Originally all these crests were in Austrian hands; they were stormed
by the Alpini under almost incredible conditions. For fifteen days, for
example, they fought their way up these screes on the flanks of Tofana
No. 2 to the ultimate crags, making perhaps a hundred metres of ascent
each day, hiding under rocks and in holes in the daylight and receiving
fresh provisions and ammunition and advancing by night. They were
subjected to rifle fire, machine-gun fire and bombs of a peculiar sort,
big iron balls of the size of a football filled with explosive that were
just flung down the steep. They dodged flares and star shells. At one
place they went up a chimney that would be far beyond the climbing
powers of any but a very active man. It must have been like storming the
skies. The dead and wounded rolled away often into inaccessible ravines.
Stray skeletons, rags of uniform, fragments of weapons, will add to the
climbing interest of these gaunt masses for many years to come. In this
manner it was that Tofana No. 2 was taken.
Now the Italians are organising this prize, and I saw winding up far
above me on the steep grey slope a multitudinous string of little things
that looked like black ants, each carrying a small bright yellow egg.
They were mules bringing back balks of timber....
But one position held out invincibly; this was the Castelletto, a great
natural fortress of rock standing out at an angle of the mountain
in such a position that it commanded the Italian communications (the
Dolomite road) in the valley below, and rendered all their positions
uncomfortable and insecure.
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