On one of the worst portions we passed a gang of peasant women carrying barbed wire up to the trenches. I knew that everybody in the war zone is doing his or her bit, but I must confess I was somewhat surprised to see women engaged on so arduous a task as this, which calls for unusual muscle and nerve, apart from an exceptionally hardy physique. This will be realised when one learns that each of these apparently insignificant coils of barbed wire weighs close on fifty pounds dead weight. When we passed this convoy, although it was high up in the mountains, and the women must have been tramping for some hours, they were all as cheerful as possible, and appeared to regard their job as a sort of pleasure jaunt. Considering also that the big guns were thundering close by and shells bursting in somewhat close proximity, it was a good example of use being second nature. Girls as well as women are employed. They are paid two lires a day and their food is provided. It is a condition that they must come from the villages round about the sector in which they are employed, and there is, I learn, always keen competition for any “vacancies.” Many of the girls I saw were distinctly good-looking, and the bright tones of their picturesque costumes made a cheerful and unexpected note of colour against the dull grey of the wild mountain pass. At the foot of Pal Piccolo our party divided. It looked like a terrific climb up to the summit of Pal Grande, and most of the men thought “it wasn’t good enough,” and decided to explore the lesser peak only. Five of us, including myself, went on: Jeffries, Bedolo, Molinari, another Italian whose name I forget for the moment, and, of course one or two officers. I am sorry I cannot recall the name of the other Italian correspondent, as he was a perfect wonder. Although quite an old man—he was close on seventy if he was a day—he was certainly the coolest and most unconcerned of the party. The stiff climb did not appear to trouble him in the least, nor did the bursting shells. He simply strolled up ahead of us all as though he was taking a constitutional, with his hands in his pockets, disdaining the assistance of an alpenstock. Dressed in an ordinary tweed suit, and wearing a straw hat, his appearance was singularly out of keeping with the surroundings. His nonchalance was positively irritating, and he reached the top without turning a hair. It was indeed “some” climb, though fortunately for me there were no hair-raising bits to bring on mountain vertigo. It meant simply plodding up and up amongst loose boulders at an angle of 75 degrees. But if there were no perilous edges of precipices to negotiate, it was none the less nerve-racking, as we were under shell fire more or less the whole way, and many of the projectiles, which were of heavy calibre, burst in unpleasant proximity to the track we were mounting.