“If it leads nowhere we can turn around and cut back in,” I said.
“What about these?” Bonello asked. His two sergeants were beside him on the seat. They were unshaven but still military looking in the early morning.
“They’ll be good to push,” I said. I went back to Aymo and told him we were going to try it across country.
“What about my virgin family?” Aymo asked. The two girls were asleep.
“They won’t be very useful,” I said. “You ought to have some one that could push.”
“They could go back in the car,” Aymo said. “There’s room in the car.”
“All right if you want them,” I said. “Pick up somebody with a wide back to push.”
“Bersaglieri,” Aymo smiled. “They have the widest backs. They measure them. How do you feel, Tenente?”
“Fine. How are you?”
“Fine. But very hungry.”
“There ought to be something up that road and we will stop and eat.”
“How’s your leg, Tenente?”
“Fine,” I said. Standing on the step and looking up ahead I could see Piani’s car pulling out onto the little side-road and starting up it, his car showing through the hedge of bare branches. Bonello turned off and followed him and then Piani worked his way out and we followed the two ambulances ahead along the narrow road between hedges. It led to a farmhouse. We found Piani and Bonello stopped in the farmyard. The house was low and long with a trellis with a grape-vine over the door. There was a well in the yard and Piani was getting up water to fill his radiator. So much going in low gear had boiled it out. The farmhouse was deserted. I looked back down the road, the farmhouse was on a slight elevation above the plain, and we could see over the country, and saw the road, the hedges, the fields and the line of trees along the main road where the retreat was passing. The two sergeants were looking through the house. The girls were awake and looking at the courtyard, the well and the two big ambulances in front of the farmhouse, with three drivers at the well. One of the sergeants came out with a clock in his hand.
“Put it back,” I said. He looked at me, went in the house and came back without the clock.
“Where’s your partner?” I asked.
“He’s gone to the latrine.” He got up on the seat of the ambulance. He was afraid we would leave him.
“What about breakfast, Tenente?” Bonello asked. “We could eat something. It wouldn’t take very long.”
“Do you think this road going down on the other side will lead to anything?”
“Sure.”
“All right. Let’s eat.” Piani and Bonello went in the house.
“Come on,” Aymo said to the girls. He held his hand to help them down. The older sister shook her head. They were not going into any deserted house. They looked after us.
“They are difficult,” Aymo said. We went into the farmhouse together. It was large and dark, an abandoned feeling. Bonello and Piani were in the kitchen.
“There’s not much to eat,” Piani said. “They’ve cleaned it out.”
Bonello sliced a big white cheese on the heavy kitchen table.
“Where was the cheese?”
“In the cellar. Piani found wine too and apples.”
“That’s a good breakfast.”
Piani was taking the wooden cork out of a big wicker-covered wine jug. He tipped it and poured a copper pan full.
“It smells all right,” he said. “Find some beakers, Barto.”
The two sergeants came in.
“Have some cheese, sergeants,” Bonello said.
“We should go,” one of the sergeants said, eating his cheese and drinking a cup of wine.
“We’ll go. Don’t worry,” Bonello said.
“An army travels on its stomach,” I said.
“What?” asked the sergeant.
“It’s better to eat.”
“Yes. But time is precious.”
“I believe the bastards have eaten already,” Piani said. The sergeants looked at him. They hated the lot of us.
“You know the road?” one of them asked me.
“No,” I said. They looked at each other.
“We would do best to start,” the first one said.
“We are starting,” I said. I drank another cup of the red wine. It tasted very good after the cheese and apple.
“Bring the cheese,” I said and went out. Bonello came out carrying the great jug of wine.
“That’s too big,” I said. He looked at it regretfully.
“I guess it is,” he said. “Give me the canteens to fill.” He filled the canteens and some of the wine ran out on the stone paving of the courtyard. Then he picked up the wine jug and put it just inside the door.
“The Austrians can find it without breaking the door down,” he said.
“We’ll roll,” I said. “Piani and I will go ahead.” The two engineers were already on the seat beside Bonello. The girls were eating cheese and apples. Aymo was smoking. We started off down the narrow road. I looked back at the two cars coming and the farmhouse. It was a fine, low, solid stone house and the ironwork of the well was very good. Ahead of us the road was narrow and muddy and there was a high hedge on either side. Behind, the cars were following closely.
CHAPTER 29
At noon we were stuck in a muddy road about, as nearly as we could figure, ten kilometres from Udine. The rain had stopped during the forenoon and three times we had heard planes coming, seen them pass overhead, watched them go far to the left and heard them bombing on the main highroad. We had worked through a network of secondary roads and had taken many roads that were blind, but had always, by backing up and finding another road, gotten closer to Udine. Now, Aymo’s car, in backing so that we might get out of a blind road, had gotten into the soft earth at the side and the wheels, spinning, had dug deeper and deeper until the car rested on its differential. The thing to do now was to dig out in front of the wheels, put in brush so that the chains could grip, and then push until the car was on the road. We were all down on the road around the car. The two sergeants looked at the car and examined the wheels. Then they started off down the road without a word. I went after them.
“Come on,” I said. “Cut some brush.”
“We have to go,” one said.
“Get busy,” I said, “and cut brush.”
“We have to go,” one said. The other said nothing. They were in a hurry to start. They would not look at me.
“I order you to come back to the car and cut brush,” I said. The one sergeant turned. “We have to go on. In a little while you will be cut off. You can’t order us. You’re not our officer.”
“I order you to cut brush,” I said. They turned and started down the road.
“Halt,”