We drove up the slope to what had been the commencement of the houses. To our surprise a motor lorry was drawn up under the shelter of a bit of wall; two men were with it. What was their object in being there one could not perceive, as there was no other sign of life around. We left the car here, and I went for a stroll round with my sketch book, whilst Vaucher took his camera and went off by himself to find a subject worth a photograph. The Austrian trenches commenced in amongst the ruins: they were typical of the Carso; only a couple of feet or so in depth, and actually hewn out of the solid rock, with a low wall of stones in front as a breastwork. So roughly were they made that it was positively tiring to walk along them even a short distance. To have passed any time in them under fire with splinters of rock flying about must have been a terrible ordeal, especially at night. San Martino was certainly the reverse of interesting, and I was hoping my comrade would soon return so that we could get away, when the distant boom of a gun was heard, followed by the ominous wail of a big shell approaching. The two soldiers and our chauffeur, who were chatting together, made a dash for cover underneath the lorry; whilst I, with a sudden impulse I cannot explain, flung myself face downwards on the ground, as there was no time to make for the shelter of the trench. The shell exploded sufficiently near to make one very uncomfortable, but fortunately without doing us any harm. A couple more quickly followed, but we could see that the gunners had not yet got the range, so there was nothing to worry about for the moment. Vaucher soon returned, having had a futile walk; so we made up for it all by taking snapshots of ourselves under fire, a somewhat idiotic procedure. As we drove back to Udine, we were agreed that, considering how little there had been to see, _le jeu ne valait pas la chandelle_, or rather _ne valait pas le petrole_, to bring the saying up to date. A very pleasant little episode a few days later made a welcome interlude to our warlike energies. The Director of the Censorship, Colonel Barbarich, received his full colonelcy, and to celebrate the event the correspondents invited him and his brother officers to a fish déjeuner at Grado, the little quondam Austrian watering place on the Adriatic. We made a “day’s outing” of it; several of the younger men starting off early so as to have a bathe in the sea before lunch. It was glorious weather, and we had a “top hole” time. It all went off without a hitch; the déjeuner was excellent; I don’t think I ever tasted finer fish anywhere; the wine could not have been better, and, of course, we had several eloquent speeches to wind up with. There was just that little “Human” touch about the whole thing that helped to still further accentuate the _camaraderie_ of the Censorship, and the good fellowship existing between its officers and the correspondents.