England for five years." And a fourth writes, "The great majority of
these Italians have been in different parts of America" (this of course
is a wild exaggeration!), "they are very delighted to have a chat. In
fact I think the Italian people are very sociable. Nearly all the boys
can begin to make themselves understood." These tributes are obviously
sincere. They occur in the midst of good-natured grumbles about the
heat, and the monotony of macaroni and rice and stew, and of requests
for "more fags" and of hopes that "this business will soon be over."

The fact that so many Italians, having lived in England and America, can
speak English and know something of us and our ways, accounts for much.
For a foreign language is the Great Barrier Reef against the voyages of
ordinary people towards international understanding. And the country
counts for something, too. Its natural obstacles compel admiration for
an Army which has achieved so much in spite of them. And I am sure that
no British gunner, however inarticulate, who has served in Italy, and
especially those young fellows who, when war broke out, stood only on
the threshold of their manhood, with their minds still wide open for new
impressions, has not felt some sort of secret thrill at the astounding
and incomparable beauty of this country, the very contemplation of
which sometimes brings one near to weeping.

I recall, for instance, a tough old Sergeant Major, with twenty-seven
years' service with our Artillery all over the world, an utterly
unromantic person. He and I were bringing back my working party on the
10th of August from Versa to Rubbia in a lorry. The men were singing
loudly, and greeted an Italian sentry on Peteano bridge with cheerful
cries of "Buona sera, Johnny!" And the Sergeant Major suddenly observed
to me that "this must be a fine country in peace-time," and went on to
praise the mountains, and the rivers, and the trees, especially the