Things were quiet on this sector of the Front that afternoon, though Italian Field Guns were bursting shrapnel from time to time over the Tamburo. As I went along the trenches I was several times greeted by Italians who had been in America, "Hullo, John! How are you? How d'you like this dam country?" This type brings back with it across the Atlantic the frank, almost brutal, familiarity of a new and democratic civilisation. It contrasts oddly with the quieter ways of those Italians who have lived all their lives in Italy, amid one of the oldest and most mature civilisations of the world.

On our way down the hill we passed a seemingly endless string of pack mules coming up, laden with food and ammunition. Always at evening this wonderful system of supply was visibly working, triumphing over tremendous natural difficulties. We passed, too, a party of about fifty men hauling up on long ropes a heavy drilling engine, the sort of labour of which British fatigue parties have, luckily for themselves, no experience. Mists came down from the mountains as we descended, and rainstorms threatened, but did not break.



CHAPTER IX

AN EVENING AT GORIZIA

On the first day in August I had been doing some observation at S. Andrea in the afternoon, and, this duty over, I got permission to walk into Gorizia and visit the section of the British Red Cross stationed there, several of whose members I knew. It is a longer walk than one would think, for S. Andrea is practically a southern suburb of Gorizia, which, however, straggles over a large area of country. The railway bridge across the Isonzo is broken down by shell fire and so are two other bridges,—all three of stone,—but these could be soon repaired, if we made a big advance. It would be wasted labour to repair them now, for the Austrians would only break them down again. The Italians have run up a low, broad wooden bridge, sheltered from Austrian view behind one of the broken stone bridges. From time to time the Austrians hit this bridge, and then the Italians quickly make it good again. To be able to cross the Isonzo at this point is a convenience, but not a military necessity, for all movement of troops and supplies into Gorizia can be carried out on the left bank of the river and across bridges some miles further down-stream.

The suburbs of the town were badly knocked about, but the centre was not at this time much damaged. Gorizia lies in a salient of the hills, with the Austrians looking down upon it from the tops of most of them. But, still hoping to win it back, they do not shell it heavily or often. There are special reasons, too, for their forbearance. For Gorizia is a sort of Austrian Cheltenham, whither Austrian officers retire in large numbers to pass their last years in villas which they take over from one another's widows. So the Austrian officer class has a sort of vested interest in the preservation of the place. So also have certain Hebrew Banks in Vienna, which hold mortgages on a great part of the land in and around the city, which just before the war was being rapidly developed as a fashionable Spa. It is a well laid out town, with large public gardens and good buildings, architecturally very like the larger Italian towns on the other side of the old frontier, Udine for example, but with a certain element of a heavier and more rococo style, the Viennese. There is still a fairly large civilian population in the town, and one restaurant still keeps open.

I found the British Red Cross in the Via Ponte Isonzo, in what had once been a big boarding-house, with a large untidy garden behind. Most of those stationed there were motor ambulance drivers, about twenty in number, some too old to fight, some rejected for health, some Quakers, unwilling to kill, but willing to risk their own lives on behalf of the wounded, others again boys under military age, who go, as soon as they can, to the Navy or the Flying Corps. It is brave and nervous work they do, driving ambulances in the dark, without lights and under fire.

After dinner I sat out in the garden in the twilight and talked with an old acquaintance of mine, who has had a large share in the organisation and daily work of the British Red Cross in Italy. The Italians, he said, are really beginning to feel their feet, as a united nation, in this war. Men of all classes from all parts of Italy are meeting and mixing with one another as they have never done before, and the old regionalismo is being rapidly undermined. He himself has almost ceased to think critically of the past or speculatively of the future, but just lives and works in the present. As to the state of the world after the war, he is very confident, provided we go on fighting long enough. Nothing that happens at home is of great importance, all the pressure is on the Fronts. Everything is looking now in the direction of democracy. Even Russia, in the long run unconquerable, has got her good out of the war already, whatever miseries and transitory anarchy she may have yet to undergo. In England and elsewhere many of the present political leaders are vile, but we shall all know what we want the world to look like, and to be like, after the war, and new leaders will arise and lead us. When the survivors of our smitten generation have grown old, there must be a peace of hearts, as well as a peace of arms, between the young of all lands. But our generation can never make personal friendships again with Germans, seeing that they have killed nearly all those who mattered most to us, and that we have to spend the rest of our lives without them.

* * * * *

He motored me back to the Vippacco bridge at Rubbia. When next I heard of him it was a month later at the height of the Italian offensive. He had been severely wounded on the Bainsizza Plateau.

The British Red Cross did splendid work in Italy and made a big contribution to Anglo-Italian friendship and understanding. They began their operations in Italy in September 1915, and were thus the first Englishmen to "show the flag" on the Italian Front. Thousands of Italians will gratefully and affectionately remember them till the end of their lives. More even than the British fighting troops who came after them, the British Red Cross will remain a historic legend in Italy in the days to come.



CHAPTER X

A CEMETERY AT VERSA

I was at Versa, as I have already said, from the 2nd to the 10th of August, to supervise a party working on the hospital. I walked one evening down the village street, where in the light of the sunset an Italian military band was playing to a mixed crowd of soldiers and civilians. Just outside the village I came to the gates of a cemetery, where six tall cypresses stand like sentinels on guard over the graves of many hundreds of Italian dead. This was at first a civilian graveyard, but all the dead have Italian names, except one Kirschner, and even he was called Giuseppe and has an Italian inscription on his tombstone. For this is Italia Redenta, in this one little corner of which a great company of Italian youth have already laid down their lives. And now the graves, in long straight rows, have filled one newly added field, and begun to flow across a second, and soon from the Field Hospitals in the village more dead will come.

Here, as in our war graveyards in France, no religious dogma or supernatural hope intrudes upon the little wooden crosses. On these, for the most part, you can read only the bare conventional attributes of each little handful of dust, which has passed through its quivering agony into the still sleep of decay,—its name and regiment, its civilian home, the place and date of its death. A few have more than this. Here lie the two brothers Bellina in one grave, with a cross at their head and another, rougher and larger, at their feet, announcing simply, "I due fratelli," "the two brothers." And here is a tombstone engraved with an anchor, for one who, very early in the war, was hit while fording the Isonzo in face of the enemy's fire. "Al Pontiere Guazzaro Giuseppe che valorosamente sfidando le infide acque dell' Isonzo cadeva colpito dal piombo nemico. 25 Giugno 1915."[1] And here is another inscription, typical of that Latin sense of comradeship, which is more articulate, though not necessarily more profound, than ours. "Sottotenente Arcangeli Antonio, con commossa memoria," the officers of his Battery, "il loro orgoglio infinite qui eternano." "In deeply moved remembrance they here place upon eternal record their infinite pride in him." It is poor stuff in English, but a vivid and quite natural tribute in Italian.

[Footnote 1: "To the Sapper Giuseppe Guazzaro, who fell, while bravely defying the treacherous waters of the Isonzo, struck down by an enemy bullet, 25th June, 1915."]

Where the sun went down, the sky was a sea of rose red and golden green, studded with little long islands of dark cloud, and on the edge of this sea the evening star twinkled like a tiny illumined boat, dancing, a blaze of light, upon the waves. To left and right the cloudbanks were a deep purple blue, fast fading into the dim warm grey of an Italian night. East and north the mountains that bound the plain, silent witnesses of Italy's great struggle, were hidden in the dusk, and the cypress sentinels stood up sharp and black against the darkening sky. The band had ceased to play and one heard only the chirp of grasshoppers, and across an orchard the soft sound of Italian speech, and the distant song of two soldiers in the village street. But the warm air, which just now was throbbing with a military march, seemed to be throbbing still with an aching longing that happier days may come swiftly to this land of beauty and pain, so that the sacrifice of all these dead shall not be wholly waste.

* * * * *

Not many miles away, as the sun was setting, an Austrian shell burst in a British Battery, and three hours later through the dark under faint stars an ambulance lorry brought to us the bodies of four British gunners, whose dust will mingle with Italian dust, under Italian skies, for ever.



CHAPTER XI

UDINE

I first saw Udine on the 5th of August. I was still on duty at Versa, but the conversation in the R.A.M.C. Mess bored me, particularly at meals; it was all sputum and latrines, gas gangrene and the relative seniority of the doctors one to another. There was nothing to keep me at Versa, for my gunner fatigue party did not in truth need any supervision. So I determined to go to Udine. I started, walking, about 10 a.m. It was not too hot. I walked about three miles and then picked up a lorry. One can generally get a ride on an Italian lorry if there is any room, by waving one's stick at the driver, shouting out one's destination, and looking agreeable. This one took me to Mogaredo and then stopped. I then walked another three miles to a point near Trevignano. Here I was within ten miles of Udine and picked up another lorry which took me the rest of the way. It was driven by a Triestino who, seeing what was coming, had left the Unredeemed City just before Italy declared war. His face was very sad, and he made a gesture of weeping, drawing his fingers downwards from his eyes across his cheeks, though his eyes were dry. "How long?" he asked. "How long before Trieste will be free?"

We approached Udine through a long avenue of plane trees, planted under Napoleon. It is a gay little town, with arcaded streets, clustering round a hill on the top of which stands a Castello, with a memorial tower to the martyrs of 1848, and on the hill slopes public gardens full of cypresses. Udine was at this time a nest of British newspaper correspondents. I began to make their acquaintance in the afternoon. First an Anglo-Italian lady from Rome, whom I met sitting out behind the Hotel Grande d'Italia under the shade of trees. She was evidently something of a figure here and received several callers, all ladies of Udine, as we sat drinking coffee. One of these, on learning that I was a gunner, took out a locket and handed it to me. It contained a picture of a marvellously handsome boy. It was her eldest son, killed three months before in Cadore, a Lieutenant in a Mountain Battery. He was only nineteen. His mother began to weep as she handed me the locket, and it was the lady from Rome who told me these things. Then the mother cried, between her sobs, "E troppo crudele, la guerra!" And as I handed the locket back, I thought of the unmarried childless parson in khaki who considered that "three or four years of war may be tremendously worth while."

* * * * *

Later I met and dined with two of the male correspondents of the London Press. Conversation, in the sense of a mere flow of talk, is never difficult with newspaper men. They are among the most articulate of the British, although much that they articulate is only patter. These two had plenty of miscellaneous information, much of which I received in a sceptical spirit, but I learned some interesting facts, which I verified from other sources later on. Chief of these was the effect produced upon Young Italy by the personal gallantry of the poet D'Annunzio, who, when he is not flying at the head of the Italian bombing planes against Pola, is making fiery orations to the Infantry in the front line and distributing among them little tricolor flags bearing his own autograph.

Having talked till midnight, I found a bedroom at the Croce Malta, where I slept for four hours. Then I got up and dressed and walked to the railway station, where I drank coffee and ate biscuits. A train was due to leave for Palmanova, the nearest station to Versa, at 5.30 a.m. As I waited for it on the platform, I looked out at the station lights, a dull orange under their dark shades, and at the red signals beyond, four in a vertical line, and beyond again at the dim outlines of houses and dark trees against a sky, at first a very deep dark blue, but slowly lighting up with the beginning of the dawn. The train did not start till nearly seven. By this time it was quite light, and the sun had turned the distant Cadore into a ridge of pink grey marble, very sharply outlined against the morning sky, and in the middle distance, just across the maize fields which run beside the railway track, rose the campanile of some little village of Friuli, like a stick of shining alabaster.



CHAPTER XII

THE BRITISH AND THE ITALIAN SOLDIER

The sending of ten British Batteries to Italy had something more than a military significance. Otherwise the thing was hardly worth doing. It was evident that here was an international gesture. An effort was being made to promote a real Anglo-Italian understanding, to substitute for those misty and unreal personifications—"England" to an Italian, "Italy" to an Englishman—real personal knowledge and a sense of individual comradeship in a great cause. Our task, in short, was not only to fight, but also to fraternise. But would we fraternise successfully? For it has been said, not without some truth, that "England is an island and every Englishman is an island," and in the early days I was doubtful what sort of personal effect we should produce, and what sort of personal impressions our men would bring away.

When I got back to the Battery from Versa I began to take stock of my own impressions so far, and to notice, in the letters which I had to censor, the drift of general opinion. It was surprisingly satisfactory.

"Some of these Italians," writes one gunner, "are the finest fellows you could wish to meet. Our men get on very well with them." "The Italians," writes another, "are very good soldiers and nice chaps. We get on well together." "The other night," writes a third, "I was out laying telephone wires in a graveyard. We saw some Italian soldiers carrying a tombstone for their Lieutenant who had recently been killed. The Italians look after their graves very well. A Sergeant, who had spent most of his life in England, asked us in and gave us some coffee and cognac which was jolly acceptable. He asked if we had any old English papers, as he was forgetting all his English, as he had been away from 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 cypresses, and the surface of the roads, and some town behind the lines, Udine I think, which was "very pretty" and "quite all right." The Italians, too, were "all right," which from him was most high praise. And then, as though half ashamed of having said so much, he added, rather hastily, "But there's nothing to touch the old country after all. I think I shall settle down there when this war's over. I've had about enough of foreign parts."

And what do the Italians think of us, I wonder? I only know that they treat us always with great friendliness, and show great interest in our guns and all our doings. So the international gesture has, I think, begun already to succeed. And its success will grow. For those British graves, which we shall leave behind us—some are dug and filled already—will tell their own story to the future. They will be facts, if only tiny facts, both in British and Italian history, and "far on in summers that we shall not see," bathed in the warm brilliance of Italian sunshine, they will bear witness to Anglo-Italian comradeship across the years.



CHAPTER XIII

I JOIN THE FIRST BRITISH BATTERY IN ITALY

On the 15th of August arrived an operation order indicating our targets in the first and second phases of the great Italian offensive, which had been long expected, and also the objectives of the Infantry. The day on which the offensive was to begin was not yet announced. Six more British Siege Batteries, giving us now three British Heavy Artillery Groups, had arrived on the Carso and in the Monfalcone sector about a fortnight before. The French too had sent a number of Heavy Batteries, which were in position on Monte Sabotino and elsewhere north of the Vippacco. But the counsel of wise men had been disregarded, and no French or British Infantry, no complete Allied Army Corps, had been sent to the Italian Front, where a big military success could have been more easily obtained and would have had greater military and political results at this time, than anywhere else.

On this day I walked to and from S. Andrea, returning to the Battery in the evening greatly perspiring but with an enormous appetite. Large numbers of Infantry were going up the Vallone and the Volconiac in the dusk. Italian Infantry march in twos on either side of a road, not in fours on one side as ours do.

The Austrians shelled a good deal this evening, and put a lot of gas shell into Merna.

* * * * *

On the 17th I was transferred to another Battery. It was the eve of the offensive, and my new Battery was an officer short, while my old Battery was again at full strength, the officer who had been in hospital wounded, when I arrived in Italy, having now returned. I joined my new Battery about midday. They were in position on the Vippacco, close to the former position of my old Battery. I was destined to stay with them for seventeen months, till after the war was won, and I came to identify myself very completely with them, and to be proud to be one of them.

This had been the first of all the British Batteries to come into action in Italy, and had fired the first British shell against Austria. The Major in command had the reputation of being the most efficient British Battery Commander in Italy, and, so far as my experience of others went, he deserved it. He was a Regular soldier, and had served with a Mountain Battery in India, a service which requires and breeds a power of quick decision, by no means universal among Garrison Gunners of the Regular Army. Personally he was a most delightful man, at his best a very amusing talker, a pleasant companion and an excellent Commanding Officer. Few officers whom I have met took as much thought and trouble as he for the material welfare of his men. From his junior officers he combined a demand for high efficiency with a sometimes wonderful solicitude for their comfort, health and peace of mind. He never asked any of us to do more, or even as much, as he did willingly himself, and if anything went wrong in the Battery, which it seldom did, he never hesitated, in dealing with higher authorities, to take all the blame. He had been twice wounded already, once on the Somme and again in the Italian May offensive. Later on he was wounded a third time.

Captain Jeune, the Second-in-Command, was also a Regular, but very young. In mind and manner he was older than his years, and he knew his work as a military professional extremely well. Some found him truculent, but he never displayed any truculence to me.

On my arrival I became Senior Subaltern of the Battery. The three Junior Subalterns, Darrell, Leary and Winterton, provided a variety of companionship. Darrell was a man of business, a most capable officer, a good Mess Secretary, and very easy to get on with. Leary was a dark-haired Irishman, who had originated in the County Limerick. He was a good mathematician, but in conversation was apt to be long-winded, and had a wonderful capacity for making a simple matter appear complex. He had been, by turns, a civil engineer and an actor, and had a fine singing voice. As an officer he was infinitely laborious and conscientious, but with a queer disconcerting streak of Irish unaccountability. One never quite knew what he would do, if left alone in charge of anything.

Winterton was a good-looking boy, who would have gone up to Cambridge in 1915, if there had been no war. Instead he enlisted in the Horse Artillery, became a Corporal, and went to the Dardanelles as a Despatch Rider. Having spent several months in hospital at Malta and nearly died of dysentery, he came back to England and was given an Artillery Commission. He was a gallant youth but just a little casual, with rather a music-hall mind, but good company, if one was not left alone with him too long.

There was also attached to the Battery at this time an Italian Artillery officer, whom I will call Manzoni, a Southerner, small and very dark. He had taught himself to speak excellent English though he had never been in England. He was an intelligent observer and an amusing companion, and we became great friends.

The personnel of the Battery was splendid, and I do not believe that in any other Battery the spirit of the men was better, nor the personal relations between officers and men on a sounder and healthier footing, than with us.

Some Battery Commanders proceed on the principle that even the most experienced N.C.O. cannot be trusted to perform the simplest duty, except under the eye of an officer, however junior. The Battery in this case becomes helplessly dependent on the officers. If they go out of action, so does the whole Battery. Other Battery Commanders, of whom my new Major was one, proceed on the principle that as many N.C.O.'s as possible should be able to do an officer's work, so that the Battery should be able to continue in action without any officers at all if necessary, and also be able to adapt itself readily to a sudden change from stagnant to open warfare. This principle is universally applied in the French Artillery, where, apart from its evident wisdom, it has been necessitated by the great shortage of officers. My own Major used to train all our best N.C.O.'s with this object in view and, when satisfied of their competence, used to give them in normal times considerable responsibilities in the working of the Battery in action. The result was that we had as capable and reliable a set of "Numbers One" and "B.C.A.'s" as could be found anywhere.[1] The men thoroughly appreciated the amount of trust reposed in them and never failed us. Furthermore, when I joined the Battery there was hardly a man who was not a trained specialist, either as a Signaller, Gunlayer or B.C.A.

[Footnote 1: A "Number One" is the Sergeant or other N.C.O. in charge of a gun and its detachment when in action. A "B.C.A." (or Battery Commander's Assistant) assists the officer on duty in the Command Post in locating points on the map, in making numerical calculations, and in other miscellaneous duties.]

Seventeen months later, only the Major, Leary and myself, out of the officers in the Battery when I joined, still remained with it, and death, wounds, sickness, promotion and commissions from the ranks had taken from us many of our best N.C.O.'s and men. But through all the varied experiences of those long months, there had been a continuity of tradition and an unchanging spirit. We were still, for me and for many, the First British Battery in Italy.

PART III

THE ITALIAN SUMMER OFFENSIVE, 1917

CHAPTER XIV

THE OFFENSIVE OPENS

On the 18th of August I got up at half-past four in the morning. There was a mist in the air, which cleared away as the day grew warmer. The big bombardment in what the journalists called the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo began at six o'clock and went on continuously all day. Once the thing was started, I had little to do except to change occasionally the rate of fire,—"lento," "normale," "vivace," "celere" and "double vivace" by turns. The first part of the day I was in charge of the Right Section of the Battery and sat most of the time on a wooden bench at a table under a tarpaulin among the acacias. By my side sat a telephonist in communication with the Battery Command Post, some four hundred yards away to the left, beyond the Left Section. My only other apparatus was a megaphone, a notebook and pencil, and a pipe. Occasionally I would go and stand by one of the guns, to check the gun-laying and to see that the guns were recoiling and coming up again without undue violence. One had also to guard against a dust cloud being raised by the blast of the guns, thus giving away our position to the enemy. To prevent this, we formed a chain of men every half hour to pass water-buckets from hand to hand, from the river just behind us down the sunken road, to lay the dust in and around the gun pits. But under an Italian August sun the ground soon grew parched and dusty again.

The Austrians did not shell much till the evening, when they nearly hit our Mess and shell-shocked a man of another Battery in the road close by. But the Italian bombardment all day was very heavy, and our guns and theirs were to go on firing all night. Just before midnight I relieved the Major in the Command Post, and he and the rest of the officers went to bed. So I sat there wakefully among the acacias, awaiting any sudden orders from the Group to switch or lift to new targets, or to vary the rate of fire. Every now and then I took a walk round the Battery to see that all was working correctly, and every hour the N.C.O.'s in charge of each gun brought in their fired tubes to the Command Post and reported how many rounds had been fired in the preceding hour and how many tubes misfired.

* * * * *

It was a clear, starlight night, up above the multitudinous flashes of British and Italian guns. At close quarters these flashes were blindingly bright, and flung up showers of red sparks. In the intervals of a few seconds between flashes, if one stood with one's eyes fixed on the guns, the stars seemed blotted out in an utterly black darkness. A long bombardment is one of the most boring things in the world by reason of its intense monotony, and because in a queer half-unconscious way it begins, after many hours, very slightly to fray the nerves. Listening and watching in the small hours, and from time to time directing, I found myself able, with almost discreditable elastic-mindedness, to call up at will any of the aspects of modern war,—its utter and inherent wickedness, its artistic and scientific majesty, its occasional moral justification against the oppressor, its ultimate blank insanity. But I would not have liked to be an Austrian yesterday or this morning. The Italian Infantry attacked on our sector at 5.30 a.m. There was a tremendous crescendo of gunfire at this time. The Major relieved me in the Command Post at 5 o'clock, and urged me to go to bed, but I did not feel inclined to sleep. Instead I went up about 6 o'clock through Pec village to an O.P. on a hillside beyond, to see what could be seen. But all the Front was hidden in a thick mist, made thicker by the smoke, shot through with innumerable momentary flashes. All round us thousands of guns were going off, filling the air with a deafening and continuous roar. A telephonist was with me who had been through a good deal of the Somme fighting, and had found the Italian Front, in times of lull, a little uneventful. But this morning he was full of appreciation. "This is something like it, isn't it, Sir?" he said. Being able to see nothing, I went back to bed for some hours and spent the afternoon at a Battery O.P., which had been specially arranged for this offensive, in an Italian reserve trench just off the Pec-Merna road.

* * * * *

The bombardment continued through the 19th and 20th and 21st of August, now with guns firing independently, now with salvos or rounds of Battery fire, now with individual guns being ranged afresh from some O.P., with hardly an hour's interval of silence. How little the individual soldier knows of what is happening at these times! Conflicting rumours of varying credibility came in to us during those three days, rumours of big advances both to the north and to the south. But on our own sector we knew that no permanent advance had been made, for we were still firing a good deal on old "Zone 15," one of our first day's targets, and on that damned Hill 464, the most important of the first objectives of the Infantry.

Before this offensive began I had slept in a hut above ground, but the Major had now insisted that I should sleep in a small dug-out half-way up a steep bank, at the bottom of which our Mess Hut stood in an orchard stretching down to the river bank. The Austrians shelled us intermittently, but without doing any damage. In the small hours of the 21st I was dozing in my dug-out, where I had been reading Lowes Dickinson's Choice Before Us, a congenial book at such a time, with nine-tenths of which I was in complete agreement. I then heard a series of Austrian "4.2's" come sailing over my dug-out and burst just at the foot of the bank. They made miserable bursts in the soft earth, so small as to make me suspect gas shells for a moment, but this suspicion did not worry me, for no one was sleeping at the bottom and gas cannot run uphill. Next morning I found a shell hole fifteen yards from the Mess Hut, another on the path and several others among the trees. They were "double events," with a shrapnel and time fuse head and a high explosive and percussion fuse tail, but neither head nor tail had been of much effect. There was very heavy firing that morning, but less in the afternoon. Great gloom prevailed on our sector, where we were back again in most of our first positions. The Infantry were reported to be unable to make headway against machine guns on Hill 464 and the Tamburo. To the south, on the Carso, the ruins of the village of Selo had been taken, but not much else.

But, though we did not know it then, the Italian Army in those first three days had won magnificent successes to the north of us.



CHAPTER XV

WE SWITCH OUR GUNS NORTHWARD

On the 22nd of August we got for the first time definite news of the Italian advance on the Bainsizza Plateau. The day was rather hotter than usual, and on our own sector there was still no appreciable progress. Hill 464 had been won and lost three times since yesterday morning, and, to the south of it, Hill 368 also had been won and lost again. Up there it must be a vain and shocking shambles. It was claimed for Cadorna's communiques, I think justly, that at this time no others were more moderate and truthful. No point was claimed as won, until it was not merely won but securely held.

The Italian Battery beside us were moving north that night to the Tolmino sector and next day our Left Section was to move out into a position in the open, in order to switch north and shell S. Marco, which we could not reach from our present gun pits. S. Marco, being north of the Vippacco, was in the area of the Italian Second Army, commanded by Capello, which had been performing the great feats of these last days. It was clear that, for the moment, the main Italian effort was being made to the north.

Indeed by the 24th all the British guns of our Group were pointing north-eastward, firing at S. Marco and neighbouring targets. British casualties and those of the Italian Heavy Artillery had been very light, the Austrian having concentrated practically all his Artillery fire, in addition to his machine guns, on the Italian Infantry, amongst whom there had been hideous slaughter.

But in the early morning of the 23rd an Austrian shell killed a Sergeant and two men in one of our Batteries. The Sergeant was torn into several pieces, one of which landed on the top of the Officers' Mess and another in a gun pit 150 yards away. One of his legs could not be found, so they had to bury what they could, an incomplete set of torn fragments. But three or four days later the smell of the lost limb came drifting down a ravine above their guns, and following the scent, they found it, black with flies among the stones.

In my old Battery, too, four hundred cartridges went up with a direct hit, and the Austrians then shelled the smoke with unpleasant effect. A twelve-inch shell also burst very close to the Battery's Mess, killing a number of Italian telephonists next door.

Throughout these days, periods of very heavy firing alternated with periods of comparative quiet.

* * * * *

On the 25th a party of nearly thirty British officers and men, a procession of two cars, three side-cars and twelve motor bicycles, went up Podgora Hill. The Italian Second Army, to whom we were strangers, watched us with interest as we went past in a cloud of dust. On the top of Podgora Hill was a series of O.P.'s, known collectively as Maria O.P., hollowed out of the rock, approached through rock passages, and in front a wide rocky platform commanding a splendid panorama. At our feet was a precipitous descent, clothed with acacias, at the bottom Podgora with its gutted factories, then the broad stream of the Isonzo, and Gorizia on the further side. To the left we could see the Isonzo winding down out of the mountains, between Monte Sabotino and Monte Santo, the latter hiding from our sight the Bainsizza Plateau. In the centre of our view rose the great mass of San Gabriele; Italian patrols were out on its southern slopes, clearly visible through field-glasses. Then Santa Catarina and the long low brown hillside of San Marco. Away to the right the flat lands of the Isonzo and Vippacco valleys, and beyond these again the northern ridge of the Carso, from Dosso Faiti to the Stoll, beautifully visible. On the right everything seemed quiet, but there was tremendous Allied shelling of San Gabriele, Santa Catarina and San Marco. French Gunners also were here with fifteen-inch guns firing on San Marco, and two of their officers were at Maria O.P. that day. It was symbolic that from this height, for the first time on the Italian Front, Gunners of the three Western Allies were looking out eastward together toward the Promised Land.

The enemy trenches on San Marco lay out of view behind the crest, and our registration point, a white house on the top of the ridge, was almost completely blown away by a big French shell while we were watching, and waiting our turn to fire. We saw another shell burst in the Isonzo just above Gorizia, causing a huge waterspout. Colonel Canale arrived while we were firing. His white gloves were a little soiled, and he seemed rather worried and more serious than usual. He was disappointed at the stoppage of the offensive on the Carso.



CHAPTER XVI

THE FALL OF MONTE SANTO

Even when our guns were turned against San Marco, we continued to man Sant' Andrea O.P., for one could get good general observation to the northward from the other side of the ruined house which was the old O.P., and most of the trenches on San Marco were invisible except from aeroplanes. I spent the night there several times during the August offensive, watching by turns with one of our Bombardiers, to whom I explained that wars were made by small groups of wicked men, generally also rich, sitting and planning in secret. I proposed to him the need to shell such groups, while they were yet forming, with the shrapnel of public opinion.

It was also at Sant' Andrea that I met a young Lieutenant of Italian Field Artillery, a Sardinian from Cagliari. He had still the face of a child, and he had, too, that perfect self-possession and that wonderful, soft charm which are so often found together in the Italian youth. I think of him often with affection, and with an eager hope that he passed unharmed through all the vicissitudes which were to follow.

He and I spent many hours together, watching those bloody, memorable hills. I met him first on the 24th of August, and we drank a bottle of Vermouth together, and discussed with enthusiasm many subjects. We even worked out in detail a scheme for the interchange of students, for periods of a year at a time, between Italian and British Universities after the war. We then turned to modern history and I noticed that he did not respond as much as I had expected to the name of Garibaldi. He held the historical theory that, broadly speaking, there are no really great men, but only lucky ones. He put forward in support of this view the distribution of death, wounds and decorations in this war. This theory of history has in it larger elements of wholesomeness and truth than has, for instance, the pernicious bombast of Carlyle. I told my Sardinian friend that I had once heard it said by a most learned man that, if Rousseau had never lived, the world would not look very different to-day, except that probably there would be no negro republic in the island of Haiti. This saying pleased him and he was inclined to think it plausible.

He told me that day that Monte Santo was reported taken, but the news was not yet sure.

* * * * *

I saw him again three days later and by then all the world knew that Monte Santo had fallen. For Cadorna in his communique of the 25th had cried: "Since yesterday our tricolour has been waving from the summit of Monte Santo!" Already we could see the flashes of Italian Field Guns in action near the summit. All day I was buoyant, exhilarated, and as absorbed in the war as any journalist.

Victory has an intoxicating quality in this bright clear atmosphere, and among these mountains, which it has, perhaps, nowhere else. All day there seemed to be in the air a strange thrill, which at evening seemed to grow into a great throbbing Triumph Song of the Heroes,—incomparable Italians, living and dead. The emotion of it became almost unbearable.

"Our tricolour is waving from the summit of Monte Santo!"

Here on the night of the 26th there occurred a scene wonderfully, almost incredibly, dramatic. The moon was rising. Shells passed whistling overhead, some coming from beyond the Isonzo toward the Ternova Plateau, others in the opposite direction from Ternova. Rifle shots rang out from beneath Monte Santo, along the slopes of San Gabriele, where the Italian and Austrian lines were very close together, where no word on either side might be spoken above a whisper. Suddenly there crashed out from the gloom the opening bars of the Marcia Reale, played with tremendous elan by a military band. The music came from Monte Santo. On the summit of the conquered mountain, the night after its conquest, an Italian band was playing amid the broken ruins of the convent, standing around the firmly planted Italian flag. It was the Divisional Band of the four Regiments which had stormed these heights. On the flanks of the mountain, along the new lines in the valley beneath, along the trenches half-way up San Gabriele, Italian soldiers raised a cry of startled joy. Below the peak an Italian Regiment held the line within forty yards of the enemy, crouching low in the shallow trenches. Their Colonel leaped to his feet and his voice rang out, "Soldiers, to your feet! Attention!" All along the trench the soldiers, with a swift thrill of emotion, sprang to their feet. Then again the Colonel cried, "My soldiers, let us cry aloud in the face of the enemy, 'Long live Italy! Long live the King! Long live the Infantry!'" Loud and long came the cheers, echoing and re-echoing from the rocks, taken up and repeated by others who heard them, first near at hand, then far away, echoing and spreading through the night, like the swelling waves of a great sea.

The Austrians opened fire on Monte Santo. But the music still went on. The Marcia Reale was finished, but now in turn the Hymn of Garibaldi and the Hymn of Mameli, historic battle songs of Italian liberty, pealed forth to the stars, loud above the bursting of the shells. And many Italian eyes, from which the atrocious sufferings of this war had never yet drawn tears, wept with a proud, triumphant joy. And as the last notes died away upon the night air, a great storm of cheers broke forth afresh from the Italian lines. The moon was now riding high in the heavens, and every mountain top, seen from below, was outlined with a sharp-cut edge against the sky.

Four days after, not far from this same spot, General Capello, the Commander of the Italian Second Army, decorated with the Silver Medal for Valour some of the heroes of the great victory. Among these was a civilian, a man over military age. It was Toscanini, Italy's most famous musical conductor. It was he who, charged with the organisation of concerts for the troops, had found himself in this sector of the Front when Monte Santo fell, and, hearing the news, had demanded and obtained permission to climb the conquered mountain. He reached the summit on the evening of the 26th and, by a strange chance, found his way among the rocks and the ruins of the convent, to the place where the band was playing. His presence had upon the musicians the same effect which the presence of a great General has upon faithful troops. They crowded round him, fired with a wild enthusiasm. Then Toscanini took command of what surely was one of the strangest concerts in the world, played in the moonlight, in an hour of glory, on a mountain top, which to the Italians had become an almost legendary name, to an audience of two contending Armies, amid the rattle of machine guns, the rumble of cannon, and the crashes of exploding shells.

* * * * *

"Our tricolour is waving from the summit of Monte Santo!"

If the souls of poets be immortal and know what still passes in this world, be sure that the soul of Swinburne sings again to-day, from hell or heaven, the Song of the Standard.

"This is thy banner, thy gonfalon, fair in the front of thy fight. Red from the hearts that were pierced for thee, white as thy mountains are white, Green as the spring of thy soul everlasting, whose life-blood is light. Take to thy bosom thy banner, a fair bird fit for the nest, Feathered for flight into sunrise or sunset, for eastward or west, Fledged for the flight everlasting, but held yet warm to thy breast. Gather it close to thee, song-bird or storm-bearer, eagle or dove, Lift it to sunward, a beacon beneath to the beacon above, Green as our hope in it, white as our faith in it, red as our love."



CHAPTER XVII

THE CONQUEST OF THE BAINSIZZA PLATEAU

The Italian advance on the Middle Isonzo in the early days of the August offensive reached a depth of six miles on a front of eleven miles. The Italians had swept across the Bainsizza Plateau, and had gained observation and command, though not possession, of the Valley of Chiapovano, the main Austrian line of communication and supply in this sector. This advance and the resumption of the war of movement raised, for the moment, tremendous expectations, which were destined, alas, to die away without fulfilment.

The passage of the Isonzo, here a deep cleft in the mountains, from Plava to above Canale, had been accomplished by the combined skill and valour of Infantry, Artillery and Engineers. The preliminary work of the Engineers in roadmaking on the western side of the river had been, as always, worthy of the highest praise. A great mass of bridging material had had to be accumulated in the valley, alongside camouflaged roads. The Austrians must have been on their guard, but it seems probable that they did not expect a big attack to be made here. For they were fully conscious of the natural strength of their positions.

First to cross the river on the night of the attack were boats carrying Engineers and detachments of Arditi. As they crossed, the river gorge was full of mist and they were not detected. But when the work of bridging began, and sounds of hammering and the dragging of planks into position could be clearly heard, suddenly all along the further bank the Austrian machine guns began to spit fire, and red rockets went up calling for the Artillery barrage. Many boats were hit and sank, and the Bridging Detachments suffered severe casualties. One bridge, half built, was set on fire, and one could see dark shadows, lit up by the glare amid the darkness, darting forward to extinguish the flames. Fourteen bridges were thrown across under heavy fire, and, as the Infantry began to cross, Platoon after Platoon, the Austrian Machine Gunners fired at the sound of their footsteps, and many Italians fell, especially officers leading their men. But the crossing went on and, when dawn broke, the attackers had a firm footing on the left bank of the river. They swept round the flanks of those machine guns which had not yet been put out of action, and making use of the subterranean passages which the enemy had pierced in the cliffs for sheltered communication between the higher and the lower levels of the mountain, began to pour forth upon the crest of the ridge which overlooks the river. Then, as the advance continued, the Austrian right wing above Canale gave way in confusion and the Italians pressed forward on to the Bainsizza Plateau.

But their difficulties were tremendous. When they left the valley of the Isonzo behind them, they entered a waterless land, without springs for some four miles. In the early stages of the battle all water for the troops had to be brought up by mules, and likewise all food, ammunition and medical supplies, until the Engineers could get to work with road-building on the left bank of the river. The Bainsizza Plateau itself, lying amid a mass of barren mountains, contains woods, pastures, springs, small villages, a few roads and many tracks. The Italians swept over it on the 21st and 22nd of August, but soon found themselves once more in difficult country. In the days that followed the advance was slower and more spasmodic, but it still continued. By the 27th, 25,000 Austrian prisoners had been taken, together with a great quantity of material, and several whole Austrian Divisions had ceased to exist.

It had been a wonderful feat of arms, finely conceived by the Staff, magnificently executed by the rank and file. It opened out a great vista of new possibilities, but, for the moment, it was over. Before any further advance was practicable, the positions won had to be consolidated, roads had to be built, dumps and stores of every kind to be moved forward.

* * * * *

In a village on the Bainsizza Plateau, half wrecked by shell fire, two old peasants were sitting outside their house. Austrian shells whistled through the air and burst a few hundred yards away. "These are not for us," said one of the old men to an Italian soldier, "the shells and the war are for the soldiers, not the civilians."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE FIGHTING DIES DOWN

On the 28th of August the offensive was really beginning again. We were firing on San Marco at a slow rate from six a.m. for an hour, then "vivace" from seven till noon, and at noon we lifted and continued vivace. San Marco was not rocky, and the trenches there should be bombardable into pulp. In the early morning from Sant' Andrea the hills all round were clearly outlined, except where some long belts of motionless, white, low-lying cloud partly hid the Faiti-Stoll range. Later, with the sun up, a warm haze hid everything. Firing continued heavy till six p.m., and then slowed down. The attack on San Marco had failed.

Next day there was a good deal of shelling and some torrential showers. We set fire to some woods on the lower slopes of San Daniele, with a high wind blowing.

* * * * *

The Battery's good luck continued. On the 30th, while my Gun Detachment were at breakfast, a 5.9 burst in their shelter trench, at the moment unoccupied, and covered every one with showers of loose earth. All the breakfast vanished, and our shells were thrown about like driftwood in a storm. But no ammunition was exploded and no one was hurt. Raven, who had been up Sabotino that day, told us that "San Gabriele is tottering." Our offensive seemed to have completely come to an end on the Carso and in the Vippacco Valley. But we were still hammering away at San Marco and San Gabriele, at intervals of a few days at a time. On the 2nd of September San Gabriele was still "tottering," on the morning of the 4th it was reported taken, on the 6th we heard that it had been taken, lost and retaken, the Arno Brigade having distinguished themselves by some wonderful bombing. Cadorna's objective now, it was said, was Lubiana, and not Trieste. The Major and I both agreed that the Entente ought to put every available man and tank on to this Front and go for Vienna. On the 8th Raven told us that the top of San Gabriele was held, but not the lower slopes nor Santa Catarina, which were still precariously supplied from behind San Marco. A few days later we lost the top of San Gabriele, and the attack upon it was not renewed.

Then followed quiet times, except for activity by Austrian Trench Mortars against our trenches on Hill 126. We established direct telephonic communication from the Battery to the Infantry Brigade Headquarters in order to provide rapid retaliation, and we made several Reconnaissances to try to locate Trench Mortars in the tangle of broken ground through which the enemy line ran.

On the 17th we were warned to be ready to move at short notice to the neighbourhood of Monfalcone, for a big push against the Hermada in three weeks' time. Battery positions were chosen, but we never went. Instead a rumour began to spread that all British Batteries were leaving Italy and going East. It was said that the War Office had the wind up about the Turks. An international tug of war was going on behind the scenes. On the afternoon of the 28th we were told on high authority that our movements were still undecided, but the Battery was inspected that day by General Capello, the victor of Bainsizza, who looked like an Eastern potentate, and was heard to say that he wanted as many British Batteries as he could get, to increase the gun power of the Second Army. That evening, however, our fate was said to be unofficially decided. We, with the rest of Raven's Group, five Batteries in all, were to stay in Italy, the other two Groups were to go away. It was not till the 3rd of October that we received definite orders on the subject. The other Groups went to Egypt and a couple of Batteries, after three months of doing nothing in Cairo, came back to Italy again. They had at any rate found a little employment for some of our surplus shipping and they had missed some queer experiences in Italy meantime.

It was also announced that we were not moving down to Monfalcone, but were probably remaining in our present positions for the winter. We therefore began systematically to prepare winter quarters. The Italian Corps Commander in a special Order of the Day expressed his satisfaction that our Group was remaining under his command.

* * * * *

On the 5th I got up at four o'clock in the morning and carried out a Front Line Reconnaissance with Sergeant Cotes, the No. 1 of my gun, and Avoglia, an Italian Sergeant Major attached to our Battery, rather a sleek person, who had been a maitre-d'hotel at Brighton before the war. We went along the front line trenches on Hill 126, recently captured. These trenches ran beside the river and were now in fine condition, great repairs and reconstruction having been carried out during the past three weeks. It was here that Austrian Trench Mortars were active. They were firing when we arrived and caused some casualties. As it grew light, a strong Austrian patrol was seen moving about in No Man's Land, and it was thought that a raid might be coming. The order "Stand to" was given, and the Infantry came swarming out of their dug-outs, a crowd of youths, some very handsome, with almost Classical Roman features, and older men, sturdy and bearded. They densely manned the parapet, with fixed bayonets and hand grenades. The machine gun posts were also manned. But nothing happened!

A little later an Austrian was seen to emerge from cover in No Man's Land, about a hundred yards away from us, and run towards our trenches, throwing away his rifle and shouting some unintelligible words. He was sick of the war and wanted to surrender. But a young Italian recruit, in the trenches for the first time, quivering with excitement and eagerness to distinguish himself, not realising the man's motive, fired at him through a peephole. He missed, but the Austrian turned and doubled back like a rabbit to his own lines, where I suppose he was shot, poor brute, by his own people. I was standing quite close to the young recruit when he fired. No one rebuked him, but a Corporal patiently explained things to him. We smiled at one another, and I wished him "auguri" and went on up the hill.

The Austrian snipers were busy, and another Italian standing close to me, looking out slantwise through a peephole, was shot through the jaw. He was bandaged up, profusely bleeding, and went stoically down the hill, supported by a companion, leaving a red trail along the wooden duck-boards that paved the trench.

I went down two saps which the Italians had pushed out, one to within twenty yards, the other to within ten yards, of the Austrian front line. Here every one spoke in a low whisper or by signs. They warned me to keep well down, as the Austrians hated khaki worse even than "grigio-verde," as one is always apt to hate third parties who butt in against one in what one conceives to be a purely private quarrel.

But I went back armed with some useful information regarding the position of those Austrian Trench Mortars.



CHAPTER XIX

A LULL BETWEEN TWO STORMS

From the beginning of October the Battery were hard at work on their winter quarters. We had two large dining and recreation huts for the men, one for the Right Section and one for the Left, fitted up with long wooden tables and benches. These huts were dug into the bank, one on either side of the road leading up from the Battery position to Pec village. The dug-outs were improved and made watertight and the Officers' Mess and sleeping huts were moved up from the river bank into the Battery position itself. Everything was very comfortable and handy.

We maintained close relations with an Italian Battery next door commanded by a certain Captain Romano. His men helped us in putting up our huts, which were of Italian design, and we had frequent exchanges of hospitality. Romano was a Regular officer, about 28 years old, with twinkling brown eyes and a voice like a foghorn even when speaking from a short distance away, but a fine singer. He had a wonderful collection of photographs, was a good Gunner and popular with his men.

* * * * *

On the 9th I spent the night in Lecce O.P. on Hill 123, overlooking Hills 126 and 94. It was named after the Lecce Brigade who made it, one of the best Brigades in the Italian Army. When they were in front of us, we saw a good deal of them. Now the Parma Brigade were holding the line and the British officer in the O.P. used to take his meals at the Brigade Headquarters. Things were rather active that evening. At half-past five in the afternoon the enemy opened a heavy bombardment, increasing to a pitch of great fury, on our front and support trenches. Our own lines down below me were blotted out from sight by dense clouds of crashing, flashing smoke. Just before six the Italian Brigadier asked me for a heavy barrage from all the British Batteries. A big counter-bombardment was now working up from our side. I spoke on the telephone to Raven, who told me that all our Batteries were firing "double vivace." At a quarter past six the Austrians attacked. There was a terrific rattle of Italian machine gun fire, almost drowning the sound of the heavier explosions, and a stream of rockets went up from our front line calling for more barrage. The attack was beaten off by machine guns and hand grenades. A few Austrians reached our parapet, but none got into our trenches.

Firing died down about a quarter to seven, and the Brigadier came up to the O.P., very pleased with the support we had rendered, and asked that a slow rate of fire might be kept up. Later on an Austrian telephone message was overheard, which suggested that the attack was to be renewed just before dawn, after a gas attack. We kept on the alert, but nothing happened. Two of our Batteries went on firing at a slow rate all night. When dawn broke, it was evident that our bombardment had been very destructive. The enemy's trenches were knocked to pieces; uprooted trees, planks, sandbags and dead bodies lay about in confusion. It was thought that owing to our fire some Austrian units, which were to have taken part in the attack, could not, and others would not, do so, in spite of a special issue of rum and other spirits. I saw also, motionless amid the Austrian wire, a figure in Italian uniform, one of a patrol who had gone out four nights before, and had not returned.

On the 12th I went out with a Sergeant, a Signaller and Corporal Savogna, a Canadian Italian, on a Front Line Reconnaissance on the northern side of the Vippacco, in the Second Army area. The day was wonderfully clear and we could see the everlasting snows beyond Cadore. We went through Rupa to Merna and, being evidently spotted, were shelled with 4.2's and forced to proceed along a muddy communication trench knee deep in water. At Raccogliano Mill we visited the Headquarters of the Bergamo Brigade, which was holding the line. A guide took us along the front line, which had been considerably advanced here in August and September, and again by a successful local attack a few days before. We went down one Caverna in which, on the occasion of this last attack, a Magyar officer and 25 men surrendered. The Austrian sentry, also a Magyar, had been fastened by the leg to the doorpost outside the entrance to the dug-out. In the Italian bombardment one of his feet was blown away, but his own people had done nothing for him. Now his dead body lay out in the open behind the new Italian front line.

* * * * *

On the 14th Jeune went on leave to England, no one having any expectation that anything of importance was likely to happen in the near future. In his absence I acted as Second-in-Command of the Battery.

On the 19th we heard that the Italian High Command was preparing another big offensive from the Bainsizza against the Ternova Plateau, and the same day the Intelligence Report contained the information that a series of German Divisions had been seen detraining at Lubiana since the beginning of October, and that, owing to the Russian collapse, a thousand Austrian guns had been moved across from the Russian to the Isonzo Front since the middle of September. We had noticed a perceptible increase in the enemy's Artillery activity for some time, but this, we thought at the time, was purely defensive. There had also been a week of heavy rains, but the Vippacco, after rising rapidly and threatening to flood us all out, fell eighteen inches in one night. It swept away a number of Italian bridges, however, from Merna and Raccogliano further up stream, and we saw pieces of these rushing past in the swift current.

On the 21st the Major and I motored to Palmanova and bought some winter clothing at the Ordnance. An Austrian twelve-inch howitzer, whom we had christened "Mr Pongo," was shelling all day at intervals, chiefly in the back areas. An unpleasant beast, we agreed, who wanted smothering!

On the 22nd it was evident, from the Austrian shelling, that quite a number of fresh heavy howitzers, both twelve- and fifteen-inch, had appeared behind the Austrian lines. A few, no doubt, of those thousand guns from Russia! Listening to their shells whistling over one's head like express trains, and to their (happily distant) deep crashes on percussion, one realised very vividly the immediate military effects of the Russian collapse. We heard that the Italian offensive was not coming off after all.

On the 23rd we heard that a big Austrian attack was expected last night and might come that night instead. We received orders to clean up and prepare, in case of necessity, the old position at Boschini on San Michele, which the Battery had occupied when they first arrived in Italy. This, I thought, seemed rather panic-stricken. Romano's Battery had similar orders. It would be annoying to leave our present position after all the work put into it to make it habitable for the winter. But I noted that the atmosphere was tinged with apprehension.



PART IV

THE ITALIAN RETREAT AND RECOVERY

CHAPTER XX

THE BEGINNING OF THE ENEMY OFFENSIVE

On the morning of October 24th soon after nine o'clock the enemy launched a big attack against the Third Army Front, especially violent between Faiti and the Vippacco, and renewed it in the afternoon. But he gained no ground. All through the previous night and all that day till evening the bombardment on both sides was heavy. We had not fired during the night but began at seven in the morning and went on throughout the day. A message came in that the enemy would probably shell Batteries for four hours with gas shell, starting with irritant gas and going on to poison. He had already employed these tactics up north, as we learned later. Gas alert was on all night and we were listening strainedly for soft bursts. Heavy rain came down steadily all day, and everything was drenched and dripping. The spaces between our huts filled with water, and needed continual baling out. But when gas was expected, one welcomed heavy rain[1] and high winds and loud explosions from bursting shells.

[Footnote 1: It was not till a later date that gases were employed, the effects of which were increased by rain.]

Between nine and ten p.m. I heard a series of soft bursts just across the river and arranged with Romano's Battery for mutual alarms if any gas should come too near. An hour later I was relieved in the Command Post and turned in. As I was undressing, I heard the wind rising again and the telephonists next door baling out their dug-out. We were keeping up a desultory fire all night to harass any further attacks that might be attempted. The Major, who had been out on a Front Line Reconnaissance that morning in the neighbourhood of Merna, had come in for some very heavy shelling and returned very weary.

* * * * *

The next day, the 25th, was at least fine; it was even rather sunny. We did a little firing, but not much, between seven a.m. and two p.m. Enemy planes came over continually, flying very low, about thirty in the course of the morning. They attacked one of our observation balloons, which descended rapidly as they approached, and I think got down safely. Italian anti-aircraft guns brought down one of them. Whenever we shelled Mandria, a little village up the valley, a plane came over. Evidently they had something there as to which they were sensitive, perhaps a General's Billet!

At half past ten the Italians ditched a lorry full of ammunition just at the top of the road from the Battery position to Pec village, in full view of the enemy on Hill 464. At this time the village was being heavily shelled by 5.9's, and our cookhouse on the outskirts was all but hit, shells bursting all round it in a circle. Showers of bricks and lumps of earth and masonry rose high in the air. One shell hit the Artillery Group Headquarters of Major Borghese and I saw all his office papers going up, a cloud of shreds, shining in the sun. I laughed and said to myself, "There goes a lot of red tape!" I saw Borghese himself later in the day limping along with a stick; a chunk of one of his office walls had fallen on his foot.

The enemy meanwhile had begun to shell the lorry, methodically as their idiotic habit was, with one shell every five minutes. It was too near us to be pleasant, so the Major took out a party and hauled it out of their view under cover of a bank. But this took some time. Leary stood by with a stopwatch calling out the minutes. At the end of every fourth minute, the party ran for cover. Then a few seconds later we heard the next shell coming. The Major was hit on the hand once by a shell splinter which drew blood, but nothing more serious than this happened.

About two o'clock a big bombardment worked up again, and the Volconiac and Faiti became a sea of smoke and flame. This went on till dusk, we firing hard all the time. More enemy planes came over, one even after dark, a most unusual thing, flying very low indeed, under a heavy fire of anti-aircraft Batteries and machine guns from the ground. Our planes had been very scarce all day. They had nearly all gone north. For the time being we had quite lost the command of the air in this sector.

The two British Batteries who were furthest forward had orders to move back that night to reserve positions on San Michele. The Italians were going to horse their guns, for it was said that the majority of the tractors had gone north too. This move looked rather panicky, I thought.

Many red rockets went up in the early evening from Volconiac and Faiti. The enemy were making another attack. Then a little later tricolour rockets, red, white and green, went up. This was the signal that the attack had been beaten off and that the situation was quiet again. The firing died down about seven. We fed and put up for the night an Italian officer, whose Battery used to be here, but had moved north yesterday. He had just come back from a gas course at Palmanova. From a newspaper which he had I saw that a strong offensive had begun on the afternoon of the 23rd to the north of the Bainsizza Plateau. Either the attacks here were only holding attacks, or the attack to the north was a feint and the real thing was to be here. Anyhow, I thought, it is their Last Despairing Great Cry! I turned in just after midnight. The night was still and there was a bright moon and stars. A thick mist lay along the Vippacco, just behind the trees. The air was damp and cold. It seemed pretty quiet for the moment all along the Front.

* * * * *

I had a troubled night. In the early morning we were bombarded with gas shell and had to wear respirators from a quarter to three till four o'clock. We were firing from five till six and again steadily from a quarter past seven onwards. We got orders to move back that night to Boschini, on San Michele. I thought this a great mistake. Later in the day our move was cancelled, as the two forward Batteries which pulled out last night would not be in action on San Michele till to-morrow. They had been last heard of stuck fast in a crush of traffic at the bottom of the hill at Peteano. A strong team of horses were straining their guts out in vain attempts to pull an Italian twelve-inch mortar up the hill. It was this which had caused the block. Those two forward Batteries might have lost their guns in a quick retreat, I thought, but hardly we. It seemed to be feared, however, that the two bridges across the Vippacco might go.

That day we were shelled heavily with every kind of weapon, from fifteen-inch downwards, especially the Left Section in the afternoon. We had, as usual, marvellously good luck, and only had one casualty, and that a slight wound. The spirit and endurance of the men were wonderful. Enemy planes were over all day; we counted twenty-two between daybreak and four p.m. Some hovered overhead and ranged their guns on us. Several times we put our detachments under cover and ceased fire owing to the shelling. My own gun was half buried by a great shower of earth kicked up by a 9.45, which pitched right on top of the bank in front of us. But Cotes, my Sergeant, and myself, crouching under cover of the girdles, were quite unhurt. The rest of the detachment had been ordered down into their dug-out. Another time the enemy neatly bracketed our Command Post with twelve-inch, and several of us within were uncomfortably awaiting the next round. But luckily for us he switched away to the right.

We had to fire hard most of the day, especially in the afternoon and evening. It had been exhausting and almost sleepless work for the detachments for several days past, for Darrell and a working party of forty were away preparing the reserve position on San Michele, and we had hardly any reliefs for the guns. The Major, too, looked very tired and frayed, but, whenever our eyes met, he gave me a smile of encouragement and leadership. That evening, during a short break in the firing, he asked me, since he himself could not leave the Command Post, to go round and "buck the men up" and thank them on his behalf for the way in which they had behaved. "So long as the Major's pleased, we're satisfied," said one man. Another, a Bombardier who afterwards got a Commission, and had been with Darrell on a reconnaissance on Faiti a few days before and had nearly been killed on the journey, said, "Well, Sir, we were thinking of the boys in the Front Line today." And well he might, for it had been a hellish bombardment up there. After delivering my message to the men, I walked up and down the road in front of the guns for a few moments in the short silence, realising how the Alliance of Britain and Italy was burning itself more deeply than ever into our hearts in these days of trial.

That night the enemy attacked again, and we lost Faiti and Hill 393, and had to fire on them. I heard afterwards from the Group that Colonel Canale, when he gave the order to fire on 393, was almost weeping on the telephone. Next day we counter-attacked and retook Faiti, but 393 remained in Austrian hands. Rumours and denials of rumours came in from the north. It was said that we had lost Monte Nero and Caporetto, and that German Batteries had kept up a high concentration of gas for four hours on our lines in the Cadore. And we knew that the Italian gas masks were only guaranteed to last for an hour and a half in such conditions, and that each man only carried one.



CHAPTER XXI

FROM THE VIPPACCO TO SAN GIORGIO DI NOGARA

On the 27th the rumours became bad. The German advance to the north was said to be considerable and rapid. Orders came that all the British Batteries were to pull out and park that night at Villa Viola, behind Gradisca, "for duty on another part of the Front." Probably, we thought, we were going north. "The gun concentration up there must be awful," said the Major. I told Cotes that we were probably going into the thick of it, and his eyes shone with pride. He was a fine fellow. That day the sun was shining, and the Italian planes in this sector seemed to have regained command of the air. For the moment there was a little lull in the firing, but we felt that some big fate was looming over us. I went away to my hut for five minutes and wrote in my diary, "I here put it on record once more that I am proud to fight in and for Italy. I repeat that dying here is not death, it is flying into the dawn! If I die in and for Italy, I would like to think that my death would do something for Anglo-Italian sympathy and understanding."

In the early afternoon the Major went down to Headquarters. He rang me up from there to say that two guns were to be pulled out at once, and the other two to double their rate of fire. No. 4 gun was now engaging two different targets with alternate rounds and different charges.

When the Major came back, he called all the men together and said. "I am not going to conceal anything from you. The situation is serious. The Italians have had a bad reverse up north. But there is no need for anyone to get panicky. We shall pull out and go back to-night. That is all I know at present. When I know more, I will tell you more. One gun will remain in action till the last. No. 2 is the easiest to get out, so I have chosen her for the post of honour." As the men scattered, I heard several saying, "Good old No. 2!"

The Major told me that the Austrians were almost in Cividale, staggering news. Tractors and lorries were to come and take away our guns and stores in the evening. But the number of tractors was very limited and Raven was doubtful if enough would come in time. The whole Third Army was retreating, and three British Batteries, ourselves, the Battery in Pec village and the Battery at Rupa, would be the last three Batteries of Medium or Heavy Calibre left on this part of the Front.

All through the afternoon and evening Italian Infantry and Artillery were retreating through Pec. Some looked stolid, others depressed, others merely puzzled. But a little later a Battalion came along the road the other way, going up to be sacrificed on Nad Logem. They halted to rest by the roadside, full of gaiety and courage. They cheered our men on No. 2 gun, who were pumping out shells as fast as they could. "Bravi inglesi!" cried the Italians, and some of our men replied, "Good luck, Johnny!" Unknown Italians were always "Johnny."

As the dark came on, ammunition dumps began to go up everywhere; the Italians were deliberately exploding them, and great flashes of light, brighter than even an Italian noonday, lit up the whole sky for minutes at a time. Romano's Battery next door to us threw the remains of their ammunition into the river, and pulled out and away about 6.30. They were horse-drawn and did not need to wait for tractors. We wished each other good-bye, and hoped we might meet again some better day. We too got orders to destroy all ammunition we could not fire, as there would be no transport to take it away. So we gave No. 2 a generous ration and heaved the rest into the waters of the Vippacco.

No. 2 went on firing ceaselessly. So did one gun of the Battery in the village, and one gun at Rupa. That Battery, being the furthest forward, was in the greatest danger of the three. About 7 o'clock our first tractor arrived and took away No. 1 gun with Winterton and Manzoni. Enemy bombing planes came over frequently. One came right over us and then turned down the Vallone, and there was a series of heavy explosions, and great clouds of brownish smoke leapt up beneath her track.

Why, I kept asking myself, didn't the fools shell Pec village, where a crowd of men and guns were waiting for transport? Why didn't they put over gas shell? Why didn't they bomb us? Evidently there were no Germans here! About a quarter to nine No. 2 finished her ammunition, and we pulled her out. The other three guns had gone now and the other two British Batteries were clear, all but two lorries. Just after nine o'clock our last tractor came along and took off No. 2, with Darrell in charge of her. How the Italians had managed to get all these lorries and tractors for us, I don't know, for, in the Third Army as a whole, they were terribly short of transport. Many made the criticism that we should have kept out in Italy our own transport. But the Italians certainly did us very handsomely, at the cost of losing some bigger guns of their own.

After the last British gun had ceased to fire there was for about five minutes an eerie stillness, as though all our Artillery had gone and theirs was holding its fire. And then an Italian Field Battery opened again on the right of Pec. For over an hour now I had been expecting, minute by minute, to see the enemy Infantry come swarming along the Nad Logem in the dusk, cutting off our retreat, for I knew we had nothing but rear-guards left up there. But they did not come!

Only the Major and I and about forty men were left now, and we had been told that there would be no more transport. So we destroyed everything that we had been unable to get away, and the Major informed Headquarters of the situation and then disconnected the telephone and the men fell in and we marched away. We were just in time to see an Italian Field Battery come into Pec at the gallop, the gunners all cheering, unlimber their guns, take up position and open fire. It was a smart piece of work, done with a real Latin gesture. How enfuriating it was to be leaving these wooden huts of ours and these good positions, on which had been spent so many hours of labour, where we could have passed such a comfortable winter, going forth now none knew whither! Old Natale, one of the Italians attached to us, chalked up in German on the entrance to one of the huts, "You German pigs, we shall soon be back again!" But at that moment I did not feel so sure. Natale was afterwards lost in the retreat, and was reported by us as "missing." But one of our men saw him again six months later with an Italian Battery and said he looked several years younger!

We passed Campbell, the Medical Officer, standing outside his dug-out on the road. He was waiting for the last of the other Batteries' parties to get away. He told me afterwards that we were out only just in time. Within half an hour of our going, the Austrians fairly plastered the position with shells of all calibres. They shelled the road a little as we went along, but not too much. As we passed the railway embankment at Rubbia, we saw and spoke to some Italian machine-gunners in position, whose orders were to hold up the enemy till the last possible moment. They were quite calm and determined, those boys, knowing perfectly well that, by the time the enemy came, the Isonzo bridges would have been blown up behind them. I dragged myself on with an aching heart. One who retreats cuts a poor figure beside a rear-guard that stays behind and fights.

We crossed the Isonzo at Peteano, and took a short cut across the fields to Farra. In the crowd and the dark we were jostled by some Italian Infantry. We hailed them and found that they were our old friends, the Lecce Brigade. The Major made our men stand back. "Pass, Lecce," he said. "Good luck to you!" We marched on through Farra to Gradisca, both blazing in the night. The towns and villages everywhere in this sector had been deliberately fired by the retreating Italians, in addition to the ammunition dumps. The whole countryside was blazing and exploding. I thought of Russia in 1812, and the Russian retreat before Napoleon, and Tchaikovsky's music.

It began to rain, but that made no difference to the burning. In Gradisca burning petrol was running about the streets. Earlier in the evening there had been a queer scene here. The Headquarters of the British Staff had been at Gradisca, and the Camp Commandant had made a hobby of fattening rabbits for the General's Mess. When the time had come that day to pack up and go, it was found that the lorries provided were fully loaded with office stores, Staff officers' bulky kit and 20,000 cigarettes, which the General was specially proud of having saved from his canteen. There was no room for the Camp Commandant's rabbit hutches, so these were opened and the fat inmates released, to the delight of the civilians and Italian soldiery in Gradisca, who knocked them over or shot them as they ran. I heard this from a gunner, who was officer's servant to one of the Staff and witnessed the scene.

A few miles away, at the Ordnance Depot at Villa Freifeldt, thousands of pounds' worth of gun stores stood ready, packed in crates, to be removed. But no transport came for them, and they were abandoned and fell into Austrian hands. For lack of them, our Batteries were afterwards kept out of action for several weeks. Whoever ordered these things seems to have thought it more important to save the Staff's kit and the General's cigarettes.

Just before we entered Gradisca, we passed a Battalion of the Granatieri, the Italian Grenadiers, all six foot tall, with collar badges of crimson and white, coming up from reserve to fight a rear-guard action. I had seen them a few days before in rest billets and admired their appearance. And in their march that night and in their faces was scorn for fugitives and contempt for death. The Major said to me, as they swung past us, that that Battalion could be trusted to fight to the end. And they did. Some of our men met a few of their survivors at Mestre a week later. Nearly the whole Battalion had been killed or wounded, but they had held up the Austrian advance for several hours.

On the further side of Gradisca we passed a great platform, which had been erected a few weeks before for the Duke of Aosta's presentation of medals for the Carso offensive. It was here that the Major had received the Italian Silver Medal for Valour. The platform looked ironical that night, still decked with bunting, limp and drenched now by the rain, and lit up by the flames of the burning town. We reached Villa Viola about 11.30 p.m. It was to have been a rendezvous, but there was no one there. Only the rain still falling. About midnight we entered an empty house, and threw ourselves down upon the floor to sleep.

* * * * *

We had slept for less than an hour, when we were hurriedly awakened. The Italians had orders to set fire to the house. Meanwhile Savogna, our Canadian Italian Corporal, had just returned from scouting for us, and reported that parties from the other Batteries were in a house half a mile away. We marched off again through pouring rain, our path lit up by the flames, which in places thrust their long tongues right across the road. The wind blew clouds of smoke in our faces. The air was full of the roaring of the fires, the crackle of blazing woodwork, the crash of houses falling in, the loud explosions of ammunition dumps and petrol stores, which now and again for a few seconds lighted up the whole night sky for miles around with a terrific glare, and then died down again. Far as the eye could reach the night was studded with red and golden fires. Everywhere behind the front of the retreating Third Army a systematic destruction was being carried out. The Third Army was retreating in good order, unbroken and undefeated, retreating only because its northern flank was in danger of being turned. The Third Army was proving to the enemy that its movements were deliberate and governed by a cool purpose. The enemy should advance into a wilderness.