[Sidenote:  Doubtful if all the British guns can be moved.]

By the time it was dark on Saturday evening the likelihood of all the British guns getting away seemed doubtful, and the Italian artillery colonel who supervised their employment as corps artillery came to our group headquarters to say that preparations must be made for blowing the last of them up, and that in any case each tractor must tow more than one gun and come back for others directly it had got its first tows behind the Isonzo.

[Sidenote:  Enormous conflagration of military stores.]

And now the darkening landscape suddenly began to spring out into brilliant points of light, as everywhere behind the Italian front, supply-depots, military stores, and vast collections of wooden sheds were set in a blaze.  Gorizia was the site of a special conflagration, and the enemy gun-fire was steadily increasing, till sometimes the barrage rose to a single prolonged roar, and you could not have got a knife edge between the bursts.

By 7.30 p.m. six of our guns were across the river and the rest were now firing like field artillery, with no other batteries between them and the enemy.  They kept up this protection of the retreat of the infantry so long, in fact, that the last round of all, at about 10 p.m., was fired just before the gun was hitched to the tractor, and there was yet another gun that had its breech mechanism smashed for fear it might have to be left behind.

[Sidenote:  Abandoned ammunition is exploded.]

[Sidenote:  Like a volcanic eruption.]

The bright moon hung in a pale-green sky, looking down on a dozen roads each crawling like a black snake with the close press of retreating troops.  As I was making my way back to Gradisca the whole firmament leaped into sudden brilliance and every feature in every face among the throngs around me on the road stood out for several seconds under a ghastly light.  Then followed from behind Monte Michele, a deep, rolling roar.  It was the first of the explosions of the great abandoned stores of gun-ammunition behind the front.  From then till dawn the night sky was continually breaking into a glare like that of gigantic sunset, and the crash of destroyed artillery ammunition shook the ground.  The less brilliant, but steadier, glow of burning stores and sheds and houses was constantly multiplied, and the flash of every new explosion revealed fresh masses of black smoke rising in sharp outline against the lurid horizon.  It was an apocalyptic spectacle; nothing short of a volcanic eruption could produce those tremendous effects of infernal illumination.  Millions of pounds’ worth of material, all the fruits of two and a half years of labor, were burned and blasted out of existence in a few hours.

[Sidenote:  The necessity for speed.]

[Sidenote:  Valuable stores abandoned for lack of lorries.]