Our encampment was in a field, near a small stream, with high hills
on the other side of the road. The sun was shining inspiringly when
we arrived, and after the wounded, who had come with us, had been
attended, we had some coffee, and a couple of hours' rest was the next
order. We were only about six miles from Lapovo, and I sent George
with a note to Doctor Cockburn, asking for news, and telling her that
we were near. I was on my way to take a rest, when an officer, who was
riding past, stopped when he saw our camp. He dismounted and came up
to me, so I stayed to give him some breakfast and to talk with him. He
was very depressed; he did not see how his country could be saved; and
he horrified me by bringing out of his pocket a loaded revolver--he
said he should end his life if the Germans took possession of the land.
I tried to comfort him, both with food and cheery thoughts, placing
most reliance on the former. He had eaten nothing since mid-day of
yesterday, and at first he refused food, but I compelled him to eat
a good breakfast, and I hope that happier thoughts were the result.
Serbian officers, though particular about their food in peace time,
seem to ignore the importance of food when their swords are girt. My
friend rode away, and I was just going to rest for an hour, when at
noon the Staff mounted orderly rode up; I knew what that meant--instant
departure.
I was not surprised, for the guns were making a deafening noise close
at hand. We had already despatched our last wounded, so we packed and
were away within half an hour. There was no time for lunch. Berzan,
the other side of Batuchini, was our goal. Rain was again falling,
but we found it a good plan to take the Serbian view that rain was a
blessing (because it checked the progress of the big German guns), and
we accepted it cheerfully. We had travelled a few kilometres along
the road, when we met a convoy coming towards us in obvious haste. It
was curious that they should be coming towards us, as the retreat was
general. The under officers who were in charge shouted to me as they
passed, that we had better turn back at once. It was not possible, they
said, to go through Batuchini, the next village, as this was now under
bombardment, and the shells were dropping in the street through which
we must pass. Our sergeant, and dispenser, and Sandford and Merton,
all came up and urged that we should go back, according to the advice
of the returning column; but I had been told to go to Berzan, and no
other road led there. I did not know enough of the language to argue in
it--it is a mistake to know enough of any language to argue in it--but
I listened to what the men had to say, and then I replied firmly,
"Napred!" (Forward!), and led on. When we reached the village, shells
were, it is true, whizzing over our heads and falling clumsily rather
close to us; a brisk cannonade was going on round the corner, and
cannon fire was spitfiring busily on the near hill. But this was a good
thing, as it had the effect of hurrying the drivers, who were a bit
scared, and we reached our destination rather quicker than we should
otherwise have done, at 4 p.m., hungry for the delayed lunch.
We pitched camp in a field at the back of a disused café, specially
designated in the orders as our site. The approach was down a narrow
by-lane, which was a bog of mud. Wounded arrived at once and kept us
busy with the hospital, and evacuation work, but when the cars finally
came back, about 11 p.m., we sat round the wood fire and enjoyed a
supper of turkeys, which had been spitted over the wood fire by our
cheery cook.
I had a few days previously sent a messenger with a note to Doctor
May, at Kragujevatz, asking for news. He now returned with a letter,
saying that our hospital there was then being evacuated, and that the
military authorities were sending the unit to Novi Bazaar. They were
sent ultimately under the charge of Doctor Curcin to Petch, and thence
over the mountains to Scutari, Medua, and Brindisi. The unit say that
no words can praise too highly the kindness and devotion of Doctor
Curcin, and he says that he cannot cease to marvel at the courage and
resourcefulness of the women who, under his care, faced indescribable
difficulties with invariable cheerfulness and good temper.
The messenger from Lapovo had also now returned with the bad news
that our hospital there had been evacuated, by order of the military
authorities, two days before he arrived, whilst Lapovo was being
heavily bombarded. Doctor Cockburn and her little unit ultimately
joined the Kragujevatz party, and escaped to England under Doctor
Curcin's care. We, ourselves, now at Berzan, expected marching orders
every minute; the firing line was close upon us, and the guns made such
a noise it was difficult to sleep. The quartette (dispenser, sergeant,
Sandford and Merton) all came up and suggested that we should move on
without waiting for orders. But the shells were not dropping in our
camp, and I saw no reason for interfering with the arrangements for
evacuation made at headquarters. It would never do to allow a panic or
"skedaddle" principle to invade our camp. That would be a worse enemy
than the Germans. And--in House of Commons language--my answer was in
the negative.
The order to move came at nine next morning, Wednesday, October 29th,
and the speed with which the column put itself this day in marching
order was exemplary. Rain was falling in torrents as we trekked along
the muddy road to Bagrdan. Would this place also be evacuated, or
should we be able to buy some much-needed articles of clothing here?
But from the first moment of retreat, during the next three months, we
never entered a town or village that had not either just been evacuated
or that was not about to be evacuated for the enemy. Houses deserted,
shops shuttered, all eyes, as it were, closed, that they should not see
the scenes of sorrow as the fugitives fled in silence through their
streets; that they should not witness the galling spectacle of the
triumphant entry of the enemy. Evacuation meant, of course, cessation
of all means of communication with the outer world. During three months
we were without letters, or news of any sort from home. Powers of mind,
soul, body, were all concentrated, driven inwards, on the tragedy in
which we had literally a walking part.
It was terrible enough to see town after town abandoned to the enemy;
I pictured what we should feel if our English towns from Newcastle
to Falmouth, were all to fall, in regular routine, as prizes to the
triumphant Germans. But the abandonment of stations on the railway
line, the main artery of national life, that seemed an even sadder
sight.
When we arrived at Bagrdan the station was already dismantling. We
encamped, according to instructions, in a field near the station, but
when heavy rain made the ground a swamp, I asked permission to shelter
in the station rooms. In the morning these were not available, and we
were obliged to do the best we could with sodden tents, but in the
afternoon we were allowed to take possession, because by then the
station was dismantled in readiness for evacuation.
The line behind the station, to the north, had already been cut;
bridges, as we could hear from the noise of explosions, were then being
blown up; the telegraphic and telephonic apparatus was destroyed, and
the station entrance hall, and waiting rooms were littered with the
débris of torn official documents, and old telegraphic paper strips.
The last train, filled with wounded whom we had tended during the day,
left in the evening, as usual, in silence--no scene. The stationmaster
was leaving in the guard's van. He knew that the next train to leave
the station would be working under German rule; he knew that for
himself exile and ruin stared him in the face; but, as the engine
puffed and snorted, and the train began slowly to move, he called to me
and to a few remaining officials on the platform, "Sbogom!" (Good-bye!)
and nothing else. But could other words have added to the pathos? Was
not the history of a gigantic crime against his nation revealed in that
one word?
Next day was full of interest. For, though our division was holding its
own fairly well, another division, the Drinske, was having a bad time,
and all the morning, streams of cavalry from our division passed along
the road. They were to cross the Morava river, three-quarters of a mile
down the line from Bagrdan, by pontoons, and go to the rescue. Then a
rumour reached us that 25,000 Bulgars had been taken prisoners, and
that there were now no more Bulgars on the Serbian front, and that the
French and English were on their way to help us! Much too good to be
true, and I began to suspect that these rumours were floated to keep up
the spirits of the soldiers from time to time.
At seven the next morning, came the order to move the column to the
other side of Bagrdan. Rain continued all that day, and I was thankful
to be able to commandeer three small houses for shelter for hospital
and staff in the village. The wagons and oxen outspanned in a field
behind the hospital houses. There were many wounded and some dead, and
these we buried in graves half filled with water, in the rain.
Major A. and his column appeared again, and told us that they had
journeyed by another route, and had been obliged to wade through a
river, neck deep, to get here.
As usual, I slept in the car. This was stationed in the one and only
street, outside the house belonging to a teacher. He had already sent
away his children, and his wife was to leave next day. He said that he
should wait till the last moment in case of a miracle. He showed us his
honey hives, of which he was very proud. Several had been stolen in the
night, and if he left the town he would lose everything.
The firing on the near hill was now terrific, and there seemed very
little chance of the miracle, though another rumour, that English guns
were on their way, gave us hope.
The teacher's wife left at seven next morning, October 30th. We moved
at 8.15. We were told to encamp on the other side of a bridge, near
Kriva Alpregan. The bridge was difficult to find, and the whole country
was a swamp, but we found the bridge, and as there was no village, we
took shelter in a wood. Between the field and the wood, was a deep and
broad ditch of mud, which we had to cross continually, but we were glad
of the shelter of the trees. We put up a hospital tent between the
road and the wood, and a mess tent amongst the trees, and we lit our
kitchen and dining-room fires inside the tent, and enjoyed a supper of
little chickens spitted on a stick, the only way of roasting which was
available. We generally arranged that the field-kitchen should cook
for the soldiers once a day, when possible, their much-loved stew, when
outside fires were difficult, and we then managed for ourselves.
That field was a sea of liquid mud whilst rain was falling, and it
became a gelatinous pulp when it began to dry. I slept in the car on
the road, and all night long, in a continuous stream, wagons rumbled
past me with guns, with fodder, with all the material for the existence
of an army of 200,000 men, and intermixed with these were wagons filled
with fugitives.
In the morning I had seen the P.M.O. His news was extremely gloomy.
The rumour of Bulgarian defeat was quite untrue, and my friend, though
outwardly calm, was suffering anxiety not only about the life of his
nation, his heart was also filled with fears as to the safety of his
wife and children, who were in Kragujevatz when the town was taken
by the Germans. Communication with them was, of course, impossible.
Thousands of other officers and men were suffering a similar anxiety.
How could I help sharing some of this grievous load of sorrow? I think
my ears will never lose the sound of creaking carts, and rumbling wagon
wheels, for in the sound, as I lay awake that night, and many other
nights, there was mingled with every revolution of the wheels, the
anxiety and the misery which were gnawing at the heart of this exiled
nation.