by Dino Buzzati
Almost as if he suffered from some mysterious listlessness he coldly watched them come in, neither cast down nor glad, as if all this did not concern him.
To crown everything it was a splendid October day, with clear sunlight, the air fresh, the very weather one would desire for a battle. The wind shook out the flag on the roof of the Fort, the yellow earth of the courtyard shone and the soldiers as they passed across it left clear-cut shadows. A lovely morning, sir.
But the commandant let it be clearly understood that he preferred to be left alone and when there was no one in the office he went from desk to window, and from window to desk, unable to make up his mind; for no reason at all he set right his grey moustache and gave vent to long sighs; but as is the way with old men these were a purely physical phenomenon.
Now the black streak made by the foreign troops could no longer be seen on the little triangle of plain visible from the window – which meant that they had come closer, had come nearer to the frontier. In three or four hours they would be at the foot of the mountains.
But the colonel went on polishing the lenses of his spectacles with his handkerchief for no reason at all; he turned over the pages of the reports piled on his table; the orders of the day to sign, a request for leave, the daily report of the medical officer, a bill from the saddlery stores.
What are you waiting for, sir? The sun is already high in the sky and even Major Matti, who came in a little while ago, did not hide a certain apprehension – even Major Matti who never believes anything. At least show yourself to the sentries, take a turn round the walls. Captain Forte who has been to inspect the New Redoubt says that the foreigners can now be distinguished separately and are evidently armed – they are carrying rifles; there is no time to lose.
But Filimore wants to wait. All right, they are soldiers, but how many are there of them? One person says two hundred, another two hundred and fifty; they have also pointed out that if this is the advance guard the main guard will be at least two thousand men. But the main guard has not yet been sighted, perhaps it does not even exist.
The main guard has not been seen yet, sir, only because of the mists to the north. These have come very far down this morning, the wind from across the hills has driven them down, and so they cover a great portion of the plain. These two hundred men would not make sense if they did not have a large army behind them; the others will certainly come into sight before midday. In fact there is one sentry who says he saw something moving on the edge of the mists a little while ago.
But the commandant goes up and down from window to desk and back again and absentmindedly turns the pages of the reports. Why should the foreigners assault the Fort? he wonders. Perhaps they are normal manoeuvres to test the difficulties of the desert. The time of the Tartars is passed – they are no more than a remote legend. And who else would be interested in forcing the frontier? There is something unconvincing about all this.
They may not be the Tartars, sir, but they are certainly soldiers. For several years there have been deep-seated quarrels with the Northern Kingdom – that is no mystery to anyone; more than once there has been talk of war. Soldiers they certainly are. There are both horse and foot, probably the artillery will come up soon, too. Without exaggerating, they would have plenty of time to attack before evening – and the walls of the Fort are old, the rifles are old, the cannon arc old, everything completely out of date except the hearts of the soldiers. Don’t be too sure, sir.
Don’t be too sure! He only wishes he were not sure – this is what he has lived for; he has not many years left to him and if this is not the real thing there will probably not be another chance. It is not fear that holds him back, it is not the thought of perhaps dying. It does not even enter his head.
The fact is that now, towards the end of his days, Filimore has suddenly seen Fortune approach in silver armour and with a blood-stained sword; he hardly ever thought of her any more, yet he now saw her approach in this strange guise and her face was friendly. And Filimore – this is the truth – did not dare to go to meet her; he had been deceived too often and now he had had enough.
The others, the officers of the Fort, had gone running out to meet her, to celebrate her arrival. Unlike him they had gone forth confidently and savoured the strong and bitter smell of battle almost as if they had experienced it before. But the colonel waited. Until the fair apparition had touched him on the hand he would not move, as if out of superstition. Perhaps a trifle would make the image dissolve in the void – a simple gesture of greeting, an admission of desire.
So he confined himself to shaking his head negatively as if to say that Fortune must be mistaken. And looked around incredulously, looked behind where there were presumably other people, the people Fortune was really seeking. But there was no one else to be seen – there was no possibility of mistaken identity, he had to admit that this enviable fate was reserved for himself.
There had been a moment at first light when the mysterious black line had appeared to him against the whiteness of the desert, a moment in which his heart had leapt with joy. Then the vision in the silver armour and with the blood-stained sword had grown a little more indistinct – it was moving towards him but did not in fact make any progress, did not succeed in reducing the distance between them, a short distance yet infinite.
The reason is that Filimore has been waiting too long, and at a certain age hope is very exhausting; one does not rediscover the faith one had at twenty. Too long he has waited in vain; his eyes have read too many orders of the day, on too many mornings his eyes have seen that wretched steppe and always it has been deserted. And now that the foreign troops have appeared he has the distinct impression that there must be some mistake (it would be too much of a good thing otherwise) – there must be some terrible mistake somewhere.
Meanwhile the clock on the wall opposite the desk continued to tick life away, and the colonel’s thin fingers, withered with the years, persisted in cleaning the lenses of his spectacles with a handkerchief although there was no need to do so.
The hands of the clock were approaching half-past ten when Major Matti came into the room to remind the colonel of his daily officers’ conference. Filimore had forgotten and was disagreeably surprised; he would have to talk about the strangers who had appeared on the steppe; he would no longer be able to put off a decision; he would have to state officially that they were enemies – or else make a joke of it, or perhaps take a middle course: give orders for security measures and at the same time take up a sceptical attitude as if there were nothing to get excited about. But some decision had to be taken and that he did not like. He would have preferred to keep on waiting, to remain completely motionless – almost as if he wanted to provoke fate to break loose.
Major Matti said to him with one of his ambiguous smiles:
‘This looks like it this time.’
Colonel Filimore did not reply. The major said:
‘You can see more of them coming up now. There are three columns, you can see them from here.’
The colonel looked him in the eyes and for a moment almost succeeded in liking him.
‘You say more of them are coming up?’
‘You can see them from here, sir, there are a good many of them now.’
They went to the window and saw more black lines moving over the triangle of northern steppe – no longer one as at dawn, but three side by side, and the end of them was lost to sight.
War, war, thought the colonel and tried in vain to dismiss the thought as if to wish for it were forbidden. At Matti’s words hope had reawakened in him and it now filled him with excitement.
His mind still in this whirl, the colonel suddenly found himself in the conference room with all the officers (except those on duty) drawn up before him. Above the dark splash of the uniforms individual faces gleamed palely but he had difficulty in recognising them; fresh or wizened, they all said the same, with feverish, gleaming eyes they avidly asked him to announce formally that the enemy
was there. Standing to attention they all stared at him, demanding not to be defrauded.
In the great silence which filled the hall only the deep breathing of the officers was to be heard. The colonel saw that he must say something. At that moment he was filled with an unfamiliar and uncontrolled emotion. To his astonishment (for he could discover no reason for it) Filimore was suddenly certain that the foreigners were indeed enemies determined to violate the frontier. He had no idea how the change had come about for up to the moment before he had successfully resisted the temptation to believe so. He felt himself being swept along by the tension in everyone’s breast; he knew that he would speak without reservations. ‘Gentlemen,’ he would say, ‘at last the moment we have awaited for years has come.’ That was what he would say, or something like it and the officers would listen with gratitude to what he said, to the tone of authority with which he promised them glory.
That was what he was about to say, but yet – in the innermost recesses of his mind – a voice persisted to the contrary. It is impossible, colonel, said this voice, watch out while there is still time, there is some mistake somewhere (it would be too good to be true otherwise), watch out because there is a terrible mistake somewhere.
Every now and again from among the welter of the emotions which invaded him this hostile voice emerged. But it was late; his delay was becoming embarassing.
So the colonel took a step forward, raising his head as was his custom when he was about to speak and the officers saw his face suddenly grow red – yes, the colonel was blushing like a boy because he was about to confess the jealously guarded secret of his life.
He had blushed delicately like a child and his lips were about to utter the first sound when the hostile voice reawoke in the depths of his mind and Filimore trembled with suspense. At that moment he seemed to hear a hurried step climbing the stairs, approaching the hall where they were gathered. None of the officers noticed it, for all were intent on their commandant, but after all these years Filimore’s ear had become trained to distinguish the slightest sounds in the Fort.
There was no doubt about it, the step was coming nearer with unusual haste. It had a dull sound, a sound from another world, the sound of a routine inspection; it came, it seemed, straight from the world of the plain. The noise now reached the other officers clearly too and they felt their feelings rudely bruised, but why they could not have said. At last the door opened and an unknown officer of the dragoons appeared, gasping with fatigue and covered with dust.
He drew himself up to attention.
‘Lieutenant Fernandez,’ he said, ‘of the 7th Dragoons. I have brought this message from the city, from His Excellency, the Chief of Staff.’ Bearing his tall headdress elegantly on his arched left arm he approached the colonel and handed him a sealed envelope.
Filimore shook his hand.
‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘you look as if you have had a hard ride of it. Now Santi here will take you to have something to eat and drink.’
Without the least trace of anxiety the colonel made a sign to Lieutenant Santi, the first to catch his eye, and invited him to do the honours of the Fort. The two officers went out and the door closed again.
‘Excuse me, won’t you?’ Filimore asked with a slight smile and held up the envelope as a sign that he preferred to read it immediately. His hands carefully undid the seals, tore off a strip of paper and took out a double page covered with writing.
As he read the officers stared at him, looking for something to show itself in his face. But there was nothing there. It was as if he had glanced over a newspaper after supper sitting by the fire on a lazy winter evening. Only the flush had disappeared from the commandant’s thin face.
When he had finished reading, the colonel folded the double page, replaced it in the envelope, put the envelope in his pocket and raised his head to show that he was about to speak. One could feel it in the air that something had happened, that the enchantment of a few minutes before had been shattered.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, and his voice came with great difficulty,‘ if I am not mistaken there has this morning been a certain excitement among the men – and also among yourselves – because of formations sighted on the so-called Tartar steppe.’
With difficulty his words pierced the profound silence. A fly buzzed up and down in the hall.
‘These are,’ he went on, ‘these are units of the Northern Kingdom which have been given the task of tracing the frontier as we did many years back. They will not come near the Fort in the course of their duties; it is probable that they will spread out in groups and make their way up into the mountains. So I am informed officially in this letter by His Excellency, the Chief of Staff.’
As he spoke, Filimore gave vent to long sighs, sighs not of impatience or sorrow, but (as is the way with old men) a purely physical phenomenon; and suddenly his voice seemed to have become an old man’s voice with certain limp and hollow notes, and his eyes, an old man’s eyes, had become yellowish and opaque.
He had felt it all along, Colonel Filimore. They could not be enemies, he knew it perfectly well; he was not born for glory. He had so often allowed himself to be stupidly deluded. Why, he asked himself, why had he allowed himself to be taken in? He had felt from the first that it was bound to end thus.
‘As you know,’ he continued in a tone so apathetic that it could not but sound extremely bitter, ‘the boundary stones and other demarcation signs were laid by us many years ago. But I am informed by His Excellency that there is one stretch not yet marked off. I shall dispatch a certain number of men under a captain and a subaltern to complete the work. It is a mountainous region with two or three parallel chains. It is not necessary to mention that it would be well to push as far forward as possible and secure the northern ridge. Not that it is strategically essential, if you understand me, because no war could ever develop up there nor could it offer any possibilities of manoeuvre.’ He broke off for a moment, lost in thought. ‘Possibilities of manoeuvre – where was I?’
‘You were saying that one should push as far forward as possible,’ prompted Major Matti with a suspiciously penitent air.
‘Yes, that’s right, I was saying one should push as far forward as possible. However it is not easy – by now we have been outstripped by the Northerners. However – well, we’ll talk about that later,’ he concluded, turning to Lieutenant-Colonel Nicolosi.
He fell silent and seemed to be tired. As he spoke he had seen a veil of disappointment fall over the officers’ faces; he had seen them become once more not warriors eager for the fight but colourless garrison officers. But they were young, he thought, they would still have time.
‘Now,’ went on the colonel, ‘I am sorry to have to make a remark which applies to several of you. I have noticed more than once that at the changing of the guard some platoons parade in the courtyard without their respective officers. These officers evidently consider themselves authorised to come on parade later …’
The fly buzzed up and down the hall; the flag on the roof of the Fort had drooped; the colonel was talking about discipline and regulations; in the northern steppes armed formations advanced, no longer enemies eager for battle but harmless soldiers like themselves, advanced not towards destruction but to carry out a survey; their rifles were unloaded, their swords blunt. The inoffensive phantom army spreads over the northern plain and in the Fort everything falls back once more into the rhythm of the accustomed days.
Chapter Fifteen
The expedition to trace the unexplored stretch of frontier left the next day at dawn. In command was Monti, the huge captain, accompanied by Lieutenant Angustina and a sergeant-major. Each of the three had been entrusted with the password for that day and for the four following days. It was highly improbable that all three of them would perish; in any case the most senior surviving soldier would have had powers to open his superior officers’ jackets, if they were dead or had fainted, to search in the little inside pocket and take from it the sealed e
nvelope containing the secret pass for re-entering the Fort.
As the sun rose, some forty armed men emerged from the walls of the Fort. Captain Monti wore heavy nailed boots like those of his men. Only Angustina wore jackboots; before they left, the captain had looked at them with extreme curiosity but had said nothing.
They descended a hundred yards or so over the stony road, then struck across to the right towards the mouth of a narrow rocky valley which ran into the heart of the mountain.
They had been walking for half an hour when the captain said:
‘You’ll have hard going with these,’ and pointed to Angustina’s jackboots.
Angustina said nothing.
‘I don’t want to have to stop,’ the captain went on after a little. ‘They’ll hurt you, you’ll see.’
‘It’s too late now,’ replied Angustina, ‘you could have told me sooner, if that is the case.’
‘Either way it would have come to the same thing,’ retorted Monti. ‘I know you, Angustina, you would have put them on just the same.’
Monti could not stand him. With all the airs you give yourself, he thought, I’ll show you soon. And he forced the pace to the utmost even up the steepest slopes, knowing that Angustina was not strong. Meanwhile they had come close to the base of the cliffs. The loose stones had grown smaller and their feet sank into them exhaustingly.
‘Usually there is a devilish wind blowing down this gorge,’ said the captain. ‘But today it’s fine.’
Lieutenant Angustina said nothing.
‘It’s a good job there’s no sun,’ Monti went on. ‘It’s good going today.’
‘Then you have been here already?’ asked Angustina.
‘Once,’ answered Monti, ‘we had to look for a deserter.’
He broke off the last word because the noise of a stonefall had come from high up on a grey overhanging wall of rock. They could hear the crash of the boulders exploding against the crags and rebounding wildly down into the abyss amidst clouds of dust. A crash of thunder was thrown from cliff to cliff. The mysterious stonefall continued for some minutes in the heart of the crags, but died away in the gullies before reaching the foot; only two or three stones reached the screes where the soldiers were climbing.
