Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [78]
The men divided themselves, and whenever two who had not been talking together met, one would say: “Have you heard... ?” and the other would nod.
Eleven o’clock passed. At three minutes after eleven, just as the men were moving toward the Anzio, to take their various stations, the drone of a plane could be heard.
This plane was the regular courier, which was due to pass over Adano each morning at eleven o’clock - as any enemy agent could easily ascertain, and as any Italian laborer could easily forget. It was a few minutes late this morning.
As the plane flew over Adano harbor, keeping about a thousand feet above the barrage balloons, all the workmen beside the Anzio looked up at it. The stranger strolled over to Fatta and murmured: “That is it.”
Fatta passed the word along. The crowd literally seemed to shudder.
Some asked each other: “What shall we do?”
Others said: “The harbor is the target. We are right in the middle of the target.”
Others said: “Does gas drop in bombs? Or does it just spray on us?”
The stranger, who had apparently had some experience in this kind of thing, waited for the exact moment when fear reached a kind of climax among the men. Then he threw up his arms and screamed: “I can smell it. Oh Christ Jesus, I can smell it.”
And he turned and ran toward the town.
The panic of the workmen was immediate. They all ran. The lazy Fatta ran for the first time since 1932, when his wife Carmelina implored him for the love of God to run for the midwife.
Someone screamed: “Into the waterl Save yourselves!” And about eight men jumped into the sea. Two of them could not swim and had to be rescued.
The lazy Fatta found himself running beside a strong young man named Zingone.
“What shall we do?” Zingone said fearfully.
The lazy Fatta said: “Let us not run quite so fast. We must save our strength, we might have to run a long way.”
So they slowed down a little.
“What do you think we ought to do?” Zingone asked again.
Fatta saw someone up ahead who had covered his face with his handkerchief, so he said: `Tut your handkerchief over your face. That will keep the gas out.”
So both of them clapped handkerchiefs over their faces.
“Did you smell it?” Zingone asked through his handkerchief.
“Oh, yes,” Fatta said importantly, “I smelled it plainly.”
“What did it smell like?” Zingone asked as they ran. “It smelled a little like the smoke from the Cacopardo Sulphur refinery.”
Zingone was silent for about thirty feet, then he said: “Are you sure it wasn’t smoke from the Cacopardo Sulphur refinery?”
“It was poison gas,” Fatta gasped.
Fatta was gasping from running, but Zingone, who was in good condition and not yet gasping, thought he was choking from the gas.
“Are you all right?” he asked Fatta.
Fatta said: “I think we should not run quite so fast. I understand that gas affect’s one’s endurance. Let us save our strength.”
So they slowed down to a trot.
Their route took them past Fatta’s house. Carmelina his wife had been attracted out of doors by the sound of the first fleet-footed workmen running past. She had shouted to later ones to ask what the trouble was. They had shouted back through their handkerchiefs about the gas. But Carmelina was a skeptic, and she did not believe what they said - until something changed her mind.
“Mary Mother of Jesusl” she exclaimed. “Can my eyes deceive me or is that my husband running?”
It was indeed Fatta, trotting heavily toward her beside Zingone.
“Something terrible has made him run,” she said to herself. “Perhaps it is true about the gas.”
When Fatta came alongside she moved out into the street and with an easy lope, trotted alongside him. “What terrible thing is making you run?”
“Gas,” he said between heavy breaths. “Poison. Germans.”
Zingone, who was not winded at all, explained to her: “We were attacked as we worked