Summary
The narrator of the story is unnamed. He got wounded in the war and was sent to Italy for the treatment of his wounded knee. There were other wounded soldiers with him. They all met in the hospital every afternoon. As the people in Italy did not like them due to their taking part in the war, all of the five wounded soldiers walked in a group. After the treatment in the hospital they all used to go to the Cafe Cova. Unlike the people outside, the girls inside the cafe were very nice and "patriotic". Except one of the soldiers, all the others had won medals for their bravery during the war. When the others came to know that the narrator had got his medals because he was an American they did not respect him anymore. The narrator admitted that he was not brave and was afraid of walking alone in the empty streets of Milan in the dark. He felt aloof from the others who got their medals for their bravery.
In that group of wounded soldiers, one wanted to become a lawyer, the other wanted to become a painter, “and one had intended to be a soldier” and the narrator himself was a football player before the war. There was a boy in the group wore a handkerchief over his face because “he had no nose then”. “His nose was rebuilt but they could not place the nose exactly right”. That boy due to his disfigured nose, left the country. The narrator felt close to that boy as compared with others because he had no medals. He was wounded an hour after he came to the front and, therefore, had no chance to prove his bravery.
