Next morning, Monday, December 13th, we were off early, and after
half an hour's further climb, we began, to our joy, to descend. The
road was tolerable, but it rained all day, and our adventures were
with swift and bridgeless rivers. Ponies, with their packs, stumbled
in mid-stream, and everyone, wet to the waist, must go to the rescue.
We were now carrying the minimum of food and blankets, and could not
afford further losses. But the ponies were so weak that, if they fell,
it was unlikely that they would rise again, and then both pony and pack
must be abandoned.
We wanted to reach Yabuka that night, as there was, we were told, a
military station there, and bread might be obtainable. It was dark
when we arrived, and rain was falling in torrents. We couldn't find
the military station, for the good reason that it had already been
evacuated: therefore, no bread. There were only three cottages in the
place, and they were packed with soldiers and prisoners. Before turning
them out into the wet, I went with Vooitch another mile, as we saw a
long wooden shed ahead of us, and hoped that it might be available; the
column halted by the cottages. The shed was inhabited by some officers,
who said that half a mile further on there was--an hotel! and that the
landlord would be sure to make room for us; some officers also were
there, and if I addressed myself to them they would make things easy,
etc. I was a little incredulous about the hotel, and the readiness
to welcome us, but Vooitch and I rode on, only to find "nema nishta
Bogami." The so-called hotel was crammed, there was not standing room;
the officer of whom we had been told, was in a house opposite. We went
to this, and found that one tiny room had been given to him and to his
wife and family for the night. I asked him if my family might share the
room with his family. He began demurring, but I suggested that it was
not an ideal night for picnicking outside. He shrugged his shoulders,
then pointed to the corner of the room farthest from his family; in
this many soldiers, and odds and ends were crouched, and sleeping, but
at the first shrug, I sent Vooitch off to fetch the others. We boldly
brought in, not only ourselves, but our packs. After eating our supper,
we lay down on the dirty floor on our rugs, luxuriating in having a
roof over our heads. The soldiers found shelter in sheds and stables.
Amongst the fellow-inhabitants of our room, was a priest. In the game
of musical chairs, for possession of the only chair in the room, he had
triumphed, and he sat tight on this chair, all through the evening,
and all night long. He was evidently particular about proprieties, and
liked things to be done in order. Bedtime was bedtime, wherever you
met it, and it must be scrupulously regarded. At ten o'clock he looked
at his watch, replaced it, then, with the calm deliberation of a man
who, in a well-appointed bedroom, performs the same act in the same way
regularly every night of the 365 nights of the year, he removed his
trousers. For a moment I was in trepidation; what was coming next? I
looked round to see if the girls were asleep. Their eyes were shut. I
couldn't take mine off the priest; he never looked round, he took no
notice of anyone, and when the trousers were off, he sat down again on
the precious chair, folded his trousers, placed them on his lap, went
to sleep, sitting bolt upright, and snored vigorously all night long.
I understood the trouser action; the removal was a danger signal, to
keep off talkative people, or people who might want his chair. By
this simple act, he established all around that chair, a Brunhilde
ring of fire, through which no one dared to break. It was original and
effective, and I was so grateful to him for giving me something to
laugh at, that I could have--but the trousers prevented me.
Next day, Tuesday, December 14th, the weather gave us a variety. Rain,
and hail, and sleet, and bitter cold all day. We had found hay for the
animals last night, but none for the morning's feed, and we were still
fifty-four kilometres--a two days' journey--distant from Podgoritza.
No wonder that animals were lying dead in hundreds by the roadside.
Bread, too, became more and more difficult to get. We had to-day seen a
woman coming out of a cottage, with a loaf of corn bread in her hand.
We flew at her and bought it for thirty dinars (18s.). Was it a wonder
that men also were lying dead, and dying, in hundreds by the roadside?
But I never grew callous to the things I saw. On the contrary, my heart
grew softer, and I became more and more angry at a system of world
government which permits those second-class angels to bluff mankind,
and keep him from the Tree of Life, by the flourishing of a flaming
sword.
After trekking for three hours, we heard that there was hay to be
bought some way up a mountain on our left. So we halted at a cottage by
the roadside, while the men climbed the hill to fetch the hay. Some of
the drivers at first wanted to shirk the climb; I did not blame them,
though I told them they must go; but one of our Englishmen commented
scornfully on the laziness of the Serbian soldier, so I reminded him
that yesterday, when he was in trouble with his pony, owing to mud and
rain, he had lost his temper for a moment, and I now asked him if he
would like his character to be judged by his behaviour at that time of
only a slight trouble? The Serbian soldier, in addition to such slight
troubles, was suffering from troubles which we British islanders can
scarcely imagine. The Englishman had for the moment forgotten all this,
and he agreed with me that the behaviour of the Serbian soldiers was,
under all the circumstances, marvellous.
The road ran in hairpin curves between huge mountains of grey, bare,
rugged rock. You might as well expect milk from stones, as food amongst
such mountains. It was a terrible land, and I felt, as I trudged
through it, that I should never want to see another mountain. But at
dusk (4 p.m.) we reached the military station of Levorcka. Would this
also be deserted? I sent gaolbird on to try and find rooms. He found
one room and a kitchen in which we could cook food, in the house of an
Arnaut woman. When I went into the living room to ask her to let us
boil a kettle on her fire, a pretty little girl of eight was fastening
the dress of her little sister, six years old. I said something about
the children in my best Serbian, and the woman who was, at first, very
curt with us, told me that she had no children; these were two lost
refugees; an officer had picked them up on the road, and had left them
here. The woman was very kind to them, and had grown to love them. She
said that it was possible that the mother might come past this way.
But the elder girl was already useful, and I wondered if the childless
woman would keep a very vigorous look-out for that lost mother?
After much trouble we housed the ponies in cattle stables, and the men
slept with them to prevent their being stolen. We had lost two more
ponies to-day; left on the road too weak to rise, and it was doubtful
whether my horse could go much further. But the men found a fine strong
pony on the mountains, when they went for hay, and this was a great
help.
We were, alas, too late to get bread that evening, but we were told
to come again in the morning. That looked hopeful; but when, on the
morning of Wednesday, December 15th, we arrived at the military
station, the officer said that no bread had come, and that he had just
received a telegram saying that all bread, when it came, was to be sent
to the soldiers at the front--an effective silencer.
On that day we saw epitomised, the barbarous beauty of the land of
Montenegro. Our route lay in narrow valleys between steep mountains of
grey rock; bare of vegetation, bare of life, bare of everything but
inhospitable jagged peaks which dared you to come near them. The rocks
were grey, the sky was grey, and yet, suddenly, at a sharp turn of the
grey road, a grey precipice pointed grimly all the way down, three
thousand feet, to a tiny ribbon of the most brilliant green water that
ever flowed in fairyland. In such drab surroundings, where did it get
that colour? Prosaic people would say "melted snow water," but Hans
Andersen would have known better than that. And so did I. But as it
(the river) was quite inaccessible, it was, like everything else in the
country, a forbidding sight.
But there was that day another moment of stolen joy, when, before
beginning the descent towards the plain in which lay Podgoritza, the
grey prison walls slid open, and revealed vast stretches of open
country, distant mountains, valleys, and, in the middle of a grey mist
of mountain ranges, glinting in the midday sun, a line of gold--could
it be--yes, it was the Lake of Scutari. Ah! that was beautiful indeed!
We had never seen anything so refreshing as that.
Old gaolbird and Sandford and Merton went on to try and get rooms, and
bread and hay, in the village of Vilatz. After winding round and round
the mountain side, on a narrow road, we arrived, and found Sandford
and Merton sitting calmly on a rock this side of the village, "nema
nishta" written in capitals all over their faces. So Vooitch and I
went on into the village, and the first man to whom we spoke said,
"Oh, yes," he could give us hay, and bread, and a house in which to
spend the night. It was too good to be true, but we told him to wait
while we went on to see the officer at the military station, to ask
for bread for the men. But the officer said "nema nishta" to bread
and to everything, so we went out to see what our first friend could
do for us. We found the local Prefect standing outside; a tall,
fine-looking man, dressed in dark blue uniform, with a revolver hanging
conspicuously from his waist-belt. To our surprise, he accosted us
aggressively, and said we must not buy hay or bread from the man who
had offered it. The man remonstrated, and said it was his hay and his
bread, and he could do what he liked with it. I was inclined to agree
with him, but the Prefect then stormed and shouted, and brought out
his revolver, and threatened to shoot the man if we went with him. He
did not realise who we were, and that, though I was in woman's dress,
I had majorly authority. We mentioned this. Then I took his name and
told him that I should tell the English newspapers how a Montenegrin
Prefect treated his English allies. That was a great success. At once
it appeared that we had misunderstood him. He had only spoken for our
good, fearing that we might be disappointed of the promised hay and
bread; but, by all means, if we wished to go to the man's house, we
could go. But I now guessed that, as food was scarce in the village,
our friend might get into trouble if we took his stuff. The house was
out of our way, so I expressed cold thanks for the permission, and we
trekked to the next village (Klopot), which was said to contain hay.
The village consisted of half a dozen one-storied houses, amongst the
barren rocks. Only here and there, like plums in a school pudding, were
patches of green winter corn, amongst the grey boulders. To carry on
the usual farce, Sandford and Merton had gone on ahead to procure hay,
and we found them sitting comfortably in a cottage. "Hullo! Here you
are! How much hay have you found?" "Nema nishta." "How much bread?"
"Nema nishta." This form having been gone through, Vooitch and I went,
as usual, to search. At the end of a long trek, I sometimes wished I
was not obliged to start out to do the work of another man who had
nothing else to do. But I always remembered that I was not enduring
the misery of leaving my country in enemies' hands; I must not judge
them till I had been similarly tried. These men were probably jewels at
their own jobs in normal times. Sandford had been employed in a bank
and had perhaps there learned to say "nema nishta" to his customers.
The other man's job had been commercial.
But it was a little unlucky for them that on this occasion, the first
man in the street whom Vooitch and I approached for hay, replied
promptly, "Oh, yes," he could sell us a thousand kilos; and it was
still more unlucky for them that, when we followed this man to his
house, to complete the bargain, he took us straight to the house in
which Sandford and Merton were at that moment comfortably settled;
a proof that they had not even troubled to ask for hay. We did not
want a thousand kilos, and at first our friend said we must buy all
or nothing; but that was only a preamble, and he gave us 200 kilos at
half a dinar a kilo. At the last village they had asked two grosch.[1]
Our poor tired pony- and oxen-leaders now had a two-miles' climb over
boulders, and up steep hills, to fetch hay. No bread or food for the
men had been obtained or sought, and as Sandford and Merton were
now quite helpless and did nothing for the men, I decided that the
latter should, in future, be given money wherewith to procure food for
themselves. This was at first resisted by S. and M., but I insisted,
and forced them to make a list of the men's names, and to start giving
the money immediately. And the men were well content, and I knew now
that if there was food to be had, they would find it.
[1] A grosch equals about three half-pence.
We were in luck's way that night, for it was bitterly cold, with sleet
and snow, and a Montenegrin policeman allowed us to sleep on the mud
floor of his room. Going to bed was, in these days, a delightfully
simple operation. Men one end of the room, women the other. No
undressing, no washing; one rag on the ground to lie on, and another to
cover you, and you had gone to bed, and were generally asleep in a few
minutes. The unshaved men looked like elongated hedgehogs, and I was
humbly thankful that Nature hadn't given me cheeks that were liable to
sprout with stiff and bristly hairs at the slightest provocation.
The ponies and oxen found shelter under some rocks in a field next
to our house. Our host had some rakiya, and, for a wonder, he sold
us a little, so we called in the pony leaders and gave them each a
small glassful. They expressed themselves, both then and on other
occasions, freely, concerning the Montenegrins. They were all, of
course, desperately keen to get back to Serbia one day, but never, they
said, vehemently, through Montenegro. "Nema nishta Bogami" had been too
severe a trial for their overstrung nerves.
The Montenegrin people seemed, to our men, selfish and unfriendly, and
almost, like their country, hostile. But I reminded our soldiers that
Montenegro was a poor and barren land; there was probably not more
than enough food for the Montenegrin people, and now the Serbian Army
and a portion of the Serbian nation had been billeted on them, and
they could not afford to be generous. But, in my heart, I sympathised
with our men's sentiments. I gathered, during my passage through the
country, the impression that Montenegro desires above all an extension
of commerce; that good roads are of first importance for this, and that
Montenegrin hearts would warm most to the nation which was most likely
to give them the best roads.
I was not surprised that a stouter resistance was not offered to the
Austrian enemy.