you can see I am able to write so please don’t worry about me.
I am at a field hospital ….because during an operation my shoulder was injured, luckily it is not serious. What I experienced with my fellow soldiers over the last few months is virtually nothing compared to what has happened over the last few days. I hope you have received my previous letters. If so, you are aware of the situation we have endured for months: the barricades are our home, these dugouts where mud gets as far as your knees, and you can only get out of them to go and fight the enemy who is not too far from you. It is cold in there, very cold. I can say it to you: I am scared. I am scared when I can get some sleep for a little while and I am woken up by the blast of the bombs nearby, I am scared when we have to advance and my riflemen look at me with their ashen eyes, without expression, almost indifferent to their destinies, fear when Tornieri, my fellow soldier, collapses beside me with his stomach opened up and you can see inside and begs me to help him, not with the words because he has no more, but with his eyes. I look at him crying, he knows there is nothing I can do to help him and I have to leave him there because we have to go. So I go but I can’t see anything because of the tears in my eyes and I pray, for a quick moment, I pray for Tornieri, whom I was talking to just a moment before, to die quickly. I pray for his death, he is so young and far away from his home which I got to know thanks to what he recounted, without anybody around him. No, no, it does not have to be like this! I turn back then just in time to hold his hand, soiled with mud and blood. He looks as if he is smiling at me and he passes away near me without even a sob: just a little sigh and he is gone forever.
I am scared because I don’t know what tomorrow would be like and I am horrifies that it is going to be like today, or even worse.
On the night of October 24th, we are in the barricade on Livek gap, waiting for the enemies to attack. It is the middle of the night, it is raining heavily and there is a thick fog everywhere. Around two in the morning there is the first blast, and then it goes on for hours on end. The cannons are fired so often that at dawn the land is covered in deep holes which were so near one another that the soldiers jump into them to get some shelter during their advance. They are given the order to defend the post and that’s what has to be done, whereas the holes they jump into to get some shelter are full of dead bodies and men all deformed in the attempt to breath, due to gas asphyxiation.
The night never ends. We advance for a few metres and when the position seems to be consolidated, here come the enemies, ready for an attack. I gather up my men, there are so few of them that I think it is pointless to resist, yet we just fight, we just keep at it without thinking, then we withdraw again, and again on the dead bodies of our fellow soldiers. All of a sudden I cannot remember anything about this living hell, apart from a sensation of heat that runs from my shoulder down to my arm and an almost pleasant vertigo that doesn’t make me hear the blasts and feel the fear.
I was in hospital then when I was informed about what happened to our army and I heard about this withdrawal that neutralized our long-standing efforts.
I am feeling better and you are not to worry about me.
This war now does not even scare me anymore. This defeat has made me aware that now, after so much suffering, we need to fight harder for our country not to neutralize the sacrifices made by many fellow soldiers. I hope it finishes soon so that I can come back to you all, but I have to do my full duty first.
Give the kids a kiss from me. A hug to you all.
Your Rudi.’
Maria raised her eyes from the letter and looked at Giovanni in dismay.
-Is Rudi injured? …Are we losing the war?-
They were getting the news only from the newspaper that Giovanni would buy when there was something particularly important, and that day all over the front page there were public announcements about the retreat of our army and about general Cadorna being replaced by Diaz for the High Command .
-I think so- he answered, looking worried- Things are worse that we would have expected.
Those words were said at last and were taken in in silence, as if to voice what everybody thought. Now every daily chore felt like a burden to carry and a relief at the same time, a way to get going and shake off that sense of oppression caused by endless hours.
1 Chapter IV
Agnese and Luciano
The twins, that was how they were called by the family, had turned five. To everyone they were ‘the twins’, not just because they were twins, but because they were connected by a knot that did not untie when they were born.
-The twins didn’t eat- the twins have a temperature- check where the twins are…- nobody ever called them by their names. The age difference with the older brothers had turned them into a little world of its own. Especially when the older siblings started going to school, they would be all day together, complementing each other so much that at times they would isolate themselves and people would forget about them. They would rarely argue and it was difficult that they would quarrel over swapping toys or roles that they were taking up.
-You do this- No, you do it- That’s fine, I’ll do it-
Or
-I play with this now…. And I’ll play with this, then we swap…- They would have accepted any compromise in order to be with each other. That wasn’t because they did not have any other friend, considering that they lived a little bit further out in the small town. The farmers would often bring their children with them and even thought they were a little shy, they would be in the house with them, but above all because the two of them would easily communicate, even without using words, without too many explanations. It was all quite simple.
Agnese was the chubbier of the two of them. She had been that way since their birth and growing up she would keep her build. She was a cheerful but not boisterous little girl, her big dark eyes would brighten up when she smiled, almost hidden by her chubby cheeks if she was laughing whole-heartedly. She loved to play not so much with her doll but with the doll that used to be Clara’s, because it belonged to her older sister who had given it up without regretting it. For her birthday her father brought back her a pram from the town fair, the image of her own pram when she was smaller. Now mum was looking after her baby girl taking her out for a walk in the porch, wrapped up in a little yellow quilt that auntie Maria had made for her. While she was walking around, she felt that everything was perfect: a home, a mum, a baby and daddy that was waiting for them.
Luciano was always daddy. He would ride back home on his wooden horse, to eat at a table where dainties made with mud, small stones and little pieces of paper were served, to say that everything tasted so good and to go back to work, on horseback, trotting or at a gallop according to the situation. A role that turned out to be rather marginal in the daily running of their house, where the most demanding tasks were carried out by the house mistress. While she was cleaning, cooking, going for walks, he had some free time to fill in, so he would say -What can I do now?- he asked.- -You work the land- and he would start digging lightly with a stick. After a little while, the farmer would get bored and would go back home saying that it was time to draw. So straight away they would drop the kitchen with the pots on the fire and the poor doll was left on her own in the middle of the porch.
The time they spent doing their drawings would fly by, especially for him. While they were at it, it was Agnese’s turn to ask –What now?- Without raising his eyes off the paper, lying down on the ground or kneeling down on a chair which was too low near the table, Luciano would give her some instructions and some advice.
He was a tall child, quite thin, and was told to look
