At last we came to a pathway leading to the small bridge we hoped to cross by. It was a pretty and well-wooded spot, and the trees had not been much damaged so far. A regiment of infantry was waiting its turn to make a dash forward. We learned that the bridge had been much damaged in the early morning, but had been repaired under fire and in record time by the engineers. A friend of mine, Lieutenant Ugo Oyetti (the well-known art critic in civil life), did some plucky work on this occasion, for which he received a well-deserved military medal a few days later. Whilst the repairs were being carried out, two infantry regiments, the 11th and 12th, forded and swam across the river; a remarkable feat, as it is here as wide as the Thames at Richmond, though it is broken up with gravel islets in many places. It is frequently ten feet deep, and the current is very strong and treacherous. We pushed our way through the soldiers who filled the roadway, and got to the bridge, which was a sort of temporary wooden structure built on trestles known in German military parlance, I am told, as a “behielfs brücken,” and evidently constructed to connect the city with Podgora. A continuous rain of shells was coming over and bursting along the bank or in the river, and we looked like being in for a hot time. At the commencement of the bridge two _carabinieri_ stood on guard as placidly as if everything were quiet and peaceful. There was no objection to our crossing, but we were told we must go singly and run the whole way. The screech of the projectiles passing overhead, and the terrific report of explosions close by, made it a decidedly exciting “spurt,” and I, for one, was not sorry when I got across. The opposite bank was steep and rocky, in curious contrast to the Grafenberg side, and was ascended by a narrow gully. The bridge ended with a wide flight of steps leading to the water’s edge, where there was a strip of gravel beach, and seen from below the structure had quite a picturesque appearance. The high banks made fine “cover,” and under their shelter troops were resting. These were some of the courageous fellows who had forded the river, after having stormed the positions at Podgora. Their eyes were bloodshot, they looked dog-tired, and they were, without exception, the dirtiest and most bedraggled lot of soldiers it would be possible to imagine. The uniforms of many of them were still wet, and they were covered with mud from head to foot. Yet in spite of the fact that they had probably all of them been on the move the whole night, and under fire most of the time without a moment’s respite, they looked as game and cheerful as ever, and most of them seemed to be more anxious about cleaning the dirt from their rifles than resting. The shell-fire did not appear to trouble them in the least.