"Right away, but on one condition--that when I have guided you, you will give me something to eat, because I am so hungry that I could eat that miserable Mollica."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YOU BEASTLY LITTLE CREATURE, WHAT GAME ARE YOU PLAYING?"]

"Come on, boy, to the village. Double quick!"

Who would have imagined that his regiment had been fighting continuously for ten hours, leaving some dead on the field and sending not a few wounded to the ambulance? There on the square of the village won by Italy, beneath the shadow of the red, white, and green flag that waved from the summit of the little tower, the brave boys gave vent to unrestrained joy. It was time for rations. In the camp kitchens big pots were steaming, but the soldiers did not crowd around them as usual to fill their canteens. The bersaglieri's attention was held by a sight which put them in good humor, and good humor in war is a rare thing. Pinocchio was eating! He had swallowed three platefuls of soup in five minutes, and as he continued to grunt that he was hungry, they had given him a canteen full to the top and slipped into it a piece of meat that would have been sufficient to satisfy the hunger of four city employees.

"Look out for bones!"

"Are you going to eat them all?"

"If he stays with us he'll break the Government."

"Look out, boys, he'll end by bursting."

"Don't you split open with all the Austrians you have eaten, for pork is more indigestible than a.s.ses' meat."

"Heh! don't find fault with the food."

"And what kind of meat do you call this?"

"The best beef."

"Lie! I am familiar with animals ... you give beef to the officers; donkey-meat to the soldiers."

"Look out, you Pinocchio, you'll get into trouble with that tongue of yours."

"Then let me eat in peace. You are all staring at me as if I were a Zulu chewing a hen with her feathers on. My tongue can't be dainty both talking and eating."

"Let's murder him."

And then there was a loud burst of laughter from all. Pinocchio was shoveling food into his mouth with both his hands, so that his face was red as a c.o.c.k's comb and he could scarcely breathe.

They were already as fond of him as if he were their son. His achievements had won for him a certain respect even from the officers whom he amused with his monkeyshines. It had been decided to adopt Pinocchio as the "son of the regiment" and to keep him at the front as a mascot. He was to live with the troops and to wear the uniform of a Boy Scout. The soldiers with common accord had put off his costume to an opportune moment. Do you want to know the reason? The brave boys were afraid to stick Pinocchio into puttees with so many spiral bands because his little thin legs would have frightened people. For the time being they had him put on a pair of short trousers which dragged behind him on the ground, a little cape like a bersagliere's, and a fez with a light-blue ta.s.sel so long that it touched his heels. This ta.s.sel was Pinocchio's delight, who, in order to look at it, always walked along with his head over his shoulder, and so would keep b.u.mping into first one thing and then another. One day the mischievous Mollica made him run into one of the quarter-master-corps mules, and Pinocchio saluted and asked its pardon. But when he ran into officers, sergeants, corporals, and soldiers, instead of saluting he swore at them all.

It is three days later. General Win-the-War's troops have not advanced. Our bersaglieri are still in camp near ----. It is a sultry, thundering afternoon. Many of the soldiers are sleeping. The Bersaglierino is playing cards with Mollica. Corporal Fanfara is shaving. Stecca is practising on his cornet, trying a variation on a well-known tune. Pinocchio, in the back of the tent, is snoring so loudly that Mollica every now and then hurls a handful of earth at his nose to make him lower his note.

Suddenly the boredom is broken, every one jumps up and runs out to a certain point and crowds around an automobile that has just arrived.

Pinocchio wakes up with a start, finds his mouth full of grit, his nose dirty, and hears all the noise about him--has a terrible fright, lets out a yell, and rushes out of the tent. But he is scarcely outside before he feels himself caught up by his legs and whirled around on the ground. He gets up again and is face to face with Bersaglierino, who has not left his post and who laughs loudly at Pinocchio's plight.

"What has happened?"

"The mail has come."

"And you're making all this racket for that? I thought it was the Austrians."

"You little coward, you!"

"That's enough, Bersaglierino, if you say that to me again I'll give you such a kick that will change your shape. But why don't you, too, go to see if you have any letters?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Who do you think would write me? I am as alone in the world as a dog, just like you, it seems."

"Yes, that's so," replied Pinocchio, swallowing hard, because he had suddenly felt his throat tighten at the thought of Papa Geppetto, from whom he had had no news for many a long day.

"It is a red-letter day for the others. Mollica will have a letter from his father, Fanfara news from his two babies, Stecca kisses from his wife.... I might be killed to-morrow by a bullet in the stomach and they would let me rot in a ditch and that would be the end."

Mollica came back, his arms full of newspapers. His father, a news-dealer in Naples, sent him a copy of every unsold publication, knowing that anything may come in useful in war-times, even old news.

"Heh! Bersaglierino! You want us to play the postman and yet you don't take any trouble to get your scented letter."

"You are joking?"

"No, it's no joke. Here is one really for you, and I congratulate you because if you are engaged she must be at least a countess."

The Bersaglierino took the letter his comrade held out to him and read the address over several times. There was no doubt; it was his name that was written on the scented envelope the color of a blush rose. He turned pale and stood for a moment undecided, then he tore it open and read:

DEAR BERSAGLIERINO,--I saw how sad and alone you were at the moment of your departure, so I felt it was my duty as a patriotic Italian girl to write to you. Go and fight for our country; do your duty bravely, and remember that in thought I follow and will follow you every minute. If you return valorously I will meet you and tell you how happy I am; if you fall wounded I will go to your hospital bed to soothe your suffering; if you die for your country my flowers shall lie on your grave and your name will always be written in my heart. Long live Italy!

Your war-G.o.dmother,

FATINA.

"Long live Italy!" Bersaglierino shouted like mad. He caught up his hat with its c.o.c.k plumes and tossed it in the air with all his force, seized Pinocchio who was standing by him, and lifted him up in both his arms, pulled his cap off his head, and then twirled it round on his pate, scratching the poor boy's nose.

"What's got into you? Are you crazy?"

"Am I crazy? I am happy! I am not alone any more, do you understand? I am no longer an unlucky fellow like you with no one belonging to him.

But I am fonder of you than ever. Give me a kiss ..." and he pressed such a hearty kiss on his nose that his comrades laughed. But Pinocchio longed to cry. The heart in his body beat a violent tick-tock, tick-tock.

"Have you read what Franz Joe's newspapers say?--'Italian soldiers are brigands who do not respect civilians or the wounded in the hospitals.' That means you, dear Pinocchio, because you shot the traitor on the tower. You can be sure that if the suet-eaters win they will make you pay for the crime."

"Me?"

"Yes, indeed, you! You don't intend to say that I killed him, do you?

And you, thank G.o.d, are not an enlisted Italian soldier, therefore ..."

"I understand."

The camp was quiet once again; indeed, I might say that tender memories had softened its youthful exuberance. The voices from home were keeping the soldiers silent. It was as if every letter their eyes fell on was speaking to them quietly and they were blessed in listening, their faces shining with happiness. Corporal Fanfara held a sheet of paper on which there was nothing but some strange scrawls. He gazed at it with delight, and while two big tears ran down his cheeks he murmured in his Venetian dialect, "My darling little rascals!"

These scrawls of theirs were more welcome to him than the letter from his wife which told of privations, anxiety, and troubles. Private Mollica was acting like a detective, searching through the newspaper pages for his father's dirty finger-marks; and as there was little trouble in finding them he kept repeating every moment, "This was made by my dear old man." Then he kissed the marks so often that his whole mouth was black with printer's ink.

Shortly after every one was writing, some bent over their writing-tablets, some on the back of a good-natured comrade, some stretched out on the ground, some on the edge of a bench, on the staves of a barrel, on a tree-trunk, with pencils, fountain-pens, on post-cards, envelopes, letter-paper spilled out miraculously from portfolios, bags, and canteens. Every one was writing. The Bersaglierino seemed to be composing a poem. He gesticulated, whacked himself on the ear, beat time with his pen that squirted ink in every direction, and every now and then declaimed under his breath certain phrases that were so moving that they made even him weep.

Pinocchio was as silent and gloomy as the hood of a dirty kitchen stove. Squatting at the entrance to the tent, he kept glancing at his companions, and every now and then he would scratch his head so vigorously that he might have been currycombing a donkey. When Pinocchio scratched his head in that way ... Well, now you know that matters were serious, but I tell you they were so serious that he had the courage to interrupt the Bersaglierino in his literary studies.