The women who came with us, after having filled their sacks, returned
and Rino, Bottecchia and myself were left alone to await a propitious
moment. Our artillery molested us a little towards evening but the
firing was light and intermittent and I wished that that was the
greatest difficulty we had to overcome in reaching the other side. The
moon rose as soon as dusk fell and we slept for several hours in a
shell hole. We were awakened by the sound of picks in the trenches
where the Austrians were working.
The moon was now low on the horizon and would soon disappear behind the
hills; we should then be able to try our luck. What worried us most was
the thought that beyond the main current of the Piave there might be
small enemy posts and it really would not be very pleasant to encounter
an enemy post as soon as we left the stream. We took off all our
clothing and left our clothes in a hole in the wheat-field. We kept on
only our stockings to protect our feet somewhat from the rough stones
and gravel on the river bed. Advancing cautiously we reached the brink
of the river and slowly we pushed aside the leaves which closed noisily
behind us after we had passed. The loose earth on the slope made a
crunching sound beneath our weight although we wished to avoid making
any suspicious sound. A dry twig crackled and we crouched and listened.
We heard several voices coming from the path under the trees. We
squatted on the ground, holding our breath, and we saw two soldiers
pass.... Silence.... The noise of their iron shoes was lost in the
distance. We continued our descent, we reached the first Cavallo di
Frina and jumped over it, not without hurting ourselves on the sharp
stones which pierced our flesh so that we bled. We had to cross the
most dangerous point, the one most exposed, because the vegetation was
less dense. We threw ourselves on all fours and crawled along on the
gravel until we reached the first entanglement. Instead of trying to
pass over it, we looked for the attachments which anchored it to the
ground and unfastening them we passed under. We did the same with the
next. We heard no suspicious sound, there was absolute calm. An Italian
searchlight which swerved at intervals annoyed us somewhat for fear its
light might by chance fall on us. We silently crossed the short stretch
which separated us from the first branch of the stream. When we reached
the water we bathed our temples and drank a cool draught which gave us
great relief. A deep joy possessed us for we believed we were free. We
believed we could easily reach the other side. We crossed many small
courses where the water was very low and not rapid. At last we found
ourselves in front of the main current and at once, from the noise of
the current we realized this crossing would be far different from the
others. We tried to enter the stream, but as soon as we had taken a few
steps forward the impetuous water threatened to engulf us. We clasped
ourselves tightly one to the other and tried to resist that we might
advance, but the rushing current reached up to our necks and we should
have had to struggle hard and long before reaching the other side. None
of us was an expert swimmer, no one knew how to conquer the current,
and after numerous attempts we returned to the bank, disappointed and
disgusted that we could not cross. And now what should we do? I
preferred to face a platoon of armed Austrians rather than struggle
with this whirling water which I did not know, for unknown dangers have
ever frightened me. We dared not delay any longer and the only course
left open to us was to return before dawn surprised us.
After numerous difficulties we succeeded in reaching the place where we
had left our clothing; we dressed hurriedly and commenced our journey
back. We felt very weary and hungry and all these sensations were
rendered more acute by the disillusion and grief within us at not
having got through. The distance to be traversed before we reached home
again was great and after resting a short while in a house at Miane we
walked by day on the main highway without worrying much about the
gendarmes. We wished to reach Tarzo before night, to reach the
hospitable house where we should find a bit of food. Hunger gave wings
to our feet. On the way we passed several platoons of gendarmes and in
accordance with their usual system they all let us pass and then called
us back at once to show our papers. These papers must have been truly
marvelous because no one questioned them and we proceeded without
difficulties. My poor feet were in a pitiful condition and the rough,
heavy underwear rubbing against the bruises made by the wires and
entanglements hurt terribly.
Toward evening we reach Tarzo and after sleeping quietly for a few
hours we sat on a little wall in the courtyard of the dwelling which
housed us. While we are talking peacefully a marshal of the gendarmes
followed by an interpreter entered. The marshal came straight towards
us as though warned of our presence and asked us for our papers. He was
a tall, heavy man with drooping mustache. His lean, yellowish face with
high cheek bones bore the expression of one who is accustomed to
command; his was the fierce face of the Magyars. In his hand he held a
heavy stick which he struck impatiently on the ground. He turned
towards the interpreter and said in German, “What ugly faces; they have
a suspicious appearance, especially that young man,” he points to
Bottecchia, “he looks too young and strong not to be a soldier.”
The interpreter slowly repeated the questions of the marshal. “Show
your papers.” I took out my paper, granting me permission to stay in
invaded territory, very slowly not to betray by any excited gesture the
inward apprehension which tortured me. I did not fear for myself, I did
not tremble for my fate, but I feared for Bottecchia because I saw his
strength was failing him, because I saw him grow pale.
The marshal examined my paper carefully and said, “Thirty-five years
old and works at Vittorio ... we shall see....” He then turned toward
my soldier and began to question him in detail. His questions were
sharp and penetrating like steady drops of water which dig into a
stone. I, who am fortunate enough to know German and can prepare an
answer before the question is translated and repeated in Italian by the
interpreter, followed with indescribable trepidation the questions
which fell like thunder-bolts on the head of Bottecchia. He betrayed
himself in a thousand ways, he flushed and then at once became pale
again, his voice was unsteady, uncertain, to be suspected. I stared
steadily at him, I tried to support him with my look, to impress in his
eyes my firm determination to resist, my fixed desire not to cede; I
felt stronger than my opponent, I felt that finally with the help of
God I should conquer, with the strength of my nerves, the brutal
bestiality of the Germans. Giovannino on the other hand was preparing
his ruin.
“Well, my pretty young man, look into my eyes. Where were you born?”
“I was born at San Martino di Colle.”
The marshal was thoughtful, looked again at his papers and continued,
“How is it you were born at San Martino di Colle when your papers say
you were born at Vittorio?”
“That’s true,” answers Giovannino who for a moment seemed to have
regained his wits at which I again had hope for him. “I was born at San
Martino di Colle but I work at Vittorio and I had them draw up my
papers in the place where I am stopping at present.”
“Where have you been?”
“We have been to see some friends here at Tarzo.”
“And how is it you are not working to-day?”
“Because I have been sick and for several days I have not been to work.”
The marshal mumbled in German, “Nice face for a sick man, with such
high color. This young man must be one of those notorious ones.”
“What work do you do, if I am not indiscreet, and if you will permit me
to question you?” He resumed his nervous whacking of the stick on the
ground. “Come, now, answer. If you won’t answer when we treat you
kindly there are other treatments which will make you talk.”
“I am a carpenter.”
“And where are you employed at present?”
“I am working at the threshing-machine plant near Vittorio.”
“Show me your hands.”
Bottecchia showed his hands, but, alas, they were as clean and white as
those of a girl. The poor boy never would listen to me, he would never
understand that every detail must be in tune with the character he was
impersonating, and since we look like peasants our hands must be
stained and hardened like those of peasants. The first day I landed in
enemy territory I began to chop wood and to stain my fingers with mud
and fig skin.
“These are not the hands of a laborer. I understand. Come with us. Step
inside the house for I want to see what you have on you.”
They took him between them, led him to the nearby house, and
disappeared in the shadow of the doorway. From that moment I have never
more seen Bottecchia.
Nothing could be done, there was no way for me to help him. A damning
fact stood out against him. We had to try to save ourselves, to find a
refuge before they returned and with Rino, who sat apart on the little
wall and had looked on passively at the terrible scene, I began to run
rapidly. Giovannino’s arrest troubled me but I had not lost all hope.
My soldier could not have any incriminating documents on him and in the
end, when they realized the validity of his papers, for they are valid
because Brunora had reported them formerly in the register at the
Headquarters at Tappa di Vittorio, they would let him free and the
worst that could happen to him was a good beating such as the Austrians
always give out on similar occasions.
Without much haste we followed the road back home and reached our
familiar wood in the early hours of the morning. There I found several
pigeons brought by the priests. I eagerly asked whether any aeroplane
had sent forth the smoke signal for which we have been waiting and they
answered that no Italian plane had flown over that territory since the
day we had left. While I was eating a bite in the house of Maria de
Luca, who had done her best to comfort me and assure me that Giovannino
would soon return, a woman, disheveled and weeping, entered hurriedly.
I recognized her, for she was the wife of our host at Tarzo. She
gesticulated more than she spoke and at first was so excited that I
could not understand a single word. Finally from the brief phrases
which rose above her whimpers and sobs I understood the seriousness of
the situation.
“They have arrested even my husband, they have taken Giovannino to
headquarters. They searched him and have discovered that you are spies,
and now they are beating both him and my husband because they say they
are the accomplices and they want to find out who is the organizer, the
principal, the man with the beard who has escaped and whom they are now
seeking. On my way here I met a platoon of gendarmes going about to
arrest the man with the beard because on him falls the greatest
suspicion.”
I tried to comfort her. I could believe all she said to be exact. How
could they know we were spies unless these two had confessed? I knew
that the peasant women had a habit of exaggerating and therefore, it
was probable that the situation was far less serious than she reported
it to be. However, I deemed it well to shave off my beard and to keep
only my mustache. If they should arrest me, not knowing me, they could
not suspect I was the man with the beard. However, there was another
difficulty; without a beard and with my hair cut short I should appear
much younger than before and so with a soft piece of bread I erased the
“3” on my paper and changed it into a “2.” By now my paper was so
soiled and creased that they would never be able to discern this slight
falsification. However, the outlook was not cheerful and to find out
more exactly what was happening I begged my landlady to go to the
pastor at Tarzo who would probably be able to give her some details.
Maria, with her customary kindness, left the oldest of her boys and I
hid in the woods anxiously awaiting her return. After several hours she
came to my hiding place in the woods and brought me the following news:
“It is true they have arrested the owner of the house and they are now
beating him and Giovannino. They suspect both of them of being spies
for they have found on Giovannino a compromising document.”
“How could they find a compromising document when he did not have any?”
“Yes, they have found one of those small slips of paper on which you
used to write the pigeon messages. Nothing is written on the slip but
there are printed directions on it about like this, ‘Hour of departure,
hour of arrival, pigeon-house, register of the pigeon.’”
These details proved beyond a doubt that what Maria told me was exact.
“This proof confirmed their suspicions and they are now using violence
on them to try to make them confess where the man with the beard is
hidden. Giovannino has not said a single word and they are torturing
him in many ways. They keep him handcuffed, they will not let him sleep
and they try to trick him into confessing in a moment of weakness.”
The situation was really far more serious than I had suspected and as
though this were not enough, towards evening they brought me news that
Maria Bottecchia, the sister of Giovannino, had also been arrested in
Minelle, by a platoon of gendarmes. At last I fully realized the danger
which threatened me, and I decided it was absolutely necessary to move
from this region that the gendarmes might lose track of me. I still had
two pigeons with me. I filled several pages with reports, made an
appointment with the “Voisin” for the twenty-sixth and considered the
danger which menaced me. As Bottecchia had been arrested and the
gendarmes were almost at my heels I decided to leave for Sarone, and
try to find lodging in the little isolated house at the top of the hill
near which we had rested on the first day after our arrival.
On a recent journey to the field where the aeroplane was supposed to
come for us I recognized certain peasants who still had some food
hidden and they were truly hospitable. They had fed me and would not
accept any recompense. They were ignorant of my mission, that I was an
Italian officer, and therefore, without offering them any explanation I
would be able to return there and ask them for hospitality.
While a terrible thunder-storm raged through the mountains and the rain
fell in torrents I traversed the long stretch of road which separated
me from Sarone. That terrible weather was really favorable because no
gendarme would venture forth in such weather. When I reached the house
on the top of the hill the welcome was not what I had expected.
Recently the Austrians had seized all the food the peasants had hidden
and a requisitioning commission had taken away the wheat and left them
with barely enough to appease their hunger. Under such conditions the
peasants could not be as generous as in the past. Furthermore, a
gendarme was killed recently in the surrounding woods and the police
wandered about continuously seeking traces of the assassin. The
mistress of the house made me understand that it would be difficult for
them to house me a long time and, for the present, so as not to arouse
suspicion she preferred that I live in the wood.
Every day the absence of Bottecchia became more painful and I tormented
myself when I thought that I was indirectly the cause of his misfortune
because I was the one who had invited him to essay this undertaking. I
wished to share his lot with him, to comfort and sustain him in the
sorrows and anguishes of prison life. This isolation oppressed me. The
absolute lack of any news worried me. Our aeroplanes who undoubtedly
came to photograph the signals, did not find any and from this, and my
last message which announced I was in danger, they must infer that I
had disappeared and who knows when I should be able to resume
communications with them! I did not think it likely that the “Voisin”
would come to Praterie Forcate on the twenty-sixth without first
warning me with a smoke signal.
For almost three days I lived sleeping in the woods and eating the
little which the owners of the house could spare. The hot rays of the
sun fell obliquely over my head and in certain hours of the day it was
impossible to find a patch of shade under the thorny, burnt trees. The
heavy atmosphere was really unbearable. The flies buzzed and tormented
me continuously and the ants and mosquitoes did not give me a moment’s
rest. I felt as if I had been forsaken by everyone, and after so many
hardships I began to feel that my strength was diminishing, whereas, I
needed all my calm, all my cold, steady nerves to carry me through my
present predicament. For the past twenty-four hours I had not been able
to eat or drink because the gendarmes were always about in the woods
and the women feared to bring me the little food they usually did, lest
they arouse the suspicion of the guards. All day long I lay exhausted
on the ground, and I believed that if the gendarmes were to come I
should not have enough strength even to get up, much less to flee. I
felt so changed, and I began to realize that courage is for the most
part due to a full stomach. When I moved, my head whirled, and when I
tried to walk a few steps to see if the gendarmes were still around, my
legs would not support me; I tottered and fell heavily to the ground.
“Oh God, God, do not forsake me. If you have willed these sufferings
should fall on me as expiation, may they be welcome, but do not take
from me the strength to support them, do not take from me the strength
to endure them to the very end with resignation.”