A Serbian detachment from the VIIth regiment had been ordered one night
to cross the river Sava to make explorations about the positions and
vigilance of the enemy. The soldiers prepared themselves to fulfil their
task with silence and depression. The commander of the detachment
remarked that and said:
"Yes, our task is very dangerous, my friends; we may die to-night,
but remember that English lords on the battlefield to-night are in
danger of death too for the same cause as we."
On hearing that the soldiers became cheerful.
* * * * *
An officer said to his private: "If I should be killed in the battle,
don't leave my body here, but carry it to Kraguievaz, where my wife is,
and bury it there."
It happened indeed that the officer was killed. The private asked
permission to transfer the body as he was told. The permission was not
given. In the night he took the dead body on his back, and after a
journey of three nights brought it to Kraguievaz and buried it.
Therefore he was judged by the military court and sentenced to a very
heavy punishment. But he showed himself very satisfied, saying:
"I did what I was ordered and what I promised to do. Now you can
sentence me even to death; at least I will not be ashamed in the
other world meeting my commander."
* * * * *
In the offensive against the Austrians in December 1914 a Serbian
company found in a trench three Magyar soldiers. They laid down their
arms.
"Would you kill them, Andrea?" asked the officer of one of his men to
prove him.
The man replied with astonishment:
"Marko of Prilep never killed a disarmed man"
* * * * *
A peasant one day dug the ground behind his home. It was after the
Austrian army had been beaten and repulsed, and the Serbian refugees
returned home. The peasant was asked:
"What are you digging for?"
"Our tricolours. I put it three weeks ago under the ground. I was afraid
the Austrians would spit on it, and it means the same as to spit in
one's face."
* * * * *
In the battle on Krivolak a Serbian was wounded in the chest. He could
scarcely breathe. He was sent to the hospital. Moving slowly, he came to
a spot where he saw a wounded Bulgarian lying down among the dead and
crying with pain, his legs being broken. The Serbian stood thoughtful a
minute, then he took the enemy on his back and brought him to the
hospital, both very exhausted. He was asked:
"Why did you take such a burden, since you are a burden to yourself?"
He kept silent for a moment and then replied:
"You know, sire, I have been shooting with all the others. Who knows,
perhaps _I_ wounded him."
* * * * *
"Why should not I believe in Fate?" an under-officer once asked me.
"Should somebody relate to me what I am going to tell you, I could not
believe it. But it happened to me. Once in my boyhood I cut the
branches of a tree; a gipsy woman saw me and said:
"'Don't injure the tree; a tree may once save your life when all your
hopes are gone.'"
"Now, listen! I was taken prisoner by the Austrians. In their retreat
they let me go with their column. We went through a thick forest. I
thought myself lost. All my past life came before my eyes. I remembered
the gipsy woman and her advice. I looked around. In a few moments I
jumped aside and found myself on the top of a tree. Nobody saw me. Hours
and hours the Austrians marched close to my protecting tree. At once two
Magyar hussars rushed back looking around, evidently searching for me.
They went. Then came our first advance guard, and I slipped down from
the tree and surprised them. Is that not Fate?"
* * * * *
Typhus fever raged most in Valevo, where the Austrian troops came first
and brought it, a worse enemy of Serbia than even the Austrians
themselves. A Serbian women's association in Nish held a meeting and
consulted a doctor how they could help.
"Don't go to Valevo," advised the doctor. "Whoever enters the hospital
over there must die."
The president, a well-known woman, kept silent, went home, packed her
luggage and took the first train for Valevo. After two weeks she was
brought home infected by typhus, and died soon afterwards.
* * * * *
A patrician mother fled before the Bulgars with two girls. For several
days they had nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. As they reached the
rocky frontier of Albania, the girls asked the mother:
"And now, whither?"
The mother smiled and said:
"I will give you now the last bit to eat, and then we will go where we
will be perfectly safe from enemy and hunger."
And she gave to the girls and she herself took--poison.
* * * * *
In spring 1913 the Montenegrins took Scutari after immense sacrifice of
lives. Yet they were forced by the Great Powers through Austria's
intrigues to leave the very dear town. Soon afterwards a Serbian from
Montenegro travelled from Cattaro to Fiume. An Austrian officer saw him
in his picturesque costume, and said to him with irony:
"You see after all you must yield Scutari to us."
"Yes," replied the Montenegrin, "we Montenegrins and you Austrians are
as different as lions and foxes. There are many dens of lions where the
foxes creep in and not one den of foxes where you could find a lion."