"We were constantly confronted with new and perplexing problems--things which no one had ever been called upon to solve before--most of them in connection with transportation. How we contrived to surmount one of these I shall never forget. The Austrians had performed a brave and audacious feat in emplacing one of their batteries at a certain point, the fire from which threatened to make our position absolutely untenable. The location of this battery was so cunningly chosen that not one of our guns could reach it; and yet we _had_ to silence it--and for good--if we were going to go on with our work. The only point from which we could fire upon these destructive guns was so exposed that any artillery we might be able to mount there could only count on the shortest shrift under the fire of the hundred or more 'heavies' that the Austrians would be able to concentrate upon it. And yet (I figured), well employed, these few minutes might prove enough to do the work in. [Sidenote: A young giant endeavors to climb with a gun.] "And then there arose another difficulty. The smallest gun that would stand a chance of doing the job cut out for it weighed 120 kilos--about 265 pounds; this just for the gun alone, with all detachable parts removed. But the point where the gun was to be mounted was so exposed that there was no chance of rigging up a cable-way, while the incline was so steep and rough that it was out of the question to try to drag it up with ropes. Just as we were on the verge of giving up in despair, one of the Alpini--a man of Herculean frame who had made his living in peace-time by breaking chains on his chest and performing other feats of strength--came and suggested that he be allowed to carry the gun up on his shoulders. Grasping at a straw, I let him indulge in a few 'practice man[oe]uvres'; but these only showed that, while the young Samson could shoulder and trot off with the gun without great effort, the task of lifting himself and his burden from foothold to foothold in the crumbling rock of the seventy-degree slope was too much for him. [Sidenote: Men pull man and gun to position.] "But out of this failure there came a new idea. Why not let my strong man simply support the weight of the gun on his shoulder--acting as a sort of ambulant gun-carriage, so to speak--while a line of men pulled him along with a rope? We rigged up a harness to equalize the pull on the broad back, and, with the aid of sixteen ordinary men, the feat was accomplished without a hitch. I am sorry to say, however, that poor Samson was laid up for a spell with racked muscles.