It was a bit of a climb, and as I had hobnails in my boots I was sliding all over the road.
One part of the street was very old and picturesque, with a low parapet on one side and a fine view from it towards the Austrian positions.
It was a very hot corner to get past as it was quite exposed to rifle fire, so we had to take it singly, crouching down and at the double, an awkward and undignified performance when one is inclined to embonpoint.
The street now narrowed considerably, with lofty houses on either side. We stopped for a few moments in the middle of the road to get our breath. Just behind us was a house built on low solid arches such as one sees everywhere in Italy.
Suddenly we heard the screeching wail of a big shell approaching.
With one accord we made a bolt for the shelter of the arches, and were only just in time; with a report like a thunderclap the projectile burst on the house above us, and a huge mass of masonry and bricks came tumbling down with a crash in the roadway just where we had been standing.
A cloud of dust blotted out everything, and for a moment I thought that the whole building would come down and bury us all under it, but fortunately it was stout enough to withstand the shock.
We waited a moment, on the alert, in case another shell came over, and then, without further ado, we deferred our visit to the Castle and made a dash down the street for the comparatively safe regions below.
But our adventures were not yet over even here. We were walking through one of the wide main streets when we heard bombs exploding close by—there is no mistaking the difference between the explosion of a shell and that of an aeroplane bomb.
We looked up—a “Taube” had spotted us and was slowly circling overhead directly above us. Just where we happened to be at that particular moment there was not a recess or a corner anywhere near where we could take shelter; we tried the doors of the houses but they were all locked.