A GRAMOPHONE AND A CHAPLAIN ON THE CARSO
The Battery moved up to its new position on the edge of the Carso on the
night of July 25th. The guns were drawn by Italian tractors. It was a
long business getting the guns out of their gun pits, as we had not much
room for turning, and a still longer one getting them into the new pits,
after unhooking the tractors, down a steep slope and round two
right-angle turns. Owing to our nearness to the front line no lights
could be used and the night was darker than usual. For hours the gun
detachments were at work with drag ropes, lowering, guiding and hauling,
and the monotonous cry, that every Siege Gunner knows so well, "On the
ropes--together--heave!" went echoing round those rocks till 2 a.m. next
morning.
* * * * *
This new position of ours was only three hundred yards from the
Austrians, though we had between us and them the river Vippacco and a
high hill, a spur of that on which the ruined monastery of S. Grado di
Merna stood. The trenches here ran on either side of the Vippacco. An
Italian 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 Battery alongside it. It was very
hot and dry and they had been given away by the huge clouds of dust
raised by the blast of their guns firing. The Austrians shelled them
with twelve-inch and nine-four-fives, getting magnificent shell bursts,
which some of us photographed, great columns of brown-black smoke,
rising mountains high, in the shape of Prince of Wales' feathers, and
hanging for about ten minutes in the still air. But very little damage
was done, and after a short interval both Batteries opened fire again.
From this terrace of ours we had fine views of fighting in the air. On
August 2nd we saw an Austrian plane brought down by two Italians, who
dived down upon him from above, firing at him with machine guns as they
swept past him. The Austrian, who was flying high, gradually seemed to
lose his head and hesitate in what direction to fly, then he began to
turn over and over, recovered for a moment, but finally lost all control
and came down nose first into his own trenches, just across the river.
Another evening, about ten o'clock, a whole squadron of Austrian planes
came over, flying in regular formation and signalling to one another
with Morse lamps. They were going, it appeared, to bomb Gradisca. They
were heavily shelled by the "archies" as they came over us, and several
fragments of shell fell on our terrace. The night sky was full of starry
shell-bursts, and a dozen of our searchlights fussily got busy. Then
suddenly all our artillery, as it seemed, began to go off, and for about
five minutes there was a deafening burst of fire from guns of all
calibres. And then all grew suddenly quiet again. Perhaps it was a raid,
perhaps only the fear of one.
One day an Italian plane dropped some booklets into the Austrian
trenches, and some were blown back into our own lines. They contained
photographs of Austrian prisoners of war in Italian camps, very
contented apparently, and explanations in German, Magyar and various
Slav tongues, showing "men who yesterday were living from hour to hour
in peril of death, now waiting happily and calmly in perfect safety for
the war to end, when they shall return to their homes to embrace once
more their wives and little children. Here you will be able to recognise
many of your friends." A good propaganda to induce desertions and
surrenders! The Italians generally had the mastery over the Austrians
in the air. Their machines, and especially their Capronis, could always
be distinguished from the Austrians' by the deeper hum of their engines.
Venosta had a gramophone, which played most evenings after dinner on the
terrace, chiefly marches and martial music and Italian opera. Italy's
Libyan war, whatever else may be said of it, has produced one
magnificent marching song, "A Tripoli," which deserves to live for ever.
Fine, too, even on the gramophone, are the "March of the Alpini," the
"March of the Bersaglieri" and the famous "Garibaldi's Hymn." I met an
English doctor once, who had heard this last played in Rome on some
great occasion with some of the old Garibaldian veterans in their red
shirts marching in front of the band. He had felt a lump in his throat
that day, he said. When Venosta's gramophone played, the Italians
encamped near by clustered round the edge of the terrace in obvious
enjoyment, and sometimes one or two would dash indignantly down the road
to stop limbers and carts, which were making a rattle on the stones.
* * * * *
Our Mess was a great centre for visitors, both English and Italian, we
being at this time the British Battery in the most advanced and
interesting position. Among our visitors, especially on Sundays, was a
Chaplain, whom I will call Littleton, who used to conduct our Church
Parades. In the British Army, and I believe in most others, the
principle of compulsory religious observance is still intermittently
enforced, when it does not interfere with the still more important
business of fighting. I liked Littleton very much in many ways, but
sometimes he infuriated me. He was lunching with us one day and
describing how for some months in France, during some murderous
fighting, he was attached to an Infantry Battalion. "I have never in my
life enjoyed myself more," he said, "than during those months." I could
not help asking, "What did you enjoy, seeing the poor devils getting
hit?" I told him afterwards that I knew he did not really delight in
spectacles of agony and bloodshed, but that "enjoy" seemed to me an
unfortunate word to use.
On another occasion I attended, in the capacity of Orderly Officer for
the day, one of Littleton's Church Parades and heard him preach. It was
clear that he was troubled by a suspicion that the war and the details
of its development had discredited in some minds some of the ideas of
which he was the professional exponent. He made a brave struggle,
however, against this tide of unreason. "God does not make things too
easy for us," he explained, "He gives us the opportunities, and if we
choose not to use them, that is our fault. A loving father sets up a
tremendously high standard for his son, and judges him severely, not in
spite of, but because of, his love for him. In God's sight, three or
four years of war may be tremendously worth while."
Then we sang a hymn. I felt inclined to sing instead a song, written by
a soldier who was wounded in France:--
"The Bishop tells us, 'when the boys come back
They will not be the same; for they'll have fought
In a just cause: they led the last attack
On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought
New right to breed an honourable race.
They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'
'We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.
For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;
Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;
And Bert's gone syphilitic; you'll not find
A chap who served there hasn't found _some_ change.'
And the Bishop said 'The ways of God are strange!"
It was hard for such a limited intelligence as mine, especially in this
unending Italian sunshine, to imagine that it could seriously be worth
while to burn down a whole real world, in order to roast a probably
imaginary pig. I found it very hard to believe, with the Chaplains, that
the war was purifying everyone's character, and I was particularly
sceptical as regards some of the elderly non-combatants who were unable
to realise at first hand "the Glory of the Great Adventure."