I woke when Rinaldi came in but he did not talk and I went back to sleep again. In the morning I was dressed and gone before it was light. Rinaldi did not wake when I left.
I had not seen the Bainsizza before and it was strange to go up the slope where the Austrians had been, beyond the place on the river where I had been wounded. There was a steep new road and many trucks. Beyond, the road flattened out and I saw woods and steep hills in the mist. There were woods that had been taken quickly and not smashed.
Then beyond where the road was not protected by the hills it was screened by matting on the sides and over the top. The road ended in a wrecked village. The lines were up beyond. There was much artillery around. The houses were badly smashed but things were very well organized and there were signboards everywhere.
We found Gino and he got us some coffee and later I went with him and met various people and saw the posts. Gino said the British cars were working further down the Bainsizza at Ravne. He had great admiration for the British. There was still a certain amount of shelling, he said, but not many wounded.
There would be many sick now the rains had started. The Austrians were supposed to attack but he did not believe it. We were supposed to attack too, but they had not brought up any new troops so he thought that was off too. Food was scarce and he would be glad to get a full meal in Gorizia.
What kind of supper had I had? I told him and he said that would be wonderful. He was especially impressed by the dolce. I did not describe it in detail, only said it was a dolce, and I think he believed it was something more elaborate than bread pudding.
Did I know where he was going to go? I said I didn’t but that some of the other cars were at Caporetto. He hoped he would go up that way. It was a nice little place and he liked the high mountain hauling up beyond. He was a nice boy and every one seemed to like him. He said where it really had been hell was at San Gabriele and the attack beyond Lom that had gone bad.
He said the Austrians had a great amount of artillery in the woods along Ternova ridge beyond and above us, and shelled the roads badly at night. There was a battery of naval guns that had gotten on his nerves. I would recognize them because of their flat trajectory.
You heard the report and then the shriek commenced almost instantly. They usually fired two guns at once, one right after the other, and the fragments from the burst were enormous. He showed me one, a smoothly jagged piece of metal over a foot long. It looked like babbitting metal.
"I don’t suppose they are so effective," Gino said. "But they scare me. They all sound as though they came directly for you. There is the boom, then instantly the shriek and burst. What’s the use of not being wounded if they scare you to death?"
He said there were Croats in the lines opposite us now and some Magyars. Our troops were still in the attacking positions. There was no wire to speak of and no place to fall back to if there should be an Austrian attack.
There were fine positions for defense along the low mountains that came up out of the plateau but nothing had been done about organizing them for defense. What did I think about the Bainsizza anyway?
读书笔记
是否公开
13
-
我本以为它还要平坦点,更像个高原。想不到这地方竟是这样高低不平的。
读书笔记
是否公开
13
-
I had expected it to be flatter, more like a plateau. I had not realized it was so broken up.
We went back to the cellar of the house where he lived. I said I thought a ridge that flattened out on top and had a little depth would be easier and more practical to hold than a succession of small mountains. It was no harder to attack up a mountain than on the level, I argued. "That depends on the mountains," he said. "Look at San Gabriele."
读书笔记
是否公开
16
-
“不错,”我说,“但是难就难在山顶是平坦的。人家攻上山顶是相当容易的。”
读书笔记
是否公开
16
-
"Yes," I said, "but where they had trouble was at the top where it was flat. They got up to the top easy enough."
"Yes," I said, "but that was a special case because it was a fortress rather than a mountain, anyway. The Austrians had been fortifying it for years." I meant tactically speaking in a war where there was some movement a succession of mountains were nothing to hold as a line because it was too easy to turn them.
You should have possible mobility and a mountain is not very mobile. Also, people always over-shoot downhill. If the flank were turned, the best men would be left on the highest mountains.
I did not believe in a war in mountains. I had thought about it a lot, I said. You pinched off one mountain and they pinched off another but when something really started every one had to get down off the mountains.
读书笔记
是否公开
21
-
“倘若有的国家拿山做国境线,那怎么办呢?”他问。
读书笔记
是否公开
21
-
What were you going to do if you had a mountain frontier? he asked.
I had not worked that out yet, I said, and we both laughed. "But," I said, "in the old days the Austrians were always whipped in the quadrilateral around Verona. They let them come down onto the plain and whipped them there."
读书笔记
是否公开
23
-
“是的,”吉诺说。“但是那些人是法国人,你在别人的国土上打仗,军事问题就可以干净利落地予以解决。”
读书笔记
是否公开
23
-
"Yes," said Gino. "But those were Frenchmen and you can work out military problems clearly when you are fighting in somebody else’s country."
读书笔记
是否公开
24
-
“是的,”我同意道,“倘若是你自己的国土,干起来可不能那么科学化。”
读书笔记
是否公开
24
-
"Yes," I agreed, "when it is your own country you cannot use it so scientifically."
读书笔记
是否公开
25
-
“俄国人可搞成过,叫拿破仑跌入陷阱。”
读书笔记
是否公开
25
-
"The Russians did, to trap Napoleon."
读书笔记
是否公开
26
-
“是的,但是人家国大地方宽。要是你想在意大利这样对付拿破仑,那你只好退到布林迪西①去。”
① 布林迪西是意大利东南端的海港城市,这就是说等于完全自大陆上撤退,只剩下天边海角的一个小小立脚地。
读书笔记
是否公开
26
-
"Yes, but they had plenty of country. If you tried to retreat to trap Napoleon in Italy you would find yourself in Brindisi."
读书笔记
是否公开
27
-
“那地方糟透了,”吉诺说。“你到过那儿吗?”
读书笔记
是否公开
27
-
"A terrible place," said Gino. "Have you ever been there?"
读书笔记
是否公开
28
-
“到过,但没有呆过。”
读书笔记
是否公开
28
-
"Not to stay."
读书笔记
是否公开
29
-
“我是个爱国者,”吉诺说。“可是要我爱布林迪西或是塔兰多①却不可能。”
① 另一个港口,就在布林迪西的西面。
读书笔记
是否公开
29
-
"I am a patriot," Gino said. "But I cannot love Brindisi or Taranto."
"I myself have never had enough to eat but I am a big eater and I have not starved. The mess is average. The regiments in the line get pretty good food but those in support don’t get so much. Something is wrong somewhere. There should be plenty of food."
"Yes, they give the battalions in the front line as much as they can but the ones in back are very short. They have eaten all the Austrians’ potatoes and chestnuts from the woods. They ought to feed them better. We are big eaters. I am sure there is plenty of food.
读书笔记
是否公开
36
-
士兵的伙食不够吃,这很不好。肚子吃不饱,心思就不同,这一点你注意到了没有?”
读书笔记
是否公开
36
-
It is very bad for the soldiers to be short of food. Have you ever noticed the difference it makes in the way you think?"
读书笔记
是否公开
37
-
“我注意到了,”我说。“这样不能打胜仗,却能打败仗。”
读书笔记
是否公开
37
-
"Yes," I said. "It can’t win a war but it can lose one."
读书笔记
是否公开
38
-
“我们不谈败仗吧。谈败仗已谈得够多了。今年夏天的战斗可不能算是徒劳的。”
读书笔记
是否公开
38
-
"We won’t talk about losing. There is enough talk about losing. What has been done this summer cannot have been done in vain."
读书笔记
是否公开
39
-
我一声不响。我每逢听到神圣、光荣、牺牲等字眼和徒劳这一说法,总觉得局促不安。
读书笔记
是否公开
39
-
I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain.
We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.
It stormed all that day. The wind drove down the rain and everywhere there was standing water and mud. The plaster of the broken houses was gray and wet. Late in the afternoon the rain stopped and from out number two post I saw the bare wet autumn country with clouds over the tops of the hills and the straw screening over the roads wet and dripping.
The sun came out once before it went down and shone on the bare woods beyond the ridge. There were many Austrian guns in the woods on that ridge but only a few fired. I watched the sudden round puffs of shrapnel smoke in the sky above a broken farmhouse near where the line was; soft puffs with a yellow white flash in the centre.