SERBIAN CHRISTMAS DAY AT DURAZZO--AEROPLANE RAIDS
Next day was New Year’s Day, and everyone came up and wished me a Happy
New Year, our English New Year, that is, as theirs, of course, did not
come till thirteen days later, and we all hoped that the New Year might
prove happier than the old one had been.
The whole regiment moved their tents up on to the hill and got
ship-shape, which, of course, we had not attempted to do in the dark
last night. All the men hurried up to the top of the hill to have
their first look at the sea, most of them never having seen it before,
and they seemed never tired of lying gazing at it. The sea looked quite
close, but in reality there was a river and a wide swamp between us
and it, as I found to my cost one day when I tried to go down there to
bathe. It was lovely weather, and that afternoon the band played for
the first time, and we all sat about, or paid visits to each other’s
tents, and congratulated ourselves that we seemed to be nearing the
end of our troubles, though as a matter of fact many poor fellows who
had struggled on bravely through Albania succumbed in Durazzo, and
thousands more later on in Corfu from the effects of starvation and
exposure.
We were about 10 miles from the town of Durazzo, though it did not
look anything like so far, and we could see it plainly at the end of
the long line of yellow sands jutting out into the sea. There were
several wrecks round there, one of them a Greek steamer, which had hit
a floating mine. There were a great many of these floating mines about,
and the Austrian submarines were also very active, adding immensely
to the difficulty of getting food and supplies, which all had to be
brought by sea to the troops.
A couple of days after I rode into Durazzo with three of the officers
to see the sights of the town. The first sight I did see was a real
live English sergeant-major walking down the street. I could hardly
believe my eyes, it seemed so long since I had seen an Englishman, and
I did not know there were any there. I almost fell on his neck in
my excitement, and he seemed equally astonished and pleased to see a
fellow countrywoman. He took me up at once to the headquarters of the
British Adriatic Mission, and fed me on tea and cakes, while we were
waiting for Colonel ---- to come in. The same man was also afterwards,
strange to say, the first man I met in Salonica, as he was acting as
Captain of the tug which came to take us off the French steamer on
which we had come from Corfu. Afterwards I had lunch with Colonel ----
and his staff. It was the first time for so long that I had sat on a
chair and eaten my meals off a table with a table-cloth that I had
almost forgotten how to do it. I went back late in the afternoon laden
with sundry luxuries they had given me in the way of butter, jam, and
a tinned plum pudding, and also two loaves of bread which I had bought
in the town, as in those days when we got near a shop we always bought
a loaf of bread, in the same way that people at home would buy cake.
I rode back with an artillery officer, who invited me to lunch next
day, the other side of Kavaia, and I promised I would come if I could
borrow a better horse than the one I was then riding. The road from
our camp to Durazzo was in a shocking condition, and it was very hard
to ride along it after dark; there were so many dead horses strewn all
along it that it was a wonder they did not breed a pestilence.
On my way to my luncheon party next day I met my old friend whose
“Slava day” we had celebrated on the top of Mount Kalabac, and stopped
there for supper coming back. We had supper by the camp fire with an
orchestra of two Tziganes, who sang and played the Serbian airs on
their violins. These Tziganes are all very musical and would sooner
part with anything than their violin. Some of them play very well, and
they can do a very difficult thing--sing a song and play their own
accompaniment with chords on the violin at the same time.
The next day, the men having by now had a little time to get rested,
there was a big parade and inspection, though we were a somewhat
ragged-looking regiment for a full-dress parade.
On the Serbian Christmas Eve there was a great ceremony, which is
always kept up. Of course, we only kept it on a small scale, but I
was told that in Belgrade in peace time it was a very splendid affair
indeed. This was cutting the Christmas oak. All the officers rode out
to a wood, where the band played, and there was a sort of service
conducted by the priest, and then we came back carrying a small oak
tree, and there were refreshments and much drinking of healths.
We kept up Christmas festivities for three days, and the men had extra
rations, and all had roast pig, which even the very poorest family
in Serbia always has on Christmas Day. In the evening I was invited
to dinner with the Colonel of the regiment and his staff; we drank
the healths of England and Serbia together, and kept it up till very
late. They put a gold coin in their pudding like we put things in
our English plum puddings, and I got the slice containing it. They
told me it was very lucky, and I always wear it now. On Christmas
Eve they roast nuts like we do on Twelfth Night. It is the same date
as our Twelfth Night, and I was surprised to find that they had many
of these old customs which are now found more in Ireland than in
England. Although they did their best to make a bluff at having a happy
Christmas it was a very sad and homesick one for them really, not
knowing in the least where their families were spending theirs, or if
they would ever meet again.
We had fixed ourselves up pretty comfortably by now. By digging out
a place about 2 ft. deep, building up the earth into a wall all
round and pitching the tent on to the top of that you can turn a
small bivouac tent into quite a large and commodious abode, which
will contain a camp bed if you have one and a fireplace with an earth
chimney for the smoke, and when you have a fire going and four or five
of you are sitting in there no one need complain of the cold, even on
the coldest evening; and the evenings were still very cold indeed,
although the days were hot.
I used to ride into Durazzo fairly often to see my English friends
there, who were more than kind and hospitable to me, and used to give
me many little luxuries to take back with which to eke out our slender
rations, as, no longer having the hard exercise every day to put an
edge on our appetites, we seemed rather to have turned against beans.
Though a corporal, I always messed with the officers.
The British Adriatic Mission were feeding the Serbian Army, and were
doing wonders, though owing to the constant arrival of fresh troops
and the scarcity of ovens for baking their bread (although they were
building fresh ones as fast as ever they could) the men were still on
half rations of bread, and some days had to have biscuits instead;
but, of course, the men could have eaten a lot more after their months
of starvation. Among other things they had had some coffee given to
them, but it was not much use, as they had no sugar, and the kindly
inhabitants of Durazzo had made a corner in sugar and put the price
up to Frs. 16 a kilo; so it was impossible to buy it for them, and
I racked my brains as to how I could get some at least for my own
company. I asked the head of the B.A.M., but he, of course, could not
make an exception of one particular company, even if it had an English
corporal (I had been made corporal on New Year’s Day, and promoted
sergeant three months later), but he said he would see what could be
done and turned the matter over to his Adjutant. He, being a young man
of resource, went to a Red Cross organisation and demanded a _year’s
rations_ of sugar for an English nurse. I do not know what the daily
ration of sugar for an English nurse may be, but, anyhow, one year’s
worked out at a good-sized case, which I brought back in triumph
(having borrowed a pack-horse in Durazzo for that purpose) and divided
up amongst my company, and perfect peace reigned in the camp, the men
all spending a very happy afternoon sitting round their little camp
fires, making endless little cups of sweet black Turkish coffee. I hope
the American Red Cross will forgive me for sharing my year’s rations
with belligerents if they should ever chance to read this.
I got myself into sad disgrace one day, however, by going away from
the camp without leave. An officer from another battalion was going to
lunch at another camp some miles away, and he invited me to ride over
with him. We started very early in the morning, and, as I could not
find the Commander of my company to ask leave, I just went. We stayed
there, not only for lunch, but for supper and all the evening as well,
and I would not like to say what time it was when we got back. The next
morning my company Commander pointed out to me one of the soldiers up
on the hillside doing four hours’ punishment drill, standing up there
with his rifle, accoutrements and heavy pack in the hot sun, and I
was told that on this occasion I should be let off with a reprimand
(although I had been three months in the Army and ought to know better
by this time), but if I did not see the error of my ways I should find
myself doing something similar to that next time, or five days’ C.B.
I got my revenge, however, a few days later, when he fell sick, and I
returned to my original vocation of nurse. He was a very docile patient
for a week, though after that he suddenly thought it was time to
reassert his authority, so got up one day when my back was turned, and
ate everything I had not allowed him to eat while in bed.
[Illustration: SERBIAN SOLDIERS IN THEIR OWN SERBIAN UNIFORMS, BEFORE
GETTING ENGLISH KHAKI
Page 183]
I had a telegram one day from Durazzo from my friend Miss Simmonds,
telling me to come and meet her in Durazzo at once. She and I had
worked together in the Serbian hospitals ever since the beginning of
the war, and as soon as she got my letter saying I was starting back
for Serbia she had left New York to join me again, but, of course,
could not find me, as by the time she got to Salonica I had disappeared
into Albania. She had been doing most wonderful work ever since,
organising relief for Serbian refugees and personally conducting
shiploads of them from Salonica to Corsica, Marseilles and goodness
knows where. Among other little odd jobs she discovered a whole colony
of them in Brindisi who had been without food for two days; so without
any further red tape proceeded to hire carriages, drive round the town
and buy up everything in the eatable line which was to be had wherewith
to feed them.
I at once borrowed a horse and rode out to Durazzo to meet her. I did
not know in the least where to find her there, but most of the people
in the town seemed to have heard of her, and I finally located her at
the Serbian Crown Prince’s house, where she had gone to be presented.
He was not going to see any more people that day, but when he heard
that I had arrived he very kindly said that he would see me too. I was
not exactly dressed to be presented to Royalty, as I was still wearing
the clothes (the only ones I had) in which I had come through Albania,
besides having just had a hot and dusty 10 mile ride, but that doesn’t
matter in wartime. He was most charming, and decorated us both with the
Sveti Sava medal.
After that we went on board her ship, in which she was sailing that
night with 1,500 refugees which she was taking to Corsica. We had a
busy evening, and had our work cut out for us feeding 1,500 refugees
on bully beef and biscuits. The ship, which was a small Greek one, was
simply packed, and it was no easy task on the pitch dark decks and down
in the holds.
I slept in town that night. One of the English officers was waiting on
the quay for me when I got back at midnight, and he had found me room
in an hotel. The hotels in Durazzo are the limit, but this one did at a
pinch. He asked the boy in the hotel if he could make us some tea. He
said he could as far as the boiling water went, but he had neither tea
nor sugar. A Serbian officer, a stranger to us both, who happened to
be passing on his way to bed, overheard this, and immediately said he
had both tea and sugar, which he would give us; and not only did he do
this, but came back afterwards and apologised for not having any cognac
to put into it. As my friend remarked, “Really the Serbians do give us
points in the way of manners; here is a man who, not satisfied with
seeing to the comfort of two people who are total strangers to him,
and providing them with his own tea and sugar, comes back and actually
apologises because he has not cognac as well!”
The next morning I went round to the British Adriatic Mission, and
while I was having breakfast there there was a most terrific crash,
followed by others in quick succession. I left my breakfast and
went out into the street to see what was to be seen. Five Austrian
aeroplanes were circling round and round overhead, apparently dropping
bombs as fast as they could. The streets of Durazzo are very, very
narrow, and the town is very small and very crowded. People were
running as hard as they could to get out of the way--at least, the
Italians were running, the Serbians always thought it beneath their
dignity to do so. I was standing with a Serbian artillery officer who
knew all about it and could almost always guess pretty well where they
were going to fall. Looking up into the clear blue sky you could see
the bombs quite well as they left the aeroplanes: first of all they
looked like a silvery streak of light, and then like a thin streak of
mist falling through the sky, till they hit some building with a crash,
smothering everyone in the neighbourhood with a powdery white dust.
Two of them fell in almost identically the same spot at the end of the
street about a hundred yards from us, and several more round about.
Another officer joined us presently who was very much annoyed because
he was in the middle of being shaved when the first bomb fell, and
the Italian barber had, without more ado, instantly dropped his razor
and fled, so that he had to come out with only half his face shaved.
He was rather glad afterwards, however, when he found out that had the
barber remained he would have had no face left to shave, as when we
walked back to the shop we found that a bomb had gone clean through
the roof and the barber was standing outside anathematising aeroplanes
for ruining his business. Altogether they dropped twenty-five bombs in
about a quarter of an hour within a radius of a little over a quarter
of a mile and killed a good many people.
There was a wide subterranean drain leading from the town to the sea,
and down this hundreds of Italians crawled, but I think if I were
given the choice of crawling down a Durazzo drain in close proximity
to some hundreds of the natives of that town or being killed by a bomb
I would choose the latter. One day previously some bombs had fallen
in the neighbourhood of a camp of Italian soldiers, who had to vacate
it. A company of hungry Serbians near by had with great presence of
mind seized the opportunity to go in and clear the deserted camp of
all the bread and everything eatable it contained, and they were
heard to express a wish afterwards that there might be a visitation
of aeroplanes every day. When it was all over I went back again,
and, finding the headquarters of the British Adriatic Mission still
standing, sat down to a fresh lot of bacon and eggs for breakfast,
such luxuries not being obtainable every day.