Following the lead of my colleague, I bowed first to the Colonel, who was at the head of the table, then to the rest of the officers present, and we sat down at a small table by ourselves, amidst the somewhat embarrassing attention we were attracting. This soon wore off, however, as Italian officers are gentlemen not Huns, and it was evidently realised that we had permission to come to Bormio or we should not have ventured to be there. CHAPTER VIII On the summit of the Forcola—We start off in “military” time—Our guide—Hard climbing—Realize we are no longer youthful—Under fire—Necessary precautions—Our goal in sight—An awful bit of track—Vertigo—A terrifying predicament—In the Forcola position—A gigantic ant-heap—Unique position of the Forcola—A glorious panorama—The Austrian Tyrol—The three frontiers—Shown round position—Self-contained arsenal—Lunch in the mess-room—Interesting chat—The “observation post”—The goniometre—Return to Bormio—Decide to pass another night there—An invitation from the sergeants—Amusing incident. CHAPTER VIII The summit of the Forcola is only nine kilometres as the crow flies from Bormio, but we were told that it meant covering at least three times that distance to reach our destination, and the hard climb would make it appear much more. We therefore got off in military time in the morning, and went a bit of the way in the car till we came to a sort of wayside châlet, quite Swiss in appearance, where a detachment of _Alpini_ was stationed. On presenting our letter from the Colonel at Headquarters, the Officer in command ordered one of his men to accompany us, so leaving the car here to await our return, we started off without delay. Our guide, a brawny and typical young Italian mountaineer, leading the way at a pace that soon compelled us to ask him to slow down a bit. We had been advised, as we were unaccustomed to climbing, not to “rush” it at first, as we had at least two hours of strenuous plodding to reach the fort, and it was a very hot day, which would make us feel the strain the more. To our athletic _cicerone_ this was evidently but an ordinary walk in the day’s work; in fact, so light did he make of it that he obligingly insisted on carrying our overcoats and other paraphernalia in spite of his being encumbered with his rifle, ammunition belt and heavy cape. We were not long in discovering that the stiffness of the climb we were undertaking had not been exaggerated, and also that we were neither of us as young as we had been. This latter point in particular I recollect was irritatingly brought home to me at one time when we were really making splendid progress as we thought. Some _Alpini_, in full marching order, caught us up and passed us as easily as if we had been standing still. However, it was no good being discouraged because we were no longer youthful, and we continued to make our way slowly but surely up the winding rocky track.