutenant Munari again and saw that he even had blood on his mustache, which was neatly clipped.

“Good luck, sir,” he said, and turned to get back to his unit.

“Good luck to you,” said the doctor. “You'll need it.”

Captain Cavallotti welcomed him back by hurling swear words his way. “Where the fuck did you go off to, Bruni? Half the army has passed this way already! Move it, for Christ's sake.”

Floti jumped into the truck because he knew he couldn't take another step and he lay down on the floor at the feet of the other soldiers. He put his haversack under his head, covered himself as best he could with his cloak and tried to get some rest. He was so tired that despite the jolts, the din of the engine and the racket inside and outside the truck, he sank into a deep sleep, but then awoke with a start: the nightmare he'd just witnessed flooded his mind and spirit with pain. He couldn't start to imagine how he'd feel if he found himself from one day to the next without an arm, and his only consolation was thinking that he'd heard of soldiers who stepped on a landmine and lost both of their legs. This boy would surely pull through, otherwise why would destiny have put him on the path of someone like himself? Raffaele Bruni, known as Floti, someone who would find him a field hospital with a doctor who spoke Bolognese and could operate on him just in time, just before the infection had killed him. Why else?

They reached Cividale del Friuli the day after, at about one in the morning. An ocean of men, of trucks, of mules, of artillery pieces, soldiers from every corps and unit chasing frenetically from one end to the other of an enormous muddy clearing filled with tents, improvised fences and patrols of
carabinieri
crossing back and forth to prevent the general confusion from degenerating into chaos and panic. They would shoot on sight at the least hint of insubordination. Here and there, wherever it was possible to string up a power cable to provide some light, groups of officers huddled, intent on reorganizing the chain of command.

In the midst of that bedlam, Captain Cavallotti managed to find the pennant of his battalion and to report to the colonel. He returned just before dawn, visibly upset.

The Austrian army had cut through the Italian front like a knife through butter. There was talk of entire divisions encircled on every side with no possibility of escape. Fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, perhaps two hundred thousand prisoners: disastrous figures on the extent of the catastrophe were rife.

“We have to set out again immediately,” said Cavallotti. “The entire front, from the Bainsizza to the Carso, has collapsed. The Austrians and the Germans are at our heels. General Cadorna is trying to organize a line of resistance at the Tagliamento. That's where we're going. That's where we'll stop running and we'll turn around and shoot. Good luck, boys.”

Captain Cavallotti's small army continued their retreat until not a drop of gasoline remained in the tanks. Then, having abandoned the trucks, they continued on foot, stopping now and then to rest and get a little shuteye curled up right there on the ground. Their food supplies had run out; all that was left were a few bottles of grappa, but Floti had never been able to drink on an empty stomach and he would have sold his soul for a hot
crescente
fritter stuffed with a slice or two of prosciutto. He remembered how that transparent rim of fat on the coral-red slice would melt on contact with the steaming freshly-fried surface of the
crescente
, releasing all the sublime essence of the cured pork. Dreams and memories of the rustic banquets enjoyed with his family filled his thoughts. Food fit for a king on their modest country table, set out on a lavender-scented hemp tablecloth.

He'd completely lost contact with anyone who could give him news of his brothers. The information that did filter through from overheard conversations among their officers bode nothing but ill: tremendous losses, tens of thousands of prisoners and many more than that missing in action, which meant slain or captured anyway. Since he was still alive, Floti reasoned that it was increasingly probable that any or all of his brothers were dead, wounded or imprisoned.

Whose turn had come? Checco? Or Armando, who'd been skin and bones his whole life? Dante or Fredo, or Gaetano? Or all of them? He got goose bumps just thinking about how Clerice, and his father Callisto, would take it. There was no way they could survive the shock.

After travelling about thirty kilometers in a westerly direction, they came across another clearing center packed with soldiers and refugees. Dispatch riders sped around on their motorcycles and Red Cross nurses fluttered like white butterflies over a sea of gray-green uniforms. And yet the center reminded them of another life: there were automobiles in circulation, trucks loaded with bread and other provisions, and even a mail van.

Floti found a scrap of paper at the bottom of his haversack and a pencil that he sharpened with the blade of his bayonet and took advantage of the stop to write a letter to his parents. He informed them that there had been a great defeat, that the Germans and Austrians were still at their heels, and that he would be moving on with his unit to escape capture by the enemy. He also wrote that he'd had no news of the others and that since the telephone lines were out, like every other means of communication, he was not sure when he'd be in touch again, but not to worry, that he would try to manage somehow. He didn't have an envelope, so he folded the piece of paper in three, sealed it with the stub of a candle and wrote his parents' address on the back. He deposited it in a red mailbox with the Savoia coat of arms, hoping that it would reach its destination.

By the time they left the clearing center, the enemy were just a few hours behind them and were proceeding at a forced march. They proceeded towards Udine, but it soon became apparent that that city was lost as well. Floti realized immediately that they wouldn't be stopping when he saw the trucks coming with food, tents and ammunition. No one knew where they were headed, when their unceasing flight would end. One of the soldiers in Floti's battalion came from the mountains near home; his name was Sisto. Floti barely knew the fellow, because he wasn't the type of person he normally sought out, but Sisto, on the contrary, was always trying to strike up a conversation. That day he had started out by saying that the war was lost and so why not just toss your rifle and go back home. Floti nearly came to blows with him. “You damn idiot!” he said, pulling him aside, “you want to face a firing squad? If they hear you, you're dead.” Sisto turned white; he hadn't had a clue of the risk he was running, and from then on, he never mentioned the topic again. It wasn't long before he saw for himself what Floti meant by those words.

It happened when they were near Codroipo, shortly before reaching the Tagliamento. As they were moving along the provincial road, trucks in the center and foot soldiers on either side, the soldier from Naples shouted out: “Look, an airplane!”

“It's ours!” shouted another.

“No, it's Austrian!” shouted the captain. “Take cover, everyone!”

Some of the men dove into the ditch at the side of the road, others sought shelter behind the trucks.

“It's on a reconnaissance mission,” said the captain. “They're observing us, our conditions and our strength, to report back to their superiors.”

“Let's shoot him down,” said the sergeant, raising his carbine and taking aim.

“No!” Cavallotti stopped him. “You mustn't! If he dips down and you're following him with the barrel of your gun, you risk hitting one of us. It's happened before. Let him go, someone will show up to take care of him. Look, up there, that one's one of ours.”

They all stopped in their tracks, noses in the air, to witness the air cavalry duel about to unfold. The Italian fighter plane homed directly in on the other frontally as if it meant to engage, then at the last minutes veered to the right and tried to put itself on the enemy's tail. The soldiers on the ground cheered the pilot on but the captain reprimanded them: “That's enough! Get back into line, we have no time to lose and they'll handle this one on their own. Sergeant, give the orders to march!”

No sooner had he said these words than they heard more shouting. It came from a nearby farmhouse, which appeared to be abandoned. As they got closer, they saw two
carabinieri
with their gray three-cornered hats and carbines slung over their shoulders escorting a young man out of the building with his hands tied behind his back. He must have been a soldier, although he couldn't have been any older than twenty. He was bawling at the top of his lungs. Cavallotti stopped with all his men behind him. The soldier was taken to the barn behind the house where a firing squad was standing in formation with their rifles at their sides.

Just then the crackle of machine gun fire could be heard and one of the two planes went into a spin and plunged to the ground, leaving a wake of smoke behind it.

“What's going on, sergeant?” asked Floti.

“Can't you see? They're executing him. He's a coward who shed his uniform and tried to escape.”

“They're going to execute him? Just like that, without a trial?”

“It's called a court martial, Bruni,” said Captain Cavallotti. “Ten minutes are all that's needed to find a man guilty of desertion.” Floti, who already knew all this, nudged Sisto so he'd understand the lesson was for him.

The
carabinieri
tied the boy to a chair, facing the wall.

“He's to be shot in the back,” observed the sergeant. “The punishment reserved for cowards and traitors. Maybe he's both.”

The boy began weeping even louder as they blindfolded him. He cried out: “Mama, mama, help! Mamaaa!” calling for his mother like a little boy afraid of the dark.

The
carabiniere
officer ordered: “Platoon. About . . . face!”

The soldiers, who had been facing away from the barn, turned towards the prisoner.

“The squad never sees the condemned man,” commented the sergeant, “and he never sees them.”

Floti ignored him and turned to the captain. “But he's just a kid who's lost and terrified, they can't just kill him like that. Isn't there anything we can do, captain?”

Cavallotti did not answer, but it was clear that he'd had them stop for a reason. Funny how they weren't in a hurry anymore, the enemy wasn't right there at their heels. He wanted to give all of them a lesson. Show them what happens to someone who tries to get away.

The commanding officer drew his sword: “Platoon. Atten . . . tion!”

Floti lowered his eyes to the ground. The same voice rang out again, brusque: “Load!” That boy had only seconds left to live: he'd heard the metallic click of the rounds being pushed into the barrels. What was going through his head?