atherine planned to spend the leave together, but he came down with jaundice before he could leave the hospital the head nurse accused him of bringing on the jaundice by drink, in order to avoid being sent back to the front before he left for the front, henry and catherine stayed together in a hotel room already she had disclosed to him that she was pregnant henry returned to the front with orders to load his three ambulances with hospital equipment and go south into the po valley morale was at low ebb rinaldi admired the job which had been done on the knee and observed that henry acted like a married man war weariness was all pervasive at the front, the italians, having learned that german divisions had reinforced the austrians, began their terrible retreat from caporetto henry drove one of the ambulances loaded with hospital supplies during the retreat south, the ambulance was held up several times by wagons, guns, and trucks which extended in stalled lines for miles henry picked up two straggling italian sergeants during the night the retreat was halted in the rain for hours at daybreak henry cut out of the long line and drove across country in an attempt to reach udine by side roads the ambulance got stuck in a muddy side road the sergeants decided to leave, but henry asked them to help dislodge the car from the mud they refused and ran henry shot and wounded one the other escaped across the fields an italian ambulance corpsman with henry shot the wounded sergeant through the back of the head henry and his three comrades struck out on foot for udine on a bridge, henry saw a german staff car and german bicycle troops crossing another bridge over the same stream within sight of udine, one of henry s group was killed by an italian sniper the others hid in a barn until it seemed safe to circle around udine and join the main stream of the retreat toward the tagliamento river by that time the italian army was nothing but a frantic mob soldiers were throwing down their arms and officers were cutting insignia of rank from their sleeves at the end of a long wooden bridge across the tagliamento military carabiniere were seizing all officers, giving them drumhead trials, and executing them by the river bank henry was detained, but in the dark of night he broke free, plunged into the river, and escaped on a 