Chapter VII: Part 7

At the Münster camp, where I again found myself permanently lodged in September, 1915, I slept in a big wooden shed which accommodated two hundred of us. Right round the camp, at a height of eight yards, ran a fence of "live" electric wire. To attempt to pass through this meant certain death. I had no wish to try electrocution as a means of suicide, although it would have been speedier and less irritating to the temper than the kicks and cuffs and manifestations of spitefulness to which we were all liable. On the outer side of the wire perambulated the sentries. What chance had a prisoner to escape?

My straw bed was placed in a far corner of the "little wooden hut" to which I have referred. At last a happy thought occurred to me. I would burrow my way from the hut to the outer world, or, in other words, beyond the deadly wire! This, however, was easier said than done, but after a time I commandeered a shovel and surreptitiously removed a piece of board from one of the rafters. Possessed of these implements, which I carefully hid, I waited until all was quiet and the tired sons of England, Russia, and France were fast asleep. Then, raising two or three boards beneath my heap of straw, I started upon a voyage of discovery.

III--"HOW I TUNNELED TO LIBERTY"

Fortunately for me, there was a hollow space beneath the whole expanse of flooring. Quietly I began to dig in the soft soil, pushing it beneath the floor as my hole grew bigger. The first night I kept at my task for two or three hours, and then, leaving my board and shovel in the cavity, I returned to my bed, carefully replacing the lengths of flooring which I had removed, and obliterating all traces of my pleasant evening's occupation.

It seemed a forlorn hope upon which I had entered--half a chance in ten million. Yet I was prepared to seize it, ready to risk imprisonment and punishment on discovery rather than not make the attempt.

For six weary weeks I worked at my tunnel, and so secretly was the job carried on that only one man in the hut shared the knowledge with myself. I often told this man off to keep watch and ward and give me the signal should any too-inquisitive sentry or guard take it into his head to depart from his wonted custom and visit the place at night. The sharer of my secret decided that when I had burrowed clear of the sentries he would escape with me, but at the last moment his nerve forsook him and he "cried off."

As I have said before, I was thoroughly "fed up"; I had reached that condition of mind when we believe the ills we are enduring cannot be equalled by anything that is to follow. Nothing save force, I decided, should deter me from pursuing my plan to the bitter end.

Thus, night after night, I dug and delved, distributing the _débris_ as best I could. I took precautions with diabolical cunning, for I was not going to throw away my chances by any eleventh-hour recklessness. Six weeks--forty-two nights, to be exact--I played B'rer Fox in my "dug-out," six feet down, until my tunnel was fifteen or twenty yards long and big enough for me to crawl through. The sounds above and the distance that I knew the wire fence to be from the rear of the hut told me when my burrowing had gone far enough.

It was a fortnight before Christmas, 1915, that I broke out from my burrow. I timed my exit for the change of sentries, at seven-thirty in the evening. Of food I had virtually none, with the exception of an odd biscuit or so. I possessed, however, what I deemed to be more important than food--a compass, bought from a Frenchman, which I had guarded far more jealously than Hun ever guarded Englishman.

After the preparations I have described, the actual escape seemed as easy as falling off a log. I emerged from the hole, saw that the coast was clear, and made off towards the north-west. Walking throughout the night, keeping to the fields and the woods, and continually crossing ditches and other obstacles, I put as much distance between me and Münster Laager as was humanly possible. It was really very uneventful.

In the day-time I kept to the woods, sleeping and resting; at night-time when compelled to cross a road I slung my boots across my shoulder and flitted by like a shadow. The weather was wet, my clothing was well-nigh soaked, hunger gripped me--and then came Nemesis.

As a matter of fact, I had met very few people. Three nights I tramped, three days I lay hid. It was during the third night that all my plans went wrong, all my fond visions were dissipated like a pricked bubble. And I believe it was my over-cautiousness in walking a road without boots that proved my undoing.

IV--RECAPTURED--"I WAS SENTENCED TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT"

A policeman challenged me and I replied--I hadn't much German--"Deutsch." All, I think, would have gone well had he not glanced at my feet. Then he promptly switched on an electric lamp, worn at his breast, and covered me with a revolver. The game was up; my race was run! I had to admit that I was an "Engländer." To add to my mortification, I learned from the officer that I was only five or six kilometres from the Dutch frontier.

Well, to give the German his due, that policeman played the good Samaritan. He knocked up a cottager and got me some coffee and bread--and never did anything taste so sweet. I was utterly reckless as to my fate, for I had developed a devil-may-care frame of mind. I was disappointed--that was inevitable. Who wouldn't have been disappointed at seeing a scheme that had arrived so near fruition come toppling down like a house of cards? Punishment I knew I should get, and punishment I certainly received.

I was sentenced to ten days' solitary confinement in a cell, at first totally dark, to which the light was gradually admitted. Next I was paraded round the camp as a standing example of Germany's might, and a hideous warning to "evil-doers." A red and white band sewn to my sleeve gave notice to all and sundry that this was the ill-mannered churl who spurned _Kultur_ and wanted to get back to that despicable England about which the Germans sang.

I should here explain that, in the intervals of contriving splenetic irritants for their prisoners, my captors often sang the notorious "Song of Hate." I have seen them march in all solemnity around the camp singing the "Vaterland" and "Gott Strafe England"--and the spectacle was too much even for my limited sense of humor.

Their brutalities were beyond the belief of any commonplace civilized beings. At the Sennelager camp, for instance, there were many civilian prisoners, and they were treated far worse than we soldiers were--and that's saying something. One especial form of amusement (for the Huns) was the shaving of civilians. Whether it was as punishment or as sheer deviltry I don't know, but I have seen many civilians shaved on one side of the head and face, with half their hair, half their whiskers, and half their moustaches gone. Fit game for a Nero, wasn't it?

Neither that ten days' confinement, nor yet the beautiful red and white band, and my exhibition before my compatriots, broke my spirit, and I was still determined to see England or die. The Germans talked of their glorious deeds. Goodness knows how many times they sent our navy to the bottom of the sea, and I have forgotten how often they told me their Zepps were "sending England to H----." They were very full of their Zepps, by the way, but we didn't swallow all their stories either of their ships in the air, their ships on the sea, or their victorious armies on land.

Now and again, you see, authentic news reached us, and an occasional smuggled newspaper told us that the tide had turned and gave us heart of grace to bear our burdens, if not with patience, yet with some degree of fortitude.

V--"MY SECOND ATTEMPT--AND PENALTY"

My second attempt to escape was even a greater fiasco than the first; I had scarcely a run for my money. A cart daily conveyed swill from the camp to a large piggery, this work being delegated to a French prisoner. A man named Grantham and myself resolved that, whether we went to the dogs or not, we would at least go to the pigs. With the cognizance of the French driver, we hid ourselves between the swill barrels, which were usually left in the cart on its arrival at the piggery overnight. We were not missed from the camp, and remaining in our unsavory quarters until dusk fell over the land; we then slunk away like Arabs.

I have omitted to tell you that once again I had a compass. The other one had been taken from me on my recapture, but I had purchased a second from a Russian for the sum of seven shillings. We were without food, and a dark night seemed to favor us, but before morning--we had covered only six or seven kilometres--a couple of sentries simply ran into us, and we were haled back to camp. It was ignominious, but inevitable.

If one escape merited ten days' solitary confinement, a second justified twenty-one. At any rate, that was my portion, and Grantham got ten days. Once again I was trotted round the camp as an object lesson on ingratitude for favors already received. It was after this that the monotony of prison camp life was relieved by a gentle jaunt to Russia. I am not surprised that people should imagine that I am romancing when I speak of going from Germany to Russia. Yet I am stating nothing but the bare truth. Eighty-nine men from the Münster camp were told that they were to join a party destined for "unknown regions," and as one of the officers put it to me, he considered I had "better go, or I should go somewhere worse."

How that would have been possible none but a German mind can conceive. At a railway station two thousand of us, sad-looking fellows most of them, were assembled from different camps. We were in the train for seven days, plus two days at Frankfort, before we reached our destination. At Frankfort martial law was read, and we were politely informed that we were to be asked three times whether we would work, and if we refused we were to be bayoneted! It was to Windau, in Russian Poland, that we were eventually taken, and the life there was a hell upon earth.

The re-laying of railway metals torn up by the retreating Russians and a certain amount of farm work were the duties imposed upon us. The sights I have seen! I hate the very thought of them! Men were continually being felled to the ground and kicked and bayoneted. I have even heard captives, worn out and dispirited, beg the sentries to shoot them and thus end their misery, and the poor wretches meant it, for it would be better to die than to endure such slavery. One poor chap, goaded into retaliation, was kicked viciously, had a bayonet thrust through his leg, and was then flung, half dead and bleeding, into the guard-room.

After this there was a wholesale refusal to work and much bludgeoning, and general mutiny threatened. The Germans saw they had gone too far, and they capitulated. They told us that if we behaved fair to them they would be fair to us. All the time we were under martial law, and the orders that were read out to us were signed by Hindenburg.

Escape now seemed farther off then ever, so I played 'possum, pretended to have rheumatism and other ailments, and was sent back to Münster. I was still wearing the red and white signal of my attempts to escape, and one of the first things that I did on my return was to commandeer a fresh coat, otherwise I should have been a marked man.

What new plan of campaign could I evolve? Two had been tried and failed; yet I was just as keen and just as ready as ever to stake even life itself on a desperate throw. It was now that I met with a bit of luck, for I happened to fall in with Private Leonard Walker, of Oldham, and Private Fussell, of Taunton, one a Welsh Fusilier and the other a Somerset. They were bent on escape even as I was, and Walker had also tried the game before, having spent five days and five nights in the open with a chum, living on biscuits and a rabbit which they picked up and steering a course by map and compass. They, like me, had been caught, when crossing a railway line. A woman signalled to the sentry; they were captured, and had undergone solitary confinement. Walker, Fussell, and myself were a pretty good trio, with none of the turning-back spirit in our composition. Lot's wife turned back, you'll remember, but her fate was a shorter shrift than ours, and far less uncomfortable. A grand chap for the job was Walker, and his experience stood us in good stead. He studied the situation, weighed matters carefully, was resourceful and cute, but nevertheless had that touch of recklessness so necessary for such a venture.

VI--"MY THIRD ATTEMPT--THE FLIGHT"

We fixed up our arrangements and bided our time. We stuffed our pockets--"stuffed" is a good word--with twenty-one biscuits saved from our parcels--twenty-one for three of us. We also had two tins of sardines, and, better than all, a map and compass. One thing that we determined to do was to get rid of a conspicuous stripe sewn down the sleeves of our coats and the legs of our trousers. It was a bit of a puzzle at first, but Walker got over the difficulty by cutting up his waistcoat and inserting strips under the light stripes, which, when we got clear, were torn away, leaving us to all intents and purposes clothed like ordinary citizens and not like wicked "Engländers."

It was on September 27th--fateful, happy day!--that our opportunity came. We were at work in a barn on a farm four or five miles from the Laager, for which work I had volunteered with a view to escape, feeding a threshing machine. It was a job that was supposed to last four days, but while the guard was out of the way we quietly put the machine out of action with a crowbar. Then we went off to dinner and ate as hearty a meal as we could in case of emergencies. Two sentries stood guard over about twenty of us, and one of them showed signs of sleepiness.

"Why, Colonel," said I to the other, "aren't you going to have a nap with your friend?" He grinned and walked away to lie down at the far end of the barn. Thereupon we three conspirators passed the tip to each other, and off we went. There were some thick bushes growing outside the barn, and we had placed our coats containing the food near the door. I was wearing a cap, a cardigan jacket, a black scarf, and an old coat. I won't deny that my heart beat pretty briskly as we made for the bushes as quickly and as noiselessly as we could.

There was good cover of this sort for a mile or so, and it was pretty certain we weren't missed, at any rate until we had got quite a respectable start. We had some open country to negotiate before we found the friendly shelter of a wood, and lay there until night closed in.

As a ruse we first turned eastwards and then cautiously worked our way round until we had our heads in the direction of liberty. During the night we heard sounds which led us to believe we were being searched for. We had resumed our flight from the wood about seven o'clock, and we kept going until day broke. Another wood sheltered us during the day, and for the time being we dared not leave it, for our furtive observations showed us a considerable tract of open country which it would have been madness to face in broad daylight. We were taking no undue risks this time, and we husbanded our resources and our strength, even as we husbanded our food supply, taking it turn and turn about to watch and sleep.

Water in the ditches supplied us with drink, and the rain saw to it that we had plenty of water both without and within! When darkness returned we set off once again, often starting at our own shadows and slinking back into the blackness whenever we heard a sound. There was safety as well as weakness in numbers--safety in our lookout, and weakness in the inability of three men to give a reasonable explanation if we were tackled. Whenever we had to take to the road we carried our boots and trod as warily as panthers. Three or four times we had to pass through towns and villages, but our luck was in, and we were not challenged. Our heads were turned aside and as much distance imposed as possible whenever we heard anyone walking on the thoroughfares.

Bootless and footsore, we also traversed four miles of railway, and it seems miraculous, looking back as I now do, that we were never seen or stopped by sentries. Three times, too, we had, willy-nilly, to cross rivers. We "did" our first river in boats which we found secured to the bank of the stream. There were two boats, and in the darkness we paddled them as silently as Red Indians to the other side, and then turned them adrift. I suppose it was what you might have called a theft, but stern necessity knows no law, and a German boat more or less was neither here nor there.

Another river was spanned by a bridge, and you can imagine how we slipped across, as noiselessly as ghosts. Neither bridge nor boat offered itself as a solution of stream number three, but it did not prove a particularly formidable obstacle, and we walked through it, the water rising to our waists.

From dusk to the time the first streak of light began to gild the eastern sky we "padded the hoof." On the fourth night we reckoned that we must be nearing the frontier. Tired and weary, footsore and very hungry, our vigilance was never relaxed. That last night we approached a town of considerable size. We did not dare to walk through it, and made a long detour in order to pass wide of the outskirts. Though we knew it not, we were nearing the last lap of our journey.

It was dark, with a velvety blackness, and neither moon nor stars were showing. Suddenly the stillness of the night was broken by the challenge of a sentry. Evidently he had seen three silhouttes, or imagined he had.

Were we to have had all our toil in vain? Were we to be shut out even as the gates of Paradise seemed to be opening to us?

Without a sound we dropped prone upon the ground and waited, waited, listening to the beating of our hearts.

For twenty minutes or more we lay there, each thinking his own thoughts, and listening to the silence. At last, with a whispered word, we rose and moved on, our boots in our hands, to the north-west. Soon we saw the white stones which told us that the frontier was in sight, and I rolled down a steep bank and walked right into a man. It was a soldier. Hazy in mind, scarcely realizing that I had crossed the Rubicon, I stood speechless. Then the sentry spoke.

_It was a Dutchman!_

VII--"SAVED--WE REACHED DUTCH SOIL"

I called out joyfully, and my comrades, the men who had proved themselves true and staunch, having joined me. The soldier made himself understood, and tumbled to the fact that we had escaped from the land of captivity.

"France, Russia, or Engländer?" he asked.

"Engländer!" I replied, with pride. Out came his hand, and I clasped it. He greeted all three of us warmly, muttering his congratulations the while. To a house close by he took us, fed us, and warmed us. It was like a foretaste of heaven, and we could hardly believe that our troubles were at an end.

We had struck the frontier, it appeared, in the State of Overyssel, thirty to forty kilometres from the Münster camp, and we could not have made a luckier strike. It was not long before we were put in touch with the British Consul and were sent to the Sailors' Home at Rotterdam. Everybody was kindness itself, and I shall never forget the good old Dutch pastor who prayed with us that we might reach home in safety.

To each of us he gave a Testament, in which he wrote our names and his own, together with the words, "Take God's gift, the gift of Eternal Life, by believing in the Lord Jesus." Passports were soon obtained; we were photographed just as we were, and at last we landed at Hull, thankful with a big thankfulness.

Need I describe my home-coming? I had had no chance to prepare my people, and I dropped down upon them like a visitor from Mars. It was a brief visit to begin with, for my first duty was to report myself at headquarters, and by the next train I was on my way to Chester, where I was immediately granted a month's leave. What is to be done with me it is for others to say, but I am hoping I shall get some of my own back upon the Huns.

With scarcely an exception, you can say that the British in captivity are in good heart and are not cowed or browbeaten. I am told that I am one of the very few Britishers who have escaped, and I am not surprised at that, for we are more strictly guarded than the French or Russians, who are often permitted to work on farms from Monday to Saturday without any guard whatever.

My impressions of Germany are of no value, for I saw little of the civil population. But it was evident from the yarns spun us by the soldiers that they are fed on lies and that a day of awakening will come. To my mind, they are certainly suffering from the effects of the blockade. When we first arrived in Germany food seemed plentiful, but latterly the soldiers often asked us for biscuits and other things sent us in the parcels which kept us alive.

Working parties on the farms were fed decently in 1914 and 1915, but during these last months the farmers would give them a few potatoes and a scrap of bacon, and excuse themselves on the ground that it was all they had, and there was no food in the country. For what it is worth, it is my opinion that Germany is kept going largely by the work of prisoners of war. They labor on farms, they are sent into coal mines, chemical works, and munition factories, they make and repair railways. They work hard--from six in the morning till six at night--and their wages are threepence a day. Whether the Germans still believe they are winning I cannot say, but their treatment of prisoners has lately improved, and this seems significant. Winning, the German is a bully and a cad; beaten, he whines, and his temperament is reflected in his conduct towards those who are in his power.

CLIMBING THE SNOW-CAPPED ALPIAN PEAKS WITH THE ITALIANS

"_Battling Where Men Never Battled Before_"

_Told by Whitney Warren, an American on the Austrian Front_

After climbing Carso peaks with Cadorna's Alpini, descending into
shell craters with Petain's poilus and fraternizing with Haig's
Tommies on the shell swept fronts of the Somme, Mr. Warren, an
American, has made the world comprehend the loyalty, the sacrifices
and the practical services of the Italians. Fired by his enthusiasm
for the courage, devotion and military ability of the Italians, he
tells the vivid story of the comparatively little known fighting on
the Italian-Austrian front in the _New York Sun_.

I--OVER THE ALPS WITH CADORNA'S MEN

Sly hints are about in America as to the pusillanimity of the Italians. Some persons are ready enough to absorb these hints. Nothing could be more monstrously false. It is not a matter about which I need to argue--I _know_. No one with the full use of eyes and ears and possessed of moderate intelligence could spend twenty-five days with Cadorna's fighting men without being thrilled. They are battling where men never battled before--upon the tops of high mountains, elevations that only eagles knew before Germany put the torch to civilization. They are swinging bridges across incredible chasms. They are chiselling roadways where monkeys could scarcely cling. They are blowing off the tops of gigantic mountains in order to progress a few meters. They are accepting the most frightful hardships with that charming acceptance of the inevitable which, it seems to me, is so characteristically Italian. They freeze. They starve. But always they go ahead--and Vienna knows with a drag at the heart that the standards of Italy will shortly snap from the housetops of Trieste.

I say that men never fought before in country so frightfully convulsed by nature. Wily Austria, peering into the future, knew that the hour would come when Italian forbearance would strike twelve and demand the liberation of oppressed Italians in the Trentino, and so Austria in the Peace of Villafranca brought about an iniquitous boundary which left her with her feet planted in Italian territory, with her fortresses upon Italian mountain crests. And that desperate handicap was what Italy faced when she went to war to liberate her people. All the odds were against her. But she is winning--winning a few hundred meters at a time. She conquers first one peak, then a whole range, then another peak, then another range, and all the time fights classical warfare, the classical warfare that has been abandoned in France and Belgium. Hear this story--one of fifty such:

II--STORY OF ITALIAN-AMERICAN WHO BLEW UP A MOUNTAIN

Fifteen years ago a charming, cultivated young Italian, son of the Duke of Sermonetta, came to the United States to study mining engineering. He sank his identity in a family name, Gealsio Caetani, earned his degree in the Columbia School of Mines, went West and labored at $2 a day with pick and shovel so as to know his business from the ground down, became superintendent (out of sheer ability) of a great mine in Alaska and eventually opened a consulting office in San Francisco. When the Germans overran Belgium Caetani threw up his business, hastened to Belgium and volunteered. When Italy was ready to fight he joined his own colors and entered the aviation service. I saw him in flying man's toggery.

"But you, Caetani, are an engineer," I said. "Why not overthrow mountains and build bridges instead of winging about as an observer." Then I went away to see how successful the Austrians had been in destroying the art treasures of Venice and Milan; and after a while men told me the story of an engineer who uprooted a mountain range upon which two battalions of Austrians had defied an army for many months. This engineer who had solved nature's great problems in the Rocky Mountains and in Alaska climbed like a fly up the face of sheer rock cliffs, managed to drag after him the necessary drills and then, with Austrian riflemen patrolling high overhead drilled a tunnel of 300 meters length into the solid rock. It took three months. He stuffed the tunnel with seven tons of explosives, attached his fuses and his wiring, scrambled back down the cliffs and invited the army to a spectacle. A touch of the forefinger, a cataclysm, cheers ringing through the defiles. The mountain top was gone. This engineer was the American trained Gealsio Caetani. The mountain was the Col di Lana in the Trentino.

When one visits such men one climbs to the aeries of eagles, for it is at such heights that the troops of Italy are fighting. To such heights--2,000 meters, 3,000 metres, often 4,000 meters, they must swing or drag the great guns, their stores of provisions, their supplies of ammunition. Major Neri, a great engineer, nonchalantly bridged two mountain ranges with slender wire cables; They had told him it couldn't be done. He did it. I asked him how. "By fastening one end of the bridge to one mountain and the other end to another mountain--so," said Neri. What does one reply to such men?

In the Carso I formed a pretty good idea of the difficulties of the Italian campaign. From the point of view of attack the character of the country is the cruelest imaginable. It is simply inconceivable that any human beings could persist for two years blasting out trenches inch by inch, building up both sides to a proper height with fragments of rock and myriads of sand bags under the most terrific and plunging crossfire of mitrailleuse, musketry, hand grenades and all kinds of artillery, until at last a trench was constructed varying from ten to twenty meters in distance from the paralleling enemy's work. Everywhere were barbed wire and chevaux de frise, endless lines of them. The rocks between the trenches were literally and absolutely covered with shells of every caliber, exploded and unexploded, and with thousands of hand grenades, so that it was a very serious matter where one should put one's feet. Many of the dead were lying under stones, and fragments of bodies were strewn about.

In the beginning there may have been some stunted trees upon these hills, but when I was there all verdure was gone, burnt up in shell fire or gas attacks. An officer who accompanied me described these attacks as the most inhuman imaginable. I had known this man for years and no better sportsman or soldier exists. His mother was an Austrian and he entered the war without any great enthusiasm. But he told me that never in his life had he experienced the sensation of hate until he witnessed the first gas attack. The sight of his men returning under its influence filled him with passion, and the finding of the iron spiked maces which were used by the Austrians to hammer the heads of the bewildered, gasping Italians left no room in his heart to doubt the baseness of the enemy. One of these maces was given to me. I have it.

III--GIGANTIC FEATS OF ITALIAN ENGINEERS

The engineering problems solved in the Carso are such as would be considered insurmountable in peace times. Fighting has been taken to the very tops of the mountains. In order to get material where it is needed and to transfer troops quickly from one sector to another more than 6,000 kilometers of automobile road have been literally chiselled out of the solid rock of almost sheer cliffs. To the most difficult peaks mule paths have been carved, and after victory comes a whole new and marvelous country will be opened to the dilletante tourist by means of these extraordinary trails. The Italian engineers have hesitated at nothing. Mountains considered unscalable have been mastered, and one now goes up to a forbidding peak or crag as one formerly went up to an easy pass. Palisade formation is no longer an obstacle, the roads traversing the palisades being of perfect type and execution. The admiration and marvel I experienced going over them are indescribable and the feats that have been accomplished well nigh unbelievable. Over the roads and mule paths stretching higher and ever higher to the snow-piled mountain tops cannon of all calibers are hauled by traction or man power and are installed in impregnable positions. Often heavy cannon are passed from mountain top to mountain top by means of wire cables, just as cash boxes are flung by wire trolleys from department store counters to cashiers' desks.

Having motored nearly to the summit of a mountain, I entered a tunnel. Presently I found myself on the other side of the mountain, in a gallery where a battery of heavy artillery was mounted. On the one side as we entered we had looked down upon the sunlit plain of Vicenza. On the other side, in the shadow, we faced the tops of the Trentino Alps. The contrast was bewildering. Praise is poor recompense for the men of science who dared to imagine and for the willing hands that dared to execute those extraordinary feats. And the one I mention was not exceptional. An Alpini remarked to me: "It is indeed the death of Alpinism, for every one now is an Alpinist!"

Where it is impossible to use roads or mule trails for the transport of troops or supplies the Italians use aerial railways, called telleferica. I saw one of these consisting of a single span of 2,160 meters--this was Neri's remarkable accomplishment. And ever so often cannon in leash, men in baskets go swinging from post to post over chasms that make the heart pound as one darts a look into their recesses. There is to-day in all that mountain country scarcely a spot upon which a bird may roost or to which a goat may climb that the Italian engineers have not conquered, and in conquering achieved so much in pressing back the detested Austrians. And with what cheerfulness, light-heartedness, courtesy, consideration for one another, devotion and loyalty are the Italians accomplishing these miracles of warfare. When one has looked upon their work and has associated with them in the deep snows and in their tunnelled quarters one is seized with an irresistible desire to tell the world how wonderful they are--to describe, however poorly, their triumphs of will and courage.

IV--"AVIVA ITALIA!" UNCONQUERABLE LATINS

It is not in the army alone one finds that spirit. In the little villages along the roads the very bright-eyed children cry, "_Aviva Italia!_" and there is the soul of it. There is expressed a profound love of country. Italy no more doubts that she will reconquer Trieste and Trent than France doubts the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine. The despoiled Latin is determined to have justice, to wring justice, from the Teuton maurauder, and peace talk is a weariness to them in their exalted mood. The spiritual and economic interests of Italy and France have been held apart only by Teutonic perfidy, intrigue and insinuation, but all misunderstandings are disappearing and absolute confidence is taking the place of doubt. A captain of Alpini said to me: "France and Italy are one--is it not so, sir?" How many times have we heard discussed the reasons why Italy was so long in declaring war against Germany! For my part I have never doubted that Italy's reasons were perfectly legitimate. One does not quit one system of alliance for another without damaging a whole series of interests. Italy, so to speak, found herself in the position of an individual who must divorce in order to remarry. But what must be remembered is the absolute loyalty of the Italians. Never have they changed since the beginning of hostilities. They are a people of heroes.

Let me speak of Milan and Venice as I saw them in intervals of visits to the mountaintop fighting fronts. At Milan my first care was to study the precautions taken against the destruction of art treasures. Always the Latin, who creates, is forced to protect and defend his works from the German, who destroys. The cathedral, all in stone, risks little from fire, all the glass and precious objects having been taken to places of safety, and it remains intact and marvellous under its mantle of lace, intact in spite of the Austrians and marvellous in spite of Ruskin. At Santa Marie del Grace the "Last Supper" of Leonardo is protected by a wall of sandbags and by a fireproof curtain. Churches and museums have been emptied of their riches. In the streets I watched the crowds--a people astonishing in purity of line and proportion, moving always with grace and harmony. Here lies for me the secret of their artistic superiority, for it is well known that the artist, in spite of himself, reproduces in his work his physical perfections and faults.

In Venice the same precautions are taken as at Milan. The Scaliger tombs are covered with sand and the more important ones are enclosed in stone turrets. All statues are shrouded in a preparation of straw and plaster sufficient to protect them from fragments of bombs, but what a wonderful mark for some aerial bandit San Zeno and St. Anastasia, with their wooden ceilings, would be. In the middle of the night I disembarked in Venice, where two carabinieri conducted me to a hotel hermetically sealed so that no ray of light escaped. And here I stayed in the pitch dark with a prospect of being lodged under the Piombi of the Ducal Palace if I betrayed the slightest evidence of having a light.

As always Venice presents an incomparable aspect. There is no better moment to visit Italy than during a war, for it is only then that one finds the Italians really at home. A war clears the scene of a whole world of intruders. A great calm reigns over Venice. All classes fraternize. Life is very normal, and no one regrets the absence of the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians, who used to arrive from Trieste--no more hobnailed shoes, no more Tyroleans, no more alpenstocks, no more noisy vulgarity. The harbor is empty except for a few captured Austrian vessels. Off in the distance to the south-west is the great fleet, ready at a moment's notice to take position in the open sea. The city presents no particularly wartime characteristics excepting at night. I know of no pen or brush that has been able to render justice to Venice--Turner perhaps; but Guardi and Canaletto were too much the slaves of detail and of other conscience. At 8:45 P.M. all lights were put out. It is absolute darkness with the exception that a little blue light, very feeble, burns at the end of each street, just enough to give guidance for direction. Even the little lamp of the fisherman which hangs before the Virgin on St. Marc's has been extinguished. Happily one is permitted to smoke, otherwise it would be difficult to navigate about the narrow streets. One cannot imagine the intensity that a lighted match takes, and the cafés, which are better patronized than ever, resemble enormous nests of glow worms, everybody puffing at a cigarette or a Virginia. An amusing detail is that one must pay in advance for one's refreshments, because in case of an aerial attack the general cry is "_Sauve qui peut?_" and heaven help the proprietor.

V--DROPPING BOMBS ON VENICE

The aeroplane--that is the great question; not that they are feared. It is that every one asks with feverish anxiety what possible further ravages will be accomplished among the marvellous art treasures. At the time of Titian, when fashion decreed that every woman must have that wonderful blonde hair for which Venice was famous, many of the houses had constructed upon their roofs an open loggia, which was called "Paltana." It was there that the beautiful Venetians after having bathed their hair in some mysterious fluid remained for hours allowing it to dry. Well, it is from these "Paltana" that the guard watches over the city, armed with mitrailleuse and furnished with megaphones, and every half hour one hears the sentinels calling as they repeat the cry ringing from the Campanile of St. Marc: "_Per l'aria, buona guardia_." And throughout the entire night the silence is broken by a chain of cries which reunites these invisible belfries. Nothing lacks. Searchlights, special cannon, aerial squadrons and aquatic squadrons--all are ready for defence. But Venice is so filled with treasures that it is only by the greatest luck that a bomb does not destroy some unique object. It is my firm conviction that some day St. Marc's or the Ducal Palace will be smashed by the Teutons. Although everything possible in the way of protection has been done, one trembles at the thought of what may happen. Already the Church of the Scalzi has been pierced, and of the wonderful fresco of Tiepolo not a piece as big as one's hand remains. Bombs have fallen within a few feet of St. Marc's. These are the attacks of savages, purely barbarous, with the sole intent of destroying something.

From the third story of the Hotel Danielli I witnessed raids by Austrian hydravians. At 11:30 P.M. the signal of danger came. A gun roared from the Moline. Sirens shrieked in many parts of Venice. Then there was temporary silence, disturbed only by the rustle and shuffle of feet as people scurried to shelter. Presently all the batteries surrounding Venice opened fire. In intervals of this din one heard the whine of the Austrian air motors, a noise like the buzzing of a gigantic fly. It advanced over rooftops. Many batteries spat fire into the air. But the only sign of the air machines that I observed was what might be called a faint, very vague sort of electric fluid which seemed to appear momentarily in different parts of the heavens. From time to time all firing ceased. Silence came. One again heard the hum of the invading motors. Then the air was assailed by the explosion of a dropped bomb, followed by the crash of breaking roofs, the splintering of glass, the shrieks of injured persons. The whole effect was stupefying to me, not terrifying; but there is, too, a feeling of quite utter helplessness. Shortly after the last bomb was dropped the signal came that it was all over. The people fairly flung themselves into the streets searching for souvenirs, scratching about amusingly with candles and matches as they recounted laughable or tragic experiences. Such raids are made preferably during the moon. It is known that the defence is imperfect, that the only perfect defence is one of reprisals, but as an English General said to me, "That is a dirty game, dirty ball, as you Americans say. It is pretty hard to descend to their methods."

Sem, the caricaturist, has a picturesque method of noting the odious uselessness of bombarding Venice. "To fire on Venice," he says, "is as if one amused oneself by firing at the chandelier."

I spent twenty-five days among these Italians, upon the plain and among the mountains, days of wonderment. One must see the difficulties in the midst of which they are fighting, the thousand obstacles, to do them justice even feebly. The King is the soul of the army and of the Government. He directs the struggle upon the field of battle--and he is "always on the job." He is always in the place of danger and honor and yet no one hears him spoken about. He disdains the theatrical attitude. Beside the King is the Duke of Aosta, a fine presence and a fine character, and Gen. Cadorna, an energetic chief. Cadorna is a great friend of France. In an hour's talk with him he supplied me with a vivid sense of the unfaltering spirit of Italy. I saw much of D'Annunzio and I cannot resist the temptation to add my humble praise to all that has already been addressed to him. He made every effort in lifting Italy to arms against the Teutonic Powers and he well personifies in his ardor and simplicity the people who followed his exhortations. He spoke with good humor of the sufferings he endured, saying that in their attempt to save his sight the doctors forgot that he was possessed of a body and a soul. I read a letter of his, written when he was 14, in which he predicted that his mission on earth would be to chastise the hereditary enemy of his country. It is a beautiful letter. I thought of that first chapter of Macchiavelli in which he writes:

"The people who habit the countries on the north, situated on the other side of the Rhine and the Danube, are born in these prolific regions in such multitudes that a portion are forced to abandon the native soil and to look about for a new country where they may advance themselves." The Germans of to-day proceed differently, but in the same spirit--but they are finding their match and more than their match in the indomitable Italy of to-day.

AT SEA IN A TYPHOON ON A UNITED STATES ARMY TRANSPORT

_Story of a Voyage in the China Sea_

_Told by (name suppressed), a United States Army Officer_

This is the private letter of a captain of the ---- Infantry,
United States Army. It was written at sea on the transport
_Thomas_, somewhere between Keelung and Nagasaki in the China Sea.
The army officer, whose name is withheld by request, tells how
the transport, with the whole ---- Infantry, officers with their
families, and civilians, numbering 2,000, passed through a typhoon
in a night of terror, paying high tribute to the discipline of
the soldiers. It is one of those human documents that give a deep
insight into the adventurous experiences of the American Army in
the days of World War.

I--"HOW WE LEFT MANILA BAY"

U. S. Army Transport, _Thomas_,
At Sea, August 21, 1917.

I will tell you a tale of the China Sea, only it will differ from the usual sea tale in that it is absolutely true. The scene is laid to the east of Formosa and in the vicinity of the chain of the Ryukyu Islands, which extend in a general southwesterly direction from the southern end of Japan toward the northern end of Formosa.

At noon, August 15, 1917, the U. S. Army Transport _Thomas_ slipped her moorings at Manila, amid usual scenes of farewells, bon-voyages, tears, handkerchiefs, flowers, the girls-left-behind-us, and with the military band playing "Alohaoe." It is a scene enacted the 15th of every month when the transport leaves for the homeland via Nagasaki. On board were the whole --th U. S. Infantry, with officers and their families, and civilians and crew,--a total of some 2,000 souls. As we passed the island fortress of Corregidor, military aeroplanes circled over the ship. The wish of all was for more power to the stokers--we could not get to San Francisco too soon. As we steamed along the west coast of Luzon, the weather was bright and the sea calm, but we knew that in another day rough weather could be expected. In the Balingtang Channel, between Luzon and Formosa, the sea is practically always rough; and those waters and to the east of Formosa are in the usual course of the typhoons. True to form, late in the afternoon of the 16th the sea became rough. I promptly took to my bunk, not being any kind of sailor. As I lay in my bunk next the port with the wind scoop out, I could feel the wind gradually rising and the alternate violent puffs and lulls were signs that a typhoon was brewing, as the master of the ship was well aware from his falling barometer. Later in the evening when I left my cabin for a few moments, my surmises were confirmed.

On the next day (Friday, August 17), we were well into the typhoon. The wind was violent and the sea both magnificent and awful. In a typhoon the wind blows the surface water into clouds of foam and spray. For all the world it looks like a snowstorm at sea. The waves were frightful. As the ship dipped down between them, the conviction was borne in upon us that if one were to land upon the ship's deck the lookout in the crow's nest would no longer sing out at the half hour: "All's well."

That night the storm seemed at its height; and it was an anxious, trying night, with the wind howling and the rain coming down in sheets. Very few went to sleep. The water could not be kept out. It came in through the ports and through the seams in the cabin roofs. On the top deck, stateroom doors were forced and the rooms flooded. Beds were wet and some cabin floors awash. The boat hove to and kept its nose to the wind. I later heard that we made eight miles in fifteen hours under steam, but we knew not how far we had been blown from our course. After about eight nerve-racking hours, the wind began to abate; and by Saturday, the 18th--although the wind and sea both remained high, with the weather thick and rainy--we firmly believed that we were running out of the typhoon. After drifting in heavy squalls and thick weather all day, I dozed away that night in a wet bed.

Later I was awakened by the rising wind, howling through the ship's passageways and superstructures. We were running into the typhoon again. No more sleep that night. Experienced mariners know that the way to get out of a typhoon is to keep the wind on the starboard bow and side, gradually working out or getting blown out. This our ship's master did not dare to do, for the chance would have been extremely good that the ship would be cast upon one of the many islands. He therefore elected to keep the wind on the port side and run through the typhoon.

The wind and sea soon became more violent than the night before. It was awe-inspiring. For a couple of hours it blew hard, and then at about 1:30 A.M. there came a sudden lull--with no air stirring, with a calm sea, and with the barometer falling precipitately. The pressure on the ear drums was intense.

II--"WE WERE FIGHTING A TYPHOON"

It was plain that we were in the very center of the typhoon, and that our most severe battle with the elements was just ahead. Some time around 4 A.M. the wind again arose suddenly, and the fight was on. It soon became terrific and well over 100 miles an hour--estimated by the First Officer as between 125 and 130 miles--the worst thus far we had experienced.

Now ensued a time of desperate peril that even a landlubber could appreciate. Many a prayer went up that night from lips that had not uttered one since the days of "Now I lay me down to sleep" at a mother's knee. Many a rough nature felt stirring within him thoughts and feelings that had been strangers many a year.

The awful force and roar of the wind, the violent pitching and rolling, the absolute darkness outside, the puny efforts of the big, powerful ship and its apparent helplessness, added to the fact that we knew we were in an unknown position in a sea in many places uncharted and dotted with coral reefs and islands,--all convinced us that we were in the immediate presence of the Great Adventure and that only the guidance of the Divine Hand could succor us.

The immediate scenes were enough to inspire terror. The big steam whistle could be but faintly heard above the wind, when it was blown to call deck hands to clear away wreckage caused by the fall of the top of the front mast with the wireless antennae. In the galley, right outside my door, pots and pans and dishes and glassware were thrown about in continuous din and confusion. In staterooms, trunks, water bowls, and other loose articles were flying around. It was dangerous to be about. The thick glass of a port hole was broken to bits by a wave, and a woman so cut by the glass as to require many stitches for her wounds. In the troop decks many bunks were broken and fell to the floor. Several soldiers suffered broken legs, arms, or collar bones. The ship's doctor in his palmiest day in civil life I venture, never saw things coming his way half so thick and fast. The only way to remain in a bunk was by bracing and hanging to rail and hooks. The first streak of dawn showed about 5:30 A.M., Sunday the 19th, and, though welcome, revealed an awful sea and driving sheets of rain. This violence kept up most of the day, until late in the afternoon it appeared that wind and sea were somewhat abating. The barometer was slowly but steadily rising, and it was plain that we were running out of the typhoon. But night was upon us, and the Master had not had an observation of the sun for more than three days--since Thursday noon, August 16. The situation was perilous. A temporary respite only had been given.