The staff-captain made his way along the deep dark gully in the snow where motionless figures stood with arms stretched up above their heads, rifles at their feet. Ghostly white figures who had retained their weapons joked at them in rough _patois_. He met the commander of the company which had attacked upon the flank. The trench was completely captured. There followed a period of fierce toil in the trench. Under the twinkling stars in the black sky, men delved at the snow of the parados, cutting fire-steps, building it up into a breastwork. Behind them little parties of prisoners, stretcher-bearers and slightly wounded men, stumbled across the broken surface of the glacier. The toiling men gave no thought to them as they laboured to prepare for the storm which would surely burst. It came. An ugly hissing rush heralded the first Austrian shell. It exploded with re-echoing violence and a great fount of up-flung snow right on the newly-strengthened breastwork. Another and another followed in a methodical bombardment directed by calmly judicial gunners ensconced in little huts far back in the mountains. Amid the nerve-harrying rush of ever new arrivals, constant explosions, the men toiled frenziedly. Reserves of ammunition were brought up. Machine-guns were put in position. Telephone wires were laid. The fourth company took up a post on the glacier whence it could rush into the trench in a counter-attack if needed. Suddenly the bombardment ceased. The Alpini crouched behind the parapet, fingering their rifles with gloved hands, peered out into the indistinctness of the snow. There was a rush of dimly-seen figures from the obscurity, a blaze of fire from the trench. Near the staff-captain the colonel sat speaking into the mouth-piece of a telephone. Rush after rush of hurrying shells passed overhead. Out there on the slope where an Austrian battalion was surging to the attack, shrapnel after shrapnel lit fierce sudden flares in the dark sky. There was again a tumult of voices, a re-echoing chaos of men at strife. It persisted, swelled, died down. The silence of an Alpine night rested once more over the battleground, was broken only by the roar of a distant avalanche. In the twilight of approaching morn an officer made his tour of the outposts on what had been Austria. "_Chi va là?_" rang the sharp challenge of a white-garbed sentry almost indistinguishable against the snow. "_Italia!_" came the proud response. The first rays of the sun gilded the surrounding summits in the glory of a new dawn. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: "For Greater Italy!"--the theme of d'Annunzio's discourses in the doubtful days preceding Italy's intervention.] PANZERKRAFTWAGEN!