I Contadini (The Peasants) Read online

  A heavy, prosperous-looking man with a ruddy complexion and a nose bent slightly off center, raised his hand and was immediately recognized by Anthony.

  “Monsignor,” he said. “I’d like to compliment you and the sports faculty for an excellent season this past year. I guess you know that my son, Richard, will be admitted here next term, and he chose this University over several others with more widely-known names, for he felt, as I do, that the mind and body must have equal training. I think it is a fine indication of the kind of university you have developed here.”

  The men at the table applauded vigorously and smiles broke out when they saw the stern face of the priest relax.

  Another member of the board raised his hand and was also promptly recognized. “I thoroughly agree with Ralph,” he told the others. “But that’s what happens when you get a three-letter athlete as president.” The men chuckled. “I cannot understand, though, what happened to the boxing squad this past season. An amazing performance.”

  Anthony was on his feet in an instant. “It’s a new technique we’ve been working on. Counterpunching. It acts as an excellent vehicle for teaching the young men to avoid being the aggressor, but to overwhelm their opponents by an all-out counterattack if they must fight. I think the body attack is the answer. To allow the opponent to swarm all over you, and the moment he lets up the slightest bit, to come in from underneath.” His eyes gleamed as he swung a fist in a short, vicious jab to emphasize his point.

  When the governing board and the faculty broke into laughter and applause, Anthony chuckled and sat down, his face settling back into its serious mien.

  His secretary quietly opened the door and walked around the table to hand him a telegram. Anthony nodded as he accepted the folded paper.

  “Excuse me, please,” he said to the men seated on both sides as he read the contents, then he folded the telegram and placed it in a pocket.

  He sat for yet another hour, listening to and discussing with the men in the room the activities and plans for the coming year, his mind weighing each against his resources and the aims he had established for the six thousand young men he would mold during their four year stay at his university.

  And when the hour had ended, he bid each one a courteous goodbye, lingering a moment with this one or that one to let each of them know how important he was to the proper functioning of the great institution. Then, when all had gone, he walked swiftly to the school chapel and lowered himself before the altar.

  And here, Anthony, a man of God, gave vent to his grief.

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort, Ida!” exclaimed Rose Donini, nee DiStephano, to one of the four women seated at the table at the exclusive Brian’s Restaurant in downtown Boston. Her beautiful dark eyes flashed with anger, and the flawless golden tinted skin of her face grew tight. She was a magnificent looking woman, belying her forty-three years of age, her thin, patrician nose vying with her full, expressive lips as the most important feature of her face, for few who looked at Rose Donini could ever forget those searching black eyes, or the sheen of her jet black hair rolled into a bun at the nape of her neck, or the wide, black brows which punctuated her remarks when she was excited. She was tall, like all the DiStephanos, and her shoulders hinted at a squareness which became utterly feminine as her rounded length unfolded. “I’ll have nothing to do with blackballing Jean,” she went on bitingly. “And not only that, but I promise to make life miserable for anyone who does.”

  “But she’s impossible,” said a small, pert woman. “I don’t object to a person’s drinking habits unless they become obnoxious, but Jean has gone far past that.”

  “But she conducts herself properly at the club, and that’s the sole point we must consider,” said Rose. “How she acts elsewhere is absolutely none of our business.”

  “I don’t agree, Rose,” said Ida, looking at the others for support. “I’m no longer at ease in her presence, and I’m never certain she won’t tie one on at the club.”

  “If she does,” said Rose, “I’ll go along with you without a word. But not until then. The Lord knows she has enough problems without us dropping on her like a ton of bricks.”

  “What’s the latest news about them?” asked a stately, blond woman.

  Rose drove her fork into her salad and refused to comment.

  “Tim’s moving out, that’s what I heard,” said the pert looking one.

  “No wonder,” said Ida. “My husband would throw me out in an instant if I reeked of booze all day long.”

  They all glanced at Rose, sensing that she knew the reason why Jean drank to excess, but Rose continued eating her salad, the flush of anger still coloring her face.

  “Come on, Rose,” said the fourth woman, pushing her half-eaten sandwich to one side. “Level with us. If we knew why Jean is hitting the bottle, perhaps we could sympathize and overlook some of her actions.”

  “If you can’t sympathize and overlook her actions without having all the gory details laid bare, then you don’t deserve to be her friends.”

  “That’s not fair,” said the one who had last spoken. “Friendship means a bit of giving from both sides. If Jean is going to change and not offer us a reason for it, then you must expect friendship to change, too. I agree with Ida. I’m also no longer at ease with her, and I don’t feel that I should put up with it, especially at a place where our husbands and children gather.”

  Rose laid down her fork and looked pensively at her plate. “Perhaps you have a point, Marianne.” She came to an abrupt decision. “All right, I’ll tell you. Jean bore a son twenty years ago, before she married Tim. She gave him up for adoption, but somehow managed to learn the identity of the people who took him.” At the question in their eyes, she said sharply, “I don’t know who the father is, and I’m sure Jean will never tell. Anyhow, she made no attempt to see him over the years, and she wasn’t about to say anything to Tim. You know what he’s like - an authentic seventeenth century Puritan. Three months ago the boy was killed in Viet Nam, and when his body was brought home for burial, Jean went to the funeral. Tim found out somehow, and bellowed and roared until Jean broke down and told him. So, for a twenty year old indiscretion, he refused to have anything further to do with her, and has hinted so strongly to their two children what kind of a mother they have that they are going through torment. And to make matters worse, Jean loved that man so completely and has been so utterly faithful throughout the years that even a blind person could see it.”

  The women at the table were silent, all of them with moisture in their eyes.

  Ida sat up straighter. “I withdraw my recommendation that Jean be blackballed from the club.”

  The others quickly agreed.

  Rose turned as the waiter came to her side. “Mrs. Donini, Mr. Donini is on the phone. Shall I bring it here, or would you rather take it in the booth?”

  “Vito calling? Whatever would he want at this time of day? I’ll take it in the hallway.”

  She rose and walked to a booth standing next to the entry. The head-waiter held open the door, gave a small bow as she entered, then closed it softly behind her.

  Rose picked up the telephone. “Vito, is that you?”

  “Rose,” said her husband. “A telegram came for you from Papa. Maria is dead.”

  Rose leaned her head against the phone and closed her eyes.

  “Rose,” said Vito. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “But how, how, Vito?”

  Her husband took a deep breath. “He said she was murdered.”

  “Mother of God!” cried Rose, turning her face towards the corner of the booth.

  Vito waited until her sobs lessened. “Rose, can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” she said, brokenly.

  “I’m having the plane checked over and fueled. We can leave whenever you want to. I’ve sent Bob and Bert to my sister’s house. They can fly to Chicago when we need them. I’ll come and get you if you want me to.”

 
She shook her head. “I’ll come straight home.”

  Colonel Paul DiStephano leaned forward in his seat in the nose of the helicopter. “There it is,” he said to the pilot. The pilot nodded and banked his ship to the left, building up speed as it passed over a large opening in the Vietnamese forest. Paul lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes and searched the clearing for telltale signs of enemy occupation.

  When they passed over it, the pilot continued straight ahead for several miles before turning homeward, to conceal from the enemy the points of interest to the reconnaissance flight. As they flew along, Paul filled out a request for a photography and sensing mission for that clearing to be scheduled as soon as possible.

  The fact that he had but six days to prepare his brigade for the sweep did not bother Paul. Since his graduation from the Military Academy at West Point twenty years ago, he had spent almost all of his active duty as an infantry unit commander and staff officer, and the act of moving three thousand men from here to there, of feeding and supplying them, of placing his artillery and tanks in appropriate positions to determine the outcome of a battle, was simply a matter of going down a mental checklist and calling out his orders.

  And although his eyes darted from side to side attempting to pierce the heavy jungle that flowed like an endless sea below, his mind continued to review the sequence of actions he must take to insure the success of the sweep. He would have to check things very carefully to ascertain that his staff had caught on to that new technique he intended to employ.

  Too often were his men pounced upon by the enemy shortly after the ‘copters had landed them, and instead of pinning the elusive jungle fighters in position so the weight of air and artillery could be applied, the landings had taken on the semblance of a sightless giant swinging in all directions and hitting nothing while being nipped at from all sides.

  There could be only two reasons why the enemy came in so swiftly to spoil the landings, and the first one, that of secret orders being leaked, was simply out of the question, for security was now so tight that it was actually a burden to his subordinate commanders. The second theory had been developed by Paul by merely applying some of the concepts of mobile defense which are taught constantly in the army from lowly company classrooms up to the Command and General Staff College. He reasoned that if mobile defense tactics were applicable to large organizations on conventional battlefields, why not to small units on unconventional battlefields. That whereas a battalion of tanks would be considered mobile on the plains in Belgium and an infantryman afoot would be almost static, it would be fully the reverse in the jungle. There, mobility would consist of lightly armed soldiers running as fast as their legs would carry them.

  But the great mystery was the manner in which their landings were opposed, not only with the expected small arms fire, but with mortars and artillery and rockets. Those types of weapons just couldn’t be rushed through the jungle like rifles or machine guns, so, in desperation, security was tightened a bit more and subordinate commanders were warned once again not to be too obvious when reconnoitering their eventual landing sites as that might tip off the enemy.

  The recent maneuver in Europe had given Paul the idea. To reduce the gold flow, a number of units had been withdrawn from Germany to the United States and their equipment had been left behind in prepared positions. The maneuver was designed to test the speed and efficiency with which the troops from the United States, carrying only individual weapons, could be flown over, pick up their heavy equipment from the prepositioned sites, and deploy for action.

  Why, then, he had reasoned, couldn’t the enemy in the jungle do the same thing? Why not position their heavy weapons and artillery near large openings in the forests and disperse their troops in small numbers throughout the area. Then, when the helicopters swarmed in to land the Americans, the enemy could rush to that point, not burdened by these heavy weapons, pick them up at the last minute and lower the boom.

  So Paul had decided to employ a new technique, to land his men at one point, where they would go through all the motions of seeking a firefight, then, half an hour later, abruptly pull them out and move them swiftly to another position at least ten miles away. There, the key would be to drive immediately into the jungle for a minimum distance of two miles without pausing to reorganize. That should place them in the proximity of the prepositioned mortars at least, and hopefully, the artillery and rockets. There they could reorganize and begin the sweep without being clobbered at the landing sites.

  And if it didn’t work - Paul grinned at the thought of what a lovely scrap it would be slugging it out on the way back to the landing zones. At least it would be a one-to-one fight with neither side being able to employ the heavy stuff.

  His executive officer was waiting for him when the helicopter set down on the brigade landing pad. With the agility of a man much younger than his forty-one years of age, Paul unfolded his six feet three inch frame from his cramped position and jumped to earth.

  His executive officer thought once again, as he had thought so many times since serving under Paul, what a hard looking man his colonel was. Hard lines in his face, and hard muscles in his shoulders, and each movement panther like, as if Paul never relaxed for an instant. The sun had tanned his skin to a shade almost swarthy, making his black eyes seem even darker, and his aquiline-type nose set in his long, narrow face was hawk-like and appeared poised to strike.

  “Colonel,” said the executive officer. “There’s a telegram for you. Herman, from the Red Cross, brought it over. He’s waiting in your office.” His last words fell on his colonel’s back, for Paul was already striding towards the headquarters building.

  A short man wearing a Red Cross uniform stood up as Paul came into his office. Wordlessly, Herman handed over the telegram, then walked out and closed the door behind himself.

  He stood with his back against it, for he knew this man inside, and when he heard the sharp, keening cry that sounded like an eagle in pain, he let out his breath and allowed the stiffness to leave his shoulders.

  The executive officer stamped into the headquarters building and stopped in front of the Red Cross man. “It’s a fucking lousy, stinking world,” he said, grimly.

  “Yes, that it is,” replied the Red Cross man. He passed over an envelope to the executive officer. “His orders for emergency leave are inside. There’s a plane taking off in one hour. I’ll do what I can to hold it up until he’s aboard.” He started to leave, then stopped and turned back. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “What a lousy, stinking world.”

  Dominic DiStephano opened his eyes and groaned as the sunlight bored through the wine fumes clouding his brain. He turned towards the rough cement wall and fought down waves of nausea rising up to engulf him. Panting and gagging in the stifling prison cell, he tried to remember how he had come here this time. Then he became aware of the throbbing in his face and chest, and he remembered.

  He sat up and swung his legs to the concrete floor, moaning aloud as swells of pain and queasiness continued to beat at him, then he closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, opening his mouth wide to breathe deeply so he would not faint. His tongue explored his torn lips, finding them badly split both inside and outside, and his hand rose to examine his jaw aching with a nerve-jarring sharpness from the punishment he had taken.

  He tried opening his eyes again, and learned he could not focus one of them. He touched it gingerly, discovering it to be badly swollen with dried blood caking an evidently deep cut in his brow.

  “Hey, Señor Dominic,” called out a friendly voice.

  Dominic focused his good eye on a Mexican jail guard standing at the door, holding a tin cup in his hand.

  “Hello, Jaime,” muttered Dominic thickly. “You’d better have some wine there. I won’t live out the hour if it’s anything else.”

  The guard pushed open the unlocked door and walked over to his bunk. “It’s wine, my friend. Drink.”

  Dominic took the cup in trembling hands
and raised it to his mouth, wincing as the wine bit into the cuts in his lips. He emptied its contents with half a dozen gulps, then released a deep sigh of satisfaction and let his head rest back against the wall.

  Jaime squatted and grinned. “How do you feel, amigo? Like your head has come off?”

  “I wish it would come off.”

  Jaime’s smile became broader. “It was one beautiful fight last night,” he informed Dominic with satisfaction bordering on awe. “Like nothing which has been seen here before. They took up a collection afterwards. It will pay for part of the damages.”

  “Where’s Carmen?”

  Jaime chuckled. “The policia took her home. She bit one of them in the hand. She was here already this morning and said she would come back later.”

  “What happened?” asked Dominic, rubbing the nape of his neck.

  “There were four this time. Four good ones, I tell you, on my honor. They are in the cell next door, and I will bring them in for you to see what good ones they are.”

  “Who started it?”

  “Ah, my friend, that is the part that the town will speak of until the children are grown. None of them,” he chortled. “It was another person who pinched Carmen.”

  Dominic began laughing, Jaime joining in, and soon the two of them were roaring with delight.

  A second guard came to the door and, hearing them guffaw, he smiled, then his smile grew into a chuckle, and finally into a full throated laugh.

  Jaime turned towards the second guard. “Somebody else pinched her!” he hooted, releasing another gale of laughter.

  When finally they stopped laughing, the guard at the door stepped forward. “Your woman is outside,” he said to Dominic. “She says a telegram has come for you.”

  “Tell her to bring it to me,” said Dominic.

  “The telegraph man will not give it to her, so she says,” said the guard.

  “Then let it stay,” said Dominic.