colossal proportions. Finally, after organization had been established, labor troops hauled them out at night and buried them close to the road. The Colonel looked for added greenness close to the road but could not note any. However, there were many ducks and geese in the canals, and men were fishing in them all along the road.
They dug them all up anyway, the Colonel thought, and buried them in that big ossario up by Nervesa.
“We fought along here when I was a kid,” the Colonel told the driver.
“It’s a God-damn flat country to fight in,” the driver said. “Did you hold that river?”
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “We held it and lost it and took it back again.”
“There isn’t a contour here as far as you can see.”
“That was the trouble,” the Colonel said. “You had to use contours you couldn’t see, they were so small, and ditches and houses and canal banks and hedgerows. It was like Normandy only flatter. I think it must have been something like fighting in Holland.”
“That river sure doesn’t look anything like the Rapido.”
“It was a pretty good old river,” the Colonel said. “Up above, it had plenty of water then, before all these hydroelectric projects. And it had very deep and tricky channels in the pebbles and shingle when it was shallow. There was a place called the Grave de Papadopoli where it was plenty tricky.”
He knew how boring any man’s war is to any other man, and he stopped talking about it. They always take it personally,
