The news grew more and more serious. The Bulgars had taken Vranya, the
Germans were at Valievo, and also at Michaelovatz, close behind us.
The Serbs had been badly beaten in the morning. An unending stream
of refugees passed along the road, and whole families of women and
children, babies in arms, infants that could just toddle, boys and
young girls, all sheltered at night near us in the wood, constructing
as best they could, rough arbours of branches, for protection from rain
and wind. We had no time for practical sympathy with these forlorn
people, who would, in all probability, never see their homes or
their menfolk again. All this was another horrible side-light on the
"glories" of war.
The situation was growing hourly worse. Where were the French and
English troops? We received marching orders, and were off again by
6 a.m. (October 20th) for Gliebovatz, two miles to the north of
Palanka. It was again difficult, owing to mud, and rain, and wind, and
no shelter, to find suitable ground for tents, oxen, and the men's
bivouacs. Major A., who had, from the first been pessimistic as to
the military situation, was now much depressed. He told us that the
Bulgars were already near to Nish; that they had cut the line; that
the Serbian Government had left Nish; and that the Germans were only
three kilometres behind us. The French doctors, however, were always
delightfully optimistic, and they and we made a point of trying to
laugh the Major out of his forebodings.
On the 20th we received no wounded--again a bad sign, though there was
not much firing. We expected marching orders every minute, and we did
not put up all the tents. Most of the staff slept in the cars.
On Thursday, October 21st, at 9 a.m., we received the order to go to
Palanka, and to establish our dressing-station in the Casino, opposite
to the Hotel Serbia, in which Major A.'s column was placed. Rooms for
the staff were found in the Hotel Central. I slept in the car, as
usual. The cars were drawn up in the yard of a private house. There
was a small veranda and a kitchen belonging to the house, and here we
cooked and ate our food.
Palanka, when we entered it, was already evacuated in readiness for the
Germans. The houses were deserted, the shops shuttered, the mud churned
by thousands of oxen, horses, and wagons, into gelatinous paste, was
a foot deep. Heavy rain was falling. In the main street a continuous
stream of fugitives--old men, women and children--were splashing
through the mud, carrying their bundles of household treasures on their
backs, and driving hurriedly before them their precious pigs, and goats
and little flocks of sheep.
The news from the front, which was, alas! behind us, continued to be
bad. Work, therefore, for doctors and nurses was slack; there is never
time, in a retreat, to collect all the wounded. At this point we were
troubled to know how to carry the benzine for the cars. It was too
heavy for the wagons, and we optimistically decided to send some of it
by train to Lapovo, to await us there. I stopped a refugee woman with
her cart and commandeered her, against payment, to take some barrels to
the station. The barrels left for Lapovo, but we never saw them again,
because Lapovo was in the enemy's hands before we reached it.
[Illustration: BROKEN BRIDGE AT FRONTIER BETWEEN MONTENEGRO AND ALBANIA
Our route lay across the basaltic rocks]
[Illustration: SERBIAN SOLDIER (2nd RESERVE) DURING THE RETREAT]
Our P.M.O. seemed this day more than usually sad, chiefly on
account of the people. He calculated that at least half a million
unoffending peasants must die of starvation. This has proved to be an
underestimate. But as we should probably, he said, be remaining that
day in Palanka, he asked if I would like to go and exchange greetings
with our commander. The latter was as delightful, and cheery as usual,
and it was easy to understand one, at least, of the reasons why he made
a good commander. I was much interested in all he told me about the
general position; some day, when the situation was more favourable, I
was, he said, to go with him and watch a battle at close quarters.
Shortly after I had left Headquarters the mounted orderly came up with
the white envelope: marching orders, and we moved on immediately. This
was inopportune, as Dr. Coxon was in need of boots, and, at the moment,
she and I were on the point of breaking into a locked and shuttered
boot shop. We were obliged to go without the boots; the doctor's
crimeless record was left unsullied, but her feet were left unshod, and
this at the time seemed more important.
We arrived at dusk, after much trouble with the cars owing to the
mud, and took up quarters near some old stone quarries. The guns were
growing noisy again, and it was curiously interesting to watch the fire
from shell and shrapnel on the hills close behind Palanka. Wounded
came again during the night, and we evacuated fifty in our cars and
in wagons supplied by the ambulance column, to Ratcha. The wounds
were terrible, and some men were already dead when they arrived. The
transport of the wounded was always an anxiety, lest the job should not
be completed, and the motors should not have returned, before the next
order to move should come, as that would complicate the question of
staff transport.
I went to bed at one a.m. and was up again at four. I saw that Major A.
was on the move, and I knew that our order must come soon. Just then a
captain of infantry arrived, and said that we ought to go at once; he
had been given orders to dig trenches on the place of our encampment.
I told him that he could dig his trenches, but we could not go until
the order came. We made ready for departure, and packed everything
except the surgical dressings, and then more wounded came, so they
were tended. One man died at dawn, and we buried him. At 6 o'clock the
order came to go towards Ratcha, to a place only distant 1½ hours. We
encamped in a field by the roadside, and immediately wounded arrived.
The outstanding feature of this camp was the behaviour of the
dispenser. I noticed during the morning that he was haranguing in a
loud voice, and that all the men were gathered in a circle listening
to him and laughing. I went to see what was happening, and I found
that he was drunk. When he saw me, he stopped talking and ran away
and jumped on an unsaddled horse, saying that he was going to ride to
Headquarters. The soldiers and I followed him, and the former held
the horse, and I told him to dismount immediately. He refused, and
promptly pulled a loaded revolver from his pocket. At that moment a
friend, with whom he had been drinking, an under-officer from another
column encamped close to us, came up and persuaded him to dismount.
He took him off to his camp, and said that he would keep him until
he had recovered. I took the revolver, and found that it was loaded
with five cartridges, and I sent it with a messenger to the P.M.O. In
the evening, when I was in the car preparing for a few hours' sleep,
the dispenser suddenly arrived and demanded his revolver, and when I
told him that it was in the possession of the P.M.O., he was furious
and vowed vengeance. He would smash the cars and destroy everything
we had, etc., but I got rid of him. The sergeant and the soldiers
were very angry, and volunteered to put extra guards round my car,
and no more was heard of him. When a fitting opportunity came he was
removed. That was the only case of drunkenness I saw from start to
finish of that three months' retreat, and he, the dispenser, was not
a Serbian proper: he was an Austrian Serb, and, like most of these
semi-Austrians, he was hyper-nervous of falling into Austrian hands.
The next morning (October 24th) at 5.45, we again retreated, this time
to a field beyond Ratcha. The roaring of the guns was now terrific,
and the scenes along the roads, which were crowded with refugees,
who were all mixed up with the retreating convoys of the army, were
heartrending. But this day, for the first time since we left Pirot, the
sun shone, and we were at least physically warm for a few hours.
In the afternoon we witnessed a strange sight. A German aeroplane
was flying over our heads, when suddenly from behind some clouds, a
French biplane appeared, and the two flew towards each other. And
then, as though to hide from us on earth the prostitution of science
to murderous ends, both birds of prey dived into a huge white cumulus
cloud and disappeared; and immediately, though both biplanes remained
invisible, the sound reached us of pit-pit-pit-pit from their spiteful
quick-firing guns, as the aviators played hide and seek amongst the
clouds. Strange to think that even the heavens are now invaded by the
murderous machines of man. We watched for a long time, but we never saw
anything emerge from the thick cloud.
That day we heard a rumour that the Germans had been driven out of
Ratcha by two regiments who had rushed on them with bayonets, in
disregard of the general order to retreat. I tried to believe it was
true. On the evening of that day, when again marching orders arrived,
I wondered, as I opened the white envelope, whether, on the strength
of the last rumour of a German repulse, we might not at last be going
to have the joy of an advance. No one who has not experienced the
depressing effect of retreating, day after day, in the home country of
the retreating army, can picture the eagerness with which the slightest
hope of a change of fortune will be hailed. But, alas! a glance at the
order soon dissipated hope.
The direction of the place detailed for the next halt was still
southerly. It was nine p.m. when the order came. Immediately
everything, tents, surgical boxes, kitchen materials, etc., were packed
in readiness for departure, when suddenly, as we were about to start,
a batch of fifty badly wounded soldiers arrived in ox-wagons, from
the battle-field, to be dressed. We could hear that the Germans were
now close behind us; their big guns were banging ominously, as the
wagons discharged their burdens on the ground, and disappeared. At
once I gave the order for the necessary surgical boxes to be unpacked.
The night was cold, and dark, and by the light of hurricane lamps,
the doctors and the nurses set to work and cut away the torn and
bloodstained garments and dressed the wounds of the gory, groaning,
battered objects, who were placed upon the ground, round impromptu
bonfires, which we made of hay, and straw, and wood, to give warmth.
One man was already dead; I ordered a grave to be dug, saw that it was
the regulation depth--three feet--and then sent to another column for a
priest. For the Serbian soldier is like many another of us, he is not
particular about saying his prayers during his lifetime, but he is very
particular that prayers should be said over his dead body. Then I stood
beside the priest, a few yards behind the scrimmage round the bonfires,
whilst he, in his gay embroidered robe, chanted, all out of tune, in
the old Slavonic language, which no one now understands, the words of
the Greek Church burial service. He held the prayer book in one hand,
and read by the light of a small piece of tallow candle held in the
other. The groans of the wounded, and the thunder of the guns, coming
ever nearer and nearer, made an effective accompaniment. The only
incongruity was the frequent repetition in the priest's prayers, of the
word "Allelujah!" Why "Allelujah!"? I asked myself in the intervals of
my "Amen" responses, as the scene round those bonfires burnt itself
upon my mind.
The Germans were coming on fast behind us. They had taken Palanka in
the afternoon, and there was no doubt that as we had received the
order to move, a couple of hours ago, we ought not now to be here; but
we still had our fifty wounded to evacuate. We had been told in the
morning that we were to send all the wounded to a hospital along the
road leading to Kragujevatz, in a south-westerly direction. It was
evidently, then, intended that the retreat should follow that route.
But now the orders were to move the column to a place which was, as the
map disclosed, along the road leading to Krushievatz, in a southerly
direction. I knew that the Germans had, since the morning's order,
taken Palanka, close behind us, and that if I now obeyed the morning's
order, and sent the wounded and the chauffeurs along the Kragujevatz
road, they would almost certainly be cut off by the enemy. I also knew
that to disobey a military command is to incur grave responsibility;
but I incurred it, in obedience to common sense; and as there was no
time for hesitation, I decided at once that the wounded must come
along the Krushievatz road with us. I was sure that there would be a
hospital, sooner or later, along that road.
But how were we to move the patients? Three of our motors had gone with
wounded, earlier in the afternoon, along the Kragujevatz road, and had
not yet returned. That left us with only three motors for the staff
and for the wounded. The ox-wagons which had brought the patients from
the field had disappeared, and, owing to the nearness of the enemy,
no other wagons would be available unless Major A. could spare some.
He was stationed a quarter of a mile away, across some marshy fields.
I must ask him; a messenger would be useless; I must go myself. I
tumbled into half a dozen ditches and a bog or two, in the dark, and
found him. But he was in the same straits as we were, with many wounded
and no transport; he could give no help. I ran back to our column.
There was only one thing to be done, if the whole hospital was not to
be taken by the enemy. The staff, who usually travelled in the motor
ambulances, must walk, until the three motors from the Kragujevatz road
caught us up, the worst wounded must go in the motors, those who could
crawl, must crawl, and as for the others--well! the usual miracle made
everything quite simple, for at that moment empty artillery wagons
were passing, and they gladly took the residue of the wounded; and two
soldiers were left to tell the three cars to follow on.
The road was abominable, with mud and holes, and narrow and broken
bridges, and in the dark, dangerous. We were continually, all through
the night, obliged to lift the wounded out of the ambulances, and carry
them over the dangers, and hold our breath whilst the motors--those
wonderful Ford cars, wonderfully handled--performed acrobatic feats
inconceivable to orthodox chauffeurs at home. The three other motors
caught us up after we had been trekking for two or three hours, and
the staff were again able to ride. This was, fortunately, just before
we came to a bridge which was the scene of six motor miracles. I was
riding, as always, in front of the column, and when I was half-way
across the bridge, I discovered, just in time, that the planks
on either side, a few yards in front of me, had been broken off,
presumably by the wheels of the heavy gun-wagons which had preceded
us. There was no parapet, and the bridge was so narrow, that it seemed
doubtful whether there was room for a car, even if it could steer
straight enough, to avoid the precipice on either side. If the wheels
skidded in the mud, the car must overturn; and just beyond the bridge
there was a mud-hole three or four feet deep; and there was no other
road. The wagons, being warned, passed safely, though some stuck in the
mud-hole and had to be dug out. But the men then cut branches of trees
and found some kukurus stalks. We stopped the mud-holes with the trees,
and laid the kukurus on the skiddy mud on the bridge, and the road was
now mended for the motors. The wounded were lifted out and carried on
stretchers over the bridge; the first chauffeur had a final good look
at the place, then mounted the car and made a dash. Well done indeed!
We breathed again--he was safely past the precipice, and only stuck in
the hole beyond. That was nothing, for the advantage of a Ford is that
you can lift it out of mud-holes. It seemed impossible, however, that
the other five chauffeurs should all be equally skilful and equally
lucky. And what about the nerve of the woman chauffeur? It was as good
as the men's, and that is saying much. And we left that danger safely
behind.
There were plenty of others ahead of us, and continually, all through
the night, the cars had to be pushed and lifted out of mud-holes.
Sometimes, as a variety, a wagon would overturn and block the road;
but everything developed the wholesome habit of righting itself, and
we reached Gradatz at 9.15 next morning. I was growing accustomed to
small allowances of sleep, and I never felt physical fatigue; but on
this occasion, although I was not tired, I grew sleepy about four in
the morning, when the road became less dramatic, and I was surprised to
find how uncomfortable it was trying to keep awake on horseback. I fell
asleep for a second or two, then felt myself swaying in the saddle,
pulled myself together and gave my mind some active thoughts, only to
fall asleep again and go through the same performance. But by the time
we arrived I was thoroughly awake.