June 29, 1916 
train stopped to^gaze up at us ;• I could catch the ghnt of. 
white teeth in '.their Qpgn, .gating., mouths, , After, the 
hnghts we had already shot, tliis fifty fe'et did not seem 
to disturb me at all. Yet, had we been dumped out there, 
we should have died as suddenly and thoroughly as though 
we had been dropped from four hundred and fifty feet. 
Of all human emotions, I dare say none, not even love, 
is so illogical as fear. It restored my amour-propre to 
learn, later, that many Alpine officers prefer going under 
fire to travelling by tcleferica. 
A Silver Olive Grey Army 
Now I have described this Arctic landscape as lifeless 
but that is reckoning without the army. For all the way 
up, even before we abandoned the mules, we had been 
getting glimpses of a wonderful army organisation, 
trafficking back and forth, doing, in orderly fashion, a 
hundred diverse things. Sometimes, as you stood in 
a bowl of the mountains, the trails seemed alive with 
crawling men and mules. It kept reminding me of that 
old rush to Leadville in '79- when all the adventurers 
of the western world packed up and climbed across the 
snowy peaks to death or treasure. Only in those old 
days of the Rockies the crowds were colourful and pictur- 
esque ; flaming cowboy bandanas flashed at you along the 
trails ; rumbling old stage-coaches stuck beside you in 
the mud ; there were jingling silver spurs, carved Mexican 
hat bands, and the crude finery of frontier women. Here, 
all was silver olive grey. At one point, a gang of soldier 
labourers dug a new road with pick and crowbar and 
blasting-powder. At another a gang cleared with heart- 
shaped shovels the way through an old road which had 
been smothered in an avalanche. Once, in this day's 
wanderings or the next, I saw along a white mountain- 
side a long string of men, looking like flies gathered on a 
sugared cord. When I put the glasses on them, I found 
that they were dragging a gun mounted on sledges. Up 
they went, making almost imperceptible progress, across 
a slope on which a man could scarcely stand without the 
help of steps. Everywhere were trains of mules, lurching 
along the edge of precipices, packed with explosives, 
with shells, with food, with clothing, with that variety 
of supplies which civilised men need to live aijd fight in 
the Arctics of the temperate zone. You could see here 
the organisation of an army as by diagram ; you cannot 
see it so in flat country like Beligum or Flanders. You 
understood why, for every ten men on a firing line, a 
hundred are working behind, and why the man behind is 
more important, sometimes, than the man on the line. 
The organisation seemed to my inexperienced civilian 
eyes a perfect thing. I could notice no hitches anywhere- — 
no over-leisurely methods, no undue haste, and no jams 
in the traffic. Everywhere, even to the roof of Armaged- 
don, I was to find the men well-fed, well-equipped, lacking 
no necessity. I remarked this to a Florentine Captain 
whom I met somewhere up on the higher mountain- 
levels, adding that the (iermans, so proud of their team- 
work, should see what these Italians had done. 
" Ah," said my Florentine, " this efficiency of which 
the Germans are so proud — it is the attempt of mediocrity 
to reach excellence. It cannot be done. The one thing 
always better than efficiency — ^it is genius." 
He should know, this Florentine, having sprung from 
the little town which produced more genius in two cen- 
turies than many great nations in their whole history ! 
By mule, by teleferica and by legs we came at last to the 
point among the mountains where there was safety from 
avalanches, where many troops were gathered, and wherq 
we were going to make our start against the glacier. We 
were near the higher peaks now, those grey pinnacles 
which shoot up above the very ice-fields. To this point, 
as I have said, only the most hardy and expert mountain- 
eers came in winter before the war; and they seldom, 
and as a perilous adventure. Even in summer it was 
too hard and high a climb for the mountain goatherds ; 
they kept their flocks lower down. Except for Alpinists, 
the only form of higher animal life which put foot or 
hoof on these solitudes was the wild chamois. It was 
melting a little now, and along the path to camp we even 
trod in a little mud, but the path must have run across 
a ridge ; for just beside it a soldier, starting a piece of 
military work, was boring through the snow, looking 
for a foundation. He.ramm.ed and rammed, and his 
LAND & W A T E R 
17 
steel went down for six or seven feet:before it rang to 
rock.j < I. t f - j > r- -. ■■ » 
Soldiers were coming our way, first a group of oft'icers, 
who greeted us after the fashion of the Italian army by 
saluting and giving their names, and then a horde of 
soldiers, turning out to gape at the unparalleled spectacle 
of civilians in such a place. 
They might have been Gurkhas or Apache Indians for 
their complexions. That glare of sun on snow which was 
turning my own face a feverish lobster red, had tinted 
them not only brown but almost black. The North 
Italian is not specially dark ; there are as many grey 
eyed men among the Alpini as brown-eyed, as many 
brown-haired men as black-haired. But the sun spares no 
complexion up here. 
The camp was like other camps ; it is better that I 
should not describe it. Here, as everywhere in the real 
mountains, we saw no aeroplanes. The highest fighting 
in the Alps is almost at the extreme practicable elevation 
of aeroplane flight ; the aviator who dared it would 
merely skim the peaks and passes, an easy target. 
While we stood there, a company of soldiers with packs 
on their backs and ice-clamps on their shoulders, raced 
down a snowy decline into camp. They frolicked like 
boys out of school — snowballing, washing each other's- 
faces, coming on by great, vaulting leaps. 
Back from the Trenches 
"They are just back from the trenches," said the 
officer in command. Now I had seen many men of many 
armies " just back from the trenches," an,'l the contrast 
here struck me at once. The others had shown the strain 
in pinched faces and weary movements. But the Alpini 
came out larking. The men of these peaks, fighting not 
only the enemj- but nature, weary leagues and heights away 
from civilisation, are the most cheerful warriors I have 
seen in Armageddon. Why I cannot guess unless it be 
the nobility bred of the mountains. 
When we had finished luncheon, which a sergea'nt cooked 
for us over a spirit stove, our Lieutenant inspected the kit 
and equipment of his little command and issued orders. 
Our great steel-barred Alpine boots were wet in spite of 
the thorough greasing which Giacomo had given them 
that morning. It is hard to keep dry feet in thawing 
weather. Those boots must be greased again. We must 
put on two fresh pairs apiece of heavy woollen socks. 
Our big double sweaters, our mask-like woollen caps, and 
our. long mittens had come up in our knapsacks by tele- 
ferica and soldier-back. Another squad of soldiers would 
carry them and our overcoats up to the point where we 
might need wraps badly. 
" It is warm enough now," explained the Lieutenant, 
" but you never know. And see ! " he pointed upward. 
Sortes Sbahespeariana^ 
By SIR SIDNEY LEE 
Aiistria'.s Press Bureau on Russia's 
advance. 
/ do not fly ; but advantageous care 
Withdrew me from the odds of multitude 
■Troilui »nd Cressida, v., iv., 23-4. 
Food S carcity in Germany. 
Those palates zvho, not yet tzvo sttmmers 
younger. 
Must have inventions to delight the taste, 
Would 710 w be glad of bread, attd beg forit. 
Pericle.. I., iv., 39-41. 
Recoornition of the Volunteers. 
While that the arm^d hand doth fight 
abroad, 
The advised head defends itself at home. 
Henry V., I., ii., 178 9. 
