burning theater; the desperate eagerness of every person in the crowd to
get on the bridge stopped almost any one from getting there. Carts and
people at the edge of the road were shoved down the embankment by the
weight of the dense mass surging along its center. And then to add to
the terror of the moment there was heard above the shouts and oaths of
the struggling mob a low, foreboding hum, the characteristic drone of
Austrian aeroplanes. It is hard to see what could have come of the
situation but complete and bloody disaster if it had not been for the
decided action of some Italian officers. By main force they thrust into
the middle of the entrance to the bridge and checked the panic with
sheer personal determination. The sound of their authoritative voices
brought back the sense of discipline that had momentarily gone. Under
their orders the pushing throng sorted itself into some order. A jibing
mule was summarily shot to clear the road, and so in a few minutes,
despite the constant approach of the low-flying enemy aircraft, a way
was cleared for the English guns to cross the bridge. They were scarcely
over when the first Austrian machine, swooping down, dropped bombs and
opened fire with its machine-gun on the tight-packed road. The attack
did not do much damage, though one British Red Cross car was filled as
full of holes as a pepper-pot; but the experience showed how much worse
the retreat would have been had not the heavy rain of the week-end kept
the Austrian airmen in their hangars.

[Sidenote: The army reaches Tagliamento.]

So the retiring army reached the Tagliamento, and completed the first
stage of its retreat. Once behind that barrier the Italians could be
sure of a certain breathing space, but to secure its protection was the
most difficult part of their rearward movement. To the constant
convergence which the lack of more than three bridges rendered necessary