'Italy's full of Americans,' he suggested. 'Living here. Over military
age, but fit for a lot of our use. I miss my guess if bunches of 'em
wouldn't jump at a chance to get busy under their own flag.'

"We sent out a call and they came. Down from hill-towns, out of cities,
from villages we'd never heard of--it was amazing how they came. We
didn't dream there was such a number. Every one middle-aged, American
all, and gentlemen all. One morning, after brisk work the night before,
I'd just turned out and was standing by my bus--I slept on a stretcher
inside--I saw a big, athletic, grizzled chap, maybe fifty-five or over,
shabby as to clothes, yet with an air like a duke, sauntering up. How
he got in there I never thought to ask. He held out his hand as if we
were old friends. 'Good morning,' he said. 'I hope I didn't wake you
up. How do you like Italy?' There was something attractive about him,
something suggestive of a gracious host whose flower garden was
Italy--which he trusted was to my taste. I told him I worshipped Italy.

"Just then a shell--they were coming over off and on--struck two
hundred yards down the road and we both turned to look. In thirty
seconds, maybe, another--and another--placed middling close, half a
minute apart maybe, till eight had plowed along that bit. When they
stopped, he looked at me. 'That's the first time I ever saw shells
light nearby,' he spoke. 'Eight, I made it. But two were duds, weren't
they?'

"It didn't seem to occur to him that they might have hit him. About
then he saw me wondering, I suppose, what a civilian was doing making
conversation inside the lines before breakfast, and he explained.

"'You need men for the Red Cross, I believe,' he explained. 'I came to
offer my services.' He spoke English perfectly, yet with a foreign
twist, and he was so very dark that I wondered about his nationality.

"'Are you Italian?' I asked, and at that he started and straightened
his big shabby shoulders as if I'd hit him, and flushed through his
brown skin.

"'American, sir,' he said proudly.

"And, Uncle Bill, something in the way he said it almost brought tears
to my eyes. It was as if his right to being American was the last and
most precious thing he owned, and as if I'd tried to take it from him.

"So I threw back 'That's great,' as heartily as I knew how, and shook
hands with him over it.

"There was something about him which I couldn't place. He looked--natural.
Especially his