that the Italians were going back to
the Tagliamento. Just as we arrived, the Italians began to set fire to
the town. Dense clouds of black smoke, fanned by a strong wind, began to
pour over our heads. Flames were soon roaring round houses, where three
months ago I had been a guest. But the inmates had all gone now. Food
and drink was being sold in the shops at knock-down prices. The Italian
military authorities were requisitioning all bread, and issued some to
us. The Major ordered it to be kept in reserve.

I went round the town and into the Railway Station looking for our guns.
But there was no sign of them. I came back and slept for an hour amid
some rubble under the archway inside one of the town gates. The town was
burning furiously. Our men, wet to the skin, sheltered themselves from
the smoke and the cold wind in the dry moat outside the walls.

Then the order came to move on. We formed up and started with the rest.
Nobody knew whither. Some said Latisana, but no one knew how far off
this was. The men had no rations except the bread obtained at Palmanova,
and no prospect, apparently, of getting any. The Supply Officers of the
A.S.C. might as well have gone to Heaven, for all the use they were to
us during those days of retreat. It was raining again and the roads were
blocked. We proceeded slowly for a mile or two, and were then turned off
the road into a damp, open field, which someone said was a "strategic
point." Here a number of different Battery parties collected. We were to
wait for the guns. The downpour steadily increased, the field rapidly
became a marsh, and there was no shelter anywhere. Raven walked up and
down, puffing at this pipe, taking the situation with admirable calm. It
was at this time that I personally touched my bedrock of misery, both
mental and physical. For there seemed to be nothing to be done, and,
what most irked me, there were so many senior officers present that I
myself could take no decisions. Then some of our guns arrived, and were
halted at the side of the road to wait for the rest. But this made the
traffic block worse, and they had to move forward again, and the idea
of getting them all together was abandoned.

Raven then gave the order to the rest of us to move on. There were some
vacant places in various cars and lorries at this point and some
footsore men were put in. The Major insisted, in spite of my protests
that I preferred to walk, that I should get into one of the ca