Piazza, centring round the ever-crowded Cafe Garibaldi, and with the
wooded slope of the famous Monte Berico, rich with historic memorials,
rising behind the town, never failed to lift my mind out of the dreary
monotony of war into an atmosphere of cleaner and more enduring things.
I remember, too, the strange thrill I had one day, when, having passed
the sawmills and dumps of stores and shells and the huddle of
Headquarter offices at Granezza, I came out on the last edge of the
mountain wall, into sudden full view of the great plain below, full of
rivers and cities, and saw, for the first time from up here, the
sunlight flashing on a strip of distant golden sea. It was the lagoons
round Venice.

I spent also many interesting days about this time at our tree O.P. on
Cima del Taglio. The Italians had an O.P. in a neighbouring tree, which
they called Osservatorio Battisti. The British Field Artillery occupied
a third tree, and the French a fourth. The pine trees on that summit
were, literally, full of eyes. But the enemy never discovered any of us,
though he sometimes dropped a few stray shells in our neighbourhood. Our
own O.P. was not generally manned at night, unless some prearranged
operation was taking place, but the officer on duty had to remain within
call and slept in a log hut near the foot of the tree, in telephonic
communication with Battery and Brigade. The French and Italians also had
huts close by, and I spent several evenings playing chess with them, or
talking, or listening to the mandolin and the singing of Italian
_stornelli_. One young Italian, in particular, I remember with some
affection, a certain Lieutenant Prato, a mandolin player of great skill
and a very charming personality.

One day in September, when the news from the French Front was getting
better and better, I remember talking, on our tree top, to the Italian
officer, who was at that time acting as _liaison_ officer to our
Brigade, a member of a family well known in Milan. He knew every inch of
those mountains, now in Austrian hands, along the old Italian frontier.
His Battery had fought there in the early part of the war. He knew, too,
Gorizia and the Carso battlefields. And he was sick at heart, as every
Italian always silently was, at the memory of the retreat of last
autumn. And I remember saying that what was now happening in the Somme
country would happen soon in Italy. There, I reminded him, was a
stretch of country which we had onc