“Bersaglieri have run too. Now they try to forget it.”
“You should not let us talk this way, Tenente . E viva l’esercito ,” Passini said sarcastically.
“I know how you talk,” I said. “But as long as you drive the cars and behave—”
“—and don’t talk so other officers can hear,” Manera finished.
“I believe we should get the war over,” I said. “It would not finish it if one side stopped fighting. It would only be worse if we stopped fighting.”
“It could not be worse,” Passini said respectfully. “There is nothing worse than war.”
“Defeat is worse.”
“I do not believe it,” Passini said still respectfully. “What is defeat? You go home.”
“They come after you. They take your home. They take your sisters.”
“I don’t believe it,” Passini said. “They can’t do that to everybody. Let everybody defend his home. Let them keep their sisters in the house.”
“They hang you. They come and make you be a soldier again. Not in the auto-ambulance, in the infantry.”
“They can’t hang everyone.”
“An outside nation can’t make you be a soldier,” Manera said. “At the first battle you all run.”
“Like the Tchecos .”