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

THE CAMP. 219
one of the boldest in an undertone.
" " Hurrah ! reply the
others in chorus.
" "
Silence, you dogs
! shouts the captain
impetuously, not succeeding, however, in concealing under that
show of anger a certain feeling of complacency.
" Have you
lost your heads "
? Disperse ! The crowd separate, running
in every direction. But the other soldiers, who have sniffed a
little festivity in the distance, collect, but too late, however ;
the cask is
empty, and the captain's pocket-book
is closed.
The new arrivals wander around, glance warily at each other,
do, as they say of the Indians, turn their eyes upward to gaze
at the clouds, and kick the stones about while yawning indifferently
;
but all in vain ;
the captain does not see them, moves
this trifle suffices to make
off, and every hope
is dead. Well,
men happy ;
and they return to the place whence they came,
humming in that strained,
harsh voice that seems to stick
half way in the throat when we are provoked at something and
wish, but do not succeed, in dissimulating it.
Now let us look in another direction, down there in the
farthest corner. Along
that line of wall runs a canal three
or four metres in width, and in it are two palms' depth of water
between two soft and slippery banks. On one of the sides are
standing and sitting the soldiers of the company, whose tents
are near by.
Suddenly there comes a voice from the group of
officers standing on the opposite side : " Who wants to earn a
lira? Here it is for the man who can jump this ditch," and a
hand with a coin in it is raised in the circle. All turn and run
"
in that direction. I, I, I, I too." Then an officer exclaims :
" Let us see ;
stand in a row," and he makes a sign with his
hand. The crowd of soldiers turn their backs, run twenty
paces from the bank, stop, turn around, draw up in a semicir-