At Versa we halted for a few minutes at the Hospital.  All the wounded had been evacuated.[1] Campbell was lying on a bed in one of the empty wards, snatching a little rest.  He had seen the last British troops away from Pec and had then followed on a motor-bicycle.  I went into the old R.A.M.C.  Mess to see if any food or drink was left.  The question of food was beginning to be serious for the whole retreating Army.  Italian troops were clearing out everything.  I found a wine bottle half full, and took a deep drink.  It was vinegar, but it bucked one up.  I handed the bottle to an Italian, and told him it was “good English wine.”  He drank a little, saw the joke, smiled and passed it on to an unsuspecting companion.  I got a little milk which I shared with the Major and some of our men.  Then we resumed the march.

[Footnote 1:  One wounded British soldier, who had been in an Italian Field Hospital which was not evacuated in time, was taken prisoner by the Austrians.  He told me, when he was released a year later, that the Austrians bayoneted the Italian wounded whom they found in this hospital, but spared the British, and, on the whole, treated them well.]

We reached Palmanova about 7 a.m.  It was now the 28th of October.  We met Raven in the Square, where were also collected a British General and his Staff officers.  They were standing about, with a half lost look on their faces.  There was no evidence of decision or any plan.  The General was smiling, as his habit was.  The Staff Captain was telling someone, in a hopeless voice, that he had heard that the Italians were going back to the Tagliamento.  Just as we arrived, the Italians began to set fire to the town.  Dense clouds of black smoke, fanned by a strong wind, began to pour over our heads.  Flames were soon roaring round houses, where three months ago I had been a guest.  But the inmates had all gone now.  Food and drink was being sold in the shops at knock-down prices.  The Italian military authorities were requisitioning all bread, and issued some to us.  The Major ordered it to be kept in reserve.

I went round the town and into the Railway Station looking for our guns.  But there was no sign of them.  I came back and slept for an hour amid some rubble under the archway inside one of the town gates.  The town was burning furiously.  Our men, wet to the skin, sheltered themselves from the smoke and the cold wind in the dry moat outside the walls.

Then the order came to move on.  We formed up and started with the rest.  Nobody knew whither.  Some said Latisana, but no one knew how far off this was.  The men had no rations except the bread obtained at Palmanova, and no prospect, apparently, of getting any.  The Supply Officers of the A.S.C. might as well have gone to Heaven, for all the use they were to us during those days of retreat.  It was raining again and the roads were blocked.  We proceeded slowly for a mile or two, and were then turned off