“No one to meet us! They can’t have received letter or telegram,” said Patsy. “Just as well, nothing like taking our friends unawares. Now they won’t have time to smarten up for us.”
“Will that old rabbit-hutch hold us all?” I asked, looking distrustfully at the only vehicle in sight. The driver understood; he seized the wheel of the battered old cab and shook it violently to show how strong it was.
“This is a most excellent and signorial carriage, Signorino. It needs paint; why should it not? I dug it out myself from the ruins, and the horse too. That blessed animal has cost me a lot of fatigue. It was nine days before I could get him out, nine days sotto le macerie!”
“How much to the Case Americane?” asked Patsy.
“Two francs, Excellency, with a slight token for myself. The Comandante himself set the price. He drives with no other; I am the official coachman of the Americans.”
For a horse that had been nine days buried, the poor little rat of a pony drew the cab bravely through the Via San Martino, one smooth lake of yellow mud.
“There’s Old Glory!” shouted Patsy.
I had been so much taken up with looking back at the desolate streets, at the Tell Tale Tower, I did not know we had arrived at camp. Two Italian soldiers, on guard at the entrance, halted the cab.
“Stop, thou knowest thou canst go no
