Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

‘On August 8, 6.30 P.M.,’ he writes, ‘I picked up at Lucinico and carried back two cavalry officers, still wet from the ride across the Isonzo. All August 9 Bersaglieri, &c., passed, moving on to cross the river. At 7.50 P.M. Captain Z⸺, who had just moved with us from the Osteria to Vallisella, informed me that he had an urgent call from Gorizia to fetch in cavalry wounded. He asked me if I could get an ambulance across. I selected the light touring car, loaded with bandages (Driver Sessions), and the Ford Ambulance, as that could pass where heavier cars might not be able to; also the Crossley (Watson) as the next in size, and the No. 14 Buick, in case the bridge would allow it.

‘... The roads were still full of shell holes and blocked by munition carts and guns. We reached the Iron Bridge just as darkness fell. Here the cars had to halt, as the holes in the bridge were making it necessary to unharness the artillery horses and man-handle the guns across. At the worst passages the shells were being unloaded from the carts and reloaded beyond the obstacles.

‘I walked across ahead by moonlight. Every ten feet or so there were shell breaches through the bridge. At night it was next to impossible to see them, and even after some twenty crossings I found the greatest circumspection necessary. In various places soldiers, mules, and carts severally fell through during the night. In two places nearly two-thirds of the bridge had been blown away, leaving only narrow passages along the edge. These were slightly but insecurely inclosed by a few loose planks. Again and again the heavy artillery carts broke through, gradually paring away the edge of the remaining galleries. Each of our cars had to be piloted across on foot, inch by inch. In the block it was impossible to keep them together ... and long waits and many retraversings were necessary before all four were steered safely over. There had been no time as yet even to clear away the bodies of the soldiers killed in the first passage of the morning.

‘We then wound up into the town, again impeded by shell holes in the road, fallen trees, and by remains of carts, horses, and mules. The town was utterly deserted. The only occupation was by squadrons of cavalry. The Austrians were still being cleared out of the outskirts, and stray bullets announced any open gaps in the line of houses to the east of us.

‘We traversed the town in convoy, visiting the Municipio and the principal Piazzas. We failed to find any cavalry aid-post with wounded. We were informed by a colonel of cavalry, who received us most cordially, that no aid-posts had as yet been established, and that we were the first motor ambulances to cross the bridge.

‘In passing and repassing, however, we had constant appeals from the corner-posts of regimental stretcher-bearers, and had soon filled our ambulance with wounded and distributed most of the stores of bandages, &c., with which the touring car had been loaded.

‘We then started to return. The moon had now sunk. The gaps in the Iron Bridge had opened farther. The traffic was all from the other bank, and the munition carts were all successively breaking through and necessitating lengthy rescue operations. It was fully an hour before I secured passage for the touring car. Sessions then returned with me to drive the Ford Ambulance. Another hour passed before he could be started. I left him half-way across, and returned to fetch the other cars. On recrossing I found the Ford with one wheel through. Sessions’ coolness and the car’s lightness enabled us to extract the latter and its load. It was then clear that passage for a wider car had now become impossible. On our return on foot we saw that another portion of one of the narrow galleries had opened out (the footway separating from the roadway), carrying with it a mule. No course lay open but to leave the heavier cars, with their wounded, on the Gorizia side, and to try to get the others back to Vallisella, returning later with another car to which the wounded could be carried across the bridge. The night was cold, and we left all available coats, &c., to cover the wounded in their long wait. The drivers accepted the situation with the coolness one could expect from them.

‘On reaching the Italian side again we found a block, three carts wide, extending back almost to Lucinico. We were forced to abandon, therefore, the remaining Ford Ambulance, for which it proved impossible to make a passage. After a few hundred yards of slow progress in the block, the touring car fell over the side of the road into a shell hole. It was extricated, but a few yards further the block became impracticable. We left it, half in a trench, and walked to Vallisella. On the way we met our two remaining cars, loaded with the material of the hospitals to which we were attached, also completely locked in the block.

‘At Vallisella we filled rucksacks with food and thermos, and with our adjutant, Kennedy, to help, trudged back for the bridge. Fortunately, our tramp-like appearance only led to one “hold-up” in the kindly darkness.

‘My anxiety to return was emphasised by the certainty that the Austrians would begin shelling the bridge as soon as daylight revealed the block. Day broke as we approached it. The risk had also appealed to the drivers, and we met the lorries, cars, &c., all breaking out of the jam and racing for the cover of Lucinico. Glaisyer was able to move off just as we reached him. The two cars that were still on the near side got down to the protection of the Galleria with their hospital staff.

‘As I walked up to the bridge, I was just in time to see Woolmer ably rushing the Crossley over the holes, across which the Genio had thrown a few loose planks and beams. The heavier Buick had to be carefully piloted over, Christie winding through the gaps and rushing the awkward narrow traverses with skill and nerve. The Buick was the last heavy car to recross before the bridge, under fire, was repaired about mid-day. It had also been the first to cross.

‘We were barely clear of the bridge—perhaps four minutes—when the first big shell exploded at the Italian end.’

* * * * *

From the time of the capture of Gorizia down to the present the cars of the First Unit have been stationed there, picking up their wounded within a mile of the Austrian first-line trenches. At the time of my visit to the British Red Cross Hospital one of the drivers had just suffered a broken leg and other injuries sustained when the walls of his quarters in Gorizia were blown down upon him by an Austrian shell.

‘They’re talking about sending me home on a bit of a leave to rest up a bit,’ he told me; ‘but—much as I should like to go—I’m not too keen on it. It’s more men we need here, rather than less. So, unless they insist upon it, I think my leave can wait better than our wounded.’

That seems to me fairly typical of the spirit imbuing every member of the Mission with whom I talked.

_UNCONQUERED: AN EPISODE OF 1914._

BY MAUD DIVER.

Copyright, 1917, by Mrs. Diver, in the United States of America.