unition from the depot
there. He begged me not to go out towards the scene of the fight, as
he suspected the Italians, and wanted to give an order that no
foreigner should leave the town. Up rushed the Italians, greatly
excited, and were headed back by Fabius. I told them I, too, was
forbidden to go, and we sent them back. We got the artillery
ammunition on donkeys and sent it up the hill. Dutch and Austrian
officers were to serve the guns. A wounded Albanian, crying feebly
"Rrnoft Mbreti" (Long live the King), was carried by on a stretcher,
and one of the bearers whispered to Fabius: "Thompson is hit. I fear
he is dead." To lose the commander in the first hour of the fight
was a terrible blow. Fabius begged me to tell no one. Later, Arthur
Moore, The Times correspondent, came and told how poor Thompson had
been struck down and died almost immediately in his arms in a hut by
the wayside.

Too many battle books have been written of late, so I will not
describe the fighting In the afternoon. I was under cover behind a
bank on the top of the hill with Mr. Corbett when the Prince came up
on horseback with a small suite. He dismounted and climbed the bank,
a tall, lean man, worn and anxious, with a yellow-white face as from
a touch of fever. We called to him he had better take cover as the
bullets came over pretty often. He looked dazed and stupefied. I
said: "A bullet has just cut down that plant, Sir!" pointing to one
close by. He roused himself, mounted, and rode away. Our side soon
got the upper hand, and all danger of the town being rushed seemed
over.

Meanwhile, within the town, the Italians did all they could to
create a panic. They built rubbishy barricades, and annoyed me by
making one across the street near the hotel door. I pulled it down
so as to be able to get in and out easily. The officer was very
angry. I explained that the town was not his to barricade, and if it
were it was no good to build a barricade there, as men behind it
could only fire into the house opposite. Which made him the more
angry, because it was true, and the thing a mere dummy to scare
people. So sure were the Italians that they were 'going to get the
town taken this time that the correspondents wrote gory accounts of
its capture and the slaughter of the inhabitants, and sent them to
Italy, where they were published. I do not now believe in Italian
correspondents every time.

The Russians were as bad as the Italians. They, too, hoped