ridge with cheerful
cries of "Buona sera, Johnny!" And the Sergeant Major suddenly observed
to me that "this must be a fine country in peace-time," and went on to
praise the mountains, and the rivers, and the trees, especially the
cypresses, and the surface of the roads, and some town behind the lines,
Udine I think, which was "very pretty" and "quite all right." The
Italians, too, were "all right," which from him was most high praise.
And then, as though half ashamed of having said so much, he added,
rather hastily, "But there's nothing to touch the old country after all.
I think I shall settle down there when this war's over. I've had about
enough of foreign parts."

And what do the Italians think of us, I wonder? I only know that they
treat us always with great friendliness, and show great interest in our
guns and all our doings. So the international gesture has, I think,
begun already to succeed. And its success will grow. For those British
graves, which we shall leave behind us--some are dug and filled
already--will tell their own story to the future. They will be facts, if
only tiny facts, both in British and Italian history, and "far on in
summers that we shall not see," bathed in the warm brilliance of Italian
sunshine, they will bear witness to Anglo-Italian comradeship across
the years.

CHAPTER XIII

I JOIN THE FIRST BRITISH BATTERY IN ITALY

On the 15th of August arrived an operation order indicating our targets
in the first and second phases of the great Italian offensive, which had
been long expected, and also the objectives of the Infantry. The day on
which the offensive was to begin was not yet announced. Six more British
Siege Batteries, giving us now three British Heavy Artillery Groups, had
arrived on the Carso and in the Monfalcone sector about a fortnight
before. The French too had sent a number of Heavy Batteries, which were
in position on Monte Sabotino and elsewhere north of the Vippacco. But
the counsel of wise men had been disregarded, and no French or British
Infantry, no complete Allied Army Corps, had been sent to the Italian
Front, where a big military success could have been more easily obtained
and would have had greater military and political results at this time,
than anywhere else.

On this day I walked to and from S. Andrea, returning to the Battery in
the evening greatly perspiring but with an enormous appetite. Large
numbers of Infantry were going up the Vallone and the Vo