“Who had Florence and Rome?”
“We did.”
“Well, I guess you weren’t so damned bad off then.”
“Sir,” the Colonel said gently.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the driver said quickly. “I was in the Thirty-Sixth Division, sir.”
“I’ve seen the patch.”
“I was thinking about the Rapido, sir, I didn’t mean to be insolent or lacking in respect.”
“You weren’t,” the Colonel said. “You were just thinking about the Rapido. Listen, Jackson, everybody who’s soldiered a long time has had their Rapidos and more than one.”
“I couldn’t take more than one, sir.”
The car went through the cheerful town of San Dona di Piave. It was built up and new, but no more ugly than a middle western town, and it was as prosperous and as cheery as Fossalta, just up the river, is miserable and gloomy, the Colonel thought. Did Fossalta never get over the first war? I never saw it before it was smacked, he thought. They shelled it badly before the big fifteenth of June offensive in eighteen. Then we shelled it really badly before we retook it. He remembered how the attack had taken off from Monastier, gone through Fornace, and on this winter day he remembered how it had been that summer.
A few weeks ago he had gone through Fossalta and had gone out along the sunken road to find the place where he had been hit, out on the river bank. It was easy to find
