Chapter 2 Chapter two

The battle started promptly at ten o'clock in the morning.Lieutenant Medardo rode on his horse, staring at the powerful lineup of the Christian army ready to fight. The wind on the Bohemian plain blew the fragrance of rice, as if it came from a threshing floor that was blowing.He put his face in the direction of the wind. "No, don't turn back, sir," exclaimed Kurzio, who was wearing the rank of corporal and was at the side of the lieutenant.In order to explain his obstruction, he added calmly: "Everyone says that doing so before a war will cause bad luck." In fact, he didn't want the Viscount to see the backup team behind him, so It was put together by a few squads of lame and rubber-footed infantry.He worried that the Viscount would be frustrated knowing that almost the entire strength of the Christian army was in the field.But my uncle looked out into the distance, at the white clouds drifting toward the horizon, and thought, "Yes, that white cloud is the Turks, the Turks, and these people smoking marriages around me are Christians Veteran, now the bugle blowing is the signal to attack, the first attack in my life, this rumble and vibration, this old soldier and his horse watching indifferently, the shooting star that fell into the ground is the shell, it is all I have ever done in my life The first enemy shell encountered. There may not be a day when I will say, "This is the last shell." "

He held the sharp sword of Izuaki high in his hand, watched the imperial army flag appearing and disappearing in the smoke with his eyes, and galloped his horse across the battlefield.Our guns passed the air above his head, and the enemy's bombardment opened gaps in the positions of the Christian troops, blowing up clouds of smoke.He thought, "I'm going to see the Turks! I'm going to see the Turks!" Nothing is more exciting to a man who goes to war than to meet the enemy and see if they are really what they think they are thing. He saw them, saw the Turks.Two people are coming face to face.They rode war horses covered in lead armor, held small round leather shields, and wore robes with black and red stripes.They wore turbans, their faces were tan like dolphins, and their beards were exactly like Mikay, who was called "Turk" in Talalba.One of the two Turks was killed, the other killed someone who had not killed his companion.But who knows how many of them are getting up, a hand-to-hand battle is about to begin.Seeing those two Turks was like seeing them all.They are also soldiers, and their things are also military equipment.Their faces were as sunburned and hoed as those of peasants.Medardo, who had wanted to see them, saw them now; he could come back to Terralba at once, and walk past us with his head held high like a quail.Yet he had come to serve in the war.So he rushed forward, avoided the attack of the cutlass, spotted a small Turkish soldier on foot, and fell him with his sword.Now that he had killed one, he tried again with a tall soldier on horseback, and the result was bad.Because they are small, flexible and very aggressive.They got right down to the horse's belly, and stabbed it open with one of their cutlasses.

Medardo's horse moved its legs and stood still. "What's the matter with you?" asked the Viscount.Curzio rushed forward and pointed to the ground and said, "Look there." The horse's internal organs had already flowed to the ground.The poor beast looked up at its master, then ducked down, as if to lick those intestines, but it was only a display of heroism: it passed out and died.Medardo of Terralba has no mount. "Please ride my horse, Lieutenant," said the groom, but before he could rein in his own horse he fell down and was wounded by a Turk's arrow, while the horse escaped.

"Culzio!" cried the Viscount, throwing himself on the groom who was moaning on the ground. "Don't worry about me, sir," Kurzio said. "We just hope there's still alcohol in the hospital. Every wounded person gets a bowl." My uncle Medardo threw himself into the melee.The outcome of the battle is inconclusive.In this melee, the Christian army seems to have won.What is certain is that they broke through the lines of the Turkish army and surrounded several of their positions.My uncle rushed to the enemy's cannon with the other warriors.The Turks moved their guns so as to put them within range of artillery fire.Two Turkish gunners turn the wheel of a cannon.They moved slowly, with long beards and war robes that fell to their insteps, like two astronomers.My uncle said: "Now I'll go there and help them adjust the gun positions." He was more than enthusiastic but inexperienced, he didn't know how to approach the cannon only from the side or from behind, he jumped on his horse and slashed his sword, and rushed straight to the mouth of the cannon Go, thinking I can frighten the two astronomers.Instead they shot him in the chest.Medardo of Terralba took to the sky.

In the evening, when the fighting was suspended, two wagons collected the bodies of Christian soldiers on the battlefield.One for the wounded, one for the dead.What is done on the battlefield is preliminary sorting. "I'll keep this one, and you can take care of that one." If you find something that seems to be salvageable, put it on the wounded person's car;for burial; what was no longer a body was left in place for the goose to eat.During those days, as the loss of troops was increasing day by day, it was decided to take as many wounded as possible.So Medardo's remnant body was regarded as an injured body and placed on the car carrying the wounded.

Rescreening takes place in the hospital.The war was over, and the scene in the field hospital was more cruel and terrible than the war itself.There was a long row of stretchers on the floor, on which lay the unfortunate, and doctors gathered around them, holding tweezers, saws, needles, thread, and scalpels.Dead man after dead man was examined, trying their best to bring each body back to life.Knit here, sew up there, put cotton wool on the wound, turn the blood vessel over like a glove, and put it back in place. There are more sutures than blood vessels, but it is repaired and sutured after all.If a sick person dies, all his good parts are used to repair another person's limbs and organs, and so on and on.The most troublesome thing is to deal with the intestines: once they are loose, it is almost impossible to know how to put them back in place.

Lifting off the sheet, the viscount's mutilated body was shocking.He was missing an arm, a thigh, and more.The half of the chest and abdomen, connected to the arm and thigh, were not nailed, and were blown away and shattered by the hit shell.Only one eye, one ear, half face, half nose, half mouth, half chin and half forehead remained on his head;In short, only half of his body was saved.right half.But the right half of the body remained intact, without even a trace of scars, only a huge gap separating it from the left half of the body. The doctors were very satisfied: "Oh, what a coincidence!" As long as he didn't die on the spot, they could try to save him.They hustle around him, while some poor soldiers die of sepsis after taking an arrow in one arm.The doctors sewed, medicated, bandaged, not knowing what they were doing.As a result, the next morning, my uncle opened his only eye, opened his half-mouth, opened his nostril, and began to breathe again.The physical strength possessed by the Terralba brought him through at last.Now he was alive, a halfling.