Frederick Britten Austin

“ The front Austrian trench was cleared. Their protecting barrage had moved on, was now well ahead of them. “Avanti!”
His platoon well in hand, he scrambled out of the trench, advanced across the loose round stones of the sterile soil. Swarms of helmeted Italians were going forward to right and left of him. He saw his captain with a supporting platoon, acknowledged the gesture of the arm which waved him on. Little groups of Austrians came unexpectedly from behind heaps of stones, out of trenches, invisible until one halted upon the suddenly perceived brink. Their arms shot up above their heads. ”

“ The machine-gun bullets cracked viciously overhead, the reports of the weapons increasing and diminishing as the bullets swept over him, away from him. A squad of men dashed at the hillock, were smitten down in a burst of fire. From his prone position on the loose stones that bruised his knees, Baretti gazed toward it. He saw a dark opening on its face, low down. He understood. It was the mouth of a dolina, one of the many natural caverns of the Carso, which the Austrians employ as shelters for their troops. Machine-guns were firing through the aperture in almost perfect safety. ”

“ From what at first glance was a field of corpses commenced a deliberate rifle-fire. The machine-guns answered, viciously garrulous. His captain drew himself alongside Baretti, gave him instructions with a minimum of gesture.
A moment later he had passed an order along the remnant of his platoon. The men commenced to squirm themselves cautiously over to the left, while in front the rifles and machine-guns intensified their unequal duel. He followed, pulling himself over the loose stones that yielded under his clutch, moving behind the bodies of men who would move no more. ”

“ From beyond them came the sound of heavy and sustained rifle-fire, increasing in savage bursts, dominated as always by the rapid persistence of machine-guns. He was suddenly conscious of the drone and crack of bullets above his head.
They plunged into the drifting smoke, crossed a wall beaten down into a shapeless line of stones. The rifle-fire leaped to a terrifying vehemence. The Lieutenant glanced around him to get his bearings. To right and left, through the smoke, he saw men crouching, lying, behind stones, their rifles spitting. ”

“ Those untouched could only listen, appalled. Behind them the Austrian barrage was falling in a wall of constant explosions, cutting off all help. In front lay the ruined village quivering in the heat, deceptively quiet, its abandoned well a lure to death, yet almost irresistible. ”

“ Advancing alone? No. On either side swarms of men were streaming out of the Italian trenches, moving toward that whelm of brown smoke which hid the Austrians. His consciousness substituted another anxiety, as with the unwitting precision of a somnambulist he picked his way over the litter of the death-zone between the trenches. Their own barrage—they were heading straight into it! Then, as he heard again the strangely loud sonority of the “Avanti!” which reëchoed his own unconsciously uttered shout, he realized suddenly the silence of the guns. The barrage had lifted. ”

“ LIEUTENANT BARETTI edged along, stumbling in the darkness from traverse to traverse, behind the backs of his platoon as it crouched with fixed bayonets in the rock-hewn trench. He satisfied himself that each man had his full complement of cartridges, gas-mask ready, water-bottle filled, bombs handy. ”

“ The monstrous clamor of thousands of guns—firing in long-drawn-out bellows of coincident discharge upon a rolling drumbeat of individual reports—was beaten into the background by the crashes of the bursting shells and the appalling detonations of the great trench-mortar bombs. The Austrian trenches were in a whelm of fiercely reiterated explosions. ”

“ An instant later, jostled by his comrades, he was scrambling over the wrecked parapet of the Austrian trench—dropped into it. It was empty in his immediate vicinity. Along it, a little way to his right, a group of helmeted men crouched beside a machine-gun sheltered by a heap of loose stones. They gazed toward the zone of death he had crossed. Their gun spat viciously, rapidly. ”

“ Followed by his men, Baretti reached the floor, swept the beam of his torch around him. He saw only huddled bodies, a head that raised itself pitifully with open mouth as the light fell upon it. How far did the cavern extend? He knew many of these doline were capable of holding a battalion. The doubt had scarcely risen in his mind when there was a rush of feet in the darkness. A moment later, and his torch was extinguished, and he himself grappling body to body with a powerful man. He fought desperately, trying to get one hand free for his trench-knife. ”

“ The drifting reek of past explosions filled the nostrils, choked the breath in chests that labored to respire the heated atmosphere. The men lay lax and faint, their swollen tongues protruding from cracked lips, while the perspiration rolled down their faces. ”

“ But the machine-guns were desperately endeavoring to keep down the rifle-fire from that stretch of prone bodies on the stones where it was impossible to distinguish the marksmen from the dead. He and his platoon crawled onward.
The hillock loomed up close. He saw the whiffs of dust, the bluish cloud of the vaporized oil of the machine-guns at the dark mouth of the cavern. At last! He rose to his feet, his men also. A group of them jostled with him as he climbed the blind flank of the hillock. He gave quick orders, seized a couple of bombs from the bag of a granatiére. ”

“ He glanced to right and left, noting the indefinitely multiplied flashes and sparkles of flame over the glimmering plateau, trying to fix the outlines of the far-flung fight. His mind strove forward, far ahead in the smoke-hung twilight, to a village he knew only as a point on the map—his assigned objective.
He felt a hand upon his shoulder and turned to see his captain looking up at him.
“All well, Baretti?” asked the company-commander. “Good!” He glanced up to the sky. “It's going to be hot. Be careful the water-bottles are not wasted—collect them from casualties at every opportunity ”