That evening I had a talk with the Commander and the P.M.O. They
told me confidentially that the situation for the Army was, at this
point, critical. The road from Kupçi to Blatzi led through a narrow
defile, and there was grave fear that the Germans, who were already
at Krushievatz, might overtake us in the rear, and enclose us on the
northern entrance, and that the Bulgars might dash across from Nish,
which was now in their hands, and cut us off on the southern exit.
The Austrians also were on their way to Mitrovitza, and might wish to
have a hand in drawing the net around us, and in annihilating or, at
least, capturing the Serbian Army. Hope of help from the Allies was now
extremely faint, and all efforts must be concentrated in the endeavour
to save the army, intact, if possible. I must, therefore, I was
told, push the column through the defile as speedily as possible--as
speedily, that is, as the oxen and the congestion of convoys would
permit.
But the order to move did not come till next evening at 4.30. We were
bivouacked near a narrow bridge on the main road, over which convoys
of artillery, cavalry, infantry, pioneers, bakers, butchers, field
hospitals, etc., with their innumerable oxen, and horse wagons streamed
ceaselessly day and night. Whilst I was waiting for our column to
collect, I saw two men busy under the bridge. I was not sure if they
ought to be there, and I jumped down into the ditch to see what they
were doing. One of them had now climbed a ladder and was placing
something in the rafters overhead; the other man was standing with
something mysterious in his hands. It was melinite explosive, and the
men told me that they were going to blow up the bridge as soon as our
column and a few others had passed; the Germans were close behind us.
By this time our convoy was ready to start, but it was one thing to
be ready, and quite another thing to have the chance of starting. It
was not an easy matter to force, with the column intact, an entrance
into the line, and to prevent other and more influential columns from
shunting us aside. The sergeant, who should have done the shouting and
protesting, was slack and afflicted with amiability, and amiability,
though it may be useful at garden-parties, is not an effective weapon
with a retreating army. But we eventually forced an entrance, and left
Kupçi at 5 p.m. on November 7th.
During night treks the staff slept in the motor ambulances; the
sergeant slept in one of the wagons, and I did not miss him. The
mounted orderlies took it in turns, respectively, to sleep in a wagon,
or to ride behind me and carry the lantern, which showed the only light
available upon the road in front of us. The second interpreter was
useless. I liked him best when he was asleep. But Vooitch was always at
hand. He, too, was slightly tainted with amiability, but it was not of
the paralytic kind, and he was excellently helpful. I could always rely
upon his help by day or by night.
The cars had that night a difficult time, as the road was for the
greater part of the way too narrow for them to pass other columns and
go ahead, and in places where it was broader, a solid phalanx of wagons
blocked the way.
When we entered the gorge (Maidevo end) it was pitchy dark, and the
murky mountains, almost meeting overhead, shook their sides, echoing
and re-echoing the thunder of the guns. The Psalmist's words flashed
through my mind, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me"--and He always was.
On our right, the narrow road adjoined precipitously the river (Raçina)
which, below us, surged, white-lipped, frightened, impatient to reach
the freedom of the sea. The mountains descended vertically, from hidden
heights, to the river's farther bank, and on our left, they towered
perpendicularly by the roadside.
It seemed laughable to try to lighten such darkness with one small,
flickering lantern, but nothing is less perfect for being small, and
the orderly, Millyvoy, rode as usual behind me, throwing the best light
available on the pitfalls immediately in front, and the rest of the
column followed close behind.
It was raining, but there were other things to think of. Progress was
at snail's pace; there was no one in control of the way, and wagons
belonging to Army columns, or to refugees, all intermingled, blocked
every inch of the road, either in single file or two deep, according as
the breadth of road allowed.
A stoppage in front, caused increased congestion and confusion behind,
as everybody then tried to pass everybody else, and the result was an
entanglement of wagon-wheels and a general jumble, which was as big a
nightmare as human brain could picture--with the cannons bellowing on
every side.
If a wagon stuck in the mud, which was sometimes two feet deep, it
held up the whole procession for miles. Then the drivers, urged by the
impatience of those behind, lightened the load by pitching the contents
of the wagon into the river. The example was contagious, and soon
barrels of benzine, packing cases--some, alas! containing food--tents,
chairs, beds, were hurled indiscriminately over the precipice, and
bobbed, or floated, or sank, in the narrow swift-flowing waters. If
a wheel came off, the wagon, with its contents, was hurled over the
precipice. It was necessary to watch carefully, lest our own drivers
should adopt this simple method of easing the burden of their oxen, and
use their discretion as to what should be discarded.
Undercurrents of anxieties were always struggling to gain possession of
my mind; the anxiety to procure bread, meat, hay, wood, shelter, for
my weary, hungry column; anxiety for the health of the staff; anxiety
lest the cars should break down, or benzine fail; anxiety lest any of
the convoy should be left behind; anxiety to secure position in the
line, the narrow line of flight; and above all, anxiety lest the column
should, owing to error on my part, be captured by the enemies. But, as
it's impossible to have more than one real anxiety at a time, I reduced
all these to one--the anxiety to save that tiny portion of the brave
army which had been entrusted to my care. For what were our troubles
compared to the sufferings of this driven nation? For them the future
held no break in the darkness and chaos which were only transient for
us.
And this night I understood, as I had never understood before, the
meaning of the words, "brought to silence by their enemies." For the
multitude in front, and the multitude behind uttered, as they fled, no
sound, except cries of encouragement to their oxen. "Ide! Terrai! Stoi!
Chovai!" ("Go on! Hurry up! Stop! Get out of the way!") Grief, when it
wails, is pitiful enough, but grief borne in silence, betrays a tenser
tragedy. Had the misery in those breaking hearts, been uttered in a
single cry, that cry caught and re-echoed through the mountains, must
have broken the drum of the ear of God.
And, as I rode through the black night, amongst this suffering host, in
rain, in wind, in cold, in storm, deafened by the roaring of the guns,
which reverberated from rock to rock, all through the defile, thoughts,
though not consecutive, had a fierce intensity. The thought dominant
in my mind was the irreligion of the world. Crimes--the most gigantic
crimes were triumphant everywhere in Europe, and the exponents of
religion were silent. For prayer is smoke unless it is determination,
and religion is only sentiment if it is divorced from action. "Thy will
be _done_," is the ideal prayer.
During the first part of the night, I was joined by our friend, the
artillery major. He had placed his guns, and as we passed his camp,
he had been about to sit down to supper, but he saw us passing, and
he joined me, and rode with me for an hour, for a talk--a talk which
I shall never forget. For this Serbian officer was a philosopher,
well-read, and with an intellectual breadth of vision, and depth of
thought, which would certainly have been unusual in an army major of
Western Europe.
There was, that night, neither moon nor stars. Black clouds hung over
the mountains, which were dimly discernible, precipitous, close upon
either side of us. The darkness was complete, and all night long the
guns thundered ceaselessly against the mountain sides. (At home,
canaries were singing in their cages.) Death was near for many; it
might also be near for us. At any moment annihilation of our columns
was possible; the scene of what might happen, in this narrow gorge,
if the enemies overtook us--from both ends--was easily imagined.
We both knew the peril of the situation, but we did not talk about
that. And perhaps it was because, in the physical world, there was
no light visible, that we sought light in the realm of thought, and
discussed the problems of death, and of life beyond. He was one of
those few who can discuss without argument; we both knew that we knew
nothing; but we listened with eager interest to each other's guesses
concerning the great truths which are still so dramatically withheld
from our conscious intelligence. Why are they withheld? Is the God
who withholds them--is the God who is now permitting our European
holocaust--is He, in fact, all-powerful? Can anyone be all-powerful
unless he exists without conditions? But why crave an all-powerful
God? May not all-powerfulness have to go the way of jealousy, anger,
and all the other human attributes with which primitive man endowed
his deity? May not the germs of human evolution be within the human
soul, for us to develop or to neglect at will? Eve was free to take,
or to reject, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge--material knowledge;
are not we, perhaps, also free to take, or to reject, the fruit of
the Tree of Life--spiritual life? It is largely because we are taught
that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, that we tumble
into crimes of militarism. To leave ourselves in God's hands, is often
an excuse for idleness, and the result is that we find ourselves in
the hands of a war-lord. Autocratic government is giving place to
democratic government, on earth; may not our view of an autocratic God
also be doomed to disappear? If the Kingdom of Heaven is within us,
the King of Heaven must be there too, reigning not in solitary glory,
in empty space, but within each one of us. The souls of men are the
prism which should refract the radiant Spirit of God, and we must not
be disappointed when, in times of trouble, the human spectrum shows
the dark lines only. If we knew more about the laws of Nature, we
should know that the dark lines are due to local conditions, which give
invaluable proof of the Universal Law of Light.
My constant ejaculations--"Chovai! Stoi! Terrai! Napred!" ("Get out of
the way! Stop! Go on! Forward!") were like tugs at the tether, which
tied us to the material world, reminding us that we still had small
material parts to play.
I was specially interested during our talk to find that it was not only
in the older, and, as it might be thought, more effete civilisations
of Western Europe, that a consciousness of the incongruity of war
with twentieth century ideas, is becoming current. This officer,
representative of the best traditions of Eastern European soldierhood,
described how he had formerly been an enthusiastic lover of war, a
believer in its glories, and had once even sacrificed a good position
on the Staff, in order to be in the thick of the fighting line. And
now, though he suffered, as his personal record testified, from no lack
of courage or virility, war, in his eyes, was murder, and its glories
tinsel. I compared this Serbian major with our German devil-major at
Tongres. Which of the two was the more truly civilised? I realised
that Kipling's "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain
shall meet" does not apply to the east and west of Europe. The west of
Europe must, and will, unite with the Slav portion of the east, as a
safeguard against the Central Powers of darkness. This war is bringing
clearly before human consciousness in the east, as well as in the west
of Europe, the fact that it is logically impossible for civilised
mankind to preserve simultaneously two opposed standards of conduct:
for individuals, a high form of morality, in which life, honour, and
justice are revered; and for nations, a cynical non-morality, in which
murder, dishonour, and injustice are inculcated as the highest virtues.
We must raise the international standard or we shall inevitably debase
the individual standard of human right and wrong.
The fate of humankind, whilst this war lasts, is in the balance.
The fight between the Allies and the Central Powers is not merely
a struggle between one form of civilisation and another; between a
society which believes in full-blown militarism, and a society which
believes in a milder form of militarism. There is more than that
at stake. The struggle is between militarism and human evolution.
Europe is in travail--the travail preceding the birth of a new race.
We prayed God that the birth might not be still-born. For fear of
this, and for this reason alone, deliverance must not be prematurely
forced. The Central Powers, the arch exponents of militarism, must be
vanquished.
My friend and I were agreed, that in the future, militarism must be
exterminated, root and branch, if mankind is not to regress towards a
monstrous sub-humanity. There was no one and nothing to contradict us,
and we felt that if we lived a thousand years, our thoughts would never
be more appropriately leaded to plumb the depths of the sea of Truth.
After an hour, the Major left me, and went back to his murderous guns,
and as I rode on alone, I welcomed the ideas which we had exchanged,
to a place in my memory, but I warned them that they were not there
for ornament; ideas are lumber until they are expressed in action.
The thinker should also be the doer; the world's trouble is that too
often thinkers only think and doers only do. Society understands how to
translate into action its hatreds--the hatreds of a minority; it has
not yet learned to translate into action the love and sympathy of the
majority of mankind. Hatred is expressed easily enough in war; love
has no such dramatic mouthpiece. Hatred is positive; love still only
negative in expression. Love is still blind, and the poets shouldn't
joke about it. Love has not yet seen that there is a greater love than
for a man to lay down his life for his friend; to take up your life for
someone who is not your friend, requires a more difficult sacrifice.
The warmongers have an advantage over the peacemongers; they don't
talk, they act; the peacemongers don't act, they talk; and until their
talk is translated into action, they will be ineffective in conquering
war. It's no use sweeping, unless you get rid of the dust.