Lucia Rudini Part 12

"Are you suffering very much?" she asked softly.

The man nodded, his eyes closed, and a queer pallor came over his face.

Lucia was suddenly terrified. She felt very helpless in this battle with death, but her determination never left her.

She ran to the door. Poor Garibaldi was still standing hitched to the stretcher. Lucia went to her and led her back to the door of the cottage. She looked half-fearfully, half-angrily at the town above her.

"He shall not die!" she said between her teeth, and went back into the house.

The transfer from the bed to the stretcher was very difficult to manage, for the poor soldier was beyond helping himself. But Lucia succeeded without hurting him too much, and once more the strange trio started out on their climb.

They were in no great danger, for only an occasional sh.e.l.l burst near them. The fighting was going on below the east wall. Lucia and Garibaldi toiled up the hill, each one using every bit of their strength.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Lucia and Garibaldi toiled up the hill, each one using every bit of their strength."]

The soldier was limp and lifeless, his head rolled with every b.u.mp. He looked like one dead, but Lucia refused even to consider such a possibility. She urged Garibaldi on and tugged with determined persistence.

They were just below the wall when Lucia stopped to rest. The little goat was staggering from the exertion, and she was out of breath. She looked at the gate, it was only a little way off, but it seemed miles, and she wondered if she could go on.

She looked up at the wall. A man dressed in a uniform unlike the Italian soldiers was looking down at her. Lucia called to him just as he jumped to the ground. She held her breath expecting to see him hurt, but he landed on his feet and ran to her.

"For the love of Pete, what have you got there?" he asked in a language that Lucia did not understand.

She looked up at him bewildered.

"I do not understand what you say, but the soldier is very sick.

Please help me carry him to the convent," she said hurriedly.

"Hum, well you may be right," the big man laughed, "but I guess what you want is help."

He leaned over the wounded Italian.

"Pretty far gone, but there's hope. Steady now, I've got you." He lifted the man gently in his arms and carried him on his back.

Lucia watched him with admiration s.h.i.+ning in her eyes. She followed with the goat through the gate.

Once in the town she could hardly believe her eyes. Soldiers seemed to be everywhere, shouting and calling from one to the other. She saw the little guns that were making all the sharp, clicking noises, and she knew that just below, and on the other side of the river, the Austrians were fighting desperately.

They pa.s.sed many wounded as they hurried along, and to each one the big man would call out cheerily. Lucia wished she could understand what he said, or even what language he spoke. It was not German, of course, and she did not think it was French.

"Perhaps he was a tourist?" she asked him shyly, but he shook his head.

"I don't get you, I'm sorry. I'm an American, you see."

"Oh, Americano!" Lucia clapped her hands delightedly. "I am glad, I thought so, American is the name of the tourists, just as I guessed,"

she replied. "I have heard of Americans and I have seen some in the summer, but they were not like you."

She looked up in his face and smiled.

The American did not understand a word of her Italian, but he saw the smile, and answered it with a good-natured grin.

"You're a funny kid," he said. "I wish I could find out what you are talking about, and where you got ahold of that queer rig and the goat."

They had reached the other gate by now, and they hurried through it and to the convent.

Several of the sisters had returned, and there were doctors and nurses all busy in the long room where, the night before, Lucia had left Roderigo and Sister Francesca.

The American laid the soldier down on one of the beds, and hurried to one of the doctors.

"Saw this youngster dragging this man on a sort of stretcher hitched to a goat," he said. "He's pretty bad. Better look at him."

The doctor nodded. Lucia stood beside her soldier and waited. She was almost afraid of what the doctor would say. He leaned over him and began taking off his muddy uniform, while the American helped. When he had examined the wound, he hurried over to a table and came back with a queer looking instrument. To Lucia it looked like a small bottle attached to a very long needle.

"Don't, don't, you are cruel!" she protested, as he pushed it slowly into the soldier. She put out her hand angrily, but the American pulled her back.

"It's all right," he said soothingly. "It's to make him well."

Lucia shook her head, and the doctor turned to her. He spoke excellent Italian.

"It is to save his life, child, and it doesn't hurt him, I promise you.

Now tell me, where did you find him?"

Lucia explained hurriedly. The story, as it came from her excited lips, sounded like some wild, distorted dream. The doctor called to Sister Francesca.

"Is this child telling me the truth?" he asked wonderingly.

"As far as I know," she said; "and that boy in the third cot blew up the bridge. I know she went out to find the wounded."

The doctor did not reply at once. He was hunting for the soldier's identification tag. When he found it, he read it and whistled.

"Captain Riccardi!" he exclaimed. "By Jove, we can't let him die."

It could not be said that the doctor redoubled his efforts, for he was working his best then, but he added perhaps a little more interest to his work.

The American helped him, and Lucia, at a word from Sister Francesca, hurried to her and helped her with what she was doing. It was not until many hours later that she stopped working, for more wounded were being brought in every few minutes by the other stretcher-bearers, and there was much to do. But at last there was a lull, and Lucia ran through the long corridor and down to the door.

She opened it a crack and looked out. Before her, stretched along the banks of the river, were countless Austrian soldiers, staggering and fighting in a wild attempt to run away from the guns in the wall that mowed them down pitilessly. The officers tried to drive them on, but the men were too terrified, they could not advance under such steady fire. A little farther on, there was the beginning of a rude bridge.

The enemy had evidently tried to build it during the night, but had been forced to abandon it after the Italians reached their new position.

As Lucia watched, the men seemed to form in some sort of order, and retreat back into the hills. Their guns stopped suddenly, and only the Italian fire continued.

It was a horrible scene, and in spite of the splendid knowledge that an undisputed victory was theirs, Lucia turned away and closed the door behind her. She ran up to the big door and out on the road.

There were signs of the battle all about her in the big sh.e.l.l holes in the road, and in the ruins still smoking inside the walls, but there was no such sight as she had just witnessed, and she took a deep breath of the warm fresh air.

CHAPTER XII