Alongside the sheds was the hull of the big liner one had seen in the distance. A 20,000 ton boat, I was told, which was being built for the Austrian Lloyd Line.
The wooden slipway and the cradle supports had caught fire and had been destroyed, and this I was told had caused the keel to break, so that the hull was now but a derelict mass of steelwork which could never be floated.
To advance through this jungle called for all the cool, disciplined courage of the Italian soldier ([see page 293])
To face page 298
Had it not been for the satisfaction one felt in gazing on the ruins of a prospective addition to the Mercantile Navy of the enemy, this leviathan of wasted industry and material would have appeared quite tragic.
The companion-way used by the workmen was still in position, so we clambered up into the gloomy interior and had a walk round, our footsteps echoing mournfully along the cavernous emptiness of the decks.
Through a port-hole we got a very fine view of the Carso and the Italian and Austrian positions in between Monfalcone and Duino; whilst in the distance, some fifteen miles away, one could distinctly see with the glasses the white buildings of Trieste, so near and yet so far!
There was evidently a big fight going on at that moment in the direction of a hill not far away from Monfalcone, known as No. 144, which had been frequently referred to in the communiqués, and you could see the bursting shells and hear the booming of the guns.
It was a panorama of soul-stirring interest, and one could have spent hours gazing on it; but time was flying and we had to be thinking of returning.