The heat along the Eritrean highland roads was a curse unto itself.
Along the winding mountain routes between Asmara and the Mareb River, Italian military engineers worked with brutal precision flattening terrain, laying gravel, hammering down makeshift bridges.
Colonel Giuseppe Pizzoli stood by a newly laid segment of road and squinted into the sun.
"How far today?"
A junior engineer replied, "Four kilometers. The blasting ahead slowed us down."
"Only four? We promised ten."
"The incline's worse than the survey predicted. And some of the laborers have heat exhaustion."
Pizzoli glanced toward the slope where a group of Eritrean conscripts, half-starved and shirtless, dragged logs into position.
"No such thing as exhaustion," he muttered. "Not when Rome is watching."
He pulled out a telegram and reread the orders.
"Accelerate road completion. Forward units require armored transport routes by mid-September. Delay is unacceptable.
HQ"
"Mid-September," he repeated.
