About 7 a.m., as I was still making my way back through the traffic towards our guns, it was reported that enemy cavalry patrols had been seen to the north of the road, and that shots had been exchanged.  For a moment there was some panic and confusion, but a scheme of defence was quickly organised.  No one had supposed that they could yet be so near.  I found Bixio rallying some Infantrymen, with eloquent words and great gestures, and an Italian Infantry Major, calm and smiling, was putting out a screen of machine gunners and riflemen across the road itself and along a hedge five hundred yards to the north of it.  All was in readiness for putting our guns completely out of action.  There would be nothing else to do, if the enemy appeared, for we had no gun ammunition, and it was impossible to get on, until the whole traffic block in front of us had been shifted forward.  But I told Bixio that I should do nothing to the guns, unless there was some evidence that the enemy was really approaching with a superiority of force over our own.

The enemy, however, did not at that time reappear and the best bit of hustling traffic management that I had yet witnessed during the retreat, now took place.  The northern road was at last clear at Latisana, and the authorities turned their attention to us.  A breakdown gang appeared and a number of new tractors and lorries with refills of petrol.  Civilian carts whose drivers remained, were ordered to drive on, those which had been abandoned were overturned to one side into the ditches, and dead horses and wreckage due to bombing or the brief moments of panic were likewise thrust off the road.  Relays of fresh drivers took over all the lorries and tractors which would still go.  The rest went into the ditch on top of the dead horses and derelict carts.  The heavier loads which single tractors had been pulling were split up between two or more.  In a surprisingly short time the whole mass began to move.

Here I parted from Medola, who had been a very good friend to us.  Our three guns got a new tractor to themselves and I got up beside the driver.  And so at last we entered Latisana.  Our new driver was immensely enthusiastic, but very excited.  He told me that he had had two brothers killed in the war and had applied, when the retreat began, to be transferred from Mechanical Transport to the Infantry.  That morning, he said, he had heard General Pettiti, who was our Army Corps Commander, give the order that all the British Batteries must first be got across the river and only then the Italian.  I said that I saw no good reason for this preference, but that anyhow he was driving the last three British guns.  This pleased him tremendously.  By now I was wrapped up in a new and dry Italian blanket, which I had taken from an abandoned cart by the roadside.