Lovino walked down the hill in a desperate hunger, wanting to give himself a shot to end the hunger pangs, which was killing him all day long. After a new battle had begun, he had already dynamited two railways, a strategic bridge, and had brought food and water back from two far-off villages. The rebels had done all these with him. Now he could finally take a good look at the fences around the houses and the wheat field, a typical landscape everywhere in the south. But damn, that orange colour did look like egg sauce or juice or whatever, God bless them that they wouldn’t become flames in the future.

A voice covered with rust laughed out loud. “That will be fabulous though. I miss burnt toast and burnt bacon very much.”

“Stop reading my mind, you bastard.”

“Don’t be shy!” The rebel with a husky voice patted him on the shoulder. “But of course you shouldn’t starve yourself. We are going home to have dinner! Little Lovino.”

“I will appreciate that only if you stop talking.”

Getting along with the rebels was not very easy. All of them were “good man” certainly, because they loved their country, and had no fear of jumping into bomb craters. But this was also why they were fleeting, and Lovino was afraid of everything fleeting.

The new meeting place was a barn, not very secluded but at least had a tiny probability of making the Germans suspect. Lovino pulled out his gun and threw it on the rick the moment he stepped in the barn. Some rebels from other squads were already there, casting some wet firewood aside in front of the grate. “Hi, Lovi.” One with freckles on his face looked up and greeted.

“Hi, Mario.” Lovino took out his coat. “I thought it wasn’t rainy today.”

“Yes, it wasn’t.” Freckle facing Mario sounded melancholy and sorry. “Agostino sacrificed at the swamp. That’s why we got wet by accident.”