Chapter 7

“O Marmolada, tu es bella, tu es granaina in peo e forta in guerra.”

“O Marmolada, tu es bella, tu es grana

ina in peo e forta in guerra.”

“It’s a song the men have made,” he said. “The Marmolada was famous even in peace time, but up to a year or two before the war it had never been climbed from this side. The Captain of Alpini in the post at that pass on the left was the first Italian to make the ascent. It took him two days, and cost him several hundredlirafor guides. Well, it was from this very side that we took it (I can’t tell you exactly how, as we want to use the same method again), and now we are sending fuel and food and munitions up there every day. To-morrow, if thetelefericasare still running, you will go up there to that snow-cap on the top in less than an hour.”

On the way back to the village in the gathering dusk I had an illuminative example of the famous Garibaldisang froid. The conversation had turned—as it seemed to persist in doing during all of my visit—to common friends and haunts in South America, and I mentioned a meeting with Castro in Venezuela some years previously. “Just what month was that?” Colonel Garibaldi queried. “March,” I replied. “Then at that very moment,” said he, “I was chained to a ring in the wall of the jail at Ciudad Bolivar. A little later,” he continued, “I and a fellow-revolutionistachained up with me brokeout and started to swim the Orinoco to——”.

At that moment the sledge chanced to be worrying by a long pack train on the trestle in the bottom of the overhung gorge I have referred to, and just as my companion reached this point in his story a big icicle, thawed loose somewhere above, came crashing down on the back of one of the mules. The pack-load of provisions was riven as by a knife, and the mule, recoiling from the sudden shock, shied back into the animal immediately behind him. This one, in turn, backed into the animal next in line, so that the impulse went back through the train by what I once heard an old Chilkat packer call “mu-leg-raphy.” The consequence was that the hundred yards of gorge (in passing through which one was cautioned even to lower one’s voice for fear of starting vibration that might break loose one of the thousand or so Damoclean swords suspended above) was thrown into an uproar that set the echoes ringing. The temperamental Alpini swore at the mules, and at each other from the depths of their leather lungs, while the mules simply did the mulish thing by standing on their forelegs and lashing out with their hind ones at whatever fell within their reach.

But, unruffled alike by the kinetic energy released below and the potential energy which menaced from above, the imperturbable scionof the Garibaldi simply leaned closer to my ear and went on with his story.

“Poor Y—— never reached the bank. Shark got him, I think. I headed off into the jungle——” That was about all the story I remember, except the finish, which had to do with racing a couple of Castro’s spies for a British steamer lying alongside the quay at La Guayra. This latter part, however, was related after we had come out from under the icicles and the heels of the mules to the open road beneath the awakening stars.

There were several interruptions during dinner that evening. Once a wayfaring Alpino, whose lantern had gone out, and who had turned in to the nearest house to relight it, appeared at the door. That he stumbled upon his Colonel’s mess did not appear to disturb him a whit more than it did the Colonel, who gave the smiling chap a box of matches and sent him on his way with a cheery “a rivederci.” A little later the door was opened in response to a timid knock, to reveal a little old lady who wanted to borrow a tin of condensed milk and five eggs. Her son was coming home on leave on the morrow, she said, and she was going to make apannellofor his dinner. The little village shop was out ofeggs and milk for the moment, and as theColonello’scook had refused to lend them to her, she had come straight to theColonellohimself. She had heard he was very kind.

“See that she has all she wants; fill up her basket,” was the order sent out to the cook. And then, as the grateful little old dame backed, bowing, out of the door: “Feed him up well,madre; a man has to have something under his belt to fight in these mountains, doesn’t he?”

“Brother Sante usually looks after callers of this kind for me,” said my host with a laugh; “but Sante is away for a day or two, and I have no buffer. You will observe, by the way, that I am not quite at one with my distinguished grandfather in the matter of rations. What was it he said to the men who had assembled to follow him in his flight after the unsuccessful fight for the Roman Republic? ‘I offer neither pay, quarters nor provisions; I offer hunger, thirst forced marches, battle, and death.’ Well, I too have plenty of fighting to offer my men, but no more of the other ‘inducements’ than I can possibly help. And when they have to die, I like to feel that it’s on a full stomach.

“Perhaps you heard,” he went on, “what a stir it made up here when I first asked for marmalade for my men. They started out bylaughing at me. ‘Of course,’ they said, ‘we know that your mother is English; but that is no reason why, much asyoumay crave it, yourmenshould need marmalade!’ Then they said thatmarmellatawould cost too much, and finally tried to prove that it would be bad for the men’s health. But I had seen what troops had done in South Africa on a generous marmalade allowance; also what they were doing in France. So I stuck to it, and—well, we took the Marmolada onmarmellata, and a good many Austrians besides.”

We were still laughing over the little joke when the door opened, and the telephone operator from the room across the hall entered to report in a low voice some news that had just reached him. The Colonel’s face changed from gay to grave in an instant; but it was with voice and manner of quiet restraint that he asked a couple of quick questions and then gave a brief order, evidently to be transmitted back whence the news had come.

“It must have been either A—— or B——,” he said musingly, turning again to the big slice of caramel cake he had just cut for himself when the interruption occurred. “Oh I beg pardon; but I’ve just had word that the middletelefericaserving the Marmolada has been carried awayby an avalanche, and that one of the engineers is killed. I was just speculating as to which one it was. They were both good men—men I can ill afford to lose. This puts an end, by the way, to the trip we had planned for you for to-morrow. You will have to go to the position at the—— instead; providing, of course,that telefericadoesn’t meet a like fate.”

South American revolution (in vivid reminiscence) had raised its hydra-head many times before I saw my way clear to turn the conversation into the channel where I was so interested to direct its flow.

“Won’t you tell me, Colonel,” I said finally, “something of how the young Garibaldi have carried on the tradition of the old Garibaldi in this war? Tell me how it came about that you all foregathered in France in the early months of the war, what you did there, and what you have done since; and, especially, tell me how you took the Col di Lana.”

“That’s (as you Americans say) rather a tall order,” was the laughing reply; “but I’ll gladly do what I can to fill it.”

He drained his glass of cognac, waited till the occult rite of lighting his “Virginia” over its little spirit-lamp was complete, and then began his story (as I had hoped he would) at thebeginning. The narration which follows was punctuated by the steady drip of the eaves and the not infrequent rumble of a distant avalanche as the hot south wind calledfunbreathed its relaxing breath on a half winter’s accumulation of hanging snow.

“My father—and even my grandfather—had foreseen that Europe must ultimately fight its way to freedom through a great war; that the two irreconcilable forces (fairly represented by what France, England, Italy, and the United States stood for, on the one hand, and what Prussia and its satellites stood for on the other) made no other alternative possible. The same feelings which led my father and grandfather to fight for France in 1870 led me and my brothers to offer ourselves to fight for France and her Allies in 1914.

“As the eldest of seven sons, and the namesake of my grandfather, my father felt that it was up to me to carry on the Garibaldi tradition, and when I was scarcely out of my teens he sent me out to train in the only school that the old General ever recognised—that of practical experience. ‘Some day you will be needed in Europe,’ he said. ‘Until then, see that you make yourself ready by taking part in every war that youcan find. Learn how men follow, and then learn how men lead. If there is any choice between two causes, fight for the one you think your grandfather would have fought for; but don’t miss a fight because you can’t make up your mind on that score. The experience is the thing, and the only way you can get it is in real battles, not sham ones.’

“Well, I did the best I could, considering the day and age we live in, to follow out my father’s idea. With what success (so far as a comprehensive experience was concerned) you may judge from the fact that, up to the outbreak of the present war, I had—counting skirmishes—fought on 132 battlefields. That I had not been wounded was not, I trust, entirely due to not having been exposed to fire.

“The preparation of my brothers had been rather less drastic—less ‘Garibaldian’—than my own. In their cases, it was my father’s idea that it would be sufficient if they simply knew the world and how to get on with men; and to this end he encouraged them, as fast as they became old enough, to seek work abroad, preferably something of an outdoor character, such as that in connection with engineering projects. None of us was overburdened with book-learning or technical training, myself least of all. Indeed,I have often wished I had a bit more of both.

“So it was that it happened that the outbreak of the war found all but the two youngest of us scattered to the ends of the earth. I was in New York (not long before I had gone through the first Mexican revolution as Chief of Staff to General Madero), and with me was my second brother, Ricciotti, who had joined me there for a trip to South America. Menotti was in China, on the engineering staff of the Canton-Kowloon Railway, and Sante, also an engineer, was working on the Assuan Dam in Upper Egypt. Bruno was in a sugar ‘central’ in Cuba, and Costante and Ezia, the two youngest of us, were at their studies in Italy. My sister, Italia, was organising Red Cross work in Rio de Janeiro.

“As the war clouds began to gather, my father sent a letter to each of the five of us abroad, saying that when we received a cable from him we were to start at once for whatever place was mentioned in it. I forget what the cables received by Ricciotti and myself were about; but the rendezvous was Paris, and we were away by the next boat. We found Ezia and Costante already awaiting us in Paris, and Bruno and Sante arrived a few days later. Menotti could not arrange to get away from China until his owncountry entered the war, some months subsequently.

“Word had already gone out that an Italian Legion was to be formed to fight for the Allies, but in what theatre had not yet been decided upon. All my own training had been for guerilla warfare, and, figuring that this could be turned to the best use in the Balkans, I was in hopes that my legion could be landed in Albania, to co-operate with the Servians and Montenegrans against Austria. This was not to be, however; indeed, Ezia, who was sent to drive acamionat Salonika after being wounded on this front a few months ago, has so far been the only Garibaldi to reach the Balkans. I am sorry, in a way, for I still think that that would have been my sphere of greatest usefulness.

“Recruits flocked to us from all over the world, among them being many men who had fought with me in South and Central America. We were quite the typical band of soldiers of fortune, and except for the fact that we were all Italians, there wasn’t a great deal to differentiate us from the Foreign Legion into which we were incorporated. Side by side with the several scions of Italian nobility who had joined us marched men who had ridden asgauchoson the pampas of Argentina or hammered drills inthe mines of Colorado and the Transvaal. Nor was I by any means the only one who had peered hungrily outward through barred gratings and was familiar with the clank and tug of the ankle chain. But whatever we were, and whoever we were, we had come to fight, and we did fight. Yes, all in all, I think we lived up to the traditions of theLégion Étrangèrequite as well on the score of fighting as we did on that of pedigree. It isn’t where you comefromthat counts on the battle line, but only where yougo to; and if there was a man in the Italian Legion who wasn’t ready to fight until he dropped, I can only say that he did not come under my notice.

“Considering the fact that we began with practically raw material (though, of course, many of the men had seen previous service), and that there were nocadresto build upon, I think our work with theLegion Italiennewas about a record for quick training. It was October before we were well started, and by the end of December we were not only on the first line, but had already gone through some of the bloodiest fighting the war has seen. My grandfather used to say that proper military training was nine-tenths a matter of applied common sense and one-tenth a matter of drill. Well, I employed what common sense and experience I had, and made upthe rest with drill. Inside of two months we had 4,000 men at the front, where the French Higher Command was so well impressed with their quality that it was but a week or two before they were deemed worthy of the place of honour in an attack upon the Prussian Guard, which had been pressing steadily forward in the hope of cutting the communications between Chalons and Verdun. No regiment ever had a warmer baptism of fire. We drove back the Guard two and a half kilometres, but lost a thousand men in the effort.

“I don’t recall anything that was actually said between us on the subject, but it seemed to be generally understood among us brothers that the shedding of some Garibaldi blood—or, better still, the sacrifice of a Garibaldi life—would be calculated to throw a great, perhaps a decisive, weight into the wavering balance in Italy, where a growing sympathy for the cause of the Allies only needed a touch to quicken it to action. Indeed, I am under the impression that my father said something to that effect to the two younger boys before he sent them on to France. At any rate, all three of the youngsters behaved exactly as though their only object in life was to get in the way of German bullets. Well—Bruno gothisin the last week in December,ten or twelve days ahead of Costante, who fell on January 5. Ezia—the youngest of the three fire-eaters—though, through no fault of his own, had to wait and take his bullet from the Austrians on our own front. (It occurred not far from here, by the way.)

“The attack in which Bruno fell was one of the finest things I have ever seen. General Gouraud sent for me in person to explain why a certain system of trenches, which we were ordered to attack,mustbe taken and held, no matter what the price. We mustered for mass at midnight—it was Christmas, or the day after, I believe—and the memory of that icicle-framed altar in the ruined, roofless church, with the flickering candles throwing just light enough to silhouette the tall form of Gouraud, who stood in front of me, will never fade from my mind.

“We went over the parapet before daybreak, and it was in the first light of the cold winter dawn that I saw Bruno—plainly hit—straighten up from his running crouch and topple into the first of the German trenches, across which the leading wave of our attack was sweeping. He was up before I could reach him, however (I don’t think he ever looked to see where he was hit), and I saw him clamber up the other side, and, running without a hitch or stagger, leadhis men in pursuit of the fleeing enemy. I never saw him again alive.

“They found his body, with six bullet-wounds upon it lying where the gust from a machine-gun had caught him as he tried to climb out and lead his men on beyond the last of the trenches we had been ordered to take and hold. He had charged into the trench, thrown out the enemy, and made—for whatever it was worth—the first sacrifice of his own generation of Garibaldi. We sent his body to my father and mother in Rome, where, as you will doubtless remember, his funeral was made the occasion of the most remarkable patriotic demonstration Italy has known in recent years. From that moment the participation of our country in the war became only a matter of time. Costante’s death a few days later only gave added impulse to the wave of popular feeling which was soon to align Italy where she belonged, in the forefront of the fight for the freedom of Europe.

“Further fighting that fell to the lot of the Legion in the course of January reduced its numbers to such an extent that it had to be withdrawn to rest and re-form. Before it was in condition to take the field again, our country had taken the great decision, and we were disbanded to go home and fight for Italy. Here—principally because it was thought best to incorporate the men in the units to which they (by training or residence) really belonged—it was found impracticable to maintain the integrity of the fourteen battalions—about 14,000 men in all—we had formed in France, and, as a consequence, theLegion Italienneceased to exist except as a glorious memory. We five surviving Garibaldi were given commissions in a brigade of Alpini that is a ‘lineal descendant’ of the famouscacciatoreformed by my grandfather in 1859, and led by him against the Austrians in the war in which, with the aid of the French, we redeemed Lombardy for Italy.

“In July I was given command of a battalion occupying a position at the foot of the Col di Lana. Perhaps you saw from the lake as you came up the commanding position of this mountain. If so, you will understand its supreme importance to us, whether for defensive or offensive purposes. Looking straight down the Cordevole Valley toward the plains of Italy, it not only furnished the Austrians an incomparable observation post, but also stood as an effectual barrier against any advance of our own toward the Livinallongo Valley and the important Pordoi Pass. We needed it imperatively for the safety of any line we established in this region,and just as imperatively would we need it when we were ready to push the Austrians back. Since it was just as important for the Austrians to maintain possession of this great natural fortress as it was for us to take it away from them, you will understand how it came about that the struggle for the Col di Lana was perhaps the bitterest that has yet been waged for any one point on the Alpine front.

“Early in July, under cover of our guns to the south and east, the Alpini streamed down from the Cima di Falzarego and Sasso di Stria, which they had occupied shortly before, and secured what was at first but a precarious foothold on the stony lower eastern slope of the Col di Lana. Indeed, it was little more than a toe-hold at first; but the never-resting Alpini soon dug themselves in and became firmly established. It was to the command of this battalion of Alpini that I came on July 12, after being given to understand that my work was to be the taking of the Col di Lana regardless of cost.

“This was the first time that I—or any other Garibaldi, for that matter (my grandfather, with his ‘Thousand,’ took Sicily from fifty times that number of Bourbon soldiers)—had ever had enough (or even the promise of enough) men to make that ‘regardless of cost’ formulamuch more than a hollow mockery. But it is not in a Garibaldi to sacrifice men for any object whatever if there is any possible way of avoiding it. The period of indiscriminate frontal attacks had passed even before I left France, and ways were already being devised—mostly mining and better artillery protection—to make assaults less costly. Scientific ‘man-saving,’ in which my country has since made so much progress, was then in its infancy on the Italian front.

“I found many difficulties in the way of putting into practice on the Col di Lana the man-saving theories I had seen in process of development in the Argonne. At that time the Austrians—who had appreciated the great importance of that mountain from the outset—had us heavily out-gunned, while mining in the hard rock was too slow to make it worth while until some single position of crucial value hung in the balance. So—well, I simply did the best I could under the circumstances. The most I could do was to give my men as complete protection as possible while they were not fighting, and this end was accomplished by establishing them in galleries cut out of the solid rock. This was, I believe, the first time the ‘gallery-barracks’—now quite the rule at all exposed points—were used on the Italian front.

“There was no other way in the beginning but to drive the enemy off the Col di Lana trench by trench, and this was the task I set myself to toward the end of July. What made the task an almost prohibitive one was the fact that the Austrian guns from Corte and Cherz—which we were in no position to reduce to silence—were able to rake us unmercifully. Every move we made during the next nine months was carried out under their fire, and there is no use in denying that we suffered heavily. I used no more men than I could possibly help using, and the Higher Command was very generous in the matter of reserves, and even in increasing the strength of the force at my disposal as we gradually got more room to work in. By the end of October my original command of a battalion had been increased largely.

“The Austrians made a brave and skilful defence, but the steady pressure we were bringing to bear on them gradually forced them back up the mountain. By the first week in November we were in possession of three sides of the mountain, while the Austrians held the fourth side and—but most important of all—the summit. The latter presented a sheer wall of rock, over 200 metres high, to us from any direction we were able to approach it, and on the crest of this cliff—the only point exposed to our artillery fire—the enemy had a cunningly concealed machine-gun post served by fourteen men. Back and behind, under shelter in a rock gallery, was a reserve of 200 men, who were expected to remain safely under cover during a bombardment, and then sally forth to repel any infantry attack that might follow it. The handful in the machine-gun post, it was calculated, would be sufficient, and more than sufficient, to keep us from scaling the cliff before their reserves came up to support them; and so they would have been if there had beenonlyan infantry attack to reckon with. It failed to allow sufficiently, however, for the weight of the artillery we were bringing up, and the skill of our gunners. The apparent impregnability of the position was really its undoing.

“This cunningly conceived plan of defence I had managed to get a pretty accurate idea of—no matter how—and I laid my own plans accordingly. All the guns I could get hold of I had emplaced in positions most favourable for concentrating on the real key to the summit—the exposed machine-gun post on the crown of the cliff—with the idea, if possible, of destroying men and guns completely, or, failing in that, at least to render it untenable for the reserves who would try to rally to its defence.

“We had the position ranged to an inch, and so, fortunately, lost no time in ‘feeling’ for it. This, with the surprise incident to it, was perhaps the principal factor in our success; for the plan—at least so far astakingthe summit was concerned—worked out quite as perfectly in action as upon paper. That is the great satisfaction of working with the Alpin, by the way: he is so sure, so dependable, that the ‘human fallibility’ element in a plan (always the most uncertain quantity) is practically eliminated.

“It is almost certain that our sudden gust of concentrated gun-fire snuffed out the lives of all the men in the machine-gun post before they had time to send word of our developing infantry attack to the reserves in the gallery below. At any rate, these latter made no attempt whatever to swarm up to the defence of the crest, even after our artillery fire ceased. The consequence was that the 120 Alpini I sent to scale the cliff reached the top with but three casualties, these probably caused by rolling rocks or flying rock fragments. The Austrians in their big ‘funk-hole’ were taken completely by surprise, and 130 of them fell prisoners to considerably less than that number of Italians. The rest of 200 escaped or were killed in their flight.

“So far it was so good; but, unfortunately,taking the summit and holding it were two entirely different matters. No sooner did the Austrians discover what had happened than they opened on the crest with all their available artillery. We have since ascertained that the fire of 120 guns was concentrated upon a space of 100 by 150 metres which offered the only approach to cover the barren summit afforded. Fifty of my men, finding some shelter in the lee of rocky ledges, remained right out on the summit; the others crept over the edge of the cliff and held on by their fingers and toes. Not a man of them sought safety by flight, though a retirement would have been quite justified, considering what a hell the Austrian guns were making of the place. The enemy counter-attacked at nightfall, but in spite of superior numbers and the almost complete exhaustion of that little band of Alpini heroes, were able to retake only a half of the summit. Here, at a ten-metres-high ridge which roughly bisects thecima, the Alpini held the Austrians, and here, in turn, the latter held the reinforcements which I was finally able to send to the Alpini’s aid. There, exposed to the fire of the guns of either side (and so, comparatively, safe from both), a line was established from which there seemed little probability that one combatantcould drive the other, at least without a radical change from the methods so far employed.

“The idea of blowing up positions that cannot be taken otherwise is by no means a new one. Probably it dates back almost as far as the invention of gunpowder itself. Doubtless, if we only knew of them, there have been attempts to mine the Great Wall of China. It was, therefore, only natural that, when the Austrians had us held up before a position it was vitally necessary we should have, we should begin to consider the possibility of mining it as the only alternative. The conception of the plan did not necessarily originate in the mind of any one individual, however many have laid claim to it. It was the inevitable thing if we were not going to abandon striving for our objective.

“But while there was nothing new in the idea of the mine itself, in the carrying out an engineering operation of such magnitude at so great an altitude, and from a position constantly exposed to intense artillery fire, there were presented many problems quite without precedent. It was these problems which gave us pause; but finally, in spite of the prospect of difficulties which we fully realised might at any time become prohibitive, it was decided tomake the attempt to blow up that portion of the summit of the Col di Lana held by the enemy.

“The choice of the engineer for the work was a singularly fortunate one. Gelasio Caetani—he is a son of the Duke of Sermoneta—had operated as a mining engineer in the American West for a number of years previous to the war, and the practical experience gained in California and Alaska was invaluable preparation for the great task now set for him. His ready resource and great personal courage were also incalculable assets. (As an instance of the latter, I could tell you how, to permit him to make certain imperative observations, he allowed himself to be lowered over the side of a sheer cliff at a point only partially protected from the enemy’s fire.)

“Well, the tunnel was started about the middle of January, 1916. Some of my men—Italians who had hurried home to fight for their country when the war started—had had some previous experience with hand and machine drills in the mines of Colorado and British Columbia, but the most of our labour had to gain its experience as the work progressed. Considering this, as well as the difficulty of bringing up material (to say nothing of food and munitions), we made very good progress.

“The worst thing about it all was the fact that it had to be done under the incessant fire of the Austrian artillery. I provided for the men as best I could by putting them in galleries, where they were at least able to get their rest in comparative safety. My own headquarters were in a little shed in the lee of a big rock. When the enemy finally found out what we were up to they celebrated their discovery by a steady bombardment which lasted for fourteen days without interruption. During a certain forty-two hours of that fortnight there was, by actual count, an average of thirty-eight shells a minute exploding on our little position. With all the protection it was possible to provide, the strain became such that I found it advisable to change the battalion holding our portion of the summit every week. Did I have any respite myself? Well, hardly; or, rather, not until I had to.

“We were constantly confronted with new and perplexing problems—things which no one had ever been called upon to solve before—most of them in connection with transportation. How we contrived to surmount one of these I shall never forget. The Austrians had performed a brave and audacious feat in emplacing one of their batteries at a certain point, the fire fromwhich threatened to make our position absolutely untenable. The location of this battery was so cunningly chosen that not a single one of our guns could reach it, and yet wehadto silence it—and for good—if we were going to go on with our work. The only point from which we could fire upon these destructive guns was so exposed that any artillery we might be able to mount there could only count on the shortest shrift under the fire of the hundred or more ‘heavies’ that the Austrians would be able to concentrate upon it. And yet (I figured), well employed, these few minutes might prove enough to do the work in. As there was no other alternative, I decided to chance it.

“And then there arose another difficulty. The smallest gun that would stand a chance of doing the job cut out for it weighed 120 kilos—about 260 pounds; this just for the gun alone, with all detachable parts removed. But the point where the gun was to be mounted was so exposed that there was no chance of rigging up a cable-way, while the incline was so steep and rough that it was out of the question trying to drag it up with ropes. Just as we were on the verge of giving up in despair, one of the Alpini—a man of Herculean frame who had made his living in peace-time by breaking chainson his chest and performing other feats of strength—came and suggested that he be allowed to carry the gun up on his shoulder. Grasping at a straw, I let him indulge in a few ‘practice manœuvres’; but these only showed that while the young Samson could shoulder and trot off with the gun without great effort, the task of lifting himself and his burden from foothold to foothold in the crumbling rock of the seventy degree slope was too much for him.

“But out of this failure there came a new idea. Why not let my strong man simply support the weight of the gun on his shoulder—acting as a sort of ambulant gun-carriage, so to speak—while a line of men pulled him along with a rope? We rigged up a harness to equalise the pull on the broad back, and, with the aid of sixteen ordinary men, the feat was accomplished without a hitch. I am sorry to say, however, that poor Samson was laid up for a spell with racked muscles.

“The gun—with the necessary parts and munition—was taken up in the night, and at daybreak it was set up and ready for action. It fired just forty shots before the Austrian ‘heavies’ blew it—and all but one or two of its brave crew—to pieces with a rain of high-explosive. But it had done its work, and doneit well. The sacrifice was not in vain. The troublesome Austrian battery was put so completely out of action that the enemy never thought it worth while to re-emplace it.

“That is just a sample of the fantastic things we were doing all of the three months that we drove the tunnel under the summit of the Col di Lana. The last few weeks were further enlivened by the knowledge that the Austrians were countermining against us. Once they drove so near that we could feel the jar of their drills, but they exploded their mine just a few metres short of where it would have upset us for good and all. All the time work went on until, on April 17, the mine was finished, charged, and ‘tamped.’ That night, while every gun we could bring to bear rained shell upon the Austrian position, it was exploded. A crater 150 feet in diameter and sixty feet deep engulfed the ridge the enemy had occupied, and this our waiting Alpini rushed and firmly held. Feeble Austrian counter-attacks were easily repulsed, and the Col di Lana was at last completely in Italian hands.”

Colonel Garibaldi leaned back in his chair and gazed thoughtfully at the cracks in the ceiling as one whose tale is finished. The endhad come rather abruptly, I thought, and I was inclined to press for further details.

“It must have been a grand sight,” I ventured—“that mountain-top blowing off into the air with hundreds of shells bursting about it. Where were you at the great moment?”

The grave face grew a shade graver, and a wistful smile softened the lines of the firm mouth.

“Not in sight of the Col di Lana, I am sorry to say,” was the reply. “My health broke down a fortnight before the end, and another officer was in command at the climax. It was one of the greatest disappointments of my life. I would have given my right hand to have been the first man into that crater. But never mind,” he concluded, rising and squaring his broad shoulders; “bigger things than the Col di Lana are ahead before this war is over, and I feel that I am not going to miss any more of them. It’s the Garibaldi way, you know, to be in at the death.”

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AIRMEN O’ WAR. 6s. net.

Thrilling examples, derived from personal war experience, of the high courage and ready humour of our intrepid airmen.

FRONT LINES. 6s. net.

“There is a rush and swing in Mr. Cable’s narrative that get us close to the reality of war. He makes us see the war with the soldier’s eyes, and know something of the suffering and indomitable cheerfulness of the man in the firing line.”—Pall Mall Gazette.

BETWEEN THE LINES.New and Cheaper Edition. 2s. 6d. net.

“For a conspectus of daily routine within the limited area of first-line trenches we think Mr. Boyd Cable’s book the most fully informing we have read. If one cannot see the life of the trenches going on by reading this book, it must be that one cannot derive a true impression from any printed page. Will enable many people to read the newspapers with new eyes.”—The Spectator.

GRAPES OF WRATH. 5s. net.

“A very graphic account of what a Big Push is like from the point of view of our infantry private.”—The Times.

“The real thing—absolutely and penetratingly alive.”—The Outlook.

ACTION FRONT. 5s. net.

“The atmosphere, the very scent and noise of it, Mr. Boyd Cable gives with sure touch. Full of insight into the stark reality of war.”—The Nation.

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1.

BY BENNET COPPLESTONE.

THE SECRET OF THE NAVY7s. 6d. net.

“Gives an excellent impression of the spirit of the Navy, and the part which a high tradition has played in bringing it to its present efficient state. Mr. Copplestone’s series of articles will, if such a thing be possible, heighten our confidence in the ability and devotion of the Service to which we are so deeply indebted.”—Everyman.

THE LOST NAVAL PAPERSFOURTH EDITION. 6s. net.

“William Dawson is a great surprise, a sheer delight. The inimitable Sherlock Holmes will soon be rivalled in popularity by the inscrutable William Dawson.”—Daily Telegraph.

“A keen sense of humour and clever character suggestion.”—Punch.

JITNY AND THE BOYS.FOURTH IMPRESSION. 6s. net.

“In the father of this family Mr. Bennet Copplestone has scored an unqualified success. The book is full of the thoughts which make us proud to-day and help us to face to-morrow. Yes, Jitny has my blessing.”—Punch.

“A clinking motor-car story.”—Daily Chronicle.

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1.

BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

HIS LAST BOW. 6s. net.

“The experiences will be read with breathless interest by tens of thousands who will revel in the mysteries, admire the ice-cold reasoning of Holmes, and marvel at the ease with which he unravels the seemingly clueless crimes. They are of the first vintage, sparkling, rich, and very palatable.”—Daily Graphic.

UNIFORM ILLUSTRATED EDITION, 6s. NET EACH.

ALSO AT 2s. NET EACH.

TWO VOLUMES OF VERSE, 5s. NET EACH.

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1.

MURRAY’S LIBRARY.

2s.net each.

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1.

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