A WEEK WITH THE ALPINI

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3185, 8 September 1917, Page 12

A WEEK WITH THE ALPINI

9 . • ITALY'S MOUNTAIN SOLDIERS

PERILOUS SERVICE

(By Hamilton l''yfe, in the "Daily Mail.")

I havo been spendiug a week with different detachments of Italian Alpine troops in tho high mountains., These troops seem to mo to l)e in many ways the mofit wonderful soldiers in the world. To bogin with, no other ti'oops could support so easily and even gaily tho conditions of life on rocky peaks and snowy ranges, far above the rest of mankind. 1 iound tho thin atmosphere trying even at midsummer. 1 suffered for a clay or two from a form of mountain sickness. I had to wear snow-goggles to protect my eyes. My face became first scarlet and then skinless from the combined effect of sun. and snow. 1 discovered for tho first time, while 1 6cvambled up an almost perpendicular rock-face, and clung with the desperate energy of a drowning man to a rope which hung from the top, I discovered what, it means to bo 47 years of age. These things, of courso, do not troublo the Alpini, although some volunteers run up to 50, "and the oldest men." I was told frequently, "are the best." They have boon aceustonied, many of theni, to the high mountain regions from their birth.

Many of them, but. yet not nearly all. Like our own Highland regiments, they get their recruits where they can, and they quickly turn the man of the _ plain, or tho lowlands into so good an imitation of the mountaineer from birth that it is hard to distinguish between them. They all struck mo as being more liko chamois than men. They leap about in plnces Vhero a slip means destruction, with not merely a disregard, but a pas : <ive unconsciousness of danger. .They stand on crags with oternity around and below thorn, just as one sees chamois standing in pictures painted by artists who 'draw their inspiration, from the Zoological Gardens. They run down slopes where their visitor sought eaoli separate foothold most carefully, with an apparent longing to bo dashed to pieces. Living among eo many perils from Naturo as woll as from the evil warlike arts of men, they come to heed, them as little as we do the ohances of being run over in city streets. As I drovo up the lovely valley whose splendours of green hill and. grey mountain \ culminate at Cortina, lying in its shell of massivo Dolomite groups, I eaw many times tlio notice, ' , Beware of Avalanches. I' was shown places whore wbolo columns of men, where barracks. on tho mountain fide, where parties of Toaclinakers, had. been swept into suclclon annihilation. Even when there is respite from this peril, ono must beware of talis of rock and stones. Several times X was told to bo quick aorosa a. sandy, etony slope on the sleep side of a mountain, so as not to bo caught by a rush from above. My guides were more particular about avoiding these than about crossing; zones of Austrian, fire, I. noticed. They find Nature u. worso enemy than Birds' Nest Quarters. If "at inidsunimor you.find. ico on your water in the morning you can BU«a what tho cold is like in tho winter \et yo guess will be a. long way short of uio reality. Alpini officers, less accustomed than their men to hardship*, have told me that in windy weather when bno*. storms blot out; every familiar, mark, 0 Jβ appalling. Xet in all weather sentriesPmu t fe bo posted, reliefs must find their way to the firing-line, transport go on a.s usual.. And sorneW or other aJI those services do go on. Ihe motto of the Alpini is, Never bo beat. On lie way up a mountain, where . had hard work enough to. drag mysoU, 1 overtook a food convoy. A dozen mea were carrying eoup in sealed vehsolb, wtter-S a«<l bvead up to the, wdottee on tho very' summit. Th«', "• ™* ed' seventy pounds each. Lhey MU to cam them for nearly two houffi, panting all tho time. 1 asked one at them >f be considered it hard work? Ho grinned. "Nothing to speak of," ho said, if only this blessed soup-tin wasn t so hot Si up the side of this mountain tnero were companies of Alpini, living wooden hute, fixed to the sheer rock like birds" nests. Outside the huts thore aro lifiln balconies on which, thn men spend Softhertime, there being uowherc eke, in fact, t<j spend it Prom these balconies there is a drop of several thousand feet into the valley, where the famous Dolomite Bead nine, ?"»*«£- pies both sides continually is mining. The Alpini do not pretend to ljke tin* kind of burrowing warfare., Thoj want to get at the enemy. How they reach him thev (lo not mind. If necessary, they climb up, hanging on to the rookface with teeth and eyelids as well as hands and feet.