It had turned out a lovely day, and in the brilliant sunshine Monfalcone should have been a bright and cheerful place, instead of which it was but the ghost of a town with the shadow of death continually overhanging it. The peaceful stillness was not to be of long duration. Silence for any length of time had been unknown in Monfalcone for many a long day. Whilst we were having a talk with the officers at Headquarters there was a loud detonation, apparently just outside the building. To my annoyance I could not restrain an involuntary start, as it was totally unexpected. “That’s only one of our guns,” remarked, with a smile, a Major with whom I was chatting, and who had noticed the jump I made. “The Austrians won’t commence for another couple of hours at least,” he added. My companion and I then started off to walk down to the shipbuilding yard, about a mile and a half from the town, and which was, of course, the principal sight of the place. One had not gone far when one had some idea how exposed was the position of Monfalcone. A deep communication trench commenced in the main street and continued alongside the road the whole way down to the port—no one was allowed to walk outside it. The object of this was to prevent any movement being seen from the Austrian batteries, which were only a comparatively short distance away, though it must have been no secret to them what was going on in Monfalcone. The Italian guns were now getting busy, and the noise was deafening, but still there was no response from the enemy; it was evidently true that he worked to time, and it was not yet eleven o’clock. Although only a mile and a half, the walk seemed longer because one could see nothing on either side, the walls of the trench being quite six feet high; but at last we came out on the bank of what looked like a broad canal. This is part of a waterway constructed to connect up the port with the railway. The communication trench now took the form of a sunken pathway winding along the bank under the trees, and was quite picturesque in places. At last we reached the end, and facing us was the Adriatic as calm as a lake, and away on the horizon one could see the hills that guard Trieste. We crossed the mouth of the canal by a pontoon bridge, which I believe had been abandoned by the Austrians when they evacuated Monfalcone at the beginning of the war. A short distance ahead, towering above a conglomeration of long sheds on the low-lying ground, was an immense red structure, the outlines of which recalled something familiar. As one got nearer one saw that it was the unfinished steel hull of a gigantic ocean liner, and that the red colouring was caused by the accumulation of rust from long exposure. We soon reached the entrance to a vast shipbuilding establishment. There were no bolts or bars to prevent our walking in.