For the moment the guns were silent, and there was a strange quietude in the streets that struck me as being different to anything I had noticed anywhere else, except perhaps in Rheims during the bombardment when there was an occasional lull.
One had the feeling that at any moment something awful might happen. Even the soldiers one met seemed to me to have a subdued air, and the drawn expression which is brought about by constant strain on the nerves.
Instinctively one walked where one’s footsteps made the least noise, in order to be able to hear in good time the screech of an approaching shell.
It had turned out a lovely day, and in the brilliant sunshine Monfalcone should have been a bright and cheerful place, instead of which it was but the ghost of a town with the shadow of death continually overhanging it.
The peaceful stillness was not to be of long duration. Silence for any length of time had been unknown in Monfalcone for many a long day.
Whilst we were having a talk with the officers at Headquarters there was a loud detonation, apparently just outside the building. To my annoyance I could not restrain an involuntary start, as it was totally unexpected.
“That’s only one of our guns,” remarked, with a smile, a Major with whom I was chatting, and who had noticed the jump I made. “The Austrians won’t commence for another couple of hours at least,” he added.
My companion and I then started off to walk down to the shipbuilding yard, about a mile and a half from the town, and which was, of course, the principal sight of the place.
One had not gone far when one had some idea how exposed was the position of Monfalcone. A deep communication trench commenced in the main street and continued alongside the road the whole way down to the port—no one was allowed to walk outside it.
The object of this was to prevent any movement being seen from the Austrian batteries, which were only a comparatively short distance away, though it must have been no secret to them what was going on in Monfalcone.