A Farewell to Arms (5 page)

“Porta feriti!” I shouted holding my hands cupped. “Porta feriti!” I tried to get closer to Passini to try to put a tourniquet on the legs but I could not move. I tried again and my legs moved a little. I could pull backward along with my arms and elbows. Passini was quiet now. I sat beside him, undid my tunic and tried to rip the tail of my shirt. It would not rip and I bit the edge of the cloth to start it. Then I thought of his puttees. I had on wool stockings but Passini wore puttees. All the drivers wore puttees but Passini had only one leg. I unwound the puttee and while I was doing it I saw there was no need to try and make a tourniquet because he was dead already. I made sure he was dead. There were three others to locate. I sat up straight and as I did so something inside my head moved like the weights on a doll's eyes and it hit me inside in back of my eyeballs. My legs felt warm and wet and my shoes were wet and warm inside. I knew that I was hit and leaned over and put my hand on my knee. My knee wasn't there. My hand went in and my knee was down on my shin. I wiped my hand on my shirt and another floating light came very slowly down and I looked at my leg and was very afraid. Oh, God, I said, get me out of here. I knew, however, that there had been three others. There were four drivers. Passini was dead. That left three. Some one took hold of me under the arms and somebody else lifted my legs.

“There are three others,” I said. “One is dead.”

“It's Manera. We went for a stretcher but there wasn't any. How are you, Tenente?”

“Where is Gordini and Gavuzzi?”

“Gordini's at the post getting bandaged. Gavuzzi has your legs. Hold on to my neck, Tenente. Are you badly hit?”

“In the leg. How is Gordini?”

“He's all right. It was a big trench mortar shell.”

“Passini's dead.”

“Yes. He's dead.”

A shell fell close and they both dropped to the ground and dropped me. “I'm sorry, Tenente,” said Manera. “Hang onto my neck.”

“If you drop me again.”

“It was because we were scared.”

“Are you unwounded?”

“We are both wounded a little.”

“Can Gordini drive?”

“I don't think so.”

They dropped me once more before we reached the post.

“You sons of bitches,” I said.

“I am sorry, Tenente,” Manera said. “We won't drop you again.”

Outside the post a great many of us lay on the ground in the dark. They carried wounded in and brought them out. I could see the light come out from the dressing station when the curtain opened and they brought some one in or out. The dead were off to one side. The doctors were working with their sleeves up to their shoulders and were red as butchers. There were not enough stretchers. Some of the wounded were noisy but most were quiet. The wind blew the leaves in the bower over the door of the dressing station and the night was getting cold. Stretcher-bearers came in all the time, put their stretchers down, unloaded them and went away. As soon as I got to the dressing station Manera brought a medical sergeant out and he put bandages on both my legs. He said there was so much dirt blown into the wound that there had not been much hemorrhage. They would take me as soon as possible. He went back inside. Gordini could not drive, Manera said. His shoulder was smashed and his head was hurt. He had not felt bad but now the shoulder had stiffened. He was sitting up beside one of the brick walls. Manera and Gavuzzi each went off with a load of wounded. They could drive all right. The British had come with three ambulances and they had two men on each ambulance. One of their drivers came over to me, brought by Gordini who looked very white and sick. The Britisher leaned over.

“Are you hit badly?” he asked. He was a tall man and wore steel-rimmed spectacles.

“In the legs.”

“It's not serious I hope. Will you have a cigarette?”

“Thanks.”

“They tell me you've lost two drivers.”

“Yes. One killed and the fellow that brought you.”

“What rotten luck. Would you like us to take the cars?”

“That's what I wanted to ask you.”

“We'd take quite good care of them and return them to the villa. 206 aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“It's a charming place. I've seen you about. They tell me you're an American.”

“Yes.”

“I'm English.”

“No!”

“Yes, English. Did you think I was Italian? There were some Italians with one of our units.”

“It would be fine if you would take the cars,” I said.

“We'll be most careful of them,” he straightened up. “This chap of yours was very anxious for me to see you.” He patted Gordini on the shoulder. Gordini winced and smiled. The Englishman broke into voluble and perfect Italian. “Now everything is arranged. I've seen your Tenente. We will take over the two cars. You won't worry now.” He broke off, “I must do something about getting you out of here. I'll see the medical wallahs. We'll take you back with us.”

He walked across to the dressing station, stepping carefully among the wounded. I saw the blanket open, the light came out and he went in.

“He will look after you, Tenente,” Gordini said.

“How are you, Franco?”

“I am all right.” He sat down beside me. In a moment the blanket in front of the dressing station opened and two stretcherbearers came out followed by the tall Englishman. He brought them over to me.

“Here is the American Tenente,” he said in Italian.

“I'd rather wait,” I said. “There are much worse wounded than me. I'm all right.”

“Come, come,” he said. “Don't be a bloody hero.” Then in Italian: “Lift him very carefully about the legs. His legs are very painful. He is the legitimate son of President Wilson.” They picked me up and took me into the dressing room. Inside they were operating on all the tables. The little major looked at us furious. He recognized me and waved a forceps.

“Ca va bien?”

“Ca va.”

“I have brought him in,” the tall Englishman said in Italian. “The only son of the American Ambassador. He can be here until you are ready to take him. Then I will take him with my first load.” He bent over me. “I'll look up their adjutant to do your papers and it will all go much faster.” He stooped to go under the doorway and went out. The major was unhooking the forceps now, dropping them in a basin. I followed his hands with my eyes. Now he was bandaging. Then the stretcher-bearers took the man off the table.

“I'll take the American Tenente,” one of the captains said. They lifted me onto the table. It was hard and slippery. There were many strong smells, chemical smells and the sweet smell of blood. They took off my trousers and the medical captain commenced dictating to the sergeant-adjutant while he worked, “Multiple superficial wounds of the left and right thigh and left and right knee and right foot. Profound wounds of right knee and foot. Lacerations of the scalp (he probed--Does that hurt?--Christ, yes!) with possible fracture of the skull. Incurred in the line of duty. That's what keeps you from being court-martialled for self-inflicted wounds,” he said. “Would you like a drink of brandy? How did you run into this thing anyway? What were you trying to do? Commit suicide? Antitetanus please, and mark a cross on both legs. Thank you. I'll clean this up a little, wash it out, and put on a dressing. Your blood coagulates beautifully.”

The adjutant, looking up from the paper, “What inflicted the wounds?”

The medical captain, “What hit you?”

Me, with the eyes shut, “A trench mortar shell.”

The captain, doing things that hurt sharply and severing tissue--“Are you sure?”

Me--trying to lie still and feeling my stomach flutter when the flesh was cut, “I think so.”

Captain doctor--(interested in something he was finding), “Fragments of enemy trench-mortar shell. Now I'll probe for some of this if you like but it's not necessary. I'll paint all this and--Does that sting? Good, that's nothing to how it will feel later. The pain hasn't started yet. Bring him a glass of brandy. The shock dulls the pain; but this is all right, you have nothing to worry about if it doesn't infect and it rarely does now. How is your head?”

“Good Christ” I said.

“Better not drink too much brandy then. If you've got a fracture you don't want inflammation. How does that feel?”

Sweat ran all over me.

“Good Christ!” I said.

“I guess you've got a fracture all right. I'll wrap you up and don't bounce your head around.” He bandaged, his hands moving very fast and the bandage coming taut and sure. “All right, good luck and Vive la France.”

“He's an American,” one of the other captains said.

“I thought you said he was a Frenchman. He talks French,” the captain said. “I've known him before. I always thought he was French.” He drank a half tumbler of cognac. “Bring on something serious. Get some more of that Antitetanus.” The captain waved to me. They lifted me and the blanket-flap went across my face as we went out. Outside the sergeant-adjutant knelt down beside me where I lay, “Name?” he asked softly. “Middle name? First name? Rank? Where born? What class? What corps?” and so on. “I'm sorry for your head, Tenente. I hope you feel better. I'm sending you now with the English ambulance.”

“I'm all right,” I said. “Thank you very much.” The pain that the major had spoken about had started and all that was happening was without interest or relation. After a while the English ambulance came up and they put me onto a stretcher and lifted the stretcher up to the ambulance level and shoved it in. There was another stretcher by the side with a man on it whose nose I could see, waxy-looking, out of the bandages. He breathed very heavily. There were stretchers lifted and slid into the slings above. The tall English driver came around and looked in, “I'll take it very easily,” he said. “I hope you'll be comfy.” I felt the engine start, felt him climb up into the front seat, felt the brake come off and the clutch go in, then we started. I lay still and let the pain ride.

As the ambulance climbed along the road, it was slow in the traffic, sometimes it stopped, sometimes it backed on a turn, then finally it climbed quite fast. I felt something dripping. At first it dropped slowly and regularly, then it pattered into a stream. I shouted to the driver. He stopped the car and looked in through the hole behind his seat.

“What is it?”

“The man on the stretcher over me has a hemorrhage.”

“We're not far from the top. I wouldn't be able to get the stretcher out alone.” He started the car. The stream kept on. In the dark I could not see where it came from the canvas overhead. I tried to move sideways so that it did not fall on me. Where it had run down under my shirt it was warm and sticky. I was cold and my leg hurt so that it made me sick. After a while the stream from the stretcher above lessened and started to drip again and I heard and felt the canvas above move as the man on the stretcher settled more comfortably.

“How is he?” the Englishman called back.

“We're almost up.”

“He's dead I think,” I said.

The drops fell very slowly, as they fall from an icicle after the sun has gone. It was cold in the car in the night as the road climbed. At the post on the top they took the stretcher out and put another in and we went on.

In the ward at the field hospital they told me a visitor was coming to see me in the afternoon. It was a hot day and there were many flies in the room. My orderly had cut paper into strips and tied the strips to a stick to make a brush that swished the flies away. I watched them settle on the ceiling. When he stopped swishing and fell asleep they came down and I blew them away and finally covered my face with my hands and slept too. It was very hot and when I woke my legs itched. I waked the orderly and he poured mineral water on the dressings. That made the bed damp and cool. Those of us that were awake talked across the ward. The afternoon was a quiet time. In the morning they came to each bed in turn, three men nurses and a doctor and picked you up out of bed and carried you into the dressing room so that the beds could be made while we were having our wounds dressed. It was not a pleasant trip to the dressing room and I did not know until later that beds could be made with men in them. My orderly had finished pouring water and the bed felt cool and lovely and I was telling him where to scratch on the soles of my feet against the itching when one of the doctors brought in Rinaldi. He came in very fast and bent down over the bed and kissed me. I saw he wore gloves.

“How are you, baby? How do you feel? I bring you this--” It was a bottle of cognac. The orderly brought a chair and he sat down, “and good news. You will be decorated. They want to get you the medaglia d'argento but perhaps they can get only the bronze.”

“What for?”

“Because you are gravely wounded. They say if you can prove you did any heroic act you can get the silver. Otherwise it will be the bronze. Tell me exactly what happened. Did you do any heroic act?”

“No,” I said. “I was blown up while we were eating cheese.”

“Be serious. You must have done something heroic either before or after. Remember carefully.”

“I did not.”

“Didn't you carry anybody on your back? Gordini says you carried several people on your back but the medical major at the first post declares it is impossible. He had to sign the proposition for the citation.”

“I didn't carry anybody. I couldn't move.”

“That doesn't matter,” said Rinaldi.

He took off his gloves.

“I think we can get you the silver. Didn't you refuse to be medically aided before the others?”

“Not very firmly.”

“That doesn't matter. Look how you are wounded. Look at your valorous conduct in asking to go always to the first line. Besides, the operation was successful.”

“Did they cross the river all right?”

“Enormously. They take nearly a thousand prisoners. It's in the bulletin. Didn't you see it?”

“No.”

“I'll bring it to you. It is a successful coup de main.”

“How is everything?”

“Splendid. We are all splendid. Everybody is proud of you. Tell me just exactly how it happened. I am positive you will get the silver. Go on tell me. Tell me all about it.” He paused and thought. “Maybe you will get an English medal too. There was an English there. I'll go and see him and ask if he will recommend you. He ought to be able to do something. Do you suffer much? Have a drink. Orderly, go get a corkscrew. Oh you should see what I did in the removal of three metres of small intestine and better now than ever. It is one for The Lancet. You do me a translation and I will send it to The Lancet. Every day I am better. Poor dear baby, how do you feel? Where is that damn corkscrew? You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.” He slapped his gloves on the edge of the bed.

“Here is the corkscrew, Signor Tenente,” the orderly said.

“Open the bottle. Bring a glass. Drink that, baby. How is your poor head? I looked at your papers. You haven't any fracture. That major at the first post was a hog-butcher. I would take you and never hurt you. I never hurt anybody. I learn how to do it. Every day I learn to do things smoother and better. You must forgive me for talking so much, baby. I am very moved to see you badly wounded. There, drink that. It's good. It cost fifteen lire. It ought to be good. Five stars. After I leave here I'll go see that English and he'll get you an English medal.”

“They don't give them like that.”

“You are so modest. I will send the liaison officer. He can handle the English.”

“Have you seen Miss Barkley?”

“I will bring her here. I will go now and bring her here.”

“Don't go,” I said. “Tell me about Gorizia. How are the girls?”

“There are no girls. For two weeks now they haven't changed them. I don't go there any more. It is disgraceful. They aren't girls; they are old war comrades.”

“You don't go at all?”

“I just go to see if there is anything new. I stop by. They all ask for you. It is a disgrace that they should stay so long that they become friends.”

“Maybe girls don't want to go to the front any more.”

“Of course they do. They have plenty of girls. It is just bad administration. They are keeping them for the pleasure of dugout hiders in the rear.”

“Poor Rinaldi,” I said. “All alone at the war with no new girls.”

Rinaldi poured himself another glass of the cognac.

“I don't think it will hurt you, baby. You take it.”

I drank the cognac and felt it warm all the way down. Rinaldi poured another glass. He was quieter now. He held up the glass. “To your valorous wounds. To the silver medal. Tell me, baby, when you lie here all the time in the hot weather don't you get excited?”

“Sometimes.”

“I can't imagine lying like that. I would go crazy.”

“You are crazy.”

“I wish you were back. No one to come in at night from adventures. No one to make fun of. No one to lend me money. No blood brother and roommate. Why do you get yourself wounded?”

“You can make fun of the priest.”

“That priest. It isn't me that makes fun of him. It is the captain. I like him. If you must have a priest have that priest. He's coming to see you. He makes big preparations.”

“I like him.”

“Oh, I knew it. Sometimes I think you and he are a little that way. You know.”

“No, you don't.”

“Yes, I do sometimes. A little that way like the number of the first regiment of the Brigata Ancona.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

He stood up and put on his gloves.

“Oh I love to tease you, baby. With your priest and your English girl, and really you are just like me underneath.”

“No, I'm not.”

“Yes, we are. You are really an Italian. All fire and smoke and nothing inside. You only pretend to be American. We are brothers and we love each other.”

“Be good while I'm gone,” I said.

“I will send Miss Barkley. You are better with her without me. You are purer and sweeter.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

“I will send her. Your lovely cool goddess. English goddess. My God what would a man do with a woman like that except worship her? What else is an Englishwoman good for?”

“You are an ignorant foul-mouthed dago.”

“A what?”

“An ignorant wop.”

“Wop. You are a frozen-faced . . . wop.”

“You are ignorant. Stupid.” I saw that word pricked him and kept on. “Uninformed. Inexperienced, stupid from inexperience.”

“Truly? I tell you something about your good women. Your goddesses. There is only one difference between taking a girl who has always been good and a woman. With a girl it is painful. That's all I know.” He slapped the bed with his glove. “And you never know if the girl will really like it.”

“Don't get angry.”

“I'm not angry. I just tell you, baby, for your own good. To save you trouble.”

“That's the only difference?”

“Yes. But millions of fools like you don't know it.”

“You were sweet to tell me.”

“We won't quarrel, baby. I love you too much. But don't be a fool.”

“No. I'll be wise like you.”

“Don't be angry, baby. Laugh. Take a drink. I must go, really.”

“You're a good old boy.”

“Now you see. Underneath we are the same. We are war brothers. Kiss me good-by.”

“You're sloppy.”

“No. I am just more affectionate.”

I felt his breath come toward me. “Good-by. I come to see you again soon.” His breath went away. “I won't kiss you if you don't want. I'll send your English girl. Good-by, baby. The cognac is under the bed. Get well soon.”

He was gone.