LAND AND WATER. 
July 10, 1915, 
A GLIMPSE OF WAR.THE BUFFALOES. 
By W. L. George. 
and 
close 
SIMONETTI crouched in his hole, weary beyond 
describe aTid feeling iu that little space as if already 
he were buried. He had fallen there the night beforo 
with a sprained ankle, and for many minutes lain 
upon his face, quivering as bullets from the Austrian 
Italian machine guns streamed over his head, so 
as to make him sink his head in his shoulders and 
burrow into the ground. His ankle hurt. Perhaps slowly 
lie could have dragged himself out towards the Italian 
trenches, but he was a very young soldier, and he had then 
thought only of one thing: to dig himself in a foot or so, 
where nothing could hurt him, where, face against the crumb- 
ling soil, he could be just an animal, thinking absurdly of 
the shop, of the counter over which, a week before, he had 
been selling cigarettes with a broad, white-toothed smile. 
The night had passed, a night of horror, when all the 
time shells burst over his head and bullets burrowed all 
round him. Then a day, an interminable, silent day. The 
sun liad speared through the sparse leaf of the mulberry 
trees, finding him out, until he had to shift as if he feared 
that his flesh would blister wherever rested the shafts of light. 
His water-bottle was empty; he had eaten his emergency 
ration; now, with legs stiff up to the knees, rather hungry, 
and his throat like hot ash, he watched the sun slowly set 
beyond the grey lead of the Isonzo waters. Night at last! 
Soon under her black wing he could crawl away. She came 
slowly, and he hated this blinding sun; without knowing it 
he plagiarised the saying of a great general: " Thou damned 
sun! Wilt thou never set? . . ." 
Suddenly the sun vanished below the horizon. He 
shivered, for the southern twilight was short, and here al- 
ready was the Italian night, that felt freezing and wet. 
His shirt that had been caked with sweat grew hard 
»nd cold, like a shroud. A little wind rose up, fluttering 
the leaves of the mulberry trees and drawing long whispers 
from the boughs of the cypresses. Day was coming; soon 
he might move. He raised himself a little; there was 
nothing to be seen. Some hundred yards ahead, just under 
the slope beyond the cypresses, were the Austrian trenches; 
lower down, at the bottom of the foothill where he lay, 
were his friends, no doubt. Upon his right, where the ground 
sloped sharply, stretched the mountain pass. There he saw 
quite clearly the Austrian trenches, behind their wire 
entanglements, that shone in the evening light. He could 
see men move in the trenches. What a position for a sniper I 
But he dared not move; perhaps he could not, for in twenty- 
four hours his body had become conscious of only one thing — 
cramp. The evening grew darker, and in the forest before 
him rose everywhere the white night-mists, thin and cold 
as the breath of the buried dead. . . . 
Simonetti rubbed his legs. Soon, crawling upon his 
belly, he could begin that long, long journey of six hundred 
yards towards the Italian trenches. But it was not quitfl 
dark enough, he thought; so he watched, amused by the 
moveraentfl of friend and foe, which he alone up on that 
slope could see. The forest trenches were hidden, but in the 
pass he could see the Italians moving. He fancied he could 
hear them speak, for the air was clear. And, more cruel, 
he saw very well a fire that cooked something, and a 
dream of onion soup formed in his brain. For a long time 
Simonetti, who yesterday was drunk with patriotism and 
glory, thought only of onion soup. But there were movements ; 
they interested him. They were incomprehensible rather. He 
could see the bersaglieri roofing their trenches with planks. 
Little by little the trench and the traverses were shorteniuc 
and disappearing under this mysterious ceiling. And there were 
other movements, too, that surprised him, in the rear, where 
the ground dipped suddenly and there was a hollow invisible 
to Austrian eyes. The twilight was thick now, and he saw 
only blacic masses that moved, that .separated and then 
joined. Tliere was no rest in the dark hollow among the 
darker shapes. They were strange in their heaviness, and 
lor a moment Sunouetti wondered whether his mind was 
wandering, whether he dreamt day dreams. He did nofc 
think of crawling back now; he was like a savage that forgets 
danger in his magpie curiosity. It was singular in th<j 
hollow. He had a vision of animals, oxen perhaps, and for 
a second wondered why they should bring cattle up so near 
the line. Then again he watched the trench, which had now 
complet-ely disappeared under its roof; he could see that 
plainly, for the planks gleamed white. There was no room 
even for a rifle barrel. It was as if the trench had never been, 
and from the hollow the ground stretched out almost flat. 
He strained his eyes to their utmost. The black shapes had 
come closer, and he could see them struggling and jostling. 
Every now and then he heard a muffled bellow that was nofc 
quite that of an ox, and he had a glimpse as suddenly the 
moon rose of a polished white horn. His heart began to 
beat; these were not oxen ... a picture of the Cam- 
pagna Romana formed before his eyes. 
Buffaloes! In his excitement the herd magnified; there 
were not scores, but hundreds, thousands of them, gigantic, 
woolly-ruffed. He fancied he could see crowds of shiny 
horns and little brown, buried eyes that sparkled. For a 
moment his mind was blank. . . . Then he thought of 
the roofed trench and quite suddenly understood, for there 
was a little light now behind the herd. Every few yards 
upon the ground he saw a little red glow, as if there stood a 
brazier. He saw the black shapes of the bersaglieri as for 
a second they stood before the glows. Those beasts were not 
there for nothing. They were going to be driven. Why roof 
the trench save to give them passage ? In the light of the 
rising moon he saw the Austrian entanglements shining now 
like silver. He was so oppressed by his growing conviction 
that he hardly noticed that from the distant heights at 
Caperletto the Italian artillery had begun to pour shrapnel 
upon the Austrian trenches. Shells burst close to him now 
and then in the wood, and sometimes splintered boughs fell 
near him. He was all filled with the drama of the restless 
beasts in front of the braziers. He was fiercely alive just 
then. He had a vision of the wild brutes massed in a little 
space, frightened by the night and the silence, crushed 
together, heavy rump against great shoulder. And he under- 
stood the little glows; he guessed that there were irons heat- 
ing. He had a vision of the herd, maddened by the touch 
of the burning steel, rushing on towards those entanglements 
that glittered pale in the blue light. . . . He was afraid; 
it was horrible, somehow, because so silent. He saw agitations 
among the bersaglieri, agitations among the beast; he heard 
a deep-throated bellow. . . . 
Then all his senses leapt into activity. It was not that 
louder and louder screamed the shrapnel above his head, that 
he heard almost every second the dull, dry sound of flying 
earth as the shells struck. It was that the agitations in the 
hollow had suddenly become purposeful, that he had a vision, 
abominable yet certain, of the great herd snorting and stamp- 
ing as men pricked it with their bayonets, as roars of anger 
rose up when a flank was suddenly touched with a hot iron. 
It made him sick and he shrank, for he fancied that his nos- 
trils were filled with the scent of burning hide. For a 
moment all seemed peace; the Isonzo rolling past eternally 
tbwards the sea, which he could see shining beyond Monfal- 
cone. 
Then all was action. Through the scream of the shrap- 
nel he heard the shouts of men in the hollow, the bellowing 
of the enraged beasts; and then a new sound— the trample, 
resounding as if it came from deep in the earth, of a thou- 
sand hoofs. It was a little sound first when it began, and 
intolerably it rose, muffled and dull, as the herd, stampeding, 
drew near. It was hypnotising, this growing heavy sound 
which blotted out for him the voices of the guns. He could 
hear nothing else, and he started as for a second the muffled 
trample changed into a sharp sound : the buffaloes were 
across the wooden roof of the Italian trench. They were 
coming, and almost at once they were passing, it seemed, just 
under his feet. A> he heard them he saw them, for from tha 
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