Vignette 2, Chapter 2

Title: A Letter From Nonna

Author: Bikerider

Chapter: Vignette Two, Chapter Two: Walking to War



Story Development: 36%

Character Development: 38%

Scene Setting: 14%

Exposition that moves the story: 26%

Dialogue that moves the story: 16%

Foreshadowing: 2%

Symbolism: 4%

Word Count: 3048

First Day of War

The company of men looked more rag-tag than military as they joked and teased each other on their steep march to the top of Mount Pasubio. They squinted their eyes in the bright August sunlight and sweat darkened their uniforms as they made their way above the Vaporetto, one of the most beautiful valley’s any of them had ever seen. Plumes of dust rose from under their boots as they walked higher and higher up the mountain.

“Come on, Fabregio,” Severino said with a smile. “You can’t win the war from down here.” Fabregio had the gift of gab, Severino knew. “Or are you getting too tired to make it to the top?” Fabregio had become entangled in a conversation with one of the men and had fallen behind the group, then fell further behind as he stopped to tie his boot laces, again.

“I’ll make it, don’t worry,” the young soldier said. “I can certainly keep up with an old man like you,” Fabregio joked. Some of the men around Severino nudged him and laughed.

At twenty-four, Severino was the oldest man in the unit, and the younger men never let him forget it. But he had lived in the mountains all his life, and his legs had become muscular from climbing the steep paths surrounding his home. This trek up the mountain was nothing new to him. Three men walked next to Severino, the rest of the column was strung out along the road. They looked more like a group of men out for a walk in the park than a company of Austrian riflemen.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see what happens when we get up there,” Severino nodded toward the narrow cattle path that led to the top of the mountain. The equipment hanging haphazardly from Fabregio rattled and shook as he jogged to catch up with the column of men, his scuffed boots noisily kicking up dust as he clomped ahead.

All the men had heard the stories about the place they were assigned to. If the avalanches didn’t bury you during the winter, then the accurate Italian artillery would get you in the summer. Many men had been lost in the year-long fighting that had raged along the peaks and valleys of these mountains.

None of the men in the company had been in a battle. None of them had even heard a shot fired in anger, with the possible exception of Francisco. Two nights before they left camp, a jealous husband shot at him as he made a hasty escape from the man’s house.

A month before Severino was conscripted into the army, a friend of his father’s had come home from this mountain. He had been seriously wounded during a brutal Italian assault carried out against the Austrian lines dug in near the summit. But he told Severino he didn’t mind being injured so badly. “It means I won’t be sent back there.”

Severino remembered another conversation he had had with the veteran just before he left for the army. The man’s eyes clouded over as if he were watching a bad memory play out in front of him. After a brief silence, he gasped and one corner of his lip curled up in a strained smile. He fixed his gaze on the ground. “On Mount Pasubio,” he said through clenched teeth. “You soon forget how to laugh.” Severino shuddered as he thought about the man’s words, the pain in his eyes. Severino turned and studied the faces of the young men walking up the slope with him. Maybe it is better that they don’t know what they’re in for.

Because he was the oldest in the group, many of the men looked up to him. The six weeks of training they had all just finished was strenuous, and most of them took the training seriously. But some did not. One night, just before the mid-point of their training, Severino had gotten into a fight with one of the men who took the whole idea of war as a fantasy, a joke. Severino grabbed the man by the shirt collar and pushed him against the wall. With his face only inches from the man’s face, Severino hissed. “This is serious, and the more you learn now the better your chances are of making it through. If you don’t care about yourself, that’s your business. But your sloppy attitude can get one of us killed.” The man’s attitude changed after that night. The incident had also changed the way everyone looked at Severino. They considered him a leader.



He didn’t want to be thought of as a leader. He was no different than the rest of the men here. Poor and powerless. But a short time later he began to enjoy the role as leader. Who knows, he had thought to himself. Maybe it will help me to get promoted. And since he sent most of his meager pay home to his parent’s, the extra money that came with a promotion would be helpful. But his enthusiasm about his new-found responsibility went no further than how much it could mean to him in pay.

Someone shouted from the rear of the formation. “Fabregio, we are lucky to have you with us. Didn’t you say you would win this war—all by yourself?” The men laughed. Fabregio was still far behind the group, like a lone soldier out for a walk on a sunny afternoon. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

Someone at the back of the column shouted. “Do it soon, Fabregio, I want to get home to my wife before she finds another husband.” Someone else shouted, “I wish you had come up here yesterday and won the war. It would have saved us the trip.”

Fabregio was one of the youngest members of the company. At only seventeen, he was not allowed to forget that he had needed his parent’s permission to join the army. But his boyish grin and easy, friendly smile earned him the friendship of all the men serving with him. Many of the men, especially Severino, had helped him through the initial training. Many of them joked that he would be the first one killed in battle because, at his age, he thought he was invincible. Severino frowned at the thought.

“Leave him be. He’ll win the war for us,” Severino said, then after a brief pause, added. “After he gets permission from him mama.” Everyone laughed and hooted, including Fabregio.

###

The roar of the explosion deafened Severino for a few seconds. He fell to the ground, disoriented. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. Clumps of dirt and rock rained down and turned the air black with dust and smoke. It became as dark as night. Severino felt around on the ground for his rifle. He found it and rolled into the ditch that ran along the side of the path he had been walking on. Men coughed in the dirty air, some shouted obscenities, some shouted in pain. Other’s called for their mother’s.

The second explosion was louder and the ground shook under Severino. The shouting stopped but he heard footsteps as men began to run. The air around him roiled with thick black smoke and dirt. He was afraid that some of the men would run from the blast and in the darkness caused by the explosion, run right off the side of the mountain. He shouted for everyone to drop to the ground and lay still. The acrid smell of gunpowder stung his nose. He lay still and listened to the screams of men in pain.

Two more explosions could be heard further away, but still close enough that the ground shook under Severino. He wiped dirt from his face and reached for his canteen. Taking a mouthful of water, he cleansed the taste of blood from his mouth. He heard two more explosions, even further away than the last two. He put his palms against the flinty ground and pushed himself into a sitting position.

A defeated silence filled the path.



The cloud of smoke and dirt rose like a curtain and Severino could see that the path was strewn with the bodies of his comrades. Some lay still, others squirmed in pain and moaned. Dark stains grew larger under their bodies. Severino shouted and held his hand above his head. “Everyone meet over here.” The man carrying the medical pouch, Georgio, ran from one body to the next. Sometimes he’d take a minute to patch up a wound, but with others, the ones lying still, he shook his head, made the sign of the cross, and then moved on.

Severino heard moans coming from behind a shrapnel-scared boulder. The moans turned into someone calling his name. Hurrying over, he saw him. It took him a moment to recognize the wounded soldier who lay bleeding profusely from somewhere under his tattered pants. The man’s face was caked with dirt and blood. But when he opened his eyes and the sun brightened the blue centers, Severino knew who it was. Fabregio!

He spun around and called out to Georgio. “Quick, over here, Fabregio needs your help!” He knelt beside the wounded man and placed his hands behind his head, lifting it gently, he placed his young friends head on his lap. His eyes wandered to Fabregio’s legs. His pants were torn to shreds, blackened skin oozed clear fluid, and a stream of blood pooled beneath his hips. He raised his head above the boulder and shouted again, this time louder. “Hurry, Georgio!” He looked down into the young, blood smeared face of his friend.

“You’ll be okay,” he said. “Georgio will have you fixed up soon.” He craned his head above the rock and saw Georgio running in his direction, his medical pouch bouncing against his thigh. “He’ll be here in just a second.”

“I can’t feel my legs, Severino.” Fabregio winced and a moan escaped through his clenched teeth. Blood trickled from his ears and spotted the knee of Severino’s pants.

“You’re not going to get off this easy.” Severino forced a smile onto his face. “We are all depending on you to end this war. You promised.”

A thin smile formed on his face. “I don’t know if I can keep that promise now.” He tried to raise his head to look down at his legs but stiffened and stopped. He began to cry. “My mother will blame herself, you know.” He tried to smile but his lips would not respond. “She didn’t want to sign for me.”

“Don’t talk,” Severino said and moved to allow room for Georgio to crouch next to Fabregio. The wounded man winced as the medic tore away the bloody pants and revealed deep, wet lacerations on both of his thighs. Blood pumped from the ugly wounds.

Severino cursed himself. Why did I allow him to fall so far behind the rest of us? I should have made him walk with me so I could keep an eye on him. We all knew he wasn’t ready to be here. He didn’t yet understand that it would take effort to stay alive on this mountain.

Fabregio locked his eyes on Severino’s gaze. “I can see it in your eyes, old man,” he said. “I’m hurt bad.” His eye lids slowly closed then fluttered open again. “I wish I could talk to my mama right now. I’d like to tell her that this is not her fault. It was my wish to join the army, to fight for Austria…for our home. It is not her fault. Will you tell her that for me, please, Severino?” Tears fell from Fabregio’s eyes and a soft wail lifted from his lips as he called out for his mother.

Severino closed his eyes and remembered the sounds of the children at the train station. Was that only two months ago?

###

The wooden platform vibrated under Severino’s boots as the heavy train lumbered into the station. Naked light bulbs strung along the edge of the platform swayed in the sudden breeze caused by the locomotive as it passed. The empty passenger cars squeaked on their springs as the train grumbled to a stop. A cloud of hissing steam frothed into the early-morning air, leaving an eerie silence in its wake, as if it took all sound with it.

Unlike so many of the uniformed young men gathered here, Severino was not holding a small child in his arms. No young woman looked up at him with adoring eyes. No one had accompanied him here to send him off with words of encouragement. After bidding farewell to his parents, Stefano and Lucia, he had walked alone to the piazza in the center of Cloz and was picked up by a military truck. He had been dropped off at the Trento station to await the train that would take him and his unit, the 2nd Regiment of the Tyrolian Imperial Rifles, to war.

“Al-l-e an Bord,” the uniformed conductor shouted and then consulted his pocket watch. “All-l-l aboard!”

Men stiffened as the conductor’s words echoed through the train station, then inhaled deeply before kneeling to hug and kiss their children. Father’s, men in uniforms, their eyes moist, gazed lovingly on their children’s faces, knowing they might never see them again. Husbands embraced their sobbing wives passionately as words of love passed between them.

Severino watched a young woman, her eyes wet with tears, lift her child from her husband’s arms. The baby turned and reached out for its father, his wails shattering the silence that had arrived with the train. Slowly, men began to make their way through the packed station toward the train as the lone baby’s cry echoed through the station.

Severino stood in the dim light, his bag over his shoulder, watching as men and women said their tearful good byes. He listened as men made promises they would not be able to keep. He heard a small child cry out, “Papa, papa,” as his father turned away and boarded the train that would take him, and all the others, to an unknown fate.

More children began to cry as fathers turned from them and walked away. Soon, the cries of children became a shrill chorus that filled the humid air.

Severino walked to the train and climbed onto the metal platform between two cars. He turned and looked out at the crowd. No one said a word. A woman walked to the train and smiled at the young man standing next to Severino. She held up a young boy about a year old. The man next to him gasped. Severino’s heart grew heavy as he heard the man mumble quietly, “I hope I live to see you again.” The train lurched forward.

The crowd moved with the train but quickly fell behind. As the train cleared the station Severino looked back and saw hands waving in the air; a final goodbye. A gush of steam rose from the locomotive’s whistle announcing the train’s departure, then stopped abruptly. It was then that Severino heard it again. Even from this distance, even over the rumble of the train’s wheels, he could hear the wails of the children as they cried out for their fathers.

It was a sound Severino knew he would carry with him for the rest of his life.

###

Fabregio’s eyes fluttered open, but the light was gone from them. He turned his head to look at Severino and suddenly his body relaxed. His eyes closed for the last time.

Severino stared into the young face of his fallen friend. He had to suck in his cheeks to keep his emotions in check. The skin on his neck prickled. It wouldn’t do for the other’s to see the oldest man among them cry. He hadn’t asked for their confidence. He had no real rank. But he knew he hadn’t taken the men seriously when they depended on him for more than they should. “I’m sorry, Fabregio!” Severino mumbled, then made the sign of the cross on the dead man’s chest.

He gently resting Fabregio’s bloodied head on the ground, then took a handkerchief from his pocket and spread it over the man’s face. He stood and looked down at Fabregio and continued to fight his emotions. Another man dies because he was poor.

Severino walked around the boulder and looked up the rocky path. He turned to the men who were still able to climb to the top to reinforce the men who were embattled near the summit.

“Capelli, Morosso,” he shouted the names of the two youngest men in the group. “You two stay here until the truck comes for our friends.” He looked at the four men sitting along the side of the road, bloody bandages draped around their arms. “After the wounded are seen to, make your way up to the camp.” He slung his rifle over his shoulder and turned back to the two men. “And check in with me when you come up. Understand?”

Capelli and Morosso stood and looked at each other. “Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

“I’m not an officer, don’t call me sir!” His gaze fell on each of the soldiers standing along the road. “I’m just like all of you, the son of poor parents who finds himself in a bad situation.” He paused. “And unlike all of the officers waiting for us up there,” he jerked his thump up the mountain. “I will do my best to look out for each of you.”

“Let’s go,” he said firmly, his voice deep with authority. His gaze wandered to the boulder when Fabregio lay dead on the other side. “I hope you all now understand how serious this is. No more joking and playing. It’s time you learned that your life can be lost in an instant.” His remarks were met with a respectful silence.

His jaw set with determination, his emotions on the edge of flashing, Severino walked up the mountain, his men now closely following in tight formation. He looked around but saw no children, no babies being held in their mother’s arms.

But he could hear the babies crying.





Word Count: 3048