(Tale of military life)

I do not remember how it happened.

Perhaps the few ensigns who normally disengaged the service of an inspection officer had been assigned to command for the arrival of some personalities ... perhaps their number had fallen below the minimum level and the new complementary officers were expected ... it is in fact that, despite being an "old man" lieutenant and a rogant officer of Maricommi Naples, "I won" a day as an inspection officer at the Naval Base.

On the other hand even doing the inspection officer is a bit like riding a bicycle ... once you learn it's not so difficult to do it again ... and so, like a good "soldier militar", I used a scarf to the guardhouse .

Having detected the disemboweling ensign - who passed me the deliveries with the same respectful discomfort of a seminarian charged with reminding a bishop how to celebrate Mass - I discovered, with some relief, that I was not the only "senior" catapulted to the guardhouse.

Even the Petty Officer who would support me for the day, and that I knew, was sufficiently forward in his career and - in addition to the marvelous disappointment of being put on guard (I do not remember why he had always been exempted) - exposed his colorful theory about the mental faculties of those who put him to do, at his age, " 'o guaglione' and puteca " ("the shop boy").

The day started well !!

I assured him that, even as an elderly person, I understood his discomfort and that he would not do anything more than what was foreseen by the deliveries; after which, having noted with pleasure that at least the service sailor had no particular claims to expose, I set out to face the day.

The latter took place quietly enough to allow me to read several times the voluminous collection of deliveries, consisting of a series of plastic folders, hooked in a binder and containing the usual typed instructions for the good performance of the service.

I also had time to read the interesting pen annotations affixed to the inside of the cover by all those who had succeeded over time in the duty of the guard, had thought to leave to posterity a trace of their passage in the form of profound and illuminating thoughts. of the type "5 ° / 68 is over" or "recruit you must die" or ... no, this is better not to bring it back (pity, however, was volgaruccia but so funny).

Reading, I discovered, thus, that the disassembling seminarian had failed to tell me about a patrol to be carried out at 18.00, by the non-commissioned officer, to check the regular closure - with padlock and chain - of a gate that allowed access to the Naval Base from cliff placed behind the guesthouse.

Take a look at the clock ... they were about the 18.00 and I informed the non-commissioned officer he started for the round.

He returned after about an hour.

He approached me and, bending his lips down, looked at me and said "Mah!"

The expressed concept was too deep for it not to be discussed.

So I asked "What is it? Something wrong?"

"No, commissa ', everything is fine ... only that I lost a little time to find the gate ... but that ..." and here he raised his thumb, stretched his forefinger and quickly rotated the second along the its own longitudinal axis making the first one swing from left to right a couple of times.

"What does it mean?" and I also raised my thumb, extended my index finger and made the tarantella dance.

"That the gate is not there"

"What does it mean that the gate is not there?"

"Commissioner, do you know when something is there and when something does not fit in? And the gate is not there".

It seemed a joke and then I started with a tirade about the fact that if he did not want to do the patrol I did not care, that there was no seniority that he held, that the patrol was done even if it was a rupture of boxes - for the truth I used a sort of unrepeatable synonym, but the circumstances required it - and that ... when a voice behind me interrupted my reprimand (a little 'I was sorry because it seemed to me that I had started well).

"Good evening, captain" - at the time, the commissioners were calling us with the rank of the army - and then, to the marshal's address: "Ué, and what are you doing here?

He was a colleague of my watch-mate, who was leaving the base.

"U, hello ... eh, they put me on guard ... I was talking to the captain of this fact of the patrol at the gate on the cliff and I was saying that ..."

"The round? ... at the cliff gate?"

"And deliveries say so"

"No - turning to me, hurriedly - it happens ... and there's no need ... that ... the gate ... has not been there for a couple of years. problem to go through the trucks when they did the work and then they did not put it back in. Well, I say hello, good evening ". And he left.

It was too much, they clearly agreed to make fun of me!

"And so the gate is not there ?! - I exclaimed - and that's okay, I'll go see if I can find it" and left quickly and angry at the gate that, according to them, was not there.

When I reached the cliff I realized that I had arrived without encountering any gate. I made my way back, looking carefully, but without luck, the phantom gate that - to tell the truth - gave the impression of not being there.

I returned to the guardhouse with a step that, fast and angry, had turned into slow and disheartened.

To the interrogative look of the sergeant, I replied "crazy things, the gate is not there" and, while he was looking at me like "and what did I tell you?", I went straight to the desk of the guard take the register of the patrols, open which I could read that, in spite of the unfulfilled absence of the gate, was written for some time by the (self-styled) guards, "performed round the cliff-side gate, nothing to report"

I reported the same wording on the register, specifying, in addition and for the information of the authors of the deliveries, that in the "nothing to report" was also included the gate of which the unequivocal and objective lack had been ascertained.

I later learned that - I do not know if as a result of this report - the deliveries had been changed with the indication that the watch in question was momentarily suspended.

Perhaps waiting for the gate.