CHAPTER VIII

The next afternoon we heard there was to be an attack up the river that

night and that we were to take four cars there. Nobody knew anything

about it although they all spoke with great positiveness and strategical

knowledge. I was riding in the first car and as we passed the entry to

the British hospital I told the driver to stop. The other cars pulled

up. I got out and told the driver to go on and that if we had not caught

up to them at the junction of the road to Cormons to wait there. I

hurried up the driveway and inside the reception hall I asked for Miss

Barkley.

“She’s on duty.”

“Could I see her just for a moment?”

They sent an orderly to see and she came back with him.

“I stopped to ask if you were better. They told me you were on duty, so

I asked to see you.”

“I’m quite well,” she said, “I think the heat knocked me over

yesterday.”

“I have to go.”

“I’ll just step out the door a minute.”

“And you’re all right?” I asked outside.

“Yes, darling. Are you coming to-night?”

“No. I’m leaving now for a show up above Plava.”

“A show?”

“I don’t think it’s anything.”

“And you’ll be back?”

“To-morrow.”

She was unclasping something from her neck. She put it in my hand. “It’s

a Saint Anthony,” she said. “And come to-morrow night.”

“You’re not a Catholic, are you?”

“No. But they say a Saint Anthony’s very useful.”

“I’ll take care of him for you. Good-by.”

“No,” she said, “not good-by.”

“All right.”

“Be a good boy and be careful. No, you can’t kiss me here. You can’t.”

“All right.”

I looked back and saw her standing on the steps. She waved and I kissed

my hand and held it out. She waved again and then I was out of the

driveway and climbing up into the seat of the ambulance and we started.

The Saint Anthony was in a little white metal capsule. I opened the

capsule and spilled him out into my hand.

“Saint Anthony?” asked the driver.

“Yes.”

“I have one.” His right hand left the wheel and opened a button on his

tunic and pulled it out from under his shirt.

“See?”

I put my Saint Anthony back in the capsule, spilled the thin gold chain

together and put it all in my breast pocket.

“You don’t wear him?”

“No.”

“It’s better to wear him. That’s what it’s for.”

“All right,” I said. I undid the clasp of the gold chain and put it

around my neck and clasped it. The saint hung down on the outside of my

uniform and I undid the throat of my tunic, unbuttoned the shirt collar

and dropped him in under the shirt. I felt him in his metal box against

my chest while we drove. Then I forgot about him. After I was wounded I

never found him. Some one probably got it at one of the dressing

stations.

We drove fast when we were over the bridge and soon we saw the dust of

the other cars ahead down the road. The road curved and we saw the three

cars looking quite small, the dust rising from the wheels and going off

through the trees. We caught them and passed them and turned off on a

road that climbed up into the hills. Driving in convoy is not unpleasant

if you are the first car and I settled back in the seat and watched the

country. We were in the foot-hills on the near side of the river and as

the road mounted there were the high mountains off to the north with

snow still on the tops. I looked back and saw the three cars all

climbing, spaced by the interval of their dust. We passed a long column

of loaded mules, the drivers walking along beside the mules wearing red

fezzes. They were bersaglieri.

Beyond the mule train the road was empty and we climbed through the

hills and then went down over the shoulder of a long hill into a

river-valley. There were trees along both sides of the road and through

the right line of trees I saw the river, the water clear, fast and

shallow. The river was low and there were stretches of sand and pebbles

with a narrow channel of water and sometimes the water spread like a

sheen over the pebbly bed. Close to the bank I saw deep pools, the water

blue like the sky. I saw arched stone bridges over the river where

tracks turned off from the road and we passed stone farmhouses with pear

trees candelabraed against their south walls and low stone walls in the

fields. The road went up the valley a long way and then we turned off

and commenced to climb into the hills again. The road climbed steeply

going up and back and forth through chestnut woods to level finally

along a ridge. I could look down through the woods and see, far below,

with the sun on it, the line of the river that separated the two armies.

We went along the rough new military road that followed the crest of the

ridge and I looked to the north at the two ranges of mountains, green

and dark to the snow-line and then white and lovely in the sun. Then, as

the road mounted along the ridge, I saw a third range of mountains,

higher snow mountains, that looked chalky white and furrowed, with

strange planes, and then there were mountains far off beyond all these

that you could hardly tell if you really saw. Those were all the

Austrians’ mountains and we had nothing like them. Ahead there was a

rounded turn-off in the road to the right and looking down I could see

the road dropping through the trees. There were troops on this road and

motor trucks and mules with mountain guns and as we went down, keeping

to the side, I could see the river far down below, the line of ties and

rails running along it, the old bridge where the railway crossed to the

other side and across, under a hill beyond the river, the broken houses

of the little town that was to be taken.

It was nearly dark when we came down and turned onto the main road that

ran beside the river.