PART V

A YEAR OF RESISTANCE AND OF PREPARATION

CHAPTER XXVII

IN STRATEGIC RESERVE

Our train reached Cittadella shortly after dusk. We interviewed a
British R.T.O., who had only taken up his duties five minutes' before
our arrival, and so not unnaturally knew nothing about us. The Major
proposed that the train should be put into a siding and that we should
spend the night in it. This was done. We went into Cittadella, but found
everything in complete darkness, most of the houses sandbagged, and all
shops, cafes and inns closed at dusk by order of the military. We
succeeded, however, in getting a meal of sorts, and then went back to
the train and turned in early. We were woken up a little after midnight
by two British Staff officers, who were very vague and ignorant, but
told us to go next morning to San Martino di Lupari, a little village
midway between Cittadella and Castelfranco. This we did and found pretty
good billets. Monte Grappa loomed over us to the north, deep in snow. I
did not go into Cittadella by daylight, but only saw its battlemented
outer walls.

Then for a few days nothing happened, except that everyone seemed to
have caught a cold. We were now part of the XIth British Corps, who were
concentrated in the surrounding district and formed for the moment a
strategic reserve, which might be sent anywhere according to the
development of the situation. If nothing particular happened, we should
probably go into the line south of the XIVth British Corps on the Piave.
If, on the other hand, the Italians were driven back in the mountains to
the north of us, or were forced to retire down the Brenta Valley,--and
this danger had not yet quite passed,--we should move up the mountains
and take over part of the Italian line, with the French probably on our
right. We received tracings of several possible lines of defence, on the
plain itself and on the near side of the mountain crest, described as
the "Blue Line," the "Green Line," etc., which we were required to
reconnoitre with a view to finding Battery positions and O.P.'s. They
were all very awkward lines to defend, as the enemy would have splendid
observation and we practically none at all.

On the 15th the Major went out in the car reconnoitring to the east. He
met some Alpini on the road to whom he said, "Fa bel tempo,"[1] and they
replied, "Le montagne sono sempre belle;"[2] also an old man who had
never seen British soldiers before, and was treme