“The people who lived here?” I said.
“Under the ruins; they had just returned from their wedding journey,” said Caterina.
That afternoon J. took me to the Villaggio Regina Elena on the other side of Messina. Like our camp, it is beautifully situated on the edge of a torrente, facing the straits. As we drove over the fine road, I could hardly credit what J. told me, that both road and village had been built since the earthquake. We were met by two Italian officers; one carried J. off to look over the site for the American quarter here, the other offered to show me the Villaggio.
The butcher was just taking down his shutters, opening shop for the afternoon. The bakery stood opposite; the smell of fresh bread floated from the window. The baker’s wife sat sewing in the doorway; a baby, swaddled stiff as a papoose, lay in her lap.
“Enter, enter!” she said hospitably. “Will the Signora be pleased to see the oven?”
She threw open the iron door; a brushwood fire roared and crackled in the black cavern.
“He has made one baking already; see how light the bread is!” She broke a small loaf to show what good bread her husband made. The officer tasted a morsel.
“Va bene,” he nodded. “Tell Pietro I am content.”
As we walked about the village, the officer told me its brief history:
“Built for the Queen by the sailors of the battleship, Regina Elena, and the soldiers of the 19th Infantry. It has been an immense fatigue—that cannot be denied. O! the rain, rain, rain, that’s been the worst of it. The sailors had a change of clothes, it wasn’t so bad for them; our soldiers had but one uniform—when that was wet, there was no other to change. So many have died, some from exposure—they were poorly nourished, they gave half their rations to the starving women and children—some from blood-poisoning, poverini! If one had a little scratch, a mere nothing, on his hand when he went on duty, excavating the ruins, taking out the dead—bah! a pin-prick was enough!”