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