You go to live in a big city and have your English there to cuddle you.
Why don't I get wounded?
Maybe you will, I said.
We must go, said the major.
We drink and make noise and disturb Federico.
Don't go.
Yes, we must go.
Good-by.
Good luck.
Many things.
Ciaou.
Ciaou.
Ciaou.
Come back quickly, baby.
Rinaldi kissed me.
You smell of lysol.
Good-by, baby.
Good-by.
Many things.
The major patted my shoulder.
They tiptoed out.
I found I was quite drunk but went to sleep.
The next day in the morning we left for Milan and arrived forty-eight hours later.
It was a bad trip.
We were sidetracked for a long time this side of Mestre and children came and peeked in.
I got a little boy to go for a bottle of cognac but he came back and said he could only get grappa.
I told him to get it and when it came I gave him the change and the man beside me and I got drunk and slept until past Vicenza where I woke up and was very sick on the floor.
It did not matter because the man on that side had been very sick on the floor several times before.
Afterward I thought I could not stand the thirst and in the yards outside of Verona I called to a soldier who was walking up and down beside the train and he got me a drink of water.
I woke Georgetti, the other boy who was drunk, and offered him some water.
He said to pour it on his shoulder and went back to sleep.
The soldier would not take the penny I offered him and brought me a pulpy orange.
I sucked on that and spit out the pith and watched the soldier pass up and down past a freight-car outside and after a while the train gave a jerk and started.
BOOK TWO
13
We got into Milan early in the morning and they unloaded us in the freight yard.
An ambulance took me to the American hospital.
Riding in the ambulance on a stretcher I could not tell what part of town we were passing through but when they unloaded the stretcher I saw a market-place and an open wine shop with a girl sweeping out.
They were watering the street and it smelled of the early morning.
They put the stretcher down and went in.
The porter came out with them.
He had gray mustaches, wore a doorman's cap and was in his shirt sleeves.
The stretcher would not go into the elevator and they discussed whether it was better to lift me off the stretcher and go up in the elevator or carry the stretcher up the stairs.
I listened to them discussing it.
They decided on the elevator.
They lifted me from the stretcher.
"Go easy," I said. "Take it softly."
In the elevator we were crowded and as my legs bent the pain was very bad.
"Straighten out the legs," I said.
"We can't, Signor Tenente.