Part 11 (1/2)
We invite you to be present and to salute our brave and faithful Allies.
They should be made to feel that your hearts, in unison with theirs, throb with hope and faith.]
By eleven o'clock a large crowd was already gathering outside the Barracks. At half-past we marched out into the street. In front of us went the munic.i.p.al bra.s.s band, gay with c.o.c.ks' feathers, and school-children carrying four banners on long flagstaffs. There was tumultuous cheering and clapping from a dense crowd. Flowers were showered upon us, and a very handsome girl gave me a bouquet of red roses. The band played impossible march music, so that we weren't able to keep much of a step.
But the enthusiasm was intense. Spectators thronged all the windows overlooking our route, and the cheering crowd stretched thick and unbroken along both sides of the street all the way. I noticed a specially enthusiastic group on the steps of the Castello, and several busy photographers. In between the efforts of the band our men sang.
Outside the station we marched past the Italian General Commanding the District. Then we were halted and the General made a speech. I happened to look round, and found standing beside me, looking up at me, wide-eyed and wondering, the page boy from the Circolo, whom I had harangued on the destiny of the world's youth, and afterwards tipped. The band was playing over and over again, at short intervals, G.o.d Save the King, the Marcia Reale, the Ma.r.s.eillaise, the Brabanconne and the Marcia degli Alpini. Whenever any of these national anthems was played, all the troops stood at attention, and we officers at the salute.
Then a little man with a black beard and an eager manner stepped forward and mounted a chair, and on behalf of the a.s.sociation of Italian Teachers wished us good luck. He spoke in English. He told us that his wife was ”an Englishman,” and recalled the names of Garibaldi and Gladstone, Palmerston and Cavour. He then presented to the Major an Italian Flag, which was handed to our Battery Sergeant-Major to be carried at the head of the troops as they marched into the station. Many Italian officers were present to say personal good-byes, and an immense crowd was on the platform cheering and singing, and distributing gifts and refreshments to our men. One gift was a little piece of tricolour ribbon, which an old woman gave to one of us. It had a note pinned to it addressed ”to a brave British soldier,” saying that she had a son at the Front who always carried just such a little piece of ribbon as a talisman, cut off the same roll, and that it had always kept him safe, and that it would keep the British soldier safe too. The note was signed ”Tua Madrina” (”your G.o.d-mother”).
At last it seemed that everyone was aboard, and the train started. But it was then discovered that the Major, Jeune and Manzoni had been left behind, not expecting the train to start so soon. They had chased it for a hundred yards down the line, but failed to catch it up. So the stationmaster telephoned to Rovigo to stop the train there till the three missing ones arrived, which they ultimately did, riding on an engine specially placed at their disposal. So ended our stay at Ferrara, in a blaze of wild enthusiasm. And I believe that, collectively, we left a very good impression behind us.
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 pa.s.sed,--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 tremendously excited and pleased, and shouted with joy.
[Footnote 1: ”It's beautiful weather.”]
[Footnote 2: ”The mountains are always beautiful.”]
On the 16th the Major went out again with Jeune and myself to look for Battery positions for the defence of the line at the foot of the mountains. We went through Cittadella and Ba.s.sano, then southwards along the Brenta to Nove, and then back through Marostica and Ba.s.sano. Ba.s.sano is a delightful old town, with many frescoes remaining on the outer walls of the houses, and a beautiful covered-in wooden bridge over the Brenta.
Marostica charmed me even more. Its battlemented walls are like those of Cittadella and Castelfranco, but in a better state of preservation and more picturesque, running up a rocky foothill behind the town and coming down again,--a most curious effect. These Alpine foothills for shape and vegetation are very like the Ligurian hills north of Genoa and round Arquata.
At San Trinita, just outside Ba.s.sano on the road to Marostica, is a very fine cypress avenue. There was a possible Battery position here. I noticed also a row of cypresses standing at intervals of about fifty yards along a hillside, dark and tall amid a ma.s.s of gra.s.s and rocks and brown fallen leaves. The weather was clear and cold, but the snow had shrunk to subnormal on the foothills. The Weather G.o.d was still favouring the enemy. It was very still, though occasionally sh.e.l.ls burst over the Grappa. But the hills m.u.f.fle the sounds beyond them.
On the way back we pa.s.sed a Battalion of Alpini marching up, many of them very young. I thought of the Duke of Aosta's latest message to the undefeated Third Army: ”A voi veterani del Carso, ed a voi, giovani soldati, fioritura della perenne primavera italica.”[1] Splendid Alpini! They are never false to their regimental motto, ”di qu non si pa.s.sa!”[2] They never fail. But nearly all the first Alpini, who went forth to battle in May 1915, are dead now.
[Footnote 1: ”To you, veterans of the Carso, and to you, young soldiers, flower of the eternal Italian spring.”]
[Footnote 2: ”No one pa.s.ses here!”]
On the 20th I went out in a side-car with Winterton to look for positions in the hills above Marostica. Reconnaissances of the back lines were now to be discontinued, a sign, we hoped, of diminis.h.i.+ng apprehension and an improving military situation. At San Trinita on the way back we collided with an Italian wagon and had to stop for repairs.
A number of Italians gathered round, one of whom I discovered to be a priest, conscribed to serve with the Medical Corps. I bantered this man in a friendly way about secret drinking and the confessional and women and paradise, causing uproarious delight among the bystanders. And the priest took it all in excellent part.
On the 22nd we heard that, irrespective of the movements of the rest of the Corps, a special Group of Heavy Artillery was to be formed, including ourselves, to be lent to the Italian Fourth Army in the mountains. There began to be rumours of an offensive on our part.