ANDRIEVITZA TO POD
A problem met us in the morning. Willett was quite ill and only fit for
bed. But bed was impossible. We had just escaped from the sound of the
guns, and did not know which way the Austrians were coming. To wait was
too risky; others would certainly get seedy and sooner or later some one
might get seriously ill. We felt we must push on to Podgoritza and be
within hail of doctor and chemist. But Willett looked very wretched,
lying flat and refusing breakfast.
We plied him with chlorodyne; but the chlorodyne did not like him and
they parted company. We tried chlorodyne followed by brandy with better
effect. Others also showed a distinct interest in the chlorodyne bottle.
We felt very anxious: milk was almost unprocurable, other comforts nil.
We finally decided that if he was going to have dysentery he had better
have it decently and in order at Podgoritza, than stand the chance of
being suddenly surprised by the Austrians and made to walk endless
distances. So we heaved him on to a wooden pack, and the other
chlorodyney figures of woe climbed on to the remaining queer-looking
saddles.
Blease tried a horse which had a thoughtful eye. It kicked him on the
knee, and trod on his toe, so he relinquished the joy of riding for the
serener pleasure of walking. Jan clambered on to it, whereupon it stood
on its forelegs, and as there were no stirrups and the saddle back hit
him behind, he landed over its neck, remaining there propped up by a
stick which was in his hand. After readjusting himself inside the two
wooden peaks of the saddle, he testified his disapproval to the beast,
and trotted away in style, leaving a row of grinning Montenegrins and
boys behind with the exception of one who clung to reins and other bits
of saddlery, imploring him to stop. It would seem as if pack ponies were
never meant to trot, but at last he shook off the pony boy, passed Miss
Brindley (whose horse was looking at himself in a puddle with such deep
and concentrated interest that he pulled her over his head and landed
her in the middle of the water), and reached the vanguard of the party,
who had deserted their horses for a lift on a lorry--Willett, sitting in
front with the driver, was shrunk like a concertina inside his great
coat.
The lorry dropped us just before the first broken bridge. Then we had to
leave the road and face mud slush, climbing for hours. We had picked up
various friends--a courtly old peasant who was very worried to hear that
Kragujevatz had fallen, and feared for the invasion of Montenegro; two
barefoot girls, who asked Jo all the usual questions, and an
American-speaking Serbian man who had trudged from Ipek, the first
refugee on that road from Serbia. He was very mysterious, and contrary
to the usual custom, would not tell us about himself nor where he was
going.
He was very anxious to stand us drinks, but curiously enough, every one
refused. The professor had started before us, with a Greek priest. When
we passed him he lifted his hands deprecatingly, "Teshko."
Our hopes of arriving before dark were as usual crushed. The dusk found
us still floundering in the mud on wayside paths. It began to pour. The
hills above us became white--a straight line being drawn between snow
and rain--and our guides wanted us to spend the night at an inn two
hours before we reached Jabooka. But it looked very uninviting--we
remembered the cheery hostess of Jabooka, the woman who came from "other
parts," and knew a thing or two about cleanliness. Every one agreed to
go on. Willett was rather better, so we forged ahead in the downpour
and the dark, splashing through puddles and singing everything we knew.
Our Albanian guides chuckled and chanted their own nasal songs in a
different key as an accompaniment.
Far away we saw a tiny light--Jabooka. We stretched our legs and hurried
along, but alas! the inn room was full. There was the professor, his
face shining from warmth and well-being, crowds of men in uniform, some
fat travelling civilians: faces looked up from the floor, from the
corners, faces were everywhere, wet boys were steaming in front of the
fire, while the hostess and a girl were picking their way as best they
could in the tobacco smoke with eggs and rakia.
Full; even the floor! and we were wet through. The professor had
announced that we were staying at the dirty inn away back. Oh, the old
villain!
He came forward, saying in an impressive voice that a major had taken
the inn.
"Bother the major," said Jo. "Something must be done."
The professor smiled. "There _is_ another inn."
There was nothing for it. We had to go to the inn across the road, glad
enough to have a roof at all. The rain was tearing down as if the
heavens were filled with fire-engines.
But they didn't want us there. We beheld a dirty low-ceiled room filled
with filthy people and a smell of wet unwashed clothes.
The owner and his wife received us roughly. "We have no room, we have
nothing," they said.
We stood our ground. "We _must_ have a roof to-night."
Outside the road had become a river, our men were nearly dropping with
fatigue.
"You can't come here," said the innkeeper, looking at us with great
distrust.
The major, whom Jo had "bothered," came in. "You must take these
people," he said, and asked various searching questions about the rooms.
Reluctantly the truth came out that if the whole family slept in one
room there would be one for us. The major ordered them to do it. Jo
wished she hadn't "bothered" him quite so gruffly.
The daughters stamped about, furiously pulling all the blankets off the
two beds, while one of them stood in the doorway watching us to see that
we did not secrete the greasy counterpanes. Several of the party sat,
hair on end, with staring eyes, too tired to shut them.
"Food?"
"Nema Nishta," was the response.
"Can we boil water?"
"No."
"Where can we boil it?"
"Nowhere."
"But there is a fire in the kitchen," we said, pointing to a hooded
fireplace where a few sticks were burning.
"Why shouldn't they boil water?" said a kindly looking man.
"Well, I suppose they can," said the old woman, who became almost
pleasant over the kitchen fire--telling Jo she was sixty and only a
stara Baba (old granny).
Miss Brindley made tea. We cheered as she brought it in. Tea, bully
beef, and our last biscuits comprised our dinner, which we ate in big
gulps, after which we sang "Three blind mice" as a digestive.
The half-open door was full of peering faces, so somewhat encouraged we
gave them a selection of rounds.
We left next morning early in a heavy downpour, after being exorbitantly
charged, glad to leave Jabooka for ever.
The professor was before us, an aged red Riding Hood, clad in his
scarlet blanket. The day was long and uneventful. Trudge, trudge,
splash, splash. The dividing line between snow and rain still was
heavily marked, but it sleeted and our hands were quite numbed. We
crossed an angry stream on a greasy pole and most of us splashed in.
Whatmough stood in the water, remarking, "I'm wet and I'll get no
wetter," and helped people across. Again after dark we arrived at Liéva
Riéka, to find our dirty old inn again; but it had a real iron stove
which gave out a glorious heat, and we crowded around in the ill-lit
room, clouds of steam arising from us. We tried to dry our stockings
against the stove pipe, but the old mother did not approve. She was
afraid of fire. When she ran out of the room, socks were pressed
surreptitiously against the pipe with a "sizz," and when she returned,
innocent looking people were standing against the wall, no socks to be
seen.
The eldest daughter settled down with her head in Jo's hip, having
failed to get Miss Brindley alongside. She gazed longingly at Miss
Brindley from Jo's lap, and asking for all the data possible as to her
life.
"A devoika (girl), free, travelling from a country so far away that it
would take three months in an oxcart to get there."
"Oh, how wonderful!"
They gave us a tiny room and two benches--much too small for the whole
company; so some slept outside on the balcony.
The professor was in the adjoining inn, so we guessed it must be the
best; but a young French sailor, from the wireless in Podgoritza, who
came to gossip with us, said there was nothing to choose.
He was champing, as the Government were commandeering the wireless
company's motor cars right and left using them to cart benzine; and now
they were going to send a refugee Serb officer's family to Podgoritza in
his motor, leaving him sitting.
We spent the next morning waiting for the motor, not knowing if it would
arrive or no. The professor sailed away in the French one, being one up
on us again. It still rained, so we sat contemplating the possibilities
of lunch. No sooner was it on the boil than the biggest automobile in
Montenegro, a covered lorry, turned up.
We persuaded the driver to lunch with us, and packed ourselves and our
dingy packages on to the wet floor. The motor buzzed up and downhill,
incessantly twisting and turning: what we could see of the view from the
back waved to and fro like Alpine scenery seen in the cinematograph.
Stajitch became violently seasick with the fumes of benzine, which arose
from two big tanks we were taking along, and lay with his head lolling
miserably out of the back of the car.
Pod once more, sleepy, inhospitable Pod.
We bargained for rooms at our old inn--mixed beds and floors. The owner
was asking more than ever; he shrugged his shoulders and raised his
hands.
"The war--increasing prices."
So we took what we could, put Stajitch to bed, saw the prefect, our old
friend from Chainitza, who promised us a carriage for Cettinje in the
morning.
Miss Brindley, joyfully ready to see Cettinje and anything else that
might turn up, joined Jo and Jan in the old shandrydan carriage which
lumbered along for seven hours to Cettinje.
"We are going to find Turkish delight," said the others, as they
disappeared down a side street, revelling in the idea of a rest.
Cettinje was inches deep in water. We assured the Count de Salis that
much as we needed money to continue the journey, we needed baths more.
This was a weighty matter and needed much thinking out, petroleum being
very scarce. The huge empty Legation kitchen stove was lit and upon it
were placed all the kettles, saucepans, and empty tins in the place; the
picturesque old baggy-breeched porter, his wife, and little boy stoking
hard, and asking lots of questions. One by one we were ushered into a
room, not the bathroom but a room containing the sort of comfortable
bath which makes the least water go the longest way, and also a
beautiful hot stove. This solemn rite occupied a whole afternoon. We
had not taken our clothes off for sixteen days and had been in the
dirtiest of places. A change of underclothing was effected. None too
soon! for at Liéva Riéka we had picked up lice.
We compared notes on this part afterwards. "Happy hunting?" we inquired
like Mowgli's friends. It was good to sit by the big kitchen stove
holding bits of dripping clothing to the blaze; the downfall at Cettinje
the evening before having completely drenched our damp things again.
Next day outside the world was white and silent, the snow covering the
little city and its intrigues with a thick whitewash.
The minister was the kindest of hosts and could not do enough for us
during our stay. Cettinje had not changed much. The hotel-keeper showed
an intense and violent anxiety to leave Montenegro. Never had his native
Switzerland seemed so alluring and never was it so unattainable. The
chemist, who owned a little one-windowed shop, was engaged to the king's
niece, quite a lift in the world for her, as she was marrying a man of
education.
Penwiper, the dog, was still in sole possession of the street, and again
went mad with joy at the sound of English women's voices, and
accompanied us everywhere, generally upside-down in the snow, clutching
our skirts with her teeth.
Jan was in and out of the Transport Office door while Miss Brindley and
Jo were being followed around the streets by a jeering crowd of
children, who seemed to think that Miss Brindley's india-rubber boot-top
leggings and Jo's corrugated stockings and safety-pinned-up skirt out of
place. We bought some bags from a woman we afterwards heard was
suspected of being an Austrian spy.
Poor old Prenk Bib Doda was in our hotel. He was Prince of the
Miridites. As a boy he had been kidnapped by the Turks and haled off to
Constantinople. Grown to a middle-aged man in captivity, he was restored
to his tribes during the Young Turk Revolution, only to be abducted by
the Montenegrins, and to be kept practically a prisoner in Cettinje. We
don't know if he disliked it, possibly not, for his walk in life seems
to be that of a professional hostage, if one may say so. His ideals of
comfort were certainly nearer to the cabarets in Berlin, than to the
wild orgies of his own subjects. In fact he was civilized.
A passage across the Adriatic seemed problematic. The Transport Minister
hoped we might catch a ship that had tried to leave Scutari three times,
but had always been thrown on the beach by storms. The great difficulty
was crossing the lake of Scutari. One steamer had been mysteriously sunk
and another damaged. He promised to arrange a motor for us directly he
should be able to put his hand on a boat to take us across the lake.
Jan and Jo simultaneously began to wish they had not eaten sardines at
Riéka. The attack was very violent, and next day Jo stayed in bed,
refusing the page boy's efforts to tempt her with lunch.
"See," he said, bearing in a third dish, "English, your i _rissh_kew."
Jo pretended to be pleased, and made Jan eat the Irish stew after his
lunch, so that the page boy's feelings should not be hurt.
Suddenly word came from the Transport Minister that a carriage was
coming for us. We were to go to Pod, and pick up the others. So Jo
stopped tying herself into knots and had to get up and go. We arrived at
Pod to find everybody ill. Two days' sedentary life and Turkish delight
were responsible for this. We suggested castor oil. One had just missed
pleurisy--Whatmough had acted as nurse.
The professor had been trying to pump Stajitch as to our future plans,
as he was again alone and rudderless. Stajitch said--
"Mr. and Mrs. Gordon alone know, and they are in Cettinje."
"Now that's not kind to keep a fellow countryman in the dark," said the
professor.
Stajitch assured him he knew nothing; but the professor walked away,
murmuring that the English were undermining a good Serb boy's character.
And that was the last of the professor.
[Illustration]