Pinocchio, who was in a state of great weakness and curiously sleepy, felt himself lifted up and whirled around to the outburst of loud laughter. It seemed to him that something slipped down his throat which burned and made him cough and sneeze…then he thought he was stretched out on a bed that was rather hard, but covered with warm and heavy coverings; then…he experienced a strange feeling of comfort disturbed only by a long, monotonous, persistent humming.
If he had been able to notice what was happening to him he would either have died of fright or he would have believed himself in the very hands of God. Fastened to the gun-carriage of a six-inch cannon, suspended in the car of a filovia, he was traveling over the abyss which separates two of our giant Alps. Below him was a sea of clouds, above the beautiful blue sky, all about him the gleam of white snow, and on the snow here and there a group of little gray points, like grains of sand lost in all this immensity. Those were our Alpine troops, the dear big boys who were laughing at the joke played on Pinocchio, and defying serenely all the obstacles that nature opposed to their victorious advance on Italian soil which Austria’s power had for so many years disputed with us.
When Pinocchio regained his senses he found himself lying on the ground wrapped up in coverlets and warm as a bun just out of the oven. Above his head dangled horizontally the huge basket from which he had been flung by the shock of its sudden halt, and which swung on the steel cables of the filovia as if it were weary of being up there and eager to set about its job. All about was the gleam of the snow, even though the light was growing paler every moment. I bet you a soldo against a lira what hour it was. But Pinocchio guessed it from the odor of cooking which sweetened the air all about, an odor which would have brought a dead dyspeptic to life. He sniffed the air like a bloodhound, rolled his eyes in every direction, in all corners, to discover the spot whence came the delicious fragrance, but couldn’t see anything but snow, nothing, not even a curl of distant smoke. He was so hungry that he thought he would faint.
“I am dreaming with eyes open. How is it possible that there should be in this desert pastry covered with caramel sauce? Because I know I am not mistaken…the odor I smell is just that. If I had only a piece of bread, by means of my nose and by means of my mouth I could fool myself into believing that I was dining magnificently, but…”
But the odor affected him so strongly that he had to get up to limber up his muscles. He had scarcely got to his feet when a strange thing happened—from the very spot where he had been lying a puff of smoke rose gently upward, and this smoke had precisely the odor of pastry covered with caramel sauce.
Pinocchio crossed his hands over his empty stomach and stood for a moment pondering. Never in all his life had he had presented to him so difficult a problem as this to solve. He thought and thought, and, like Galileo, had recourse to the experimental method. He knelt down in the snow and began to scrape it away with his hands on the spot where his body, covered by the latest issue of the newspaper, had left an impression. The smell of caramel sauce kept growing more fragrant, and Pinocchio’s tongue licked the end of his nose so solemnly that he would have made the inventor of handkerchiefs blush with shame. Suddenly a deep opening appeared under the snow. Pinocchio stuck his arms in up to the elbows and uttered a shriek of terror. His hands and wrists were held as in a fiery vise and his arms were pulled so violently that he was jerked face down on the earth and his nose stuck into the snow.
If he had not been in such an uncomfortable position and had been able to look over his shoulder he would have seen four devils of Alpine troopers advancing very quietly, guns pointed and bayonets fixed. It could be only a starved Austrian who would attempt to enter through the dugout’s little window cut through the snow into the officers’ mess, and they intended giving him a fine welcome. A corporal with a reddish beard which hung down to his stomach stood two paces away, ready to give him a bayonet thrust that would have run him through like a snipe on a spit, but suddenly he focused his eyes on a certain point, advanced on his hands and knees, and began to read the “Latest News” which he had caught sight of in the seat of Pinocchio’s trousers.
The Alpine troops are the bravest soldiers in the world; if any one doubts this let him ask the hunters of that foolish gallows-bird of an emperor; but they are not all well educated, and for this reason Corporal Scotimondo, as soon as he had spelled out the interesting headline, signaled to his comrades to advance cautiously.
You can’t have the faintest idea of how important a newspaper becomes, even if it is not a particularly late one, up there among those snow-clad peaks where our soldiers were fighting for a greater Italy. So this editorial, which contained the news of the miraculous conquest of the Col di Lana, deserved to be preserved in the archives among the masterpieces of our glory, instead of in the seat of Pinocchio’s trousers.
As I have told you, Corporal Scotimondo could scarcely spell, but among his three comrades Private Draghetta was looked upon as a genius, because as a civilian he had been a clerk in Cuneo. But Draghetta, who could see the Austrians a mile off and when he saw them never failed to knock them over with a shot from his gun, was nearsighted as a mole, and when he wanted to read had to rub his nose into the print.
When Pinocchio felt Draghetta’s nose tickle him he began to kick like a donkey stung by a gadfly.
“Hold him tight; tie him. We’ve taken the Col di Lana! The Col di Lana is ours!”
“Really?”
“Is it true?”
“Read it, Draghetta…don’t be afraid…I’ll hold him for you.”
Scotimondo sat astride Pinocchio’s back and squeezed him with his knees so hard that he took his breath away.
“‘Yesterday our brave Alpine troops, supported by infantry regiments, by means of a brilliant attack gained the highest summit of the Col di Lana, which is now safely in our possession.’…Hurrah!”
“Hurrah for Italy!”
“Hurrah for the King!”
They were crazy with joy and danced about on the snow like fiends, throwing their plumed hats up into the air, waving their guns above their heads. Suddenly, just as if they had risen from the ground, a hundred soldiers appeared and surrounded them.
“What is it?”
“What has happened?”
“The Col di Lana is ours!”
“Hurrah for Italy!”
“Who told you so?”
“Where did you hear it?”
“In the latest news of the Corriere.”
“Are you certain?”
“Where did you find it?”
“If you don’t believe it, ask Draghetta.”
All this noise, this rushing out of the trenches and the soldiers staying in the open, was against regulations, so that Lieutenant Sfrizzoli couldn’t let it pass without giving vent to one of his usual fits of rage. Red as a radish, he rushed toward Draghetta, shoving apart the group of rejoicing Alpine soldiers, and stopped in front of him, legs wide apart, and with fists clenched.
“Is it you, Draghetta, who have set the camp in such an uproar?”
“Not I, sir; it is the Col di Lana.”
“What? What? What?”
“We’ve taken it, sir.”
“Who told you?”
“I read it myself.”
“Where?”
“On…on…”
“Well?”
“I don’t want to be lacking in respect, sir, to my superior officer, no matter what the occasion may be…”
“Stupid! Tell me where you read it.”
“On the frontispiece of a book without words belonging to an Austrian soldier who…”
Draghetta didn’t succeed in getting out another word. Something interposed between him and the lieutenant with a lightning-like rapidity…and he felt a terrible kick in the shins which made him roll over o
n the ground with pain.
“Mr. Lieutenant, it is I…the scout Pinocchio, under Captain Teschisso’s protection. I took part in the campaign on the Isonzo and left a leg there and in its place I now have a wooden leg of perfect Italian manufacturing. He told you what he thought was so, but I beg to convince you of the contrary. But the news about the Col di Lana is true, as true as can be. Here is the Corriere which was on the frontispiece…of my book without words, in the seat of my trousers. But, as I can’t stand the cold, I beg you to have a patch put on and to have served to me a plate of that pastry cooked under the snow, because I am so hungry I could eat even you.”
Shortly after the delighted Pinocchio sat in front of a dish piled high with spaghetti, and surrounded by soldiers of the company who never stopped asking him questions about how the war was going down in the plains. With his mouth full he kept turning to this one and that one, uttering inarticulate sounds that might have come from a sucking pig.
The arrival of Captain Teschisso was the signal for a furious attack. He had seen in the distance a long file of the enemy clad in white shirts moving across the snow; he had hurried to the dugout to give the alarm and, taking command of the company, had flung himself on the foe, who, relying too much on the secrecy of his attack, was beaten and put to flight.
Pinocchio had assisted in the action at a loophole in the trench, armed with the finest of spy-glasses. The Alpine troops had performed prodigious deeds of valor. The captain came back with two prisoners, one a Hungarian and one a Croat, whom he held by the collars as if they were two mice surprised while robbing tripe from the larder.
“Heavens! What blows!” he cried, happily, to the soldiers who surrounded him, rejoicing. “But, boys, I won’t let them sleep tonight. We must get ready for an attack in force. We must make these pigs sing!”
There was no time to pay any attention to them. A few moments later a rain of shells began to fall around the neighborhood of the dugout. The Austrians wanted to revenge themselves from a distance for their sudden rout. Teschisso ordered four mountain guns which had just arrived by the filovia to be mounted on the gun-carriages, assembled his men, and ran to take up his position in an excavation nearly a mile away whence it was possible to observe the enemy’s position. Pinocchio and Ciampanella, the company cook, remained behind to guard the dugout, and to them had been assigned the care of the two prisoners from whom Teschisso hoped later to obtain some definite information.
CHAPTER VIII
How Pinocchio Made Two Beasts Sing—Contrary to Nature
Excuse me, my children, for not having presented Ciampanella to you before. Ciampanella was a pure-blooded Roman, born under the shadow of the Capitol, like—the wolf kept at the cost of the City Commune. If Francis Joseph had seen him he would have appointed him at once as royal hangman because he had a gallows countenance and a body like a gigantic negro. Yet he was the best-hearted man in the world, so good that he wouldn’t harm a fly.
This evening he was in such a good humor that he made even Pinocchio laugh, whom the charge of the prisoners had made as serious as a judge.
“Listen, youngster, don’t bother yourself with these two scoundrels whose throats I’ll cut some day with my kitchen knife as if they were pigs, and so you will be freed from the care of them, and I win back the honor which I lose in feeding the enemies of my country.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Why?”
“Didn’t you hear what my captain said? We must make them sing.”
“Them sing? It’s easier to make the statue of Marcus Aurelius sing that’s of bronze and won’t move from the Capitol for fear the Councilors of the Commune might take it to a pawnbroker’s.”
“But I’ve found out already what their names are.”
“I, too.”
“Let’s hear.”
“Pigs.”
“That is their family name, but the real name of the Croat is Stolz and the Hungarian’s is Franz.”
“And then?”
“We’ve got to find out how many of them are down there in the trenches; if there are others behind them; how many pieces of artillery they have and where; from what point their munitions and supplies come, and how many officers are in command of the troops.”
“That’s the easiest thing possible.”
“You think so?”
“You ask them and they will answer.”
“And if they pretend not to hear?”
“Leave it to me, youngster. I have a special way of making myself understood, even by the deaf. I didn’t read for nothingThe Spanish Inquisition. Bring to me here those two satellites of Franz Joe and you’ll hear the speeches I’ll make them.”
Ciampanella rubbed his ears, tied an apron around his waist as when he entered upon his official functions, filled up the little stove with charcoal and lighted a fine fire. When Pinocchio returned to the kitchen, followed by the prisoners, a pair of tongs and a shovel were heating on the red-hot charcoal.
At the sight of these the Croat and the Hungarian exchanged glances and a few quick, dry phrases in their language.
Ciampanella advanced triumphantly to within a foot of them, bowed like an actor to an applauding audience, and unfolded one of his most polished discourses:
“Gentlemen, our officers say that we must respect the enemy, and I respect you according to command; but in case any one should persist in refusing to speak, just like the beasts, I should feel it my duty to treat him like a beast, and my superiors would say to me, ‘Ciampanella, you’re right.’ I explain this because we have need of certain information, so we take the liberty of asking you in secret certain things which you, gentlemen, can answer, after which we will give you special attention in our culinary service. This is said and promised, so I begin my questions. We want to know how many men and how many officers that big simpleton of your emperor has whipped up together against us.”
No answer.
“What? Are you deaf? Don’t you understand modern Italian? Then I’ll talk ancient Roman to you.”
Ciampanella grabbed from the stove the red-hot shovel and waved it before the Austrians’ noses. Their eyes popped out with fright, but they didn’t utter a word.
“You will either answer or I will give you two kisses with the shovel on your right cheeks and two on your left.”
“’Talian pigs! Brigands!”
“May you be skinned alive! To call me a brigand! Me! Pinocchio, which creature is this, Spitz or Spotz?”
“Franz.”
“Listen, Franz, if you dare insult me another time, I’ll untie your hands and then I’ll give you so many boxes on your ear that’ll make you more of an imbecile than your emperor.”
“You kill us, we die mouths shut.”
“We, we… Wait before you talk in the plural; wait till I put this red-hot shovel to Stolz’s ear, and then…”
Ciampanella came closer to the Croat, armed with his other heated iron, but suddenly he felt a blow on his eye which half blinded him.
“…they can…”
He couldn’t finish because Pinocchio burst out laughing so wildly that he had to hold his stomach. Ciampanella, who had been taken unaware by the glass of water Pinocchio had thrown at him, let out all his anger on him.
“Youngster, look out for yourself. I won’t stand nonsense from you. I owe to our enemies the respect enjoined by regulations, but you I can take by the nape of the neck and set you down on the stove, and I’ll roast you as if you were beef.”
Pinocchio became suddenly serious and began to swing his wooden leg so nervously that if Major Cutemup had seen him he would have turned as yellow as a Chinaman with fear. If the descendant of Romulus and Remus had had the slightest idea of the kick which menaced him at this moment he would have grown calm as if by magic. But Pinocchio, who had seen Franz
and Stolz exchange sly glances and a smile full of irony, held himself in and, after scratching his head solemnly, approached Ciampanella, who was wiping his eye with his apron, and taking hold affectionately of his arm, said:
“So you want to roast me on your stove?”
“As I told you.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to cook something on it for our supper this evening?”
“This evening’s supper? But you know that this evening I wouldn’t light the fire if the commander-in-chief came in person to command me to. When the company is in action I am free to do what I want, and when I am free to do what I want I don’t do anything. So if you are hungry you’ll have to eat bread and compressed meat, and if you don’t like it you’ll have to fast.”
“Listen, Ciampanella; you reason like Menenius Agrippa, who was an ancient Roman able to make things clearer than modern Romans, but sometimes you get tangled up in your premises.”
“Listen, youngster, don’t insult me, because as sure as Ciampanella is my name I will wring your neck like a chicken’s.”
“But I’m not insulting you.”
“Then tell me what kind of things arepremises; otherwise…”
“Otherwise you’ll take me and make me sit on the stove and roast me, won’t you? That proves that the fire is lighted and that the charcoal is burning for nothing, and so if, for example, the commander-in-chief should pay you a visit he would give you a fortnight’s imprisonment for it, because when the company’s in action you are free to do what you want, but not in the kitchen, and if you are hungry you must eat bread and compressed meat or fast.”
“Heh, youngster! I didn’t light the stove for culinary purposes, but for strategic reasons. It was to make these two beasts talk.”
“But they haven’t talked.”
“We’ll fling them out and let the mad dogs eat them.”
“But if you, instead of heating the shovel and tongs, had roasted a young pullet and served it with one of those famous sauces…”
The Pinocchio Megapack: 4 Classic Puppet Tales Page 28