“They want to be up and doing instead of waiting about here when their comrades have gone on ahead.”
We had quite a long talk with him, and gathered some interesting details of the fighting that had taken place round here. He was most enthusiastic about the moral of his troops, that no fatigue or pain can quell.
The only difficulty the officers experienced was in getting them to advance with caution. “Ils deviennent des tigrés une fois lancés; c’est difficile de les retenir.”
As we bade him adieu, he asked us as a personal favour not to mention him in any article we might write, adding modestly: “Je ne suis qu’un soldat de l’Italie, et ne désire pas de réclame.”
There was a turning off the main road beyond Sdraussina that passed under the railway embankment, and then went up to San Martino del Carso.
Here there was an animated scene of military activity. A battalion of infantry was bivouacing, and up the side of the hill, which was one of the slopes of Monte San Michele, there was a big camp with tents arranged in careful alignment. I mention this latter fact as it was an unusual spectacle to see an encampment so well “pitched.”
Both the bivouac and the tents were quite protected from shell-fire by the brow of the hill, but they would have made an easy target had the Austrians had any aeroplanes here; doubtless, though, all precautions had been taken by the Italian Commander in the event of this.
Over the crest of the hill the scene changed as though by magic, and all sign of military movement disappeared.
The desolate waste of the Carso faced us, and we were in the zone of death and desolation. The road was absolutely without a vestige of “cover”; it was but a track across the rocky ground, and now wound over a series of low, undulating ridges, on which one could trace the battered remains of trenches.
Huge shell-craters were visible everywhere, and the road itself was so freshly damaged in places that I involuntarily recalled what the General had told us, and wondered whether we should get back safely.