and deliver the wounded at the two hospitals. I drove coming back and went fast with the empty car to find the man from Pittsburg. First we passed the regiment, hotter and slower than ever: then the stragglers. Then we saw a horse ambulance stopped by the road. Two men were lifting the hernia man to put him in. They had come back for him. He shook his head at me. His helmet was off and his forehead was bleeding below the hair line. His nose was skinned and there was dust on the bloody patch and dust in his hair.
“Look at the bump, lieutenant!’ he shouted. “Nothing to do. They come back for me.”
When I got back to the villa it was five o’clock and I
went out where we washed the cars, to take a shower.
Then I made out my report in my room, sitting in my
trousers and an undershirt in front of the open window. In two days the offensive was to start and I
would go with the cars to Plava. It was a long time
since I had written to the States and I knew I should
write but I had let it go so long that it was almost impossible to write now. There was nothing to write
about. I sent a couple of army Zona di Guerra postcards, crossing out everything except, I am well. That
should handle them. Those post-cards would be very
fine in America; strange and mysterious. This was a
strange and mysterious war zone but I supposed it was
quite well run and grim compared to other wars with
the Austrians. The Austrian army was created to give
Napoleon victories; any Napoleon. I wished we had a
Napoleon, but instead we had Il Generale Cadorna,
fat and prosperous, and Vittorio Emmanuele, the tiny
man with the long thin neck and the goat beard. Over
on the right they had the Duke of Aosta. Maybe he
