CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The following day, in the early morning, the major sent a soldier named Peduzzi and me to Bainsizza. The road to that area was well protected, and it felt a little strange to be where the enemy once had been. At the end of the road, we came to a village that was nearly completely destroyed. We went to one of the few remaining buildings and met Gino, the guy I was sent to replace.

He was glad to see me. Immediately, he showed me around and introduced me to people. He told me that the British had ambulances nearby in Ravne. They were doing an excellent job. Gino had only good things to say about them. There was talk that the enemy would attack soon, however, Gino felt that the large amount of rain we had been receiving would prevent them from coming. Many soldiers would be getting sick on both sides, especially the wounded. He then told me about a new gun the Austrians had just begun to use.

"It scares me more than any other gun I've seen. They shoot two at the same time. When it's coming, you can hear a kind of scream and no matter where you are, it always seems like it's coming for you."

The situation seemed much worse than I had imagined. Gino said there were soldiers from both Croatia and Hungary helping the Austrians. He also added that there were no phone lines and no place to run if the enemy was to come for us.

"Man, I really hate fighting in the mountains. It's a bad idea for everyone. It's impossible to fight up there," I said. "Before, I remember reading that people refused to fight the Austrians in the mountains. Instead, they would wait and let them climb down to attack. Then they would beat them easily."

"True," Gino said, "but those weren't Italians fighting the Austrians. Those were the French and they were fighting on Italian land. People don't think as well when they are protecting their own country."

He told me that we were running out of food, especially the soldiers further away from the front. It was making the men less brave and hopeful.

I liked Gino. He was a good soldier, and he seemed to see things pretty clearly. I thanked him for showing me around and sharing with me what he knew. Then I walked him to his jeep and wished him a safe ride back to Gorizia.

It stopped raining just before the sun went down. For about twenty minutes, I had a fairly good view of the forests above us in the mountains. We could see the Austrians' location from the smoke that floated out from the trees whenever their large guns were fired. I was happy to find that they were not shooting directly at us today.

Later that evening, a few of the drivers and I took the ambulances over to the medical tent at the very front of the lines. We fully expected an attack by the enemy that night. It came very late, after the rain had begun to fall heavily. They managed to surprise us and killed most of our front line of men. However, the second line of Italians fought hard and successfully drove the enemy away. We were busy after that collecting the many wounded and taking them to the nearest hospitals in the field. While we were working, it began to snow.

The next day, the enemy made several attempts to attack, but failed each time. North of us, we could hear a lot of big enemy guns firing. It sounded like the Italians were having more trouble protecting the border there. Later on, people began to talk as though they had heard that the Austrians had entered Italy from up there. Many said that they had heard it was the Germans we were now facing, not just the Austrians. Everyone feared the Germans the most. Then people began to say that our unit had been ordered to give up and run back to Gorizia. I asked the leader about this and they told me it was not true.

"We have been ordered to do everything we can to stop the advance of the Austrians and Germans. If they come, we'll fight, not run."

The next day, however, we began to pack up supplies at all of the surrounding field hospitals in the area. Once we had finished, we were told to head back to Gorizia. When we got back to town, it was being emptied of people. The roads were full of soldiers and families in trucks and on wagons. It looked like we were running away, after all. I saw a truck full of girls from the sex house drive by. One of them looked at me, licked her lips, and then blew me a kiss.

At the hospital I found Rinaldi was already gone. He had left with all the other doctors from the hospital. There was a note there for me from the major ordering me to put as much of the hospital's equipment in my ambulances as I could and drive to Pordenone, a small town just beyond the city of Udine.

We immediately gathered the equipment and loaded it into our cars. My drivers all looked extremely tired. It would have been no good to leave for Pordenone immediately. Someone would surely have had an accident. I told the men to get a few hours of sleep first and then I went up to my room to sleep a little myself.

After we woke up later, we had dinner and shared a couple of bottles of wine. The men were mostly in a good mood. They did not mind running from the Austrians. In fact, they much preferred it to running for them. Piani was the only one who still seemed sleepy. I decided to ride with him in order to keep him awake. When the time came to leave, we all became a little sad. Gorizia was a nice place. The other drivers told me that Pordenone was not nearly as pleasant.

(end of section)