We are about ready for the fresh wounded; we have put up one or two
fresh marquees, which hold each about twenty-six beds. We have
seventy-two tents in all, and a number in reserve if required. We have
long buildings when the weather gets cold, which have been built
during the summer by the Austrian prisoners; these were intended for
cholera, but fortunately we did not get this disease in Serbia, so the
buildings have been promised us by the Government for wards for our
patients during the winter months. They are very long low buildings
and would hold about thirty or forty beds; there were about six
buildings in all.
On one occasion, in our ward, a patient who was on light diet, was
found to have a parcel under his pillow. This parcel was found to
contain a little roasted pig, from which he had been helping himself
to small pieces. His relations had been to visit him that afternoon
and had given it to him, regardless of whether it was a suitable
present or not. Pigs in this country are cooked when they are quite
tiny, and a leg is only sufficient for one person's meal. Lambs are
also killed and cooked about the same age, and it is really difficult
to find any meat on the bones after they are roasted. The Serbs do not
consider meat good when it is fully grown, excepting oxen, and beef in
Serbia is one of the worst classes of meat, probably on account of
their being used for labour. Milk is scarce owing to the cows being
used for transport.
They have an extraordinary one-stringed instrument which they will
play for the whole of the day; crowds of people will sit round
listening; this was most trying when the patients got hold of it in
the wards, very monotonous and trying, and some of the singing is also
very weird, being only on one or two notes, but on the whole they are
the most musical people. In the cathedrals the singing is perfectly
lovely, such well trained voices.
We hear that the Germans started shelling Belgrade at 3 a.m.; it
lasted for many hours. We had a thick fog at night, which reminded one
of London, being equally dense but not so yellow.