Beneath its apparent calm interrupted by mortar and artillery duels, the head of the ravine facing the road, near the small pass where it disappears in the direction of Terelle, teems with extraordinary life. Houses that seem abandoned are gradually filled with people and weapons, until a few artillery or tank shells bring back immobility and silence. They have names:the tank house, the white dog house, the ridge house. These are the highest, those that hold the top of the pitons. Both here and opposite us, they all have section or group posts.
The other houses, scattered on the slopes, belong to no one. Yet they are the center of incessant comings and goings. Patrols come to observe them or stop at night to explore them, then leave. Isolated men also slip in, looking for hams to recover, sometimes making surprising discoveries.
The dance of the artillery awaits, to begin again, the first clearing and the moment when I cross the plain again in the jeep of the regimental courier. The first German shell of the day fell a hundred meters from the destroyed Sant'Elia bridge as we entered the ransacked little town. Cifalco has discovered itself. Cairo shows off its snow-capped peak.
The rain returns to drown our slow ascent of the road of Death, in the infamous slush of a dirt road where thousands of chains have been paddling for more than a month on thousands of wheels. We still have time to be stopped by the Routière at the Vallerotonda crossroads. Shells fall a little higher, on the big bend.
There is a salad of cars, impossible to pass for some time. We are finally getting there. The big bend is cleared. A jeep picks up a last corpse from the bloody roadside.
The rain turns to snow. The day is falling. My last vision is of an endless convoy of helmeted ghosts slowly emerging from the Acquafondata pass, dragging mules through the fog.
Snow has accumulated on the helmets and shoulders of the men and on the loads of the mules. They pass. Somewhere on the other side of the plain, there will be relief tonight.