Kaiser Bill went up the hill to take a look at France.
Kaiser Bill came down the hill with bullets in his pants.
[World War I Chant]
She was just home from his funeral, and held an old photograph of him in her hands, one taken long before they had met. With regulation red-plumed helmet on his handsome head, he was outfitted in the colorful uniform of the World War I Carabinieri, elite cavalry corp of the Italian Army. He cut a virile figure astride his horse.
He had been selective over their lifetime, of the war stories he told her. There had been some horror-filled times, she knew, because sometimes he dreamed aloud about them, but he only shared with her the ones they could laugh over together. Through her tears, now, she smiled, remembering.
It was when I was stationed in Albania. The fighting was rough there. (She could almost hear again his telling it, his voice sounding softly in her head.) My father had been right. I should have enrolled in the university in Florence as he had wanted, but oh no! I was young, I wanted adventure, so I joined up.
When the war was finally over, he had come home to Sant'Alessio, the quiet little village that had hosted his boyhood, but it no longer could hold him. He had cut loose then and left for America.
"And if you hadn't, dearest," she whispered to his memory, "we would never have met, and then how very lonesome my life would have been!"
One night (his beloved voice seemed to continue,) we made camp after a long day of heavy fighting. (It was one of his favorite stories, and she could almost recite it by rote.) We were all exhausted and settled down to sleep. I had
saved some bread and a few walnuts from dinner rations, and ate them as I hunkered into my bedroll. I was tired and scared and wanted to be home. Then a devilish idea took hold.
"You and your devilish ideas!" she whispered aloud, wishing so much he were really there with her that it hurt.
It just seemed that everything was too grim. I had to do SOMETHING! We were all going a little mad. So I picked the meat out of my four walnuts, and put the shells of each on the end of the fingers of my right hand. Then I drummed on the metal floor of the barracks, and it sounded like distant horses advancing.
"Che cosa c'e?" some of the men asked in urgent voices, "What is that? Who's there?"
"Kaiser Wilhelm's clodhopper troops marching down on us," I told them, "the Germans, i Tedeschi."
A few of my companions laughed; others grumbled and said to cut that out and let them sleep. I allowed everything to quiet down for a while, and then I drummed on the floor again.
This time the Capitano heard my noise "I Tedeschi!" he said, and shouted for us to saddle up our horses and prepare for battle. We stayed at full alert a long while that cold night. Finally, as the sun came up over a distant collina, the Capitano decided the Germans weren't going to come for us after all. I wasn't too popular with my buddies that day, but they never gave me away. It would have been court martial for me if they had. I probably would have died by firing squad. They didn't fool around in those days. There weren't many bleeding hearts around then.
Mine is bleeding now, she thought. "Will you stay and talk with me some more, dearest?" she whispered. But the voice in her head was silent.