it a little further by leaning his head forward. At that moment there was another ‘plop’ as if something had fallen into the water. Would it be repeated again? He lay waiting for the noise, such a sound as went with underground passages, marshes and deserted houses. The minutes appeared to stand still; complete silence seemed at last to be undisputed master of the Fort. And once more wild images of the life he had left so far behind crowded round Drogo.
There it was again, the sound he hated. Drogo sat up. So it was a noise that went on and on; the last splash had been no less loud than the first so it could not be a drip which would at last die away. How could he sleep? Drogo remembered that there was a cord hanging by the side of the bed, perhaps a bell-cord. He tried pulling it; the cord answered his pull and in some remote and winding corridor of the building a brief tinkling answered almost imperceptibly. But how stupid it was, thought Drogo, to call someone for such a trifle. And who would come in any case?
Soon after there was the sound of feet in the corridor outside; they drew closer and someone knocked at the door. ‘Come in,’ said Drogo. A soldier with a lamp in his hand appeared. ‘Yes sir,’ he said.
‘It’s impossible to sleep here, damn it,’ said Drogo becoming coldly angry. ‘What is this wretched noise? There’s a pipe burst; see that you stop it – it’s quite impossible to sleep. All you need is a rag under it.’
‘It’s the cistern, sir,’ the soldier answered immediately as if he were used to the whole affair. ‘It’s the cistern, sir, there’s nothing we can do about it.’
‘The cistern?’
‘Yes, sir,’ explained the soldier. ‘The cistern – just behind that wall. Everyone complains but no one has ever been able to do anything about it. Captain Fonzaso shouts about it every now and again too, but it’s no good.’
‘Away you go then,’ said Drogo. The door closed, the footsteps died away, the silence grew again, the stars gleamed in the window. Giovanni thought of the sentries walking up and down like automata a few yards from him, without pause. Scores of men were awake while he lay in bed and everything seemed sunk in sleep. Scores – thought Drogo – but for whom and why? It seemed as if in the Fort the rigid laws of army life had reached a pitch of insanity. Hundreds of men guarding a gap through which no one would pass. Let me get away, get away as soon as possible, thought Giovanni, get away from this atmosphere, from this mysterious mist. He thought of his own simple home: at this hour his mother would be asleep, all the lights out – unless she were still thinking of him for a moment, which was very likely; he knew her so well and how for the least thing she would lie and worry all night and turn in her bed, unable to rest.
Once more there was the hollow overflow of the cistern, another star passed out of the frame of the window and its light continued to reach the world, the breastworks of the Fort, the feverish eyes of the sentries, but not Giovanni Drogo who lay waiting for sleep, a prey to sinister thoughts.
Supposing all Matti’s hair-splitting was an act he put on? Suppose in actual fact they didn’t let him go even at the end of four months? Suppose they kept him from seeing the city again with excuses and quibbles about regulations? Suppose he had to stay up there for years and years, in this room, in this solitary bed, suppose he had to waste all his youth? What absurd things to think, said Drogo to himself, realising their stupidity; yet he did not succeed in dispelling them, for soon under cover of the night they returned.
Thus he seemed to feel spreading around him an obscure plot to try to retain him there. Probably not even Matti was concerned in it. Neither he nor the colonel, nor any other officer was the least interested in him; whether he stayed or went was completely indifferent to them. Yet some unknown force was working against his return to the city – a force which perhaps without his knowing it had its origins in his own heart.
Then he saw a great hall, a horse on a white road; he seemed to hear voices calling him by name and fell asleep.
Two evenings later Giovanni Drogo was on duty in the third redoubt for the first time. At six o’clock in the evening the seven guards formed up in the courtyard – three for the Fort, four for the lateral redoubts. The eighth – that for the New Redoubt – had left earlier, for it had some way to go.
Sergeant-Major Tronk, an old inhabitant of the Fort, had been in charge of the men for the third redoubt – twenty-eight of them with a trumpeter who made twenty-nine. They were all from number two company – Captain Ortiz’ company to which Giovanni had been posted. Drogo took command and unsheathed his sword.
The seven guards were drawn up in line with perfect dressing; in accordance with tradition, the colonel watched from a window. On the yellow courtyard they made a black pattern which was good to see.
The last rays of the sun slanted across the walls and over them the sky was bright, swept clear by the wind. A September evening. The second-in-command, Lieutenant-Colonel Nicolosi, came out by the great door of the command post, limping from an old wound and leaning on his sword. That day it was Monti’s turn to inspect the guard, an immense captain whose hoarse voice gave the command and all together, absolutely together, the soldiers presented arms with a great metallic clash. There was a tremendous silence.
Then one by one the trumpeters of the seven guards sounded the calls. They were the famous silver trumpets of Fort Bastiani, with cords of red and gold silk hung with a great coat of arms. Their pure note filled the sky and the motionless hedge of bayonets resounded with it, like the low resonance of a bell. The soldiers were as motionless as statues; their faces military and expressionless. It could not be that they were preparing for monotonous spells of guard duty; with such heroic mien they must surely be going to face the enemy.
The last call hung in the air, repeated by the distant ramparts. The bayonets gleamed for another second, bright against the deep sky, only to be swallowed up in the ranks – all extinguished together. The colonel had disappeared from the window. The steps of the seven guards echoed as through the labyrinth of the Fort they marched off to their respective stations.
An hour later Giovanni Drogo was on the topmost terrace of the third redoubt on the very spot where the evening before he had looked towards the north. Yesterday he had come sight-seeing like a passing visitor. Now he was master there; for twenty-four hours the whole redoubt and a hundred yards of wall were under his sole command. Below him, in the interior of the fortification, two artillerymen stood by the two cannon which covered the end of the valley. Three sentries divided between them the perimeter of the redoubt; four others were set out along the wall to the right at intervals of twenty-five yards.
The relief of the sentries coming off duty had taken place with meticulous precision under the eyes of Sergeant-Major Tronk, who was an expert on rules and regulations. He had been in the Fort for twenty-two years and now did not stir from it even on leave. There was no one who knew as he did every corner of the fortifications and often the officers came on him by night making a round of inspection, when it was as dark as pitch, without a light of any kind. When he was on duty the sentries did not lay down their rifles even for a second nor lean against the ramparts – they were even careful not to stop pacing up and down, for rests were granted only exceptionally; Tronk did not sleep all night, making the rounds with silent tread, causing the sentries to start. ‘Who goes there? Who goes there?’ they challenged, bringing their guns to their shoulders. ‘Grotta,’ replied the sergeant-major. ‘Gregorio,’ said the sentry.
The usual practice was for the officers and N.C.O.’s on duty to make the rounds on their own stretch of wall informally; the soldiers knew them well by sight and it would have seemed ridiculous to exchange
