he top of the Officers' Mess and another
in a gun pit 150 yards away. One of his legs could not be found, so they
had to bury what they could, an incomplete set of torn fragments. But
three or four days later the smell of the lost limb came drifting down a
ravine above their guns, and following the scent, they found it, black
with flies among the stones.

In my old Battery, too, four hundred cartridges went up with a direct
hit, and the Austrians then shelled the smoke with unpleasant effect. A
twelve-inch shell also burst very close to the Battery's Mess, killing
a number of Italian telephonists next door.

Throughout these days, periods of very heavy firing alternated with
periods of comparative quiet.

* * * * *

On the 25th a party of nearly thirty British officers and men, a
procession of two cars, three side-cars and twelve motor bicycles, went
up Podgora Hill. The Italian Second Army, to whom we were strangers,
watched us with interest as we went past in a cloud of dust. On the top
of Podgora Hill was a series of O.P.'s, known collectively as Maria
O.P., hollowed out of the rock, approached through rock passages, and in
front a wide rocky platform commanding a splendid panorama. At our feet
was a precipitous descent, clothed with acacias, at the bottom Podgora
with its gutted factories, then the broad stream of the Isonzo, and
Gorizia on the further side. To the left we could see the Isonzo winding
down out of the mountains, between Monte Sabotino and Monte Santo, the
latter hiding from our sight the Bainsizza Plateau. In the centre of our
view rose the great mass of San Gabriele; Italian patrols were out on
its southern slopes, clearly visible through field-glasses. Then Santa
Catarina and the long low brown hillside of San Marco. Away to the right
the flat lands of the Isonzo and Vippacco valleys, and beyond these
again the northern ridge of the Carso, from Dosso Faiti to the Stoll,
beautifully visible. On the right everything seemed quiet, but there was
tremendous Allied shelling of San Gabriele, Santa Catarina and San
Marco. French Gunners also were here with fifteen-inch guns firing on
San Marco, and two of their officers were at Maria O.P. that day. It
was symbolic that from this height, for the first time on the Italian
Front, Gunners of the three Western Allies were looking out eastward
together toward the Promised Land.

The enemy trenches on San Marco lay out of view