A dream of my grandfather Bertolino Pietro

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On October 22 on the slope of Col di Lana at the foot of Napoleon hat, a peak that our soldiers in the trenches will not be able to conquer.
It is a deep night.
The third battalion of 50°infantry regiment Parma is waiting for an imminent attack to come, near the castle of Buchenstein.
A group of soldiers is waiting silently, their desperate expressions are abruptly illuminated by the sudden fire of explosions, resignation, fear, and mute despair are dancing in the eyes of the abandoned men in the cold snow that covers silently the dark slope. Some of them are quietly weeping, some others are looking into the emptiness without expression, only few of them are holding their rifles with anger. My Grandfather is sitting with them, a steel helmet covers his head, a rifle trembles in his hands, a bayonet fit on the muzzle of his rifle reflects the lights from close explosions.
Nobody wants to speak a word when time is telling them to say farewell to life . The lieutenant suddenly breaks the silence that threatens to be an unbearable cry : "I wonder whether someone will remember us, may be we will disappear without a trace, and all this absurd sorrow will be turned to nothing. Nobody will know”
Nobody gives an answer.
A couple of minutes has elapsed in the silence interrupted by distant roars.
Suddenly my Grandfathers' voice is heard, he begins to speak apparently without a reason. His voice sounds as if it were not real in the battle roaring at some distance.
 “I had a dream a couple of days ago” he says.
“A strange dream”.
Nobody is moving, the soldiers are listening to him silently.
"I dreamed that in many years to come, in another time, my Grandson will come to this place. The contours of my dream were vivid, everything seamed to be real, but the war was over. I saw in my dream my Grandson was wandering with a sorrow in his heart at the same place where now we will die."
My Grandfather continues to speak in the silent darkness.
"His sorrow was our sorrow today, for the injustice that brings us to death for nothing, in this time, in this place, in this night. Probably I saw the future, the reality of our time was interrupted in my dream and I could see what will be in the future, it happens sometimes. Silence again."
The lieutenant becomes curious about my Grandfather's words, he wants to know additional details of the dream.
"What was he doing on the slope? Your Grandson?"
"He was not alone", continues my Grandfather.
"And what was he doing in order to remember us?"
The lieutenant 's curiosity increases more and more.
"In my dream I saw him observing our slope in the evening light and tears of sorrow went down his face."
My Grandfather continues to describe his impossible dream.
"My Grandson will write about us, about our despair, and many people in the world will know our sorrow ."
Then the lieutenant has got an idea, the lieutenant who had read a lot of books, he had a rich and seducing imagination.
"Listen boys, he says, if Bertolino has really seen the future, we have to do something for this Grandson who will come here. It is our duty to help him, to stand by, we have to do it."
Minutes of silence.
"We have to help him when he comes, we do not know whether we will be able to do it, we do not know whether we will still exist,, but we have to promise it all together, now all together, in the time of our death."
The silence is going on.
"I will promise it" A soldier says.
"Me too", says another one, and then a still one more in a quiet chorus of desperate voices.
"We have to do something, we cannot disappear in this way without a cry."
"It is a promise, we will help him."
His words sound solemn and definitive. Almost he stunns he has pronounced it. Suddenly a whistle is heard, the company officers near to them inform the soldiers about the attack to come. Machine gun fire rattling.
The lieutenant blows baldly in his whistle, grasps for the gun and shouts with anger: "We have to go, boys, it is time to go, there no time left, remember you have made a promise", then he jumps out of the trenches, the soldiers follow him, and disappear for ever in the darkness of the night.