oleon, and
Tchaikovsky's music.

It began to rain, but that made no difference to the burning. In
Gradisca burning petrol was running about the streets. Earlier in the
evening there had been a queer scene here. The Headquarters of the
British Staff had been at Gradisca, and the Camp Commandant had made a
hobby of fattening rabbits for the General's Mess. When the time had
come that day to pack up and go, it was found that the lorries provided
were fully loaded with office stores, Staff officers' bulky kit and
20,000 cigarettes, which the General was specially proud of having saved
from his canteen. There was no room for the Camp Commandant's rabbit
hutches, so these were opened and the fat inmates released, to the
delight of the civilians and Italian soldiery in Gradisca, who knocked
them over or shot them as they ran. I heard this from a gunner, who was
officer's servant to one of the Staff and witnessed the scene.

A few miles away, at the Ordnance Depot at Villa Freifeldt, thousands of
pounds' worth of gun stores stood ready, packed in crates, to be
removed. But no transport came for them, and they were abandoned and
fell into Austrian hands. For lack of them, our Batteries were
afterwards kept out of action for several weeks. Whoever ordered these
things seems to have thought it more important to save the Staff's kit
and the General's cigarettes.

Just before we entered Gradisca, we passed a Battalion of the
Granatieri, the Italian Grenadiers, all six foot tall, with collar
badges of crimson and white, coming up from reserve to fight a
rear-guard action. I had seen them a few days before in rest billets and
admired their appearance. And in their march that night and in their
faces was scorn for fugitives and contempt for death. The Major said to
me, as they swung past us, that _that_ Battalion could be trusted to
fight to the end. And they did. Some of our men met a few of their
survivors at Mestre a week later. Nearly the whole Battalion had been
killed or wounded, but they had held up the Austrian advance for several
hours.

On the further side of Gradisca we passed a great platform, which had
been erected a few weeks before for the Duke of Aosta's presentation of
medals for the Carso offensive. It was here that the Major had received
the Italian Silver Medal for Valour. The platform looked ironical that
night, still decked with bunting, limp and drenched now by the rain, and
lit up by the flames of the burni