Her Life for Liberty

Summary

A weather-worn bagpiper, relic of a forgotten Italy, unspools a tale that detonates like black powder across the ochre hills of 1861: Carola, luminous village daughter, is hunted by Bourbon dragoons reeking of absinthe and absolutism; her father’s chest blooms red, her brother rides off with Garibaldi’s crimson tide, leaving her marooned between grief and gun-smoke. When the occupiers lay siege to the stone church that shelters every dream the peninsula still dares to dream, Carola knots a rope round her waist, slips over sheer cliff-shadow, and sprints through moonlit scrub until a bullet scythes her thigh. She crawls, leaves a crimson signature across the dust, rouses Caserta’s patriots, then folds into death like a saint into parchment—her heartbeat swapped for a nation’s pulse.

Synopsis

The first scenes are in a modern Italian village, and the drama is related by an old bagpiper and concerns himself. His sister and father are his neighbors during the eventful days of 1861-62. After the prologue the village occupied by the dissolute Bourbon soldiers is shown. Carola, the sister, is the pride of the countryside. When three semi-intoxicated soldiers attempt to insult her, she rushes to her father. He grabs his gun and rushes down into the courtyard, where he meets the fire from one of the soldier's guns. The brother is away with fellow Garibaldians while Carola is left alone with the body of her dead father. The brother returns with his detachment of "red-shirter," and promptly routs the representatives of the hated Bourbon monarch. But soon a larger detachment of Bourbons is sent to the village. Their feelings stirred to a boiling degree by the death of Carola's father, the villagers give battle to the Bourbons, but the regular soldiers outnumber them, and they seek a vantage point in the old church, where a three-days' attack takes place. The leader of the Garibaldians realizes that they will have to surrender or starve unless assistance can be secured from the neighboring city of Caserta, but the attempt to secure this assistance means almost certain death to the messenger. The leader suggests this, but remarks that hardly anyone present would care to take such a risk. But Carola surprises all of them by promptly volunteering to go. The leader throws a rifle over Carola's shoulder and, after being lowered on a rope for a distance of nearly one hundred and fifty feet, Carola gains the roadway in the rear of the church, but she is seen by some of the Bourbons. She does not stop. One of the bullets strikes her in the leg, but despite the great pain she struggles onward and finally reaches a small house on the outskirts of the neighboring city, where her cry for help is answered by a fellow countrywoman, who opens the door, which had been securely locked against the intruders. The woman sees Carola's wound and is about to alleviate the pain when Carola stops her, saying that there is no time for that, her neighbors in the church must be rescued. The woman heeds the advice and, with a revolver in her hand, rushes to the center of the city, where she informs the Garibaldians. Stopping at the house of the woman on their way to the besieged church they find Carola on the floor, dead. The Garibaldians rush forward and surprise the Bourbons with the ferocity of their attack. In the street encounter the Bourbons lose and in the final stand at the church they are completely routed and they flee along the Volturno River to safety. The besieged welcome their saviors with vehement thanks. Carola's brother rushes up to them to inquire of his sister, and the women point in the direction from which they have come. The brother and the women lead the natives to the house and there they find the body of Carola. Removing their hats and kneeling in prayer they weep as they say a benediction over the noble girl who had sacrificed her life for them.