kdowns grew ominously shorter and shorter. And
the last time the trick didn't work, though we had all heaved and heaved
till we were very near exhaustion. We were fairly stuck now, half
blocking the road. Great excitement, as was only natural, developed
among those behind us.

I sent forward an orderly with a message to the Major, describing our
plight and asking that, if possible, another tractor might be sent back
from Latisana to pull us. This message never reached the Major, but was
opened by another Field officer, who sent back this flatulent reply. "If
you are with Major Blinks, you had better ask him whether you may use
your own discretion and, if necessary, remove breech blocks and abandon
guns." I was not with Major Blinks, and I neither knew nor cared where
he might be. Nor had I any intention of abandoning the guns. I
determined, without asking anyone's permission, to use my discretion in
a different way.

I saw, a little distance in front, an Italian Field Artillery Colonel in
a state of wild excitement. He was rushing about with an unopened bottle
of red wine in his hand, waving it ferociously at the heads of refugees,
and driving them and their carts off the road down a side track. A queer
pathetic freight some of these carts carried, marble clocks and
blankets, big wine flasks and canaries in cages. The Colonel had driven
off the road also a certain Captain Medola, of whom I shall have more to
say in a moment, and who was sitting sulkily on his horse among the
civilian carts. The Colonel's object, it appeared, was to get a number
of Field Batteries through. He had cleared a gap in the blocked traffic
and his Field Guns were now streaming past at a sharp trot. But he was
an extraordinary spectacle and made me want to laugh. Treading very
delicately, I approached this enfuriated man, and explained the helpless
situation of our guns, pointing out that we were also unwillingly
impeding the movements of his own. I asked if he could order any
transport to be provided for us. He waved his bottle at me, showed no
sign of either civility or comprehension, only screaming at the top of
his voice, "Va via, va via!"[1]

[Footnote 1: "Away with you, away with you!"]

I gave him up as hopeless, and went back to my guns, intending to wait
till he had disappeared and things had quieted down again, and then to
look for help elsewhere. But the Latin mind often follows a thread of
order through what an Anglo-Saxon is apt