Читать книгу Poor Banished Children of Eve - Welby T Cox - Страница 10

HE HAD SHARED WOMEN BEFORE; HE PREFERRED THEM TO BE EXPERIENCED AND DRAWN TO A WHIFF OF DEBAUCHERY IN A MAN!

NOW ON MY WAY TO VENICE, keeping strictly controlled and not thinking of my need to be there, the large Buick cleared the last of San Dona and came up onto the bridge over the river Piave’.

We crossed the bridge and were on the Italian side of the Piave’ river; were I could still see all the old military positions. It was as smooth and undistinguished now, as it was then, along the river. Now, along each side of the flat, straight, canal-bordered road, I watched as the willows waved along the two canals, hiding the dead bodies of the war. There had been a murderous blood bath at the end of the last offensive. A less than human soldier in charge of the riverbank positions, chose, and ordered the dead thrown into the canals. Unfortunately, the canals were still in the hands of the Austrians.

There was little movement of the water and the dead soldiers had remained there for all this time, floating and bloating, face-up or face-down, regardless of nationality until they had attained colossal proportions.

Finally, after organization had been established, labor troops hauled the dead out of the canals during the night and buried them along the road. I looked for the fertilized green spots along the road, but could not see any difference. However, there were many ducks and geese in the canals and men were fishing in them all along the road, and I knew the source, which was feeding the nature of marine life.

“After the war, they dug all the bodies, and buried them honorably in Osorio near Nervosa. I said to DeNeri.

“We fought along here when I was a kid.” I said to DeNeri…or myself, since I’ve noticed I often converse alone.

“Seems a flat country to fight in…did you hold the river, sir?”

“Yes, twice…we held it and lost it…and then we won it back again.” I said.

“There isn’t a contour on the horizon to be seen.” He said.

“It was a problem.” I responded. “You had to use contours you could not see, they were so small, and ditches and houses, canal banks and hedgerows. It was very much like Normandy, only flatter. I think it must have been like fighting in Holland or Belgium, flat as one of those famous pancakes.” I said to DeNeri.

“The Piave’ river sure doesn’t look like the Rapido?” DeNeri asked.

“It was a very good old river,” I said. “Up above, it had plenty of water then, but that was before all these hydroelectric plants. Once, it was very deep with tricky channels and it was nothing but pebbles and shingles when it was shallow. There was a place called Grave’ de Papadopoli were it was most tricky.”

I knew how boring my war was to most other men who had not experienced it. Except for the real students of conflict. Tuff to figure if DeNeri was simply being polite or suckin-up for a big tip…or truly interested in the history as he seemed to be…so I chose to remain silent. They always take it personally, I thought. No one is interested in war in the abstract, except old soldiers, and now there aren’t many of them. God makes them, and the good ones die. These youngsters are always thinking of what they have seen…and while you are talking they are thinking of what they will say, and what it may lead to in their advancement or privilege. There was no sense boring this kid, who for all his combat infantry badges, his Purple Heart and other honors he wore, was in no sense a soldier, but only a man placed, against his will in a uniform and who had elected to remain in the army for his own ends.

“What did you do in the world, DeNeri?” I asked.

“My brother and I had a small garage in Billings, Montana, sir.”

“Will you be going back there someday?”

“My brother was killed in the Pacific, and the guy we trusted to run the garage, ran off with the money, and we lost all the tools and what we had put into it, and I still have some debt.”

“I guess your dog pissed on your pant leg as well?”

“You damn right, it was too bad, and I am still pissed”

I looked up the road knowing ... if we kept going straight we would come to the turn I was waiting for; but I was impatient for its arrival.

“Keep a keen eye now DeNeri, we’ll be taking the next left, leading off the pike.”

“Do you think those low roads will be hard on this grand old Buick, sir?”

“We’ll just have to chance it DeNeri…won’t we? Hellfire man it hasn’t rained here in three weeks.”

“Sorry, sir, but I just don’t trust them low roads with this big heavy car.”

“Well, DeNeri, if we get stuck, I’ll pull you out with a couple of asses.”

“Not to be smart, sir…but would you be talking, mine and yours?”

“Both of them, my boy.” I said smiling. “So think about what I told you and turn off at the first left.”

“... Looks like it coming up sir.”

“You’re all clear behind, just pull up ahead of it and I’ll go over to have a look?”

I stepped out of the car and walked across the wide, hard surfaced road, and looked down on the narrow dirt road, with the swift flowing canal beside it and the thick hedge beyond. Further still, I saw a red farmhouse with a large barn. The roadbed was dry and there were no cart ruts in it. I got back in the car.

“It’s a veritable boulevard my dear DeNeri,” I said. “Stop your worrying.”

“Yes, sir, it’s your car, sir.”

“I know, but I have expensive insurance.”

“Say, DeNeri, do you always suffer so much when you get off the highway onto a secondary road?”

“No, sir, but there is a lot of difference between a Jeep, and a car as low as this Buick. Do you happen to know the clearance you have on the differential and the body frame?”

“I’ve got a shovel in the trunk and chains for the rear tires. Just wait till you see where we’re going after we leave Venice.”

“Do we go all the way in the Buick, sir?”

“I don’t know, we’ll see.”

“Think about your beautiful fender guards.”

“We’ll cut the fenders off like the Indians do in Oklahoma. She’s over fendered as of this time. She’s got too much of everything except the engine. And, DeNeri, this is a real engine. Three hundred fifty thoroughbreds pulling away. Think of it this way, a thoroughbred at top speed will run at thirty-seven MPH times 350 would equal twelve thousand nine hundred fifty MPH in cumulative power.”

“Ding-Dong” DeNeri said, “In all respect sir that is one fucked-up theory. I don’t care if there are seven hundred fifty thoroughbreds…it is still thirty five miles per hour!”

“Just wanted to see if you were on your toes.”

“I certainly am sir. I love to drive this beauty with the big engine on the good roads, and, I don’t want anything to happen to her.”

“Very good of you DeNeri, now I order you to just stop suffering…you act like she is a woman and you are going to bang on her.”

“Would that it was so, Colonel…and I am not suffering.”

“Good.”

DeNeri wasn’t suffering, because at that moment, he saw just beyond the line of closely bunched brown trees ahead, a sail moving along. A large red sail, racked sharply down from the peak, and it was moving slowly behind the trees while running parallel with the bank.

Why does it always gladden your heart to see a sail moving along through the country, I wondered? Why is it so emotional for me to see the great, slow pale oxen? It must be the gait as well as the look of them…the size and the color of both the sail and the oxen, displaying unseen muscle.

A large fine mule, or a string of pack mules in good condition, moves me as well. So too, a coyote or a 150 pound wolf which is gaited like no other animal. They are genetically designed by nature to survive…big, gray and certain of its ability to survive, carrying a heavy head with the deep set blue-gray-white devil eyes.

“Ever see any wolves in Montana, DeNeri.”

“No, sir, wolves were gone from Billings before my time; they poisoned them out. There are plenty of coyotes though.”

“I enjoy listening to them at night.”

“So do I, better than anything, except seeing a sail coming along in the country. Do you see a boat over there?”

“... on the Sile Canal," I told him. She’s a sailing barge going to Venice. The wind is off the mountains now, causing her to move right along. It’s liable to get very cold tonight, if this wind holds and it ought to bring in lots of ducks.”

“... Would be a sight to see, sir.”

“Yes, turn to your left here, DeNeri, and we’ll run along the canal…it’s a good road.”

“They don’t have much duck shoots where I come from, but there was plenty of it in Nebraska along the Platte River.”

“Do you want to shoot were we’re going?”

“No thank you sir. Frankly I’m not much of a shot, and because it is Sunday, I’d prefer to stay in the rack.”

“I know.” I smiled at DeNeri…”You can stay in the sack until noon.”

“I brought my repellant, I should sleep well.”

“I’m not sure you will need it.” I said. “Did you happen to bring any K-rations or ten in one? They are most likely to eat Italian food here!”

“I brought a few cans to help out, and some stuff to give away.”

“Good thinking, DeNeri.”

I turned my thoughts to the road ahead to see were the canal road joined the main highway again. There, I knew he would see it again, on a clear day, such as this one happened to be.

Across the marches, brown as those across the Mississippi, around Pilot Town in the winter, and with reeds bent by the heavy north winds, I saw the squared tower of the church of Torricelli and the high Campanile’ of Burano, beyond it. The sea was slate blue, and I could see the sails of twelve sailing barges running with the wind from Venice.

I knew I would have to wait until we crossed the Deice River above Noghera to see it perfectly, I thought. It is so strange to see how we fought back there along the canal, during that winter to defend it and we never saw it. Once I was back as far as Noghera, and it was clear and cold like today, I could see it across the water. However, I never got into it, though it is my city, because I fought for it when I was a boy, and now I am half-a-hundred years old. They know I fought for it and I am part owner, and they treat me as well.

Do you think this is why they treat me so well, I ask myself? Maybe, I thought. Maybe they treat me well because I am a Bird Colonel, maybe chicken to some on the winning side. I don’t believe it though, I hope not anyway…it isn’t France, I thought. There you fight your way into the city, which you love. Everyone was very careful about breaking anything, and then, if you have the good sense, you are careful not to go back because you will meet some military characters, who will resent your having fought your way into their lives.

Vive la France! The great Clarte’ of the French military minds. France hasn’t had a military thinker since du Picq. He too was a poor bloody Colonel, Magin; Maginot and Gamelin, pick your own poison, three schools of thought.

One, I hit them in the nose, Two, I hide behind this thing, which does not cover my left flank, Three, I hide my head in the sand like an Ostrich, confident in the greatness of France as a military power, and then I take off.

Taking off is putting it cleanly and politely. Sure, I thought, whenever you oversimplify you become unjust? Remember all the fine ones in the resistance, remember Foch…both fought and organized, and remember how fine the people were. Remember your good friends and your dead friends. Remember lots of things and your best friends again, because they were the finest people you knew. Try not to be bitter or stupid, and what does this have to do with soldiering as a trade? Cut it out I told myself, this is supposed to be a trip to have some fun.

“DeNeri, are you a happy lad?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Great, soon we will be coming to a view I want you to see. You only have to take one look at it. The entire operation will be practically painless.”

I wonder why he is riding me now, DeNeri thought. Just because he was a General once. Now, if he was worth a shit as a BG, why didn’t he hold on to the rank? DeNeri thought.

“There’s the view DeNeri,” I said. “Stop here by the side of the road and we’ll have a look.”

DeNeri got out of the car and opened the door for me as a driver is supposed to do and we walked over to the Venice side of the road and looked across the lagoon. The water, whipped by the strong cold winds coming off the northern mountains, sharpened all the buildings, causing them to be geometrically clear.

“There is Torricelli directly opposite us.” I said pointing out the site to DeNeri. “It is where the people lived who were driven off the mainland by the Visigoths who first invaded the Roman Empire in the 4th century. They built the church you see there with the square tower. There were thirty thousand people who lived here once. They built the church to honor their god and to worship him. Then, after they had built it, the mouth of the Sile River silted up, and all the land we came through, just now, was flooded. The flooding started to breed mosquitoes and they brought Malaria with them. The civilians all started to die since there was no cure. The elders got together and decided they should pull out to a healthy place, which would be defensible by boat and were the Visigoths, the Lombard’s and other bandits couldn’t get at them. They knew the sea bandits had no sea knowledge or the power of the sea. The Torricelli’s were aggressive sailors, so they took the stones from their homes and built Venice, a city on a canal.

DeNeri just said, “Imagine.”

“Am I boring you DeNeri?” I asked.

“No, sir, I had no idea of the history.”

“The men, women and children of Torricelli, were very salty people and they had this marvelous vision, a great taste for design and construction. They had come from a small coastal village called Carole. They were fishermen and they drew commerce from the little adjoining towns and the farms, which had been over-run. The boys from Torricelli were running guns into Alexandria. These same people discovered the body of St. Mark (for whom the great square is named) and smuggled it out under a load of fresh pork to keep the infidel Muslim customs agent wouldn’t check them. You know how insane the Muslims are about pork? This kid outwitted them and brought the body of St. Mark to Venice, and St. Mark is the patron saint of Venice to this day. Just like St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, and now, just less than 100 feet from the Bridge of Sighs there is a major Basilica in the giant square to honor him. One of the most significant images can be seen all along the edge of the roof of the Basilica of San Marco, overlooking one of the most unique and eclectic cities in the world. It is a marble salon, the city center for centuries. Next to both the Basilica and the Doge’s Palace, all the most important religious and civil ceremonies have always been held there displaying priceless art. Now the Piazza of San Marco is considered the city’s main symbol and tourist come by the thousand to admire the marble horses, which appear to be protecting the square and the Basilica. At the other end of the Piazza San Marcos stand the red marble lions as further protection for the Piazza.

“These people never designed or built anything more sacred than at the start of the revolution, because these were inspired people."

“This is a very inspired portrait you have painted, and one I look forward to witnessing for myself.” DeNeri said in an unconvincing tone.

“In the Piazza San Marco there are thousands of pigeons were the great Basilica faces the square, they come and walk among the tourist, just waiting for someone to drop a peanut or popcorn.”

“I suppose with all the movement it must appear the ground is moving?”

“Right you are DeNeri, if it’s the way you look at it. Now if you look beyond Torricelli you will see the lovely Campanile’ on the Burano, it has nearly as much list on it as does the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Burano is a very over-populated little island were the local women sew beautiful lace, which is used for veils for the heads of women in the Basilica, and the men make bambinas, and work in the daytime blowing glass on the island of Moreno. They make wonderful glass figures as you watch at the factories. Do you see it? Then they come home on the little Vaporetto and there they drink wine, make love and make those beautiful Italian children.”

But no one passes all the night with wives and lovers, they have a passion for hunting ducks at night with big punt guns out along the edge of the marches on this lagoon which you are looking on now. All night long, on a moonlight night, you can hear them opening up on the ducks ... always have one thing on their minds…sleep.”

“On out there DeNeri, when you look past Moreno, you see Venice, it’s my town. There is plenty more I could show you, but I think we should get on along. Just take one last look at it; this is the place were you can see how it all came together…a spot were few people come.”

“It’s a beautiful sight, sir…and thank you for sharing your special insight. It is an experience I will never forget, sir”

“Ok, then,” I said. “Let’s get it while the get’n is good.”