Soon after dark some Italians came up and told us that we were blocking the road, which was not true, as we were well to the side.  However, as neither Avoglia nor the Sergeant Major had yet returned with a new tractor, and as the Italians said that they would pull us on, I cordially agreed to the attempt being made.  They attached a tractor with a heavy lorry in tow to our inflammatory tractor and our three guns.  They asked that an attempt should be made to start up our tractor also, but I succeeded in persuading them that this was inexpedient.  They then started up their own tractor only.  To my great surprise, we began to move.  It was a magnificent machine, and forged ahead splendidly, contrary to all the laws limiting its capacity, rumbling and backfiring under the unwonted strain, for miles through the gloom.

Then the moon began to rise.  The night, for the first time since the retreat began, was fine and clear.  We could only go slowly and broke down now and then.  But all went pretty well, until we swung our long train a little too sharply round a corner in the road, and the last two guns got ditched.  While we were trying to get them out, a British Major, whom I will call Star, appeared on the scene.  He came from Portogruaro with the news that five new tractors were on their way back, and that some other British guns were ditched further ahead.  I therefore thanked the officer in charge of the Italian tractor and lorry for all he had done for us and advised him now to go on and leave us, as our position was tiresome but no longer critical.  This he did.

The moonlight was now bright as day, and one of Star’s promised tractors arrived and finally succeeded in getting out our ditched guns.

* * * * *

Star had painted a bright picture of Portogruaro.  All the British guns, he said, were parked together in the Piazza and there was a large granary close by, full of happy men with plenty of rations and straw.  So, it seems, some imaginative person had told him.  We reached Portogruaro in the small hours of the 31st of October.  The moon had set and it was very dark.  Several of us made a most careful search in the Piazza.  But there were no British guns there, no granary, no straw, no rations.  I halted the guns just outside the gate of the town and told the men to turn in and sleep.  Soon after daybreak we all woke feeling very hungry.  I issued practically all that remained of our rations, a little bully, a little biscuit and a very little tea.

Wanting a wash and, still more urgently, a shave, I went into a house and asked for the loan of some soap and a towel.  A number of terrified old women gathered round me, in doubt whether to fly or to stay.  I advised them to stay, for I took for granted at this time that the Tagliamento line would hold.  They pressed upon me coffee and bread, and I heard them repeating over and over again to one another my assurances that the enemy was still far away and would never get as far as Portogruaro.  It was hard not to cry.