Page:Cesare Battisti and the Trentino.djvu/30

 would be content to remain a private to the finish."

His companions were peasants, shepherds and cattle herders from the highlands of Bergamo, a strong race hiding their natural goodheartedness under a rough exterior. Thus does he speak of them: "These Alpine soldiers from Bergamo (he writes August 7th) form a select body of troopers chosen from a select race of mountaineers; they are indeed giants. You should have seen them yesterday scaling crags during the night, bootless, so as to avoid the least noise, carrying cannons on their shoulders up nearly ten thousand feet, the thermometer in the meantime registering several degrees below zero. Then I saw them when they came back, wild with joy, carrying the trophies of their conquest — munitions, bombs, grenades, searchlights, etc. They perform actual miracles and undergo the severest hardships with indomitable fortitude."

But that war of positions, although of the hardest kind, was not enough to quench his warlike ardor, his craving for sacrifice, his constant yearning to do something more. He desires to be sent to the, where the guns roar louder, where, he believes, the war of movements is imminent.

"I asked," he writes, "to be transferred to the Isonzo, or at least to some sector where the prospects of a forward movement — of actual fighting — are good where there is something to do — where I can not only conform to my duty, but also satisfy the legitimate ambition to show that our 's teachings made a lasting impression on the young Italian generation."

He was denied the transfer to the Isonzo, but several encounters took place in the sector where he was stationed; he had his good share in them, displayed unusual valor, and was decorated for gallantry.

Nor is the Austrian army the only foe they have to contend with; there is also the winter that comes early, the blizzards, that even in summer send the mercury down several degrees below zero. "Up here," he still writes to the same friend, "we are having devilish cold weather; out of seven days, five are Page twenty-eight