seven, and the Brigadier came up to
the O.P., very pleased with the support we had rendered, and asked that
a slow rate of fire might be kept up. Later on an Austrian telephone
message was overheard, which suggested that the attack was to be renewed
just before dawn, after a gas attack. We kept on the alert, but nothing
happened. Two of our Batteries went on firing at a slow rate all night.
When dawn broke, it was evident that our bombardment had been very
destructive. The enemy's trenches were knocked to pieces; uprooted
trees, planks, sandbags and dead bodies lay about in confusion. It was
thought that owing to our fire some Austrian units, which were to have
taken part in the attack, could not, and others would not, do so, in
spite of a special issue of rum and other spirits. I saw also,
motionless amid the Austrian wire, a figure in Italian uniform, one of a
patrol who had gone out four nights before, and had not returned.

On the 12th I went out with a Sergeant, a Signaller and Corporal
Savogna, a Canadian Italian, on a Front Line Reconnaissance on the
northern side of the Vippacco, in the Second Army area. The day was
wonderfully clear and we could see the everlasting snows beyond Cadore.
We went through Rupa to Merna and, being evidently spotted, were shelled
with 4.2's and forced to proceed along a muddy communication trench knee
deep in water. At Raccogliano Mill we visited the Headquarters of the
Bergamo Brigade, which was holding the line. A guide took us along the
front line, which had been considerably advanced here in August and
September, and again by a successful local attack a few days before. We
went down one _Caverna_ in which, on the occasion of this last attack, a
Magyar officer and 25 men surrendered. The Austrian sentry, also a
Magyar, had been fastened by the leg to the doorpost outside the
entrance to the dug-out. In the Italian bombardment one of his feet was
blown away, but his own people had done nothing for him. Now his dead
body lay out in the open behind the new Italian front line.

* * * * *

On the 14th Jeune went on leave to England, no one having any
expectation that anything of importance was likely to happen in the
near future. In his absence I acted as Second-in-Command of the Battery.

On the 19th we heard that the Italian High Command was preparing another
big offensive from the Bainsizza against the Ternova Plateau, and the
same day the Intellig