Trench Mortar Battery had been here before us and, it was said,
had been shelled out. But our gun pits, blasted out of the hillside,
were almost completely protected against hostile fire, except perhaps
from guns on S. Marco, which might, with a combination of good luck and
good shooting, have got us in enfilade. Only howitzers capable of
employing high-angle fire could usefully occupy such a position, and, as
it was, our shells could not clear the crest except at pretty large
elevations. It resulted that we could not hit any targets within a
considerable distance of the Austrian front line, but this, we were
told, did not matter. We were here, we were informed, "for a special
purpose" and for action against distant targets only. There was an
orchard on the flat just behind our guns, a little oasis of fertility in
that barren land, and wooden crosses marking the graves of some of the
Italian Trench Mortar Gunners, who had preceded us.

Italian Field Artillery were in position all around us, and were firing
a good deal by night. For the first few nights, with their guns popping
off all round, and with blasting operations in full swing, an almost
continuous echo travelled round and round the stony hillsides and made
me dream that I was sleeping beside a stormy sea breaking in endless
waves on a rocky coast. Blasting was going on all day and all night in
this neighbourhood. One of our officers was walking one morning on the
back of the Carso, out of view of the enemy and anticipating no danger,
save the stray shell which is always and everywhere a possibility in the
war zone, when suddenly the face of an Italian bobbed up from behind a
rock with the warning, in English, "Now shoots the mine!" and
disappeared again. The Englishman ran for his life and took shelter
behind the same rock, and a few seconds later there was a heavy
explosion, filling the air with flying fragments, unpleasantly jagged.

Our officers' Mess and sleeping huts were about two hundred yards from
the guns and a little higher up the hill, just above one of the
magnificent newly-made Italian war roads, along which supplies went up
to Hills 123 and 126 and the Volconiac and Dosso Faiti. Just outside our
huts and opening on to the road was a broad, natural terrace, with a
fine view backwards over the plain. Several times, during our first week
in this position, the Austrians shelled a British Battery at Rupa about
a mile in rear of us and an Italian Batter