We were all living together in a well-appointed hotel, so it afforded an opportunity of getting to know and appreciate each other in a way that never occurred in the other places we stopped at, where everyone was on his own, so to speak, and when you scarcely met, except by chance for a few moments at the Censorship.
Here, at Venadoro, Italian, French and English fraternised in a delightful spirit of healthy camaraderie and although we all shut ourselves up in our rooms during the daytime when we were not on an excursion, in order to get on with our work undisturbed, we all met for lunch, and the evenings after dinner saw us united in the big saloon, where with music, billiards, and bridge the time passed very cheerily.
Knowing the wonderful organization of the Italian Headquarters Staff, I was sometimes tempted to wonder whether the assembly of the Allied correspondents at Venadoro was not something more than a mere casual arrangement for the convenience of the Censorship.
Whatever was missing in the shape of military spectacle on the Belluno Front was amply made up for by what we were able to see at the next stage of our journey, the little town of Gemona. From here we made what was undoubtedly the most interesting of all our excursions.
The Front on this sector is in the Upper But mountain group on the Frontier, which comprises Monte Timau, Montecroce, the Freikoffel, Pal Grande and Pal Piccolo—every one of them a position of first-class importance, and the scene of desperate fighting and deeds of valour probably unsurpassed in the annals of mountain warfare.
Our road lay through Venzone, Tolmezzo and Paluzza, and there was sufficient military movement all the way to prove we were in a zone of active military operations, even if the booming of the guns in the distance had not borne this out.
A little beyond Paluzza, just outside the village of Muse, we found mules waiting for us, and we commenced a long, steep ascent which was to land us at the foot of Pal Piccolo, beyond which point the climb had to be made on foot. We were quite a small party, mostly English I may add.
About half way up we arrived at a hut where we were met by the Colonel of the Artillery, who courteously explained the nature and scope of the operations, concluding by warning us that we were going up at our own risk, as the whole of this particular sector was constantly under fire.
It had been but the merest pretence at a road so far, but beyond there it became but little better than a rough goat track, and terribly trying for our animals.
On one of the worst portions we passed a gang of peasant women carrying barbed wire up to the trenches. I knew that everybody in the war zone is doing his or her bit, but I must confess I was somewhat surprised to see women engaged on so arduous a task as this, which calls for unusual muscle and nerve, apart from an exceptionally hardy physique. This will be realised when one learns that each of these apparently insignificant coils of barbed wire weighs close on fifty pounds dead weight.