. Far below is a bleak valley of stunted pine trees through
which passes the road of the Dolomites.

As I ascended the upper track two bandages men were coming down on led
mules. It was mid-August, and they were suffering from frostbite.
Across the great gap between the summits a minute traveller with
some provisions was going up by wire to some post upon the crest. For
everywhere upon the icy pinnacles are observation posts directing the
fire of the big guns on the slopes below, or machine-gun stations, or
little garrisons that sit and wait through the bleak days. Often
they have no link with the world below but a precipitous climb or a
"teleferic" wire. Snow and frost may cut them off absolutely for weeks
from the rest of mankind. The sick and wounded must begin their journey
down to help and comfort in a giddy basket that swings down to the head
of the mule track below.

Originally all these crests were in Austrian hands; they were stormed
by the Alpini under almost incredible conditions. For fifteen days, for
example, they fought their way up these screes on the flanks of Tofana
No. 2 to the ultimate crags, making perhaps a hundred metres of ascent
each day, hiding under rocks and in holes in the daylight and receiving
fresh provisions and ammunition and advancing by night. They were
subjected to rifle fire, machine-gun fire and bombs of a peculiar sort,
big iron balls of the size of a football filled with explosive that were
just flung down the steep. They dodged flares and star shells. At one
place they went up a chimney that would be far beyond the climbing
powers of any but a very active man. It must have been like storming the
skies. The dead and wounded rolled away often into inaccessible ravines.
Stray skeletons, rags of uniform, fragments of weapons, will add to the
climbing interest of these gaunt masses for many years to come. In this
manner it was that Tofana No. 2 was taken.

Now the Italians are organising this prize, and I saw winding up far
above me on the steep grey slope a multitudinous string of little things
that looked like black ants, each carrying a small bright yellow egg.
They were mules bringing back balks of timber....

But one position held out invincibly; this was the Castelletto, a great
natural fortress of rock standing out at an angle of the mountain
in such a position that it commanded the Italian communications (the
Dolomite road) in the valley below, and rendered all their positi