Unto the Sons (51 page)

Still, Antonio was relieved when the convoy detoured off the tunneled road, where he believed his luck was being pushed to the limit, and turned sharply through a crevasse in the mountain onto a dirt road lined on both sides by bushes and trees threaded with barbed wire. The trucks moved slowly for nearly half a mile, passing along the way a waterfall and rock stream in which Antonio saw some Italian soldiers bathing and doing their laundry. He realized it had finally stopped raining. At the end of the road the trucks were waved through an opened gate by two sentries with carbines. After the trucks had stopped, several sergeants and corporals appeared behind the vehicles and ordered everyone to get out and line up for inspection.

As Antonio jumped out and looked around, he saw that he was under an immense overhanging rock; he was standing on rocky flatland surrounded on all sides by mountain walls that rose hundreds of feet and tapered toward one another at the top. The edges of the walls were jagged, and through an opening in the top was a view of the cloudy sky. The flatland on which he stood was as spacious as the town square in Maida, and along its fringes near the walls were dozens of tents and wooden shacks surrounded by soldiers, some of whom stood next to mule carts and small trucks loading and unloading supplies and equipment.

Hundreds of troops seemed to be encamped in this hollow hideaway that surely was within easy artillery range, if not yet within telescopic sight and knowledge, of Austria’s alpine teams of observers and gunners. Indeed, Antonio suspected that some of the shells he now heard exploding in the far mountainside and valley were actually sailing over the apex of this rather cozy concavity. And yet, as he stood at attention while the sergeant major and a lieutenant made their way along the line inspecting each soldier’s identity papers, he could not help being amazed by the nonchalance exhibited by many of the officers and enlisted men he saw moving around across the way, in the vicinity of a large shack with an Italian flag on top that he assumed was the base headquarters.

Strolling arm in arm out of the shack were two officers, who conversed as if they were enjoying a
passeggiata
. Next to the shack Antonio caught a glimpse of a few soldiers standing casually in line at the counter of a wheeled field kitchen, which was parked next to a wheeled post office, to which other soldiers carried parcels and letters for mailing. He also saw a wheeled blacksmith shop, its smithy working lustily with a steel hammer, seemingly unconcerned about the loud clanging sounds he was sending up through the interior, assuming no doubt that the echo of this noise would be muted by the louder sounds coming above from the artillery. Next to the medical aid station and a row of latrines were two large steaming wooden tubs in which a half-dozen soldiers were bathing themselves.

The new arrivals could take a bath, the sergeant major informed them after they had been counted and their documents verified; but first he led them to their barracks, which were located in the woods and were reached by walking a few hundred feet past a wide opening in the shelter, the same opening through which the trucks had come in earlier. The trucks had just been turned around and were headed up the dirt road, presumably on their way back through the grass-mat tunnels toward the train station to get more troops.

The barracks to which Antonio was assigned with Muffo was the second in a row of six, all of them painted the same gray-green color as the soldiers’ uniforms. Otherwise there was no camouflaging except that provided by nature, the deciduous trees in early bloom adding to the cover already offered by cypresses and pines. In the near distance Antonio saw the wooden gate through which they had entered, with its barbed-wire fence, and two steel-helmeted sentries carrying carbines. In the barracks, Antonio, Muffo, and the others were told to select a cot, to change into dry clothes, and, after going to the tubs and the field kitchen if they wished, to return and rest.

“It may be your final siesta until the war is over,” the sergeant said, grinning. Then he added: “Tonight, after midnight, all of you will be going out on patrol.” The room became silent, and Antonio no longer had any illusions that he had found a safe haven in the shadows of the war.

He spent the last part of the day walking around, too anxious to sleep, not hungry enough to eat. He filled his cup with coffee at the field kitchen, then sat nearby on a tree stump, while Muffo and the others helped themselves to soup and macaroni and sat eating at one of the long tables. By wandering about and overhearing conversations of officers as well as soldiers, Antonio got a sense of where he was and what military role the troops stationed here would be expected to play.

He was on a crest of a mountain some miles west of the Isonzo River, which flowed from the Austrian-controlled Julian Alps in the north down to the Austrian-controlled Gulf of Trieste in the south. The Austrians also commanded the mountains to the east of the Isonzo, but the Italians were planning to infiltrate the river area at night and mass troops there, and, after crossing the river on pontoon bridges, to fight their way up into the mountains and drive out the Austrians. The reconnaissance team Antonio would join on this night was an advance unit in the big campaign.

Antonio was rejoined by Muffo and the two sat talking, when a lieutenant called to them: “You men look like you need something to do.” Before they could reply, he ordered them to follow him. Soon they were back in the woods, not far from their barracks, approaching a stable and a barn. Two cavalrymen were brushing their horses near the stable, and in the barn were several mules attached to two-wheeled carts containing hay. There were soldiers nearby with pitchforks and smaller tools bent over bales of hay, hacking the hay into smaller sections and then picking it up in their hands and examining it before loading it into the carts.

“They’re checking to see if there are any tiny steel prongs in the hay,” the lieutenant explained to Antonio and Muffo, adding that word had
come down from the commanding general’s office that some of the hay purchased by the Italian army from its allies—hay that had come from the United States—contained prongs that had been inserted possibly by German and Austrian sympathizers in the United States wanting to kill the horses and mules of the Allies. Prongs had been discovered in the hay delivered to other Allied theaters, the lieutenant said; consequently all Italian commands were taking precautions before feeding their animals. The hay in this barn had to be inspected before nightfall, the lieutenant went on, and therefore he wanted Antonio and Muffo to lend a hand to the task. The corporal in charge of the detail handed them two pitchforks, and the lieutenant thanked them and left.

Antonio and Muffo worked next to the other soldiers for nearly two hours, until it was too dark to continue; but during this time not a single prong was discovered by anyone, nor had any been found earlier in the day. Still, the activity had taken Antonio’s mind off the possibly precarious night that awaited him; and when the corporal had given them permission to leave, Antonio and Muffo wandered over to the tubs and took a hot bath before returning to the barracks.

By now it was completely dark, and Antonio saw some soldiers already asleep in their cots, while others sat in their underwear rearranging their knapsacks and cleaning their rifles. Antonio again saw the young soldier he had noticed on the truck, the one who had been drawing a sketch of riflemen in action with the quotation from D’Annunzio; but the soldier did not smile at him now. He actually gave Antonio a scowling look; and when Antonio stared back at him, he turned away but began to click the bolt of his rifle back and forth as fast and as loudly as he could. Although Antonio was not afraid of him, he knew he would keep his distance from him in the field. He was weird, Antonio decided. Any soldier who went off to war drawing pictures of soldiers shooting guns was weird.

Antonio removed his clothes and got into his cot, glancing at Muffo, who was already asleep. Antonio reached into his knapsack for his diary and made a few notes, listing the date as June 5 with a question mark.
I must be careful of this crazy young man, this patriot, or whatever
, Antonio wrote.
Maybe he’s a spy for the army. I’d heard that the army has spies among the troops, people who keep their ears open and report to the superiors everything they hear
.… Antonio began to write about how he had spent the evening in the barn looking for prongs; but then a sergeant came into the barracks and extinguished all the lights.

It seemed but a few minutes before Antonio was awakened by an
order to get out of his cot. The troops had ten minutes to assemble outside, a sergeant announced, with their bayonets on their rifles. There were latrines outside the barracks, and also buckets of water and caldrons of coffee. After folding his blanket into his knapsack, getting dressed and helping himself to the coffee, Antonio joined the others in a lantern-lit clearing in the woods and followed the motion of a sergeant’s arm toward a major who stood near a group of Bersaglieri and some members of the spirited Alpino corps, who wore jaunty pointed gray-green hats adorned with an eagle’s feather.

These two fighting branches represented a prideful minority within the uniformed ranks of young Italian manhood. They seemed to relish military life and Spartan discipline. They not only marched in step but did so on the double. In a land that adored saints and heroic individualists, but had yet to achieve a collective appreciation of itself as a nation, and certainly not as a militaristic nation, Bersaglieri and Alpini were no doubt anomalies, but they presented themselves with a boldness that demanded respect. And they got this respect even from such reluctant warriors as Antonio, who on this night was comforted by their presence, and who, after learning that he would reconnoiter among them, felt honored. His job, and the job of the other infantrymen, was to march behind these elite troops and protect their rear and flanks while they moved ahead, setting the pace, undaunted and daring as they encroached upon the enemy.

Directing this reconnaissance contingent was Major Riccardo Reina, a stout, broad-shouldered veteran of the Libyan campaign. Major Reina had divided the contingent into three groups; and, as he explained after the sergeants had brought order to the ranks, each group would travel through the woods along a different path down to the river, where they would establish three bridgeheads before daybreak and begin to mark the way for the large-scale offensive that would follow. Major Reina himself would lead one group. The other groups would be headed by two captains whom he introduced, both of them Bersaglieri. Members of the Alpini would be integrated into the three groups; they were trained in the preferred methods of advancement on steep acclivities, and were also qualified to assist the accompanying engineer corpsmen in erecting wire-rope tramways for conveying supplies and ammunition up the sides of mountains and across chasms. The engineers would be responsible for selecting the best places along the river for the pontoon bridges; division headquarters would be informed about these locations by telegraph, and the bridge-building cadres in the vanguard of the attack would use these locations. Each of the three reconnaissance groups was assigned a dozen
infantrymen whose main role was to provide protection in the event the group was discovered and pursued along the way by Austrian ground forces. Antonio and Muffo were assigned to Major Reina’s group, which, including engineers, the Bersaglieri and Alpini, totaled twenty-six men. The cherub, Antonio was pleased to note, had been assigned to another group.

After what seemed to Antonio an endless delay, Major Reina and his first sergeant formed their group into two lines and moved out. Without being told, the Bersagliere riflemen—whose very name reflected their reputation as sharpshooters—moved to the head of the line behind Major Reina and his sergeant. Antonio and the other infantrymen composed the middle and rear, intermingled with the engineers and Alpini. Although Antonio had gone on night maneuvers as part of his training in Catanzaro, this first real wartime excursion made him nervous, and as he marched beyond the light of the lanterns he suddenly could see nothing at all. Reaching forward he caught on to the strap of the knapsack of the soldier marching in front of him. For several moments he moved ahead, following the footsteps and rhythm of those before him, gradually becoming aware of the breath of someone behind him grazing his neck, someone who now lightly held on to
his
knapsack. As their eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, each man let go of the knapsack in front of him and walked naturally behind the leaders along a narrow leafy path through the mountain forest.

The major and the Bersaglieri could occasionally be heard talking softly among themselves, but those in the middle and rear said nothing. Antonio was marching abreast of a moustachioed, hawk-nosed man named Conti, a cabinetmaker from Reggio Calabria who had spent nearly two years as a road worker in Massachusetts under a
padrone
. Antonio had chatted with him briefly during the train ride up the coast, and Conti had appeared then to be a frolicsome, devil-may-care sort of man. He told jokes to the troops standing in the aisle, played in every card game that was formed on the floor, and led in the singing of risqué songs. Conti had also hurled more than his share of cans out along the tracks. But now, during the march, Antonio was aware that Conti carried rosary beads around the butt of his rifle, and that his lips were moving soundlessly.

Marching ahead of Antonio was a big farm boy named Branca, who was born in the southern countryside near the town of Filadelfia, near Maida. Branca carried in his knapsack a sawed-off ox horn, which he had used on the farm to calm his pigs. An inspecting officer had considered confiscating it as the troops boarded the train at Catanzaro, but had relented
when Branca argued that it was a good-luck charm and would help him survive the war. Marching next to the hefty Branca was Muffo, who was stockier and a bit taller, and whose jug ears were silhouetted in the moonlight. Both men moved as calmly as if they were escorting a docile herd of cattle through a lush and idyllic meadowland.