Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [70]
The Colonel named Ham said: “I doubt if they will.” “I know they won’t. And look at the way they’re trying to run the war. They got their officers in all the key spots. Ham, we’re just winning this damn war for the British Empire.”
The Colonel named Ham said: “That’s right, I guess “No sir, I’m damned if I’ll root around and find a bell for this goddam sponger of an Englishman. Where the hell does he think I’m going to find a seven-hundredyear-old bell? No sir, Ham, I won’t do it. Write a letter to this Major, will you, Ham?”
“Yes sir, what’ll I say?”
“Lay it on, dammit, tell him the U.S. Army doesn’t have a stock of seven-hundred-year-old bells, tell him he should realize there is a war on, tell him to watch out for these goddam Englishmen or they’ll take the war right away from us.”
“Yes sir.”
Chapter 24
MAJOR JOPPOLO enjoyed his afternoons as judge, partly because he liked to see the happy effect of real justice on the people of Adano, and partly because Gargano, the Chief of Carabinieri, acted out every crime as if it were a crime against himself.
Major Joppolo’s trials were impressive, because he managed, by trickery, by moral pressure and by persuasion, to make the truth seem something really beautiful and necessary.
“The truth, I want the truth now, not next week,” he would say, and the accused would find himself telling the truth and discarding the elaborate lie he had devised.
Trials began at about three in the afternoon, each Monday.
Gargano brought in the first culprit, one Monday afternoon, and as he led him in, he said: “We will take the light cases first.”
“You have some serious cases, then?” Major Joppolo asked.
Gargano held up his forefinger, and said angrily: “One.”
“Then maybe our fines will be high this week,” the Major said. He thought he was joking, but he had become almost miserly on behalf of Adano, and each Monday afternoon he used to try to see how much he could net in fines.
“I hope so,” said Gargano, vehemently. Then he said: “First case.”
The Major took the name, age, birthplace and sex of the accused and had Giuseppe make him swear that he would tell the Italian counterpart of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Gargano read the accusation. The man had made a public nuisance of himself while drunk.
The Major questioned the man. He was poor, where did he get money to drink with? From his wife. Where did she get it? From the Public Assistance. Did the man not know that it was very degrading to get drunk on charity? He did, but the pleasure offset the degradation. Did the man plead guilty or not guilty? Guilty. “Very well,” the Major said; “I see you’re too poor to pay a fine. I will give you your choice of losing the Public Assistance money for two months or going to jail for one.”
Without hesitation the man chose losing the Public Assistance.
“If that choice is so easy,” the Major said, “you don’t need the Public Assistance at all.” And he directed Gargano to have him taken off the list.
“Second case,” Gargano said.
This was the case of a woman who was accused of selling goat’s milk both overprice and underweight. The woman denied everything. The Major told her he wanted the truth, and that she would make out better if she were honest than if she were not. All right, she said, she had sold a little bit underweight. The Major said he would call in the woman to whom she had sold the milk and question her, and if the accused were lying, he would triple the fine. All right, she said, she also sold the milk overprice, for eight lire instead of six. This woman looked just as poor as the man in the first case, but her error was far more serious. The Major fined her three thousand lire, to be paid within a week.
The third case was a theft. A peasant was accused of having stolen some cigarets from an Army bivouac near his farm. Major Joppolo asked him to tell his side of the story. He said that some soldiers had given him one carton of cigarets, which he put under this jacket, and that he then started home. Major Joppolo called up the bivouac