"Avanti! Avanti! A destra! Italia! Italia!"
Behind him followed a rush of fiercely yelling soldiery.
"Italia! Italia!"
They were held up by a traverse of snow-covered rock. A shower of bombs came over it. From a communication trench a mass of dark figures rushed at them, shouting with guttural voices. There was bitter conflict—an ebb and flow in the surge of men.
Then another fierce shout: "Italia! Italia! Savoia!" It was the third company flinging itself in the trench to support the attack.
In the midst of the tumult could be distinguished the scream of Italian shells passing overhead to burst dully on the Austrian avenues of approach.
Suddenly the angry dominant note of the babel of voices changed. Accents of supplication rang out amid the jarring reports: "Kamerad! Kamerad!"
The staff-captain made his way along the deep dark gully in the snow where motionless figures stood with arms stretched up above their heads, rifles at their feet. Ghostly white figures who had retained their weapons joked at them in rough patois. He met the commander of the company which had attacked upon the flank. The trench was completely captured.
There followed a period of fierce toil in the trench. Under the twinkling stars in the black sky, men delved at the snow of the parados, cutting fire-steps, building it up into a breastwork. Behind them little parties of prisoners, stretcher-bearers and slightly wounded men, stumbled across the broken surface of the glacier. The toiling men gave no thought to them as they laboured to prepare for the storm which would surely burst.