May had come with her blossoms, but up there a sharp wind was blowing so that it seemed still February. Pinocchio, half naked as he was, shivered like a leaf, and every now and then let out a sneeze which sounded like a bursting shell. At every sneeze Mollica gave him a kick, Corporal Fanfara a box on the ear, and Drummer Stecca a pinch. The only one who didn’t abuse him was Bersaglierino, the blond young soldier, more melancholy than his companions, whom he had first accosted in the station when they were setting out. I have told you that Pinocchio trembled with cold, and I will tell you that it was almost a good thing for him to do so; otherwise they would have seen him tremble with fear. If this had happened, his teasing companions would have driven him to despair. Pinocchio was to be pitied. He was at the front, the frontier several miles behind them, and any minute might bring Austrian bullets whistling through the air. The general had spared the youngster from being shot in the back, but he had given orders to put him in the very front line during the advance and to keep him well guarded. In one case the guns of the enemy would do justice to the suspected spy; in the other, Pinocchio would clear himself by his conduct and at the same time would lose his desire for a close view of the enemy.
Private Mollica was furious with him.
“Che-chew! che-chew! che-chew!”
“Plague take you!” Another kick. “Keep still, you little beast! If you let the enemy spot us I’ll stick this bayonet in your backbone.”
“I can’t stand it any longer. I am frozen—che-chew!”
“Stop it!” Another box on the ear. “You are all right. You wanted to be a volunteer; now you see how much fun it is.”
“I?”
“Yes, you.… You were the cause of the fine talking-to my general gave me, and you made me lose my place as an orderly where I had a chance to make extra soldi. If you hadn’t gone and told him that you had helped me to carry his things and if you hadn’t slipped under the seat of that same officer to listen to what he said, I shouldn’t have been punished by being sent to the front.”
“Are you afraid, then, Mollica?”
“I afraid? But don’t you know that if I catch sight of an Austrian I’ll eat him?”
“Like the food you took from the general,” that rascal of a Pinocchio dared to remark.
There was a chorus of laughs that stopped as if by magic at the sound of a certain roar in the distance and of something whistling through the air and very near.
“There they are!”
“We’re in it.”
“Where?”
“Where are they?”
Who paid any attention now to Pinocchio? All of them had drawn close to one another and had rushed to the edge of the road, their guns pointed, to examine the distant landscape. The mountain was very steep there and covered with thick vegetation. Down at the bottom, toward the plain, there seemed to be an unexpected rise…after the steep descent a green stretch through which a river ran like a silver ribbon. Still farther, was a chain of low mountains, almost like a cloud on the edge of the peaceful horizon.
There was the roar of some more shots and the whistling of the shells, and a branch of a tree was splintered and fell.
Pinocchio, alone in the middle of the road, felt a creeping up and down his spine and experienced a trembling in his legs that shook like a palsied man’s. The second time he heard a shell whistle he felt that he must find a hole in which to hide himself. He looked about him and caught sight near by of an enormous larch-tree which pointed directly toward the heavens. I don’t know how to explain it, but the sight of it took away from Pinocchio the desire to hide himself under the ground and made him wish to climb toward the stars. He gave a spring and shinned up the big trunk in a flash. I bet you a plugged soldo against a lira that you would have done the same.…
“I see them! I see them!”
“Who?”
“Whom do you see?”
“Where are they? Where are you that we can’t see you?”
“I am up here.”
“Bravo! And whom do you see?” Bersaglierino asked.
“I see the suet-eaters.”
“Where are they?”
“Down there where there is a kind of slope there is a town hidden among the trees…up here you can see a roof and the spire of a bell-tower…you can see people on the roof…you can see something glisten…now they are firing.”
This time there were several reports, but they seemed to be aiming in another direction, because there was not the usual whistle in the air.
“Whom are they ‘strafing’?” Corporal Fanfara asked himself.
“I’ll ‘strafe’ that scoundrel Pinocchio. If you don’t come down alive I will bring you down dead with a bullet in the seat of your trousers.”
“But listen! Look down there and see whom they’re giving it to,” cried the enraged Bersaglierino, pointing out a marching column which was hurrying below them.
“Our infantry!”
“Yes, indeed. They will beat us to it. It’s a shame.”
“Our company ought to start off at a double-quick.”
“It must be a half-mile away.”
“But the bersaglieri must get there first…even if there are only the four of us.”
“Sure thing.”
“Do you hear?”
“Forward, Savoy!”
And, heads lowered and bayonets fixed, they rushed down the slope.
“Ho! boys! Ho! Mol-li-ca! Cor-po-ral!… Oh! They are going off without me! What a mean thing to do! They leave me here at the top of this tree and run off.… But if they think they can play me such a trick they are mistaken.… I am hungry as a wolf, and if I don’t get them to feed me, whom can I join? Run, run.… We’ll see who gets there first!”
He climbed down the tree, grumbling as he went, tightened the belt of his trousers, drank in several deep breaths of air, and then tore off like an express train behind time.
I will tell you at once, not to keep you in suspense, that the bersaglieri got there the first, the infantry second, and Pinocchio…a good third. I call it a “good third” merely as a way of expressing it, because when he arrived at the village our soldiers had already passed through it and had advanced some distance beyond, following the Austrians, who had taken to their heels and who were suffering a sharp fire at short range.
The village was so small that it didn’t even deserve the name of one. There were ten houses in all besides the church with the bell-tower, and a long shed over which waved the white flag with the red cross. There was a deathlike silence everywhere. On the little square before the church some bodies of Austrian soldiers were lying; among them was that of an officer so ugly that he seemed to have died of fright, but there was a red spot on his back. Pinocchio was terrified at the sight of him, but he had such a longing for his sword, his automatic pistol, his handsome belt, his light-blue cape, and his cap that he persuaded himself it was perfectly silly to be afraid of a dead Austrian, particularly when they weren’t afraid of live ones. Without too much reflection, he buckled on the dead man’s belt, armed himself with the pistol, wrapped himself in the blue cape, and pressed the cap down on his head. He was good to look at, I can assure you.
The Hapsburg army had never had an officer who could be compared with this puppet who had now become a real boy. Pinocchio was prancing up and down in his new disguise, his sword clanking against the pavement, just like any little lieutenant, when he heard a horrible roar high up overhead, then, a moment later, an explosion which shook the ground! When he lifted up his head to see what had happened he thought he caught sight of some one walking about on the church’s bell-tower. He saw a rag tied to a pole waving and, as if in reply to a signal, brumm! another shot that fell closer. Pinocchio, who was suspicious, went into the vestry and, pistol in hand, rushed up the steep little wooden
stairs. He got to the top without even making the old worm-eaten stairs squeak. In the space where the bells hung a man in civilian’s clothes had his back turned toward him. He was looking off from the balcony, and kept on waving the red cloth. You could see the vast expanse of the plain, and among the green a strange, intermittent flash…then a puff…then you heard a roar, followed by a crash, like a moving train rapidly approaching, then a tremendous explosion. The shells never fell as far as the town, but burst all around it, sending up columns of earth and smoke. And off there Pinocchio could see the bersaglieri, the soldiers of his country. The traitor with his signals was directing fire on the Italian troops.
Tell me truly, what would you have done if you had been in Pinocchio’s place? Would you have fired at the traitor? Yes or no. Well, Pinocchio did the same—cocked his pistol, shut his eyes, pulled the trigger, and pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum, seven shots went off. He had expected only one, and was so frightened that he pitched his weapon away and took to his heels, down the steps, without thought of the wretch, who, for his part, did no more signaling, I assure you!
When he had got down to the square Pinocchio rushed across it, and was about to run in the direction where he had seen his bersaglieri fighting, when, passing by the shed where the Red Cross flag waved, he thought he heard the sound of several voices in a lively discussion. He stopped suddenly and very, very quietly approached a big window closed merely by a wire netting. Inside he saw on one side of the large room two rows of beds, in the middle a group of rough-looking soldiers, with waxed mustaches, completely armed, who were busy plotting together. Just at that moment they separated to go to bed. They took off their weapons, hid them under the sheets, and slipped themselves into bed, drawing the covers up to their noses.
“Wunderschön!” (“Fine.”)
“When Italian pigs come we make a colossal festival,” grunted a Croat and laughed boisterously. “We sick get well, and Italians all croak.”
“I’ll croak you,” muttered Pinocchio, who in a twinkle had understood the deviltry the wretches were planning. He made himself as small as he could, so that the cape dragged on the ground like a petticoat, slunk along the walls of the shed, then rushed off at full speed toward the fields. He was just passing the last house of the village when he found himself unexpectedly surrounded by a score of Austrian soldiers in a half-tipsy condition, so that they took him for their superior officer. He thought himself lost.
“Lieutenant, don’t go farther. ’Talians still near and make croak all Croats.”
“Croat? I a Croat!”
“’Talians make croak Slovaks, too.”
“Oh! Mamma!”
“Ja, ja!”
“Ja, ja!”
Pinocchio had a flash of intuition; he hid his hand under his cape, unsheathed the sword, and, assuming so martial a manner that then and there he could have been taken for a handsome brother of William, he yelled and swore some doggerel which the dolts might think was Hungarian, Dalmatian, or Rumanian, spun ’round and continued on his way to the Italian position. The Austrians followed him, bayonets fixed, convinced that the spirit of Tegetoff had come to life and was leading them to victory. But instead, when they had gone a hundred yards they were showered with bullets and had to fling themselves on the ground in order to escape immediate extermination. Pinocchio saw that he was being shot at more than the others, and didn’t know why. All around him the torn-up earth was strewn with plumes.
“I should like to know why they are after me especially, who am not even firing, while they are sparing these monkeys who have followed me and are shooting like mad. Oh! Perhaps it is on account of the uniform of that miserable officer. If that is the case, my dear ones, enough of your sport. ‘Oho! I am an Italian. Stop firing, for Heaven’s sake, so that I can tell you something important. Oho! Enough, I say!’”
And standing up straight, he hurled the cape and the cap away from him, and with no thought of danger, made for the spot from which came the Italian fire.
Then came the end of the scene. The Croats behind him jumped to their feet like so many jacks-in-the-box, threw their arms about and waved their hands in the air.… From a hedge not far off, a company of bersaglieri came running up and surrounded them, yelling, “Surrender!”
“If one of them moves, stick him like a toad,” commanded a lieutenant.
“Don’t worry, sir, I’ll spit him for your roasting.”
“Secure their officer.”
“Heh, boys! don’t joke…lower your bayonets. I’m no Austrian officer. I am Pinocchio. Mollica, don’t you recognize me?”
“You beastly little creature, what game are you playing? But I’ll run you through, all the same.”
“What’s up now?”
“Lieutenant, Mollica wants to make believe that I am an Austrian lieutenant, because I was the cause of his losing his place as orderly with General Win-the-War, but I am Pinocchio. Do you know me? I am glad. Order these twenty apes, which I have brought all the way here, to be bound, and then if you give me thirty men I will guarantee to catch some others that I have put to bed in the big barracks under the protection of the Red Cross, who pretended they were ill, but who had hidden their guns under the covers to ‘croak Italian hogs.’”
“Where are they?”
“I’ll tell you now…then I’ll show you up on the tower what a pretty thing I found—a traitor who was making signals to some one far off, and then, boom! there came one of those shells that burst. I meant to let him have one little bullet, but the pistol fired so many at him that I threw everything away.…”
“But come on! Come on! Show me the way!”
“Right away, but on one condition—that when I have guided you, you will give me something to eat, because I am so hungry that I could eat that miserable Mollica.”
“Come on, boy, to the village. Double quick!”
Who would have imagined that his regiment had been fighting continuously for ten hours, leaving some dead on the field and sending not a few wounded to the ambulance? There on the square of the village won by Italy, beneath the shadow of the red, white, and green flag that waved from the summit of the little tower, the brave boys gave vent to unrestrained joy. It was time for rations. In the camp kitchens big pots were steaming, but the soldiers did not crowd around them as usual to fill their canteens. The bersaglieri’s attention was held by a sight which put them in good humor, and good humor in war is a rare thing. Pinocchio was eating! He had swallowed three platefuls of soup in five minutes, and as he continued to grunt that he was hungry, they had given him a canteen full to the top and slipped into it a piece of meat that would have been sufficient to satisfy the hunger of four city employees.
“Look out for bones!”
“Are you going to eat them all?”
“If he stays with us he’ll break the Government.”
“Look out, boys, he’ll end by bursting.”
“Don’t you split open with all the Austrians you have eaten, for pork is more indigestible than asses’ meat.”
“Heh! don’t find fault with the food.”
“And what kind of meat do you call this?”
“The best beef.”
“Lie! I am familiar with animals…you give beef to the officers; donkey-meat to the soldiers.”
“Look out, you Pinocchio, you’ll get into trouble with that tongue of yours.”
“Then let me eat in peace. You are all staring at me as if I were a Zulu chewing a hen with her feathers on. My tongue can’t be dainty both talking and eating.”
“Let’s murder him.”
And then there was a loud burst of laughter from all. Pinocchio was shoveling food into his mouth with both his hands, so that his face was red as a cock’s comb and he could scarcely breathe.
They were already as fond of him as if
he were their son. His achievements had won for him a certain respect even from the officers whom he amused with his monkeyshines. It had been decided to adopt Pinocchio as the “son of the regiment” and to keep him at the front as a mascot. He was to live with the troops and to wear the uniform of a Boy Scout. The soldiers with common accord had put off his costume to an opportune moment. Do you want to know the reason? The brave boys were afraid to stick Pinocchio into puttees with so many spiral bands because his little thin legs would have frightened people. For the time being they had him put on a pair of short trousers which dragged behind him on the ground, a little cape like a bersagliere’s, and a fez with a light-blue tassel so long that it touched his heels. This tassel was Pinocchio’s delight, who, in order to look at it, always walked along with his head over his shoulder, and so would keep bumping into first one thing and then another. One day the mischievous Mollica made him run into one of the quarter-master-corps mules, and Pinocchio saluted and asked its pardon. But when he ran into officers, sergeants, corporals, and soldiers, instead of saluting he swore at them all.
It is three days later. General Win-the-War’s troops have not advanced. Our bersaglieri are still in camp near——. It is a sultry, thundering afternoon. Many of the soldiers are sleeping. The Bersaglierino is playing cards with Mollica. Corporal Fanfara is shaving. Stecca is practising on his cornet, trying a variation on a well-known tune. Pinocchio, in the back of the tent, is snoring so loudly that Mollica every now and then hurls a handful of earth at his nose to make him lower his note.
Suddenly the boredom is broken, every one jumps up and runs out to a certain point and crowds around an automobile that has just arrived. Pinocchio wakes up with a start, finds his mouth full of grit, his nose dirty, and hears all the noise about him—has a terrible fright, lets out a yell, and rushes out of the tent. But he is scarcely outside before he feels himself caught up by his legs and whirled around on the ground. He gets up again and is face to face with Bersaglierino, who has not left his post and who laughs loudly at Pinocchio’s plight.
The Pinocchio Megapack: 4 Classic Puppet Tales Page 23
