The drummer SARDO
July 24, 1848: the green hills of the Sardinian Custoza a drummer, a boy of just over fourteen years, small, sallow-faced and brown eyes with two blacks and deep location along with sixty soldiers from a regiment of infantry ' Piedmontese army, sent on a rise of Custoza to occupy an abandoned house, when suddenly are attacked by two companies of soldiers forcing them to flee Austria in the house. Hastily barred the door, our people are directed toward the windows shouldered their rifles, thus beginning a long and exhausting battle, causing numerous deaths on both sides. Showy in serious trouble, the captain of the regiment, an old high, dry and austere, with white hair and mustache, he calls the little drummer boy on the sidelines, making him sign to follow him upstairs: the bare attic captain is writing with a pencil on a sheet of paper, folded it, and staring into his eyes tells him that the boy is about to entrust an important mission: to Villafranca, just down the hill, are stationed the Italian carabinieri and the boy is ordered to join them and deliver the message to the first officer who is on his way. And so it is. It falls with a rope from the window that is on the back of the house, and starts running as fast as possible in the meantime, the captain, with his eyes, following her every movement, the Austrians are aware of him and start to make focus on that small figure fleeing to camps: is hit but got up and resumed the race but lame, slow down and then start to run even faster, until it disappears behind a bush and loses sight of the captain. On the ground floor, meanwhile, the number of deaths is increasing, but he has no intention of surrendering.
Time passes, and now have lost all hope when suddenly, amid the huge cloud of dust, can see the two hats to the tips of the police: the reinforcements have finally arrived. The little drummer boy has done it. The day ends with our victory, but two days after the Italians are forced to retreat on the Mincio, due to the large number of Austrian soldiers present. The captain, though wounded, once reached Goito want to make sure the health condition of one of his lieutenants, who was also wounded and transported by ambulance to a field hospital: he was shown a church and once reached it looks around looking around her Journal in the midst of all the men lying on mattresses placed on the floor of the church. And 'that's when you hear a faint voice calling from: the little drummer boy, lying on a trestle bed, covered to the chest by a curtain from the window, pale and thin, which begins the story of his business, among countless difficulties and under fire, with the only thought to fulfill the assignment that was given: the man, seeing the boy so weak is led to think that it has lost much blood, but turns away in horror when he sees the look the young man was a leg amputated and the stump has been wrapped with cloth conflict. It comes at that moment the doctor, painful, tell the captain as the leg could have been saved, if it had not been tried so absurd. It 's so that the men, the rough soldier who had never uttered a mild word to his bottom, he raises his hand to his forehead and says, "I am not a captain. You're a hero." Then he throws his arms open to the drummer, and kissed him three times on the heart.
