FIGHTING ON MOUNT CHUKUS
We rode all that morning, and as the Commander of the battalion,
Captain Stoyadinovitch, did not speak anything but Serbian, nor did
any other of the officers or men, it looked as if I should soon pick
it up. The staff had also shifted their quarters at the same time, and
while we were riding up a very steep hill where Captain S---- had to go
for orders Diana’s saddle slipped round, and by the time some of the
soldiers had fixed it again for me I found he had got his orders and
disappeared. I asked some of the soldiers which way he had gone, and
they pointed across some fields; so I went after him as fast as Diana
could gallop. I met three officers that I knew, also running in the
same direction, and all the men seemed to be going the same way too.
The officers hesitated about letting me come, and said, “Certainly not
on Diana,” who was white and would make an easy mark for the enemy; so
I jumped off and threw my reins to a soldier.
“Well, can you run fast?” they said.
“What, away from the Bulgars!” I exclaimed in surprise.
“No, towards them.”
“Yes, of course I can.”
“Well, come on then,” and off we went for a regular steeplechase,
down one side of a steep hill, splashing and scrambling through a
torrent at the bottom of it and up another one equally steep, a sturdy
lieutenant leading us over all obstacles, at a pace which left even
all of them gasping, and I was thankful that I was wearing riding
breeches and not skirts, which would have certainly been a handicap
through the bushes. I wondered how fast we could go if occasion should
arise that we ever had to run away _from_ the Bulgarians, if we went
at that pace _towards_ them. Though no one had breath to tell me where
we were going, it was plain enough, as we could hear the firing more
clearly every moment. We finally came to anchor in a ruined Albanian
hut in the middle of a bare plateau on the top of a hill, where we
found the Commander of the battalion there before us, he having ridden
another way. The Fourth Company, whom we had already met once that
morning, were holding some natural trenches a short way farther on,
and we were not allowed to go any farther. The Bulgarians seemed to
have got their artillery fairly close, and the shrapnel was bursting
pretty thickly all round. We sat under the shelter of the wall and
watched it, though, as it was the only building standing up all by
itself, it seemed to make a pretty good mark, supposing they discovered
we were there, which they did very shortly. An ancient old crone, an
Albanian woman, barefooted and in rags, was wandering about among the
ruins, and she looked such a poor old thing that I gave her a few
coppers. She called down what I took at the time to be blessings on my
head, but which afterwards I had reason to suppose were curses. The
shells were beginning to fall pretty thickly in our neighbourhood,
and our Battalion Commander finally said it was time to move on. He
proved to be right, as three minutes after we left it the wall under
which we were sitting was blown to atoms by a shell. My old crone had
disappeared in the meantime to a couple of wooden houses on the edge
of the wood. We had to cross a piece of open ground, which we did in
single file, to reach this wood, and before we got to it we got a
whole fusillade of bullets whistling round our ears from the friends
and relations of the old lady upon whom I had expended my misplaced
sympathy and coppers. These were the sort of tricks the Albanians were
constantly playing on us from the windows of houses, whenever they got
a chance.
We got down through the wood to where we left our horses, waited for
the Fourth Company to join us, which they presently did, and then rode
on, halting for a time, not far from where some of our artillery were
shelling the enemy down below in the valley. The officer in charge
showed me how to fire off one of the guns when he gave the word, and
let me take the place of the man who had been doing it as long as we
stayed there.
It was dark when we got to our camping ground that night, close to
where the Colonel and his staff were settled, so I sent for my
blankets and tent, which I had left with them, and camped with the
battalion. After a light supper of bowls of soup we sat in a circle
round the camp fire till late, smoking and chatting. The whole
battalion was camped there, including the Fourth Company, with whom
I had previously spent an evening at their camp in the snow, and I
thought it very jolly being with them again. It did not seem quite so
jolly, however, the next morning, when we were aroused at 3 a.m. in
pitch dark and pouring rain, everything extremely cold and horribly
wet, to climb into soaking saddles, without any breakfast, and ride off
goodness knows where to take up some new position.
It was so thick that we could literally not see our horses’ ears; I
kept as close as I could behind Captain S----, and he called out
every now and again to know if I was still there. We jostled our way
through crowds of soldiers, all going in the same direction up a steep
path turned into a mountain torrent from the rain, with a precipitous
rock on the near side, which I was told to keep close to, as there was
a precipice on the other. A figure wrapped up in a waterproof cloak
loomed up beside me in the darkness and proved to be the Commander
of the Fourth Company. He presented me with firstly a pull from his
flask of cognac, which was very grateful and comforting, and secondly
a pair of warm woollen gloves, which he had in reserve, as my hands
were wet and frozen. This young man had a most useful faculty of having
a “reserve” of everything one could possibly want, which he always
produced just at the right moment, when one did want it. He had not
done four years’ incessant campaigning without learning everything
there was to know about it, and prided himself upon always having a
“reserve,” from a tin of sardines or a piece of chocolate when you were
hungry and had nothing to eat, to a spare bridle when someone’s broke,
as mine did one day, although he seemed to carry no more luggage than
anyone else.
We rode like this till after daylight, and then sat on the wet grass
under some trees and had a plate of beans; they tasted very good then,
but I’ve eaten them so often since that now I simply can’t look a bean
in the face. They asked me if I was going to tackle the mountain on
foot with them, or if I would rather stay there with the transport. I
went with them, of course. Mount Chukus is 1,790 metres high from where
we were then, and it certainly was a stiff climb. We left our horses
there--I had been riding a rough mountain pony of Captain S----’s--and
the whole battalion started up on foot. There was no path most of the
way, and in places it was so steep that we had to scramble along and
pull ourselves up by the bushes, over the rocks and boulders, and in
spite of the cold and wet we were all dripping with perspiration. We
of necessity went very slowly, making frequent halts to recover our
breath and let the end men catch up, as we did not want to lose any
stragglers. It must be remembered that not one of these men but had at
least one old wound received either in this or some previous war, and
a great number had five or six, and this climb was calculated to catch
anybody in their weak spot.
We arrived at the top about 4 p.m., steady travelling since 3 a.m. that
morning, most of which had been uphill and hard-going. One officer with
an old wound through his chest, and another bullet still in his side,
just dropped on his face when we got to the top, though he had not
uttered a word of complaint before.
At the very tip-top we camped amongst some pine trees and put up our
tents; it was still raining hard and continued to do so all that
night, and everything was soaking--there didn’t seem to be a dry spot
anywhere. The little bivouac tents are made in four pieces, and each
man carries one piece, which he wraps round him like a waterproof when
he has to march in the rain; and, if it is not convenient to put up
tents, rolls himself up in it at night. We made fires, though we were
nearly blinded by the smoke from the wet wood; someone produced some
bread and cheese and shared it round, and then we all turned in. It was
so cold and wet that I crawled out again about 2 a.m., and finished
the night by the fire, as did three or four more uneasy souls who were
too cold to sleep. My feet were soaking, so I stuck them near the fire
and then went to sleep, pulling my coat over my head to keep off the
rain, and it was not until some time afterwards that I discovered that
I had burnt the soles nearly off my boots. I felt hearty sympathy for
a soldier I heard one day in Durazzo being reprimanded by an officer
for having half his overcoat burnt away--“Do you think you were the
only one who was cold? Why didn’t _that_ man and _that_ man burn their
clothes? they were just as cold,” and I thought guiltily of my own
burnt boots.
Later on the next day the sun put in an appearance, as did also the
Bulgarians. The other side of the mountain was very steep, and our
position dominated a flat wooded sort of plateau below, where the enemy
were. One of our sentries, who was posted behind a rock, reported
the first sight of them, and I went up to see where they were, with
two of the officers. I could not see them plainly at first, but they
could evidently see our three heads very plainly. The companies were
quickly posted in their various positions, and I made my way over to
the Fourth, which was in the first line; we did not need any trenches,
as there were heaps of rocks for cover, and we laid behind them firing
by volley. I had only a revolver and no rifle of my own at that time,
but one of my comrades was quite satisfied to lend me his and curl
himself up and smoke. We all talked in whispers, as if we were stalking
rabbits, though I could not see that it mattered much if the Bulgarians
did hear us, as they knew exactly where we were, as the bullets that
came singing round one’s head directly one stood up proved, but they
did not seem awfully good shots. It is a funny thing about rifle fire,
that a person’s instinct always seems to be to hunch up his shoulders
or turn up his coat collar when he is walking about, as if it were
rain, though the bullet you hear whistle past your ears is not the one
that is going to hit you. I have seen heaps of men do this who have
been through dozens of battles and are not afraid of any mortal thing.
We lay there and fired at them all that day, and I took a lot of
photographs which I wanted very much to turn out well; but, alas!
during the journey through Albania the films, together with nearly
all the others that I took, got wet and spoilt. The firing died down
at dark, and we left the firing line and made innumerable camp fires
and sat round them. Lieut. Jovitch, the Commander, took me into his
company, and I was enrolled on its books, and he seemed to think I
might be made a corporal pretty soon if I behaved myself. We were 221
in the Fourth, and were the largest, and, we flattered ourselves, the
smartest, company of the smartest regiment, the first to be ready in
marching order in the mornings, and the quickest to have our tents
properly pitched and our camp fires going at night. Our Company
Commander was a hustler, very proud of his men, and they were devoted
to him and would do anything for him, and well they might. He was a
martinet for discipline, but the comfort of his men was always his
first consideration; they came to him for everything, and he would
have given anyone the coat off his back if they had wanted it. A good
commander makes a good company, and he could make a dead man get up
and follow him.
That evening was very different to the previous one. Lieut. Jovitch
had a roaring fire of pine logs built in a little hollow, just below
what had been our firing line, and he and I and the other two officers
of the company sat round it and had our supper of bread and beans, and
after that we spread our blankets on spruce boughs round the fire and
rolled up in them. It was a most glorious moonlight night, with the
ground covered with white hoar frost, and it looked perfectly lovely
with all the camp fires twinkling every few yards over the hillside
among the pine trees. I lay on my back looking up at the stars, and,
when one of them asked me what I was thinking about, I told him that
when I was old and decrepit and done for, and had to stay in a house
and not go about any more, I should remember my first night with the
Fourth Company on the top of Mount Chukus.
The next morning our blankets were all covered with frost and the air
was nippy, but got warmer as the sun got up, and one soon gets used to
the cold when one is always out of doors.
We took up our positions again behind the same line of rocks soon after
sunrise. In the afternoon the firing got very hot, and the Bulgars got
a sort of cross fire on, so that the bullets were also spitting across
the plateau where we had our fire last night, and they seemed to be
getting up nearer round another ridge. Our cannon were posted somewhere
below on our left commanding the road, and we could watch how things
were going on between them and the Bulgarian artillery by the puffs of
white smoke. We had a few casualties, but not so very many.
We stayed there all day till dark, and it got very cold towards sunset,
kneeling or lying on our tummies; sometimes we just sniped as we liked,
and sometimes fired by volley as the platoon sergeant gave the order,
“Né shanni palli” (“Take aim, fire”). I had luckily always been used to
a rifle, so could do it with the others all right.
One drawback to Chukus was that there was very little to eat and no
water, or at least hardly any, it having to be fetched in water-bottles
from a long distance, or melted down from the snow which still hung
about there in deep drifts. We used to fill billy-cans with snow and
melt it over the fire. The men had long ago finished their ration of
bread which they carried in their knapsacks and only had corn cobs,
which they roasted over the camp fires; we had also almost run out of
cigarettes and tobacco.
About 9 p.m. the order came to retire; coming up the mountain was bad
enough, but going down was worse. It was lucky there was a moon. We
went down a different side along a path covered with thick slippery
mud and very steep, and, as I had no nails in my boots and not much
soles, I found it hard to keep my feet. Half-way down we met another
battalion, and I was delighted to meet my old friend whose “Slava day”
we had celebrated on the top of Mount Kalabac, and who wanted to know
what in the world I was doing here. We found the horses at the bottom,
and then the men marched, and I and those of the officers who had
horses rode all night through a long defile in the mountains. It was a
very narrow track, with a mountain up one side and a precipice on the
other which effectually prevented one from giving way to the temptation
to go to sleep while riding.
We picked up the rest of the regiment soon after daybreak and halted
there. I already knew nearly all the officers, and they all wanted
to know what I thought of Chukus. We sat round the fires for some
time laughing and joking and then all went on to within a few miles
of Elbasan. I thought we were going to camp there, but we still had
another five or six miles’ march to the outskirts of Elbasan. Since I
had joined this company we had had a day’s fighting, then a twelve-hour
march, starting at 3 a.m. with a climb to the top of Chukus thrown in,
36 hours’ pelting rain, two days’ continuous fighting, nothing but a
few cobs to eat, and now had been marching since 9 o’clock the night
before, yet as we turned at 5 o’clock in the afternoon into the swampy
field where we were to camp they had enough spirit left to respond to
their company Commander’s appeal, “Now then, men, left, right, left,
right; pull yourselves together and remember you are soldiers,” and
this was only a sample of what they had been doing for weeks past.