, and the Major informed Headquarters
of the situation and then disconnected the telephone and the men fell in
and we marched away. We were just in time to see an Italian Field
Battery come into Pec at the gallop, the gunners all cheering, unlimber
their guns, take up position and open fire. It was a smart piece of
work, done with a real Latin gesture. How enfuriating it was to be
leaving these wooden huts of ours and these good positions, on which
had been spent so many hours of labour, where we could have passed such
a comfortable winter, going forth now none knew whither! Old Natale, one
of the Italians attached to us, chalked up in German on the entrance to
one of the huts, "You German pigs, we shall soon be back again!" But at
that moment I did not feel so sure. Natale was afterwards lost in the
retreat, and was reported by us as "missing." But one of our men saw him
again six months later with an Italian Battery and said he looked
several years younger!

We passed Campbell, the Medical Officer, standing outside his dug-out on
the road. He was waiting for the last of the other Batteries' parties to
get away. He told me afterwards that we were out only just in time.
Within half an hour of our going, the Austrians fairly plastered the
position with shells of all calibres. They shelled the road a little as
we went along, but not too much. As we passed the railway embankment at
Rubbia, we saw and spoke to some Italian machine-gunners in position,
whose orders were to hold up the enemy till the last possible moment.
They were quite calm and determined, those boys, knowing perfectly well
that, by the time the enemy came, the Isonzo bridges would have been
blown up behind them. I dragged myself on with an aching heart. One who
retreats cuts a poor figure beside a rear-guard that stays behind and
fights.

We crossed the Isonzo at Peteano, and took a short cut across the fields
to Farra. In the crowd and the dark we were jostled by some Italian
Infantry. We hailed them and found that they were our old friends, the
Lecce Brigade. The Major made our men stand back. "Pass, Lecce," he
said. "Good luck to you!" We marched on through Farra to Gradisca, both
blazing in the night. The towns and villages everywhere in this sector
had been deliberately fired by the retreating Italians, in addition to
the ammunition dumps. The whole countryside was blazing and exploding. I
thought of Russia in 1812, and the Russian retreat before Nap