part of the book talks about the defeat of the italian army at a place called caporetto:"at noon we were stuck in a muddy road about as nearly as we could figure, ten kilometres from udine. the rain had stopped during the forenoon and three times we had heard planes coming, seen them pass overhead, watched them go far to the left and heard them bombing on the main highroad. . . ."later we were on a road that led to a river. there was a long line of abandoned trucks and carts on a road leading up to a bridge. no one was in sight. the river was high and the bridge had been blown up in the center; the stone arch was fallen into the river and the brown water was going over it. we went up the bank looking for a place to cross. . . . we did not see any troops; only abandoned trucks and stores. along the river bank was nothing and no one but the wet brush and muddy ground. "