TOMMY IN ITALY.

Hokitika Guardian, 11 December 1917, Page 4

TOMMY IN ITALY.

MACARONI ANI) CHIANTI RATIONS. A British soldier fighting on tho Italian front writes ; The last fortnight we have beetl taking part—a very small part—in what the Daily Mail says is the biggest battle of the war. If noise is a criterion it must be right, but the Weird thing is the utter lifelessness ot a modern battle. The other afternoon I sat on a wooded spur and watched 15 miles of hills all spouting flame and smoko, and the only.living things insight were two men running across a bridge which was being shelled and a loose male galloping across a field ; nothing more, and this in a'battle in which the Daily Mail says there are nearer two million thau one engaged in a 40 mile front.

At my feet was a mined chateau, with its trees and statues aud fountains all knocked to blazes. Two or three field batteries were firing furiously, but not a sign was there of guns or gunners,except the long streaks of flame and the ear splitting racket.

A long, low hill on the other side of a ruined town was being attacked by infantry, but not a thing could be seen except a great pall of yellow dust. Whenever there was a slight lull in the artillery one could hear the stutter of machine guns and a bird, of all things, singing in the wood behind me. Going up a hill farther I found the wood full of Italian supports smoking, sleeping, or cooking, and one realised that the whole of that vast battlefield was a veritable ants’ nest of crowded life. Coming out into more open country a cheery British Tommy, arrayed in shorts and a smasher hat, suddenly popped up from a bush like a Jack-in-the-box and asked me to mind his telephone wires. One comes upon a battery position absolutely unexpectedly, the guns so carefully camouflaged that within ten yards there is nothing to be seen but a few sandbags. Tommy is an adaptable bird. He eats liis macaroni and cheese and drinks his chianti (we get Italian rations) with the same gusto as a “Dixie” stew and a pot of beer. He is also Anglicising the Italian language in the same way as he Anglicised French. This is a source of never-ending amusement to the Italians.