The whole place was deserted, and all around us was a spectacle of ruin and desolation that was more impressive than actual havoc caused by bombardment. In the immense workshops the machinery was rotting away; on the benches lay the tools of workmen; strange metal forms, portions of the framework of big ships lay here and there on the sodden ground like huge red skeletons of ante-deluvian animals. Many vessels had been in the course of construction, mostly for the Mercantile fleet of Austria, though there were some destroyers and war-craft on the stocks as well. Rust, of a weird intensity of colour. I had never seen before, was over everything like a strange blight. Alongside the sheds was the hull of the big liner one had seen in the distance. A 20,000 ton boat, I was told, which was being built for the Austrian Lloyd Line. The wooden slipway and the cradle supports had caught fire and had been destroyed, and this I was told had caused the keel to break, so that the hull was now but a derelict mass of steelwork which could never be floated. [Illustration: To advance through this jungle called for all the cool, disciplined courage of the Italian soldier (_see page 293_) _To face page 298_] Had it not been for the satisfaction one felt in gazing on the ruins of a prospective addition to the Mercantile Navy of the enemy, this leviathan of wasted industry and material would have appeared quite tragic. The companion-way used by the workmen was still in position, so we clambered up into the gloomy interior and had a walk round, our footsteps echoing mournfully along the cavernous emptiness of the decks. Through a port-hole we got a very fine view of the Carso and the Italian and Austrian positions in between Monfalcone and Duino; whilst in the distance, some fifteen miles away, one could distinctly see with the glasses the white buildings of Trieste, so near and yet so far! There was evidently a big fight going on at that moment in the direction of a hill not far away from Monfalcone, known as No. 144, which had been frequently referred to in the _communiqués_, and you could see the bursting shells and hear the booming of the guns. It was a panorama of soul-stirring interest, and one could have spent hours gazing on it; but time was flying and we had to be thinking of returning. I had not attached much credence to the statement that the Austrians had established a sort of precedent as to time with regard to opening fire every day, but out of curiosity I glanced at my watch as we started back. It may have been a mere coincidence, but it was just on eleven o’clock. Beyond, however, the dull booming of the guns in the direction of Hill No. 144, there was no sign yet of artillery activity anywhere near Monfalcone.