PART III

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THE FLAMING SWORD

[Illustration: "THE LADY OF THE BLACK HORSE" (Mrs. St. Clair Stobart)

During the Serbian Retreat, October-December, 1915 _From a painting by

George Rankin_]

THE FLAMING SWORD IN SERBIA AND ELSEWHERE

by

MRS. ST. CLAIR STOBART

_"And He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden Cherubims,

and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of

the Tree of Life."_ (_Genesis_ iii. 24.)

Hodder and Stoughton

London New York Toronto

MCMXVI

I dedicate this book

to

H.R.H. ALEXANDER

CROWN PRINCE OF SERBIA

in admiration of the courage with which he and the nation which

he represents have, in spite of all temptations, upheld the

Ideal of Spiritual Freedom, and in fervent hope that this Ideal

will soon be realised in that Greater Serbia which will arise

from the sepulchre of the Past.

PREFACE

I have written this book in the first person, because it would be an

affectation to write in the neuter person about these things which I

have felt and seen.

But if the book has interest, this should lie, not only in the personal

experiences, but in the effect which these have had upon the beliefs

of a modern woman who is probably representative of other women of her

century.

I believe that humankind is at the parting of the ways. One way leads

to evolution--along spiritual lines--the other to devolution--along

lines of materialism; and the sign-post to devolution is militarism.

For militarism is a movement of retrogression, which will bring

civilisation to a standstill--in a _cul-de-sac_.

And I believe that militarism can only be destroyed with the help of

Woman. In countries where Woman has least sway, militarism is most

dominant. Militarism is maleness run riot.

Man's dislike of militarism is prompted by sentiment, or by a sense of

expediency. It is not due to instinct; therefore it is not forceful.

The charge of human life has not been given by Nature to Man.

Therefore, to Man, the preservation of life is of less importance than

many other things. Nature herself sets an example of recklessness with

males; she creates, in the insect world, millions of useless male lives

for one that is to serve the purpose of maleness. It is said that the

proportion of male may-flies to female is six thousand to one. Nature

behaves similarly--though with more moderation--with male human babies.

More males than females are born, but fewer males survive. Is war

perhaps another extravagant device of Nature; or is society, which

encourages war, blindly copying Nature for the same end?

On the other hand, Woman's dislike of militarism is an instinct.

Life--for Woman--is not a seed which can be sown broadcast, to take

root, or to perish, according to chance. For Woman, life is an

individual charge; therefore, for Woman, the preservation of life is of

more importance than many other things.

By God and by Man, the care of life is given to Woman, before and

after birth. With all her being, Woman--primitive Woman--has defended

that life as an individual concrete life; and with all her being,

Woman--modern Woman--must now, in an enlarged sphere, defend the

abstract life of humankind.

Therefore, it is good that Woman shall put aside her qualms, and go

forth and see for herself the dangers that threaten life.

Therefore it is good that Woman shall record, as Woman, and not as

neuter, the things which she has felt, and seen, during an experience

of militarism at first hand.

GUIDE FOR READERS

This book is in five parts.

PART I. deals with preliminaries and military hospital work in

Bulgaria, Belgium, France, and Serbia.

PART II. deals with roadside tent dispensary work in Serbia.

PART III. is a diary of the Serbian retreat.

PART IV. discusses:

(_a_) The war work of women.

(_b_) Serbian character.

(_e_) The evils of war.

PART V. comprises maps and letters and lists of personnel.

The title of the book is taken from Genesis iii. 22-24. Readers will

understand that Part III. does not attempt to deal with the Serbian

retreat as a whole; materials for this were not available. It describes

the day to day doings of one small segment of the historical mosaic.

The book has many imperfections, but if something of the spirit of

the Serbian nation shines through its pages, it will have served its

purpose.

PART I

CHAPTER I

To go through the horrors of war, and keep one's reason--that is hell.

Those who have seen the fiery Moloch, licking up his human sacrifices,

will harbour no illusions; they will know that the devouring deity of

War is an idol, and no true God. The vision is salutary; it purges

the mind from false values, and gives courage for the exorcism of

abominations still practised by a world which has no knowledge of the

God of Life. The abominations which are now practised in Europe, by

twentieth century man, are no less abominable than those practised

of old in the Valley of Hinnom. The heathen passed their sons and

daughters through the fire, to propitiate their deity; the Lord God

condemned the practice. We Christians pass our sons and daughters

through the fire of bloody wars, to propitiate our deities of

patriotism and nationalism. Would the Lord God not also condemn our

practice? But we, alas! have no Josiah to act for the Lord God (2 Kings

xxiii.). The heathen wept at the destruction of Baal, but the worship

of the pure God prevailed. No one believes that his god is false, till

it has been destroyed. Therefore, we must destroy militarism, in and

through this war, and future generations will justify the deed.

I am neither a doctor nor a nurse, but I have occupied myself within

the sphere of war for the following reasons.

After four years spent on the free veldt of the South African

Transvaal, I returned to London (in 1907) with my mind cleared of

many prejudices. The political situation into which I found myself

plunged, was interesting. Both men and women were yawning themselves

awake; the former after a long sleep, the latter for the first time in

history. The men had been awakened by the premonitory echo of German

cannons, and were, in lounge suits, beginning to look to their national

defences. Women probably did not know what awakened them, but the same

cannons were responsible.

For self-defence is the first law of sub-conscious nature; and the

success of Prussian cannons would mean the annihilation of woman as the

custodian of human life.

It was natural that woman's first cry should be for the political vote:

influence without power is a chimera. But it was also natural that at a

moment when national defence was the rallying shibboleth for men, the

political claims of women should be by men disregarded. Political power

without national responsibility would be unwisdom and injustice.

But was woman incapable of taking a responsible share in national

defence?

I believed that prejudice alone stood in woman's way. Prejudice,

however, is not eliminated by calling it prejudice. Practical

demonstration that prejudice is prejudice, will alone dissipate the

phantom.

But what form should woman's share in national defence assume? In

these days of the supremacy of mechanical over physical force, woman's

ability as a fighting factor could have been shown. But there were

three reasons against experimenting in this direction.

Firstly, it would have been difficult to obtain opportunities for the

necessary proof of capacity.

Secondly, woman could not fight better than man, even if she could

fight as well, and, as an argument for the desirability of giving woman

a share in national responsibility, it would be unwise to present her

as a performer of less capacity than man. The expediency of woman's

participation in national defence could best be proved by showing that

there was a sphere of work in which she could be at least as capable as

man.

Thirdly, and of primary importance, if the entrance of women into

the political arena is an evolutionary movement--forwards and not

backwards--woman must not encumber herself with legacies of male

traditions likely to compromise her freedom of evolvement _along the

line of life_.

If the Woman's Movement has, as I believe, value in the scheme of

creation, it must tend to the furtherance of life, and not of death.

Now, militarism means supremacy of the principle that to produce

death is, on occasions--many occasions--more useful than to preserve

life. Militarism has, in one country at least, reached a climax, and

I believe it is because we women feel in our souls that life has a

meaning, and a value, which are in danger of being lost in militarism,

that we are at this moment instinctively asking for a share in

controlling those human lives for which Nature has made us specially

responsible. "Intellect," says Bergson, "is characterised by a natural

inability to comprehend life." Woman may be less heavily handicapped in

an attempt to understand it?

It may well have been the echo of German cannons which aroused woman to

self-consciousness.

Demonstration, therefore, of the capacity of woman to take a useful

share in national defence must be given in a sphere of work in which

preservation, and not destruction of life, is the objective. Such work

was the care of the sick and wounded.

In a former book, _War and Women_, an account has been given of the

founding of the "Women's Convoy Corps," as the practical result of

these ideas. The work which was accomplished by members of this Corps,

in Bulgaria, during the first Balkan War, 1912-13, afforded the first

demonstration of the principle that women could efficiently work in

hospitals of war, not only as nurses--that had already been proved in

the Crimean War--but as doctors, orderlies, administrators, in every

department of responsibility, and thus set men free for the fighting

line.

I had hoped that, as far as I was concerned, it would never be

necessary again to undertake a form of work which is to me distasteful.

But when the German War broke out in August, 1914, I found to my

disappointment, that the demonstration of 1912-13 needed corroboration.

For I had one day the privilege of a conversation with an important

official of the British Red Cross Society, and, to my surprise, he

repeated the stale old story that women surgeons were not strong enough

to operate in hospitals of war, and that women could not endure the

hardships and privations incidental to campaigns.

I reminded him of the women at Kirk Kilisse. "Ah!" he replied, "that

was exceptional." I saw at once that he, and those of whom he was

representative, must be shown that it was not exceptional. But where

there is no will to be convinced, the only convincing argument is the

deed. Action is a universal language which all can understand.

I must, therefore, once more enter the arena; for my previous

experience of war had corroborated my belief that the co-operation

of woman in warfare, is essential for the future abolition of war;

essential, that is, for the retrieval of civilisation. For these

reasons I must not shirk.

CHAPTER II

I had gone to Bulgaria with open mind, prepared to judge for myself

whether it was true that war calls forth valuable human qualities which

would otherwise lie dormant, and whether it was true that the purifying

influence of war is so great, that it compensates the human race for

the disadvantages of war. My mind had been open for impressions of

so-called glories of war.

But the glories which came under my notice in Bulgaria, were butchered

human beings, devastated villages, a general callousness about the

value of human life, that was for me a revelation. This time I should

go out with no illusions about these martial glories.

But how should I go? To my satisfaction I found that the Bulgarian

"first step" had led to an easy staircase, and when I offered the

services of a Woman's Unit to the Belgian Red Cross, I was at once

invited to establish a hospital in Brussels.

The St. John Ambulance Association, at the instigation of Lady Perrott,

and the Women's Imperial Service League (which, with Lady Muir

Mackenzie as Vice-Chairman, had been organised with the view of helping

to equip women's hospital units), together with many other generous

friends, provided money and equipment, and a Woman's Unit was assembled.

I went to Brussels in advance of the unit, to make arrangements, and

was given, as hospital premises, the fine buildings of the University.

The day after arrival, I had begun the improvisation of lecture and

class-rooms into wards, when, that same day, the work was interrupted

by the entry of the Germans, who took possession of the Belgian

Capital. During three days and nights the triumphant army, faultlessly

equipped, paraded through the streets. For some hours I watched it

from the second floor window of a restaurant in the Boulevard des

Jardins Botaniques, together with my husband, who was to act as Hon.

Treasurer, and the Vicar of the Hampstead Garden Suburb, who was to act

as Chaplain to our unit. And my mind at once filled with presage of the

tough job which the Allies had undertaken.

The picture upon which we looked was indeed remarkable. Belgium had

been "safeguarded" from aggression, by treaties with the most civilised

nations of the world. But here now were the legitimate inhabitants of

the capital of Belgium standing in their thousands, gazing helplessly,

in dumb bewilderment, whilst the army of one of these "most civilised"

Governments streamed triumphantly, as conquerors, through their

streets. And in all those streets, the only sounds were the clamping

feet of the marching infantry, the clattering hoofs of the horses of

the proud Uhlans and Hussars, and the rumbling of the wagons carrying

murderous guns.

The people stood silent, with frozen hearts, beholding, as fossils

might, the scenes in which they could no longer move.

For them, earth, air, sky, the whole world outside that never-ending

procession, seemed expunged. No one noticed whether rain fell, or the

sun shone, whilst that piteous pageant of triumphant enmity, passed, in

ceaseless cinema, before their eyes.

All idea of establishing a hospital for the Allies had to be abandoned.

The Croix Rouge was taken over by the Germans, and hospitals would be

commandeered for German soldiers. My one desire was to get in touch

with my unit; for they might, I thought, in response to the cable sent

by the Belgian Red Cross, on the night of our arrival, be already on

their way to join me, and might be in difficulties, surrounded by

the Germans. Whatever personal risk might be incurred, I must leave

Brussels.

The Consuls advised me to remain: they said I should not be able to

obtain a passport from the German General. When I remonstrated, they

shrugged their shoulders and said, "Well, go and ask him yourself!"

I went, and obtained an officially stamped passport for myself and

my two companions, who gallantly, and against my wishes, insisted on

accompanying me, and sharing the risks of passing through the enemy's

lines.

But, notwithstanding our stamped passport, we were, at Hasselt,

arrested as spies, and at Tongres we were condemned to be shot within

twenty-four hours. The story of our escape and eventual imprisonment,

at Aachen, has been told elsewhere, but one remark of the German

Devil-Major Commandant at Tongres, is so illuminative of the spirit of

militarism that it bears repetition.

The Major said, "You are spies"; he fetched a big book from a shelf,

opened it, and pointing on a certain page, he continued, "and the fate

of spies is to be shot within twenty-four hours. Now you know your

fate." I answered cheerily, as though it were quite a common occurrence

to hear little fates like that, "but, mein Herr Major, I am sure you

would not wish to do such an injustice. Won't you at least look at our

papers, and see that what we have told you is true; we were engaged in

hospital work when," etc. He then replied, and his voice rasped and

barked like that of a mad dog, "You are English, and, whether you are

right or wrong, _this is a war of annihilation_."

I shall always be grateful for that phrase, for I recognised in it

an epitome of the spirit of militarism, carried, as the Prussian

arch-representatives of war carry it, to its logical extreme. For,

according to modern militarism, war aims at annihilation of the enemy,

and the enemy includes not only the combatants--these are the least

offensive element--but the non-combatants, the men who represent the

rival commerce, the women who represent the rival culture, and the men

and women who represent codes of honour and humanity which are the

beacons of the rival civilisation--at one and all of these, is aimed

the blow which is delivered through the medium of the proxies in the

field.

We three non-combatants--namely (_a_) a minister of the Holy Church,

(_b_) a university man, who had officiated as judge in Burma, and (_c_)

a woman engaged in hospital work, were now condemned to death, not

because we represented a military danger, but because we represented,

although in humble degree, those qualities of the rival nation, which

had brought that nation to the front of civilisation. War aims at the

annihilation, not of that which is bad, but of that which is best.

The Devil-Major, as we called him, then made us follow him upstairs, to

the top floor, to a room in which we were to spend the night--the last

night? He ordered me to be separated from the others, in another room,

but I was responsible for the position of my companions, and without my

influence--as a woman--death for them was certain, and I resisted the

separation successfully. The Major then drove us into a room that was

bare, except for verminous straw upon the floor. He refused to give us

food, though we had not eaten since the day before, but water in tin

cans was brought to us to drink, and we were told to lie down on the

dirty straw.

The Devil-Major then warned the guards that if we moved, or talked to

each other, they were to shoot us, then he left us for the night.

Sleep was impossible, owing to the ceaseless chiming of half-a-dozen

church clocks, which seemed purposely to have clustered within a few

hundred yards of us. The bells were all hopelessly out of tune, the

tuners being presumably at the front; and every quarter of an hour

all the bells of all the clocks, played different tunes, which lasted

almost till the next quarter's chime was due. The discord was a

nightmare for sensitive ears, but the harsh jangle of these bells, as

they tumbled over each other, brutally callous to the jarring sounds,

and to the irrelevancy of the melodies they played, seemed in keeping

with the discordance--illustrated by our position--between the ideal of

life, designed by God the Spirit, and the botching of that design, by

murderous man.

Was our position, I wondered, another of the glories of war? These

glories, exhibited at that time in Belgium, were, as I noticed, all of

one stamp--devastation, murder of women and children, rapine, every

form of demoniacal torture. All these glories are visualised, and not

exaggerated, in the cartoons of Raemaekers.

But we three escaped by miracles, and returned safely to England.

CHAPTER III

I found that my unit had not yet left London, and I was able in a short

time, with them, to accept an invitation from the Belgian Red Cross to

go to Antwerp. We went out under the auspices of the St. John Ambulance

Association, and established our hospital in the big Summer Concert

Hall, in the Rue de l'Harmonie. Here once again the glories of war were

manifested.

After three weeks' work upon the maimed and shattered remnants of

manhood that were hourly brought to us from the trenches, the German

bombardment of the city began. For eighteen hours our hospital unit was

under shell fire, and I had the opportunity of seeing women--untrained

to such scenes--during the nerve-racking strain of a continuous

bombardment. They took no notice of the shells, which whizzed over our

heads, without ceasing, at the rate of four a minute, and dropped with

the bang of a thousand thunderclaps, burning, shattering, destroying

everything around us.

The story of how these women rescued their wounded, carried them

without excitement, as calmly as though they were in a Hyde Park

parade, on stretchers, and when stretchers failed, upon their backs,

from the glass-roofed hospital, down steep steps, to underground

cellars, has also been told elsewhere.

We saved our wounded, but in the picture of the murderous shells,

dropping at random, here, there, and everywhere; of the beautiful city

of Antwerp in flames, its peaceful citizens, its women and children,

with little bundles of household treasures in their arms, fleeing

terror-stricken from their homes into the unknown: in all this it was

difficult to see glory, except the glory triumphant of the enemy's

superior make of guns--superior machinery.

[Illustration:

_Photo, Vandyk, C._

H.R.H. PRINCE ALEXANDER OF SERBIA]

We lost, of course, all our hospital material, but once again, thanks

to the Women's Imperial Service League and to the St. John Ambulance

Association, now in conjunction with the British Red Cross Society, who

also assisted us; thanks also again to friends and sympathisers, we

were enabled to collect fresh equipment, and as, alas! hospitals could

no longer be worked in Belgium, we offered our services to the French

Red Cross, and were invited to establish our hospital in Cherbourg.

At this port, every day, arrived boat-loads of wounded from the

northern battlefields. Their uniforms indistinguishable with blood,

maimed, blinded, shattered in mind and body, these human derelicts

were lifted from the dark ship's-hold, on stretchers, to the quay,

and thence were transported to hospitals for amputations, a weary

convalescence, or perhaps death. It was again a little difficult to

recognise the glory of it all. And then came Serbia.

We had been working for four months at Cherbourg, when I read one

day that an epidemic of typhus had broken out in Serbia; that the

hospitals were overcrowded with sick and wounded; that one-third of

the Serbian doctors had died, either of typhus, or at the front, and

that nursing and medical help were badly needed. I knew from the moment

when I read that report, that I should go, but I confess that I tried,

at the beginning, to persuade myself that my first duty was to the

Cherbourg hospital. I dreaded the effort of going to London, of facing

the endless red tape, snubs, opposition, the collecting of money, and

a unit, difficulties of all sorts with which I was now familiar. One

of my plays was going to be acted at the theatre in Cherbourg, at

a charity matinée, and I wanted to see it. Also, after a winter of

continuous rain, the sun had begun its spring conjuring tricks, and one

morning before breakfast, as I was walking in the woods, I noticed that

through the damp earth, and the dead beech leaves, myriads of violets,

ferns and primroses were showing their green leaf-buds. I felt a

momentary twinge of joy; and that decided me. This would be a pleasant

place in Spring; many women would be glad to do my work.

The wounded were no longer coming south in such numbers as at first,

owing probably to the dangers of the sea voyage; the hospital was in

thorough order, and the administration could be left in capable hands.

The call had come, and I could no more ignore it, than the tides can

ignore the tugging of the moon.

I went to London (in February, 1915) to see if I was right in my

surmise as to the need for help in Serbia, and I was at once asked by

the Serbian Relief Fund, to organise and to direct a hospital unit,

also to raise a portion of the funds. We were to go to Serbia as soon

as Admiralty transport could be procured. This involved considerable

delay, and it was not till April 1st that we set sail from Liverpool

for Salonica.

CHAPTER IV

The unit numbered forty-five, and comprised seven women doctors--Mrs.

King-May Atkinson, M.B., Ch.B., Miss Beatrice Coxon, D.R.C.P.S.R., Miss

Helen B. Hanson, M.D., B.S., D.P.H., Miss Mabel Eliza King-May, M.B.,

Ch.B., Miss Edith Maude Marsden, M.B., Ch.B., Miss Catherine Payne,

M.B., Miss Isobel Tate, M.D., N.U.I.--eighteen trained nurses, together

with cooks, orderlies, chauffeurs, and interpreters. The principle that

women could successfully conduct a war hospital in all its various

departments, had now been amply proved, and had been conceded even

by the sceptical. The original demonstration had already borne ample

fruit. Units of Scottish women were doing excellent work in France, and

also in Serbia, and even in London, women doctors had now been given

staff rank in military hospitals. The principle was firmly established,

and I thought, therefore, that no harm would now be done by accepting

the services of a few men orderlies and chauffeurs.

Amongst the applications for the post of orderly, were some Rhodes

scholars; and an interesting reversal of traditional procedure

occurred. At the last moment, the scholars asked to be excused,

because, owing to the additional risks of typhus involved in the

expedition to Serbia, they must first obtain permission to run the

risk, from their relatives in America, and for this, they said, there

would not now be time. Our women, on the other hand, braved their

relatives, knowing that a woman's worst foes, where her work is

concerned, are often those of her own household.

Determined, however, to dodge the typhus if possible, I proposed to the

Serbian Relief Fund that our hospital should be housed--both staff and

patients--entirely in tents. It was only a question of raising more

money; and this was obtained through friends and sympathetic audiences.

Typhus infection is carried by lice, and these would naturally be more

difficult to eliminate within already infected houses than in tents

in the open air. Also by the use of tents we should render ourselves

mobile, and be more likely to be of service in emergency; this was

later amply proved.

The Committee of the Serbian Relief Fund agreed to the proposal, and

sixty tents, mostly double-lined, were specially made to order, by

Messrs. Edgington of Kingsway, for wards, staff, X-ray, kitchens,

dispensary, lavatories, baths, sleeping, etc., etc., with camp beds and

outfit.

Lady Grogan and Mrs. Carrington Wilde, who were giving up their lives

to Serbian Relief Fund work, did wonders for our unit, and in every way

helped to make things easy for us. Mr. B. Christian, chairman, also

gave wholehearted support, and the Women's Imperial Service League,

with Lady Muir Mackenzie, Lady Cowdray, Mrs. Carr Ellison, Lady Mond,

Mrs. Ronald McNeill, and their indefatigable secretary, Mrs. McGregor,

were of invaluable service.

The Admiralty transport, for which during six precious weeks we had

waited impatiently, was an old two thousand ton boat, of the Royal

Khedivial Mail Line, only accustomed to carrying passengers from one

port to another, short distances on the Mediterranean coast, and she

could only give us nineteen places. It was arranged, therefore, for the

remainder of the unit to follow overland, and to arrive, if possible,

simultaneously at Salonica.

The captain of our boat received twenty-four hours' notice of the

fact that he was to carry to Salonica a couple of hundred members of

various hospital units. His chief steward, to whom would have been

entrusted the purchase of food stores, was laid up with a broken leg,

and the captain had been obliged himself to go from house to house,

in Liverpool, to find a crew. We were lucky, therefore, to get any

food or any crew at all, and still more lucky in the captain, who,

by his courtesy, and concern for our welfare, compensated for little

deficiencies in the ménu. Besides, one was thankful to be on the way to

work, after so much delay.

But after having waited six weeks for the boat, I nearly lost it at the

last moment. The cabby who drove me and two others from the station

at Liverpool, to the dock, was a fool, and couldn't find the dock in

which the _Saidieh_ was berthed, and for half an hour, in the rain,

our four-wheeler crawled up and down, and in and out of a tangled

maze of nine miles of docks. The horse, the cab, and the cabby were

all extraordinarily old, and when we were at the point farthest from

possibility of help, they all three collapsed. We patched up the horse

and cab, but had more difficulty with the cabby. He couldn't see why we

were so fastidious about sailing in one boat rather than in another,

and time after time he drove, with triumphant flourish of whip, through

the dock gates, and stopped in front of an old coal barge, and was much

hurt by our refusal to get on board. But all this worked a miracle,

for when at last we hit upon the right dock, a short time before the

departure of the _Saidieh_, I was, for the first time in my life,

thankful to find myself on board a steamer.

No places had been reserved for our party, but after a general scramble

with the members of portions of six other hospital units, mostly women,

voyaging with us, we all settled down comfortably to sea-sickness and

submarines. The rough weather provided us with the former, but saved us

from the latter. Submarines were supposed to be waiting for us off the

Scilly Isles, and at first we were afraid that the _Saidieh_ would be

sunk; but later we were afraid she wouldn't.

The units, which kept to themselves in a remarkable way, were a source

of much abstract interest to each other, and to me. It was particularly

satisfactory to notice the unstinting way in which the principle of

women's work in all departments, responsible as well as irresponsible,

of a war hospital, was--as represented on this ship--now acknowledged.

The woman administrator, the woman surgeon, the woman orderly, in

addition, of course, to the woman nurse, who had been the first to win

her position in war work.

I should like incidentally to suggest that uniform for women employed

in public work, should be as compulsory always, as it is for men.

Occasional hobble skirts, and low-cut blouses, reminiscent of the

indecorums of the Society puppet, struck a peculiarly jarring note

amongst a boat-load of people prepared for life-and-death realities, on

a mission of humanity.

Of all these doctors, nurses, orderlies, administrators, chauffeurs,

interpreters, how many would return? One should be taken and the other

left? Laughing, singing, acting, reading, playing cards, flirting,

quarrelling--how many were doing these things for the last time?

Towards what fate were each and all being borne? Were we, as adjuncts

of the Serbian Army, sailing to life or death, to victory or defeat?

How quickly all grew accustomed to, and ignored, the grandeur of

moon, stars, planets, the wonders of a firmament new to most, because

generally hidden by chimney-tops and smoke, and, conscious only of a

little shrunken circle, grew absorbed in trifles. The vastness, the

peace, the tumult, the joy of Nature, all unseen; the main interests,

hair washing, gossip, fancy dress, bridge parties, quality of cigars,

and food. Nobility of character curiously hidden, but ready to spring

forth when pressed by the button of emergency.

A little excitement at first, from rumours of submarines, then boat

drill, a sense of adventure, half enjoyable, half unpleasant, followed

by the comfortable assurance that danger is passed, and enjoyment now

legitimate, for those who are not kept low by sea-sickness. New friends

and sudden confidences, as suddenly regretted; the inevitable Mrs.

Jarley's waxworks, badly acted, but applauded; vulgar songs, mistaken

for humour; real talent shy in coming forward, false coin in evidence;

pride in attention from the captain; the small ambitions, to be top dog

at games, to win a reputation as bridge player, to become sunburnt: all

pursued with the same vigour with which work will later be attacked.

Danger from above, from below, from all around, but none so harmful as

the tongue of a jealous comrade.

The story of one voyage is the story of all voyages. It is the story of

mankind caricatured at close quarters, reflected on a distorting mirror.

The ship's first officer was a Greek; he was keenly on the side of the

Allies. He hoped shortly to enlist, and he told me that it was his

firm conviction that if Greece did not join the Allies immediately the

people would revolt against the King.

The third officer, also a Greek, was a rabid pro-German. His presence

on board seemed particularly undesirable; but the wonder was that there

were not more undesirables on the ship, for anyone could have entered

it at Liverpool.

Rough weather continued till we reached Gibraltar, on April 8th, and,

after one fine day, resumed sway till the 11th, when we sailed past the

Greek coast.

We reached Salonica on April 15th, the various units full of eagerness

to learn their respective destinations.

We were met by the Serbian Consul, Monsieur Vintrovitch, and by the

English Consul-General, Mr. Wratislaw, also by Mr. Chichester, who has

since, alas, succumbed to typhoid.

There was disappointment amongst members of our unit, when they learned

that we were to establish our hospital at Kragujevatz. They would have

preferred Belgrade, as being nearer to the supposed front. Fronts,

however, are movable, and as Kragujevatz was the military headquarters,

we were, I knew, much more likely to get the work we wanted, if we were

immediately under the official army eye; I was, therefore, more than

content to go to Kragujevatz.

We spent that night on board, at the kind invitation of the captain, as

there was a scrimmage for rooms in the hotels. We then had comfortable

time next day in which to find quarters. The portion of the unit

travelling _via_ Marseilles arrived, excellently timed, by Messageries

boat, on Saturday, the 17th. We spent the next few days struggling

with, or trying to find, quay officials, and getting the stores and

equipment unloaded, and placed in railway trucks. It was difficult to

hit upon a working day at the dock, for we were now in one of those

happy lands in which eight days out of every seven, are holidays.

Friday was a fast day--no work; Saturday was a feast day--no work;

Sunday was Sunday--no work; Monday came after Sunday, Saturday and

Friday--therefore no work, a day of recovery was necessary after so

many holidays. One had to be awake all night, to discover an odd moment

when a little work was likely to be smuggled into the day's routine of

happy idleness.

[Illustration:

STOBART UNIT AND CONVALESCENTS OUTSIDE THEIR HOSPITAL AT

ANTWERP. (Concert Hall of Société de l'Harmonie)

Mrs. Stobart showing medals presented by grateful patients. Dr. F.

Stoney on her right; Dr. Ramsey left; Dr. Joan Watts, Dr. Emily Morris,

Dr. Rose Turner and Dr. Helen Hanson behind. Miss S. Macnaughtan in

front, centre]

[Illustration:

_Photo. Dover Street Studios_

STOBART HOSPITAL--SERBIAN RELIEF FUND UNIT No. 3

Mrs. St. Clair Stobart in centre second row, with (from left to right)

Doctors King-May, Payne, Marsden, Atkinson, Tate and Coxon. Dr. Hanson

absent]

But by the evening of Monday, the 19th, everything--tents, equipment,

stores, etc.--was on the trucks and ready to travel with us. And I,

with eleven members, as advance party, left Salonica at 8 a.m. for

Kragujevatz. We had all duly, the night before, performed the rite of

smearing our bodies with paraffin, as a supposed precaution against the

typhus lice. But it is probably a mistake to think that paraffin kills

lice. Paraffin is a good cleanser, and lice, which flourish in dirt,

respect their enemy, but are not killed by it.

The railway journey was interesting, especially to those amongst us who

had never before been away from England.

We were amused to see real live storks nesting on the chimney-tops.

So the German nursery tale, that babies are brought into the world by

storks, down the bedroom chimney, must be true. German fables will

probably in future teach that babies are brought through the barrels

of rifles, double barrels being a provision of Providence for the safe

arrival of twins, which will be much needed for the repopulation of the

country.

We reached Skoplye at 9 p.m. Sir Ralph Paget kindly came to the train

to greet us, and whilst we had some very light refreshments at the

station, he stayed and talked with us. Lady Paget was then, we were

thankful to hear, recovering from the attack of typhus which she had

contracted during her hospital work at Skoplye.

The country through which we passed, was magnificent; mountains,

rivers, gorges, and picturesque houses--one-storied, of sun-dried

brick--with clear air, warm sunshine, and blossoming fruit trees.

Occasionally a ruined village, or a new bridge replacing one that had

lately been destroyed by Bulgarian raids, or newly dug graves of those

killed in the last raid, were reminders that man, with his murderous

works, would see to it that enjoyment of Nature's works should not

enter for long into our programme.

We reached Nish at 7.30 next morning, April 21st. At the station we

were met by Dr. Karanovitch, Chief Surgeon of the Army; Dr. Grouitch,

Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs; Mr. Blakeney, British

Vice-Consul; Professor Todorovitch, Secretary to the Chief Surgeon; Mr.

Petcham, Official of Foreign Affairs; and Dr. Soubotitch, President of

the Red Cross Society.

All were most courteous and hospitable, and during the one and a half

hour's halt they took us to breakfast at the Red Cross Hospital, and

later accompanied us to the station to speed us on our last stage of

the journey to Kragujevatz.

We left Nish at 10 a.m., and reached Kragujevatz at 7 p.m. The scenery

was superb, and we were sorry when the journey came to an end. At the

station, we were met by Colonel Dr. Guentchitch, the head of the Army

Medical Service. He had most thoughtfully arranged sleeping quarters

for the staff in the empty wards of a hospital; but it seemed wiser,

and less trouble to all concerned, for us to stay for the night in our

train, in a siding.

On arrival, the Colonel drove me and the Treasurer and two of our

doctors to see a proposed site for our camp hospital--the racecourse,

then disused, above the town. Excellent--nothing more suitable was

likely to be found. The unit was then invited to dine at the officers'

club mess. Here we met Colonel Harrison, British Military Attaché, and

also Colonel Hunter, who was in charge of the Royal Army Medical Corps

mission. The French and Russian attachés were also there.

It was homely to meet once more the genus military attaché; it was

indeed difficult to imagine conducting a hospital without them. For at

Kirk Kilisse, when we arrived in a starving condition, the British

attaché had found us food, and the Italian attaché, whom, in the dark,

I had mistaken for some one else, had sportingly acted up to the

character of the some one else, and had provided us with straw for

mattresses.

Though some folks find Serbian cooking too rich, the dishes have a

distinctive and pleasing character of their own, and the dinner, after

two days of cold meals, was much enjoyed. It was delightful to find

that the Serbian officers, both medical and military, were cultured

men of quick and sympathetic intelligence. I knew at once that I

should like them. Most of them spoke German, a few talked French,

but all could converse fluently in either one or the other language,

in addition, of course, to their own. One is always reminded abroad

that all other nations are better educated than we are. We are still

so insular, and are still, with the pride of ignorance, proud of our

defect. We have not yet reached the stage of realising that we can

never take a leading part in the councils of Europe, till we can

converse, without interpreters, with the leading minds of Europe.

Next day Colonel Guentchitch took us to see alternative camp sites, but

nothing half as suitable as the racecourse was available, and upon this

we decided.

By the evening of Thursday, April 22nd, we had unpacked, and pitched

some small ridge tents in which to spend the night, refusing the kind

offer of sleeping accommodation in the town, though we again accepted

the officers' hospitality for the evening meal.

The next day was spent in pitching the camp, and the authorities were

pleased, and surprised, because we refused all offers of help in

putting up the tents. We had gone to Serbia to help the Serbians, and

not to be a nuisance. Foreign units which arrive and expect to have

everything done for them, are more bother than they are worth.

The remainder of the unit, with Dr. King-May, arrived from Salonica,

and under the supervision of Dr. Marsden and Miss Benjamin (head

orderly) a small town of tents, gleaming white in the brilliant

sunshine, soon appeared in the local geography.

One long wide street of tents for the staff, then a large interval of

open grass space, and another avenue of ward tents, with a connecting

base line of tents for offices, kitchens, X-ray, and dispensary.

CHAPTER V

The camp was finely situated. We were surrounded on all sides by hills,

not ordinary dead hills, these were alive with picturesque villages,

half-hidden amongst orchards of plum and apple trees. On the far side

of the white, one-storied town of Kragujevatz, the hills to the east,

and south, seemed to be in poetic partnership with the clouds, and all

day long, with infinite variety, reflected rainbow colours and storm

effects--an endless source of joy.

At night, when the tents were lighted by small lanterns, and nothing

else was visible but the stars, the camp looked like a fairy city.

The cuckoo had evidently not been present during Babel building, for

all day long, and sometimes at night, he cuckooed in broad English--a

message from our English spring. But the climax of surprises came when

we found ourselves kept awake by the singing of the nightingales. Was

this the Serbia of which such grim accounts had reached us?

We were ready to open our hospital either for the wounded, or for

typhus patients, and we gave the authorities their choice. Colonel

Guentchitch promptly decided that he would rather not start a new

typhus centre; he wished us to take wounded. We began with fifty, and

these were in a few days increased to one hundred and thirty.

And at once I realised, that the impression which even now largely

prevails in Western Europe as to the bellicose character of the Serbian

nation, is wrong.

The average Serbian peasant-soldier is not the truculent, fierce,

fighting-loving savage so often represented. He does not love fighting,

but he loves, with all the enthusiasm of a poetic nature, his family,

his home, his hectares of land, and his country. He has fought much

in the past, but in defence of these possessions which he prizes. No

one can accuse the Serbian soldier of cowardice, yet his dislike of

fighting, and his love of home, were so marked, that it was easy to

distinguish, by his brisk walk, and cheerful countenance, or by his

slow gait, and depressed attitude, whether a drab-dressed soldier, with

knapsack, walking along the road, was going _Kod kutche_ (home) or--his

ten days' leave at an end--was going once more _y commando_ (to the

front).

Our wounded were the most charming patients imaginable, and it was

always a joy to go into the wards and have a talk with them. They

were alertly intelligent, with a delightful sense of humour, and a

total absence of vulgarity or coarseness. They were all so chivalrous,

courteous and delicate in their behaviour to the nurses, and to us

women generally, and so full of affection and gratitude for the help

given to them, that it was difficult to realise that these were not

officers, but peasants, with little knowledge of the world outside

their own national history.

With this every Serbian peasant is familiar, because it is handed down

from generation to generation, in ballads and heroic legends, by the

bards or guslars.

Our patients were all wonderfully cheerful and happy, and the

convalescents enjoyed their meals in a tent which had been given by

the men working on a ranch in British Columbia. _Popara_ (a national

dish--a sort of porridge of bread and lard), and eggs, bread, and

_pekmez_ (plum jam), and tea or coffee for breakfast; a rich stew of

meat and vegetables, or a roast, and pudding or pastry for dinner; and

again, meat, and stew, or soup, and pudding for supper. On Fridays,

however, the soldiers always refused meat.

Colonel Nicolaivitch (now Serbian Military Attaché in London) told me

the other day that, on one of his visits to our Kragujevatz camp, he

had been talking in one of the wards, with a man who was sitting up

in bed with a bandaged head. He was much enjoying his dinner, and the

Colonel said, "I expect you would like to stay in this hospital half a

year?" "No," replied the man promptly, "a whole year."

The men are not accustomed to play games, except with cards. A card

game called "Jeanne d'Arc" was the favourite. But they loved "Kuglana":

this was a game like skittles, played with nine pins and a large wooden

ball, which was swung between two tall posts. It was made for us at the

arsenal, and gave our convalescents much joy and recreation.

I was a little surprised at the matter-of-fact way in which the men all

accepted women doctors, and surgical operations by women. Indeed, they

highly approved, because women were, they said, more gentle, and yet as

effective as men doctors.

I was also surprised that at first, in April, when the weather was

cold, they did not fear the tents and the open-air life. But the

ward-tents, being double-lined, were as warm as could be wished at

night, or when it rained; and in sunny weather, when the sides were

lifted, gave an open-air treatment which was at once appreciated.

Camp hours were:--

Reveillé at 5.30 a.m.

Breakfast at 6 (the sun was very hot in the middle of the day and it

was better to get the heaviest part of the work done in the cooler

hours).

Lunch at 11.30.

Tea at 4.

Supper at 6.30 (as the town was out of bounds it seemed wise to avoid

the possibility of dull evenings by going early to bed).

Lights out at 9.

Much attention was attracted by our novel form of hospital, and all

day long, visitors, official and otherwise, flocked to see all the

arrangements. These seemed to be highly approved.

The kitchen department was under the supervision of Miss M. Stanley;

dispensary under Miss Wolseley; laundry, Miss Johnstone; linen, Mrs.

Dearmer. The X-ray Department was managed by Dr. Tate and Mr. Agar. The

Secretary was Miss McGlade, and the Hon. Treasurer, John Greenhalgh.

The sanitation was in the hands of Miss B. Kerr, and was a subject of

interested and invariably of favourable criticism. And it required some

system to cope successfully with open-air sanitation, on a fixed spot,

for more than two hundred people. Colonel Hunter, sometimes twice a

day, brought visitors to whom he was anxious to show certain features

in the scheme of which he specially approved. He told me that we were

useful to him as object-lessons, and he cabled home in favourable terms

to the War Office, concerning our hospital work, and also, later,

concerning the dispensary scheme, with which he was well pleased.

It soon, indeed, came to be considered quite the correct thing for

visitors to Kragujevatz to come up and visit the camp, and the only

relief from the monotony of showing people round, was the variety

of language which had to be employed. Sometimes, simultaneously, a

Serbian, who, in addition to his own language, only spoke German,

another who only spoke French, another who could only talk Serbian, and

perhaps an Englishman who could only talk English--these must all be

entertained together. It was like the juggler's feat with balls in the

air.

Almost everybody of note in Serbia visited us at one time or another,

and our visitors' book, now, alas! in the hands of the Germans, was an

interesting record.

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince (Alexander) honoured us with a

visit as soon as he learnt that he would be able to converse in French

or German. He speaks good English, but has presumably not had the same

opportunities of practice in this language. But in the visitors' book,

which he took back to the palace for the purpose, he wrote a page and

a half, in excellent English, describing his impression of the work of

the hospital, and expressing his gratitude for the help given to his

brave soldiers.

A fine fellow this Prince: straightforward, unostentatious, full of

sympathy and quick intelligence; in every way worthy of a throne. He

looked at every detail of the camp with critical interest, then as he

walked, in the scorching sun, from the hospital quarters to the tents

reserved for the staff, he asked, as he looked around, "Have you no

sun-shelters?" We had none, and he immediately turned to a member of

his staff, and told him to see that "ladniaks," or arbours, made of

young trees, and dead branches, were at once arranged for us.

Accordingly, in a few days, a procession of wagons arrived, carrying a

whole forest of young trees for props, and dead branches for roof and

sides; and arbours were erected, and much comfort to us all was the

result.

On the evening of the Prince's visit, the convalescent soldiers

celebrated the event by giving us an impromptu entertainment after

supper. Dressed in their light-coloured pyjamas, scarlet bed-jackets,

and big mushroom-shaped straw hats, they formed, outside our mess tent,

a picturesque group, silhouetted against the white tents which were

aglow with fairy lamps, and looked like inflated stars.

The Serbian national instrument is the gusla, a one-stringed banjo,

played with a bow; the sound is like the plaintive buzzing of a bumble

bee, when, round and round a room, it blindly seeks an exit.

Accompanying himself upon the gusla, one soldier after the other sang,

or rather chanted, in mournful monotone, the old poetic legends in

which the tragic history of their country has been transmitted from

one generation to another; or they sang together, in parts; or they

recited stirring tragedies--always tragedies--of which Serbian history

is composed.

It is wise to allow plenty of time for a Serbian concert, as no

self-respecting guslar cares to deal with less than half-a-dozen

centuries of his national history at one sitting. One guslar, at

this concert, caused us some embarrassment. He wouldn't leave off

"guslaring." We tried every inducement. He paid no heed; and I saw,

with despair, that he meant to carry his country safely into freedom

from Turkish tyranny, and that meant another 500 years. The moon came

and went; but moons might come, and moons might go, he went on for

ever. Finally, in desperation, we all clapped vigorously. Good! He

stopped, placed his gusla on the ground, and joined heartily in the

clapping--but for a moment only. We weren't quick enough, and before we

could take away his instrument, he had picked it up and begun again,

and we were back again at the year 1389.

Every Serbian peasant is a poet, and one of these soldiers recited a

portion of a fine dramatic poem which he had just written and presented

to me. The poem began as an epic of Serbian history, past and present,

and ended in a pæan of gratitude to the Stobart Hospital.

Tragedy, always dominant in Serbian history, gives a sad dignity

to Serbian music, and, in contrast, the songs sung by the unit, as

interludes in the Serbian concert, seemed commonplace.

The fitful moon had now set; the soldiers sat on benches placed

one behind the other, and in the darkness, their faces were almost

invisible. But here and there a lighted cigarette illumined the

war-worn face, and showed the result of hardships and suffering. We did

not then know that the future was to bring a fate more terrible still.

But no entertainment in Serbia can be reckoned a success, if it does

not end in a spontaneous burst of kolo dancing. Two men, with arms

linked, will suddenly begin dancing a slow shuffling step. Another man

will, as suddenly, produce, as though from the skies, a gusla, or a

violin, or a flute, and will start playing, and will play over, and

over, and over again, a dozen bars of the same melancholy tune. This

has a remarkable effect. Immediately, everybody within sound of the

music will, one after the other, join in, in pied piper style, and,

linking arms, form a circle round the proud musician.

There are many varieties of steps, both quick and slow, and the dance

can be extremely graceful in effect. But whether it is well or badly

danced, the kolo is always dignified, with total absence of rowdyism,

vulgarity, or sensuousness.

The kolo and the gusla are to Serbia, what the reel and the bagpipes

are to Scotland. The kolo, like Serbian music and Serbian literature,

reflects the spirit of their tragic history; even when the steps grow

quicker with increased excitement, the feet are scarcely lifted from

the ground; the movements are never movements of joy; the high kick,

the leap, the spring, indicative of a light heart, are always absent.

On this evening, after an hour of the concert, the men suddenly broke

into kolo. To their intense delight, Maika (mother), their name for the

Directress, boldly joined the circle. "Dobro (well done), Maika! dobro!

dobro!" they all shouted in chorus. Nurses, doctors, and orderlies all

promptly followed suit, and as a finale to a successful evening, the

various national anthems of the Allies were sung, and "lights out" bell

rang the "Amen."

CHAPTER VI

One of our most frequent and most welcome visitors was Colonel Dr.

Lazaravitch Guentchitch, Head of the Serbian Army Medical Service.

He had held this post also during the wars of 1912-13-14. He was

brimful of quick and generous sympathy and insight; efficient and

businesslike, with a delightful sense of humour and absence of red

tape, it was always a real pleasure to talk with him. Taken one with

another, indeed, the Serbian officials whom I had the privilege to meet

were--unlike most officials in other countries--human.

Our most frequent visitor was Major Dr. Protitch, Director of the

Shumadia Military Hospital. He was our official inspector, and was

responsible for the evacuation of the convalescent wounded. He came

always officially, once a day, during all the six months of our work at

Kragujevatz, and he never came once too often.

Nothing that could be done for our comfort, or to show the sympathy and

generosity of the officials, was forgotten by him. One morning, soon

after the establishment of the camp, I saw a man carrying a spade, and

another wheeling a barrow filled with earth, coming towards my tent.

When they were in front of it, they stopped. I wondered what they were

going to do, and I tried to remember the Serbian words for "What's your

business?" when Major Protitch came up. He smiled, and told me that

he had heard me say that I was fond of flowers, and that at home, in

England, I had a garden of my own. He was therefore going to plant a

little garden in front of my tent, and in front of one of every two

tents, all up the line, to remind us of our homeland. Barrow loads of

earth were accordingly deposited, and were then planted with violas,

carnations, cinerarias, and many varieties of gay flowers. The gardens

were in shape and size suspiciously like graves: they were, alas! as

shown by later events, symbolic of the graves of many Serbian hopes.

One day Major Protitch invited me and our Treasurer to his Slava feast.

Slava is the anniversary of the day on which the ancestors of the

family were converted to Christianity. We were to be present at the

inauguration ceremony in celebration of his patron saint day. Madame

Protitch was in deep mourning, and for that reason there were to be no

other guests.

At 9 a.m. the Major and his wife, their small son of five years old,

and the priest, and verger, were waiting for us, round a table, in a

wood, outside the little shooting box club-house, which the Major and

his wife had improvised as summer quarters, at the southern end of our

racecourse. After we had wished them "Sretna Slava" (happy feast day)

and shaken hands, the priest led the way into the house, and we all

followed. A tiny room was arranged, in excellent taste, as living and

bedroom. On a small table in the middle of the room, were two large

cakes, a long, fat, brown, unlighted candle, a crucifix, and a saucer

of water. In the latter was a sprig of a faded flower called boziliac.

The priest, who had long hair, and wore a blue embroidered robe, said

a short prayer, and the verger, a Serbian peasant in ordinary dress,

without a collar--probably because the weather was hot--said the

response. Then the big candle was lighted by the little son, who was

nervous, and received surreptitious help from his father. Then came

more prayers by the priest, and responses by the verger, who seemed to

play quite as important a part as the priest; the family only crossed

themselves vigorously at intervals.

Next, the priest immersed the crucifix in the water in the saucer, and

with the wet crucifix sprinkled the Major, and the boy, and various

objects on the table and about the room. He did not sprinkle the wife,

she was scrupulously omitted from all the proceedings. The priest then

made the sign of the cross on both the cakes; took one cake and held it

upside down, and without severing it, made two cross cuts, and poured

a little red wine into the cuts. When this had soaked in, he turned it

right side up again. Then he and the two honoured males, together held

the cake again, and turned it slowly round and round in their hands,

the wife still looking on.

The priest then took the cake and held it sideways, almost, but not

quite severed, to show the cross cuts; he held it thus for the father

and son to kiss, removed it, and gave it to them again to kiss, and

once again for the third time; the cake had then done its duty, and was

replaced on the table.

Then came more prayers, the congregation standing. After this the

priest shook hands with Major Protitch, and the boy, and the religious

ceremony, in which the wife had had no share, was over. She was only

servitor, and now she handed first to the priest, the other cake, made

by herself, of corn, and nuts, and sugar. He helped himself with a

spoon to a small portion; the cake was then handed to me. I found it

delicious, and should have liked more; and then to the others. Madame

Protitch then handed round other cakes, and cognac, and the priest bade

us farewell, and departed. After that we were given orange, sliced, and

spiced, and water, and Turkish coffee. And then we talked, in German.

Our hosts told us that a cake of corn, and nuts, is always made, at

funerals, for the dead, and as the patron saint is dead, he gets the

benefit on his name day. But there is one unfortunate patron saint,

who is an archangel, and therefore he is not dead, and because he is

not dead, he is not entitled to this cake. Who'd be an archangel? But

this means, of course, that the people who have this star turn, for

their patron saint, cannot have this fascinating corn and nut-cake

on their Slava day--all distinctly discouraging to the worship of

archangels.

I asked Madame Protitch how she liked being left out of all the

blessings. She was surprised at my surprise, and I remembered having

read that, in Serbia, the formula used by a man on introducing his

wife used to be: "This is my wife, God forgive me." And in describing

his children, a father would say: "I have three sons and--God forgive

me--three daughters."

The extreme modesty on the part of the husband concerning his wife, may

be due to the fact that a wife was considered to be the property of the

man, and it is, of course, unbecoming to boast of one's possessions.

One should minimise their value as far as possible. Mothers, who are

not regarded as property, are always spoken of, and treated by men with

extreme respect.

That was, however, not an appropriate moment for feminist

propaganda--it's extraordinary how few moments ever are appropriate for

this. I therefore contented myself with saying that in England we were

beginning to have different ideas about the relative position of women,

and of men. I should have liked to add that the world is on its way

to the discovery that the highest interests of men, and of women are

identical, and that it is only the lowest interests of men, that clash

with the highest interests of women.

But in some ways the Serbians are ahead of other European nations in

their respect for women. Major Protitch told me that the Government

were intending to give recognition to the peasant women who, by

working on the farms during the prolonged absence of their men folk, at

the front, had saved the country from famine. Our Government might well

take a hint in this respect. Who could say that there was no woman's

movement in Serbia? It is a woman's movement, moved by men.

Another frequent visitor was the British Military Attaché, Colonel

Harrison. He dined with us almost every night during four months--a

compliment to the cooking--and until he was invalided home--not as

a result of the cooking. He was a good friend to Serbia. He had the

preceding autumn been one of the factors, behind the scenes, partially

responsible for the sudden turn in the fortunes of the Serbian Army. An

interesting book might be written if the true origins of great events

were traced and revealed. We should have to re-learn many pages of

history.

It was largely due to the agitation of Colonel Harrison, who cabled

continuously for ammunition to be sent, that the tables had been turned

on the Austrians. The latter were expecting the usual feeble volleys,

from the depleted Serbian cannons, but instead, on a certain occasion,

a fierce cannonade, with live ammunition, suddenly thundered from the

guns, and the Austrians were so surprised and dismayed that they fled,

and Serbia was--temporarily--saved.

But we had the satisfaction of seeing for ourselves that ammunition

was now being made in large quantities, for Kragujevatz was the home

of a large and excellently appointed arsenal. The director, who stood

about six feet four--a magnificently fine fellow--showed me round the

arsenal one day, and gave me various souvenirs, and then he paid a

return visit to our camp. As a memento of this, he presented me with a

beautiful big bell, cast from cannons taken from the Austrians; it was

inscribed, and will always be a precious possession. During six months

in our camp on the racecourse of Kragujevatz, this bell, with loud but

musical voice, summoned the unit from and to their beds, and to their

meals and prayers; later it journeyed over the mountains of Montenegro

and Albania, hidden in a sack. Its voice was then hushed, for on the

mountains there were no beds, few meals, and prayers were spontaneous;

and now it hangs in an English home as gong, calling us to meals; but

it also serves as muezzin, calling to that form of prayer which is the

only effective prayer--determination--on Serbia's behalf.

Another visitor was Sir Thomas Lipton. He and his yacht had brought

hospital units to Serbia, and he was now touring to see the country.

The officials, when he was expected at Kragujevatz, asked me if I would

meet him at the station, at 5.17 a.m. He and I had recently lunched as

co-guests of Sir Ralph Paget, at Nish, and afterwards Sir Thomas had

shortened a tedious night railway journey by telling amusing stories of

his life's experiences. Also, at a reception given by Lady Cowdray to

our unit before we left for Serbia, he had been present, and had said

kind words to and about us. He was thus an old friend. I always rose at

4.30, to set things going, and to make sure of the joy of seeing the

sun rise--getting up at four, therefore, to meet him, was no hardship.

The sunrise rewarded me as usual. A blaze of crimson over the eastern

hills, followed by a glare of yellow, melting into rainbow colours. I

met the train, and Sir Thomas and his suite breakfasted with us. I hope

we gave him porridge, but I've forgotten. But we showed him the camp;

then he lunched at the officers' mess, inspected the arsenal in the

afternoon, and came back to us for tea and supper.

In the evening, in his honour, we gave a little supper party,

which included Colonels Guentchitch and Popovitch, and Captain

Yovan Yovannovitch, of the Intelligence Department, Mr. Robinson of

_The Times_, and Mr. Stanley Naylor of _The Daily Chronicle_. Sir

Thomas seemed to like the cheery, homely atmosphere of the corporate

supper-table, at which all members of our unit--doctors, nurses,

orderlies, chauffeurs, interpreters, myself and guests--messed, as

always, together. He made one of his happy speeches, and response

was made. After supper we gave an open-air concert, on the grass

space between the hospital and the staff tents. The night was warm

and lovely; the moon was bright, and all Kragujevatz, invited or not

invited, considered it the correct thing to come to the concert.

The Crown Prince had kindly lent us his band, and, in addition to

excellent music by them, the programme included part songs by a

company of theological students, who were now working in hospitals in

Kragujevatz (in lieu of military service), also songs and recitations

by other people.

Our own convalescent soldiers were too shy to perform, but in their

bright-coloured dressing-gowns, or with blankets pinned round them,

they formed a patch of picturesqueness amongst the audience. But they

were not too shy to join in the final impromptu kolo dance. As usual,

at the right moment, the guslar and the kolo-starter dropped from the

skies, and for a few minutes all Kragujevatz were linked arm in arm,

in happy abandonment of care and sorrow, in the magic kolo circle. But

the happiness was of short duration. Has there ever been a time during

the last five hundred years when Serbia could rejoice with a light

heart? Will the time ever come when Serbian swords can be beaten into

ploughshares, and their bayonets into pruning hooks?

Even amongst our comparatively cheerful patients, during this

temporary lull in the fighting, tragedies were occurring in the usual

humdrum fashion. One man who was badly wounded, and unable to leave

his bed, received a letter from home, telling him that his wife, two

children, and a brother, had just died of typhus, and that two other

children, and his mother, all members of the same zadruga (family

community) were dangerously ill with the same disease.

A few hundred yards beyond our camp, four thousand newly dug graves,

containing typhus victims, testified to the virulence of this one

disease in this one town. With curious ingenuity, the typhus fiend

stepped in to carry on the destruction of human life, during the

interlude when the fighting fiend was in abeyance. Is it a wonder

that the Serbian peasant forgets to see the hand of God in all his

suffering? For many centuries the hand of the Turk has been too plainly

the direct cause of his tragedies. There has been no desire to seek

for further causes. Even those of us who have made it our business to

search diligently for God, have not always found Him; but perhaps we

are like the players in "hunt the thimble" game, we cannot find God,

because He is in too conspicuous a place--in our own hearts.

But for centuries, the salvation of the Serbian peasant has been

working itself out on larger lines than those of a narrow theology;

the struggle of his nation has been for that which is the basis of

Christian faith--for Freedom. For the outer frills, the rituals of that

faith, the Serbian peasant has had no time. With us, in England, this

situation is reversed. We have had plenty of time to attend to the

frills, and have perhaps lost sight of that which is the basis of our

common faith.

It is undoubtedly true that in Serbia, religion, if by religion is

meant theological doctrine, and adherence to ritual, has little hold

upon the people. But during centuries of oppression, religious

teaching has been necessarily confined to the monks, and they, to

avoid persecution, have been obliged to seclude themselves amongst

the mountains. And so it has come about, as usual, that the praying

men have been content with prayer, and the men of action with action.

Neither of them has perceived that a combination of prayer, and action,

is necessary for the fulfilment of divine destiny.

CHAPTER VII

Amongst the Serbian soldiers many primitive notions still prevailed.

One day, after one of the big thunder-storms which were frequent during

the spring and summer months, I asked the men in one of the wards,

what was their idea of the origin of thunder? "God must have something

to do in Heaven," replied one man. "We work on earth and He must work

above, so He makes thunder and lightning. He mustn't sit up there and

do nothing."

"No, no," answered another; "it is not God that makes thunder, it's St.

Ilyia; it's he who works the thunder and lightning."

I asked who was St. Ilyia? Didn't I know St. Ilyia? He was a workman,

paid by the day, to work on the land. One evening late, as he was

on his way home, he met a devil. The devil reminded him that he,

the devil, had been best man at his, Ilyia's, wedding. "And I now

congratulate you," the devil added mockingly, "that your wife has

run away with another man." Ilyia was furious, but said nothing, and

walked on. Soon he met another devil. This one reminded him that he had

been first witness at his wedding, and he, too, added mockingly, "I

congratulate you that your wife has run away with another man." Ilyia

was still more furious, but he walked on. Soon he met a third devil.

This devil reminded him that he had been godfather to his, Ilyia's,

child, and he also added mockingly, "I congratulate you that your wife

has run away with another man."

Mad with anger, Ilyia rushed home determined to kill the guilty pair.

He went into his bedroom, and saw a man and woman in the bed. He did

not stop to look, but he killed them both. They were his father and

mother. For a punishment, God made him serve as ferryman, to carry

people across the river in his own village. He must give to each

passenger a melon seed. One day there came a passenger--a devil--in

such a hurry he wouldn't take the seed. "Why won't you take it? But you

must," urged Ilyia. "No," replied the devil, "I am in a hurry to spoil

a wedding, and I have no time to wait." Immediately, in answer, Ilyia

killed the devil, and threw his body into the water. God, however,

pardoned Ilyia, and took him to heaven as His servant, but he must work

the thunder and lightning. So he kept killing all the devils with his

lightning. But one deformed devil always managed to hide away, and one

day this poor devil managed to get to God, and asked Him why He allowed

all the devils to be killed. It is the devils, he argued, who bring the

wars which cause deformities, and the devils who cause all sickness and

poverty, and as it is only the sick and the poor who pray to God--why

get rid of them?

The argument seemed to appeal to God, for He replied, Very well, He

would at any rate not let him, the deformed devil, be killed by Ilyia.

But Ilyia still tries to kill him, and whenever it thunders and

lightens, that is Ilyia trying to kill the deformed devil.

There were several points in this story, upon which I should have liked

enlightenment; but when I began asking questions, I was told, simply,

that it was so, and that it always had been. How, then, could I doubt?

And I assured them that I did not doubt.

Then another man said that there had been a thunderstorm last night,

because Italy was now going to join in the fighting; the thunder and

lightning was a sign that another land was going to shed its blood. I

had thought of that myself, and was glad that they voiced my thought.

Much more interesting and reasonable to believe in concrete causes.

During the night, whilst the thunder-storms had been immediately

overhead, many of the wounded left their beds, and stood and prayed to

God not to let them be killed--presumably by Ilyia, as deformed devils.

It was not strange that a relationship between politics and weather in

Serbia should be assumed, for violence was the keynote of both. When

the sun shone, its heat was fierce, it scorched the body through thick

clothes; when rain fell, it poured in waterspouts, as though the skies

had burst a dam. The wind blew tornadoes, and with the brutality of a

gigantic peg-top, whirled everything within reach, into space, at the

rate of eighty miles an hour. Thunder and lightning had the force of

up-to-date artillery, and the mud was--Balkan.

One Sunday afternoon, I was standing with our chaplain, outside the

tent in which, in two minutes' time, he was to conduct the evening

service. We were choosing the hymns, but we were suddenly interrupted

by a whirlwind of dust, which nearly blinded us, and before we could

close our books, and with a suddenness which is, as a rule, only

permitted on the stage, a tornado, rushing at the rate of eighty miles

an hour, hurled itself point-blank at our camp, and though everybody

immediately rushed to tighten tent ropes, within fifteen seconds,

fifteen tents were blown flat upon the ground, and chairs, tables,

hairbrushes, garments of all sorts, a menagerie of camp equipment, and

personal effects, were flying over the plain, beyond possibility of

recovery. There was no church service that evening.

After a day or two of rain, skirts became a folly and indecency. I

was at first shy, as a guest in a foreign country, of casting the

recognised symbol of feminine respectability. But my work required

me to be constantly on the tramp, around the extensive camp, and one

day, when my skirt had become soaked, and bedraggled, and I could no

longer walk in it, I took it off. I found that with my long boots and

a longish tunic coat, over breeches which matched the coat, the effect

was respectable, and was approved by the rest of the unit, who soon

followed the example on wet days. But it was a little bit of a shock to

me when, on that first morning of audacity, a car drove up to the camp,

and out stepped the representatives of three nations--viz., Sir Ralph

Paget (British Commissioner), Dr. Grouitch (Serbian Foreign Secretary),

and Mr. Strong, who was on a mission to report for Mr. Rockefeller on

the condition of Serbian hospitals. But they didn't seem as shocked

as might have been expected; and I became more than ever confirmed in

the belief that even if skirts are retained by women for decorative

purposes, they will have to be abandoned by workers. The question of

women's work is largely a question of clothes.

But the Serbian soldiers would never sympathise with us in our

abhorrence of mud. "No, no, mud was 'Dobro, dobro' (good, good),

because mud meant rain for crops; also mud had saved them from the

Austrians who, in November last, had not been able to advance their big

guns further, on account of the mud. Yes, mud was 'Dobro, dobro.'"

There never was in any language a word so omnipotent, so deep-reaching

as this word "Dobro." Of what use to worry with phrase books,

grammars and dictionaries; why trouble to learn a difficult language,

written in arbitrary characters, when one simple word could open

all the gates of understanding! With "Dobro" on the tip of the

tongue--every tongue--Serbian and English tongues alike, how could

there be "confusion of tongues"? The heritage of Babel could be

flouted. Diagnosis by doctors, nursing, treatment, orders, warnings,

instructions from and to one and all, within and without the camp;

interchange of ideas; even proposals and acceptance or refusal of

marriage; all could be understood by means of the blessed word "Dobro"

and its negative "Ne-dobro," spoken with appropriate variations of

accent.

[Illustration: THE GERMAN ARMY ENTERING BRUSSELS AUGUST, 1914

(Pontoons passing the German Staff in the Boulevard des Jardins

Botaniques, in front of the Gare du Nord)]

[Illustration: STOBART HOSPITAL AT CHÂTEAU TOURLAVILLE NEAR CHERBOURG

Showing Recreation Tent given by workers on a Ranch in British

Columbia]

Is it a wonder that good understanding prevailed between Serbians and

English? Misunderstandings arise from words. In Serbia there only was

one word--"Dobro"; and I'm longing for the day--"Der Tag"--when we can

go back to Serbia and find that all is indeed once more "Dobro, dobro."

When we first arrived in Serbia, we were much interested in the sight

of many thousands of Austrian prisoners of war, working in every

department of life, and living in apparent freedom. Those who were

officers were often employed in hospitals. In Dr. Protitch's hospital,

one of the prisoners had been Professor of Mathematics, at the

University of Prague. His work now was to count the dirty linen, and he

did it very badly. I suppose even the Professor's mathematics couldn't

make ninety nightshirts that came back from the wash, equal to one

hundred that went out.

We had no commissioned officers in our hospital, but forty Austrian

so-called prisoners helped us in the rough work of the camp, as trench

diggers, stretcher bearers and ward orderlies, etc. These men were

working in a camp hospital controlled by women; they were working

for the enemies of their country, yet they were quite unguarded, and

slept at night, in tents, like the rest of us. But after the first

wonder had evaporated, thoughts of the possible mischief they might

do, never entered our minds. It showed the artificiality of war. These

men--forty thousand or more--were told that by the rules of the game,

they were prisoners, and therefore must keep off Tom Tiddler's ground,

and they obeyed the rules with scarcely any supervision.

There were Serbian Austrians, and Austrian Austrians. The latter spoke

only German, and were less to be trusted politically than the former,

who talked only Serbian. The Serbian Austrians were to all intents

Serbians, and dreaded nothing so much as the prospect of being retaken

by the Austrians--their former masters.

The main distinction between the two is that of religion, Croats or

Serbian Austrians are Catholics, whereas the others belong to the Greek

Church. But all alike were excellent workers, and very happy in their

work. Both they and we grieved terribly when later, owing to political

causes, all our Catholic prisoners were removed from their positions of

freedom, and happy work in our hospital, and were sent, under strict

escort, to dig tunnels on the railway to Roumania, or to other work in

which supervision was feasible.

Amongst these orderlies working for us, was a funny old man called

Jan. He had a wife and children somewhere in Serbia, and he developed

a chronic habit of coming to ask for leave to go and see them. On one

occasion when he came to say good-bye to "Maika" (mother), I noticed

that he was hugging two bottles, which were carefully wrapped in paper.

I asked him what he was carrying, and he answered proudly, "Medicine

for my little ones." "Dear! dear! are they ill?" I asked with some

concern; "I am sorry." "Oh! no. They're not ill. I am only taking

them the medicine as a treat." He had apparently explained his idea

to our dispenser, and she had given him something harmless to satisfy

his fatherly instinct of giving joy. A side-light on the scarcity of

medicines.

Our hospital received several visits from German and Austrian

aeroplanes. Kragujevatz was one of their main objectives, on account of

the arsenal and the Crown Prince.

We, and the town authorities were unprepared for the first Taube

arrival. The day after Sir Thomas Lipton's visit, I went to bed with

typhoid. I had been in bed a week, when one morning, as I lay in my

tent awake, looking out at the camp, I heard a sound--familiar from

memories of Antwerp. In the air above, a whirring of machinery, then a

noise like a chariot of fire cleaving the air, followed by a crash, as

though all the glass-houses of the earth were smashed. Typhoid or no

typhoid, I jumped out of bed to see what had happened, and to take any

measures possible for the safety of the unit, and I saw clouds of smoke

and débris rising from the town.

The unit, who were then getting up, rushed from their tents in their

pyjamas, and watched with interest whilst three biplanes, two German

and one Austrian, dropped bombs in quick succession on the town,

evidently in futile effort to destroy the arsenal and the Crown

Prince's house.

Suddenly we heard a still louder crash close to us, and we saw that

one hundred and fifty yards away, a bomb had fallen just outside our

camp, to the east--close to the wireless station. Another whirr through

the air, and a second crash, and a bomb fell near the wireless on the

other side, a few yards from the last. Some of the shrapnel fell upon

our tents, but no harm was done to us. Our four guards, stationed

at the four corners of our camp, to keep off undesirable visitors,

bravely fired their pop-guns at the machine hawks, but that was all the

attention the Taubes received, and they sailed triumphantly away into

the blue. I then went back to bed to go on with my typhoid. I ought to

have died, but I don't do the things that I ought.

I realised the damage that might be wrought if further Taubes chose to

mistake us for a military camp, and hurl their bombs upon our patients,

and I immediately organised a scheme for the quick evacuation of the

hospital on any future occasion, and sent the new rules to the mess

tent and to all the wards. Five people had been killed and eighteen

wounded as a result of this first attack.

One woman had been on her way to market at Kragujevatz, but when she

heard the bombs, she was frightened, and turned to go home, without

fulfilling her purpose. She was on her way back, and was just outside

our camp, when the bomb near the wireless station fell, and she was

hit. Two of our doctors, and some nurses who had run to look at the

big hole made by the bomb, and to pick up relics, found her staggering

by the hole--bleeding profusely in one arm. The doctors took her into

hospital, and found that she had shrapnel in the lung, as well as a

shattered arm. Moral: had she continued her work, and not turned back,

she would not have been hit.

A few minutes later another woman was brought to us with a smashed leg.

She had with her a tiny baby three months old. It had not been hurt,

but it was a miserable specimen. The mother, by some curious freak of

Nature, disliked the child, and had neglected it. We hoped the mother's

misfortune might be the baby's opportunity of life, and Ginger, the

red-haired nurse in whose charge it was given, made for it a cradle

out of an old packing case, and devoted herself to the baby heart and

soul. (The same nurse, who at Antwerp during the bombardment, had

carried her soldier patients on her back, down steep cellar stairs, to

a place of safety. Later, when our Kragujevatz hospital was evacuated,

and those members of the staff who had not gone with me to the front,

were on their way to the coast, she was shot accidently. The bullet

entered both lungs; she became dangerously ill, and could not be

moved from Mitrovitza; two of our doctors, Iles and Macmillan, Nurse

Bainbridge, and the Rev. J. Rogers, stayed to look after her. They

were all made prisoners, but all--including Ginger, who recovered by a

miracle--returned safely to England in February.)

But even Ginger's devotion could not save the poor mite of a baby who

had been too long neglected. It died, and Ginger cried her eyes out.

The mother remained indifferent, and talked of nothing but her own leg,

and her elder child at home.

We had not long to wait before we had an opportunity of a dress

rehearsal of the scheme of evacuating the hospital. I received one

morning early, a telephone message saying that enemy aeroplanes were on

their way towards us. We waited till we saw them in the distance; then,

owing to the admirable way in which instructions were carried out,

the hospital was cleared of patients and of staff, within a quarter

of an hour of sighting the first aeroplane. Our motor ambulances with

stretchers and ox-wagons, and the two carts which had been generously

presented to the unit by Messrs. Derry and Toms, and which were always

now--when not in use--in readiness, conveyed the wounded soldier

patients, also the women and children patients, from the wards to a

safe distance along the western road; nurses and orderlies went with

them, and brought the patients all back when the aeroplanes departed.

Only the doctors and I and a few members of the staff remained to look

after the camp. We felt a fine sense of security, knowing that our

patients were out of harm's way.

Bombs were as usual dropped upon the town, also upon the new

barracks--a building close to the camp which had been given by the

authorities to us for a winter hospital. Here we kept some of our newly

arrived stores and tents, etc., and these were damaged, and some of the

staff had narrow escapes. Another bomb fell in the camp, but buried

itself in the soft ground, and did not explode. But, certainly in

future, tents should be green or khaki, not white. Our camp must have

been an easy target.

We had one or two other similar alarms, but no great harm was done, and

no serious harm was done to the town. A few shop windows were broken,

and pavements destroyed, and the ground around the arsenal was ploughed

up, but the arsenal itself remained uninjured.

The town was not caught napping twice, but after the first surprise

visit, it arranged a welcome of anti-aircraft guns. On the first two

or three occasions, however, these were ineffective. But one day

Kragujevatz had its revenge. A Taube arrived, as other Taubes had

arrived, full of confidence and bombs. The guns at once fired at her

from all directions, and we watched the woolly clouds puffing behind,

in front, and all round the biplane. Suddenly we saw a burst of flame

in the middle of the machine; we all shouted with excitement, and we

watched the Taube turn upside down, and fall to earth like a torn

umbrella. It had fallen at the entrance to the town; and an officer

dashed up in his car and asked some of us if we should like to see

it at close quarters. By the time we arrived, the townspeople had

surrounded the wreckage, but I photographed as much as could be seen.

I had the misfortune to see also the two aviators, German and Austrian

officers, who were smashed to pulp.

CHAPTER VIII

All this time, we were taking elaborate precautions with our patients

against typhus. An admission tent was set apart; every man, on

entrance, was placed on a mackintosh sheet, he was stripped, his

clothes were at once wrapped in the sheet, labelled, and taken to the

disinfector; the man was bathed in an adjoining portion of the tent,

shaved, and rubbed with paraffin, wrapped in blankets, and sent to the

ward tents; there clean shirts and pyjamas and nurses awaited him.

The doctors who received the patients, and the nurses or staff members

who undressed and washed the newcomers, and I--when I was present at

the reception--all wore a quaint-looking combination garment made of

white batiste, which fastened tightly round the neck, the trouser

feet, and the wrists. Long boots, rubber gloves, and an oilskin bathing

cap completed the fancy dress. This anti-lice armour, together with

other methods, successfully kept at bay the lice which carry typhus

infection.

And against typhoid every possible sanitary precaution was taken, and

water and milk were, of course, scrupulously boiled. The camp was said

to be a model in outdoor sanitation, not only by the local authorities,

who sent up men to take plans of the arrangements, but by Colonel

Hunter and other British and American experts who inspected it. But,

in spite of all our precautions, though we happily kept our patients

free from typhus, and from typhoid, an epidemic of typhoid broke out

amongst the staff. The only theory which seemed to offer a satisfactory

explanation was that the typhoid germ might have entered by means of

uncooked salad, though this had been properly washed in water which had

been boiled.

On June 1st, our young Narednik (Sergeant-Major) appointed to keep

the Serbian records of the hospital, and to look after the Austrian

prisoners, was taken ill with typhus. He must have contracted this in

the town, as no further case occurred. He was removed to a hospital in

Kragujevatz, and another excellent young Narednik came.

On the same day, one of our nurses, and I, also became ill with fever,

and it was naturally feared at first, that typhus had, after all,

forced an entrance. But our complaint was, in Serbian phraseology,

_typhus abdominalis_, and not _typhus exemptimaticus_--in other words,

typhoid or enteric, and not typhus. This was perhaps a less serious

disease, but it was disappointing enough, because every member of

the unit, before leaving England only two months before, had been

inoculated against typhoid.

At first, therefore, we hoped that we should only have one or two

accidental cases, and that the attacks would be slight. But this was

unhappily not to be. One after the other, seventeen women members of

the unit were laid low, and three, including Mrs. Dearmer, died; no

men, and none of the patients, were attacked.

It was a nightmare to hear every day, as I lay ill with my own attack,

that another and still another victim had been laid low. But I shall

never forget the sympathy and kindness of our Serbian official friends.

Many of them, including Colonels Guentchitch and Popovitch, also

Dr. Antitch, the fever expert, came twice daily, and Major Protitch

always twice a day; they brought me flowers and ice--a rare luxury,

as Kragujevatz possessed no ice machine--and sat and talked with me,

and in every conceivable way, showed the truest friendship. Had they

thought the green cheese in the moon good for me, they would have

gone--on chivalrous quest--in search of it. But, thanks to the care of

our own doctors, and nurses, and my own electric constitution, I was

only ill for a short time, and was soon playing the old game of showing

visitors round the camp.

[Illustration:

Photo. Topical

MRS. ST. CLAIR STOBART

Talking to Serbian peasant patients at the Roadside Tent Dispensary at

Kragujevatz. Doctors and Nurses on the left]

[Illustration: THE TRAIN OF WHICH I WAS COMMANDER, AND SOME OF THE

FLYING FIELD HOSPITAL UNIT

With Field Kitchen, Motor Ambulances, Wagons, Oxen, Horses and

Soldiers, leaving Kragujevatz for the front]

The first to be shown round was Prince Alexis Kara Georgevitch. I had

had the pleasure of meeting him, and the Princess, at tea in their

London house, shortly before leaving for Serbia.

I was extremely thankful--if I had to be ill--that I had chosen a time

whilst military events in Serbia were still quiescent. For it had

always been understood, from the time shortly after our arrival, when

confidence in the organisation and the mobility of the hospital had

been established in the minds of the medical-military authorities, that

if military activities should be renewed, a portion of the unit was to

be detached to accompany the Serbian Army, as a flying field hospital,

to the front. Colonel Guentchitch wrote a letter to this effect, and

the prospect of this work kept up the spirits of those who wanted

active military work. And it was fortunate for all of us, in the light

of subsequent events, that our epidemic timed itself thus opportunely.

But, after my recovery, came Mrs. Dearmer's turn. From the first I had

misgivings about her; I felt that she had not the physique to withstand

this type of illness. It was partly on this account that I had been

unwilling to accept her services when first offered.

The circumstances of her offer could scarcely have been more dramatic.

Just before we went to Serbia, the Church League for Woman Suffrage

had, although we were not a suffrage unit, organised a farewell service

for us, with Dr. Dearmer as minister. They also generously collected

more than £500 towards our equipment fund. Before the service began,

Dr. Dearmer asked me to come into the vestry and discuss some details

of the service. He then told me that he had, only an hour or two ago,

been invited to go to Serbia as chaplain to the British units, and he

asked me if he might make his headquarters with our unit. I gladly

agreed. Presently, in his address, he referred to the fact that he

now was also going to Serbia. I did not know that his wife was in the

church, or that she had not known of his appointment. But as I walked

down the aisle, at the conclusion of the service, Mrs. Dearmer, with

tears on her face, came up to me. "This is the first I have heard of my

husband going to Serbia; Mrs. Stobart, you _must_ take me with you--as

an orderly. My sons are both at the front, and now my husband is going,

I must go too."

I'm afraid I was brutal. I pointed at her earrings and pretty chiffons.

"This kind of thing isn't suitable," I said.

"I will leave them all behind, and wear--well, your uniform!" as she

looked bravely at my dull grey clothes.

"But you would have to obey discipline, and as an orderly do all sorts

of things disagreeable to you."

"Oh! I should love discipline, and I wouldn't care what I did; anything

would be better than"--and tears would not be restrained--"being in

that house alone."

"But," I remonstrated, "you are not strong enough, you would never----"

She interrupted. "I never have anything the matter with me, and if a

doctor passes me? Besides, my husband will be there, and if I am not

suitable, you can send me away with him. You'll have no responsibility

for my health."

And--in the end--she came, and was a huge success.

The positions of responsibility were already filled, and, not knowing

at first what work she could do, I asked her to help in the linen

tent. I soon found that she had method and organising power, and I

gave her the control, thankful to be able conscientiously to put her

in a position of some responsibility. Her work was to keep, sort, and

distribute all linen, blankets, and soldiers' clothes. Also to see that

each soldier, when he left the hospital, received his own bundle of

clothes after it had been disinfected. Not such an easy job as perhaps

it sounds. Curious work, too, for a woman who was an artist, successful

in drama, drawing, and romance. But none of her various rôles in life

were better played than her rôle of orderly in a Serbian camp hospital.

She never asserted herself as Mrs. Dearmer, but kept scrupulously to

her new part; in a word, she played the game. I had only known her

slightly, and I had feared difficulties from the artistic temperament.

But she adapted this to the work in hand, and everything that she had

promised, in the aisle of St. Martin's Church, was fulfilled to the

letter. My instinct about her suitability had only been right in regard

to her physique.

I could not see much of her, as I never allowed myself the privilege of

individual friendships, but as I passed to and fro about the camp, I

loved to meet her, and to hear her humorous accounts of various little

troubles. I would often stop her and ask hopefully, "Any grievances

to-day?" just to have the fun of a chat with her. I grew to love her,

and looked forward to the time, when in happier days in England, I

could hope to count her amongst my real friends.

But this was not to be. Like all of us, she had been doubly inoculated

against typhoid, but she took the fever badly. Her husband was at

Salonica, and we warned him of her illness by telegram, and advised

his immediate return. I went to the station to meet him with Dr.

Marsden, who was attending Mrs. Dearmer and, by that time, to our

intense relief, we were able to give him the good news that she was

better. For a time I believed that, even as regarded her physique, she

was going to prove right, and I wrong.

CHAPTER IX

Meantime, Nurse Ferriss, also ill with typhoid, became worse, and, to

the great sorrow of all the camp, on Sunday, July 4th, heart weakness

proved fatal, and she died. She, almost alone of all the nurses, had

not been content with the "Dobro" dumb show language, but had troubled

to learn Serbian, and had made excellent progress. She was engaged to

be married, as soon as her work in Serbia was ended. How little we

guessed that it was not an earthly marriage which would await her at

the end of her camp life.

During the afternoon of her death, a violent thunderstorm, with

torrential rain, fell upon us--the worst of many storms we had

experienced. The heavens seemed to corroborate our sense of tragedy.

The whole sky became black like night, and over the eastern hills,

messages were flashed in hieroglyphics of zig-zag lightning, up and

down the blackness. In the west, blood-red clouds spread themselves

crudely over a dark grey sky; and on the northern side, in curious

opportuneness, a rainbow--in the mythology of our Scandinavian

ancestors, the bridge which led heroes, fallen in battle, to their

heavenly Valhalla--shone, as an inspiration of the Life beyond.

I was glad of the fierceness of the storm, because it distracted the

attention of the Unit; they were obliged to watch carefully their

tautened tent ropes, if they did not want to see their tents whirled

across the plain. Tent ropes are awkward customers when rain and

wind are combined, for until you get used to such conundrums, it is

difficult to see how you can simultaneously obey the rule--to loosen

them during rain, and tighten them during wind.

Nurse Ferriss had died in a large ward tent in which other nurses,

her friends, were also lying ill. From them it was necessary to keep

the news that she was dead. We told them that we had moved her to a

quieter tent. Quite true. On the funeral day, at the time when most

of the members of the Unit were collecting, to join the procession, a

member of another unit, who chanced to be staying with us for a couple

of nights, thoughtfully suggested that he should keep the ears and

eyes of the patients occupied, by singing and playing to them on his

banjo. For ten minutes before I started, as chief mourner, I sat on

Nurse Ferriss's empty bed and listened, with outward ears, to nonsense

about a cat that wouldn't come home at night, and a needle in a hay

stack that wouldn't let itself be found. Then, when the time came for

the procession to start, I said I was busy, and left the banjo party

sitting up in their beds, shouting with laughter at the latest caprices

of the cat.

I then marched with our Unit, to the little chapel attached to Major

Protitch's hospital, for here our dead was lying.

The Kragujevatz authorities, to show their sympathy, had decided to

give a public military funeral, and though I think that funerals and

marriages are occasions which should be sacred to the chief mourners,

it was impossible not to appreciate this testimony of a very real

public sympathy. Colonels Guentchitch, and Popovitch, and Major

Protitch, and Colonel Harrison went with us to the chapel. There were

already assembled the British, French, Italian and Russian Attachés,

medical and military officials, and representatives of the Crown Prince

and of the town, members of other units, and friends of the hospital,

etc. The brass band of the Crown Prince played funeral music as the

coffin was brought from the chapel, and placed for a few minutes

on trestles whilst Dr. Dearmer said a short prayer. Then appeared a

hearse-carriage, drawn by a pair of terribly lean bay horses. More

music whilst the coffin and many beautiful wreaths were placed in

the carriage; and the procession started, to slow music--the same

melancholy bars played over and over again--for the cathedral.

First walked a Serbian soldier carrying a cross, on which was written

the name of the dead, also a wreath, with flaring pink ribbons; then

Dr. Dearmer, carrying his Prayer Book in one hand, and a brown, lighted

candle--given him by a Serbian official--in the other. Candles play

an important part in Serbian death ceremonies. Next I followed as

chief mourner, and our British Military Attaché, who kindly offered to

stay by me, Dr. Coxon, who had attended Nurse Ferriss, then the other

doctors, and Captain Yovannovitch, the Unit, officers, representatives

of the town and general sympathisers.

This was the first walk that I had taken since my illness. The sun was

scorching--at three in the afternoon--and the walk, at snail's pace, on

the rough cobbled streets, seemed interminable. But the streets were

lined with townsfolk, and I felt it was necessary to look stoical. I

thought how it might easily have been myself, instead of poor Ferriss,

inside that ugly nailed-down box. But I would have changed places if I

could. Then I thought of Ferriss's mother, and of her _fiancé_; perhaps

they were writing to her at this moment, planning all kinds of future

happiness; and there she was, lying, just in front of me, in a Serbian

coffin, indifferent to it all.

Now that she was dead, she was saluted by passing officers and

soldiers. I wondered if she wasn't a _little_ pleased at the posthumous

honour, and whether it would always be necessary to reserve honours for

women till after they are dead.

I looked at Dr. Dearmer, walking steadily, his candle still alight,

ahead of me, and the thought flashed across my mind--how awful if--but

she, Mrs. Dearmer, was better now. It was impossible that she should

die.

When we arrived at the cathedral, half-a-dozen great brutal bells,

hanging by themselves, in a frame in the churchyard, began to flop

clumsily, and, as we entered the cathedral gates, they suddenly, all

together, higgledy-piggledy, on different notes, broke into a deafening

jangle, proclaiming in fiendish discord, "Here's the end of all things;

you can't understand life; you can't understand death; there is no

time, or rhyme, or reason anywhere; it's just a jumble, and the end is

death."

The brass band, with its attempt at tune, persisted bravely for a

minute or two, and the disharmony was complete; it reminded me of the

bells during that "last night" at Tongres.

Permission to hold an English service in the Serbian Church, had been

specially obtained from the Archbishop at Belgrade. Never before in the

history of the Church, has the Anglican ritual been performed in the

Church of the Greek orthodox faith. I hoped this was significant of a

future when political alliances would mean unity, not only in worldly,

but in spiritual policy. It testified, however, to a considerable

breadth of view on the part of the Serbian Archbishop, and of the local

chief priest at Kragujevatz.

At the end of the service the representative of the Crown Prince came

up to me and expressed--in French--in graceful phrases the gracious

sympathy of his Royal Master. And the procession formed once more,

and started for the cemetery. Here a temporary resting-place had been

provided; the town had the generous intention of erecting, when the war

was ended, a permanent memorial to the British nurses, and doctors who

had given their lives for Serbia; and this intention will, I am sure,

one day be fulfilled. The final prayers were spoken; all was over; and

we returned to camp.

We found Mrs. Dearmer not so well; temperature 105°. But one of the

nurses, thinking to cheer me, told me that one of the patients--a

consumptive tubercular soldier--had died. This should be a great

relief, she said, as now we had had our three deaths (including the

baby) and according to superstition we needn't have any more. Besides,

Mrs. Dearmer was better again. "Ah, yes; she's all right now," said one

of her nurses to me; "she has sneezed three times, and no invalid ever

sneezes unless getting better." I mentioned this to Dr. Dearmer, and he

reminded me that the child whom Elisha cured had also sneezed.

But on July 9th, after various ups and downs, Mrs. Dearmer grew

seriously worse. Oxygen and other available expedients were tried

without success. Our doctors, also Major Protitch, myself, and Dr.

Inglis (chief of the Scottish Women's Hospital Unit in Kragujevatz),

who was throughout most kind and helpful, sat up all that night,

outside the double-lined ridge tent; I, tramping backwards and

forwards, glad to be occupied, arranging for the continuous supply of

oxygen bags from the arsenal, which was kindly supplying us. While

there's life, there's hope; and all the next day Mrs. Dearmer was still

with us. But when night came, we knew it must be her last. Another long

vigil--now without hope. We sat outside her tent, speaking only rarely,

and in whispers, when something needed to be done, or fetched. At one

time the sky threatened a thunderstorm, but this passed. All Nature was

hushed, waiting--with us. She had loved the wind, and several times, as

she lay ill, she had told me what a joy it was to her to feel the air

blowing through the tent; she couldn't have borne, she said, to have

been ill within closed walls. But to-night there was no wind; it, too,

was waiting, hushed.

The camp was asleep; and silence was only broken by the croaking of

bull-frogs in a mud pond, half a mile away. There was no moon, and dark

clouds hid the stars. For those who kept watch, the whole world was in

darkness, except that at intervals, almost as regular as pulse-beats,

flashes of summer lightning illumined the inside of the death tent;

the camp bed, with its still and silent occupant; the figure bending

low, and whispering in prayer, snatches of "Our Father," his hand in

hers--companions since boy and girlhood, now to part for ever? Oh, no!

Their sons were at the front (one of them has now joined his mother).

Could they, I wondered, feel that this was happening?

I sat a little apart from the other watchers, and prayed--not now that

she should live--life seemed too small a thing to pray for, but that

our souls should be illumined to see the meaning of death. Another

flash of lightning, and I saw that there is no such thing as death.

Death is a misunderstanding of the mind. The body does not die, for the

body has never lived; the body is matter, and inert. Life is a force,

and forces do not die. The body is the habitation of the life-force,

but the quitting by the life-force of the body, is not death. Nothing

has died, since nothing has ceased to live. The life-force cannot

die, or it would not be a life-force. The body cannot die--it has

never lived; yes, yes--death is a misnomer. The word death, together

with the sister words, sunrise and sunset, all perpetuate ancient

ignorance. The sun does not rise, the sun does not set, and--the body

does not die. Why then talk of death as though it were an ending? It is

a transference of life-force from the seen to the unseen. As soon as

matter begins to disintegrate, the life-force passes on--that's all. I

understood.

In the early morning, as a gust of wind swept through the tent--her

tent--the life-force passed; in our stupid, misleading, blundering

language, Mrs. Dearmer--mother, wife, poet, artist, dramatist, and

last, but not least, camp orderly--was dead. But I knew that the

life-force had carried with it all that was real; it had taken to the

Beyond Land the idea, the logos, the norm, the soul, of which the body

that was left, was only a graven image.

Again a public funeral, but this time--a graceful compliment by Dr.

Dearmer--the service was to be conducted by the priests of the Greek

Church, officiating in their own cathedral. A chapel in which to lay

her, with altar, was improvised in the doctors' reading tent, and was

filled with wreaths and crosses of beautiful flowers, sent by friends

and sympathisers.

The military attachés, medical and military officials, public

representatives, members of other units, and general sympathisers,

assembled at the chapel tent at 5 p.m. Four priests, with long hair

and gorgeously embroidered robes, three of blue and one of red, said

preliminary prayers round the altar. Strange that when men symbolise

religion they adopt the garb of women?

The Crown Prince's band played whilst the coffin was lifted to a

hearse-carriage--generally reserved for dead officers--and the

procession, in the same order as before, moved slowly across the

racecourse to the road, and on to the cathedral. Alternately with the

music of the band, a choir of men and women from Kragujevatz, sang

beautiful funeral anthems. We had persuaded Dr. Dearmer to evade the

procession and the cathedral service, and, with Dr. Marsden, to join us

at the grave-side.

Again the same frenzied clanging of discordant bells greeted our

arrival at the cathedral; but inside God's house, harmony and reverence

reigned.

The coffin was placed on trestles in the centre of the nave; the

mourners, as before, standing at a little distance all around. In Greek

churches it is the custom always to stand, at all services; there are

no chairs, no kneeling cushions, no compromises with comfort.

The service lasted an hour; the heat was terrific, and I was thankful

we were not mid-Victorian women, or we should have had sensational

fainting scenes. These would have spoilt the service, which was

extremely beautiful; more sympathetic and compassionate than the cold,

callous, burial prayers of our English ritual, with its theories of

dust and ashes.

The priests stood in line behind the coffin, facing the altar,

and chanted their prayers in the old Slavonic language, common to

Serbia, Bulgaria and Russia, and the trained choir of men and women

in the gallery behind, sang exquisite responses. The music--a great

surprise--was enchanting; it produced that atmosphere of faith and

divine love, of which the best music is a revelation, and bad music the

negation. Better no music than bad music in churches.

Again the representative of the Crown Prince expressed to me his

condolences; and, as we emerged from the cathedral into the material

world once more, the bells jangled forth their discordant message, in

shocking disharmony with the brass band. But I didn't mind them now,

their message had no terrors for me; I was fortified, and knew I could

hold up. We marched slowly forward, now to face the worst part of the

ceremony. For outside the graveyard Dr. Dearmer was awaiting us. It

was a dreadful moment as we drew near, and the band announced to him

that _she_ was there, coming to meet him for the last time. I tried

to interest myself in the fine view of distant hills, showing purple

against the field of ripening Indian corn, near which he stood awaiting

us; but I saw only one figure; I thought my heart would burst. He

joined us, and we entered the cemetery, and moved to the grave-side.

The coffin, before being lowered, was placed inside a wooden case, to

lessen--at Dr. Dearmer's request--the harsh sound of clods of earth

upon the metal. The final prayers were spoken by the Rev. J. Little,

chauffeur of one of our ambulance cars; dust to dust; ashes to ashes;

all was over; the last terrible moment came; we turned, and left her

lying in her Serbian grave alone.

CHAPTER X

That was the last typhoid tragedy within our camp. Nurse V. Bury died

later, as the result of typhoid, in England in her own home. She had,

with others of our staff patients, convalesced under the kind and

hospitable care of Mr. James Berry, B.S., F.R.C.S., and of Mrs. F.

May Dickinson Berry, M.D., B.S., in their fine hospital amongst the

mountains at Vrnjatchka Banja. Mr. and Mrs. Berry had given us much

pleasure by staying with us in our camp on several occasions, and I

always regretted that I was unable to give myself both pleasure and

instruction by visiting their hospital, but I made it a rule never to

leave the camp except on business, and I refused all invitations, even

to teas in Kragujevatz. It seemed wise to make visiting prohibitive

for the unit, because of typhus and for other reasons, (except for the

doctors, who could take care of themselves), and I thought it fair

that I should share the penalty. Also, we were never safe from risk of

Taubes, and I was responsible for the safety of the camp.

It was not until a day in September that the last typhoid tent could

be dismantled. On this happy day, a woman, an orderly from another

unit, arrived without warning in our camp, and asked leave to spend a

few days with us. She had a high temperature, and went at once to bed,

and we found that she had acted cuckoo, and had deliberately come to

lay her typhoid egg in our camp; this, at the moment when we had hoped

at last to clear ourselves of the epidemic, was troublesome. After

some weeks of illness, which she said she enjoyed more than any other

experience in Serbia, she recovered.

The original engagement for members of our unit was for three months,

but at the end of that time, the Crown Prince and the medical-military

authorities requested us and some other British units to remain, and,

with the exception of some members who were invalided home, the members

of our unit almost unanimously agreed to continue for a further period.

We all much regretted that Dr. Hanson was obliged to return to her work

in London. The L.C.C. would not spare her valuable services any longer.

She had been with me at Antwerp, and also at Cherbourg, and when she

left I much missed her enthusiasm and cheery, genial company. She

returned to London _via_ Russia, and the night before she left, Colonel

Guentchitch kindly gave a farewell dinner in her honour. I was also

invited, and I sat next to the Colonel. I was innocently happy till,

at the end of dinner, the Colonel suddenly rose and made a speech, in

Serbian, in praise of Dr. Hanson and our hospital. Applause followed,

then came dead silence. Was anyone going to translate the speech for

us? Apparently not, so I signalled and grimaced to Dr. Hanson to

reply, but she naïvely pretended that she hadn't understood a word of

the speech. Somebody must say something, in some language. Much taken

aback, I jumped up, hesitated for a moment about the language, and

then chose French. But, as the Colonel's points had been made in one

language, I had digested them in a second, and replied to them in a

third, the points must have been very robust if they survived.

PART II

CHAPTER XI

But during all these months, since the establishment of our camp

hospital, we had been occupied not only with military work--wounded

soldiers--but also with civilian work. We had started with one hundred

and thirty wounded within the first few days; but I had at once

realised that as the typhus epidemic was diminishing, there would, in

all probability, not be enough work to absorb all our energies, unless

military activities were resumed.

But it is never of much consequence whether this, that, or the other

thing happens; it is the way in which you treat what happens, that

is important. If you have an ideal, everything will work together

for good. It doesn't so much matter what you do, so long as you do

something. Something, even if it is not the ideal, may lead to the

ideal, whereas inaction leads to nothing. The one and only fatal

disaster is to do nothing.

In a country which had suffered as Serbia had suffered, during years of

continuous warfare, there must be need for help of some kind, the only

question was, in what direction?

The inspiration came the fifth day after our arrival at Kragujevatz. I

was talking with Major Protitch; he was describing the conditions of

the country, and he mentioned that one-third of the Serbian doctors had

died, either of typhus, or at the front, and that the remainder were

all occupied, either with military work, in the hospitals in the towns,

or with administrative work, or at the front; with the result that no

medical aid was available for the peasants in the country districts.

I realised in a moment what that meant. The country was going through

a serious epidemic of typhus, in addition to diphtheria, typhoid, and

other diseases; and in the villages, and small towns, there were no

doctors to prescribe for the patients, or to check the spread of the

infection. Typhus victims, in ox-wagons, still passed our camp all

day long on their way to join the four thousand already buried in the

typhus graveyard, a short distance beyond our hospital.

It was market day at Kragujevatz (Friday, April 30th), and as I said

good-bye to the Serbian doctor, on the edge of our encampment, near the

road, I stood and watched the streams of peasants on their way to the

market; women in Scotch plaid skirts, with coloured or black kerchiefs

on their heads, and children, and old men, all driving pigs and sheep,

or carrying geese and poultry slung on sticks, head downwards, over

their shoulders, or leading oxen which were drawing wagons filled with

barrels of rakiya--the native whisky. And at once an idea came. It was

straightway discussed with our doctors, who approved, and promised

co-operation, and it was at once carried into effect. Unless we seize

time as it passes, it is apt to pass us by. We immediately pitched

a bell tent at the outer edge of the hospital encampment, on the

roadside, improvised a notice board from an old packing case, and, with

the help of an interpreter, wrote, in Serbian, words to the effect,

that if folks would bring their own bottles, medicine and medical

advice would be given gratis. A doctor, a nurse, and an interpreter

took charge of the tent dispensary, and we waited with eager curiosity

to see what happened. The result was that within a few weeks 12,000

people, men, women, and children, came to this roadside dispensary,

either in ox-wagons or walking from distances of fifty, sixty, even

seventy miles--ill with typhus, diphtheria, typhoid, smallpox,

tuberculosis, and every conceivable and inconceivable form of disease.

Besides medicine and general treatment and injections of serum, advice

was given as to hygiene, sanitation, the need for fresh air and

cleanliness, etc. Diphtheria, especially amongst the children, was

rampant. Whole families were being exterminated. One day a man brought

to the dispensary his little girl, who was suffering from diphtheria,

and he asked us to inject her with the serum, of which he had heard

from other peasants. He told us that another child had just died, at

home, of the same sickness; he had been afraid to bring her, but he

had now brought this child to be treated, as it could only die once.

The serum was injected, and next day the child was so much better that

the following day both the father and the mother arrived, in their

ox-wagon, bringing with them their six remaining children, who were all

ill with the same disease. They were, of course, all treated with the

serum, and this little family was thus saved from being blotted out.

The after-effects of neglected typhus are often worse than the original

disease; and amongst ignorant peasants, without doctors, every case

of typhus is a neglected case. One day a man brought his little girl

(Rositza by name) in an ox-wagon from a distance of thirty miles. The

child was suffering from a loathsome-looking leg, the result of neglect

after typhus. The two bones of the leg were as bare of flesh as though

a dog had gnawed them clean; and the foot was a gangrenous mass of

black pulp. Above the knee were huge holes and horrible sores. The

child's mother was dead; the father was going to the front next day,

and he begged us to take Rositza into our hospital that he might go

with a less heavy heart. He quite understood, when he was told, that

the only hope for the child's life was amputation of the leg, and his

eyes filled with tears of gratitude when we told him that there was no

reason why, under our care, her life should not be spared. The leg,

half way up to the thigh, was amputated; Rositza, an intelligent and

charming child of about twelve years of age, recovered rapidly, and

was soon, on crutches, hopping around, mothering other children who

occupied our children's ward tents.

For though we were primarily a military hospital, the military

authorities waived the usual rule as to the exclusion of civilian

patients, and we put up tents respectively for civilian men, for

women, and for children, in order to deal with cases which could

not be peremptorily treated at the dispensary. Our doctors entered

whole-heartedly into the scheme and took it in turns to be on duty by

the roadside.

This dispensary work brought clearly to light the fact that war is

responsible for maiming and killing not only the fighting portion of

the population; it also maims and kills, by slow torture, the women and

children who are responsible for the life, health, and vigour of future

generations.

Roughly speaking, one-half of the peasants who came to be treated for

various diseases, and probably one-half of those who did not come, were

suffering from advanced forms of tuberculosis, the result largely of

neglect during the last few years of warfare.

The small tent soon had to be exchanged for a larger one; this was

curtained into three compartments, one for diagnosis, one with a bed

for more private examination by the doctor, and one for the dispenser

and dresser.

From the first day the dispensary was besieged, especially on

feast-days and fast-days, and most days in Serbia belong to one or

the other category, and then sometimes one hundred and eighty patients

arrived from near and far; they sat on the grass in the shade of some

trees by the roadside, or they stood in a long queue, all waiting their

turn to be seen by the doctor. Some cunning ones arrived in their

ox-wagons during the night, or at dawn, in order to get their names

first on the list. A policeman from the town kept the rota, and saw

that turns were fairly kept.

One of the first arrivals was a girl, who had walked for four hours, to

ask for medicine for her two brothers and for her mother, who were all

ill with typhus. There was no one but herself to tend them, and she had

been obliged to leave them alone during her absence. She would not stay

to rest, but started back on her four hours' return tramp, her face

beaming with happiness as she carried off the precious medicine. Who

would tend her, and the others, if she contracted the disease?

Another day six women arrived in a wagon drawn by two cows, from

a village forty miles distant. They were all seriously ill with

diphtheria, but after the serum injection they climbed back into their

straw lairs for the return journey, as happy as queens.

One man walked sixty miles to come to us, and sixty miles back to his

home, to bring his daughter, who was suffering from swollen glands,

which needed an operation. The girl had no mother, and the father, who

was going to the front in a few days, rejoiced greatly at being able to

leave her in safe hands.

Interesting side-lights were sometimes thrown on the beliefs and

superstitions of the people. A woman came complaining of pains in her

chest. They were not from indigestion, and none of the usual questions

by the interpreter brought any enlightenment. But after much roundabout

talk it was discovered that the woman had lately lost her father and

two brothers, the former from typhus, and the latter at the front. And,

in the customary demonstration of her grief, she had beaten her chest

violently; the force of the triple grief had been too much for the poor

chest, and it felt hurt.

For those who came from long distances, refreshments were provided,

and Miss Anna Beach, one of our orderlies, arranged a stove and tables

near the dispensary, and stood all day in the hot sun, or the rain,

serving tea, and coffee, and bread, and plum jam--all much appreciated,

especially by the children. Mr. Beck distributed refugee garments

to those who were in need, and made himself otherwise useful at the

dispensary.

The people had a great prejudice against going to hospitals. A man, who

brought his twelve-year-old boy, suffering from confluent smallpox,

wept bitterly when he was told he must take him to the hospital in the

town. On another day, a woman brought her daughter, who was at death's

door with diphtheria; and when our doctors said that the girl must stay

with us in hospital, as she was too weak to bear the jolting of the

wagon on the return journey, the woman replied, astonished, "Hospital!

Why, she is much too ill to go to a hospital!" The girl was taken away,

and probably died in the cart on the way home.

But the people soon regarded our hospital in a different light,

probably because of the tents, and also because the doctors were women,

the nurses were devoted, and the atmosphere was homely. Our difficulty

soon was, indeed, in preventing them from coming. One woman travelled

for twenty-four hours, bringing with her in her ox-wagon four of her

children--the eldest eight years old--all ill with malaria; she had

confidently expected that they would all be allowed to come into the

hospital.

Indeed, it became the fashion for people, even of other classes than

the peasants, to come to the dispensary, especially on feast days.

Then, after a time, a spirit of emulation seized the patients, and,

as the best available means of distinction from other patients, was a

surgical operation, they all clamoured for operations, irrespective of

requirements. The doctors often gave offence by refusing to concede

this much-wanted luxury.

One woman, who had been cured of a dislocated shoulder, still demanded

an operation. When she was told that this was not necessary, and that

no operation would be performed, she was angry, and retorted, "Very

well, I shall cure myself." The doctor asked her how she would do this,

and she replied triumphantly, "I shall hold a live frog in my hand as

soon as I get home." Another woman, very ill with diphtheria, came to

the dispensary buoyed by the hope of tracheotomy. She was delighted

when we took her into the hospital and told her that there was a

possibility that her wish might be gratified. The only trouble was that

she had a tiny baby at home; but she had been brought to us by her old

mother, so we sent grannie back for the baby. It was a sickly child,

and we took care of it in the baby ward. The mother was disappointed

of her tracheotomy, but when she recovered and saw her baby again,

her joy and surprise on seeing that it had grown fat and rosy, almost

compensated her for her own disappointment.

Children loved being in the hospital, and when they were there, it

was difficult to get rid of them, especially when they lived great

distances away. Return transport was not easy to arrange, if the

parents were not in a hurry to arrange it. "Ah!" said one small girl

reproachfully to her mother, who at last came to fetch her, "_you_

never give me sheets like this!"

[Illustration: WITH SOME OF OUR SERBIAN SOLDIERS OF THE FIRST SERBIAN

ENGLISH FIELD HOSPITAL]

[Illustration:

_photo by_ _Monsieur Bettich_

WITH COL. TERZITCH COMMANDING OUR SCHUMADIA DIVISION (NOW SERBIAN

MINISTER OF WAR)

Superintending the repitching of his tent near Pirot]

Another child, a boy of about ten years old, who had something the

matter with his knee, had spent a fortnight in the hospital, in the

ward tent reserved for small boys. Life during that fortnight had

been full of joys, and when he was cured, he left with tearful eyes.

One day, about a week later, the doctor on duty in the dispensary,

saw a woman coming towards the tent. She was leading by the hand, a

boy of about ten years old, who was limping extravagantly. The doctor

recognised him at once, and shrewdly guessed the truth. The boy had

worried so much to be allowed to come back, that the mother had tried

the hoax of lameness, in the vain hope of deceiving the doctor.

But it was not only the children who were difficult to move. One old

man firmly refused to go; he said that his daughter's children were

very troublesome at home, and food wasn't too plentiful there, and he

was happier where he was. But as he knew that sooner or later the evil

day must come, he providently secreted under his pillow a little stock

of boiled eggs, saved from his breakfasts, to take with him when the

day came. He was so long in departing that he had a plentiful supply of

rotten eggs to throw at the children.

The peasants had delightful remedies of their own. One day we found

a mouse's nest, and a woman who heard us talking about it, asked us

eagerly what we had done with the young mice? When she heard that they

had been killed, and thrown away, she was very shocked. Of course, they

ought to have been kept to put in the ear for ear-ache. It was stupid

of us not to have thought of that!

The X-ray department, under Dr. Tate and Mr. Agar, was also much in

demand. Indeed, great was the confidence shown by both women and men

in the skill of our women doctors. Some well-to-do people came all

the way from Belgrade to consult them. The women said it was so much

pleasanter to discuss health conditions with one of their own sex. I

chanced one day to ask a young well-dressed girl of about twenty-four,

who was waiting for her turn, what was the matter with her, and she

confided to me that she had been married for three years, and had now

become infected, through her husband, with a terrible disease. She

would not, she said, consult a man doctor, but she had tried many

remedies, remedies from old women and remedies out of books, and now at

last she was hopeful. But, if nothing could be found to cure her she

was going to shoot herself, with a revolver which she had bought for

the purpose.

We were thankful to be able to help so many, but it was sad to think

of the many more who needed help in their homes. Every day we had

illustrations of this need for visiting the people in their homes. One

man came in a wagon with his little boy; both father and son were very

ill with diphtheria, and whilst the doctor was injecting the father

with the serum, the child died in the wagon. The doctor scolded the

father, and told him that he should have brought the boy sooner; but

the poor fellow answered that he had only just returned from the front,

and could not come before. He added that another child had just died at

home, because there had been no one to bring her.

[Illustration: STOBART DISPENSARIES AROUND KRAGUJEVATZ, SERBIA.]

CHAPTER XII

It was clear that if there was this urgent need for help amongst the

peasants in our district, there would be an equally urgent need in

other districts. Therefore, as soon as the success of the Kragujevatz

dispensary was assured, and Colonel Guentchitch and the local

authorities had expressed approval, I determined to extend the work and

to establish a series of roadside tent dispensaries, within an average

radius of thirty miles around Kragujevatz, in the Schumadia district,

the heart of Old Serbia. Accordingly, on May 9th, I cabled home to Mr.

Christian, the Chairman of the Serbian Relief Fund, explaining the

scheme, and asked his Committee to send out, without delay, material,

equipment, and personnel for additional dispensaries. "I should like

twelve," I said, "but I must have six." Colonel Harrison also cabled to

his wife, asking her to collect money for our purpose; she responded

nobly, and in the North of England held meetings which brought in

several thousand pounds.

Each dispensary was to comprise one woman doctor, two nurses, one cook,

one interpreter, and one chauffeur, the latter to drive the motor

ambulance which would convey to the mother hospital at Kragujevatz,

patients who needed operations or prolonged treatment. Tents were

to be used as long as weather permitted, partly to avoid infectious

buildings, partly to escape the difficulty of finding suitable houses,

and also in order that the dispensary could be placed wherever it would

be most likely to be useful--along the roadside, and probably where

cross roads met.

The scheme received the hearty approval of Sir Ralph Paget, who was

acting as British Commissioner for Serbia, and of Colonel Hunter, Chief

of the Royal Army Medical Mission in Serbia. The latter told me that

he had mentioned the dispensary scheme, and also the hospital work, in

despatches to the Foreign Office, and had asked that all facilities

should be granted us. I felt confident, therefore, that the scheme

would be supported.

The Serbian Relief Fund rose to the occasion, and the Chairman cabled

approval and agreed to send material and personnel for six additional

dispensaries. Dr. King-May kindly agreed to go to London and help to

make arrangements for the medical requirements. She left Kragujevatz

on May 20th, and returned on July 23rd. But there was no need to wait

till the latter date to start the new work. Time was of life-and-death

importance to the peasants. The first consignment of stores and

tents came on July 13th, and as Dr. Iles, who had cabled from India

acceptance of service, had arrived on June 29th, we established

a dispensary at Natalintzi, about thirty-five kilometres from

Kragujevatz, on July 14th.

The site had been selected on June 29th by Major Protitch, and the

District Prefect, Dr. Hanson, and myself.

We had intended to go to Natalintzi on the 28th, but the Prefect

remembered that this was a fast day, in commemoration of the Battle

of Kossovo, and that he must attend cathedral service. At Kossovo,

in 1389, more than five hundred years ago, the Serbians had, upon

the field of blackbirds, lost their independence to the Turks. I

little guessed that I should, before long, be riding over that plain

of Kossovo, with the Serbian Army, whilst it once more fought for

independence.

June 28th (15th in the Serbian calendar) was also the anniversary of

the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife.

A motor drive on a Serbian road is always an interesting adventure,

owing chiefly to the mud, which is, literally, in places feet deep, and

of a substance peculiar to the Balkans, owing partially also to the

neglect of road-mending during many years of warfare. But the motor

will now probably arouse a new conscience about roads. Any road has

been good enough for the ox-wagon, and we shall see in the near future

whether the ox-wagon is the cause of the continuance of bad roads,

or whether the bad roads are the cause of the ox-wagon. Perhaps the

Germans will make themselves useful during their temporary visit to

Serbia, and will remove the question from the vicious circle in which

it now rotates. It is possible that the cloven hoof of the ox has an

advantage over horse hoofs and motors by its power of gripping that

glutinous and skiddy substance euphemistically termed mud.

During our drive to Natalintzi we saw something of the beauty of the

Serbian country. Mountains girt with maple, beech, and oak forests;

valleys fertile with ripening grain--wheat and oats, and endless fields

of the dignified kukurus (Indian corn or maize), its tall, green,

large-leaved stalks hugging the half hidden yellow cobs. And orchards,

and orchards, and always orchards of purple plums.

Maize, vines, and plums are the mainstay of national food and drink.

The people make bread, and porridge from the maize, and rakiya, as

well as wine, from the grapes. Rakiya--with, of course, a different

flavour--is also brewed from plums.

The universal plum also provides huge quantities of jam, known as

pekmez.

We were surprised to find how much land had, in the continued absence

of the menfolk, been cultivated by the women.

Our route to Natalintzi lay through the village of Topola, the village

which fired the first shot in 1804, during the rebellion of the

Serbs, under Kara George (Black George), against the tyranny of the

Turkish janissaries, three years before the Battle of Ivankovatz, the

turning-point in the destiny of Serbia.

A sharp curve in the road brought us in view of a surprise range of

hills. Upon an isolated kopje, which commanded the whole land, an

exquisite church of white marble shone, against a brilliant sky of

blue, silver in the sunlight, which was elsewhere clouded. The marble

had been quarried partly in Serbia and partly in Italy, and the church,

of best Byzantine architecture, had been built by order of King Peter.

The King had also built, not far from the church, a fine hospital and a

school. He had as yet no palace for himself; he had first built houses

for God, for the sick, and for the children; his own house he had left

till last. But it will be built some day. He was living meanwhile

with the Topola priest, sharing an unpretentious, one-storied house,

opposite the church.

We wrote our names in the King's visitors' book, and then spent a

quarter of an hour inside the church. For many months our eyes had

dwelt chiefly upon maimed and diseased bodies--desecrated shrines of

the human spirit. Here, at last, was a shrine of the Greater Spirit,

conceived and perfected with a true sense of religion--the noblest of

the arts.

The proportions of the church were beautiful, and a happy effect of

ethereal atmosphere was produced by some windows of blue glass. But

I wondered if we should not some day look back with curiosity on the

custom of churches. We enclose a small space, within walls of marble,

brick, or stone, and think that we entrap God. We are not far from the

days of Moses and of the mercy seat for God's special use in the Jewish

Ark of the Covenant, and we are, I'm afraid, very far from realisation

of the vision of St. John, of the New Jerusalem, churchless, because

the worship of God should be universal. The absence of cheap, ugly

chairs and pews, interfering with the architectural lines, gives the

interior of Greek churches an æsthetic advantage over Protestant

churches, though the compulsion to stand is, for most people, probably

a grievance. Man adopts more and more the crumpled, sitting posture,

as though he were not happy at getting away from the ape attitude. But

we had no time to spare for thought and sentiment; there never is time

for such essentials of civilisation in these barbaric, anti-Christian

days; and we were soon again on the high road, all thoughts centred on

how we were going to persuade the car to leave a deep mud-hole, into

which it had sunk, in the middle of the road. It ended in the visual

way--ignominiously, with oxen.

We had one narrow escape. We were deep in another mud-hole, when some

peasants who had stopped to help us, remarked casually that a few

hundred yards ahead of us, there was a bridge over a flooded stream,

and that there was a big hole in the centre of the bridge. The warning

was opportune, for the bridge was so narrow that there was barely room

to pass, and the hole could not be avoided; only by emptying the car of

passengers, and by the exercise of much care and skill was the bridge

safely crossed. If we had come upon it unawares, a disaster must have

occurred.

But we arrived safely at Natalintzi. The village consisted of a

picturesque street of one-storied houses, lined on both sides with

acacia trees. We drove first to the café; here we met the Prefect, and

then we all drank Turkish coffee, sitting round small tables on the

pavement under the trees.

Major Protitch and our Kragujevatz Prefect explained to the Natalintzi

Prefect our intention of establishing a roadside dispensary. The

idea was warmly welcomed, and stories were told us of the appalling

need for medical help among the peasants. Meantime the inhabitants of

the village crowded round us, and listened with delightful _naïveté_

to our conversation. They followed us as we moved to see the site

proposed--around the school. But this site was not large enough. The

priest then joined us, and we went to the church. This was at the end

of the street, and a little way back. Around it was a large enclosed

grass space, with fine shady trees; an excellent site, for churchyards

in Serbia are never graveyards, and we promptly accepted it. The

dispensary tent would stand near the road, and tents for doctor and

staff on the other side of the church. The priest kindly offered us

the use, as kitchen, of one of the two tiny rooms, not adjoining the

church, which he used as vestry. This was shaded by a long veranda,

which subsequently served as dining-room. Without further parleying it

was arranged that we should start work as soon as we liked; that is, as

soon as our doctor and stores should arrive.

The Prefect kindly invited us to "slatko" at his house. We were shown

into a drawing-room and were introduced to his wife and daughters, who

at once went out to prepare the slatko tray. The rest of us sat round

the room talking to our host. Presently Madame and the daughters came

back. One of the girls carried a tray upon which was a little silver

dish with jam, and another dish with spoons; also tumblers filled with

water. The girl came first to me, and I was seized with nervousness;

for the life of me I couldn't think what I ought to do. There was

water and jam, but no bread. Would bread follow, or must I now take a

spoonful of jam? And what about the water? Must I dip my fingers in it

or drink it? I slighted the water and concentrated on the jam. I must

do something, immediately. All eyes were fixed on me; I made a dash

for a spoon, plunged it in the jam, and boldly put a spoonful in my

mouth; that seemed right. But the girl didn't go away. Was she waiting

for me to take another spoonful of jam? I should have liked to; it was

my favourite strawberry, and I was hungry. But I glanced at the girl,

and I didn't see consent to that in her face. Ah, yes! The spoon! But

what on earth was to be done with the spoon? Ought I to put it into

the glass of water? The girl was looking at me critically; it was an

awful moment. Dead silence all round the room; the others were all

watching me, to get tips for their own conduct when their turns came.

I was desperate, and the idea came that perhaps I was expected to put

the spoon in my pocket; take it away as a souvenir. Where else could

I put it? I asked myself impatiently. I can't put it down, all jammy,

on the clean napkin on the tray. And then--huge relief--I suddenly

noticed that the little silver basket that held the spoons, had two

partitions, and one was empty! I plumped for the empty half, with

serene confidence, and--thank goodness!--the girl moved on to the next

guest, satisfied.

When we got back to camp, at ten that evening, we found that the doctor

designed for Natalintzi, Dr. Iles, had by a curious coincidence arrived

from India that evening. Tents and stores did not come till July 13th.

But everything was that same day unpacked, stored and repacked, and

the next morning at 4.30 tents, stores, drugs and general equipment

were stowed in a motor lorry from the town. Our own two cars and

another, lent to us by the military authorities, carried the unit,

which comprised doctor, two nurses, a cook, and an interpreter, also

the sanitary inspectress, Miss B. Kerr, to inaugurate the sanitary

arrangements, and Miss Benjamin to put up the tents. With habitual

courtesy, Major Protitch came up at 5 a.m. to see us off and to say

good-bye, as I was to be away for two days.

[Illustration: SERBIAN WOUNDED ARRIVING AT OUR DRESSING STATION FROM

THE BATTLEFIELD NEAR DOBRIDOL]

[Illustration: EVACUATING WOUNDED FROM OUR DRESSING STATION]

We arrived at Natalintzi at 10.30 a.m. after only one serious

breakdown. One of our cars skidded into a ditch, but the motor lorry

pulled it out. I always made a rule, on all occasions, that all carts

and wagons should keep together when travelling. There were sometimes

heartburnings over this, but it was, none the less, a necessary

precaution.

The Prefect and the Mayor received us graciously, and lunched with us

under our church trees, and by the evening all tents were pitched and

stores unpacked. And already next day the success of the dispensary

was assured. The good tidings that medical help was at last available

had spread, and patients at once arrived. Also, that same evening, the

doctor was sent for to attend a woman too ill to be moved; but for the

help she then received the woman would have died.

Here, as always in Serbia, we were reminded of the dominance of war as

a factor in the lives of the people. I asked one old woman who came to

see the doctor, how old she was; she didn't know, but she turned to

another old crony who was standing near and said: "Let's see, in which

war was I born?" Her friend told her it was the 1848 Austrian war; and

thus her age was focussed.

The weather was broiling hot, but many of the peasants wore thick

sheepskin waistcoats lined with wool. I asked an old man how he would

manage to keep warm in winter, if he were not too hot in such a

waistcoat now. He replied, astonished at my question, "In winter I wear

two."

I visited this dispensary again in a week's time, and found that more

than three hundred people had already been treated. All was working

excellently. The peasants had no idea of how to nurse themselves, or

how to take sanitary precautions, and their remedies against disease

were quaint. To cure a headache, they applied a salad of potatoes and

onions, and to heal a wound they rubbed charcoal into it and covered it

with leaves.

A woman patient arrived that day at the dispensary in a serious

condition; she had been accidently shot in the neck, with bullets from

a revolver fired by her neighbour's little boy. It was necessary to

take her to our Kragujevatz hospital, and she was placed in the motor

ambulance which was taking me back. Her nearest relatives agreed to

this; but some of her friends heard that she was being taken to a

hospital; that, in their eyes, meant death, so they rushed up to the

cart as we were starting, and protested and shouted at us and at the

poor woman; a crowd at once collected, and if we had not driven off

promptly, the woman would have been snatched from us.

Another day when I went to visit the dispensary and to take stores,

I found the little unit struggling gallantly with an epidemic of

small-pox, which had broken out in a scattered village three or four

miles from Natalintzi. They asked me to go with them to see some of the

patients. Major Protitch was with me, and we all drove a little way in

the car, and then walked along mud lanes and over fields of kukurus.

One of the nurses (Willis) and the cook (Chesshire) had bravely

encamped in a disused school-house, finding that the journey backwards

and forwards at all hours of the day and night was impracticable. They

met us and took us to a cottage, in which all the members of the family

were either ill, or dying, or dead, from small-pox. The walls, both

outside and inside, were covered with primitive paintings of figures

and of trees. The cottage contained a tiny kitchen-living room and a

tinier bedroom. The windows of the bedroom were all closed, the lesson

of the necessity of fresh air not yet learnt, for in the nurses'

absence the windows were always shut.

In the bedroom were two beds; on one bed a girl of about twenty lay

dying, and on the other was a girl of about twenty-two, also in a

critical condition. Their faces were smothered in confluent small-pox,

their features scarcely recognisable. Another daughter had just died,

and still another, younger, was recovering. Willis and Chesshire had

been making a brave fight for the life of the dying girl, and had

personally fed her day and night, because the relations, in accordance

with custom, had for the last few days refused to give her food,

thinking that death was near. But they had yesterday, in full view of

the girl, who was conscious and had watched the proceedings, prepared

the funeral tray, laid with the girl's favourite food and drink.

The people were curiously ignorant about the danger of infection, and

friends from their own, and from other villages, would come in and sit

on the beds of the small-pox patients, and spend an hour or two, and

then go home and rejoin their families. Small wonder that epidemics

played havoc in the country.

With Major Protitch, we planned a scheme for disinfection of the

village, but without a hospital in which to segregate patients, this

was not an easy job.

CHAPTER XIII

The next dispensary to be started was at Lapovo, an important railway

junction on the Belgrade-Nish line. On Sunday, July 18th, at 5 a.m.,

Colonel Guentchitch, the head of the Army Medical Service, accompanied

me and one of our doctors to Lapovo to choose the site. The day was,

as usual, a feast day, and we stopped on the way, at an artillery

encampment, to watch the soldiers dancing the kolo. One soldier stood

playing the fiddle, whilst fifty or sixty others were holding hands,

and dancing, quite silently, in a circle round him. How could even

their enemies have painted these simple-minded, clean-living peasant

soldiers, as fierce, fighting-loving savages?

A suitable camping-ground was found adjoining and above the railway, on

either side of a long one-storied building which was not yet completed;

this could later be used as hospital with eighty beds.

The doctor of the reserve hospital in Lapovo, two miles from the

station, invited us to lunch under the trees, in the field of the

church compound. A requiem service was being held, and the church was

full of peasant women. Upon the floor were many trays of food--the

favourite cakes and fruits and flowers of the dead. When the service

was over, the women picked up the trays and came outside and handed

the food to their friends. They then carried the remainder of the food

home; they could not take it to the dead in the cemetery, because the

men had been killed in battle.

[Illustration:

THE SERGEANT DISTRIBUTING BREAD WITH THE HELP OF AN ADMONITORY ROD

Bread is on the ground in front of him]

[Illustration: SERBIAN ARMY IN RETREAT CROSSING A BRIDGE NEAR

ANDREAVITZA]

These requiem services for the dead, are held first after forty-two

days from death, in accordance with the old belief that the soul takes

six weeks to reach Heaven; then after six months, and again at the

anniversary of death.

The women wore tartan skirts, very full; short, loose bodices, of a

different colour to the skirt, generally a plain colour, and kerchiefs

which completely covered their hair, and were either brilliantly

coloured, or else were in black to denote mourning. The men often wore

long white tunics, over white trousers, which were tucked into long,

knitted, coloured stockings; and opantsi or soft leather sandals.

A funeral peasant party came to the church whilst we were lunching in

the field. A man in shirt sleeves walked in front, carrying a tray

with the funeral food of the deceased. Next followed a man carrying a

cross, and a wreath bearing the name of the dead; then friends with

flags; then the coffin, carried by men. On the shoulders of each bearer

was pinned a towel, or kerchief, which fluttered in the breeze. Next

came the women in gay colours; black as mourning, except in the head

kerchief, is thought to be a bad omen.

Owing to delay in the arrival of the unit, the camp at Lapovo was

not established till July 28th. Even then the dispensary tents and

stores had not come; but some horribly ancient bell-tents turned up

from somewhere, and with these and with stores from our Kragujevatz

hospital, we began work.

The Doctors Milanovitch and Stoyanovitch met us at the Lapovo Station,

and, with the courtesy usual with Serbian officers and officials,

offered help, and gave us coffee and cakes under the trees in the

garden of the station restaurant. The local Prefect also visited us; he

was beautifully dressed in the peasant costume. The day was hot, and he

wore no coat, but a soft white shirt, and embroidered waistcoat, brown

frieze trousers, tucked into embroidered socks, and leather sandals.

He invited us to his Slava feast next day at noon.

The first night was made a little uncomfortable by a violent

thunderstorm. The rain treated the tents with the disdain which they

deserved, and came straight through, wetting beds and blankets. Next

day, therefore, we encamped in the unfinished building, and though

there was no floor, and there were no windows, it seemed luxury to have

a roof overhead.

Dr. Cockburn, a Canadian doctor, at once won the sympathies of the

peasants, who came in hundreds to the dispensary. The first patient,

however, gave her much amusement. He was a Serbian officer; he asked to

see the doctor, and when she said that she was the doctor, he ran away,

and he never came back.

On Sunday evening we were all invited to supper with Dr. Stoyanovitch.

He was in charge of a hospital to which were attached field ambulances,

for work at the front. We supped out of doors behind the hospital

building, in a large yard, and other guests were officers, the

apothecary, a medical student, in addition to Dr. Stoyanovitch and

Dr. Milanovitch and his wife. At the back of the yard, which was well

shaded with trees, were rows of hooded ox-carts; I was surprised to

hear that these were for ambulance purposes. I little knew how familiar

I should later become with this form of transport for wounded.

The Serbians have a delightful sense of humour, and before we had sat

down to the meal, we were all laughing and joking about our places at

the table. It is the custom for women to sit at one end and men at the

other, but I couldn't allow such a dull arrangement, and I suggested

to our host that we had better intermix, and that I intended anyhow to

sit next him. He laughed, and said that as we might all be suffragettes

he would do as we told him. So we had a "general post" for places,

and fine fun. The night was cool, and lovely, and the moon rose

dramatically over the trees. During supper, music was provided; a young

man, a barber, sat near and played the mandoline beautifully. I asked

how he had learnt to play so well, and our host said that all barbers

played the mandoline well. It annoyed me not to be able to see the

connection between barberism and the mandoline, but I haven't seen it

yet.

After supper, soldiers were called to entertain us by singing, and by

dancing the kolo, and as usual the kolo infection spread, and soon we

were all hand-in-hand, jigging and prancing in the moonlight. Finally,

when we said that we must leave, the soldiers all shouted "Shivela

Engleska!" (Long live England!); we all sang the Serbian and the

English National Anthems; I thanked the soldiers, through the officers,

for their entertainment, and expressed our pleasure at the comradeship

between the Serbian and English nations, and thus ended an interesting

evening. I haven't mixed much in military circles in England, but

I wondered whether it would have been possible in our country, for

officers and men to consort so freely together. This _camaraderie_

was interesting, and if it does not lead to lack of discipline in the

field, the relationship is ideal. I came to the conclusion that in the

German, the British, and the Serbian Armies respectively, three degrees

of discipline are represented, and that of these the German is too

severe, and the Serbian perhaps a trifle too lax.

The next day, before returning to camp, I went with our treasurer, John

Greenhalgh, and the chauffeur, the Rev. J. Little, to the Slava lunch

of the Prefect of Lapovo. The table was laid in the yard, at the back

of the one-storied house. Two other houses, belonging respectively to

our host's brother and to his mother, were within the same enclosure,

in accordance with the old custom of Zadruga, which still prevails to

a limited extent. The priest was performing the inauguration ceremony

in the two other houses, and we waited, sitting at our table, for our

turn. Our host's old aunt, a picturesque old lady, sat with us. On the

white-clothed table was the usual big brown candle, and a bread cake

ornamented with imitation sheaves and covered with a cloth. The wife

and a young son and daughter were preparing the meal. During summer the

kitchen was in an outer shed.

The priest was a long time in the other houses, and to keep us

quiet, we were given beer and cognac, which we pretended to drink,

and bread cake. Our host was dressed in his yesterday's costume and

looked beautiful with his clean, white, soft shirt, no horrid stiff

collar or artificial cuffs. He could only talk Serbian, and we had no

interpreter, but our treasurer, an excellent linguist, and I, had by

now learnt a little Serbian, and conversation didn't flag. But we were

glad when the priest came. He said prayers at the table, then took a

bowl of incense and swung it under our faces; the Prefect next lit the

big candle, and the priest said more prayers, and took the loaf and

cut it, without severing it, into four parts, and he and the Prefect

turned it round and round in their four hands, whilst the priest again

said prayers. They then turned the loaf upside down, and each in turn

three times kissed the side turned towards him. The priest then broke

the loaf in half, put it together again, and replaced it on the table.

A portion of the bread was then cut and handed to us all. That was the

finish. After that our meal proper was served. On Slava days the host

and hostess are not allowed to sit down with their guests; so they

waited on us, and ate afterwards. Soup, stewed beef and vegetables,

stewed chicken, stewed pork, apple pastry, cakes and wine, were the

excellent ménu, and finally coffee and pears, and again coffee.

On Slava days anybody is allowed to claim hospitality, and while we

were lunching, we saw women, and children, and gipsies go to the

kitchen and sit outside, waiting for the food which could not be

refused. Slava feast used to last a week, and was a time of ruination,

but now it only lasts for two days in the country districts, and for

one day in the towns, and as a rule only invited guests come to be fed.

The dispensary was, as usual, a huge success. Later, when war was

renewed, the building--then finished--was made into a hospital, and the

wards were filled with wounded. But Lapovo station was singled out for

attack by the enemy, and, at the order of the authorities, the unit

eventually evacuated the place just before the town was taken.

CHAPTER XIV

The site of the next dispensary was Rudnik: this was chosen on

July 23rd, and the work began on August 19th. On the former date,

the surveying party included Colonels Guentchitch and Popovitch,

Major Protitch and two other officers, our treasurer and Dr. Payne.

The prospective Rudnik doctor (Muncaster) had not yet arrived. We

breakfasted at 3.30 a.m., and immediately afterwards started on our

drive of sixty kilometres to the beautiful mountain village of Rudnik,

2,000 feet above sea level. The day was brilliant, without haze, and

the country through which we passed, was a kaleidoscope of colour

effects, with purple plums and golden corn, and the rich green, shining

kukurus. It is no wonder that Serbians love their country.

We halted at Gorni-Milanovatz, a kilometre off the track, because

Colonel Guentchitch wanted to inspect a hospital in the town. So we

ate a second breakfast at nine o'clock, outside a small hotel, on the

street pavement, under acacia trees. The Prefect of the town sat with

us, and rejoiced to know of our intention to help his people. He said

the district was destitute of doctors. With the exception of the doctor

in the Serbian hospital in the town, who could not leave his work to

visit the country people, there was no medical aid available for the

thousands of peasants in the scattered villages around. He went with

us to Rudnik. The town Commandant also breakfasted with us, and, while

Colonel Guentchitch was visiting his hospital, he told us terrible

tales of the events which had taken place in Milanovatz during the

preceding winter. In December the town was an inferno, filled with

wounded, and with victims of typhus. The Austrians came within five

kilometres, and the Commandant gained personal experience of their

behaviour towards the women and children. His stories as an eye-witness

corroborated the worst that has been told of Austrian atrocities in

Serbia. One hundred and twenty women and children were tied together

and mown down by machine-guns. Again, a crowd of women and children

were driven into a building which was then set on fire; our Commandant

saw their charred corpses the next morning. His own family was at that

time at Kragujevatz, and, thinking that the onrush of the Austrians

was inevitable, he was on the point of starting for home, to shoot his

wife and children, to save them from a worse fate. But the unexpected

happened; ammunition arrived in the nick of time, and Milanovatz,

Kragujevatz and Serbia were saved, alas! only temporarily. Our

Commandant was thus spared, by a narrow margin, from killing his family

at the moment when it was no longer necessary.

From Milanovatz to Rudnik, the mountain views were gorgeous. This

country must not, shall not, fall into the hands of the enemy, was

my constant prayer. The village only contained the inn and half a

dozen cottages, the latter, as usual, models of picturesqueness. One

especially was a great joy: one-storied, with whitewashed walls and

red tiles. It contained two rooms, hung with hand-made tapestries,

and carpeted with rugs from Pirot, near the Bulgarian frontier. I

hoped when I saw the rugs that I might one day go to Pirot and see the

rug-making industry. I little thought how soon I should be there; but

not to see the rug-making.

We chose for our dispensary site, the school's enclosure, from

which there were glorious views towards Valievo, and the south

and south-west. There was not enough level ground for the whole

encampment, the dispensary and kitchen were therefore housed within the

school building, and the staff tents, and mess tents faced a succession

of mountains and valleys, which stretched, as it seemed, to the world's

end.

We lunched in an open shed attached to the small inn, sat awhile during

the heat of the day under the shade of apple trees, and made the return

journey _via_ Milanovatz and Chachak. At the latter town Colonel

Guentchitch inspected another hospital, so we had supper whilst we

waited for him, and we fidgeted at not being able to start home before

8.30, knowing the danger of motoring in the dark along those roads.

One of the officers who drove home in the car behind me, had

optimistically taken with him from Rudnik, a large jar of honey, which

he had, still more optimistically, placed beside him on the seat.

Presently he wanted to get up to go out and help to push the car up a

steep hill, but he was held in his seat by an invisible power. I heard

him say something rather loudly, and I don't think he was praising the

scenery; the jolting in the deep ruts had smashed the jar, and the

honey had surreptitiously spread itself under the Major's beautiful

blue uniform trousers. He stood for the rest of the journey. This car,

which was not ours, required help up every hill, and we only reached

camp at two next morning.

At last the doctors and nurses, cooks and chauffeurs for dispensaries,

arrived from London on Sunday, August 15th, at a moment when the

political horizon was again clouded in Serbia. It had always been

understood that if active hostilities should be renewed, the dispensary

units must be called in. Military considerations were of primary

importance, and all available help would be wanted for the wounded.

Also it would not be desirable to leave small units isolated in

country districts. We had waited three months for the arrival of

personnel and stores wherewith to carry out the dispensary scheme. Had

these arrived too late?

As a measure of precaution our German-speaking Austrian prisoners--with

all the others in the town--were removed on August 17th, much to their

and to our regret, to work, it was said, on the tunnel of the railway

to Rumania, where doubtless supervision, in case of Austrian success,

would be easier. This looked suspicious.

Rudnik was difficult of access, and risk to the little unit must be

avoided. We delayed our expedition for a day or two, and on August

17th, I had another talk with Colonel Harrison, and with Colonel

Guentchitch, and they considered that next day we might carry out our

programme and start work at Rudnik. But torrential rain made the roads

impassable. We therefore again postponed, but early on the morning

of the 19th, our bales of tents, and stores, and the unit members,

were packed in motor lorries and in two cars lent by the military

authorities, and we set out to establish the fourth dispensary.

All through the spring and summer the hedges had been gay with flowers

in wedding colours, but now they were covered with the black-seeded

booryan plant (something like dwarf elder when in flower). Here and

there the yellow rag-wort alternated with the booryan, in a passing

scheme of black and yellow, or the delicate blue chicory flower made a

brave show on the roadside; but the main impression now was blackness:

the hedges were already in mourning for the sights they soon would

witness.

We lunched under some trees, three-quarters of an hour from Rudnik, and

arrived at noon. The long grass in the school enclosure had been cut as

promised--Serbian officials never fail to carry out their promises--and

by 6 p.m. the camp was established. The Prefect welcomed us on

arrival, and placed everything we could want at our disposal.

This unit was especially fortunate in its surroundings, their tent

doors opened to a georama of mountains and valleys which seemed to

stretch to Infinity and to include all the kingdoms of the world and

the glory of them. Mountains did not hide mountains, for we were on

the heights, 2,000 feet above sea-level. Ruins of an old fort on the

kopje of Ostavitza, a few kilometres distant, a reminiscence of Turkish

history, gave the only touch of human reality. The sunset that evening

ignored its usual levantine limitations, and ran riot in flaming

colours of red, and gold, and nameless greens, all over the heavens: a

chord of Nature in the major key; and in antiphon, the mountains gave

response, in colours reflected from heaven and earth and all that in

them is.

Later, when work for the day was finished, and I lay on my camp

bed--the tent doors open--gazing into the black curtain of night,

trying to see things that were invisible, the moon came sailing through

the sky, tacking in and out of banks of storm clouds. Her wireless was

as usual in minor mode. "Joy and colour are ephemeral," was her code

message. "Beauty is death, and death is shade and sorrow. The shade of

a long night draws near. The dews of death are in the air."

I was going to dispute with her, but she abruptly hid behind a

thunder-cloud. An owl in a beech tree hooted; a gust of wind sent

a shiver through the plum trees, and I remembered the stirring in

the mulberry trees--the warning to David of the coming enemy; a

rumbling, like a cannonade, echoed through the mountains; a clap like

the bursting of a thousand bombs boomed overhead--Thor's guns, more

merciful than man's--then immediately came a fall of rain, fierce,

precipitous, as though the dams of heaven had burst; lightning, like a

fiery sword, striking an unseen enemy; then a hush, as sudden as the

onslaught, and a quiet night.

The successful routine of this dispensary was, under Dr. Muncaster,

at once established. From far-off villages and isolated mountain

hamlets, the peasants came bringing their sick in ox-wagons, or walking

incredible distances. Evidently no simpler or more efficacious system

of relief could have been devised.

CHAPTER XV

The site for the fifth dispensary was chosen on August 16th, at

Vitanovatz, about six miles from Kralievo. The method of selecting

localities was always delightfully simple. I tell Colonel Guentchitch

that we are ready to open another dispensary. He at once comes up to

the camp, and in my office tent, we spread a map upon the table; the

need for help is equally great everywhere, and our aim is to choose

a place which shall be easiest of access from as many directions as

possible, and within motor reach of our Kragujevatz hospital. "Now,

Colonel, where is it to be?" He points to a place where cross roads

meet, and we decide to drive there and choose the site next day. Total

absence of red tape, and a delightful camaraderie between us.

On August 16th, Major Protitch came with the exploring party. A village

along the Kralievo road had been suggested, but it was a one-road

place, and uninteresting. "I don't like the look of this, doctor."

"All right, let's drive on farther"; and we continued till we came to

Vitanovatz--a very different proposition. "Oh, this will do; let's get

out here!" We stopped in front of the little inn, asked the landlord to

send for the Prefect, and whilst we waited, we drank Turkish coffee at

little tables in the stoep. Why should Turkish coffee, the only coffee

that is invariably good, be always served in thimble-sized cups?

In a few moments, as though by magic, the Prefect joined us. He was

beautifully dressed, in peasant costume: dark-brown frieze coat,

trousers tucked into embroidered stockings, a waistcoat braided and

hand embroidered, a soft, white shirt, and the leather sandals. Major

Protitch explained our intention, and asked if there was much sickness

amongst the people? "Yes, indeed." "Was there a large population who

would be likely to avail themselves of the dispensary?" "Oh, yes,

there were many villages behind the hills, and every person had to

pass through Vitanovatz to go to the market town of Kralievo, six

miles distant." "And no doctors near?" "None." That settled it. "Now

let's go and find a site. Is there any school building handy in case

of emergency weather in the coming autumn and winter months?" "No."

"Any rooms available later, in case of need, in the inn?" "Yes, three."

We saw these, and they were good, and we engaged them for store-rooms

for drugs, etc., and then we all walked along the road till we came to

a field adjoining the road on our left, a few yards beyond the last

house of the village. Near the road, the field was level, an excellent

place for the dispensary tent, and above a steep slope, beyond the

level stretch, was a fine plateau dotted with apple trees, evidently

intended for our staff tents. A footpath behind the plateau would make

the dispensary doubly accessible for the people. "Excellent; we'll take

this. To whom does it belong?" "To Gospodine --." "Can we see him and

make arrangements?" "No, he's away; but that will be all right." "Very

good, we shall arrive with doctor, nurses, tents and medicines in a few

days." And all was settled.

Later, when we were established, the owner returned, and to his

surprise he saw, as he approached, that his field was dotted with white

tents, and crowded with sick peasants. It happened that I was visiting

the unit. He came up to me, a little perturbed at first, but I pointed

out to him what a good work he was doing, and how lucky he was to have

been the owner of such a suitable field, and he was soon satisfied.

We drove home, _via_ Kralievo, after drinking our tea out of thermos

flasks, under the apple trees. As we reached the top of a small rise

of road, three minutes from our site, a view of the country in front

of us, accustomed as we now were to beautiful scenes, made us hold our

breath. Upon our left, close to us, amongst green-grey willows, the

broad Morava rushed, silver-grey, through a valley which was green with

fields of kukurus; a chain of stately mountains, an untiring guard of

honour, lined the river's route; and above the junction of the Morava

and the Ibar, came Kralievo, with its white one-storied houses, its

round-shaped market-place, its acacia trees, with leaves of delicate

green, and with hanging branches of red seed pods, of an exaggerated

crimson against the clear blue sky.

We drank coffee with a friend of Major Protitch under walnut trees in

the garden of the hospital, and returned to camp by 9.30, p.m., _via_

Milochai, Mirchajevli, Bresnitza, and Knish, along the banks of the

rivers Ibar, Morava, and Grusha.

On August 31st, the big motor lorries lent by the town authorities,

and our own car, and another lent by the military, conveyed dispensary

equipment and unit to start the work at Vitanovatz.

We were up at 3.30 a.m., fortunately, as we had many stickfasts on the

way, but we were established in our tents by the evening. Dr. MacMillan

was in charge, and entered heart and soul into the work, and, as though

by wireless, the people soon knew of the help available, and the field

was at all hours crowded with patients, mostly from long distances,

waiting their turn to be examined.

It was interesting to find that here, as in all other dispensaries, the

women expressed satisfaction that the doctor was of their own sex, and

the men also found that whilst the skill of the women was equal to that

of the men, their gentleness and sympathy were certainly not less. But

there was one point on which the sick people were much puzzled. They

could not understand why the doctor should want to see their tongues.

"But the pain is in my knee, not in my tongue!" said one woman boldly

when told to show her tongue. The doctor gave an explanation which must

have been extra lucid, for thenceforth it was considered good form to

enter the field with the tongue hanging out ready for inspection. How

far along the road it was necessary, in the pursuance of good form, to

begin hanging out the tongue is not recorded.

On August 27th the site for the sixth dispensary was chosen at

Rekovatz. As usual on these occasions we had our first breakfast at

four o'clock, and started at 5 a.m. with Drs. Guentchitch, Popovitch,

and Protitch. We arrived at nine o'clock, after only one breakdown,

and breakfasted at the inn. The Prefect sat with us, and told us that

the only doctor in the district had died last winter of typhus, and

that medical aid was much needed. We were taken to the late doctor's

house, which was well placed in a garden with fine trees and lawns.

His widow was still in residence, and warmly seconded the idea that we

should establish ourselves in our tents in her garden, and make use of

the dispensary rooms at the gate, in the cottage which had served as

dispensary for her husband. She offered us in addition the use of her

outside kitchen, and later, when the lawn became swamped after much

rain, she gave hospitality in her house to the doctor and the nurses.

A clever and delightful woman, and she spoke excellent French. She had

been left without income, and was now employed at the post office as

interpreter at censor work. She was enthusiastically patriotic, but

when the Germans came she had no choice but to remain as a prisoner in

her own land. I have heard that Rekovatz was treated ruthlessly, and I

have often wondered what the fate of Madame has been.

Patients did not wait for us to set up shop, but already that day came

clamouring to the inn for treatment.

We were back in camp by 5 p.m. after paying a visit to Lapovo

Dispensary on the way home. Here, with Dr. Cockburn, arrangements

were discussed with Colonel Guentchitch for building wooden sheds

for kitchen and for wash-houses, etc., in readiness for extension of

dispensary into hospital should hostilities be renewed.

The dispensary at Rekovatz was started on September 4th. The camp

was as usual installed, and in working order, by the evening. The

dispensary, in four little rooms in a cottage at the entrance to the

garden, and the staff in tents. Dr. Stewart was an ideal woman for

the work. In addition to professional skill, she had a keen sense of

humour, patience and enthusiasm, and she soon established a success.

She was sent for the first evening to see a woman who was too ill to

leave her bed. The patient, in a two-roomed cottage, was lying in a

tiny room, without any sign of ventilation, past or present. She was

closely surrounded by friends; they had already put into her hand

the lighted candle--token that she was to die. The doctor opened the

window, forced a passage to the bedside through the mourners, gently

ousted them, and took stock of the patient. Double pneumonia was the

verdict. But there was no reason, except the expressed determination of

the relatives, why death should result, if only fresh air, and food,

and medicines, at regular intervals, could be assured. It seemed almost

a pity to rob the friends of their intended tragedy, but the doctor

removed the candle from the victim's hands, and said that there was no

reason why the woman should not live; but orders must be obeyed. "Who

was in charge?" The mother came forward. "Very well, now you must see

(through the interpreter) that your daughter takes the medicine, which

I will send, every four hours. Do you understand?"

"Yes, but how are we to know when it is four hours?"

"Have you no clocks or watches?"

"None."

"And none in the village?"

"No!"

"Very well, then you must give the medicine every time you eat your

meals."

"We only eat three times a day."

"Then give the medicine three times regularly, and do everything that I

tell you, and she'll get better."

The friends in chorus promised that if she got better they would give

the doctor a pig--a fat pig. The fat pig was earned, and many other

pigs, and fruits, and presents of all kinds were received by the doctor

and her staff from grateful patients.

CHAPTER XVI

There was now only one more dispensary to be established, and on

September 9th I drove with Colonel Dragomiravitz, who was accompanied

by his wife, and little son, to choose the site. We examined the map

before we left, and the Colonel suggested Pruyelina. But when we

reached this place, I didn't like its appearance. There was only the

one road of approach, and Jelendo, a village further along the road,

became our objective. But as we drove, the Colonel remembered that at

Ovcharska Banja there were 150 Bosnian and Herzegovinian refugees,

and that, hidden away amongst the mountains, were many villages, with

neglected populations, and he decided that he would like the dispensary

to be placed at Ovcharska.

Our road lay through Milanovatz and Chachak. At the latter place we

stopped, and Colonel D. and I drank Turkish coffee at the hotel, whilst

Madame took her little boy to spend the day with his grandmother. What

has now become of them?

Beyond Chachak the country was gorgeously beautiful. The road lay

alongside the wide Morava, and we faced, all the time, the forested

Ovcharska mountains, 3,000 feet in height, a surprise of beauty even

in this beautiful country. But when we turned the last corner, and

found ourselves in the Ovcharska valley, I could scarcely contain my

joy. A narrow and thickly-wooded valley, between high mountains, also

densely forested; on the left of the wood, the adventurous Morava was

rushing over boulders, and tumbling down steep rocks, in quest of its

long-looked-for Nirvana, in the sea, and on the right of the road,

which wound in and out amongst the trees of a thick wood, were again

high mountains. Banja is the Serbian for baths, and Ovcharska is a

nucleus of hot springs; they are not mineral, but contain, it is said,

much radium. These springs bubbled here, there, and everywhere.

A few enclosures with wooden huts served as bathing centres, and

peasant women, and men, suffering from rheumatism and other ailments,

were bathing, in perfect faith that cures would follow. There was no

village, but in a clearing of the forest stood one house, used by the

timber contractor. This would, I saw at once, be suitable for emergency

winter quarters. The only other buildings were little wooden cabins,

which had recently been put up for the poor Bosnian and Herzegovinian

refugees. Many of these were, in their picturesque clothes, strolling

and sitting in the sunshine outside their huts.

This place was even more beautiful than Rudnik. But to my intense

disappointment I saw no possible camping-ground for our dispensary. I

told the Colonel; he thought there might be room enough where we stood,

but I knew the necessary dimensions, and it was impossible.

"Very well," he said, "then we must go on to Jelendo." But he was

evidently disappointed.

"Should we be of more use here or at Jelendo?"

"Oh, here undoubtedly," he answered, "because many paths which you

cannot see, and of which you would not dream"--and he looked at the

mountains--"all find their way here; whereas at Jelendo----"

I interrupted: "Very well, you stay here and look for a good rock by

the river, for our lunching place, and I'll come back presently."

I took with me the head man of the place, the timber contractor, and we

followed a little path through the wood for a couple of hundred yards.

I saw there was no clear space as far as the eye could reach. But, by

the side of us, and adjoining the river, where it was cascading down a

precipice, the ground, though covered with trees and scrub, was level.

I turned to my companion and pointed in front, and to the right of me.

"Look here; you see this tree, and this, and this"--and I made a broad

sweep with my hand and pointed to the left. "Please cut down all the

intervening trees. Do you understand?"

"Ja, Gospocho" (Yes, madame).

"The trees must be down by to-morrow evening, because to-morrow I am

going to place here an ambulance"--as the Serbians called it. "May I

rely on this being done?"

"Oh yes, Gospocho, without doubt."

I returned to the Colonel, told him that everything was settled, and

showed him the site; we ate our sandwiches by the river-side, accepted

an invitation to a second lunch, in the house of the wood contractor,

in order not to offend, and started on our homeward drive.

At Chachak we were lucky enough to meet the Prefect of Milanovatz,

the district in which Ovcharska was included. The Colonel and I

therefore asked him to be kind enough to ensure that arrangements for

the clearing of the trees, for our dispensary, should be completed

by to-morrow. He began by saying that he would telegraph to me when

the work was finished. "Oh," I answered laughingly, "I don't want a

telegram; I shall assume that the wood will be cleared by to-morrow.

But, in any event, we are coming to-morrow evening, and if necessary

we will ourselves help to clear the forest." That settled it, and the

Prefect promised to do all I wanted.

[Illustration: OUR FIELD HOSPITAL AT DOBRIDOL WITH TENT FOR WOUNDED ON

LEFT]

[Illustration: ONE OF OUR DOCTORS EXAMINING PATIENTS ARRIVING FROM THE

BATTLEFIELD NEAR JAGODINA]

But, in case of hitch, I asked the unit to be prepared to help cut down

the trees. We accordingly bought and took with us axes and hatchets;

but when we, the dispensary party, arrived next day at Ovcharska, lo

and behold! the site was clear. The place which yesterday had been

forest, was now, though rough, an excellent camp site, and we slept

comfortably in tents, on ground which had perhaps never before been

directly shined on by the sun. Difficult to imagine a better example

of the intelligent response, promptitude, and absence of red tape,

characteristic of Serbian officials.

Dr. Hall was to be the doctor in charge, but she was suffering from

a touch of fever, and for a few days, until she recovered, Dr. Tate

kindly inaugurated the work, with the usual result, crowds of grateful

peasants travelled incredible distances for the magic medicine and

advice.

Our tents faced, on the south-west, an old church and monastery,

picturesquely placed in the trees, about 300 feet up the mountain-side.

On Sunday morning some of us, including one of our chauffeurs, the Rev.

J. Little (Church of England), went to the service. We were a little

early, and as we sat outside the church, on some benches, in a wooden

shelter, the monk came and spoke to us. He was middle-aged, with black,

thick, crimpy hair and beard. Two priests from neighbouring parishes

were with him; one arrived from a long distance, riding a grey pony

and holding up an umbrella, as it was raining heavily. The time for

the service came, and we were shown into the church, and told to stand

near the lectern, on which lay the big prayer book. The elder priest,

with long grey beard, went to the lectern to open the book, and tried

to find the place, with the evident intention of starting the service.

But the sexton by his side, in short sleeves, and peasant dress, had

his own ideas as to who was to take the lead, and though the priest

remonstrated "Cheka, cheka!" (Stop, stop), the sexton opened his

mouth on one side, and emitted a horrible howl, as the first chant.

The old priest gave way, and contented himself with chiming in as best

he could, with a response now and then. One up to the sexton. But

presently the priest seemed to think we'd had enough of the prayers

on that page, and he turned to another page. But that didn't please

the sexton. He licked his thumb and turned the pages back again,

and there was a pretty fluttering of leaves backwards and forwards.

"Cheka, cheka!" remonstrated the priest, as he authoritatively turned

the pages back again. This time the sexton acquiesced, with grumpy

looks. All square. But the sexton ended one up. For, seeing that he was

worsted at the lectern, he looked at the priest with a glance which

said "All right, you'll see!" and walked smilingly out of the church,

and promptly set all the noisy church bells clanging. That was a great

success, for inside the church nothing further was audible, except an

occasional wail, "Gospodine pomiliu" (Lord, have mercy), from the old

priest, whom we had almost forgotten, behind the screen. As a finish

to the service, the priest came out from behind the scenes with a

saucer in which was bread that had been blessed, for the congregation.

He himself gave it to the first three peasants, after they had kissed

an ikon on the wall near; then he seemed to get bored, for he gave

it up and placed the saucer on a desk, and left the people to take

it themselves; and the service was ended. It had been conducted, as

usual, in the old Slavonic language, which no one understood. The

congregation had stood all the time, and taken no part, except that

they occasionally crossed themselves.

Upon the walls of the church were beautiful frescoes of the fifteenth

century, and because they were in bad condition, they were about to be

whitewashed. Equivalent to saying, if you are ill, don't send for the

doctor, murder the patient. The only touch of soulful atmosphere was to

be obliterated.

After the service, the monk invited us to his house, adjoining the

church, and in the corridor we sat at a table, and talked, whilst

cigarettes, rakiya, and coffee were handed round. Mr. Little, our

clergyman chauffeur, who generally drove me, was with us. The priests

thought it very strange that a clergyman should be a chauffeur; they

asked if he was married? He was not. That again was strange to them,

because in Serbia a priest must marry whether he wants to do so or

not. A monk, on the other hand, must not, even if he wants to. A monk

and a priest were both present, so I asked them which of the two had

the worse fate--the one who must marry even if he wouldn't, or he who

mustn't even if he would. They laughed much, but the question was too

difficult; the answer was not contained in their theology.

The priest then wanted to know if English clergymen might marry two

wives? No interpreter was present, and our hosts only spoke Serbian,

and I thought at first that he meant bigamy, and I held up my hands

shocked. But he explained that he meant one wife after the other.

He, himself, if his present wife died, would, he explained, never be

allowed to marry again. Would our priest-chauffeur, who was sure to

marry some day, be allowed to marry again if his first wife died? "Oh,

yes!" I answered, "he may drive tandem but not a pair." I added that

this chauffeur priest was a very lucky man. He marries a wife; she

dies, no matter; he marries a second; she dies, no matter; he marries

a third, and so on to infinity. And when I further added that, indeed,

the only condition set by law as a premise for a priest's marrying with

a dozen successive wives, was the decease of, or divorce from, the

previous wife, our priest said he would like to live in England. "And

I should like to live in Serbia," I replied. "If I were not already

married, I should certainly choose to marry a Serbian priest, for my

husband could not fail to put a high value on me; he would know that,

though I might not be perfect, he could never get a better wife."

The priests then asked us if we would go with them to meet their

Metropolitan (Bishop), who was to pass through Ovcharska. We walked

together with all the monks to the tiny station on the railway, which

ran from Ushitza to Stalatz, and, when the train stopped, we were

introduced to, and talked with, the Bishop; also with two French

doctors who were on their way from Ushitza to Nish. I hoped they

might have some serum syringes, of which we were in need--much of our

dispensary equipment having gone astray at Nish.

As the train was starting, the postman, with letters to be posted in

the train, came leisurely along the line; when he saw that the train

was moving, he gave a spurt, and dropped half the letters on the

ground. He took no notice, but ran on and posted the others. We picked

up those he had dropped, and ran after him and gave them to him. He

could, with an effort, have put them in the box, but he calmly said,

"Sutra" (to-morrow). I wasn't sure whether I envied him his philosophy;

I hadn't time to think it out; I wanted to call on the man and woman

who had given us lunch on our first visit. They were leaving Ovcharska

and going to Chachak, and I wished to make sure of the legacy of their

rooms in case of emergency weather in the winter; also I wanted to buy

from them a sheep. I accomplished both missions, the latter at the

cost of seventeen dinars. A dinar equals about sevenpence. Our sheep,

therefore, cost us nine shillings and tenpence. It was destined for

supper, and our timber friend said it must be roasted whole, according

to custom. He made all the arrangements, and sent us word in the

evening that we must come and watch it roasting. A fire had been

lighted, in a shed, near our friend's house, as rain was still falling

in torrents. The sheep was threaded on a stick, one end of the stick

was made stationary, and the other end was held by a man, who turned it

round and round, over the red ashes of the fire. It only took two hours

to cook. When ready it was carried on the stick by two men, and a third

held over it a big umbrella, to keep off the rain. We thus walked in

procession to our own tents, where our cook--helped, I expect, by one

of our friendly carriers--jointed and carved the poor animal. I can't

say I enjoyed the feast: without the usual sceneries to disguise the

horrors, it was too realistic.

Everything, however, was interesting and picturesque. It was difficult

to imagine where the patients would come from; we seemed to be entirely

surrounded by roadless mountains. But through the forests of beech,

maple, and Turkey oak, narrow paths wound along, and up and down,

the steep mountain sides, and the peasants brought their sick in

wheelbarrows, or on stretchers made of branches, or along the main

road, in ox-wagons.

The first patient was a boy who was terribly burnt, and already in

a serious condition; he would certainly have died but for the help

received.

The whole valley and hillsides were the property of the monks, and they

asked us if we should like them to bless our dispensary work with an

opening ceremony of prayer? We, of course, agreed gratefully.

The monk from our own near monastery, and the monk from the monastery

of Sretenya, distant a two hours' climb up the mountains, together with

the priest from Chachak, also the Prefect of the district, arrived

next day at 2.30 p.m. A heavy shower of rain, as they arrived, made

us take shelter in the mess tent. Our monk's pigs ran squawking past

the tent doors, having been chased out of the kitchen by the cook. "Ah!

my pigs," commented complacently our home monk. "Yes," I replied, also

complacently, "and one day Gospodine Svesternik will come and ask,

'where are my pigs?' and," pointing to my central anatomy, "I shall

reply, 'Here!'" That started conversation pleasantly, and then came

tea. Serbian people like their tea weak, without milk, and with much

sugar; and most of us liked it strong, with milk, and without sugar; so

that gave us something not too difficult to talk about in the Serbian

language. But that tower of Babel business was a confounded nuisance,

and I was glad when the rain left off and we went out to the ceremony.

Outside the dispensary tent, a small table had been placed; upon it

was a white cloth, and on this stood a silver candlestick holding the

familiar long brown candle, with the Serbian arms marked upon it. The

sexton now lighted the candle. Upon the table was also an old silver

crucifix, with red beads let in (I should have loved to have that

crucifix), and a bowl of water containing a sprig of the national

plant--boziliac. The monk, on whose land we were stationed, put on a

beautiful pale blue silk embroidered robe, and removed his tall black

cap. The priest then took an incense vessel, filled with ashes, and

swung it in front of us all in turn; prayers were then said by our

monk, whilst untuneful responses were chanted by the other two. Then

more incense swinging, and prayers, and sprinkling of the holy water

from the plant, in all directions. Then our monk, holding the crucifix

in one hand and the holy plant in the other, suddenly came and stood

close in front of me. Good gracious! Evidently something was expected

of me. For a minute I was frightened, but if in doubt in Serbia, kiss.

I kissed the crucifix whilst he pressed the wet plant to my forehead.

Evidently a good guess, for he passed on, and the act was repeated on

the forehead of each one in turn. Finally our monk made a charming

little speech about the benefits which the people would derive from

the dispensary, and expressed his gratitude and appreciation. The

other monk then took my hand and also spoke, with much feeling, of the

gladness and gratitude which had filled their hearts at our coming to

help their people, and the ceremony was over. They allowed me to take a

photograph of them; but unfortunately this photo, with all photos taken

during the first six months in Serbia, is now in the hands of the enemy.

The monks gave us pressing invitations to visit them in their mountain

monasteries, and I had every intention of accepting their hospitality

the next time I came to the dispensary. But I returned to camp on

September 16th, the day following the benediction ceremony, and I

never, alas! went again to my beloved Ovcharska.

The dispensaries were now all inaugurated, and the scheme, in full

working order, was in every way fulfilling our highest hopes. The

greatest, in fact the only, difficulty had been the delay in arrival

of the dispensary medical equipment; this went wrong at Nish and

elsewhere, and we had trouble to secure the necessary scales and serum

syringes, etc. But miracles always happened at moments when things

looked blackest, and by one means and another obstacles had been

overcome.

The six new motor ambulances for the use of the six new dispensaries,

only arrived on September 17th. They had arrived at Salonica without a

note of authorisation for their delivery, and the port officials had

refused to deliver them till weeks had been wasted in communication

with London. And even on September 17th, the spare parts had not

arrived. We had, therefore, been obliged to work the dispensaries, and

to keep up communications, with the one camp ambulance that was left.

CHAPTER XVII

We were now dealing, as seen upon the sketch, with a large area of

the Schumadia District, and 20,000 people had already passed through

our hands. If the work could only be continued through the winter,

substantial results might be expected for the poor suffering peasants.

But rumours of a massing of Bulgarian troops on their frontier, and of

Germans and Austrians on the Danube front, grew more substantial. If

fighting eventuated, all our dispensary work must be stopped, and once

more the unfortunate peasants must be left to their fate. But whatever

happened, the scheme was an established success, and it was comforting

to think that it could be restarted as soon as the war is over.

From talks which I had with various officials, I knew that tragedies

were already hovering not far away, and, in order to be ready for

eventualities, I visited Rudnik, Vitanovatz, Rekovatz, and Lapovo,

respectively, on 19th, 21st, 23rd and 24th September, to arrange,

either for winter quarters, if hostilities were not resumed (frosts

had already begun), or for plans of evacuation if fighting began.

Colonel Guentchitch drove with me to Vitanovatz; he told me that

the Austrians, and probably also the Germans, were massing on the

Danube, and that fighting was imminent. Our help, he said, would soon

be urgently needed. On the 24th, Major Protitch came early to the

camp and asked me to go and see the Chief, at the office of the Army

Medical Department. On my way, therefore, to Lapovo, I stopped at the

office. Colonel Guentchitch was there and he immediately told me that

the military situation had become serious, that the Serbian Army was

now mobilising, and he asked if I would, with a portion of the unit,

accompany the Army as a flying field hospital to the front. It had

always been understood, as before mentioned, that our mobile camp was

to be utilised in this way, if hostilities should be resumed, and, in

fulfilment of the promise which had been made soon after we had arrived

at Kragujevatz, I replied that I should be glad to perform service in

whichever way was to the Serbian authorities most serviceable.

The Bulgarians had not allowed foreigners to accompany their field

hospitals, and I knew that it was unusual to ask foreign units to

undertake this work. I, therefore, all the more appreciated the tribute

now paid to our unit and to our country.

But a further compliment was yet to come. "We shall be glad,"

continued the Colonel, "if you will take command of the column. We ask

you--without supervision of Serbian officers--to take entire charge of

material and equipment, as well as of the staff--British and Serbian.

This is, I believe," he continued, "the first time in history that

such an appointment has been offered to a woman; but, new times, new

customs, and," he added simply, "we know that you can do it." As I

listened to these words I wondered if I really was in Serbia, in a

country which had for many hundred years been under Turkish rule,

and subject to Turkish traditions concerning women. I expressed my

appreciation of the confidence shown, my hope that I might prove worthy

of it, and my gladness at being able to show, even in a small way, the

sympathy which existed between our nation and the Serbian people.

Colonel Guentchitch then arranged how many of the unit from the Stobart

Hospital, would be required. Two women doctors, four women nurses, one

woman cook, two interpreters, one secretary and two women orderlies;

and, in addition, a commissariat under-officer, and a treasurer

(nicknamed Sandford and Merton), a Serbian dispenser, a sergeant, and

sixty Serbian soldiers were to accompany us. The latter were to serve

as ambulance men and as drivers for the thirty oxen and horse wagons

which would be used as transport for hospital material, tents and

stores.

As the dispensaries must at once be called in, the seven motor

ambulances which had just arrived from England for the dispensaries,

would now, together with their chauffeurs, be without work. Six of

these motors, together with their corresponding chauffeurs, were

therefore at once requisitioned for the transport of our future

wounded, and for the conveying of our own staff from place to place.

This left the Stobart Hospital the richer, with one of the new

ambulances in addition to the one which had hitherto sufficed for all

the dispensary and camp work. The six motor ambulances were, of course,

indispensable for the field hospital work. But the spare parts for

these had even now not yet arrived from Salonica, though they were

supposed to be on their way, and we must trust to their being forwarded

to us. We received them later in Palanka.

I felt considerable reluctance at the thought of leaving the hospital,

of which, during six months, I had been in charge, and I expressed my

hesitation to Colonel Guentchitch. "But," he replied promptly, "you

are needed for the more important work; we will see that no harm comes

to the Stobart Hospital." It had been working for six months, and

the routine was firmly established; all the doctors and nurses and

orderlies and interpreters from the various dispensaries would now be

set free, to give additional help, and Dr. King-May, who would be left

in charge, was very capable of continuing the work.

There was no time for hesitation, and I accepted the more difficult

service, glad of the opportunity of giving practical proof of British

sympathy with the brave Serbian Army.

Colonel Guentchitch immediately telephoned to Colonel Pops Dragitch,

who at once came to the Army Medical Office and gave the details as

to the numbers of oxen and wagons, etc., available. He also arranged

for me to meet him next morning at the 6th Reserve Hospital, with our

doctors, to see the equipment. I was told to hold myself in readiness

to leave in two days' time, if necessary. Thus, within a few minutes,

all was settled.

Serbian officers act upon the principle "Trust all in all, or not at

all." From that first moment in the Army Medical Office, to the last

sad moment of surrendering the command at Scutari, complete confidence

was shown, and had I been a male fellow-officer, I could not have been

treated with greater trustfulness.

I continued that morning in the car to Lapovo, and with Dr. Cockburn

discussed arrangements for the future hospital in the building,

which was now ready for beds; returned to camp by 4 p.m.; settled

which tents and what stores should be taken; at 5 o'clock discussed

further arrangements with Colonels Guentchitch and Pops Dragitch and

Major Protitch, who all came up to the camp; and finally tackled the

most difficult job of the day, when, after supper, with the doctors,

the selection of the staff for the flying field hospital, had to be

made. Heart-burnings and disappointments were inevitable, for almost

everybody from the camp and from the dispensaries wanted to be chosen,

and almost everybody thought that they had special claims. Special

physical fitness for the work at the front, as well as the requirements

of the hospital left behind, had to be taken into consideration.

The doctors selected were Drs. Payne and Coxon; nurses--Cockerill,

Collins, Giles, Newhall and Kennedy (six more nurses were on the way

from England to replace them); chauffeurs--Little, Marshall, Colson,

Holmstrom, Jordan, and Miss Sharman; cook--Mrs. Dawn; orderlies--Miss

Benjamin and Miss Chapple; interpreters--Vooitch and George; and the

secretary was John Greenhalgh.

At 9 the next morning (Saturday, September 25th) Dr. May and Dr. Payne

went with me to meet Colonel Dragitch, to see the equipment at the

6th Reserve Hospital, and they were much pleased with the drugs and

surgical instruments. A full inventory was to be given us later.

On September 27th, the flying hospital unit was due at the Reserve

Hospital for full-dress inspection by Colonel Pops Dragitch and Colonel

Guentchitch. Oxen and horse wagons were packed with tents and stores,

and the motor ambulances with personal kit, and by 9 a.m. we were

on the parade ground. All the other wagons and oxen and horses were

already there. We drew up in line, and the Colonels seemed pleased

with the arrangements. Colonel Dragitch then called the sixty soldiers

who were to serve with us, and when they were drawn up in line he

introduced them to their Commandant, and told them that they must yield

obedience and be amenable to discipline. And, through the Colonel, I

made a little reply speech to the men, and our unit returned to camp.

At 5 that evening Major Popovitch, Principal Medical Officer of the

Schumadia Division, came to see me, and to ask me to go with him next

day to see the Colonel who was in command of the division, which was

now at Aranjelovatz. Accordingly, next morning early, I called for

Major Popovitch in the car, and together we drove to the Colonel's

headquarters in the picturesque little town of Aranjelovatz, about

sixty kilometres distant. On the way we met large convoys of cavalry,

artillery with their fodder, etc., all on their way to the Bulgarian

front; this was, I now learnt, to be our destination. Up to that

moment, however, it was not known officially whether the Bulgarians

were mobilising as a measure of precaution, or which side they might

eventually join. If they joined the Serbians, our unit might perhaps go

on to Constantinople; if they were neutral, we might be sent through

Rumania against Austria. The third possibility, that they might fight

Serbia, was unfortunately the most likely, and in that case our

destination would be in the direction of Sofia.

Colonel Terzitch had visited the Stobart Hospital; I was therefore not

a stranger to him; but though my experience of Serbian officers had

invariably been of the happiest, Colonel Terzitch had a great military

reputation, and I rather feared that at such a critical moment he might

be preoccupied, stern, and unsympathetic towards a woman. But I found

him one of the most delightfully human men I have ever met in any

country. He received me as an old friend, and at once said how happy

he was to know that he was to have our unit with him. There was here

no grudging acceptance of service, but genuine appreciation of our

desire to show practical sympathy. He at once telephoned to ascertain

whether the unit could be conveyed by train to the destination now

revealed--Pirot, near the Bulgarian frontier--or whether we must

proceed by road. It was arranged that a train should be put at our

disposal, and that we should leave for the front, and be ready at

two hours' notice at any moment that we received word from Colonel

Guentchitch. The Commandant invited me to lunch with him and with all

the other officers of the staff, and he suggested that meanwhile I

might like to see the fountain of mineral water known as Kisala, and

the Hydropathic Hotel, now a hospital, which were in the town. Major

Popovitch came with me, and he also showed me his house, in which

he and his family had lived during the summer. He, with his wife and

children, had left it three days ago for Kragujevatz. I had seen the

children that morning when they came to the gate of his home, to see

him start in the car with me. From the moment, a few days later, when

he left for Pirot, he has never seen them again, and can obtain no news

of them. He only knows that his two houses and all his property have

been destroyed, and that his wife and children are in the hands of

an unscrupulous enemy. All the married officers who took part in the

retreat are suffering similar torture.

The lunch that day was an interesting function, because most of the

thirty officers were also going to the front. I noticed that their

uniforms varied in colour, and Colonel Terzitch explained that it was

not possible to get enough material of any one pattern, so everybody

had to get the nearest match available.

The party included the Colonel's mother, a charming old lady, wearing

an old-fashioned Turkish head-dress. I wondered if she would be shocked

at the idea of my going with the army, but I gathered that, though

Serbian women have not yet been launched into the activities of their

sisters in the West, they are sympathetic, and I have no doubt that

when the war is over, their lives will be fashioned upon Western rather

than--as of old--upon Eastern lines.

Everybody, though earnest, was in good spirits, and I parted, after

lunch, from Colonel Terzitch and Major Popovitch on the understanding

that we should next meet at Pirot. Two officers returned with me in the

car to Kragujevatz, one of them commissioned to see that benzine for

our motor ambulances was requisitioned, and the other to do business

with Colonel Guentchitch.

Next morning, September 29th, Colonels Dragitch, Milanovitch and

Pankovitch, and Colonel Guentchitch came to the camp to say that we

were to start as soon as a train was available. Colonel Guentchitch

brought with him medals for the Stobart Unit, and these he kindly

distributed, in appreciation of the services performed by all the

various members.

During these days arrangements were in process for evacuating the

civilian patients from the hospital in order to make room for wounded,

for recalling the dispensary units, for staffing and starting the new

hospital at Lapovo; also for establishing the winter quarters for the

Stobart Hospital, which was to be transferred to the new barracks, on

the other side of the main road which ran along the southern border of

our encampment.

On Thursday, September 30th, we knew that we might expect marching

orders at any moment. At seven that morning we sighted two German

aeroplanes coming towards us. All the patients, as usual, were

evacuated within five minutes. Five people were killed and ten were

wounded by the bombs, in Kragujevatz.

Some of these bombs had fallen near our camp, and Colonel Guentchitch

and other officers came up to be assured that all was well. We had a

narrow escape the next day. Again, at 7 a.m., German aeroplanes arrived

and began dropping bombs on the town; the intention being, presumably,

to destroy the arsenal. But this time they thought our camp worthy of

attention. This was tiresome, as we received that morning the order to

be at the railway station with the convoy, ready to embark at 3 p.m.

The motor ambulances, all in line, would have made an easy target, so

we distributed them and hid them as best we could. One bomb fell in the

camp, but luckily buried itself in a soft place; another exploded in

the middle of our stores, and spare tents, in the new barracks, missing

three of the unit, who had just been sorting these stores, by less

than a minute. Tents were burnt, and marmalade destroyed, and holes

made in the walls, but otherwise no harm was done. I didn't hear how

many people were killed in the town, but one man who was brought to us

injured, died before he could be moved from the stretcher.

As soon as we were rid of one set of aeroplanes another lot arrived,

but they had the decency to clear off in time for us to collect our

cortège and be ready at two o'clock to start for the station.

The six Ford motor-ambulances were to carry the staff of twenty-one

with their personal baggage; our own ox-wagons and one cart, drawn by

two horses, took our personal food, stores, and tents; all the rest

of the thirty wagons, including water-cart and oxen and horses, were

to meet us at the station. We had been given by the director of the

arsenal a field-kitchen on wheels, which had been taken last autumn

from the Austrians. This went with us and was a valuable asset.

It was an interesting moment, when, at the sound of the whistle, the

little company assembled, said good-bye to the remaining unit and

jumped into the ambulances, which were numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, for

easy identification by their respective crews, and started for the

front (on Friday, October 1st).

Good-bye to our beautiful white camp, in which so many scenes had been

enacted--of sorrow, and of work, and some of play; and in which hopes

for the Serbian future had fluctuated, now on one side, now on the

other, of the balance.

What fate would befall us, and those who were left behind, before we

met--if ever--again? But those who were left behind would, at least,

I trusted, be protected from harm, for they would be under special

supervision, and Kragujevatz was the Military Headquarters. Besides,

the enemy would never reach Kragujevatz!

But for one and all there was one word--Good-bye. God be with you; and

He was.

PART III