I gained a sufficiently accurate notion of the topography of the place and when night fell we were to try to pass. All day we lay crouching on the ground covered by the wheat and chewed the little grass we could find, that we might feel less the terrible thirst which burned us. The sun had never felt so hot to me, and its ball of fire seemed never to wish to set. Toward evening several Italian aeroplanes flew low and performed tricks over our heads, upon which the outpost began to fire. Blessed are the flying men who have no entanglements to separate them from our lines, whereas we, as soon as the sun had set, would have to commence our struggle against man and the elements. XVIII The women who came with us, after having filled their sacks, returned and Rino, Bottecchia and myself were left alone to await a propitious moment. Our artillery molested us a little towards evening but the firing was light and intermittent and I wished that that was the greatest difficulty we had to overcome in reaching the other side. The moon rose as soon as dusk fell and we slept for several hours in a shell hole. We were awakened by the sound of picks in the trenches where the Austrians were working. The moon was now low on the horizon and would soon disappear behind the hills; we should then be able to try our luck. What worried us most was the thought that beyond the main current of the Piave there might be small enemy posts and it really would not be very pleasant to encounter an enemy post as soon as we left the stream. We took off all our clothing and left our clothes in a hole in the wheat-field. We kept on only our stockings to protect our feet somewhat from the rough stones and gravel on the river bed. Advancing cautiously we reached the brink of the river and slowly we pushed aside the leaves which closed noisily behind us after we had passed. The loose earth on the slope made a crunching sound beneath our weight although we wished to avoid making any suspicious sound. A dry twig crackled and we crouched and listened. We heard several voices coming from the path under the trees. We squatted on the ground, holding our breath, and we saw two soldiers pass.... Silence.... The noise of their iron shoes was lost in the distance. We continued our descent, we reached the first Cavallo di Frina and jumped over it, not without hurting ourselves on the sharp stones which pierced our flesh so that we bled. We had to cross the most dangerous point, the one most exposed, because the vegetation was less dense. We threw ourselves on all fours and crawled along on the gravel until we reached the first entanglement. Instead of trying to pass over it, we looked for the attachments which anchored it to the ground and unfastening them we passed under. We did the same with the next. We heard no suspicious sound, there was absolute calm. An Italian searchlight which swerved at intervals annoyed us somewhat for fear its