The Oath

The Oath Parte 5

« About ten days later they gathered us in the forecourt, to communicate our destination to each of us. I was assigned to the Regiment of the Lagunari, a Marine Infantry, in Venice. As the days went by, however, I saw my companions leaving, but not me. Tired of waiting, I asked to speak to the captain, who the next day agreed to receive me and said, "You have to wait..., maybe there are new orders for you..., I'll let you know!" and he dismissed me. In the meantime, they put me temporarily on the ATRTC — Armored Troops Recruit Training Center force. Several weeks had passed, and there was no mention of the eventual assignment to the Lagunari; no one could tell me anything; I had to wait: the answer was always the same. Meanwhile, some new recruits had already arrived, and I saw in them the same bewilderment and the same tension that I had already felt when I arrived, too. These too, when they had finished the training period, left, and I was still there, now resigned to finish my soldier life in that barracks. »

— In that period, don Nicò, I had to do some various services, and guard duty.

— And here I must open a parenthesis and tell you about a fact that saw me as an involuntary witness: and which then amused me; since I considered it the result of cunning on the part of the two who committed it.

— After some time, reflecting, I judged it instead as a serious fact, indeed very serious, committed by two villains against a poor man, who was unaware of the affair, and how cowardly and wicked the protagonists could be.

« One night, he had snowed, and it was still snowing, and I was on guard at the driveway access of the barracks. It was just after five, and dawn was still far away; the internal driveway was frozen, and the bitter cold. I had two sachets of cordial with me, which I drained all at once, and I went back and forth, shotgun on my shoulder with bayonet fixed, and stamped my feet on the frozen asphalt to warm up further. To distract myself from that boring coming and going, I went to the door, opened the peephole and looked outside. At the building opposite, there was a man who was coming out of the door just at that moment, and then I saw him get on his bicycle and go away. Soon after, as the man turned the corner, a light went on in an apartment and a woman in a dressing gown stepped out onto the balcony, and she looked out. I was about to close the peephole again, the shift change was coming, but the curiosity for that woman took me when I saw her make some signals of incitement to go up, to a man who appeared from the opposite direction to the one in which the one with the bike had gone, and she went back inside immediately. Then I heard the door click open, and I saw the man sneak inside and close it behind him. I realized that I had witnessed a love affair, and I closed the peephole. »

— If that was the case, dear Frank, the weakness of the flesh belongs to those who do not have enough faith.

— That was pure wickedness, don Nicò!

« Anyway, having received the change of shift by a comrade, I went back to the guardhouse, put the rifle on the rack, took off my coat and threw myself on the cot: I was sleepy. I covered with the coat up to my head, because the light had to stay on all the time, and I fell asleep. I did not speak to anyone about what I had seen: who knows what could have been born, telling it to young people far from home. »

— Is everyone dry? Hahaha!

— Yup, don Nicò, and a lot!

« One Sunday in early January, I went together with a fellow soldier, a boy from Calabria, to Salerno. Although the day was cold, it was sunny and the sky clear. Salerno has a beautiful seafront, and we walked along it for a while, and then went to lunch. We had seen, right there, on the seafront, a restaurant where we then ate: among other things, an excellent fried fish. A subsequent walk, a few cigarettes and another coffee, and we took the bus, which eventually dropped us right in front of the entrance to the barracks. In all the time I stayed there in Avellino, that excursion was the only one I allowed myself. At the shooting range, always by order of the Captain, I went there other times; I had to do training shots, he told me, and with the Jeep we brought with us two corporals, to look after the targets. The results were always the same: even ten centers on as many shots. Twice, the Captain had me shoot a pack of cigarettes, placed on the shooting platform, and with me about twenty meters away.