Then for a few days nothing happened, except that everyone seemed to have caught a cold. We were now part of the XIth British Corps, who were concentrated in the surrounding district and formed for the moment a strategic reserve, which might be sent anywhere according to the development of the situation. If nothing particular happened, we should probably go into the line south of the XIVth British Corps on the Piave. If, on the other hand, the Italians were driven back in the mountains to the north of us, or were forced to retire down the Brenta Valley,--and this danger had not yet quite passed,--we should move up the mountains and take over part of the Italian line, with the French probably on our right. We received tracings of several possible lines of defence, on the plain itself and on the near side of the mountain crest, described as the "Blue Line," the "Green Line," etc., which we were required to reconnoitre with a view to finding Battery positions and O.P.'s. They were all very awkward lines to defend, as the enemy would have splendid observation and we practically none at all. On the 15th the Major went out in the car reconnoitring to the east. He met some Alpini on the road to whom he said, "Fa bel tempo,"[1] and they replied, "Le montagne sono sempre belle;"[2] also an old man who had never seen British soldiers before, and was tremendously excited and pleased, and shouted with joy. [Footnote 1: "It's beautiful weather."] [Footnote 2: "The mountains are always beautiful."] On the 16th the Major went out again with Jeune and myself to look for Battery positions for the defence of the line at the foot of the mountains. We went through Cittadella and Bassano, then southwards along the Brenta to Nove, and then back through Marostica and Bassano. Bassano is a delightful old town, with many frescoes remaining on the outer walls of the houses, and a beautiful covered-in wooden bridge over the Brenta. Marostica charmed me even more. Its battlemented walls are like those of Cittadella and Castelfranco, but in a better state of preservation and more picturesque, running up a rocky foothill behind the town and coming down again,--a most curious effect. These Alpine foothills for shape and vegetation are very like the Ligurian hills north of Genoa and round Arquata. At San Trinità, just outside Bassano on the road to Marostica, is a very fine cypress avenue. There was a possible Battery position here. I noticed also a row of cypresses standing at intervals of about fifty yards along a hillside, dark and tall amid a mass of grass and rocks and brown fallen leaves. The weather was clear and cold, but the snow had shrunk to subnormal on the foothills. The Weather God was still favouring the enemy. It was very still, though occasionally shells burst over the Grappa. But the hills muffle the sounds beyond them.