me vividly of Kerry. In the first
days that followed I could often imagine myself back in beautiful and
familiar places in the south-west corner of Ireland. Only Italian
gunners coming and going, for several of their Battery positions were
close to ours, and the Castello di Rubbia across the water, slightly but
not greatly damaged, broke this occasional illusion.

These Italians took us quite for granted now, and that evening I began
to learn about their Front. Things were pretty quiet at present on both
sides, but greater activity was expected soon. I made the acquaintance
of Venosta, an Italian Artillery officer attached to the Battery. He was
from Milan, a member of a well-known Lombard family, and had a soft and
quiet way with him and a certain supple charm. At ordinary times he
preferred to take things easily, and was imperturbable by anything which
he thought unimportant. But in crises, as I learned later on, he could
show much calm resource and energy.

* * * * *

I woke next morning to the sound of the Vippacco waterfall, and the
following day I got my first real impression of this part of the Italian
Front. The Battery was doing a registration shoot and I went up in the
afternoon with our Second-in-Command to an O.P. on the top of the Nad
Logem to observe and correct our fire. It was a great climb, up a stony
watercourse, now dry, and then through old Austrian trenches,
elaborately blasted in the Carso rock and captured a year ago. The Nad
Logem is part of the northern edge of the Carso, and from our O.P. a
great panorama spread out north, east and west, with the sinuous
Vippacco in the foreground, fringed with trees. From here I had pointed
out to me the various features of the country. The play of light and
shade in the distance was very wonderful. Our target that afternoon was
a point in the Austrian front line on a long, low, brown hill lying
right below us, known officially as Hill 126. The Austrians some days
before had sent us an ironical wireless message, "We have evacuated Hill
94 and Hill 126 for a week so that the British Batteries may register on
them." They evidently knew something of our whereabouts and our plans!

Coming back we stopped at the foot of a hill on which stands the
shell-wrecked monastery of San Grado di Merna, a white ruin gaunt
against the darker background of the Nad Logem. Here a new Battery
position was being prepared for us, only three hundred