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Second-in-Command was flying back to Italy for orders, a band of Communists attacked the troops, killing most of them. Those that escaped were told to wait for a boat which never arrived but the Germans did, and it was they who eventually sent the sorely tried soldiers back to their homes in Italy. All that my peasant Tomalino has to say about the matter is that his brother "ha un grand'appetitto!" And indeed this ever increasing family of peasants (two babies born since my arrival) firmly installed on my small farm is something to worry about. The farm is meant to support a family of three, but now there are nine and this does not include another younger brother still fighting somewhere, who promises to return soon, and add a wife and more children to this already over-prolific family. I have given up hopes, long ago, of ever obtaining my share of the vegetables, fruits, poultry and eggs, yet even so deprived, I must consider it fortunate that the law allows my household its quota of grains and oil direct from the farm.
   Nature has a horrible way of reminding one that she too is at war. Always at war! All round about here, the plague has visited the chicken world. When it strikes in a mild fashion the chickens' crests turn white; when more severely, the crests turn black. My chickens,before dying, went about the farm-yard with drooping heads and black crests. It was painful to see them and no less painful to hear Anna, Tomalino's wife, sobbing loudly. Only one of these doomed