“And we would throw the empty fiascos at the station guards from the troop trains?”
“And we would throw all the left over grenades away and bounce them down the hillside coming back from the Grappa?”
“And they would think there was a break-through when they would see the bursts and you never shaved, and we wore the fiamme nere on the grey, open jackets with the grey sweaters?”
“And I drank grappa and could not even feel the taste?”
“We must have been tough then,” the Colonel said.
“We were tough then,” the Gran Maestro said. “We were bad boys then, and you were the worst of the bad boys.”
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “I think we were rather bad boys. You forgive this will you, Daughter?”
“You haven’t a picture of them, have you?”
“No. There weren’t any pictures except with Mr. d’Annunzio in them. Also most of the people turned out badly.”
“Except for us,” the Gran Maestro said. “Now I must go and see how the steak marches.”
The Colonel, who was a sub-lieutenant again now, riding in a camion, his face dust, until only his metallic eyes showed, and they were red-rimmed and sore, sat thinking.
The three key points, he thought. The massif of Grappa with Assalone and Pertica and the hill I do not remember the name of on the right. That was where I grew up, he thought, and all the nights I woke sweating, dreaming I
