Next morning at daybreak, we were about to sit round the fire, for
breakfast, when old Marco, the gaolbird, strolled into camp. He had
lost himself yesterday, and we had been anxious about him, for he had
with him the strongest horse, which was carrying, amongst other things,
our precious tea-pail and our frying-pan, the only kitchen implements
now left, also some much-prized foodstuffs. We were welcoming him, when
an excited officer rushed up and shouted to us to get away at once,
as the Arnauts were close behind us. No one grumbled at having to go
without breakfast: nobody minds going without necessaries; we only
grumble when we are deprived of luxuries; and it was not necessary to
hustle the few preparations for departure, and indeed these grew fewer
every day. As we moved off, daylight revealed dead men, unnoticed last
night, lying close beside our camp, and as we plunged into the muddy
road, we saw that dead horses, and oxen, by the hundred, were lying on
the track.
We welcomed mud as an improvement on the slippery ice and snow of
previous days. We now realised that if worse weather had befallen, the
larger portion of the Army must have perished in the snows. There was
truly much cause for thankfulness.
This day the travelling was comparatively easy. At one place where
there were two tracks, the road was even being controlled by officers,
who, to hasten the escape from the Arnauts, and the pursuing enemies,
divided horse from oxen convoys, and sent horses up the higher, and
oxen along the lower mountain road. The roads joined a little later,
but our convoy was allowed to keep together along the lower road.
Under normal circumstances we should have thought ourselves lucky
to see such scenery--of snow, mountains, and pine woods; now we
felt our luck lay in leaving it, yard by yard, behind us. But this
day we stumbled upon a flowing river of real water! This was indeed
lucky; the first drink, except from snow, that we, or our poor
animals had enjoyed for three days. We had hoped to reach Roshai and,
perhaps, house-shelter that night; but darkness came, and with it a
recrudescence of track atrocities, boulders and holes, and mud above
our knees. We had no more oil for our hurricane lamps, and it was
unprocurable. At seven p.m. I saw that further progress, till daylight,
was impossible, and the animals were exhausted. We turned aside, and
with no light but the camp fires, we bivouacked in a dryish field above
the town.
Every day the numbers of our oxen and of our horses were reduced, and
for the last two days the poor beasts had starved on dead beech leaves;
but now we were near a town, and we hoped for hay. But Sandford and
Merton came back complacently with their dreadful "Nema" (there is
none). There is something inexpressibly exasperating about this word
"Nema." It doesn't mean, in a polite, apologetic way, "Very sorry,
but there is none to be had," or "Very sorry, but I have done the
best I could, and failed." It means, "Can't; shan't; won't; couldn't
if I would; wouldn't if I could"; it epitomises all the obstructive
negatives capable of expression in any language. It is the obverse of
"Dobro," which means "All right, I will do what I can." "Nema" means
"There was difficulty, and I gave it up." You can't fight against
"nema"; it hits you below the belt; it represents inaction, inanity,
indolence and indifference; a fourfold disease, for which there
is no remedy. And "Nema nishta Bogami" ("There is none, by God"),
the Montenegrin form of "Nema," was even worse; it invoked deific
corroboration for assertions that you knew to be untrue.
Sandford could get no hay, so Vooitch and I must waste much precious
time by searching for it. In the morning early we all trekked into
the town. In ordinary times this picturesque place would have been
a delight to us: the houses were of wood with grey shingle roofs;
wooden ladders led from outside to the living rooms; under the living
rooms were the stables in which the cattle lived. But now the houses
were all shuttered and deserted; all shops were evacuated. There
were no foodstuffs; nothing was obtainable. "Nema nishta Bogami"
stalked triumphant, up and down the street. But hay we must have, or
our animals could go no farther. The column waited in a yard, whilst
Vooitch and I explored. Some regiments were quartered in the town;
they had horses, and these, presumably, must be fed. We ascertained
the names of the regiments, but it was not easy to find the address of
their headquarters, as everyone was a stranger in the place, and no one
knew anything except that he himself was looking for food and hay, and
was not keen for others to find it first. Eventually we ran a regiment
to earth, but the officer in command, who was in a room upstairs, must,
I think, have seen me, and afraid, no doubt, that he might be asked to
yield something which he could not spare, he sent word that he was not
there; and in his supposed absence, the under-officer said he could
do nothing. We found a mill, and gained entrance. Mealies were there,
but not for us. We tried everything and everybody--in vain. Were we
after all to be beaten by that beastly "Nema"? It was time now for the
miracle, and at that moment two officers came riding down the street. I
boldly stopped them, and found that we knew each other. We had met on
the trek. They said that no hay was procurable anywhere, but that they
had more than they needed, and they would--bless them!--give us twenty
kilos--enough for a feed, to take us on to the next military station.
We returned to the convoy, the hay was fetched, and the horses and oxen
were fed. We had lost a pony, which had strayed during the night, and
the others might drop down any moment, and we were lucky therefore to
be able to buy two ponies, each still with four legs.
It was noon when we started; prospects were now wonderfully cheerful;
the mountains by which we were surrounded, looked less forbidding, and
we crossed the swiftly flowing river by a bridge. We outspanned at dusk
at 4.30, a short day for once, and, for a wonder, we were offered, by
an Arnaut, shelter in two rooms of his house (against payment). This
was, in normal times, a roadside inn, near what was called the village
of Kalatchi, though, as usual, no village was visible. The eagerness
with which the offer of house shelter was accepted by our British
staff surprised me; it was a fine night; the views were glorious, and
I didn't want to miss seeing the dawn break over the mountains. Also,
I would rather have slept out, than risk the dirt. But the desire to
enjoy the comfort of having a roof overhead, was understandable, and,
in case our Albanian host was not dependable, we must keep together. We
had bought a sheep in Roshai, and we pretended to enjoy mightily, the
toughest mutton ever chewed, as we sat round the fire in the big open
chimney-place. Our host came and stared at us, and we made friends,
and gave him some tea, which he much appreciated. He was not an Arnaut
proper, but a Serbian Mohammedan; he was very tall and handsome; his
dress, stagelike; a white turban, a short black and yellow striped
coat, over a soft white shirt, tucked into white frieze trousers,
which had a stripe of black braid down the leg--the dress of the
Albanians, and very beautiful. But I was much worried by the trousers,
for, instead of fastening nice and safely, like Christian trousers,
round the waist, these fastened below the hip. This fashion was not
peculiar to our friend: it was common to all Albanian "nuts," and until
I learned from experience that my fears were groundless, the trousers
of the Albanian gentlemen gave me much anxiety. I was possessed by a
shy curiosity, which was never gratified, to know how they kept up; but
an accident never occurred in my presence.
Our host, as he watched us eating, was equally surprised at our
customs, and, finally, he could not restrain his curiosity. "Why on
earth," he asked at last, "are you all eating separately?" (instead of
all together out of a common bowl) and no one knew the answer.
We were up next morning at five (Thursday, December 9th). I saw the
dawn break, and I saw the sun rise, ushered over the mountains by the
usual proclamation, in pink and mauve, that here was another day,
another chance of discovering some of the great truths, which we
ignore, as we crawl, cramped, within our three dimensions. Everything
in Nature points to the sky except man, who keeps his eyes upon the
ground. I stood for a precious moment of uplifting, then I returned
to crawl, and creep, and stumble, during that day, in mud worse than
any yet encountered. But I wanted to take a photograph of the starting
of the column. The group of men, women, and pack ponies, all in
flight--emblems of this transient life--outlined, in the frail light,
against the dark mountains--emblems of eternity. I placed my whip,
and gloves, upon the ground whilst I took the photo. In the meantime,
a passing soldier picked them up, and walked off with them. One of
our men saw this, and shouted threateningly, and the soldier, in
response, aimed his rifle at us. Hunger, fatigue, and misery, made men
short-tempered and desperate in these days. The soldier's thumb was
already on the trigger, and, quick, as lightning, one of our men put
up his gun; both were on the point of firing, in "self-defence." The
thunder of Austrian guns, rapidly approaching, was in our ears, so I
walked briskly up to the soldier, beckoning with one hand, behind my
back, to our men to keep quiet, and, as I pointed to the mountains in
the north, I said, in my best Serbian, "Plenty of shooting going on
over there; not wanted here; gloves and whip mine; no use to you, Molim
(please)." I held out my hand for them; he gave them to me, and walked
off quietly.
The loud firing near us all day, and news that a stiff battle was
pending, put spurs into weary feet. The strain and effort of wading
through mud, sometimes above the knees, during hour after hour of a
twelve-hour day, made such a spur sometimes useful for safety. Along,
and up, and down, mountain sides, and in woods, through mud lanes which
never saw the sun, we scrambled till dusk. Then we outspanned on a
grass slope, at the edge of a wood of firs and beech trees.
During the night, all the stars of heaven, especially Orion, and the
Pleiades, blinked at us, with superior unconcern; but I told them, as
I fell asleep, that it was easy for them to look pure and bright; they
hadn't been wading, knee deep, all day in Balkan mud. It put me in my
place, as an earthworm, that they took no notice of our troubles, but
I excused them, for, if the sun, moon, stars, and all the furniture of
heaven, had tumbled, in sympathy, at our feet, they would only have
been buried in the mud.