Part 5

As I did not wish to tell anyone of our plans, and since a large staff usually ends by knowing all, we decided to establish ourselves in the prisoners’ concentration camp at Capella where there were a few officers who were used to silence and discretion. We were living in a small isolated house, outside the village, and this house had become the forge where weapons fatal to the enemy were being shaped. Methods of communication must now be studied. Signaling by night with lights had to be eliminated because the zone in which I decided to act was in a small hollow surrounded by hills and so dominated by them that any lights would be readily visible from them. More appropriate seemed the method of communicating by means of sheets placed on the ground according to schedule. Bottecchia told me that near the house in which his aunts live there was a small brook and in this brook the wash-women usually did their laundering. The wash was probably laid on the grass near the brook to dry. I did not see why the Austrians should suspect an innocuous sheet of conveying information to our command. By taking as a point of reference a field which could be easily identified, why would it not be possible to lay the sheets on it in such a manner as to convey a special meaning to our command? Several aeroplanes were then sent to photograph the regions selected by us, and in the enlarged photographs the brook was plainly visible. One could see the house of my soldier’s aunts, the little bridge which passes over the Friga, and a small group of houses near a mill, marked on a map of one to twenty-five thousandth scale. Near this group of houses there was a large patch of ground which was very distinct in the photograph and which was but a slight distance from the river. I believed it would be suitable to indicate on it by means of sheets what we wished to convey to our command. There were but a few things which would have to be communicated. A sheet on the southwestern corner of the field would indicate, “offensive imminent from the side of Montello”; a white sheet on the southeastern corner would signify “calm”; a sheet on the northwestern angle of the field would indicate, “enemy troops are moving towards the plain”; a sheet on the northeastern corner would mean, “enemy troops are moving towards the mountains”; a sheet placed in the center of the field would mean, “German reinforcements are arriving.” Our aeroplanes would come by day and photograph our signals. The only difficulty lay in the possible discovery of our plan by the enemy, and its use by the enemy to cheat our command. We must provide against such a possibility. We therefore decided that the signals be disposed at different hours every day. If the signals were not placed in the established hours, then they were to be disregarded. So, even if the enemy were to discover our system of signals, he could never wrest from us a confession of the hours in which the signals were to have been placed. But, although this means of communication might be very useful during a battle, it is at bottom little more than a very crude, elementary method for transmitting information.

For communicating more detailed, interesting information, we decided to rely on carrier pigeons. It would not be easy for us, besides our clothing and money, to carry pigeons with us, and furthermore, it would be absolutely impossible to travel for twenty miles in enemy territory with birds which in case of capture would at once reveal to the enemy our intentions. We must find some system for delivering the birds on the territory established as our headquarters. After numerous experiments we adopted the following method: the birds were to be closed in little cages in which had been placed paper, pencil and small bags with their food; these birds were to be dropped at night, by means of parachutes, from our aeroplanes, but in order not to arouse the suspicion of the enemy that these birds had been thrown down for special informers, there was to be placed in every cage a photograph demonstrating the method of holding the pigeon and of attaching the message to its leg, together with a printed bulletin addressed to the people of Veneto. This bulletin was to ask the good peasants for help in effecting their liberation, and for answers to the following questions—“What troops are quartered in your vicinity? Have you seen any cannon pass? When will the offensive begin?”—and many other similar questions; at the end, the bulletin was to announce that after the war, prizes were to be awarded to those who could prove that they sent messages by means of the pigeons.

That the enemy might not discover our abode, the pigeons were to be thrown down not only on our field, but casually throughout the invaded region. Since the enemy might make use of this means too, of deceiving us, and of communicating false reports as to its intentions, we therefore, studied a code with which to express numbers, and a system of interpolating insignificant words after a given number of words, so that before a pigeon-message could be declared authentic, it must pass certain tests. Thus even if the enemy were to succeed in discovering part of our secret, he could never send messages so correct in every detail that they would not be recognized as frauds by our command. I further decided to number progressively all my pigeon-messages and to sign them with the coined word, “Genga,” or the phrase, “An Italian.”

On May 1st, while we were conferring together at Campo de Capella, we had a pleasant surprise. Suddenly, when we least expected it, we heard the noise of an aeroplane passing low over us. The noise of the motor sounded familiar, like the round, tranquil thump of the “Isotta,” and as I raised my head I saw a “Voisin” spiraling about a hundred yards above us, and an arm stretched from the pilot’s seat waving gaily at us. At last, we realized that Gelmetti after so many hunts and searches had succeeded in finding a plane and had brought it from Camp Poggio Renatico to the front. This was a great step forward, because we would be able to begin many necessary trials with the apparatus. We must make the first trial for weight, and then several trials for landing at night without the use of searchlights, and with the use of the silencer. I therefore thought it would be better for us to transport our tents to the aviation camp at Marcon which is not far from the army and is suited for such experiments.

We were already furnished with our civilian clothes. Mine consisted of a coarse shirt of wool, a pair of wide trousers of striped velvet like those used by our mountaineers, a jacket and vest cut in peasant fashion, and a soft felt hat. I put my disguise on trial by crossing a field where there were many soldiers who knew me in my regular outfit and without a beard. I noticed that many of them stared at me in surprise without recognizing this peasant who walked slowly, dragging his legs along heavily, as though he were worn out. Between my teeth I held a small earthen pipe, I am happy that I passed unrecognized. Even Gelmetti who was resting in the Hangar near his “Spad” was surprised and astonished to see suddenly standing before him this mountaineer whom he did not at once recognize.

I did not believe our departure was far distant. All the reports we had been able to gather recently told of gigantic preparations by the enemy for an early offensive against us. The Austrians for several months had been gradually increasing the number of their guns, and new arrivals from the eastern Roumanian front were continually reported.

The political reasons for this offensive were the great discontent manifest in all the provinces of Austria because of the scarcity of food supplies, and the belief, which gradually undermined the morale of our enemies, that a decisive victory against the Allies was impossible. The most hostile forces then within the enemy lines were the factions which have furnished the best troops. The Hungarians had a deep hatred against Germany, whom they accuse of being the originator of all their troubles. A newspaper from Budapest mentioned that the drive must be finished before the great weight of America could make itself felt in the balance. Therefore, the supreme command of our adversaries was about to exert itself to the full in speeding the decisive drive on our front, in the hope that this drive would bring to it not only a victory of arms, but the conciliation of the hostile, troublesome factions which were ever becoming more formidable and threatening. Were the Austrians to succeed in crushing the Italian army, they would throw all their strength against the southern end of the line in France, and then the Allied forces, enclosed in the iron circle of Germans on the north and Austrians on the south, would have to succumb. The officers of the Austrian staff were confident that they would find our army in the low spirits in which they found it at the battle of Caporetto. They knew not that after our magnificent resistance in November and December a new spirit of moral and material regeneration swept over our soldiers. Furthermore, our great military machine had effected a thorough reorganization. The treatment of the troops, the tactical method, the equipment, the distribution of supplies—all these branches had been reorganized by wise adaptions of such a kind as to inspire confidence among the soldiers in their officers and ensure the ultimate victory of our arms. But we were not to delude ourselves, nor lightly underrate the imminent danger which threatened us; we had to realize that the formation of our front would not permit us to withdraw one inch. We were holding onto the last position in which our stand could be efficacious. If the Austrians were to succeed in driving us from this position a great retreat would be necessary, and even if this retreat were to succeed in saving the army from complete disaster, the new lines would have to be established far inland on the Mincio or the Po, and our failure to hold the first position would mean the sacrifice of Italy’s most beautiful and richest regions, and among them Venice would have to be ceded to the enemy.

Venice! At the mention of this name my Italian heart cannot but be set beating! It was absolutely inconceivable, it was absolutely inadmissible that the barbarian be permitted to trample with feet of iron the pavements of our squares and our churches. Better were it for us all to perish rather than permit the German Emperor to issue from the Doge’s Palace a proclamation of challenge and victory! But the configuration of our front was terribly against us. Our curved front which formed a strong salient from the Astico to the sea gave the Austrians the strategic advantage of being able to launch two attacks simultaneously in two converging directions, from the mountain and from the Piave across the plains. If the attack were successful in one of the two directions, that fact sufficed to cause the downfall of the other sector. The victorious enemy troops having accomplished a “break-through” one side of the salient would at once execute a flanking movement in such a manner that the rest of the front would be compelled to surrender. The maneuver of Caporetto might be repeated to our disadvantage, and this time the defeat would be decisive because the Allies, barely capable of holding back the Germans in France, would not be able to send a single man to our assistance. Therefore, our surveillance was becoming all the more anxious, our chiefs more strict in their reports to the generalissimo of the doings in the various sectors, and I—I should have the honor of taking part in so great a drama, I should have the honor of trying to frustrate the enemy designs.

The incidence of numerical strength was greatly to our disadvantage, for the Austrian army mustered about twenty divisions more than we had. We would therefore have to dispose of our troops with the greatest care. Our reserves would have to be concentrated in a central camp whence they could be readily sent to the section of the front where the enemy seemed most threatening. There would have to be no doubts, no hesitations on the part of our leaders; not a single man ought to be moved to no purpose. It was absolutely necessary for us to know the enemy’s plan of attack, that we might concentrate every soldier we could on whatever sector the supreme blow was to be expected. To discover this plan and report it was my task; a task of danger, a task of honor, the supreme privilege of a man consecrated to his country, of a soldier sworn to the faith of the soldier.

VI

I do not believe any man could ever have hoped for a finer task than mine. I, who have often considered life not worth living, congratulated myself on this undertaking in which I should have the opportunity of creating my masterpiece. But before attempting the marvelous game from which I was certain I was never to return, I wished to visit Venice once again, I wished to draw again from the memorial and eternal glories of these monuments the deep joy of such a life instilled in stone as but rarely it is possible to instil in men. How often while contemplating the architecture of St. Mark’s have I said to myself that we have the right to make men die because we also know how to make them live, but no right to destroy memories because we cannot build them again. How could one reconstruct the glories of fourteen centuries of domination?

With Bottecchia and the De Carli brothers I went to visit Venice for the last time. A light naval motorboat carried us swiftly along the short stretch of water separating the mainland from the city on the sea. It was a clear day; the bluish surface of the basin of St. Mark glittered under the first light zephyrs of May, and, stirred from time to time by smarter puffs, the little waves broke crisply against the sides and over the bow of our skiff. The symmetrical form of a swift torpedo-boat, whose slender sides were moulded for speed like the tendons of a grayhound, was outlined against the curved horizon flecked with frail diaphanous clouds. Amethyst and cobalt, purple and gold mingled in the rapid, ever-changing water swirls about us, intersecting now and anon shattered into fragments that in turn recreate new gleams of loveliness of color and new plays of light. The cold, viscid seaweed stood erect in midstream eagerly awaiting the caress of a passing keel, or hid its dark mass among the shadows of the Cyclopean walls from which the swift foam of the eddies is hurled back. The spirals of a slender column resembling a wistaria vine descended as far as the odorous musk along the bank, while two gentle peacocks, reclining upon marble, wound their sinuous necks about a byzantine image before which wavered the flame of a votive lamp. Our gondola glided silently along the tortuous canal of the dead city. Now and again we passed a heavy stone railing before which dancing statues seemed to suspend the invisible garlands of a distant minuet, or such a heavy iron gate as pricks the pale sky with its pointed blades, or a cypress and a rose bush closely bound together in a single embrace for centuries, with their long, green foliage resting on the water. The Lombardesque eagles curved under the cornice of Casa Vendramin uphold the festoons of stone and on the porous, stained marble one can always read the phrase of the Latin psalm “non nobis, non nobis.” Yet, even for us it is springtime; even for us it is sweet to think it is springtime and that we shall be able to die in springtime.

The gondola drifts slowly between the palaces resting on the water. The Ca D’Oro outlines against the sky its designs of Romanesque acanthus. The Pesaro Palace opens its gigantic stalactic gates into the shadow of its deep courtyard. From under the curved arch of the Rialto a tear still falls. The erect, angular obelisks of the Palace of Pappadopoli pierce the sky as though in defiance of the enemy, and from the high belvederes two somber cannon raise their sinister mouths in air.

On the deserted “fondamenta” there appears the slim figure of a woman enveloped in a shawl and she advances tranquilly gazing towards the East. How calm, how sacred her demeanor! Nothing of earth is there about her body; all her sinews seem set for the same struggle, all her nerves seem tautened by the same love. Her gesture is not new. It has been beheld before on earth. The Virgins of the Carpaccio know it; it has been known for the past fifteen centuries by the women of Venice accustomed to await the advent from the sea of their greatest griefs and their supreme joys. For those women, for the children who have been tortured on the other side of the Piave, I am determined that this pure image of Venice, this pure image of our race shall not suffer contamination.

The clouds of springtime fled rapidly overhead; piling one upon the other into white heaps, swollen to huge proportions. Occasionally a strip of azure disclosed itself and then an oblique ray of light shot through, coloring for a second the vivid façades of the palaces. A boat filled with cabbages, of the large white-headed variety from Verona, passed near us and scattered the fragrance of the country. Ca’ Foscari stood out, with its broad face and large windows rimmed with gold, and farther on glittered the statues of the Contarini Delle Figure palace. A solitary aeroplane which had arisen from Sant. Andrea described slow curves overhead, accelerating and retarding the run of its motor. My faithful friends, my trusted companions were in the boat with me. We had come to Venice in a moment of expectation, during a respite in the struggle, to derive from these memories the strength to accomplish our undertaking, now almost wholly matured in my mind and become the favored child of my imagination. Every day I outlined it and reshaped it with great love; daily I examined its weak spots with affectionate care; daily my assurance revived; every moment I tormented and tortured myself with new doubts so as to be certain that I might not be cheating myself, that I would not fail. At night, before sleep overtook me, I felt the beautiful armored creature alive in my flesh; I felt in my rapid pulse the whirlwind of its strength ready to hurl itself like an arrow which cannot fail; I was conscious of the calculating cunning, the vivid joy of doing evil, the perfervid pride in being able to do harm. The terrible anxiety of expectation burned into my forehead like a sledgehammer shaping a red-hot point. Every remembrance, every grief, every bit of beauty, became fused, became amalgamated in a mould which I alone should be able to direct, and if at times within my weary breast there glistened tears of my great love, them too I seized, them too I hurled against all doubts, against all envy, against death. I did not feel that sleep which enervates and softens, that sleep into which I have often abandoned myself with voluptuousness, but instead my being grew tense, ready for the supreme effort. I felt that I loved even my body because it was my faithful instrument. I reflected upon the play of my muscles, the expansion of my chest and the elastic tenacity of my fingers, and I stretched and turned, ran and leapt like a mastiff who, indomitable, struggles with every part of his body—with paws, tense shoulders, arched back, curved loins, and ravening teeth.

We alighted in the little square in front of the statue of Marco and Todero. The broad, heavy architecture of the ducal palace had been covered by sand bags, and at the end towards the Porta della Carta the very church itself was hidden beneath the weight of the beams and the scaffolding. I would not be able then to see her again as I had often seen her resplendent in her mosaics under the beams of the distantly setting sun! I would not be able to snatch away with me a last image of her to treasure for the days in which I was to tempt fate. Along the stairway of the Giganti, along the gallery flanked by statues, we passed into the Sala del Maggior Consiglio. All was changed; everything had been moved and I no longer recognized the splendid symmetry which used to animate the wall behind the throne; no longer did I see the great world maps which amused me so as a child; no longer did there hang from the wide ceilings in magnificent perspective Michelangelesque limbs and torsos of the valiant men who assured to Venice the glory of the seas. The gold of the frames which at other times held the jewels of the spouse of the Doge and the purple mantles of the counsellors of the Republic seemed to have lost its brilliancy. A wrinkled old guardian in whom I seemed to recognize the face of one of those oarsmen from the galleys of Saint Mark guided us through the spacious rooms. His step was measured, his heavy voice was a melody which let its notes fall on my memories. I did not heed his words but something of them entered into my mind and vivified my memories. Up a steep and winding stairway we climbed in the Piombi and visited the cell where for many months Silvio Pellico suffered indescribable tortures at the hands of the Austrians. The emotion of such a remembrance renewed the strength of the hatred against the century-old enemy.

A curved flock of wings greeted us as we left the palace. The pigeons flew in groups towards the Procuratie. The square was almost deserted but among the few passersby I recognized the slight figure of Luisa. Luisa was a schoolmate of mine; with her I read my first wonderful books, with her I shared the great and pure joys of art.

“How pleased I am to see you here again.”

“The soldiers’ duty is not to leave the trenches, but the duty of the citizens is not to abandon their city and I see you have been faithful to your trust.”

We took once more the lonely way which passes across the parks whence the merry chirping of myriads of birds reached us. Near the Academy the children were playing on the ground near a well; I am not certain whether it is imagined or real, but their game seemed hasty and nervous, their movements hurried as if in fright. Perhaps they had not slept because last night the enemy bombarded Venice. I asked Luisa why she was not afraid to leave her child in the city and she answered me that all the poor women of Venice had not been able to send their children to places of safety and there was therefore no reason why the rich should claim this privilege; furthermore, she scarcely knew how to leave Venice nor to entrust her child to anyone else; in any case they would be struck together and would together perish.

We had almost reached the Chiesa della Salute near the old abbey of St. Gregory where we often used to go after school. The round glazed doors were closed. We could not enter, but peering through the many-colored glass we could imagine the forest of agile little columns which support the wonderful pointed arches.

“You have been my friend and confidant since my earliest years and I know you can preserve a secret. Within a few days I shall send you a postcard on which will be written, ‘arrivederci’ (may we meet again). I entreat you to think a great deal of me in those days because I shall be in danger, because I must succeed, because I want all these wonders to live beyond our memory, because I want Venice to live forever after us.” She smiled back slowly for she had understood. Then with the fall of dusk we returned towards Saint Mark’s which no longer glittered in the evening lights, but whose purple marble and stained glass faded away and mingled with the distant red of the sunset.

VII