New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-06-10

lEeNCnes lar up tue Hillside peyoNu, Suu
the sound OF their feet echoed between
the high garden walls where the service
wires were looped among pendants OF
wistaria in full flower.
There are several hundred civilians
in the city who have not yet cared 10
move. for the Italian is as stubborn
IN these things as the Frenchman. In
the main square, where the house fronts
are most battered and the big electric
light standard bows itself 20 the earth,
! saw girl bargaining for some but
tons on card at a shop door-hands,
eyes and gesture all eXtravagantly en-
ployed. and the seller as intently abb
sorbed as she. IL must be less dis
tracing than one thinks to live under
the knowledge one is always being
watched from above-breathed upon in
the nape of the neck, so 10 speak, by
invisible mouths.
A little later | was being told CON
fidentially by some Englishwomen
among a garden OF irises. who owned
a photograph installation and couple
Of shrapnel busted cars. that they had
been promised. when the push came.
that they and their apparatus might go
into Goritzia itself. 70 a nice under
ground room. reasonably free from
shells which disconcert the wounded
and jar the photograph and-"wasnt 1t
kind of the authorities
The Ridge of the Waiting Guns
The amazing motor lorries were
thicker on the more amazing road than
they had been. Our companion apol-
ogized for them. you see, we have
been taking a few things up 10 the
front this way for the last few days.
he said.
Are all Italians born driving mo-
tors?" I demanded. as a procession OF
high hooded cars Topped down the
curve we were breasting pivoted on its
outside edge, their bonnets pointing
over four hundred foot drop, and
slid past us with three-inch clear
ance between hub and hub.
NO" he replied. But we, too, have
been at the game long time. expect
the bad chaufeurs have all been
killed.
"And bad mules" One Of them WAS
having Mysteries on what | thought
till | had climbed few thousand feet
higher-was the edge Of precipice.
ooh. you can't kill mule" and sure
enough, when the beast had registered
its protest it returned to the dignity
of its sres. The muleteer said not
word
We bored up and into the hills by
roads not yet mapped, but solid as
! lavish labor can make them against the
rolling load of the lorries and the sharp
hoofs of the mule, as well as the wear
and tear of winter, who is the real
enemy. Our route ran along the folded
skirts of range not more than three
4 oh
less parallel with the Isonzo on its way
from the north. Rivers that had roared
level beside US dropped and shrank TO
blue threads half visible through for
est Mountains put forward hard, shaly
knees, round which we climbed in a
thousand loops that confused every
sense of direction. Then because the
enemy, seven miles off, could zee,
stretches of the crowded road were
blinded with reed mats, while torn
holes above or below US proved that he
had searched closely.
After that the colossal lap OF
mountain alive with dripping waters
would hide US in greenery and moisture
till the sight Of a cautious ash tree still
IN bud-her sister ten minutes ago had
been clothed from head TO foot-told US
we had risen again 10 the heights OF
the naked ridge. And here were bat
teries upon batteries Of the heaviest
pieces, so variously disposed and hid
den that finding one gave you no clew
TO the next. Elevens, Fights. fours,
skies, and elevens again, on caterpillar
wheels, on navy mountings adapted for
land work, disconnected from their
separate tractors or balanced and but
tressed on their own high speed motors,
10 aff Ia wit
their ammunition caves, their shops
and the necessary barracks for their
thousand servants studded or strung
out on the steep drop behind them.
Obscure pits and hollows hid them.
pointing TO heaven, and how they had
been brought up TO be lowered there
passed Imagination as they peeped out
Of the merest Sits in green sod. They
stood back under lodges and caves OF
the ground where no light could outline
them, or became one with dung-heap
behind a stable. They stalled them
selves in thick forest growth, like ele-
plants at noon, or, as 10 were, crawled
squat on their bellies TO the very bows
Of crests overlooking seas of noun
tains. They, like the others down the
line, were waiting for the hour and the
order. Not a half dozen out Of the null
titude opened their lips.
When we had climbed 70 a place ap-
pointed, the shutter Of an observation
post opened upon the world below. We
saw the Isonzo almost vertically be-
meath US and on the far side were
Italian trenches that painfully climbed
from the bank 10 the crest of the bare
ridges where the infantry live. who
must be fed under cover of night I'M
til the Austrians are driven out of their
heights above.
at is just like fighting a burglar
across housetops," said the officer.
"You can spot him from factory Chin
ney. but he can spot you from the spire
OF the cathedral-and so on"
"Who sees those men down yonder in
the trenches" | asked.
Everybody on both sides, but our
guns cover them. That is the way in
our war. Height is everything"
He said nothing of the terrific labor
Of it all before a man or qua can
come into position-nothing OF the bat
tie that was fought in the gorge below
when the Isonzo was crossed and the
Italian trenches clawed and sawed their
red way up the hillside. and very little
OF the blood drenched snout Of the
height called the Sabotino, that was
carried, lost and recarried most glori-
ously in the old days Of the war. and
now lay out below as innocent seeming
as a mountain pasture.
They are hard people, these Latins,
who have had 70 fight the mountains
and all that is in them. metre by metre.
and are thankful when their battlefelds
do not slope at more than forty-hve
degrees.
parshino m Have Civilian