He turned to me. "That might have happened to us any time on the railway tracks."
"No," I said. "It was because we started across the field."
Bonello shook his head.
"Aymo's dead," he said. "Who's dead next, Tenente?
Where do we go now?"
"Those were Italians that shot," I said. "They weren't Germans."
"I suppose if they were Germans they'd have killed all of us," Bonello said.
"We are in more danger from Italians than Germans," I said. "The rear guard are afraid of everything.
The Germans know what they're after."
"You reason it out, Tenente," Bonello said.
"Where do we go now?" Piani asked.
"We better lie up some place till it's dark.
If we could get south we'd be all right."
"They'd have to shoot us all to prove they were right the first time," Bonello said. "I'm not going to try them."
"We'll find a place to lie up as near to Udine as we can get and then go through when it's dark."
"Let's go then," Bonello said.
We went down the north side of the embankment.
I looked back.
Aymo lay in the mud with the angle of the embankment.
He was quite small and his arms were by his side, his puttee-wrapped legs and muddy boots together, his cap over his face.
He looked very dead.
It was raining.
I had liked him as well as any one I ever knew.
I had his papers in my pocket and would write to his family.
Ahead across the fields was a farmhouse.
There were trees around it and the farm buildings were built against the house.
There was a balcony along the second floor held up by columns.
"We better keep a little way apart," I said. "I'll go ahead."
I started toward the farmhouse.
There was a path across the field.
Crossing the field, I did not know but that some one would fire on us from the trees near the farmhouse or from the farmhouse itself.
I walked toward it, seeing it very clearly.
The balcony of the second floor merged into the barn and there was hay coming Out between the columns.
The courtyard was of stone blocks and all the trees were dripping with the rain.
There was a big empty twowheeled cart, the shafts tipped high up in the rain.
I came to the courtyard, crossed it, and stood under the shelter of the balcony.
The door of the house was open and I went in.
Bonello and Piani came in after me.
It was dark inside.
I went back to the kitchen.
There were ashes of a fire on the big open hearth.
The pots hung over the ashes, but they were empty.
I looked around but I could not find anything to eat.
"We ought to lie up in the barn," I said. "Do you think you could find anything to eat, Piani, and bring it up there?"
"I'll look," Piani said.
"I'll look too," Bonello said.
"All right," I said. "I'll go up and look at the barn."
I found a stone stairway that went up from the stable underneath.
The stable smelt dry and pleasant in the rain.
The cattle were all gone, probably driven off when they left.