The cold that first night at Petch was intense, and in the morning we
couldn't put on our boots till we had unfrozen them at the fires. In
the morning (Tuesday, November 30th) I went into the old Turkish town,
picturesque with mosques and narrow streets, to get orders, on the
telephone, from the P.M.O. I was told to do whatever was done by the
Fourth Field Hospital. They were out on the frozen swamp, so I sent an
orderly and told him to report their movements. In the meantime, as my
hands when I was riding were generally frozen, I tried to buy some warm
gloves, for though shops were all shuttered, and their owners had for
the most part gone, it was possible here and there still to buy a few
odds and ends, if you knew where to go. But there were no gloves to be
had, so I bought a pair of short white woollen socks to wear as gloves.
A clumsy, but on the whole a useful contrivance.
On Wednesday, December 1st, we had received no order to move. I
went into the town to see the Kragujevatz party start on their long
mountain walk, and I took possession of a couple of rooms vacated by
them, for kitchen and for dining and sleeping-room. The only available
site for the column was in an old Turkish graveyard, close to the
house. This house, which was near the headquarters of the Montenegrin
police, belonged to a Montenegrin man, who was not at home when we
arrived. I wanted to take down his fence at the back of the house, as
it enclosed a grass space convenient for the cars, and I asked the
police if I might do this. They said perhaps I had better wait till
the owner returned in the afternoon. About three o'clock, a tall,
dark, heavily-built man, looking like the villain in penny novelettes,
appeared; he had been in America, and spoke a very little and very bad
English. Serbians in America pick up marvellously little English. We
met many who, though they had been years in the United States, could
not make themselves intelligible in our tongue. Our friend said he
was sorry to be late, but that he had only this minute come out of
gaol. "Ah, yes," I said, as though that was the place from which one
naturally expected one's friends to be arriving, "and what business
took you there?" "Oh!" carelessly, "I just killed a nozzer fellow
here," and he pointed to his own doorstep. It seemed that his wife and
the "nozzer" fellow had been on too familiar terms, and our Montenegrin
giant had taken the law into his own hands, and had promptly rid
himself of the enemy. He had not yet been tried, though he had been
in prison for ten months and three days. But now, as Petch was being
evacuated, all prisoners were set free, to escape as best they could.
He gave us permission to destroy his fence. As the moral fence around
his home had already been destroyed, the wooden fence must have seemed
of small importance; besides, his house would soon be in the hands of
the Germans, and nothing could have seemed of much consequence now
except his freedom. He was lame, he had no money, and his horse was too
small to carry him, so he asked if we would let him go with us over the
mountains to the coast, and if we would let him ride our biggest horse
in exchange for his pony. He must, otherwise, he said, be captured by
the enemy. We couldn't let him be taken prisoner again, and as he said
he knew all the Montenegrin roads and might be useful, we let him come
with us. He came, but he didn't know the tracks, and if ever I asked
his judgment as to direction, he was invariably wrong. But he was
kindly and harmless, and we took him as far as Podgoritza.
In the street at Petch, I met our P.M.O., who was on his way to see
me. He gave me the cheerful information that henceforth the roads
would not be good. With remembrance of the road between Prishtina and
Petch, still in my mind, I laughed. The P.M.O. smiled grimly, and said,
yes, the roads would be even worse now, and I must at once cut our
four-wheeled wagons in half, and make of them two-wheeled carts; I had
better see how the Fourth Field Hospital were doing this, and do the
same. Then he told me that he and Headquarters were very pleased with
us, that we had done well in difficult circumstances, and he referred,
with congratulations, to the fact that we had had no deserters, a
trouble which had befallen other columns. He was glad, he said, that
having come through so much, we were still sticking to the work. His
kind words cheered me very much, for having had no previous experience
of this kind of work, I didn't know if I had been doing all that was
expected of me.
We were now, he said, to start to-night, or at daybreak to-morrow, with
our two-wheeled carts, for Scutari, near the coast of Albania. The
route was to be _via_ Roshai, Berani, Andreavitza, and Podgoritza.
Thursday, December 2nd, was a busy day; the first job was to cut the
wagons in half; the back portion would be left behind, and we should
carry on with the front portion. It was difficult to procure saws,
especially as some of the wagons belonged to the drivers, and they were
not anxious to cut them up. "Nema" and "ne moshe" ("There is none"
and "not possible") lurked ominously amongst the tomb-stones, but
fierce-eye prevailed. Then came the sad business of sorting hospital
material, for, as half a wagon is only half as large as a whole wagon,
half the hospital material must be left behind, (we gave it to a
hospital in Petch), also most of the equipment, and the tents, except
one bell tent, to which we clung in case of desperate weather at night.
We guessed that it might be possible that even the two-wheeled carts
would not be able to continue to Scutari, so we set to work to buy
ponies, upon which to pack food and kit, in case the carts must be
abandoned. Jordan, Colson, and Vooitch cleverly managed to find a
dozen ponies, in various stages of decay; these were subsequently our
salvation. But they must be rough-shod, or they would be useless in
the ice and snow, and there were no blacksmiths left in Petch. Nearly
everyone had now gone, and the town was deserted except by the passing
soldiers and fugitives. But this difficulty, too, was overcome by the
triumvirate. It was also important to procure a store of food. We tried
in vain to find tinned foods, and we only had a few Serbian meats left;
but we luckily found some of our precious mealie meal, also a little
rice and a few beans, and we carried these in sacks, and these three
things ultimately saved us from starvation.
At dusk, when I went again to the cemetery to superintend the packing
of the two-wheeled carts, I found a murky atmosphere. A Turkish
graveyard is, under any circumstances, a melancholy place. The ground
is uncultivated, and rough, cuneiform stones, a couple of feet in
height, are strewn pell-mell to mark the graves. In this cemetery every
yard of ground was covered with disembowelled animals, dung, broken
carts, and refuse from past encampments. The night was, as usual,
pitchy dark, and it was raining heavily as I stumbled over graves, and
carcases, and horrors of all kinds, to find the men, guided only by
their camp fires.
I arrived at a moment of excitement. One of our drivers had just let
off his rifle, whether accidentally or not, I never discovered, and he
had nearly killed an officer who was passing. The officer was a little
upset, and was now in a loud voice threatening to punish our man. But I
invented an explanation for the incident, and expressed regret, and the
officer, who was luckily otherwise preoccupied, agreed to forgive the
driver.
But our men were in sulky mood. Was it a wonder? For they were now
face to face with the mountains of Montenegro, which would henceforth
lie between them and all they loved on earth. And now this man said he
couldn't take more than one package in his cart, and another couldn't
take anything: "Nema, ne moshe; nema, ne moshe" met me at every turn.
The situation must be tackled; so I called the men together, round one
of the camp fires, that I might see their faces. I told them how much
I sympathised with them in having now to leave their country behind,
and to make this journey over the mountains, into a strange land; the
situation was bad, but they wouldn't make it better by bad behaviour;
two "bads" did not make a "good." Prudence, as well as patriotism,
required that they should go forward. If they attempted now to return
to their homes, they would be imprisoned, or starved, or shot. It
was only the spirit of Serbia which could some day reconquer Serbia,
and they, the Serbian Army, were the guardians of that spirit. Up to
now they had a splendid record of behaviour; would they not keep it
unsullied to the end? Then the personal touch. Was my task an easy one?
Did they wish to make it more difficult? Had I not come from afar to
help their country, and would they be less patriotic than the stranger
from another land? Had I not shared with them--Before I could say
more, my voice was drowned in a chorus of "Ja! Ja! Maika! Ja! Ja! And
don't you know that ours is the only column that has lost no men from
desertion? Ja! Ja! Maika! It is hard, but we won't grumble."
And content was restored. I told them all to bring tins, or paper, for
some extra rations of tea and coffee, for the trek, and the naughty
mood of these impressionable, child-like, affectionate peasant soldiers
was put away.