I gave him up as hopeless, and went back to my guns, intending to wait till he had disappeared and things had quieted down again, and then to look for help elsewhere. But the Latin mind often follows a thread of order through what an Anglo-Saxon is apt to mistake for a mere hurricane of confused commotion. Within five minutes Captain Medola came up to me and said that the Colonel had ordered him to drag our tractor and guns. Medola was in command of a Battery of long guns, and had one of these attached to a powerful tractor on the road in front of us. To this long gun, therefore, we now attached our tractor, useless as a tractor but containing valuable gun stores, and our three guns. It was a tremendous strain for one tractor, however strong, to pull, and we decided a little later to abandon our own tractor and most of its contents.
Medola, having handed over his horse to an orderly, who was to ride on ahead and arrange for a fresh supply of petrol for his tractors, of which there were three, mounted the front of the leading tractor and I got up beside him. He rendered us most invaluable help in a most willing spirit and at considerable risk to himself. For he undoubtedly had to go much more slowly with us in tow than he could have gone if he had been alone.
We saw another Battery of Italian heavy guns going along the road, heavier than either ours or Medola's. They were an ancient type, which we had seen sometimes on the Carso, and not of very high military value. But their gunners took a regimental and affectionate pride in those old guns. They had neither tractors nor horses, but they had dragged their beloved pieces for thirty miles from the rocky heights of the Carso, along good roads and bad, up and down hill, through impossible traffic blocks, down on to the plains as far as Palmanova, with nothing but long ropes and their own strong arms. They had forty men hauling on each gun. At Palmanova new hauling parties had been put on, who dragged the guns another thirty miles to the far side of the Tagliamento at Latisana. And as they hauled, they sang, until they were too tired to go on singing, and could only raise, from time to time, their rhythmical periodic cry of "Sforza!… Sforza!"[1]
[Footnote 1: "Heave!… Heave!">[
As we passed through Muzzano, the town and road were heavily bombed. The bell in the campanile jangled wildly and weeping women crowded into the church, as though thinking to find sanctuary there. Others stood gazing helplessly up into the sky. Here I saw some Italian Infantry, mostly young, who were delighted to be retreating. "Forward, you militarists!" they cried to us as we passed. "This is your punishment! How much longer do you think the war is going to last? What about Trieste now?" They spoke with joyful irony, as though the conquest of Trieste had been a slaves' task, imposed upon unwilling Italy by foreign imperialists. They were the only Italian troops I saw during the retreat, who showed any sign of being under the influence of "defeatist" or German propaganda.
The stream of refugees steadily thickened on the roads. More than once I got down and ran on ahead, calling out with monotonous refrain to the drivers of civilian carts to keep well over to the right of the road, so as to let the guns pass. They all did their best to obey, poor brutes, and we gained some useful ground in that endless column.
At nightfall we were still eight or nine kilometres from Latisana. The traffic block grew worse and worse, and there were too few Carabinieri to exercise proper control. We stuck for hours at a time, with nothing moving for miles, three motionless lines of traffic abreast on the road, all pointing in the same direction. Tired men slept and wakeful men waited and watched and cursed at the delay. Behind us, far off, we could hear the booming of the guns, which seemed from hour to hour to come a little nearer, and flashes of distant gunfire flickered in the night sky. Back there the rear-guards were still fighting, and brave men were dying to give us time to get away. It seemed just then that their sacrifice might be in vain. What a haul the Austrians would have here!
And behind and around us burning villages were still flaming in the dark, and throwing up the sharp black outlines of the trees.
* * * * *
Afterwards I heard of some of the deeds that had been done "back there." I heard of the charges of the Italian Cavalry, of the Novara Lancers and the Genoa Dragoons, crack regiments, full of the best horsemen in Italy, who had been waiting, waiting, all the war through, for their chance to come. Their chance had come at last, the chance to die, charging against overwhelming odds, in order that Italy, or at least the glory of her name, might live for ever. One commanding officer called all his officers around him and said, "The common people of Italy have betrayed our country's honour, and now we, the gentlemen of Italy, are going to save it!" and then he led the charge, and fell leading it. It was a fine, aristocratic gesture, though the prejudices of his class partly blinded him.