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

414 MILITARY LIFE.
the hillside ;
the flag of the regiment waving near by ; hear
the distant noise of the batteries which are hastening forward ;
our blood boils, our souls are exalted, and the bodies we meet
on the road do not count, indeed are not seen or looked at, we
do not even think that there must be some, or if the eye falls
" "
upon them, our hearts exclaim : Farewell, brother ! and
nothing else, as on we go and forget them.
But there, in those
dwellings, at night, in the midst of that silence, in that quiet,
by the light of those lanterns, how horrible the image of death
must be ! How many cf those soldiers, even the strongest of
them, must have had the image of these misshapen bodies before
him for some time, have felt the contact of those icy and flaccid
members, and the noise of those heads as they fell heavily on to
the cart ! Often some one started back horrified at the sight
of the dead, or his arms trembled and his eyes became veiled
in the act of touching them. " Oh, friend," he may have said
to his neighbor, " "
I cannot do it ! But the voice of the everready
officer would be heard : '*
Courage, boys
!
every thing depends
upon taking hold of the first. We must become accustomed
to it." Then the soldier put his hand timidly on
the body, turning away his head and holding his breath as
he did so. The band moved toward the cemetery. On
reaching it the soldiers placed their lanterns on the ground
and part of them dug the graves, while the otheis stood
beside the carts, waiting for a sign to bury the dead. The
officer stood motionless at the edge of a grave, superintending
the soldiers' work. All were silent. Nothing was to be
heard but the stroke of the picks as they
the ground, and the falling
were struck into
of the earth thrown into the air
by the shovels. From time to time came a voice ; " Cour-