Between Bagrdan and Jagodina, rain had fallen almost incessantly, and
though rain was, the Serbian soldiers always said, the best friend they
had, because it checked the progress of the big German guns, it had a
depressing influence on the men, and made the roads almost impassable,
with deep, gelatinous, marvellous, mud. We had, on this night, put up
the tent, and I had just gone to my car for an hour or two of rest,
when the dreaded orderly rode up to the car and presented the order to
leave at once. It was 1.30 a.m. I sent for Vooitch, who always aroused
the soldiers; camp was immediately struck, and I rode round as usual,
to see--a little difficult in the darkness--that nothing was left
behind, then I sounded the whistle to collect the unit, and as the
oxen and horse-wagons and motor-ambulances came into line in single
file, I shouted "Napred!" (Forward!) and, followed by the two mounted
orderlies, took the lead. Within twenty minutes of receiving the order
to move, we were on the march. Rain was, as usual, falling, and the
night was so dark, I could scarcely see my horse's head, as our column
jolted over ditches, and struck into the road. One of the orderlies,
riding a little behind me, held the lantern to throw light upon the
road immediately in front, to give us warning of danger from mud-holes,
and broken bridges, and we entered Jagodina.
The usual story: abandoned by its inhabitants; houses shuttered and
deserted; the whole town in darkness, except that along the walls of
the houses, wherever space permitted, camp fires had been lighted,
and refugees, women, children and old men, were crouched in groups,
sleeping, or sitting in silence, waiting for the dawn. The fires
illumined the faces of the fugitives and showed suffering not easy
to forget. When the camp fires were left behind, the darkness was
complete, and even objects immediately in front were only visible
because they showed black against the shining mud. It was a world of
shadows, and of dreariness, of wet and cold. And never for a moment had
the sounds ceased, of the creaking of wagons, and the squish, squish of
oxen-hoofs pressing glutinous mud. Sometimes my horse would stumble,
in the dark, over a little flock of sheep that was being driven with
a convoy for the purposes of food; or a scared and tiny shrew mouse,
absorbed in its own affairs, would dart across the road and escape
death by a miracle.
I looked behind me, and saw, only darkness and sorrow, columns, and
confusion. Thousands of unoffending people were suffering heartache,
separation, desolation; and, as the guns reminded me, thousands of
brave men were, a couple of miles away from us, facing at this moment,
a murderous death. How could I help asking myself where, in all this
hell, is God?
And immediately the answer came. As if in purposeful response, the
mountains in the east threw off the blackness of the night, and showed
rich purple against the lightening sky. Over the mountains rose clouds
of gold, and pink, and aerial blue, and as the rays of sunlight shot
triumphantly into the sky, white mists, thick and soft, that had lain
hidden, became, for a moment of pure joy, bathed in all the rainbow
colours; and one daring cloud of brilliant gold spread itself in the
shape of a great dragon across the dark sky. Glories and beauties
everywhere, if we could only catch the meaning.
But while I was wondering at it all, the glories vanished; the time
for understanding had not yet come; the hills became commonplace, the
prosaic light of day was with us, and I saw once more the nightmare
picture of drab-dressed, mud-stained soldiers, splashing with their
sandalled feet, in the sloppy mud; sometimes stumbling, then rising,
smothered with mud, without a word; weren't there worse troubles than
that? "Hleba!" (Bread!) "None for three days," were the first words I
heard.
I don't know whether I liked least trekking by day, or by night. By day
nothing of the horrors by which one was surrounded, was left to the
imagination, but by night there were added difficulties. For, apart
from danger from the enemy, the roads, or tracks, were full of risks
and hazards, even when by daylight these were visible in advance; but
they were dangerous when one was dependent on the light of a small
lantern, to reveal mud-holes, boulders, fallen trees, precipices, or
broken bridges.
Also, there was at night the added danger that in the darkness, the
column might be intercepted by other greedy columns butting their
way through. But the officers of other convoys were always extremely
courteous: they frequently helped us to recover a place in the line,
and we were fortunate in never losing, even temporarily, any of the
column.
Commanders of other columns often urged me to sleep during night treks
in the wagons, or, like the staff, in the motor ambulances, but I
preferred to be at the head of the column by night as well as by day;
partly because it was obviously the only way in which one could be
always on the alert, and partly, also, in order that the men should
feel that I was not asking them to endure what I would not endure
myself, and that I was sharing with them the practical difficulties of
the road.
We reached Treshnitza at 9 a.m. Wednesday, November 3rd, after the
night's trek. The cars had a troublous time with mud and holes and
were, on several occasions, hauled out by the oxen.
The P.M.O. came to see us as soon as we arrived, and he asked us to
take some wounded officers next day in the cars to Krushievatz. It was
dreadful to look at the map, and see how far south we had now been
driven.
We had commandeered the empty village school-house for dispensary and
kitchen, and the column was camped in the orchard behind. The P.M.O.
laughingly said we had found a better site than they had, though
they--Headquarters Staff--were only a couple of hundred yards away.
Next morning early, we sent off the two wounded majors in motors to
Krushievatz; we ourselves received the order to leave at 11.30 a.m. for
Shanatz, and we met the returning motors on the road.
In the afternoon, as we were trekking steadily, having been told not
to halt till we reached Shanatz, I saw by the side of the road, on
a grass common, a hay-cart, a woman, and half a dozen soldiers. The
woman was evidently in trouble: she was weeping, gesticulating, and
shouting through her tears at the soldiers, who were in possession
of the hay-cart. I guessed what had happened, so I halted the column
and asked the woman to tell me what was the matter. I found, as I had
suspected, that the soldiers had bought hay from her--for the sum of
three dinars--and when it came to payment, they had discovered that
they had no change, only a ten dinar-note, called in Serbian "banka." I
told the soldiers if they didn't pay the woman what they owed her, they
must leave to her the hay, or I should report them to the commander,
and I took their names and regiments. But they swore that they had no
change. I didn't believe them, and there was not time to investigate,
but I couldn't let the woman be robbed, so I said I would buy the hay
and pay for it, and I gave her three dinars. "Now then," I said, "the
hay is mine," and I shouted to our men to come and take it off the
cart. Our men were delighted; they leaped to the road and ran quickly
to the cart. This worked magic, for hay was difficult to procure, and
in an instant, the leader of the dinarless soldiers, produced three
dinars; they had, he said, got hidden in his pocket; I handed them to
the woman, telling her that she could also keep the other three, and I
graciously allowed the soldiers to take away the hay.
[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS OF THE MONTENEGRIN POLICE (AT PETCH) ON
RIGHT, GAOLBIRD'S HOUSE ON LEFT]
[Illustration: CONVERTING FOUR-WHEELED WAGONS INTO TWO-WHEELED CARTS,
IN CEMETERY AT PETCH]
The evening colours were a recompense for a wet and dreary day; this
side of the broad Morava, yellow beech leaves, caught by the red rays
of the setting sun; beyond the river, green-grey mountains, and over
these a rainbow, which seemed unwilling to touch the bloodstained
earth, and dispersed amongst the clouds. Along the road everything was
drab and dead, or dying; the ghost-like procession of convoys and of
fugitives was not dead, for it was moving; but it was movement without
life, for the soul was stunned.
The town of Varvarin, which we reached at 6 p.m., was in darkness;
shuttered and deserted; mud and rain, as usual, in possession. We
halted in the broad, main street, ambulance wagons all in line, in a
foot and a half of mud, for the column to eat some food, for which
there had been no time all day. Immediately on arriving, I received a
message that a certain artillery major had been waiting for some hours
to shake hands with me. He had once visited our camp at Kragujevatz.
I remembered him as a vivacious and intelligent officer, and I was
proud that, in the midst of his strenuous work of placing batteries
in defence of the retreating Army, he had time to think of his
English comrade. It seemed that Serbian officers, indeed, in whatever
circumstances they found themselves, always did the right thing at the
right moment. They were truly chivalrous, not with the chivalry which
rushes to open the door to let you out, but with the chivalry which
leaves the door open for you to come in.
The congestion of convoys on the other side of the pontoon bridge,
leading to Krushievatz, was terrific. A narrow mud lane led to the
bridge, and when we arrived at the entrance to the lane, at about
8 p.m., we found that the column ahead of us, were taking things
philosophically and had lighted fires in the road, and were cooking
food, and warming themselves; the oxen were lying across the road.
There was no possibility of getting past them, though Shanatz, as I
then discovered, was on the left bank of the (Western) Morava, and we
should therefore not cross by the pontoon. But we eventually moved,
and we reached Shanatz, a tiny scattered village, at 3 in the morning,
to my great relief, for no other convoys had followed us, and, as
the night passed, I had begun to be afraid that we had taken a wrong
road. On arrival, we roused the Prefect, and he gave us the keys of
the school-house, for our hospital, and we requisitioned a couple
of rooms for the staff. Wounded were waiting for us. We cleaned the
schoolroom; the doctor and the nurses who were on night duty attended
to the patients, who were also given hot coffee and food; and the oxen,
wagons, and men, settled in the school enclosure. I went to rest in the
car at 5 a.m. and was up again at 6.
The Morava, broad and magnificent, flowed by the side of the village,
and in the evening, after dark, some of us seized the rare opportunity
of a bathe and a wash.