THE STORY - CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND NOTES

CHAPTER 9

Henry and his drivers now ride down a camouflaged road to a brickyard where they park their ambulances. There are troops dug in along the river bank and aid stations in some of the larger dugouts. Watching them are Austrians in observation balloons that float above the hills on the other side of the river.

Henry finds out what he is to do when the attack starts, and sets his men up in a big dugout. They ask about food and Henry is told that a field kitchen will come and feed them. They wait. Notice how at first these four men, all mechanics who hate the war, don't want to talk in front of Henry. Even though he's only an American ambulance driver, he's a tenente, an officer, and still represents authority.

A little later they loosen up and start to talk, first about the attack and later about the war in general. The conversation is revealing. They pass judgment on various units in the Italian army as well as on the state of morale, which seems low. --

NOTE:

Bersaglieri are shock troops, an elite group. Granatieri (grenadiers, grenade-throwers) are apparently less spirited. The Alpini are Italian mountain troops, and you already know that the carabinieri are hated MPs. Note that Passini spits at the mention of them. Evviva l'esercito means "long live the army." Passini, of course, says it sarcastically.

The long Chapter 9 is climaxed by Henry's wounding and his removal first to a dressing station and then to a field hospital behind the lines. The subjective impressions of the wounding are autobiographical: Henry, like Hemingway, is wounded by a large Austrian mortar shell, and a man near him has his legs blown off. The passage describing the wounding is a keenly effective piece of stream of consciousness and one written with absolute sincerity and candor, coming out of the impressions still vivid in Hemingway's mind ten years after he had been wounded.

The chapter closes with a grisly incident. The wounded man in the stretcher above Henry hemorrhages; blood pours down on Henry. After a time the stream lessens and then drips slowly, like "from an icicle after the sun has gone." The ambulance stops; the upper stretcher bearing the now-dead man is removed and another is put in.

Perhaps this is the horror behind Frederic Henry's earlier, emotionless statement, "Things went badly."

CHAPTER 10

In a very hot room in the field hospital, Henry rests and recovers. The atmosphere is peaceful, subdued.

Rinaldi visits. As usual the Italian is outgoing, the American subdued. A lot of discussion involves a possible decoration for Henry-Rinaldi hopes to magnify Henry's deeds to earn him a higher medal, but Henry downplays them.

Catherine's name comes up, casually, but Henry seems more interested in hearing about the girls in the Villa Rossa. Rinaldi says the brothel should change them, they're like old friends, not girls. Is he revealing that he studiously avoids any permanent human attachment? Perhaps. Yet he seems to have missed Henry as a "blood brother and roommate." He goes on teasing Henry, now slyly hinting that Henry and the priest are in love, "that way." Henry laughs it off.

Getting ready to leave, Rinaldi starts in on Catherine, scornfully calling her an "English goddess." This time Henry doesn't laugh off the teasing. It gets to him. Again (as in Chapter 5) they come close to a real argument over Rinaldi's cool attitude toward women in general-Catherine included-and Henry's still confused state of mind about Catherine in particular. He may not love her, but he certainly gets touchy when Rinaldi criticizes her.

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