Military life in Italy : sketches - Societa italiana di storia militare

78 HflLITARY LIFK.
God forbid that he should notice the light and the painful
struggle between the affection which breaks out impatiently
and the word that one cannot express
! That is the place
and the hour for melancholy recollections. There, under
those tents, when silence reigns all around, there the images
of distant relations and friends from home crowd in, images
so life-like and speaking ;
and dear, above all others, are
those of the mothers who come to arrange the knapsack under
their sons' heads praying down in their 'hearts " : God
grant that this be not his last "
sleep Who has not shed
!
tears at night under the tent in that hour ?
When all the regiment had gone to sleep, I called Carluccio,
and took him under the officers' tent of my company,
where the other two subaltern officers had preceded me (the
captain was ill),
two of those young fellows, full of heart,
who under the appearance of an ordinary and gentle character
hide a soul capable of great things ;
two of those brave
soldiers who, unknown or undistinguished among the many in
the ordinary course of life, suddenly spring up giant-like on
the field of battle, show themselves heroes, and make people
say " "
Who would ever have : thought
it !
; young men
who love a soldier's life for this reason,
demands it
they can sacrifice it to a good end.
that when occasion
The tent was lighted by a candle stuck in the ground,
and my two friends were seated one here and one there,
with their legs crossed over a stratum of straw that our orderlies
had hurriedly gathered, during a scamper, from the
field. Hardly
began to
chat.
had we entered when we too sat down and
Carluccio kept his eyes ,down, and scarcely dared raise them
"