_How Pinocchio Came Face to Face with Our Alpine Troops_
If you had come across him unexpectedly in his new costume I assure
you you would not have recognized him. On his head was a woolen helmet
from which emerged only his eyes and the point of his nose; on his
back was a short coat of goatskin which swelled him out like a German
stuffed with beer and sausage; his legs were lost in a pair of big
boots with lots of nails. Around his waist was a huge belt of leather
from which hung a number of small rope ends, and in his hand he
carried a splendid stick with an iron point. Captain Teschisso was a
gentleman and wanted his new orderly to be magnificently equipped.
That odd creature of a mountaineer amused himself thoroughly with the
rascal Pinocchio. It didn't seem real to see him struggling to
conquer the mountain peaks and ready to fight those dogs of Austrians
who were up there and with whom he had so many accounts to settle.
They had arrived one morning at Fort ---- (censor). Teschisso had been
greeted like one raised from the dead. Finally the soldiers had thrown
their arms about his neck and kissed and hugged him. They all seemed
like one family, and for a fact they did all resemble one another a
little: tall, with extraordinary beards, with muscular legs straight
as a column and hands that seemed made to give vigorous blows.
[Illustration]
"Where is my company?"
"On ---- [oh, that censor!], at nine thousand feet altitude."
"All well?"
"'Most all."
"And the Boches, where are they?"
"Bah! We've got them on the run."
"Send my things up to me with the first supply division; I'm off now
at once."
"Nine feet of snow and a biting wind."
"Heavens! If I were sure of finding that dog who cut my beard I would
go to hell itself."
"I am thinking less of you than of your little orderly."
"Ha! That youngster has a wooden leg and is as hardy as a goat."
Pinocchio, to show off, whirled his leg around and with a shy glance
convinced himself that in a wink of the eye he had won the respect of
the little garrison.
* * * * *
"Listen, Captain, if you give me something to eat I'll go ahead; if
you don't, here's where I stay."
"Indeed!"
"How indeed! Did you understand that I am hungry?"
"And I have nothing more to give you to eat."
"And I stop here."
"You'll get caught in a blizzard and buried in snow and will be frozen
hard like Neapolitan ice-cream."
"But ... I'm hungry."
"You have eaten two rations of bread, a box of conserved beef, nearly
half a pound of chocolate ..."
"Is it my fault if the air of these mountains makes me as hungry as a
wolf? You should have told me before we left. Now I know why you are
always saying that you would like to eat so many Austrians. But if you
think I can get used to the same diet you are much mistaken."
"Are you coming or aren't you?"
"Is it much farther?"
"Do you see that cloud up there?"
"I defy any one not to see it."
"When that is passed there is a crack in the mountain called Spaccata;
we must cross that and we are there--at least if they haven't gone on
ahead."
"In the clouds? Really in the clouds?"
"Certainly."
"Listen, Captain, do I really seem to you as much of a fool as that?"
"Just now, yes."
"Thanks, but you can go in the clouds by yourself; I'll turn back and
bid you farewell."
He tried to make one of his usual pirouettes to turn around, but the
snow slipped under his feet and he fell, sitting down, and, sliding on
the white surface, was precipitated down the slope of the mountain
with terrifying speed.
[Illustration]
"Help! Help!"
"Stick your staff in! Stick your staff in!" yelled Teschisso, who
already believed him lost.
He had need to yell. Pinocchio was flying along like a little steamer
under forced draught and couldn't hear anything, I assure you.
Suddenly he stopped as if he were nailed to the snow. That was to be
expected, you say, with that air of superior beings you assume every
now and then. I know--but I can tell you Pinocchio didn't expect it,
nor even Teschisso, who was leaping down to help his little friend.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Do you feel ill?"
"No, not exactly ill, but I suffered terribly from--lack of courage."
"Why don't you get up?"
"I'm afraid of sliding off again."
"Let me help you."
Captain Teschisso took hold of the rope Pinocchio had tied around his
waist and pulled one end of it through his leather belt, fastened the
other end round his body, and, after planting his feet firmly, said:
"Take hold of the rope and pull yourself up. You are quite safe; the
mountain will crumble before I fall."
Pinocchio did his best to get on his feet, but couldn't succeed. His
hinder parts adhered to the crust of the snow as if some magician had
glued them firmly. Teschisso, who had little patience and thought that
Pinocchio was feigning in order not to have to climb the mountain,
gave such a vigorous pull on the rope tied to the boy's belt that he
jerked him up, swung him through the air for several feet, and flung
him face downward on a heap of snow as downy as a feather-bed. A piece
of gray cloth left behind showed the spot where Pinocchio had been
miraculously halted in his precipitous descent. Teschisso glanced at
it and couldn't keep back one of his loud, honest mountain laughs.
Pinocchio, believing he was being swung around for fun, sprang to his
feet, so furious that the captain's hilarity grew even stronger and
louder.
"Heavens! And you can thank Heaven that you are still in the land of
the living. Look there and feel the back of your trousers. Hah, hah,
hah! Don't you understand yet what has happened to you? You were
caught in a wolf-trap which the Austrians put there to catch some of
us, and instead you were the one, which isn't the same thing at all."
[Illustration: PINOCCHIO DID HIS BEST TO GET ON HIS FEET, BUT COULDN'T
SUCCEED]
Notwithstanding the laughter of the captain, Pinocchio's anger
evaporated in a second. His eyes were fixed on the scraps of his
trousers that still hung on the teeth of the trap and his hands were
rubbing the frozen surface left uncovered. He longed to cry, and felt
so ridiculous that he was almost on the point of flinging himself
again down the snowy slope.
"Come on, come on! There's no time to lose. There is a long road to go
and the clouds are hanging lower. There's no sense in your staying
there like a macaw, weeping for the seat of your breeches. When we
arrive up there I'll have the company's tailor mend them for you.
You've got to march, and no more nonsense. Forward, march!"
"Captain, it's impossible."
"Heavens alive! How impossible?"
"I am not presentable."
"Why?"
"If we find the enemy and the Austrians see me with my trousers in
such a state, they will say that the Italian army ..."
"Fool! The Italian army never turns its rear to the enemy, and you
won't, either."
"But ..."
"If you are afraid of taking cold in your spine that's another matter.
If that's the case let's see what can be done."
Captain Teschisso turned Pinocchio over, took a copy of a newspaper
out of his pocket, folded it over four times, and stuck it into the
hole of the trousers. And he did it so well that the "Latest News"
with the headlines seemed to be framed in the ragged edges of the
cloth.
"There you are. Are you satisfied?"
To tell the truth, he would have preferred to consider a little before
answering, but the captain didn't give him the time. He started off
with a quick stride, pulling the rope after him which he had fastened
to his belt, as if bringing a calf to the butcher.
* * * * *
I do not know if you, my children, have ever been up in the high
mountains. You must know that after you reach a certain altitude,
whether because the air becomes rarefied or because of the silence
that surrounds you, you seem to be living another life in another
world. Your breath grows shorter; it seems as if you could not draw a
long one, while the lungs are so full of oxygen that the heart beats
more rapidly; then fatigue is followed by a condition of strange
torpor. Nevertheless, you continue to climb without effort, as if the
legs moved automatically. If you speak, the voice reaches the ears
faintly as if it came from a distance. Sometimes you have a certain
discomfort called mountain-sickness, which makes the temples throb and
brings with it such a languor that the traveler is forced to give up
his ascent. Pinocchio, who for some time had been experiencing all
these sensations peculiar to the high mountains, found himself
suddenly hidden in a fog so thick that he couldn't see a hand's-breath
before his nose.
Not seeing Teschisso any more, and not feeling his numbed legs move,
and feeling himself dragged upward and upward through the darkness as
if by some prodigious force, he really imagined himself to have
entered a new world, and was seized by such a terror that he began to
scream as if his throat were being cut. But, seeing that his voice
didn't carry far and that Teschisso was not affected by it, he thought
it easier to let himself be dragged along and to spare his breath for
a better cause.
"I'd like to know where that creature is dragging me," he began to
grumble in a low voice like a somnambulist in the dark to give himself
courage. "I'd like to know where he is taking me. I am almost
beginning to believe that I am really in the clouds, but I'd like to
know what need there is to climb 'way up here to fight when there is
plenty of room down below. Anyway, I don't believe that we'll find a
single Austrian up here in the clouds; it's just a fancy of the
captain, who must be a trifle crazy. Once I heard a country priest say
that the Heavenly Father lives in the clouds to let the water down
when the peasants need it to water their cabbages and turnips, and to
keep the sun lighted to warm those who have no clothes. It looks to me
as if He had let the Alpine troops take His place.
"Hum! Let's see how this is going to come out. All I care about is to
fill my stomach when we arrive, because I am hungry and can't stand it
any longer. I've been eating snow for an hour now, but I don't get any
nourishment from that. I am beginning to think I was better off where
I was before. If Bersaglierino hadn't been injured I'd still be with
him and his fine regiment. At least down there I could hear some
noise ... patapin! patapum ... pum! Here there's nothing but snow and
ice, not a living person to be seen. I should just like to know with
whom we can fight. In any case, if the Austrians are up there it seems
to me it'll be hard to get close enough to bother them.... But it's
easy to see that the air up there isn't for me; I can scarcely go on,
but if I slip I'd have to fall all the way, as I did this morning. If
I hadn't been so frightened I should almost have enjoyed it. I went
along like a trolley-car, and such speed! But I left my trousers on
the way. A nice sight I'll be when I'm introduced to the company with
the newspaper on ... the rear front! And, to tell the truth, it
doesn't keep me very warm. I feel a little cold in my back. I don't
know whether it really comes from that, but I feel it, almost--if I
didn't feel so well--as if I were going to be sick."
Teschisso noticed the dead weight on the rope he was pulling and
absent-mindedly quickened his pace, so terrifyingly horizontal. If the
boy had fainted it wouldn't be an easy matter to carry him to safety
in such weather. Although he knew the rocks inch by inch, it was not
easy to find the way in the whiteness of the snow nor to judge how
much more of the road there still remained to cover, on account of the
fog which hid the landscape. He was reproaching himself for not having
listened to the advice of his comrades at the fort, who had advised
him to delay his climb, when he heard a strange metallic noise which
grew stronger each moment.
"No so bad. Here we are!"
He took a few steps more, then, pulling from his pocket a horn
whistle, he blew several short, shrill blasts. He was answered by a
dozen voices, one deep one calling:
"Who goes there?"
"Friends."
"Pasquale."
"Pinerolo."
"I'm well. Who are you?"
"Captain Teschisso."
"Bah! Don't believe it."
"Here, you dog! I tell you it is I."
"Captain Teschisso is killed. Too bad. I saw him fall down in the
valley."
"Oh, did you, Sergeant Minestron?"
"I'll be dogged if it isn't he; it really is he!"
From the fog emerged several Alpine figures; they came nearer, growing
more distinct, and then there was a yell of delight.
"It is he in flesh and blood. Hurrah!"
"Hurrah for our captain!"
"Thank God that he is really alive."
"Lieutenant, Lieutenant, come here ... a surprise!"
"Captain, how many surprises?"
"Let me get my breath; you are suffocating me with your hugs. Where
are they?"
"The Austrians?"
"Heavens! Whom do you suppose I'm talking about? I came up here for
the express purpose of getting even with them!"
"They are a long distance away, Captain. We must transport our
artillery up to Mount X [censor]; there we'll go for them."
"And have you got the _filovia_ [aerial railway] in working order for
that purpose?"
"Yes, indeed! They have been working on it for three days."
"And the company?"
"They are intrenched in the hut on Mount X with the battalion."
"It will take four good hours to get there."
"Even more, Captain."
"And how will I manage to tow along this lump of a Pinocchio who is
half dead with mountain-sickness?"
"Pinocchio?"
"Where is he?"
"Pull the rope and take him off my back; he has tired me out."
Pinocchio, who was in a state of great weakness and curiously sleepy,
felt himself lifted up and whirled around to the outburst of loud
laughter. It seemed to him that something slipped down his throat
which burned and made him cough and sneeze ... then he thought he was
stretched out on a bed that was rather hard, but covered with warm and
heavy coverings; then ... he experienced a strange feeling of comfort
disturbed only by a long, monotonous, persistent humming.
If he had been able to notice what was happening to him he would
either have died of fright or he would have believed himself in the
very hands of God. Fastened to the gun-carriage of a six-inch cannon,
suspended in the car of a _filovia_, he was traveling over the abyss
which separates two of our giant Alps. Below him was a sea of clouds,
above the beautiful blue sky, all about him the gleam of white snow,
and on the snow here and there a group of little gray points, like
grains of sand lost in all this immensity. Those were our Alpine
troops, the dear big boys who were laughing at the joke played on
Pinocchio, and defying serenely all the obstacles that nature opposed
to their victorious advance on Italian soil which Austria's power had
for so many years disputed with us.
* * * * *
When Pinocchio regained his senses he found himself lying on the
ground wrapped up in coverlets and warm as a bun just out of the oven.
Above his head dangled horizontally the huge basket from which he had
been flung by the shock of its sudden halt, and which swung on the
steel cables of the _filovia_ as if it were weary of being up there
and eager to set about its job. All about was the gleam of the snow,
even though the light was growing paler every moment. I bet you a
soldo against a lira what hour it was. But Pinocchio guessed it from
the odor of cooking which sweetened the air all about, an odor which
would have brought a dead dyspeptic to life. He sniffed the air like a
bloodhound, rolled his eyes in every direction, in all corners, to
discover the spot whence came the delicious fragrance, but couldn't
see anything but snow, nothing, not even a curl of distant smoke. He
was so hungry that he thought he would faint.
"I am dreaming with eyes open. How is it possible that there should be
in this desert pastry covered with caramel sauce? Because I know I am
not mistaken ... the odor I smell is just that. If I had only a piece
of bread, by means of my nose and by means of my mouth I could fool
myself into believing that I was dining magnificently, but ..."
But the odor affected him so strongly that he had to get up to limber
up his muscles. He had scarcely got to his feet when a strange thing
happened--from the very spot where he had been lying a puff of smoke
rose gently upward, and this smoke had precisely the odor of pastry
covered with caramel sauce.
[Illustration]
Pinocchio crossed his hands over his empty stomach and stood for a
moment pondering. Never in all his life had he had presented to him
so difficult a problem as this to solve. He thought and thought, and,
like Galileo, had recourse to the experimental method. He knelt down
in the snow and began to scrape it away with his hands on the spot
where his body, covered by the latest issue of the newspaper, had left
an impression. The smell of caramel sauce kept growing more fragrant,
and Pinocchio's tongue licked the end of his nose so solemnly that he
would have made the inventor of handkerchiefs blush with shame.
Suddenly a deep opening appeared under the snow. Pinocchio stuck his
arms in up to the elbows and uttered a shriek of terror. His hands and
wrists were held as in a fiery vise and his arms were pulled so
violently that he was jerked face down on the earth and his nose stuck
into the snow.
If he had not been in such an uncomfortable position and had been able
to look over his shoulder he would have seen four devils of Alpine
troopers advancing very quietly, guns pointed and bayonets fixed. It
could be only a starved Austrian who would attempt to enter through
the dugout's little window cut through the snow into the officers'
mess, and they intended giving him a fine welcome. A corporal with a
reddish beard which hung down to his stomach stood two paces away,
ready to give him a bayonet thrust that would have run him through
like a snipe on a spit, but suddenly he focused his eyes on a certain
point, advanced on his hands and knees, and began to read the "Latest
News" which he had caught sight of in the seat of Pinocchio's
trousers.
The Alpine troops are the bravest soldiers in the world; if any one
doubts this let him ask the hunters of that foolish gallows-bird of an
emperor; but they are not all well educated, and for this reason
Corporal Scotimondo, as soon as he had spelled out the interesting
headline, signaled to his comrades to advance cautiously.
You can't have the faintest idea of how important a newspaper
becomes, even if it is not a particularly late one, up there among
those snow-clad peaks where our soldiers were fighting for a greater
Italy. So this editorial, which contained the news of the miraculous
conquest of the Col di Lana, deserved to be preserved in the archives
among the masterpieces of our glory, instead of in the seat of
Pinocchio's trousers.
As I have told you, Corporal Scotimondo could scarcely spell, but
among his three comrades Private Draghetta was looked upon as a
genius, because as a civilian he had been a clerk in Cuneo. But
Draghetta, who could see the Austrians a mile off and when he saw them
never failed to knock them over with a shot from his gun, was
nearsighted as a mole, and when he wanted to read had to rub his nose
into the print.
When Pinocchio felt Draghetta's nose tickle him he began to kick like
a donkey stung by a gadfly.
"Hold him tight; tie him. We've taken the Col di Lana! The Col di Lana
is ours!"
"Really?"
"Is it true?"
"Read it, Draghetta ... don't be afraid ... I'll hold him for you."
Scotimondo sat astride Pinocchio's back and squeezed him with his
knees so hard that he took his breath away.
"'Yesterday our brave Alpine troops, supported by infantry regiments,
by means of a brilliant attack gained the highest summit of the Col di
Lana, which is now safely in our possession.' ... Hurrah!"
"Hurrah for Italy!"
"Hurrah for the King!"
They were crazy with joy and danced about on the snow like fiends,
throwing their plumed hats up into the air, waving their guns above
their heads. Suddenly, just as if they had risen from the ground, a
hundred soldiers appeared and surrounded them.
"What is it?"
"What has happened?"
"The Col di Lana is ours!"
"Hurrah for Italy!"
"Who told you so?"
"Where did you hear it?"
"In the latest news of the _Corriere_."
"Are you certain?"
"Where did you find it?"
"If you don't believe it, ask Draghetta."
All this noise, this rushing out of the trenches and the soldiers
staying in the open, was against regulations, so that Lieutenant
Sfrizzoli couldn't let it pass without giving vent to one of his usual
fits of rage. Red as a radish, he rushed toward Draghetta, shoving
apart the group of rejoicing Alpine soldiers, and stopped in front of
him, legs wide apart, and with fists clenched.
"Is it you, Draghetta, who have set the camp in such an uproar?"
"Not I, sir; it is the Col di Lana."
"What? What? What?"
"We've taken it, sir."
"Who told you?"
"I read it myself."
"Where?"
"On ... on ..."
"Well?"
"I don't want to be lacking in respect, sir, to my superior officer,
no matter what the occasion may be ..."
"Stupid! Tell me where you read it."
"On the frontispiece of a book without words belonging to an Austrian
soldier who ..."
Draghetta didn't succeed in getting out another word. Something
interposed between him and the lieutenant with a lightning-like
rapidity ... and he felt a terrible kick in the shins which made him
roll over on the ground with pain.
"Mr. Lieutenant, it is I ... the scout Pinocchio, under Captain
Teschisso's protection. I took part in the campaign on the Isonzo and
left a leg there and in its place I now have a wooden leg of perfect
Italian manufacturing. He told you what he thought was so, but I beg
to convince you of the contrary. But the news about the Col di Lana is
true, as true as can be. Here is the _Corriere_ which was on the
frontispiece ... of my book without words, in the seat of my trousers.
But, as I can't stand the cold, I beg you to have a patch put on and
to have served to me a plate of that pastry cooked under the snow,
because I am so hungry I could eat even you."
Shortly after the delighted Pinocchio sat in front of a dish piled
high with spaghetti, and surrounded by soldiers of the company who
never stopped asking him questions about how the war was going down in
the plains. With his mouth full he kept turning to this one and that
one, uttering inarticulate sounds that might have come from a sucking
pig.
* * * * *
The arrival of Captain Teschisso was the signal for a furious attack.
He had seen in the distance a long file of the enemy clad in white
shirts moving across the snow; he had hurried to the dugout to give
the alarm and, taking command of the company, had flung himself on the
foe, who, relying too much on the secrecy of his attack, was beaten
and put to flight.
Pinocchio had assisted in the action at a loophole in the trench,
armed with the finest of spy-glasses. The Alpine troops had performed
prodigious deeds of valor. The captain came back with two prisoners,
one a Hungarian and one a Croat, whom he held by the collars as if
they were two mice surprised while robbing tripe from the larder.
"Heavens! What blows!" he cried, happily, to the soldiers who
surrounded him, rejoicing. "But, boys, I won't let them sleep
to-night. We must get ready for an attack in force. We must make these
pigs sing!"
There was no time to pay any attention to them. A few moments later a
rain of shells began to fall around the neighborhood of the dugout.
The Austrians wanted to revenge themselves from a distance for their
sudden rout. Teschisso ordered four mountain guns which had just
arrived by the _filovia_ to be mounted on the gun-carriages, assembled
his men, and ran to take up his position in an excavation nearly a
mile away whence it was possible to observe the enemy's position.
Pinocchio and Ciampanella, the company cook, remained behind to guard
the dugout, and to them had been assigned the care of the two
prisoners from whom Teschisso hoped later to obtain some definite
information.
[Illustration: CIAMPANELLA, THE COMPANY COOK]