Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway, The

The battalion was along the bank to the left. There was a series of holes in the top of the bank with a few men in them. Nick noticed where the machine guns were posted and the signal rockets in their racks. The men in the holes in the side of the bank were sleeping. No one challenged. He went on and as he came around a turn in the mud bank a young second lieutenant with a stubble of beard and red-rimmed, very blood-shot eyes pointed a pistol at him.

“Who are you?”

Nick told him.

“How do I know this?”

Nick showed him the tessera with photograph and identification and the seal of the third army. He took hold of it.

“I will keep this.”

“You will not,” Nick said. “Give me back the card and put your gun away. There. In the holster.”

“How am I to know who you are?”

“The tessera tells you.”

“And if the tessera is false? Give me that card.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Nick said cheerfully. “Take me to your company commander.”

“I should send you to battalion headquarters.”

“All right,” said Nick. “Listen, do you know the Captain Paravicini? The tall one with the small mustache who was an architect and speaks English?”

“You know him?”

“A little.”

“What company does he command?”

“The second.”

“He is commanding the battalion.”

“Good,” said Nick. He was relieved to know that Para was all right. “Let us go to the battalion.”

As Nick had left the edge of the town three shrapnel had burst high and to the right over one of the wrecked houses and since then there had been no shelling. But the face of this officer looked like the face of a man during a bombardment. There was the same tightness and the voice did not sound natural. His pistol made Nick nervous.

“Put it away,” he said. “There’s the whole river between them and you.”

“If I thought you were a spy I would shoot you now,” the second lieutenant said.

“Come on,” said Nick. “Let us go to the battalion.” This officer made him very nervous.

The Captain Paravicini, acting major, thinner and more English-looking than ever, rose when Nick saluted from behind the table in the dugout that was battalion headquarters.

“Hello,” he said. “I didn’t know you. What are you doing in that uniform?”

“They’ve put me in it.”

“I am very glad to see you, Nicolo.”

“Right. You look well. How was the show?”

“We made a very fine attack. Truly. A very fine attack. I will show you. Look.”

He showed on the map how the attack had gone.

“I came from Fornaci,” Nick said. “I could see how it had been. It was very good.”

“It was extraordinary. Altogether extraordinary. Are you attached to the regiment?”

“No. I am supposed to move around and let them see the uniform.”

“How odd.”

“If they see one American uniform that is supposed to make them believe others are coming.”

“But how will they know it is an American uniform?”

“You will tell them.”

“Oh. Yes, I see. I will send a corporal with you to show you about and you will make a tour of the lines.”

“Like a bloody politician,” Nick said.

“You would be much more distinguished in civilian clothes. They are what is really distinguished.”

“With a homburg hat,” said Nick.

“Or with a very furry fedora.”

“I’m supposed to have my pockets full of cigarettes and postal cards and such things,” Nick said. “I should have a musette full of chocolate. These I should distribute with a kind word and a pat on the back. But there weren’t any cigarettes and postcards and no chocolate. So they said to circulate around anyway.”

“I’m sure your appearance will be very heartening to the troops.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Nick said. “I feel badly enough about it as it is. In principle, I would have brought you a bottle of brandy.”

“In principle,” Para said and smiled, for the first time, showing yellowed teeth. “Such a beautiful expression. Would you like some grappa?”

No, thank you,” Nick said.

“It hasn’t any ether in it.”

“I can taste that still,” Nick remembered suddenly and completely.

“You know I never knew you were drunk until you started talking coming back in the camions.”

“I was stinking in every attack,” Nick said.

“I can’t do it,” Para said. “I took it in the first show, the very first show, and it only made me very upset and then frightfully thirsty.”

“You don’t need it.”

“You’re much braver in an attack than I am.”

“No,” Nick said. “I know how I am and I prefer to get stinking. I’m not ashamed of it.”

“I’ve never seen you drunk.”

“No?” said Nick. “Never? Not when we rode from Mestre to Portogrande that night and I wanted to go to sleep and used the bicycle for a blanket and pulled it up under my chin?”

“That wasn’t in the lines.”

“Let’s not talk about how I am,” Nick said. “It’s a subject I know too much about to want to think about it any more.”

“You might as well stay here a while,” Paravicini said. “You can take a nap if you like. They didn’t do much to this in the bombardment. It’s too hot to go out yet.”

“I suppose there is no hurry.”

“How are you really?”

“I’m fine. I’m perfectly all right.”

“No. I mean really.”

“I’m all right. I can’t sleep without a light of some sort. That’s all I have now.”