our men were sleeping very heavily and were hard to waken. When
we started it was still raining. The roads were crowded with traffic,
including many guns. Our own went by with the rest, Winterton, Darrell,
Leary and Manzoni with them. Each Battery party marched independently,
the easier to get through blocks in the traffic. The Square at Palmanova
had been fixed as the next rendezvous.

The stream of refugees with their slow-moving wagons drawn by oxen, or
their little donkey carts, or trudging on foot carrying bundles, became
gradually thicker and more painful. For we were back now in country that
yesterday or the day before had fancied itself remote from the battle
zone. I remember one elderly peasant woman, tall and erect as a young
girl, with white hair and a face like Dante, calm, beautiful and stern.
She was alone, tramping along through the mud. And she had the walk of a
queen.

At Versa we halted for a few minutes at the Hospital. All the wounded
had been evacuated.[1] Campbell was lying on a bed in one of the empty
wards, snatching a little rest. He had seen the last British troops away
from Pec and had then followed on a motor-bicycle. I went into the old
R.A.M.C. Mess to see if any food or drink was left. The question of food
was beginning to be serious for the whole retreating Army. Italian
troops were clearing out everything. I found a wine bottle half full,
and took a deep drink. It was vinegar, but it bucked one up. I handed
the bottle to an Italian, and told him it was "good English wine." He
drank a little, saw the joke, smiled and passed it on to an unsuspecting
companion. I got a little milk which I shared with the Major and some of
our men. Then we resumed the march.

[Footnote 1: One wounded British soldier, who had been in an Italian
Field Hospital which was not evacuated in time, was taken prisoner by
the Austrians. He told me, when he was released a year later, that the
Austrians bayoneted the Italian wounded whom they found in this
hospital, but spared the British, and, on the whole, treated them well.]

We reached Palmanova about 7 a.m. It was now the 28th of October. We met
Raven in the Square, where were also collected a British General and his
Staff officers. They were standing about, with a half lost look on their
faces. There was no evidence of decision or any plan. The General was
smiling, as his habit was. The Staff Captain was telling someone, in a
hopeless voice, that he had heard