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+Project Gutenberg's The Luck of Thirteen, by Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Luck of Thirteen
+       Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia
+
+Author: Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
+
+Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17291]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of
+public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: JO AT THE MACHINE GUN.]
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN
+
+WANDERINGS AND FLIGHT THROUGH MONTENEGRO AND SERBIA
+
+BY
+
+MR. AND MRS. JAN GORDON
+
+
+WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND A MAP
+TAIL PIECES BY CORA J. GORDON
+COLOUR PLATES BY JAN GORDON
+
+
+NEW YORK
+E.P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
+681 FIFTH AVENUE
+1916
+
+
+PRINTED BY
+WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED
+LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                            PAGE
+
+        INTRODUCTION                                  1
+
+    II. NISH AND SALONIKA                            10
+
+   III. OFF TO MONTENEGRO                            20
+
+    IV. ACROSS THE FRONTIER                          31
+
+     V. THE MONTENEGRIN FRONT ON THE DRINA           47
+
+    VI. NORTHERN MONTENEGRO                          66
+
+   VII. TO CETTINJE                                  85
+
+  VIII. THE LAKE OF SCUTARI                          99
+
+    IX. SCUTARI                                     105
+
+     X. THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO                   122
+
+    XI. IPEK, DECHANI AND A HAREM                   145
+
+   XII. THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO--II               169
+
+  XIII. USKUB                                       182
+
+   XIV. MAINLY RETROSPECTIVE                        198
+
+    XV. SOME PAGES FROM MR. GORDON'S DIARY          213
+
+   XVI. LAST DAYS AT VRNTZE                         227
+
+  XVII. KRALIEVO                                    244
+
+ XVIII. THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA                        263
+
+   XIX. NOVI BAZAR                                  284
+
+    XX. THE UNKNOWN ROAD                            299
+
+   XXI. THE FLEA-PIT                                315
+
+  XXII. ANDRIEVITZA TO POD                          328
+
+ XXIII. INTO ALBANIA                                341
+
+  XXIV. "ONE MORE RIBBER TO CROSS"                  359
+
+        INDEX                                       377
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+               COLOURED PLATES
+
+                                                  FACING PAGE
+
+Jo at the Machine Gun                          _Frontispiece_
+
+The Ipek Pass in Winter                                   140
+
+Retreating Ammunition Train                               276
+
+Albanian Mule-drivers Camping                             354
+
+
+               HALF-TONE PLATES
+
+Out-patients                                                4
+
+Shoeing Bullocks                                            4
+
+Peasant Women in Gala Costume, Nish                        20
+
+Serb Convalescents at Uzhitze                              28
+
+Serb and Montenegrin Officers on the Drina                 58
+
+A Concealed Gun Emplacement on the Drina                   58
+
+Peasant Women of the Mountains                             76
+
+A Village of North Montenegro                              76
+
+Jo and Mr. Suma in the Scutari Bazaar                     110
+
+Christian Women hiding from the Photographer              112
+
+Scutari--Bazaar and Old Venetian Fortress                 112
+
+Disembarkation of a Turkish Bride                         114
+
+Governor Petrovitch and his Daughter in their State Barge 114
+
+In the Bazaar of Ipek                                     162
+
+Street Coffee Seller in Ipek                              162
+
+A Wine Market in Uskub                                    184
+
+Big Gun passing through Krusevatz                         194
+
+In-patients                                               202
+
+Broken Aeroplane in the Arsenal at Krag                   220
+
+Where the "Plane" fell                                    220
+
+House near the Arsenal damaged by Bombs                   220
+
+Peasant Women leaving their Village                       260
+
+Serb Family by the Roadside                               260
+
+The Flight of Serbia                                      266
+
+Unloading the _Benedetto_, San Giovanni di Medua          364
+
+Route Map of the Authors' Wanderings         _At end of text_
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+It is curious to follow anything right back to its inception, and to
+discover from what extraordinary causes results are due. It is strange,
+for instance, to find that the luck of the thirteen began right back at
+the time when Jan, motoring back from Uzhitze down the valley of the
+Morava, coming fastish round a corner, plumped right up to the axle in a
+slough of clinging wet sandy mud. The car almost shrugged its shoulders
+as it settled down, and would have said, if cars could speak, "Well,
+what are you going to do about that, eh?" It was about the 264th mud
+hole in which Jan's motor had stuck, and we sat down to wait for the
+inevitable bullocks. But it was a Sunday and bullocks were few; the wait
+became tedious, and in the intervals of thought which alternated with
+the intervals of exasperation, Jan realized that he needed a holiday.
+
+To be explicit. Jan was acting as engineer to Dr. Berry's Serbian
+Mission from the Royal Free Hospital:--Jan Gordon, and Jo is his wife,
+Cora Josephine Gordon, artist, and V.A.D.
+
+We had a six months of work behind us. We had seen the typhus, and had
+dodged the dreaded louse who carries the infection, we had seen the
+typhus dwindle and die with the onrush of summer. We had helped to clean
+and prepare six hospitals at Vrntze or Vrnjatchka Banja--whichever you
+prefer. We had helped Mr. Berry, the great surgeon, to ventilate his
+hospitals by smashing the windows--one had been a child again for a
+moment. Jo had learned Serbian and was assisting Dr. Helen Boyle, the
+Brighton mind specialist, to run a large and flourishing out-patient
+department to which tuberculosis and diphtheria--two scourges of
+Serbia--came in their shoals. We had endeavoured to ward off typhoid by
+initiating a sort of sanitary vigilance committee, having first sacked
+the chief of police: we had laid drains, which the chief Serbian
+engineer said he would pull up as soon as we had gone away. We had
+helped in the plans of a very necessary slaughter-house, which Mr. Berry
+was going to present to the town. There was an excuse for Jan's desire.
+The English papers had been howling about the typhus months after the
+disease had been chased out by English, French, and American doctors,
+who had disinfected the country till it reeked of formalin and sulphur;
+shoals of devoted Englishwomen were still pouring over, generously ready
+to risk their lives in a danger which no longer existed. Our own unit,
+which had dwindled to a comfortable--almost a family--number, with Mr.
+Berry as father, had been suddenly enlarged by an addition of ten. These
+ten complicated things, they all naturally wanted work, and we had
+cornered all the jobs.
+
+So, after the fatigues of February, March, and April, and the heat of
+June, Jan quite decided on that Uzhitze mud patch that a holiday would
+do little harm to himself, and good to everybody else. Then, however,
+came the problem of Jo. Jo is a socialistic sort of a person with
+conservative instincts. She has the feminine ability to get her wheels
+on a rail and run comfortably along till Jan appears like a big railway
+accident and throws the scenery about; but once the resolution
+accomplished she pursues the idea with a determination and ferocity
+which leaves Jan far in the background.
+
+Jo had her out-patient department. Every morning, wet or fine, crowds of
+picturesque peasants would gather about the little side door of our
+hospital, women in blazing coloured hand-woven skirts, like Joseph's
+coat, children in unimaginable rags, but with the inevitable belt
+tightly bound about their little stomachs, men covered with tuberculous
+sores and so forth, on some days as many as a hundred. Jo, having
+finished breakfast, had then to assume a commanding air, and to stamp
+down the steps into the crowd, sort out the probable diphtheria
+cases--this by long practice,--forbid anybody to approach them under
+pain of instant disease, get the others into a vague theatre queue,
+which they never kept, and then run back into the office to assist the
+doctor and to translate. All this, repeated daily, was highly
+interesting of course, and so when Jan suggested the tour she "didn't
+want to do it."
+
+But authority was on Jan's side. Jo had had a mild accident: a
+diphtheria patient fled to avoid being doctored, they often did, and Jo
+had chased after her; she tripped, fell, drove her teeth through her
+lower lip, and for a moment was stunned. When they caught the patient
+they found that it was the wrong person--but that is beside the subject.
+Dr. Boyle thought that Jo had had a mild concussion and threw her weight
+at Jan's side. Dr. Berry was quite agreeable, and gave us a commission
+to go to Salonika to start with and find a disinfector which had gone
+astray. Another interpreter was found, so Jo took leave of her
+out-patients.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In Serbia it was necessary to get permission to move. Jan went to the
+major for the papers. There were crowds of people on the major's
+steps, and Jan learned that all the peasants and loafers had been
+called in to certify, so that nobody should avoid their military
+service. Later we parted, taking two knapsacks. Dr. Boyle and Miss
+Dickenson were very generous, giving us large supplies of chocolate,
+Brand's essence, and corned beef for our travels, and we had two boxes
+of "compressed luncheons," black horrible-looking gluey tabloids which
+claim to be soup, fish, meat, vegetables and pudding in one swallow.
+
+[Illustration: OUT-PATIENTS.]
+
+[Illustration: SHOEING BULLOCKS.]
+
+The Austrian prisoners bade us a sad farewell, but many friends
+accompanied us to the station, and the rotund major and his rounder wife
+did us the like honour. Our major was a queer mixture: he was jolly
+because he was fat, and he was stern because he had a beaky nose, and in
+any interview one had first to ascertain whether the stomach or the nose
+held the upper hand, so to speak. With the wife one was always sure--she
+had a snub nose. On this occasion the major furiously boxed the Austrian
+prisoner coachman's ears, telling us that he was the best he had ever
+had. The unfortunate driver was a picture of rueful pleasure. The two
+plump dears stood waving four plump hands till we had rumbled round the
+corner of the landscape.
+
+In the train to Nish it was intensely hot. We had sixteen or seventeen
+fellow-passengers in our third-class wooden-seated carriage--all the
+firsts had been removed, because they could not be disinfected--and the
+windows, with the exception of two, had been screwed tightly down. Every
+time we stood up to look at the landscape somebody slipped into our
+seat, and we were continually sitting down into unexpected laps.
+Expostulations, apologies, and so on. Somebody had gnawed a piece from
+one of the wheels, and we lurched through the scenery with a banging
+metallic clangour which made conversation difficult, in spite of which
+Jo astonished the natives by her colloquial and fluent Serbian. We had
+an enormous director of a sanitary department and a plump wife,
+evidently risen, but fat people rise in Serbia automatically like
+balloons. We had three meagre old gentlemen, one unshaven for a week,
+one whiskered since twenty years with Piccadilly weepers like a stage
+butler; some ultra fashionable girls and men; and a dear old dumb woman
+wearing three belts, who had been a former outpatient; and several
+sticky families of children.
+
+The old gentlemen took a huge interest in Jo. They drew her out in
+Serbian, and at every sentence turned each to the other and elevated
+their hands, ejaculating "kako!" (how!) in varying terms of admiration
+and flattery.
+
+The American has not yet ousted the Turk from Serbia, and the bite from
+our wheel banged off the revolutions of our sedate passing. Trsternik's
+church--modern but good taste--gleamed like a jewel in the sun against
+the dark hills. On either hand were maize fields with stalks as tall as
+a man, their feathery tops veiling the intense green of the herbage with
+a film, russet like cobwebs spun in the setting sun. There were plum
+orchards--for the manufacture of plum brandy--so thick with fruit that
+there was more purple than green in the branches, and between the trunks
+showed square white ruddy-roofed hovels with great squat tile-decked
+chimneys. Some of the houses were painted with decorations of bright
+colours, vases of flowers or soldiers, and on one was a detachment of
+crudely drawn horsemen, dark on the white walls, meant to represent the
+heroes of old Serbian poetry.
+
+To Krusevatz the valley broadened, and the sinking sun tinted the
+widening maize-tops till the fields were great squares of gold. We had
+no lights in the train, and presently dusk closed down, seeming to shut
+each up within his or her own mind. The hills grew very dark and
+distant, and on the faint rising mist the trees seemed to stand about
+with their hands in their pockets like vegetable Charlie Chaplins.
+
+A junction, and a rush for tables at the little out-of-door restaurant.
+In the country from which we have just come all seemed peace, but here
+in truth was war. Passing shadowy in the faint lights were soldiers;
+soldiers crouched in heaps in the dark corners of the station; yet more
+soldiers and soldiers again huddled in great square box trucks or open
+waggons waiting patiently for the train which was four or five hours
+late. There were women with them, wives or sisters or daughters, with
+great heavy knapsacks and stolid unexpressive faces.
+
+While we were dreaming of this romance of war, and of the coming romance
+of our own tour, a little man dumped himself at our table, explained
+that he had a pain in his kidneys, and started an interminable story
+about his wife and a dog. He was Jan's devoted admirer, and declared
+that Jan had performed a successful operation upon him, though Jan is no
+surgeon, and had never set eyes upon the man before.
+
+Georgevitch rescued us. Georgevitch was fat, tall, young and genial, and
+was military storekeeper at Vrntze. He was an ideal storekeeper and
+looked the part, but he had been a comitaj. He had roamed the country
+with belts full of bombs and holsters full of pistols, he and 189
+others, with two loaves of bread per man and then "Ever Forwards." Of
+the 189 others only 22 were left, and one was a patient at our hospital
+where we called him the "Velika Dete" or "big child," because of his
+sensibility. With Georgevitch was a dark woman with keen sparkling eyes.
+Alone, this woman had run the typhus barracks in Vrntze until the
+arrival of the English missions. She was a Montenegrin; no Serbian woman
+could be found courageous enough to undertake the task. After struggling
+all the winter, she was taken ill about a fortnight after the arrival of
+the English. The Red Cross Mission took care of her and she recovered.
+
+We left our bore still talking about his wife and the dog, and fled to
+their table, where we chatted till our train arrived. We found a
+coupé--a carriage with only one long seat--the exigencies of which
+compelled Jan to be all night with Jo's boots on his face, and we so
+slept as well as we were able.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+NISH AND SALONIKA
+
+
+To our dismay a rare thing happened--our train was punctual, and we
+arrived in Nish at four o'clock. It was cold and misty. The station was
+desolate and the town asleep. Around us in the courtyard ragged soldiers
+were lying with their heads pillowed on brightly striped bags. A nice
+old woman who had asked Jo how old she was, what relation Jan was to
+her, whether they had children, and where she had learnt Serbian,
+suddenly lost all her interest in us and hurried off with voluble
+friends whose enormous plaits around their flat red caps betokened the
+respectable middle-class women.
+
+Piccadilly weepers vanished and a depressed little quartet was left on
+the platform--our two selves, a lean schoolmaster, and an egg-shaped man
+who never spoke a word. We found a clerk sitting in an office. He said
+we could not leave our bags in his room, but as we made him own that we
+could not put them anywhere else he looked the other way while we
+dropped them in the corner.
+
+In the faint mist of the early morning the great overgrown village of
+one-storied houses seemed like a real town buried up to its attics in
+fog. We found a café which was shut, and sat waiting on green chairs
+outside. Around us old men were talking of the news in the papers. They
+said that Bulgaria was making territorial demands, and as the Balkan
+governments covet land above all things they felt pessimistic as to
+whether Serbia would concede anything, and said, shaking their heads,
+"It will be another Belgium."
+
+We celebrated the opening of the café by ordering five Turkish coffees
+each, and the schoolmaster and we alternately stood treat. Jo loaded up
+with aspirin to deaden a toothache which was worrying her.
+
+We spent a cynical morning in interviews with people who were supposed
+to know about missing luggage. Both they and we were aware that the
+first hospital which got a wandering packing-case froze on to it, and if
+inconvenient people came to hunt for their property the dismayed and
+guilty ones hurriedly painted the case, saying to each other, "After all
+it's in a good cause, and it's better than if it were stolen."
+
+Then we went to see the powers who can say "no" to those who want to do
+pleasant things, and were handed an amendment to a plea for a tour round
+Serbia, including the front, which we had sent to them and which had
+been pigeon-holed for a month.
+
+"But we don't want to see a lot of monasteries," said Jan, as he gazed
+at a little circle drawn round the over-visited part of Serbia. The
+powers were adamant and seemed to think they had done very well for us.
+We went away sadly, for monasteries had not been the idea at all.
+
+Half an hour later we were pursuing an entirely different object. We had
+discovered that Sir Ralph Paget was housing about £1000 worth of stores
+destined for Dr. Clemow's hospital--which was in Montenegro--and which
+needed an escort. He was somewhat puzzled at our altruistic anxiety to
+take them off his hands, but was much relieved at the thought that he
+could get rid of them.
+
+We hurried to the station, rescued our knapsacks under the nose of a new
+official who looked very much surprised, and boarded the English rest
+house near by. English people were sitting in deck chairs outside the
+papier-maché house which stood surrounded by a couple of tents and a
+wooden kitchen in a field. Austrian prisoners were preparing lunch, and
+we were introduced to Seemitch the dog.
+
+Though young, Seemitch was fat and exhibited signs of a much-varied
+ancestry. The original Seemitch, an important Serb with long gold
+teeth, was very indignant that a dog, and such a dog, should be called
+after him, so Sir Ralph arranged that of the two other puppies one
+should be called after him and the other after Mr. Hardinge his
+secretary. Thus the man Seemitch's dignity was restored.
+
+At the station, to our great joy, we met two American doctors from
+Zaichar. One we had mourned for dead and were astonished to see him,
+shadow-like, stiff-kneed, and sitting uncomfortably on a chair in the
+middle of the platform. Months before he had pricked himself with a
+needle while operating on a gangrenous case, and had since lain
+unconscious with blood-poisoning.
+
+While we were cheering over his recovery, a little Frenchman slipped
+into our reserved compartment, which was only a coupé, and had seized
+the window seat. Jan found him lubricating his mouth, already full of
+dinner, with wine from a bottle. As he showed no signs of seeing reason
+from the male, Jo tried feminine indignation. "That seat is mine," she
+snapped to his back-tilted head.
+
+"Good. I exact nothing," he said, wiping his moustache upwards. She
+suggested that if any exacting was to be done she possessed the
+exclusive rights.
+
+"Quel pays," he answered. Jo thought he was casting aspersions on
+England and on her as the nearest representative, and the air became
+distinctly peppery. The Frenchman hurriedly explained that he was
+alluding to Serbia, so they buried the hatchet and became acquaintances.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Uskub, or Skoplje, and one hour to wait. All about the great plains the
+mountains were just growing ruddy with the dawn, and we gulped boiling
+coffee at the station restaurant.
+
+One of the American doctors seemed restless. Some one had told him it
+was advisable to keep an eye on the luggage. They began to shunt the
+train, and soon he was stumbling about the sidings in a resolute attempt
+not to lose sight of the luggage van. We sympathetically wished him good
+luck and walked past into the Turkish quarter, adopted by two dogs which
+followed us all the way. We had a hurried glimpse of queer-shaped,
+many-coloured houses, trousered women, and a general Turkishness.
+
+We returned to find our American friend furious, full of the superior
+methods of luggage registration in the States.
+
+We had beer with him at the frontier, delicious cool stuff with a
+mollifying influence. He told us he held the record for one month's
+hernia operations in Serbia. We were later to meet his rival, a Canadian
+doctor, in Montenegro.
+
+Locked in the train, we awaited the medical examination, and sat
+feeling self-consciously healthy. At last the Greek doctor opened the
+door, glanced at a knapsack, and vanished. We were certified healthy.
+
+It was a beautiful dark blue night when we arrived at Salonika. Crowds
+of people were dining at little tables which filled the streets off the
+quay, in spite of the awful smells which came up from the harbour.
+
+It is impossible to sleep late in Salonika. Soon after dawn children
+possess the town--bootblacks, paper-sellers, perambulating drapers'
+shops; all children crying their wares noisily. The only commodity that
+the children don't peddle is undertaken by mules laden with glass
+fronted cases hanging on each side and which are filled with meat.
+
+We breakfasted in the street, revelling in the early morning and shooing
+away the children, who never gave us a moment's grace. In self-defence
+we had our boots blacked, for the ambulating bootblack molests no longer
+the owner of a well-polished pair of boots. It is queer to walk about in
+a town where one-third of the population is only pecuniarily interested
+in the momentary appearance of feet and never look at a face, like the
+man with the muckrake with eyes glued on life as it is led two inches
+from the ground.
+
+When we had finished searching for disinfectors and dentists we
+wandered up the hill through the romantic streets. Jan sketched busily,
+but toothache had rather sapped Jo's industry, and she generally found
+some large stone to sit on, whence to contemplate.
+
+An old woman's face, peering round the doorway, discovered her sitting
+on the doorstep, a Greek dustman gazing stupidly at her.
+
+In two minutes they were talking hard. The old woman was a Bulgarian,
+but they were able to understand each other. What Jo told the old woman
+was translated to the dustman, and when Jan came up they were introduced
+each to the other, the dustman with his broom bowing to the ground like
+some old-time court usher.
+
+Once a Greek woman offered a chair to Jo. She was much embarrassed, as
+the only Greek words she had picked up were "How much?" and "Yet
+another;" and as both seemed unsuitable she tried to put her gratitude
+into the width of her smile.
+
+We scrambled on ever afterwards through streets which were more like
+cliff climbs than roads. The sun grew red till all Salonika lay at our
+feet a maze of magenta shadow. We sat down in an old Turkish cemetery,
+where we could watch the old wall sliding down to plains of gold, where,
+falling into ruins, it lent its degraded stones for the construction of
+Turkish hovels.
+
+A kitten with paralysed hind legs crawled up to us and accepted a little
+rubbing. When dusk came we moved on, marvelling at the inexhaustible
+picturesqueness of Salonika.
+
+As we clambered down the breakneck paths, the priests were illuminating
+the minarets with hundreds of twinkling lights.
+
+The next day was the Feast. Mahommedans were everywhere. By the women's
+trousers, which twinkled beneath the shrouding veils, one could see that
+they were gorgeously dressed. Befezzed men were lounging and smoking in
+all the café's.
+
+In the evening once more we wandered up through the old Turkish quarter.
+We heard a curious noise like a hymn played by bagpipes, rhythmically
+accompanied in syncopation by a very flabby drum. Round the corner came
+four jolly niggers blowing pipes, and the drummer behind them. Very slim
+young men with bright sashes and light trousers were twisting,
+posturing, and dancing joyfully. One of them threw to Jo the most
+graceful kiss she had ever seen.
+
+We left Salonika in the morning, having been wakened by new sounds.
+Thousands of marching feet, songs. This was puzzling.
+
+In the train a young Greek told us that his nation had mobilized against
+the Bulgars, but that it was not very serious. He said that there had
+been very friendly feeling in Greece for England, but that we had done
+our best to kill it.
+
+"You see, monsieur," he explained, "your offer to give away our land. It
+is not yours to give. You say that does not matter, but that colonies,
+great colonies in Africa will replace the small part of land that we may
+surrender. Kavalla is more valuable to Grecian hearts than all Africa,
+for how could we desert our Grecian brothers and place them beneath the
+rule of the Turk or Bulgar?"
+
+On the train were more American doctors. One had just arrived, and was
+still full of enthusiasm for scenery and sanitation. Also there was
+Princess ---- surrounded by packing cases. Some months earlier she had
+visited our hospitals in Vrntze and she had asked if one of our V.A.D.'s
+could be sent to her as housemaid. Seeing her in the station, Jo
+involuntarily ran over in her mind, was she "sober, honest and
+obliging?"
+
+The American doctors and we picnicked together. We ate bully beef and a
+huge water melon. The heat was awful. The velvet seats seemed to invade
+one's body and come through at the other side. One of the doctors sat on
+the step of the train, and Jo found him nodding and smiling as he
+dreamt. She rescued him before he fell off.
+
+After twelve hours they left us. Uskub once more and an hour to wait. We
+sat behind trees in boxes on the platform and ate omelet with a nice
+old Jew and his ten-year-old daughter, who already spoke five languages.
+
+Then to sleep. We found our half coupé contained a second seat which
+could be pulled down, so we each had a bed. At four in the morning we
+were awakened by the most awful imitation of a German band.
+
+What had happened? We looked out. It was barely dawn, and a wretched
+little orchestra was grouped at the edge of the tiny station. Every
+instrument was cracked and was tuned one-sixteenth tone different from
+its companions. What it lacked in musical ability it made up in energy.
+
+Why, oh, _why_ at that hour, we never found out. Perhaps it was in
+honour of the Princess, poor lady!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+OFF TO MONTENEGRO
+
+
+Back to Nish in the rain, and Jo was wearing a cotton frock. There may
+be more dismal towns than this Nish, but I have yet to see them, and
+this, although the great squares were packed with gaily coloured
+peasants--some feast, we imagined--carts full of melons, melons on the
+ground, melons framing the faces of the greedy--cerise green-rind moons
+projecting from either cheek. The Montenegrin consul was not at home, so
+off we went to the Foreign Office to give a letter to Mr. Grouitch, who
+sent us to the Sanitary Department of the War Office (henceforth known
+as S.D.W.O.). S.D.W.O. wouldn't move without a letter from "Sir Paget."
+We got the letter from "Sir Paget" and back to the S.D.W.O., to find it
+shut in our faces, and to learn that it did not reopen till four.
+
+Then came the matter of Jo's tooth. This abscess had been nagging all
+the time, it had vigorously tried to get between Jo and the scenery. We
+had sought dentists in Salonika, rejecting one because his hall was too
+dirty, a second because she (yes, a she) was practising on her father's
+certificates, the third, a little Spaniard, had red-hot pokered the
+gums thereof and only annoyed it. But we had heard there was a Russian
+dentist in Nish, a very good one. The Russian dentist turned out to be a
+girl, and tiny--she spoke no Serb, but Jo managed, by means of the
+second cousinship of the language, to make out what she said in Russian.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANT WOMEN IN GALA COSTUME--NISH.]
+
+"The tooth must come out," squeaked the small dentist.
+
+"Can't you save it?" prayed Jo; "it's the best one I've got, and the one
+to which I send all the Serbian meat."
+
+"It must come out," squeaked the Russ.
+
+"Can't you save it?" prayed Jo.
+
+"It must come out," reiterated the Russ.
+
+"You're very small," said Jo, doubtfully.
+
+This annoyed the dentist. She pushed unwilling Jo into a chair, produced
+a pair of pincers, and, oh, woe! she wrenched to the north, she wrenched
+to the south, she wrenched to the east, and there was the tooth, nearly
+as big as the dentist herself.
+
+"I never can eat Serbian meat again," murmured Jo as she mopped her
+mouth.
+
+After tea we returned to the S.D.W.O., and by means of our letter and
+our Englishness we got in front of all the unfortunate people who had
+been waiting for hours, and received our passes, etc., immediately.
+
+Sir Ralph Paget's storekeeper wouldn't work on Sunday, so we had also
+to rest, and we celebrated by staying in bed late and going for a walk
+in the afternoon with an Englishman who was _en route_ for Sofia. We
+came to a little village where every house was surrounded by high walls
+made of wattle. The women soon crowded round, imagining Mr. B---- a
+doctor. Jo pretended to translate, and gave advice for a girl with
+consumption, and an old woman whose hand was stiff from typhus, and we
+had to give the money for the latter's unguent. For the consumptive she
+said, "Open the windows, rest, and don't spit"; but that isn't a
+peasant's idea of doctoring: they want medicine or magic, one or the
+other, which doesn't matter.
+
+The train started "after eight" on Monday evening. The English boys at
+the Rest house were very good to us, adding to our small stock of
+necessities a "Tommy's treasure," two mackintosh capes, and some oxo
+cubes. One youth said, "You won't want to travel a second time on a
+Serbian luggage train"; then ruefully, "I've done it! The shunting,
+phew!"
+
+A Serbian railway station is a public meeting-place; along the platform,
+but railed off from the train, is a restaurant which is one of the
+favourite cafés of the town. It is such fun to the still childish
+Serbian mind to sit sipping beer or wine and watch the trains run about,
+and hear the whistles. We had our supper amongst the gay crowd, and
+then pushed out into the darkened goods station to find our travelling
+bedroom, for we were to sleep in the waggons--beds and mattresses having
+been provided--and we had borrowed blankets from the Rest house.
+
+We found our truck and climbed in. There were certainly beds enough, for
+there were thirty light iron folding bedsteads piled up at one end. We
+chose two, and, not satisfied with the stacking of the others, Jan
+repiled them, with an eye on what our friend had said about Serbian
+shunting. Even then Jo was not happy about them.
+
+We sat on our beds, reading or staring out of our open door at the
+twinkle of the station lights, the moving flares of the engines, and the
+fountains of sparks which rushed from their chimneys; listening to the
+chains of bumps which denoted a shunting train. We heard another chain
+of bumps, which rattled rapidly towards us and suddenly--a most awful
+CRASH. The candle went out, and we were flung from bed on to the floor.
+Our truck hurtled down the line at about thirty miles an hour, and
+suddenly struck some solid object. Another wild crash, and the whole
+twenty-eight beds flung themselves upon the place where we had been, and
+smashed our couches to the ground.
+
+We have read stories of the Spanish Inquisition about rooms which grow
+smaller, and at last crush the unfortunate victim to a jelly: we can
+now appreciate the feeling of the unfortunate victim aforesaid. There
+were piles of packing-cases at either end of the van, and for the next
+hour, as we were hurtled up and down by the Serbian engine-driver, at
+each crash these packing-cases crept nearer and nearer. The beds had
+fallen across the door, so it was impossible to escape. When the lower
+cases had reached the beds they halted, but the upper ones still crept
+on towards us. In the short, wild intervals of peace Jan tried to push
+the cases back and restore momentary stability. In addition to
+diminishing room, we were flung about with every crash, landing on the
+corner of a packing-case, on the edge of an iron bedstead, and with each
+crash the light went out. We will give not one jot of advantage to your
+prisoner in the Spanish Inquisition, save that we escaped whereas he did
+not.
+
+The engine-driver tired of the sport just in time to save our limbs, if
+not lives, and he dragged the train out of the station into the dark.
+
+At Krusevatch we halted for the next day. After a discussion with the
+station-master, who asked us to come down first at six p.m., then at
+four, then at one, and lastly in two hours, at nine a.m. we strolled up
+towards the town. There was an old beggar on the road, and he was
+cuddling a "goosla," or Serbian one-stringed fiddle, which sounds not
+unlike a hive of bees in summer-time, and is played not with the tips of
+the fingers, as a violin, but with the fat part of the first phalanx. As
+soon as he heard our footsteps he began to howl, and to saw at his
+miserable instrument; and as soon as he had received our contribution he
+stopped suddenly. We were worth no more effort; but we admired his
+frankness.
+
+Krusevatz market-place is like the setting of a Serbian opera. The
+houses are the kind of houses that occupy the back scenery of opera, and
+in the middle is an abominable statue commemorating something, which is
+just in the bad taste which would mar an opera setting. There was an old
+man wandering about with two knapsacks, one on his back and one on his
+chest, and from the orifice of each peered out innumerable ducks' heads.
+We returned to the station at nine, but were told that nothing could be
+done till one. So we went up to the churchyard, spread our mackintoshes,
+and got a much-needed sleep. The church is very old, but isn't much to
+look at, and we, being no archæologists, would sooner look at that of
+Trsternick, though it is modern.
+
+We returned to the station to unload our trucks, for at this point the
+broad-gauge line ceases, and there is but a narrow-gauge into the
+mountains. A band of Austrian prisoners were detailed to help us, and
+they at once recognized us, and knew that we came from Vrntze. They were
+in a wretched condition: their clothes were torn, they said that they
+had no change of underclothes, and were swarming with vermin, nor could
+they be cleaned, for they worked even on Sundays, and had no time to
+wash their clothes. They begged us for soap, and asked us to send them a
+change of raiment from Vrntze. We explained sadly that we were not going
+back just yet, but we could oblige them with the soap, for a case had
+been broken open, and the waggon was strewn with bars. We also gave some
+to the engine-driver, as a bribe to shunt us gently.
+
+We imagined that the soap had burst because of the shunting, but in our
+second truck discovered that this same shunting had been strangely
+selective. It had, for instance, opened a case of brandy, it had burst a
+box of tinned tongue, and even opened some of the tins which were strewn
+in the truck. And yet the truck had been sealed, both doors. Several
+cases of biscuits, too, had been abstracted, and all this must have
+happened under the very noses of the Englishmen who had supervised the
+loading. Some of the prisoners said that they were starving, so we
+distributed our spare crusts amongst them, and they ate them greedily
+enough.
+
+In the fields by the railway were queer pallid green plants which
+puzzled us. They were like tall cabbages, and shone with a curious
+ghostly intensity in the gloaming.
+
+We dangled our feet over the side of our waggon watching the flitting
+scenery. At one point we passed a train in which were other English
+people, who stared amazed at us and waved their hands as we disappeared.
+Dusk was down when we passed Vrntze, and we reached the gorges of Ovchar
+in the dark. We thundered through tunnels and out over hanging
+precipices, the river beneath us a faint band of greyish light in the
+blackness of the mountains.
+
+Uzhitze in the morning at 4.30; it was cold and wet. Jan wanted to hurry
+off to the hotel, but Jo sensibly refused, and we settled down till a
+decent hour.
+
+The hotel was a huge room with a smaller yard; on the one side of the
+yard were the kitchens, etc., and on the other a string of bedrooms. We
+then crossed the big square to the Nachanlik's (or mayor's) office.
+
+Outside the mayor's office we found an old friend. He had been a patient
+in our hospital, and gangrene, following typhus, had so poisoned his
+legs that both were amputated. He had been discharged the day before,
+and had travelled up from Vrntze, some eight hours, in an open truck.
+The Serbian authorities had brought him from the station and had propped
+him on a wooden bench outside the mayor's office, where he had remained
+all night, and where we found him. He was a charming fellow, though very
+silent. Once when Jo had remarked upon this silence he had answered,
+"When a man has no longer any legs it is fitting that he should be
+silent."
+
+He was waiting for his father, who lived twelve hours away in the
+mountains. The old man came with a donkey, and there was a most
+affecting meeting between the old father and his poor mutilated son.
+Tears flowed freely on either side, for Serbs are still simple enough to
+be unashamed of emotion. The donkey had an ordinary saddle, on to which
+our friend was hoisted. He balanced tentatively for a moment, then shook
+his head. A pack-saddle was substituted.
+
+"It is hard," he said, "young enough, and yet like a useless bale of
+goods."
+
+Twenty hours he had endured, and yet had twelve to go--thirty-two hours
+for a man without legs. This will show of what some Serbs are made.
+
+Within the office we found a professor whom we had met before, and who
+was acting as assistant mayor. We took him to the station and estimated
+that thirty-two waggons would deal with our stuff.
+
+[Illustration: SERB CONVALESCENTS AT UZHITZE.]
+
+Jo and Jan went for a stroll, Uzhitze, especially in the back
+streets, is like a Dürer etching--that one of the Prodigal Son, for
+instance, all tiny, peaky-roofed houses. We took a siesta in the
+afternoon, but Jan was dragged out to talk to our professor, who
+explained that it was impossible for the Serbian Government to find
+thirty-two ox-carts at once, so the convoy must make two journeys. He
+also said that horses would be provided for us, and that we would take
+two or three days to do the trip, but that the ox-waggons would be at
+least seven, which was death to our romantic dream of toiling
+laboriously up almost inaccessible mountains at the head of straining
+ox-carts, sleeping by the roadside, brigands, and all that.
+
+We went down to the station, unloaded the truck and checked the numbers.
+A few were missing, but not so many as we had expected.
+
+A regiment of soldiers were called up; at a word of command they pounced
+upon our packing-cases and hurried them off to a storehouse. The smaller
+cases were left to go on donkeys, two on either side.
+
+The professor dined with us. He is an Anglophile, and was determined
+after the war to go to England in order to discover the secret of her
+greatness. He had a theory that it lay in our educational laws, which he
+wanted to transplant into Serbia wholesale. Jan thought not, and
+suggested that it might lie even deeper than that.
+
+Next day was a Prazhnik, or feast day, and the great square was crowded
+with peasantry in their beautiful hand-woven clothes. There were
+soldiers straight back from the lines chaffing and flirting with the
+pretty girls, and presently a group began to dance the "Kola" about a
+man who played a pipe. It is not difficult to dance the Kola. You join
+hands till a ring is formed, and then shuffle round and round. If you
+have aspirations to style you fling your legs about as much as space
+will allow, and we noticed how much better the men danced than the
+girls, who were almost all very clumsy.
+
+We were to be called at six, so went to bed early, and in spite of the
+odours from the yard slept soundly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ACROSS THE FRONTIER
+
+
+We got up in good time, breakfasted, but there was no sign of horses.
+After waiting two hours a square man was brought up to us by the waiter
+and introduced as our guide. The professor, who had promised to see us
+off, was apparently clinging to his bed, for he did not come. Our guide
+was a taciturn, loose-limbed fellow, but had nice eyes and a charming
+manner; he helped us on to our horses, and off we went. Jan was rather
+anxious at the start, for he had done very little riding since
+childhood; but his horse was quiet, and soon he had persuaded himself
+that he was a cavalier from birth. Jo was riding astride for the second
+time in her life.
+
+We took the road to Zlatibor (golden hill). There was a heavy mist, the
+hills were just outlined in faint washes on the fog, and as we mounted
+the zig-zag path, higher and higher, the town became small and fairylike
+beneath us; and a soldiers' camp made a queer chessboard on the green of
+the valley. Jo's horse cast a shoe almost at the start, but the guide
+said that it did not matter. We went on and ever up, our horses
+clambering like goats. The scenery was on the whole very English, and
+not unlike the Devonshire side of Dartmoor.
+
+Our guide took us a two mile detour to show us his house. Later we
+reached a tiny village with a queer church. We off-saddled for a moment,
+and were welcomed by the inhabitants, who gave us Turkish coffee and
+plum brandy (rakia), while in exchange we made them cigarettes of
+English tobacco. At sixteen kilometres we reached a larger village,
+where we decided to lunch. We were astonished by the sudden appearance
+of a French doctor. He was delighted to see us, more so when he found
+that we both spoke French, and invited us to coffee. We lunched with our
+guide at the local inn. We ordered pig; indeed there was nothing else to
+order.
+
+"How much?" said mine host.
+
+"For three," answered we.
+
+"But how much is that?" replied mine host. "You see, each man eats
+differently." So we ordered one kilo to go on with.
+
+Half a pig was wrenched from a spit in front of the big fire, carried
+sizzling outside to the wood block, where the waiter hewed it apart with
+the axe.
+
+We had discovered peculiarities in our horses. They had conscientious
+objections to going abreast, and always walked single file; this was
+owing to the narrowness of the mountain paths. Jo's horse, which somehow
+looked like Monkey Brand, insisted on taking the second place, and would
+by no means go third. At last we reached the top of Zlatibor--which gets
+its name from a peculiar golden cheese which it produces. The view is
+like that from the Cat and Fiddle in Derbyshire, only bigger in scale,
+and from thence the ride began to be interminable. It grew darker, we
+walked down the hills to ease our aching knees, and Jan decided that
+horse riding was no go.
+
+Finally the guide decided that it was too late to reach Novi Varosh that
+night, and so the direction was altered. The road grew stony and more
+stony. A bitter breeze came up with the evening. We came to a green
+valley, at the end of which was a rocky gorge, down which ran the
+twistiest stream: it seemed as though it had been designed by a lump of
+mercury on a wobbling plate. We turned from the gorge on to a hill so
+rocky that the path was only visible where former horse-hoofs had
+stained the stones with red earth.
+
+The village consisted of an enormous school, a little church, soldiers
+encamped round fires in the churchyard, and seven or eight wooden
+hovels. Our guide stopped at the door of the dirtiest and rapped. A
+furtive woman's face peered out into the gloom. We climbed painfully
+from our saddles, for we had been thirteen hours on the road.
+
+"Beds?" said the guide to the woman.
+
+"Good Lord!" thought we.
+
+She shook her head dolefully and said, "Ima," which means "there is."
+Serbians nod for no. The woman slid out into the night and passed to
+another building, climbed the stairs to a veranda and disappeared.
+
+It grew colder, the guide was busy unharnessing the horses, so shivering
+we sought refuge in the dirty house, which was not quite so bad within
+as we had feared. It was furnished with a long table and two benches
+only, and was lighted by a small fire which was burning on a huge open
+hearth, and which gave no heat at all. The woman came back and led us to
+the other house for supper, which was boiled eggs, and the guide
+generously shared his own bread with us, as we had none. There was no
+water to drink, and Jo tried, not very successfully, to quench her
+thirst with rakia.
+
+There were but two beds, and on inquiry finding that there was no place
+for the guide, we allotted one bed to him. On our own bed the sheets had
+evidently not been changed since it was first made, and the pillow which
+once had been white was a dark ironclad grey. We undid our mackintoshes
+and spread them over both counterpane and pillow. We lay down clothed as
+we were, and by the time we had finished our preparations the guide was
+already snoring.
+
+As soon as the light was turned out the whole room began to tick like
+ten agitated clocks, and all about us in the darkness began strange
+noises of life: rats scampered in all directions and were finally
+hurdling over our heads. We had taken some aspirin to ward off the
+stiffness of unaccustomed exercise, but we were sore, and the narrowness
+of the bed forced us to lie on our backs; exhaustion, however, conquered
+all discomforts, and we slept. Jo awoke in the night and yelped to find
+that the mackintosh had slipped and that her head was resting on the
+pillow.
+
+We were up again at 5.30, and Vladimir, the guide, suggested that we
+should breakfast at Novi Varosh, four hours on; but our stomachs were
+not of cast iron, and we clamoured for eggs. We got them, left
+Negbina--that was the name of the village--about seven, and once more
+adventured on the road.
+
+By eight we had passed the old Serbian frontier: the country was growing
+more interesting, like the foothills of the Tyrol; on the streams were
+inefficient-looking old wooden mills, the water rushing madly down a
+slope and hitting a futile little wheel which turned laboriously.
+
+Novi Varosh, with roofs of weathered wood gleaming purplish amongst the
+trees, was a wonderful little town, and quite unlike any other we had
+seen; clean without, and if the energy of its citizens at the village
+pump is a good sample, clean within also, for Serbia. Here are Turks
+too: ladies in veil and trousers, and trousered kiddies with clothes of
+orange, yellow and purple. Twice in the streets we were stopped by
+authority. Our lunch was well cooked, one can clearly see this has not
+been Serbia for long, for the Serbs are the worst eaters in the world.
+Jo gave medical advice to a Serb, and on once more.
+
+On the road were travellers never ending in their variety, and one
+father was mounted with a pack behind him, and on the top of the pack
+his little daughter clad in many coloured cottons, clasping him tight
+round the neck and peering inquisitively from behind his ear.
+
+About three p.m. we reached the Lim. The road climbs to a great height,
+and the peasants in their gay costumes were reaping, some of the fields
+so steep that we wondered how they stood upon them; on the opposite
+cliff was an old robber castle like a Rhine fortress.
+
+The Serbian town of Prepolji introduced itself by six Turks lying by
+the roadside, then there were three Turkish families, afterwards an
+assorted dozen of small girls in trousers, finally, an old man doddering
+along in a turban and a veiled beggar woman, who demanded backsheesh.
+"Where are the Serbs?" we thought.
+
+The Greek church looked as if it had been new built, so that the Serbs
+could claim Prepolji as a Christian town, and had a biscuit tin roof not
+yet rusted.
+
+Our hotel was like that where Mr. Pickwick first met Sam Weller, a large
+open court with a crazy wooden balcony at the second story, and the
+bedrooms opening on to the balcony. When we opened our knapsacks to get
+out washing materials, we found that the heat of the horse had melted
+all the chocolate in Jan's, and it had run over everything. It was a
+mess, but chocolate was precious, and every piece had to be rescued. We
+had only been ten hours in the saddle, but we descended stiffly, and
+were pounced on by a foolish looking man, with a head to which Jo took
+immediate offence. This fellow attached himself to us during the whole
+of our stay, and was an intolerable nuisance; we nicknamed him "glue
+pot," and only at our moment of departure discovered that he was the
+mayor who had been trying to do us honour.
+
+The next day was Sunday, and the village full of peasants. Stiff-legged
+and groaning a little within ourselves we walked about the town making
+observations: Turkish soldiers, Turkish policemen, Turkish recruits, but
+all the peasants Serb. The country costume is different from that of the
+north, the perpendicular stripe on the skirt has here given way to
+horizontal bands of colour, and some women wear a sort of exaggerated
+ham frill about the waist. The men's waistcoats were very ornate, and
+much embroidery was upon their coats.
+
+An English nurse came into the town in the afternoon. She, a Russian
+girl, and an English orderly had driven from Plevlie, en route to
+Uzhitze. Half-way along the wheel of their carriage had broken in
+pieces, so they finished the road on foot. Curiously enough we had
+travelled from England to Malta with this lady, Sister Rawlins, on the
+same transport. The Russian girl had been married only the day before to
+a Montenegrin officer, nephew of the Sirdar Voukotitch,
+Commander-in-Chief of the North, and she was flying back to Russia to
+collect her goods and furniture.
+
+Next day as we were sketching in the picturesque main street, from the
+distance came the sounds of a weird wailing, drawing slowly closer and
+closer.
+
+"Hurra," thought we--two minds with but a single, etc.,--"a
+funeral--magnificent. Just the thing to complete the scene."
+
+A string of donkeys came round the corner, on either flank each animal
+bore a case marked with a large red cross. Amongst the animals were
+donkey-boys, and it was from their lips came the dismal wailing. Never
+have we seen so ragged and wretched a crew. The boys were evidently the
+"unfits," and they looked it, every face showed the wan, pallid shadow
+of hunger and disease. A few old men in huge fur caps, with rifles on
+their backs, stumbled along, guarding the precious convoy. "Glue pot"
+led us all to a large empty building, once a Turkish merchant's store,
+where the cases were to be housed. The bullock carts with the heavier
+packages came in in the evening, and we sent the men five litres of plum
+brandy to put some warmth into their miserable bodies. This moved them
+once more to singing, but we think the songs sounded a little less
+dreary.
+
+The Commandant asked for, and got, half a dozen sheets from us as a sort
+of superior backsheesh, and promised us horses for the morrow.
+
+The next morning dawned dismally. Miss Rawlins and her companions were
+to go on by post cart, and their conveyance arrived first, only two and
+a half hours late. It was a sort of tinker's tent on four rickety
+wheels. There seemed to be barely room for one within the dark interior,
+but both Miss Rawlins and the little Russian climbed in somehow.
+Charlie, the orderly, clung on by his eyelids in front, and off they
+went. We last saw two faces peering back at us beneath the fringe of the
+tent. They had no luck. Half-way to Uzhitze the cart upset and they were
+all rolled into the ditch, missing a precipice of sixty feet or so by
+the merest fraction.
+
+Our own horses arrived later, we mounted, and with cheers from the
+assembled authorities, we rode off.
+
+The rain came down in a steady drizzle; we discovered that the
+waterproof cloaks which we had borrowed from Nish were not very
+weathertight. We climbed right up into the clouds, but still the rain
+held on. From the floating mist jutted great boulders and huge red
+cliffs. Our guide put up an umbrella and rode along crouching beneath
+it. At 1400 metres we reached an inn, where we lunched. A Montenegrin
+commissioner insisted on paying our bill, and said that we would do the
+same for him when he came to England. Every one in Serbia or Montenegro
+is interested in ages. They were astounded at ours. They said that Jo
+would have been seventeen if she were Serbian; and one rose, shook Jan
+warmly by the hand and said he must have "navigated" the marriage well.
+
+We rode over the frontier, but we were not yet in the real Montenegro.
+This is not the black mountain where the last dregs of old Serbian
+aristocracy defied the Turk, this is still the Sanjak, three years ago
+Turkish, and with pleasant pasturages spreading on either hand.
+
+At last we came up over Plevlie. To one corner we could see the town
+creeping in a crescent about the foot of a grey hill, far away on the
+other side was a little monastery, forlorn and white, like a shivering
+saint, and between a great valley with four purplish humps in the midst
+of the corn and maize fields, like great whales bursting through a
+patchwork quilt.
+
+Our horses were thoroughly cheered up, and we passed through the long
+streets of the town at a lively trot, a thing Jo was taught as a child
+to consider bad form.
+
+A semi-transparent little man in a black hat stood on the hotel steps
+beckoning to us. But we had no use for hotel touts, and waved our sticks
+saying, "Hospital." He seemed curiously disappointed.
+
+The hospital, many long low buildings, lay buried in a park of trees.
+The staff lived in a tiny house near by, where we were welcomed by the
+cook, Mrs. Roworth. She explained that as the house was hardly capable
+of holding its ten or twelve occupants, a room had been taken for us at
+the inn, but that we were to meal with them.
+
+"Not that you will like the food," she said, "for it's all tinned, and I
+have only twenty-five shillings a week to buy milk, bread, and fresh
+meat."
+
+We wondered why, in such a fertile country, a party of hard-working
+people should be condemned to eat tinned mackerel and vegetables brought
+all the way from England?
+
+However, the dinner was excellent--all "disguised," she said, for she
+had during the few weeks she had been there concentrated on the art of
+disguising bully beef and worse problems, and had sternly put Dr. Clemow
+on omelets and beefsteaks, as his digestion had caved in under six
+months' unadulterated tinned food.
+
+We met old friends, fellow travellers on the way out. In those days they
+were a wistful little party, wondering how they were going to reach
+Montenegro, the Adriatic being impossible. At last one of the passes was
+hurriedly improved for them by a thousand prisoners, and they rode
+through in the snow. Since then typhus had raged, two of their number
+had been very ill, and one had died. Their energy had been tremendous,
+and everywhere in the country they were spoken of as the wonderful
+English hospital, and even from Chainitza, where there was a Russian
+hospital, soldiers walked a long day's march in order to be treated by
+the English.
+
+Dr. Roger's rival was there, the perpetrator of ninety hernia operations
+a week--or was it more?
+
+All this on tinned food!
+
+Our hotel room proved large and comfortable with a talkative willing
+Turk in attendance. We slept immensely and were wakened by yet another
+horrible cock crowing. All Balkan cocks seem to have bronchitis.
+
+Plevlie is a red-tiled nucleus with a fringe of wood-roofed Serb houses
+planted round it. There are ten mosques, while the only Greek church
+stands forlorn on the other side of the great hollow two miles away.
+
+The town is not really Montenegrin. It has the cosmopolitan character of
+all the Sanjak, Turks, Austro-Turks and Serbs--a mixture like that at
+Marseilles or Port Said.
+
+The shops are Turkish, though their turbaned owners, sitting
+cross-legged on the floor-counters, can speak only Serb--a thing which
+puzzled us at the time.
+
+We saw veiled women and semi-veiled children everywhere, thickly
+latticed windows with curious eyes peeping through, and yards with high
+wooden palings above to prevent the possible young men on the houses
+opposite from catching a glimpse of the fair ladies in the gardens.
+
+Plenty of long-legged Montenegrin officers--with flat caps bearing the
+King's initials, and five rings representing the dynasties of the ruling
+house--filled the streets, and also the inevitable ragged soldiers with
+gorgeous bags on their backs.
+
+Some of the women, too, were wearing these caps, but theirs were yet
+smaller and tipped over their noses, like the pork pie hat of our
+grandmothers. One closely veiled woman showed the silhouette sticking up
+through her veil just like a blacking tin.
+
+The Mahommedan is much more fanatic in these parts than his more
+civilized brother of Salonika or Constantinople. Women of the two
+religions do not visit. The hatred is partially political, and Jo began
+to realize that her dream of visiting a harem would not be easy to
+achieve. We met three women walking down a lonely street. Although their
+faces were covered with several thicknesses of black chiffon, they
+modestly placed them against the wall and stood there, three shapeless
+bundles, until we were out of sight.
+
+Jan's feelings were very much hurt, but he soon got used to being
+treated like a dangerous dragon.
+
+When we reached our hotel again we found the élite of the town waiting
+in the bar-room for us. There was a huge jolly Greek priest, all big hat
+and velvet, the prefect, the schoolmaster, a linguist, and the little
+black-hatted man whom we had mistaken for a hotel tout.
+
+The priest was president of the Montenegrin Red Cross, the prefect was a
+former Prime Minister and a Voukotitch. All important men who are not
+Petroviches are Voukotitches; the first being members of the king's and
+the second of the queen's family.
+
+The little black-hatted man was secretary of the Red Cross, and was
+formally attached to us while there as cicerone. He explained to us that
+they had all been in the hotel expecting us the night before, with a
+beautiful dinner which had been prepared in our honour.
+
+We apologized and inwardly noted the grateful temperament of the
+Montenegrin. We were solemnly treated to coffee and brandy, and the
+jolly priest emptied his cigarette box into Jo's lap. When the first
+polite ceremoniousness had worn off we asked delicately about the front.
+
+"Did we wish to see the front?"
+
+Certainly, said the prefect, we should have the first horses that should
+come back to the town, and the little transparent shadow man should
+accompany us. And our letter to the Sirdar Voukotitch, commander in
+chief of the north?--He should be told about it on his return that
+evening from the front.
+
+At sunset the muezzin sounded, cracked voices cried unmelodiously from
+all the minaret tops. Immediately, as if it were their signal, all the
+crows arose from the town, hovered around in batches for a moment,
+chattering, and flew away up the hill to roost in the trees round the
+hospital till sunrise.
+
+Salonika rings with children's cries, Dawson city with the howlings of
+dogs, but the towns of the Sanjak have no better music than the croaking
+of carrion crows.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MONTENEGRIN FRONT ON THE DRINA
+
+
+When Jan awoke it was dark, and he was with difficulty rousing Jo when
+suddenly a voice howled through the keyhole that the horses were
+waiting. Jan grabbed his watch--5 a.m.; but the horses had been ordered
+for six. Hastily chewing dry biscuit, Jan jumped into his clothes and
+ran down. There was a small squat youth with a flabby Mongolian face
+hovering between the yard door and the inn, and Jan following him
+discovered three horses saddled and waiting. He hastily ordered white
+coffee to be prepared, and ran up again to hurry Jo and to pack. He
+rushed down again to pay the bill, but found that the Montenegrin Red
+Cross had charged itself with everything, very generously, so he ran up
+once more to nag at Jo. The secretary, whom we called "the shadow," had
+not appeared, so we inquired from the squint-eyed youth, received many
+"Bogamis" as answer, but nothing definite; so we decided, as it was now
+past six, that he had changed his mind and had sent this chinee-looking
+fellow, whom we named "Bogami," in his place.
+
+Jan's horse was like an early "John" drawing of a slender but antiquated
+siren, all beautiful curves. Jo's would in England long ago have taken
+the boat to Antwerp; her saddle stood up in a huge hump behind and had a
+steeple in front, and was covered by what looked like an old bearskin
+hearthrug in a temper, one stirrup like a fire shovel was yards too
+long, the other far too short, and were set well at the back.
+
+"What queer horses!" we remarked.
+
+"Bogami," said Bogami; "when there are no horses these are good horses,
+Bogami."
+
+"Where is the secretary?"
+
+"Bogami nesnam" (don't know).
+
+From Uzhitze we had good horses, from Prepolji moderate, now these;
+imagination staggered at what we should descend to if we did a fourth
+lap to Cettinje, for instance, but we climbed up. Jo with her queerly
+placed stirrups perched forward something like a racing cyclist.
+Bogami's horse was innocent of garniture, save for a piece of chain
+bound about its lower jaw, but he slung his great coat over the saw edge
+of its backbone and leapt on. He must have had a coccyx of cast iron. We
+had to kick the animals into a walk--there were fifty kilometres to go.
+
+After a while we began to wonder if it would not be quicker to get off
+and foot it, but we did catch up and eventually pass a Red Cross Turk.
+We saw a soldier striding ahead. By kicks and shouts we raised a sprint
+along the level road; we drew even with him, and then began a race; on
+the uphills we beat him, on the downhills he caught up and passed in
+front. He was a taciturn fellow, and save that he was going to Fochar we
+learnt nothing about him. On a long uphill we gained a hundred yards,
+and by supreme efforts held our gains. He eventually disappeared from
+view, and we were rejoicing at our speed when we realized that the
+telegraph wires were no longer with us--one can always find the nearest
+way by following the telegraph, for governments do not waste wire. Jan
+looked for them and found them streaming away to the left, and among
+them, well up on the horizon, our enemy the soldier.
+
+"Look," we cried to Bogami, "isn't that the shortest way? The wires go
+there."
+
+"Bogami," he replied; "wires can, horses can't, bogami."
+
+There is a fine military road to Chainitza, made by the Austrians, but
+it remains a white necklace on the hills, almost an ornament to the
+landscape. No one seemed to use it, while our old Turkish road which
+snaked and twisted up and down was pitted with the hoofs of countless
+horses. It is a stony path, and our animals were shod with flat plates
+instead of horseshoes; they slipped and slithered, and we wondered if in
+youth they had ever had lessons in skating.
+
+There was a heavy mist, but it began to break up, and through peepholes
+one caught fleeting glimpses of distant patterning of field and forest,
+and hints of great hills. The sun showed like a great pale moon on the
+horizon. There were other travellers on the old Turkish trail, horsemen,
+Bosnians in great dark claret-coloured turbans, or Montenegrins in their
+flat khaki caps, peasants in dirty white cotton pyjamas, thumping before
+them animals with pack-swollen sides, soldiers only recognizable from
+the peasants by the rifle on their backs, and Turks; most were jolly
+fellows, and hailed us cheerfully.
+
+From a house by the roadside burst a sheep, followed by five men. They
+chased the animal down the road whistling to it. We had never heard that
+whistling was effectual with sheep, and certainly it did not succeed
+very well in this instance.
+
+Somewhere beyond this house Jan's inside began to cry for food, two
+biscuits and a cup of _café au lait_ being little upon which to found a
+long day's riding. He tentatively tried a "compressed luncheon." Its
+action was satisfactory, but whether it resulted from real nourishment
+contained in the black-looking glue, or whether it came from a sticking
+together of the coating of the stomach, we have not yet decided. Jo
+preferred rather to endure the hunger.
+
+Bogami had quite a charm; for instance, he appreciated our troubles with
+the beasts we were riding. Jo's horse stumbled a good deal on the
+downhills; her saddle was very uncomfortable and so narrow that she
+could never change her position. We came into most magnificent scenery,
+the beauty of which made a deep impression even upon our empty selves.
+There were deep green valleys, rising to peaks and hills which faded
+away ridge behind ridge of blue into the distant Serbian mountains,
+great pine woods of delicate drooping trees which came down and folded
+in on every side, and though it was almost September there were
+strawberries still ripe at the edge of the road, little red luscious
+blobs amidst the green.
+
+Metalka at one o'clock, and we were on the real Montenegrin frontier.
+There are two Metalkas, a Montenegrin and an Austrian, and they are
+divided one from the other by a strip of land some ten yards across
+which rips the village in two like the track of a little cyclone. Bogami
+directed us to a shanty labelled "Hotel of Europe." A large woman was
+blocking the door; we demanded food, she took no notice. Hunger was
+clamouring within us. We demanded a second time. She waved her hand
+majestically to her rival in Austria, at whose tables Montenegrin
+officers were sitting with coffee.
+
+An officer greeted us.
+
+"We had expected you yesterday," he said.
+
+We waved to the horses.
+
+"No horses."
+
+"That is a pity," he murmured. "You see, there was something to eat
+yesterday!"
+
+In spite of his pessimism we got eggs and wine. Bogami had a large
+crowd, to whom he lectured, and we sent him out some eggs.
+
+After lunch we pushed on, in conquered territory. To Chainitza they said
+was one hour and a half, it proved nearer three.
+
+We joined some peasants, and they told us that they were going to the
+great festival. The old mother halted at a sort of sheep pen by the
+roadside; when she rejoined us she was wiping her eyes.
+
+"That was my brother," she explained; "he was killed in the war;" for it
+is the custom to erect memorial stones by the roadside. Many of these
+are very quaint, sometimes painted with a soldier, or else with the
+rifle, sword, pistols and medals of the deceased.
+
+Chainitza lies in a backwater, where the deep valley makes a sudden
+bend. When we came to it the sun was in our eyes, and halfway between
+the crest and the river the town seemed to float in a bluish mist; two
+white mosques stood out against the trees, and the roof of one was not
+one dome, but many like an inverted egg frier, or almost as though it
+was boiling over.
+
+We were stopped at the entry by a sentry.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To the Russian Hospital."
+
+He took us in charge and led us, in spite of protestations, to the
+hotel. A man in a shabby frock-coat received us, and Jo, mistaking him
+for the innkeeper, clamoured once more for the Russians. The shabby man
+explained that he was the Prefect, and that this was a State reception.
+We began to be awed by our own dignity. We explained to him that the
+Shadow had changed his mind and had sent Bogami instead.
+
+Bogami brought our knapsacks to our room, where he was immobilized by
+the sight of himself in the looking-glass of the wardrobe; probably he
+had never seen such a thing before, and he goggled at it. He at last
+backed slowly from the room.
+
+We rested a while, then descended to find--the Shadow.
+
+He was rather hurt with us, and wanted to know why the ---- we had gone
+off without him. We explained, compared watches, and found that Jan's
+was an hour too fast. The poor Shadow had been chasing us on a borrowed
+horse, with our permissions to travel in his pocket, and wildly hoping
+that he would catch us up before we were arrested as spies.
+
+We had tea with the Russians in a little arbour on the roadside, and
+chewed sweets which had just arrived from Petrograd, having been three
+months on the journey, but none the worse for that. Many officers came,
+amongst them the husband of the little Russian girl we had met at
+Prepolji. They all seemed to be Voukotitches, and at last the Sirdar
+himself honoured us. He is a huge man, and yet seemed to take up more
+room than his size warrants. He has a flat, almost plate-like face, with
+pallid blue eyes which seemed to focus some way beyond the object of his
+regard. Were his moustache larger he would be rather like Lord
+Kitchener, and he was very pleased at the obvious compliment. He poses a
+little, moves seldom but suddenly, and shoots his remarks as though
+words of command. He was very kind to us, and was immensely astonished
+at Jo's Serbian, holding up his hands and saying "Kako" at every one of
+her speeches. He suggested that poor Bogami should be beaten, but we
+begged him off. Captain Voukotitch, the husband of a day, was appointed
+to be our guide for the morrow--because Jo spoke Serbian.
+
+After tea we went up to the bubbly mosque, which was in reality the
+Greek church. We entered a large gate; on the one side of a yard was the
+church, and on the other a big two-storied rest-house, where one could
+lodge while paying devotions or doing pilgrimages. Its long balconies
+were filled with country folk all come for the festival, and who were
+feasting and laughing as though the war did not exist. The courtyard was
+filled with men and women in Bosnian costumes, white and dark red
+embroideries. Through the open door of the church one could see the
+silhouettes of the peasants bowing before the Ikons and relics. It was
+almost dark, and one man began to play a little haunting melody upon a
+wooden pipe, but though they linked arms and shuffled their feet, the
+young men did not dance.
+
+At supper the Shadow revealed a quaint sense of humour, and so to bed.
+
+The next morning was lovely, and we started at seven with the youngest
+Voukotitch and the others. Some officers had lent us their horses, and
+Voukotitch had proudly produced his English saddle for Jo. On the road
+the spirit of mischief entered him.
+
+"You can ride all right," he said; "wouldn't you like to go to the
+nearest machine-gun to the Austrian lines?"
+
+"Rather," said Jo.
+
+"You'll have to do some stiff riding, though. I know the major, and he
+is bored to death. He'll let us."
+
+"But what about the bullets?" said the Shadow.
+
+In time the major was produced, emerging from a cottage by the roadside,
+other officers with him, and we had a merry coffee party in an arbour.
+One told Jo that he was a lawyer. The few Montenegrins who had the
+misfortune to be educated were not allowed to serve at the front, but he
+had been lucky enough through influence to be allowed to take a
+commission. He had not seen much serious fighting, however, as no move
+had been made for several months.
+
+Then we tackled the hills. "Come along," said the major, cheerfully; and
+his horse's nose went down and its tail went up, and off it slid
+downhill. We had seen the Italian officers do such things on the
+cinematograph, but little thought that we should be in the same
+position. We supposed it would be all right. Jo's horse became nearly
+vertical, and she sat back against its tail. Jan followed. Sometimes a
+sheet of rock was across the path--then we slid; sometimes the sand
+became very soft--we slid again. Then a muddy bit, and the horse
+squelched down on his hind quarters.
+
+Here we met a Serbian captain who was in charge of the battery. He was
+very lonely, and delighted to have a chance to talk, and he talked hard
+all day, showed us a neat reservoir his men had built, explained to us
+that beautiful uniforms were coming from Russia soon for the weirdly
+garbed beings who were guarding the hills, and asked us to lunch behind
+the trenches under a canopy of boughs.
+
+While lunch was being prepared he took us round his artillery, and into
+his observation station on the top of a crooked tree. Below us we could
+see the river Dreina--on the other side of which was Gorazhda, held by
+the Austrians--and the fortified hills behind.
+
+It seemed impossible that this wide peaceful scene was menacing with a
+threat of death, yet at intervals one could hear a faint "pop! pop!" as
+though far-away giants were holding feast and opening great champagne
+bottles. Away in the hills could be seen an encampment of white tents,
+which caused a mild excitement, for they had not been there the day
+before, and we were told that they were quite out of range.
+
+During lunch the youngest Voukotitch tempted the major--who was in
+splendid mood--suggesting that it was rather tame to go home after
+having come within mere bowing distance of the Austrians, and that a few
+stray bullets would not incommode us.
+
+The major saw reason fairly quickly, so we bestrode our horses again and
+continued our switchback course. At an open space where the Austrians
+could shoot at us if they wished we had to plunge down the hill quickly,
+keeping a distance of one hundred yards from each other.
+
+The little Shadow prudently got off his horse and used its body as a
+shield.
+
+We banged at the door of a cottage, and a young lieutenant came out;
+somebody said he was nineteen and a hero.
+
+[Illustration: SERB AND MONTENEGRIN OFFICERS ON THE DRINA.]
+
+
+[Illustration: A CONCEALED GUN EMPLACEMENT ON THE DRINA.]
+
+Here we left our horses and began to scramble through brambles along a
+narrow path, climbing up the back of a little hill on the crest of which
+were the machine guns. Just before we got to the top we plunged into a
+tunnel which bored through the hill; at the end was the gun. The hero
+scrambled in, wriggled the gun about and explained. He invited Jo to
+shoot. She squashed past him; there was a knob at the back of the gun
+on which she pressed her thumbs, and she immediately wanted another pair
+with which to stop her ears. The gun jammed suddenly. The hero pulled
+the belt about, and Jo set it going once more.
+
+The Austrian machine guns answered back and kept this up, so Jo pressed
+the knob again and yet again. Then we got into the trenches above.
+Whenever Jo popped her head over the trenches for a good look there were
+faint reports from the mountain opposite. One or two bullets whizzed
+over our heads, and we realized that they were aiming at Jo's big white
+hat.
+
+Jan climbed down the hill and took snap-shots of Gorazhda; the enemy got
+a couple of pretty near shots at him.
+
+When the Montenegrins thought this sport was becoming monotonous they
+remembered the business of the day. A big house in Gorazhda was said to
+be full of Hungarian officers, and they wanted to get the range of this
+with one of the big guns. This decision had been made a day or two
+before with much deliberation. This they thought the State could afford.
+The precious shell was brought out, and every one fondled it.
+
+Men were called out and huge preparations were made for sighting and
+taking aim. We scuttled round with field glasses, and finally stood on
+tiptoe behind branches on a mound by the side of the gun. There were
+many soldiers fussing in the dug-out, and at last they pulled the
+string.
+
+"Goodness! Now we've done it," Jo thought, as the mountains sent back
+the fearful report in decreasing echoes. We seemed to wait an eternity,
+and then "something white" happened far beyond the village.
+
+The officers looked at each other with long faces. "A bad miss--the
+expense."
+
+We felt the resources of the Montenegrin Empire were tottering. Awful!
+Could they afford another?
+
+Finally, with great courage, they decided that it was better to spend
+two shells on getting a decent aim than to lose one for nothing. The
+terrific bang went off again, and this time the "something white"
+happened right on the roof of the house. The Hungarian officers all ran
+out, and the machine guns below jabbered at them. Nobody was killed as
+far as we know, but every one was content and delighted.
+
+Sunset was approaching, and we rode away quickly, only stopping once to
+drag a reluctant old Turk from the mountain side and make him sing to
+the accompaniment of a one-stringed goosla. He hated to do it as all
+his best songs were about triumphant Mahommedans crushing Serbs, and of
+course he couldn't sing those.
+
+He sat grumpily cross-legged on the ground, encircled by our horses,
+droning a song of two notes, touching the string quickly with the flat
+lower part of his fingers.
+
+We left him very suddenly because the darkness comes quickly in those
+hills, so we made for the high-road as hard as we could.
+
+We rode fast to the Colonel's cottage, sat down to the dinner table,
+which was decked with pale blue napkins, and a fine-looking old
+Voukotitch, an ex-M.P. in national costume, acted as butler. In spite of
+his seventy odd years he had joined the army as a common soldier. He
+refused all invitations to sit with us, for he knew his place. The young
+husband was his nephew, and they kissed fondly on leave-taking.
+
+We rode back in the moonlight. At one spot on the road was a sawmill,
+and the huge white pine logs lying all about looked like the fallen
+columns of some ruined Athenian temple. We tried to enjoy the moment,
+and to brush aside the awful thought that we must remount Rosinante and
+Co. next day.
+
+The Shadow was terribly puffed up about his feat. The following morning
+as we were sketching in the town, an officer approached respectfully.
+
+"His excellency the Sirdar invites you to supper," he said.
+
+We considered a moment, for we had intended to return to Plevlie. The
+Shadow broke in.
+
+"It is inconvenient to come to supper," he said to our horror. "Tell his
+excellency that the gentleman and lady will come to lunch if he wishes
+it."
+
+The Sirdar meekly sent answer that lunch would suit him very well, and
+we could drive back with him to Plevlie. "Would we come to his house at
+12.30?"
+
+The Prefect told us that we ought to go to the lunch at twelve, because
+the Sirdar's clock was always half an hour fast. We arrived, but the
+Sirdar evidently had been considering us, he did not appear for the half
+an hour, so we sat with his staff sipping rakia by the roadside.
+
+The lunch was excellent, but the Sirdar's carriage, like every other
+carriage in Montenegro, was a weird, ancient, rusty arabesquish affair,
+tied together with wire. We had two resplendent staff officers, armed to
+the teeth, who galloped ahead, we had two superior non-coms., also armed
+to the dentals, galloping behind, while on the box sat a man with gun,
+pistols, sword, dagger and a bottle of wine and water which we passed
+round whenever the Sirdar became hoarse. The coachman was as old and as
+shabby as his carriage, and every five miles or so was forced to descend
+and tie up yet another mishap with wire--ordinary folks' carriages are
+only repaired with string.
+
+The Sirdar occupied almost the whole of the back seat, and Jo was
+squeezed into the crack which was left. Jan was perched on a sort of
+ledge, facing them. The carriage was narrow, six legs were two too many
+for the space. Jan's were the superfluous ones. He tried this pose, he
+tried that, but in spite of his contortions he endured much of the seven
+hours' journey in acute discomfort and the latter part in torture.
+
+In spite of his throat the Sirdar did nearly all the talking. The
+country we were passing through were scenes of his battles: with one arm
+he threw a company over this hill, with a hand, nearly hitting Jan in
+the eye, he marched an army corps along that valley; he explained how he
+had been forced to give up the Ministry of War because there was no
+other efficient commander for the north.
+
+A blue ridge of pine trees appeared on our right hand.
+
+"You see those hills," said the Sirdar: "I'll tell you the story of a
+reply of mine, a funny reply. I ordered a general last winter to march
+across those hills. He said that the troops would starve. I looked him
+in the eye. Then you will eat wolves, I shouted. He went."
+
+If we passed peasants he stopped them. He seemed to have an
+extraordinary memory for names and faces.
+
+"Never forget a face," he said, "never forget its name. That is the
+secret of popularity."
+
+He was very anxious that we should go to Cettinje and to Scutari. He
+kindly promised to see about it, to arrange for our horses and to have
+our passage telegraphed before us. At Podgoritza he said a government
+motor-car should wait for us. He advised us to make a detour from the
+straight road and to see the famous black lake of Jabliak and the
+Dormitor mountains. We thanked him gratefully. He waved our thanks
+aside.
+
+"And I will write to my friend the Minister of War. He will arrange that
+you go to Scutari." He then explained all the reasons why Montenegro
+should hold Scutari when the war was over.
+
+"It was ours," he said; "we only gave it up to Venice so that she should
+protect us from the Turk. If we do not hold Scutari, Montenegro can
+never become a state, so if we cannot keep her we might as well give up
+Cettinje. After all we are but taking back what was once ours."
+
+He was daily expecting the uniforms from Russia, and asked every soldier
+on the road for news. At last one said that he had seen them.
+
+"The stuff is rather thin, your excellency, but the boots are splendid."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+NORTHERN MONTENEGRO
+
+
+We were accosted by a clean-limbed, joyous youth, who bore on his cap
+the outstretched winged badge of the police. He said--
+
+"Mister Sirdar, he tell me take you alon' o' Nickshitch."
+
+Sure enough the next morning there he was, with three horses, which if
+not the identical animals of our Chainitza trip were sisters or brothers
+to them. It was a wretched day, gusty, and the rain sweeping round the
+corners of the old streets. Early as was the hour, the wretched
+prisoners were peering through the lattice windows of their prison,
+which evidently once had been the harem of some wealthy Turk; where
+beauties had once lain on voluptuous couches, wretched criminals now
+crouched half-starved, racked with disease, and as we passed held out
+skinny arms. All Montenegrin saddles are bound on with string, even
+those of the highest in the land; indeed, one cannot imagine how the
+people did before string was invented, and ours began to slip before we
+were well clear of the town. Necessary adjustments were made, and on
+once more.
+
+Our guide was well armed--he carried two murderous-looking pistols, and
+a long rifle slung over his back. He was in high spirits and showed us
+that the proper way to ride Montenegrin horses was to drop the reins on
+to the animal's neck, kick it in the stomach with both feet, elevating
+your arms and uttering the most unearthly yells. Thus terrified, the
+unfortunate wreck would canter a few yards, and our cicerone would turn
+in his saddle and grin back at us, who were humanely contented with the
+solemn jog-trot of our aged steeds along the well-worn horse-track--for
+there was no road.
+
+We crawled along, wretched in the downpour, the scenery completely
+hidden by the clouds; but towards midday, as we climbed ever higher and
+higher, we plunged into pine forests where the rain began to thin to
+mist, veiling the trees with layers of drifting fog. Out of the forests
+we came--the rain having ceased--into a strange-looking landscape, whose
+japanesiness is equalled possibly only by Japan itself. There were the
+queer rounded hills, the gnarled and twisted little pines and dim
+fir-clad slopes cutting the sky with sharp grey silhouettes.
+
+Here we stopped to eat. We opened a tin of meat and made rough
+sandwiches with the coarse brown or black bread which is the staple food
+of Serbian nations. When we were satisfied there was meat left in the
+tin. Two wretched, ragged children came on the road singing some
+half-Eastern chant, and we hailed them. They refused the food with
+dignity, and marched on offended.
+
+We came to the Grand Canyon of Colorado--we beg its pardon--of
+Montenegro, The Tara. Great cliffs towered high on either side, great
+grey, rugged cliffs topped with pine and scrub oak. Down, down, down to
+the river, an hour, and we crossed the bridge out of Novi Bazar into
+Montenegro--thirty years free from the Turk. We halted at a little
+coffee stall made of boughs. Jan wanted to get a photo, but the women
+were so shy that Jo had to push them out into the open.
+
+On the way up the other cliff our guide became communicative. He had
+been in America, in the mining camps, and spoke fair American.
+
+"In ole days, dese was de borders," he said; "'ere de Serb, 'n dere de
+Turk. Natchurally dey 'ate each oder. Dey waz two fellers 'ad fair cold
+feet, one 'ere, one over dere, Turk 'n our chapy. Every day dey come
+down to de ribber 'n dey plug't de odder chap wid dere ole pistols what
+filled at de nose. But dey neber hit nuttin. One day de Serb 'e got mad
+and avade in de ribber, but 'e did'n 'it de Turk. Nex' day dey hot'
+avade in 'arf way across. Dey miss again. De tird day dey avades in rite
+ter de middle, 'n each shoots up de odder dead. Yessir, 'n dere bodies
+float down ter 'ere."
+
+He looked up and pointed.
+
+"Dey was a gooman up dere," he said.
+
+"A gooman?"
+
+"Yes, a man wat 'ad a gooman all to 'isself."
+
+"!!!!"
+
+"Dey was an ole town all made o' stones," our guide explained, "where
+dis man made 'is gooman. You know wat a gooman is?--kill all de fellers
+what pass 'n do wat you likes."
+
+We understood suddenly that "Government" was indicated.
+
+"Dat's wat I say," he answered, "gooman--'e was killed by a Montenegrin
+chap wat throwed 'im orf de cliffs, 'n a Turk gets all 'is land. Dat's
+'ow dey was done dose days. Dere ain't much 'o de ole town lef now."
+
+"We 'ad to chase de Turk outer 'ere," he went on; "lots 'o fighting, but
+we 'ad luck. You see, dey 'ad two lines, 'an we got de first line before
+'e was ready, 'n wiped 'im out, so de secon' line did'n know if it was
+'im retreatin' or us advancin', and we was into 'em before dey 'ad made
+up dere minds. Yessir."
+
+The ascent was terribly laborious. Our animals were sweating, though
+they were carrying nothing but the knapsacks.
+
+"Ye see dat flat stone?" said the guide. "Dat's were de gooman feller
+'ide 'is gold. Dey was tree Italians chaps 'ere 'n dey turn ober dat
+stone ter roll it downill. 'N underneat was all dat feller's gold. Dat
+madum larf, I tell yer."
+
+We climbed higher and yet higher; we thought we would never reach the
+crest. The sweat poured from us, and we were drenched.
+
+On the top there were but few stones of the old castle, and we rode over
+the ruins. We passed into a queer pallid country, pale grey houses, pale
+yellow or pale green fields, grey sky and stones, a violently rolling
+plain where our guide lost his way, and we became increasingly aware of
+the discomfort of our saddles, and prayed for the journey to end.
+
+We refound the route, and asked a peasant, "How far to Jabliak?"
+
+"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
+
+We cheered.
+
+At the end of twenty minutes we asked once more.
+
+"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
+
+At the end of twenty minutes more we asked again, our spirits were
+falling.
+
+"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
+
+"* * *!"
+
+We then asked a peasant and his wife. The woman considered for a moment.
+
+"About an hour," she said.
+
+Her husband turned and swore at her.
+
+"Bogami, don't believe her, gentlemen," he cried, "it's only a quarter
+of an hour."
+
+We left them quarrelling.
+
+It grew dark, and we grew miserable. Jabliak seemed like a dream, and we
+like poor wandering Jews, cursed ever to roam on detestable saddles in
+this queer pallid country.
+
+At last a peasant said it was five minutes off, and then it really was a
+quarter of an hour distant.
+
+We came down from the hills to find the whole aristocracy--one
+captain--not to say all their populace, out on the green to do us
+honour. They had been informed by telegraph of our august decision to
+sleep in their wooden village. When we got off our horses our knees were
+so cramped that we could scarcely stand, and we hobbled after the
+captain into a bitterly cold room without furniture. Various
+Montenegrins came and looked at us, and an old veterinary surgeon, also
+_en route_, but in the opposite direction, conversed in bad German. The
+old vet. was a Roumanian, and the only animal doctor in all Montenegro.
+
+To their great surprise we demanded something to eat.
+
+"Supper is at nine," they said severely.
+
+"But we have had nothing since ten this morning," we protested.
+
+"But supper will be ready at nine," they said again.
+
+After a lot of trouble we got some scrambled eggs, but nothing would
+persuade our guide, whose name, by the way, was "Mike," to have
+anything. It almost seemed improper to eat at the wrong hours, even if
+one was hungry.
+
+After supper we sat growing colder and colder. At last, in desperation,
+we asked if there were no place in the village which had a fire.
+
+"Oh yes, there is a fire in the other café," and thither we were
+conducted.
+
+We were in a jolly wooden room, with a blazing stove and a most welcome
+fugginess. The hostess brought us rakia, coffee and walnuts, and did her
+utmost to make us comfortable. Montenegrins crowded in, and discussed
+the probable end of the war. There was little enthusiasm shown, most of
+the talk was of the hardships, and a little grumbling that the farms
+were going to pieces because of the lack of men.
+
+Before leaving Plevlie, Dr. Clemow had presented Jan with a box of Red
+Cross cigars, and he handed one to the captain. The official received it
+gratefully.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "Cigars, eh! One does not often see those nowadays."
+
+The cigar was a Trichinopoli. Jan said nothing, but watched. The captain
+lit the cigar manfully, and for some minutes puffed, looking the
+apotheosis of aristocracy. Presently his puffing ceased, he looked
+thoughtful, and then saying that he had forgotten an important paper
+which he had not signed, he fled. We found the cigars most useful
+afterwards, as a sort of spiritual disinfector, infallible against
+bores.
+
+Into the cracks of the ceiling were stuck white and yellow flowers,
+thyme and other plants, till the roof looked like an inverted
+flower-bed. We had noticed this custom before, and asked Mike if it had
+any significance.
+
+"Oh yes," he answered, "all dose tings, dey stuck up dere 'gainst de
+fleas 'n bugs."
+
+This was translated into Serbian, and the woman boxed his ears.
+
+We supped on meat--three courses--meat, meat, meat, and so tough that
+our teeth bounced off, and we were compelled to bolt the morsels whole.
+One course tired us out, weary as we already were with our journey, but
+Mike, making up for his former abstinence, wolfed all his own share and
+what remained over from ours.
+
+The night was so cold that we went to bed in our clothes, and even then
+could not sleep for hours.
+
+We woke with difficulty to a glorious day, and found that what we had
+thought yesterday to be a plain was in truth a great plateau surrounded
+by towering grey mountains on which were gulfs and gullies filled with
+eternal snow. Jabliak is a queer village, fifty or sixty weathered
+wooden houses--with the high-peaked roof of Northern Serbia--flung down
+into this wilderness, where the grass and crops fight for existence with
+the pushing stones, and where the summer is so short that the captain's
+plum tree--the only one--will not ripen save in exceptional years. Never
+a wheel comes to Jabliak, and so it is a village without streets.
+Everything which passes here is horse-or woman-borne, and for hay they
+use long narrow sledges which slide over the stones and slippery grass
+as though it were snow.
+
+"Urrgh," said a man, "you should see this in winter. Snow ten and twelve
+feet deep, and only just the roofs and the tops of the telegraph-poles
+emerging."
+
+The village escorted us to see the famous Black Lake below the peaks of
+Dormitor.
+
+The lake is beautiful enough, but too big for mystery, too small to be
+impressive. One had imagined it twinkling like the wicked pupil of a
+witch's eye, with cornea of white stones and eye-lashes of pine trees,
+and we desecrated even its stillness by shooting at wild duck with a
+rifle.
+
+Jan had been describing to the villagers how well Jo rode; they now
+think he is a liar. Her horse took an unexpected jump at a small
+obstacle; the huge hump at the back of the saddle rose suddenly, threw
+her forward, and before she had realized anything, she was hanging
+almost upside down about the horse's neck, helpless because of the
+enormous steeple in front. This horse, as though quite used to similar
+occurrences, stood quietly contemplative, till Mike had restored her to
+a perpendicular.
+
+Then on again. At times the tracks grew very muddy, and the horses
+side-slipped a good deal. At the top of a pass we halted to get coffee
+from a leafy hut. Before us were the mountains of Voynik, a blue ridge
+with shadowy, strange crevasses and cliffs; behind us Dormitor was still
+visible, a faint stain on the sky, as though that great canopy had been
+dragging edges in the dew.
+
+Four women clambered up towards us. When they had reached the top they
+flung down their enormous knapsacks and sat down. They were a cheery,
+pretty set, and we asked them where they were going.
+
+"To the front," they said.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Those are for our husbands and brothers," answered they, patting the
+huge coloured knapsacks.
+
+"How far have you to walk?" we asked.
+
+"Four more days."
+
+"And how far have you walked?"
+
+"Four days."
+
+No complaining, no repining, just a statement of fact, these women were
+cheerfully tramping eight days with bundles weighing from 45 to 50
+pounds upon their backs, to take a few luxuries, or necessities, to
+their fighting kin.
+
+We bade them a jolly farewell, wished them luck, and started downhill.
+
+The track became so steep that we had to descend from our horses and
+walk, and so we came to Shavnik.
+
+Shavnik is not of wood; it is stone, and as we came into its little
+square--with the white river-bed on one side--we realized that no
+welcome attended us. To our indignant dismay the inn was full, and no
+telegram from the "State" had arrived.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANT WOMEN OF THE MOUNTAINS.]
+
+[Illustration: A VILLAGE OF NORTH MONTENEGRO.]
+
+We learned that in Montenegro are two kinds of travellers--royalties
+and nobodies. Royalties are done for, nobodies do the best they can. We
+found a not overclean room over a shop--there was nothing better--we had
+already experienced worse: so we ordered supper, and went off to the
+telegraph station, to make sure that we arrived as "Royalty" at the next
+stop.
+
+A man suddenly burst into the office, crying, "Sirdar! Sirdar!"
+
+Jo and Jan made their way through the darkness to the inn, squeezed
+between sweating horses to the door. We were admitted.
+
+The Sirdar received us kindly, but was dreadfully tired, and looked
+years older than he had two days before. He had ridden some 150
+kilometres in sixteen hours, had left Chainitza at two o'clock in the
+morning, and had been in the saddle ever since. He is a famous horseman,
+but is no longer young. Almost all his escort had succumbed to the
+speed, and he was full of the story of his orderly's horse which had
+done 300 kilometres in four days, and was the only animal which had come
+through with him, he having changed mounts at Plevlie. We left him and
+went straight to bed.
+
+Just as we were comfortably dozing off, a man burst into the room and
+demanded "Mike," and said something about a horse. Jan dressed hurriedly
+and clattered downstairs. It was pitch dark. He ran to the stable, felt
+his way in, and struck a match. There were two horses, one was lying on
+its side, evidently foundered and dying but Jan felt that they would not
+have disturbed him for that. By matchlight again he found that his own
+horses had been turned out by the Sirdar's orderly, and that one was
+missing. Mike was not to be found, but the missing horse was discovered
+by a small boy in the dry river-bed apparently in search of water. Jan
+retired to his bedroom to find that in his absence two more strangers
+had burst in, to Jo's indignation. He pushed them out and locked the
+door.
+
+When we awoke the Sirdar had already retaken his whirlwind
+course--evidently grave news called him to Cettinje--leaving the
+orderly's gallant horse dead behind him.
+
+"He kills many horses," said a peasant, shaking his head; "he rides
+fast--always."
+
+We crossed the dry bed of the river and prepared for the hill in front
+of us. Suddenly Mike's horse plunged into a bog. The poor beast sprawled
+in the treacherous green up to its stomach, and, thinking its last hour
+had come, groaned loudly. Mike threw himself from the saddle, and with
+great effort at last extracted his horse, which emerged trembling and
+dripping with slime. Mike grinned ruefully.
+
+"I orter remembered," he admitted. "Sirdar, 'e get in dere one day
+'imself."
+
+This day's riding was the worst we had yet experienced. Our horses were
+fagged, the road abominable, great stones everywhere on the degenerated
+Turkish roads.
+
+The Turkish road is a narrowish path of flat paving-stones laid directly
+upon mother earth: but that is the first stage. In the second stage the
+paving-stones have begun to turn and lie like slates on a roof; in the
+third they have turned completely on edge, like a row of dominoes, and
+the horses, stepping delicately between the obstacles, pound the exposed
+earth to deep trenches of semi-liquid mud. In the fourth stage the
+stones have entirely disappeared, leaving only the trenches which the
+horses have formed, so that the path is like a sheet of violently
+corrugated iron. Most of the tracks are now between the third and fourth
+stages of degeneration. One never knows how far the horse will plunge
+his legs into the trenches, for sometimes they are very shallow, and
+sometimes the leg is engulfed to the shoulder.
+
+Jan's horse slipped over one domino, went up to the shoulder into a
+trench, and off came the rider. Luckily he fell upon a heap of stones,
+and not into the mud, but he decided for all that to walk for a bit.
+
+Every now and then one came across traces of the construction of a great
+road--white new stone embankments that started out of nothing, and went
+to nowhere, and Mike confessed that he had lost the path once more--
+
+"When I come out of dat confounded mod!"
+
+After a hustle across country we found the road, and wished that we had
+not, for it was a Turkish track in its most belligerent form.
+
+At last we reached the top and rested awhile. Mike showed us his
+revolver.
+
+"He good revolver," he said. "De las' man I shoot he killin' a vooman. I
+come. He run away. I tell 'im to stop, but he no stop, so I shoot 'im
+leg. 'E try to 'it me wi' a gon."
+
+The man got fourteen years.
+
+We pushed on again, and on the road picked up an overcoat, which later
+we were able to restore to its owner, a Turk, who was going to
+Nickshitch to buy sugar and salt for Plevlie.
+
+Bits of the big white road appeared and reappeared with insistence. We
+asked who was responsible for its inception.
+
+"Sirdar," said Mike; "he good boy. Much work."
+
+The country was now like brown velvet spread over heaps of gigantic
+potatoes.
+
+Our horses grew slower and slower, and the inn which we were seeking
+seemed ever further and further away. We passed many peasants, and had
+evidently entered the land of Venus, for each one was more beautiful
+than the neighbour. Since Jabliak we had not seen an ugly man or woman,
+and the dignity of their carriage was exceeded only by the nobleness of
+their features. Ugly women must be valuable in these parts, and probably
+marry early; humans ever prize the rare above the beautiful.
+
+Mike spoke to many of the girls, asking them their names and of their
+homes. One had his own name--which we forget--and he said that she must
+be his cousin, and that if she would wait where she was he would come
+back later and give her a lift.
+
+At last we came to the wooden inn.
+
+The better-class inns have dining-room and kitchen separate, the
+second-class both are one, but in each case the fire is made on a heap
+of earth piled in the centre of the floor; there is no chimney, and the
+smoke fills the room with a blue haze, smarting in the eyes; it drifts
+up to the roof, where hams are hung, and finds its way out through the
+cracks in the wooden roofing slats. This inn was second-class, and along
+one wall was a deep trough, in which were four huge lumps of a white
+substance which puzzled us. First we thought it was snow, but that
+seemed impossible; then we thought it was salt--but why?
+
+It was snow, there being no water fit to drink, so the snow was stored
+in the winter in huge underground cellars.
+
+We got coffee and kaimak--a sort of cross between sour milk and cream
+cheese--and as a great honour the lady of the house, a villainously
+dirty-looking woman, brought us two eggs. Jan's was bad, but he put it
+aside, saying nothing, for it is impossible to explain to these people
+what is a "bad" egg--all are alike to them.
+
+We took an affectionate leave of Mike, for here we degenerated to a
+carriage, which was waiting us, and he rode off, dragging our tired
+horses behind him.
+
+As we were getting into the carriage the dirty woman ran up and, before
+Jo could ward it off, planted a loving kiss on either cheek.
+
+We flung our weary limbs upon the rusty cushions. Our driver was a
+cheery fellow, who only answered "quite" to everything we said. We drove
+through miles of country so stony that all the world had turned grey as
+though it had remembered how old it was. The road twisted and curled
+about the mountains like the flourish of Corporal Trim's stick: below
+one could see the road, only half a mile off as the crow flies, but a
+good five miles by the curves. We were blocked by a great hay-cart. Our
+driver shouted and cursed without effect, so he climbed down from the
+box, and, running round the hay, slashed the driver of it with his whip.
+We expected a free fight, but nothing occurred. When the hay had
+modestly drawn aside, we found "only a girl." Poor thing! she looked
+rueful enough.
+
+The road was the best we had seen in all the Balkans, white and
+well-surfaced like an English country highway, and at last we clattered
+into Nickshitch, the most important town of Northern Montenegro. It was
+like a fair-sized Cornish village, with little stone houses and
+stone-walled gardens filled with sunflowers.
+
+A charming old major came to the inn to do us the honour we had
+telegraphed for, and together we strolled about the streets. There is a
+pretty Greek church at one end on a formal mound, and behind the town
+runs a sheer fin of rock topped by an old castle where once had lived
+another man who "was a gooman all to hisself;" now it is a monastery,
+and one of the most picturesque in Montenegro.
+
+We dined upon beautiful trout fresh from the river, and large green
+figs. Undressing, Jan found a louse in his shirt--that came from the
+dirty bedroom at Shavnik evidently. He went to bed, but his troubles
+were not yet over; there was another foreign presence, a presence which
+raised large and itching lumps. He hunted without success for some time,
+but at last caught and exterminated an enormous bug. After which there
+was peace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TO CETTINJE
+
+
+The rain poured all night. At five o'clock they called us, telling us
+_not_ to wake up as the motor would come later. At six they knocked
+again, saying--
+
+"Get up quickly; the carriage is at the door."
+
+No explanations.
+
+We hurried so much that we left our best soap and our mascot, a
+beautiful little wooden chicken, behind for ever. The major was waiting
+in the bar room.
+
+We were sorry to say good-bye, he was lonely, and we liked him; but we
+lost no time, as we were seven hours from Podgoritza and goodness knows
+how far from Cettinje.
+
+The carriage and coachman were the same as yesterday's, but his
+expression was so lugubrious in the downpouring rain that he looked
+another man.
+
+Just outside the village he picked up a friend and put her in the
+carriage. She was a velvet-coated old lady with a flat white face and
+two bright birdlike brown eyes which she never took off us.
+Conversation was impossible, as she had only one tooth, round which her
+speech whistled unintelligibly, and she hiccuped loudly once in every
+half-hour. We were most uncomfortable. The hood was up, and a piece of
+tarpaulin was stretched from it across to the coachman's seat, blocking
+out the view except for the little we could see through a tiny triangle.
+
+What with three humans, our bags, the old lady's bundle, and an enormous
+sponge cake, we were very cramped, and whenever we tried to move a
+stiffened knee her bright eye was on it, and she made some suitable
+remark to which we always had to answer with "Ne rasumem," "I don't
+understand," the while beaming at her to show we appreciated her efforts
+to put us at our ease.
+
+The mist and rain entirely obscured the view. Now and then a tree showed
+as a thumb-mark on the grey. We little knew that we were passing through
+some of the most marvellous scenery in Europe.
+
+The carriage settled down with a bump. Something wrong with the harness;
+string was produced, and it was made usable for the next half-hour.
+Carriages in Montenegro must have been designed in the days when
+builders thought more of voluptuous curves than of breaking strains, for
+we have never been in one of them without many halts, during which the
+coachman endeavoured to tie the carriage together with string or wire to
+prevent it from coming in two.
+
+We stopped at wayside inns and politely treated the old lady to coffee
+at a penny a cup to make up for our inappreciation of her conversational
+powers.
+
+Women passed carrying the usual enormous bundles. Sometimes they were
+accompanied by husbands or brothers, who strolled along entirely
+unladen.
+
+Jo busily sketched everybody she saw.
+
+Passers-by demanded, "What is she doing?" and the onlookers answered--
+
+"She is writing us;" for everything that is done with pencil on paper is
+to them writing.
+
+One pretty young woman shook her fist, laughing--
+
+"If I could write, I would write _you_," she said.
+
+We were no longer in the Sanjak. Turkish influence had vanished, and we
+longed to see the famous Black Mountains of old Montenegro.
+
+At Danilograd we marvelled at the enormous expensive bridge which seemed
+to lead to nothing but a couple of tiny villages. We missed the
+picturesque Turkish houses, built indeed only for to-day like their
+roads, but full of unexpected corners and mysterious balconies. The
+Montenegrin houses were small and simple, four walls and a roof, like
+the drawing of a three-year-old child. The only thing lacking was the
+curly smoke coming from the chimney. Broad streets lined with these
+houses were unexhilarating in effect, and would have been more
+depressing except for the bright colours with which they were painted.
+
+When the horses were replete after their midday meal we loaded up,
+adding to our numbers a taciturn man who sat on the box. We rolled on to
+Podgoritza, arriving at two o'clock in a steady downpour.
+
+Podgoritza seemed unaware of our arrival. The streets were empty, and
+the Prefect's offices were tenanted only by the porter, a Turk, who
+remarked that the Prefect was taking his siesta, and seemed to think
+that was the end of it.
+
+This was awful, after being Highnesses for a week, to be treated just
+like ordinary people, and perhaps to lose all chance of reaching
+Cettinje that night.
+
+"Produce the Prefect," said Jo, stamping her foot, but the Turk only
+smiled and suggested a visit to the adjutant's office. Back to the
+carriage we went and drove to a place like a luggage depôt. No adjutant,
+nothing but giggling boys. Our coachman became restive and said his
+horses were tired of the rain, so we deposited the old lady,
+substituted a man in American clothes who seemed sympathetic, and drove
+back to the Prefect's office with him. There we found a sleepy
+lieutenant who ordered coffee, while our American-speaking friend
+explained to him that we were very Great People, and that something
+ought immediately to be done for us. So the officer promised to get the
+Prefect as soon as possible, and we went to the hotel to drink more
+coffee with our baggy-trousered friend, who told us that he was one of a
+huge contingent of Montenegrins who had travelled from America to fight
+for the little country. "Say, who are your pals?" said a nasal voice,
+and the owner, a pleasant-looking man in a broad-shouldered mackintosh,
+took a seat at our table. He was also a Montenegrin, and had been mining
+in America for some years. More coffees were ordered. We confided to the
+new American Montenegrin that we did not like Podgoritza, and he tried
+to find excuses--the hour, the bad weather. The hotel-keeper came up and
+intimated in awestruck tones that the Prefect had just looked in with
+some friends.
+
+Our appearance did not seem to impress the Prefect in the least, and
+small wonder. He owned to having received a telegram about us, but there
+was no motor-car available for that day, and he departed.
+
+"The Prefect is only more unpleasant than Podgoritza," said Jo to the
+American in the mackintosh; but he deduced dyspepsia.
+
+The Prefect, having been to his office and having seen the lieutenant,
+came back in five minutes, rather more suave in manner, and announced
+impressively that he was going to give us his own carriage.
+
+But the rain, the giggling boys, the smiling Turk, and the sudden drop
+from royalty to insignificance had been rankling in Jo's mind. She sat
+back haughtily and remarked--
+
+"But the Sirdar promised us a motor-car."
+
+"I will go and see if it is possible," said the Prefect, and he dashed
+out into the rain. He returned full of apologies. All the motors were
+out, but he would send his carriage round immediately. "A delightful
+carriage," he added.
+
+It arrived--a landau such as one would find at Waddingsgate-super-Mare,
+so free from scars that every Montenegrin turned to look at it.
+
+The hotel-keepers, our American friends, and the Prefect and his captain
+stood pointing out its beauties, and we left them standing in the rain.
+
+"I shall always put on side in this country," said Jo as she bit a large
+mouthful of cheese.
+
+We pounded along, and the day slowly grew darker. We passed an
+encampment, where the firelight thrown up on to the trees made a weird
+and jolly sight.
+
+The hours passed by slowly. Suddenly (our coachman was probably dozing)
+we ran into something. It was a carriage, a square grey thing. Our
+coachman howled to it, and it started slowly forward up the steep hill.
+A bright light streamed from the windows and cut a radiant path in the
+foggy rains. Some one threw away a cigar-end. The wet road shining in
+the glare of our pink candles, and the lightning flashing intermittently
+so that the mountain-tops sprang out to disappear again in the darkness;
+we felt as if we were living in the introduction of a mystery story from
+the _Strand Magazine_.
+
+At last in the misty rain we saw the aura of the lights of Cettinje. At
+last we wound slowly into wet streets, passed our mysterious companion
+without being able to see who was in it, and so to the hotel. Since the
+morning we had driven fourteen hours, and we were glad beyond measure to
+stretch and to find really comfortable beds.
+
+The next day we got up early. There was much to do. We were to see the
+War Minister about Scutari, to present a letter of introduction to the
+English minister, and to inspect the town.
+
+Nature has half filled a big crater with silt, and the Montenegrins
+have half covered it with Cettinje.
+
+It is a polychromatic village of little square houses, cheerfully
+dreary, and one does not see its uses except to be out of the way. The
+only building with any architectural beauty is the monastery where the
+old bishops reigned, and which must have many a queer tale to tell.
+
+Asking for the Count de Salis, the English minister, we were directed to
+the diplomatic street, a collection of tiny houses grouped respectfully
+in front of the Palace, which itself was no larger than a Park Lane
+house laid edgeways, and with the paint peeling from its walls.
+
+Over the front door of each little house a sort of barber's pole stuck
+outwards, striped with the national colours of the minister living
+within.
+
+We noticed with pride and relief that the Count de Salis' pole was
+painted a reticent white. The sympathetic old lady who opened the door
+directed us to the Legation. There we found him inspecting the damages
+wreaked by the storm of overnight. The Legation was big and cold, and as
+the handsome fireplaces sent out by the British Board of Works were for
+anthracite only (and Montenegro produces only wood), the English
+minister preferred his warm cottage to the unheated Palace.
+
+He wished us luck in our quest for Scutari, and asked us to tea. We
+then hurried to an awful building where the governing of Montenegro was
+done--a concrete erection, presented to Montenegro by the British
+Government, and an exact imitation of one of our workhouses. Here we
+found the Minister of War, a gorgeously dressed little man with a
+pleasant grandfatherly gleam in his eye. He only spoke Serbian, but with
+him was an unshaven young man whose chest was covered with gold
+danglers, who immediately began to air his quite passable French. We
+explained what we had been doing and what we wanted to do. The War
+Minister had not heard of US from the Sirdar, who had been resting after
+his terrific ride, but said that they were to see each other that day.
+The little man beamed upon us, and said they always wished to do
+anything for the English, but he must first see the Sirdar.
+
+"By the bye," he said, "I forgot to introduce you. This is Prince Peter,
+commander of the forces on the Adriatic coast." The young man arose and
+clicked his heels. We too got up. He shook hands with us solemnly, and
+Jo, unused to addressing Royalty, said, "Dobra Dan" (Good day).
+
+Then we all sat down again, a further rendezvous was arranged for the
+evening, and we left, carrying away the impression that the War Minister
+and we had bowed thirty times to each other before we got out of the
+door.
+
+Out in the streets, as we were sketching, we saw a large smile under a
+Staff officer's cap bearing down upon us. It was the Sirdar, quite
+rested and looking twenty years younger. He was going to the War
+Minister's, and promised to arrange at once for our visit to Scutari. He
+looked at our cryptic drawings of road scavengers, threw up his hands
+and ejaculating "Kako"--strode out of our lives.
+
+Tea in the little house with the discreet white pole was a great
+pleasure. Such tea we had not drunk since leaving England--butter, jam
+made by the old housekeeper, who pointed this out to us when she brought
+in a relay of hot water.
+
+She was the daughter of a man who had been exiled from his village
+because he had taken a prominent part in a blood feud, and the old
+Gospodar had told him he would be healthier elsewhere. So they had
+emigrated as far as Serbia, where she had learnt to read and write.
+
+A lady of good family but bad character suddenly decided to leave
+Montenegro, and fled to the shores of Cattaro, carrying with her a large
+number of State secrets. The Court was aghast. What was to be done?
+
+A villain was needed. The father was decided upon, and with the help of
+the lady's brothers she was kidnapped, carried back to Montenegro, and
+disappeared for ever. For which noble work he was permitted to return to
+his village.
+
+The old lady had a supreme contempt for the Montenegrins who had not
+"travelled," but she looked upon the growing pomp of the Court with
+suspicion.
+
+"Ah," she said, "those were fine days when the king was only the
+Gospodar, and there were none of these gold embroidered uniforms about,
+and the Queen and I used to slide down the Palace banisters together."
+
+In those days the Royal family inhabited the top story only, while the
+ground floor was filled with wood for the winter. Just round the corner
+was the old pink palace, now used as a riding school. It had been the
+first place in Montenegro to possess a billiard-table. So,
+billiard-tables being rarer and more curious than kings--the palace had
+been called the BILLIADO.
+
+The Queen, whatever agility she may have possessed once when navigating
+banisters, is now a sedate and domestic person, and doesn't hold with
+bluestockings, notwithstanding the "Higher Education" of some of her
+daughters.
+
+The story goes that once when the King was away she inaugurated one of
+those thorough-paced spring cleanings dear to most women's hearts;
+ordered the dining-room furniture into the street, and superintended the
+beating of it. Women hold a poor position in Montenegro, but one of
+character can carry all before her. A well-known English nurse was
+managing a hospital in Cettinje during the first Balkan War. One of her
+patients, though well connected as peasants often are in Montenegro, was
+a drunken old reprobate, and she told the authorities he must go. They
+demurred--his relations must not be offended. She insisted. They did
+nothing. One morning they found him, bed and all, in the middle of the
+street opposite the King's palace.
+
+The authorities swallowed their lesson.
+
+In the evening we walked over the stony hills with our host, and first
+had a glimpse of the real character of the country which had for so long
+kept the Turks at bay. One realized how much the people owed to the land
+for their boasted independence. Barren rock and scrub oak, no army could
+live here in sufficient numbers to subdue even a semi-warlike nation.
+Cettinje has been burned many a time by the Moslem, but starvation
+eventually drove him back to the fatter plains of the Sanjak, leaving a
+profitless victory behind him. Napoleon and Moscow over again.
+
+More miners from America passed with their showy machine-woven clothes,
+accompanied by their wives, who had evidently stayed behind in the old
+country. Otherwise they would have picked up new-fangled ideas about the
+rights of women, and would certainly have refused to shoulder the
+enormous American suit cases while their men ambled carelessly in front.
+
+The next day we had a further interview with the War Minister, who
+introduced to us a man in corduroys, the only really round-faced person
+we had met in Montenegro. Part of his name was "Ob," so as we forgot the
+rest of it we called him Dr. Ob. He was the minister of drains, and such
+things. As nothing had been previously explained to him about us, he
+covered his mystification by hailing us jovially, after which he
+misconstrued everything we said.
+
+He became very excited when we said we had brought 14,000 kilos of
+stores into Montenegro.
+
+"But we have not got it yet," he ejaculated. We explained that it was
+for the English hospital, and he subsided, very disappointed.
+
+Scutari was talked over again, and Dr. Ob promised to come and tell us
+that evening if Cettinje could supply a motor for the next morning.
+
+More bows and smiles, and we left wondering. Montenegrins always promise
+even when they have no intention of performance--something like the
+stage Irishman,--and we were surprised when Dr. Ob met us in the evening
+and said that the motor was arranged for next morning at eight.
+
+We tea'd with the count once more. In the next house lived a gorgeous
+old gentleman, and we heard that he had been War Minister for forty odd
+years. After thirty years or so of office it was considered that he
+could better uphold the dignity of his position were he able to sign his
+name. So he had to learn.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE LAKE OF SCUTARI
+
+
+Dr. Ob, dressed in thick corduroys and an enormous pith helmet, arrived
+punctually with the motor, a Montenegrin Government motor. He had two
+companions, a girl simply dressed with coat and skirt which did not
+match, and cotton gloves whose burst finger ends were not darned, a Miss
+Petrovitch, and an officer. The coachwork--if one may dignify it by such
+a phrase--which was made from packing cases, had a thousand creaks and
+one abominable squeak, which made conversation impossible. The scenery
+was all grey rock and little scrubby trees; the road was magnificent and
+wound and twisted about the mountain side like a whip lash. Driving down
+these curves was no amateur's game, and we saw immediately that our
+chauffeur knew his job. We came over a ridge, and in the far distance,
+gleaming like the sun itself, a corner of the Lake of Scutari showed
+between two hill crests.
+
+We ran into a fertile valley, passed through Rieka--where was the first
+Slavonic printing-press--and up into the barren mountains once more.
+The peasants seem very industrious, every little pocket of earth is here
+carefully cultivated and banked almost in Arab fashion. The houses, too,
+were better, and rather Italian with painted balconies, but are built of
+porous stone and are damp in winter. The Rieka river ran along the road
+for some way, very green and covered with water-lily pods.
+
+We passed a standing carriage, in which was a large man in Montenegrin
+clothes, and a little further on passed a man in a grey suit walking.
+Dr. Ob gesticulated wildly, and pulled up the motor to gather in a
+Frenchman--somebody in the French legation who was going to Scutari for
+a week end. He turned suddenly to Jan.
+
+"Ce n'est pas une vie, monsieur," were the first words he uttered. He
+admired Miss Petrovitch very much, and told us in an undertone that she
+was a daughter of the governor of Scutari, niece of the King of
+Montenegro, and one of "les familles le plus chic."
+
+We descended steeply to the Port, ten variously coloured houses and
+twenty-five variously clothed people. Miss Petrovitch, to our amazement,
+embraced a rather dirty old peasant, the doctor disappeared to find us
+luncheon, the Frenchman to wash, and we strolled about.
+
+A voice hailed us, and turning round, we found our mackintoshed American
+of Pod. We took him to the inn and stood him a drink. Dr. Ob came in and
+we introduced; but Dr. Ob was snifty and the American shy. His home was
+near by and he wished us to visit him, but there was no time.
+
+We lunched in a bedroom plastered with pictures. Montenegrins seem to be
+ashamed of walls, and they adore royalty. In every room one finds
+portraits of the King of Montenegro, the queen, the princes, the King of
+Italy, his queen, the Tzar of Russia, the grand dukes and duchesses, the
+King of Serbia and his princes, and to cap all a sort of comprehensive
+tableau of all the male crowned heads of Europe--including
+Turkey--balanced by another commemorating all the queens of
+Europe--excluding Turkey--the spaces left between these august people
+are filled with family portraits, framed samplers, picture postcards or
+a German print showing the seven ages of man over a sort of step-ladder.
+
+After lunch, loaded with grapes which Miss Petrovitch's peasant friend
+brought us, we trooped down to the steamer, which had been an old
+Turkish gun monitor and had been captured when the Montenegrins took
+Scutari.
+
+The boat was crowded, and the Frenchman took refuge in the captain's
+cabin, which was crammed with red pepper pods, and went to sleep. Jo
+began sketching at once. There were two full-blooded niggers aboard with
+us: they were descendants of the Ethiopian slaves of the harems; but the
+race is dying out, for the climate does not suit them. We steamed out
+into the lake, down the "kingly" canal, a shallow ditch in the mud.
+Magnificent mountains rush down on every side to the water, in which
+stunted willow trees with myriad roots--like mangroves--find an
+amphibious existence. We passed through their groves, hooting as though
+we were leaving Liverpool, and out into the eau-de-nil waters of the
+open lake.
+
+In three hours we reached Plavnitza, a quay on the mud, where more
+passengers were waiting for our already crowded craft. There were
+officers, peasants, Turks, and soldiers clad in French firemen's
+uniforms. These uniforms, by the way, caused a lot of ill-feeling in
+Montenegro. The French sent them out in a spirit of pure economical
+charity, and had the Frenchmen not been, on the average, small, and the
+Montenegrin, contrariwise, large, perhaps the gift would have been
+received with a better grace; but the sight of these enormous men
+bursting in all places from their all too tight regimentals, was
+ludicrous, and the soldiers felt it keenly.
+
+Two women came aboard, attached to officers, and wearing long light
+blue coats, the ceremonious dress of all classes; one carried a wooden
+cradle strapped on her back, the woman with no cradle had in her arms a
+baby of some ten or eleven months, which she fed alternately on grapes
+and pomegranate seeds. With each was a large family including a beastly
+little boy who spat all over the decks, and one of the fathers, a stern
+gold-laced officer, carried a dogwhip with which to rule his offspring.
+
+After a while we caught sight of Tarabosch, the famous mountain, and
+then the silhouette of the old Venetian fortress. From the water
+projected the funnels of yet another Turkish ship which had been sunk in
+the Balkan war, and we steamed into the amphibious trees on the mudflats
+of Scutari.
+
+A boat with chairs in it came for us and we disembarked. The boat was
+rather like one of those that children make from paper, called cocked
+hats, only rather elongated, and the rowers pushed at the oars which
+hung from twisted osier loops. Governor Petrovitch met us on the quay.
+He was a fine-featured old man dressed in all the barbaric splendour of
+a full national costume, pale green long-skirted coat, red gold
+embroidered waistcoat, and baggy dark blue knee breeches with a huge
+amount of waste material in the seat. He kissed his daughter and greeted
+us genially. We clambered into the usual dilapidated cab with the usual
+dilapidated horses, and off to the hotel.
+
+The women on the roadside were clad in picturesque ever-varying
+costumes. There were narrow carts with high Indian-like wheels studded
+with large nails; there were Albanians in costumes of black and white,
+everything we had hoped or expected.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+SCUTARI
+
+
+After a wash we went into the streets. It was the Orient, just as
+Eastern as Colombo or Port Said. The little fruit and jewellers' shops
+with square lanterns, the tailors sitting cross-legged in their windows,
+the strange medley of costumes--even the long lean dogs looked as if
+they had been kicked from the doors of a thousand mosques.
+
+We left the shops for further explorations. Scutari has always been
+described as such a beautiful town. The adjective does not seem
+picturesque: yes, quaint, strange decidedly. One's second impression
+after the shops is this:--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Miles and miles of walls with great doors. The main streets branch out
+into thousands of impasses each ending in a locked door. There are
+hardly any connecting streets, for somebody's walled garden is between.
+The Mahommedans hide in seclusion on one side of the town, while their
+hated enemies the Christians live on the other. Each house, Turk or
+Christian, has the same air of defiant privacy, the only difference
+being that the Turk's windows are blocked with painted lattice. The
+Mahommedan women's faces are covered with several thicknesses of
+chiffon, generally black, while the Christian peasant women walk about
+with an eye and a half peering from the shrouding folds of a cotton head
+shawl which they hold tightly under their noses.
+
+With difficulty we found the English consul's house, as the Albanians
+speak no Serb and Montenegrins were not to be found at every street
+corner. At last we found it appropriately enough in the Rue du Consulat
+d'Angleterre. A gorgeous old butler resembling a wolf ushered us from
+the blank walled street into a beautiful square garden filled with
+flowering shrubs and creepers. Not to be outdone by the colours of the
+flowers, the butler was clad in a red waistcoat, embroidered with gold,
+a green cloth coat, blue baggy trousers, and a red fez with a tassel
+nearly a yard long, while a connoisseur's mouth would have watered at
+the sight of his antique silver watch-chain with its exquisitely worked
+hanging blobs.
+
+The interior of the house gave an impression of vast roominess. Wide
+stairs, a huge upper landing like a reception-room, a panelled
+drawing-room large enough to lose one's self in, ornamented by primitive
+frescoes on the walls above the panels.
+
+The English consul was an old Albanian gentleman with delightful
+manners. For a long time he had been suffering from an illness which had
+started from a wound in the head, received during the siege of Scutari.
+After the inevitable coffee and cigarettes his son wandered out with us
+and showed us the interesting parts of the town. Out of a big doorway
+came two women in gorgeous clothes. They had been paying a morning call,
+and bade farewell to their hostess. Doubtless they were mother and
+daughter.
+
+One was faded and beautiful; the younger was of the plump cream and
+roses variety with modestly downcast eyes. Both wore enormous white lace
+Mary Queen of Scots' veils, great baggy trousers made of stiff shiny
+black stuff, which was gathered into hard gold embroidered pipes which
+encased the ankles and upwards. These pipes were so stiff that they had
+to walk with straight knees and feet far apart. Their full cavalier
+coats were thickly covered with many kilometres of black braid sewn on
+in curly patterns, and the girl wore at least a hundred golden coins
+hung in semicircles on her chest.
+
+They left the third woman at the door and walked back a few steps down
+the road, then turned, and laying hand on breast, bowed ceremoniously,
+first the mother, then the daughter, who never lifted her eyes; another
+twenty steps and again the same performance; still once more, after
+which they slowly waddled round the corner. Suma told us they wore the
+costume of the _haute bourgeoisie_, and probably the girl had been taken
+to see her future mother-in-law.
+
+The next vision that met our eyes was the doctor in his best clothes,
+frock-coat, white spats, gloves, and a minute pork-pie cap perched on
+the top of his spherical countenance.
+
+"In Scutari it is necessary that I should be _en tenue_," was his
+explanation.
+
+Suma parted with us, promising to take us to the bazaar the next day,
+and we spent the afternoon sketching and avoiding a dumb idiot who tried
+to amuse us by standing on his head in front of whatever object we chose
+to sketch, and at intervals thrust into our hands a letter which he
+thought was a money producing talisman. It said in English, "Kick this
+chap if he bothers you."
+
+There are other traces of the English soldiery here. Little children
+with outstretched hands flock round, saying in coaxing tones "Garn," or
+"Git away you," under the impression that they are saying "please."
+
+At a street corner we saw a professional beggar, a shattered man of
+drooping misery, his rags vieing with the colour of the road. Jo began
+to sketch, but he promptly sat up, twirled his long moustaches, and from
+a worm became a lion. One may be a beggar in Albania, but as long as one
+has moustaches one is at least a man.
+
+The bazaar next day filled our wildest dreams. Queerly clad peasants of
+all tribes came down from the mountains bearing rugs, rubbish, white
+cloths, cheese, honey, poultry, pigs, and they sat on the ground behind
+their wares in the blazing heat, while all the rest of Northern Albania
+came to purchase. The little shops set out their pottery, silver-ware
+and brightly striped veils. Jo lifted up a woman's leather belt covered
+with silver, thinking how nice it would look on a modern skirt; but she
+dropped it with a crash, for the leather was a quarter of an inch thick,
+and the silver equally weighty.
+
+Veiled women bargained and chaffered with the rest, some dressed in
+white with black chiffon covering their faces, and others still more
+bizarre, wore flowered chiffon, one large flower perhaps covering the
+area of one cheek and nose.
+
+More fanatic in religion than their men, they objected to being
+sketched, crouching to the ground and covering themselves completely
+with draperies, so we had to desist.
+
+There can be no arguments about beauty in these lands. It goes by
+"volume."
+
+Put the ladies on the scales, and in case of a tie, measure them round
+the hips.
+
+Vendors pressed gold-embroidered zouaves, antique arms and filigree
+silver-ware upon us; but we ever looked elsewhere, and Jo suddenly
+pounced on a handkerchief, or rather a conglomeration of bits sewn
+together, each being a remnant of brilliant coloured patterned stuff.
+
+"But that has no value," said Suma, smiling.
+
+"Never mind, I shall wear it as a hat," said Jo; and Suma, somewhat
+perplexed, lowered his dignity and bargained for it.
+
+We next saw a brilliantly striped rug hanging on the wall behind an old
+woman, red, green, yellow, black and white, just what we wanted. She
+consented to take thirteen silver cronen for it, but no Montenegrin
+paper. She explained she was poor. She had brought up the sheep, spun
+and dyed the wool, and had woven the beautiful thing, and now she wanted
+silver because outside Scutari, in which the Montenegrins forced
+acceptance of their notes by corporal punishment, paper was worth
+nothing. To get the silver we went into a general store and sold a
+sovereign.
+
+[Illustration: JO AND MR. SUMA IN THE SCUTARI BAZAAR.]
+
+While we were waiting for the money-changer, two Miridite women came in.
+They had short hair dyed black, white coarse linen chemises with
+large sleeves, embroidered zouaves, white skirts with front and back
+aprons lavishly embroidered, striped trousers, and stockings knitted on
+great diagonal patterns.
+
+One of them told Suma that their village was in possession of Essad
+Pacha, that all their husbands had fled, and were still fighting in the
+hills.
+
+Suma, for a joke, asked her what she thought of Jo. Passing her eyes
+over Jo's uninflated frame, she hesitated, but was urged to speak the
+truth.
+
+"I think she is forty," she remarked; and then somehow Jo was not quite
+pleased.
+
+The midday heat being overwhelming we took a cab and drove back along
+two kilometres of dusty road. A veiled woman stopped the coachman,
+asking him to give her tired little girl a lift. Jehu refused, through
+awe of us; but we insisted on taking her, and begged the woman to come
+in too. Jo held out her hands, but the woman shrank back horrified,
+though obviously worn out with the heat.
+
+"That is a pity," laughed Suma. "I hoped she would do it. It would have
+been a new experience for me."
+
+Jo confided to him her burning desire to enter a harem, but as he had no
+Mahommedan friends he thought the possibility remote.
+
+Two more bourgeois women passed. Jan photographed them, but not before
+they hid their faces with umbrellas. Even the Christian men are
+intensely jealous, and their women have some Turkish ideals. We spent
+the afternoon sketching outside a barber's shop, coffee being brought to
+us on a hanging tray with a little fire on it to keep the coffee warm.
+Opposite was a shop which combined the trades of blacksmith and
+fishmonger. It seemed the strangest mixture.
+
+We dined with the Frenchman. He was a queer fellow, seeming only
+interested in economies, his digestion and his old age; and he discussed
+the possible places where an old man might live in comfort. Egypt, he
+dismissed: too hot, and an old man does not want to travel. The Greek
+islands had earthquakes. Corfu, he had heard, was depressing; while in
+the Canaries there was sometimes a wind and one might catch cold. We
+suggested "heaven," and he looked hurt. He had been in Scutari in
+December. He told us that after dark it was impossible to walk down the
+great main street, which divides Christian from Turk, without carrying a
+lighted lantern to signal that you were not on nefarious intent, or you
+might be shot.
+
+[Illustration: CHRISTIAN WOMEN HIDING FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHER.]
+
+[Illustration: SCUTARI--BAZAAR AND OLD VENETIAN FORTRESS.]
+
+Mr. Suma came along the next day in good time and gave Jan a letter for
+the Count de Salis. We bade him a most cordial farewell, assuring him
+prophetically that we should revisit Scutari--little did we dream in
+what circumstances,--and he said we would then see the "Maison Pigit," a
+show castle which he had, in vain, urged us to visit. Paget was an
+Englishman who seems to have spent ten or twelve years dreaming away
+life in Scutari, and collecting ancient weapons. With the outbreak of
+the South African war he disappeared. He was then heard of fighting for
+the Turk against the Italian, and later for the Turk against the Balkan
+alliance. He has never returned.
+
+With Dr. Ob we drove to the quay, on the road passing an old woman
+staggering along beneath the weight of a complete iron and brass
+bedstead.
+
+As we got out of our carriage we noticed a rabble of Turks hurrying
+towards us. In its midst was a brougham with windows tight shut and
+veiled, from which we guessed that some light of the harem was to be a
+fellow passenger. The carriage halted, and whatever was within was
+hustled from the farthest door and in the midst of the dense mob of men
+hurried down the quay. The side of the steamer was crowded with craft,
+so we passed beneath the stern to embark on the far side, to find that
+the Turkish lady and her escort had passed beneath the bows for a
+similar purpose. We caused a flutter, the beauty was hastily lifted on
+board like a bale of goods, and we caught a glimpse of magnificent pink
+brocaded trousers and jewelled shoes beneath her red orange covering.
+Two women--one a Christian--followed, and when she was seated, bent over
+her as a sort of screen to hide even her clothes from the gaze of the
+naughty infidel.
+
+Governor Petrovitch came down to the quay to bid us good-bye. With him
+came his daughter, who was returning with us. She had nothing
+interesting to say about Scutari. The Frenchman had brought with him a
+cook whom he had engaged to look after his digestion.
+
+We found comfortable seats on a long box with a bale as a back rest, and
+the governor sent two chairs for the ladies. As we steamed away we
+pondered on the problem of Scutari.
+
+There are in all, say, 300,000 Serbs, a high estimate, in all
+Montenegro. The population of the Sanjak and its cities, Plevlie, Ipek,
+Berane, and Jakovitza, are of course largely Mussulman or Albanian, and
+already the balance of people in the little mountain kingdom is
+wavering. If Montenegro adds to herself Scutari, a town in which the
+Serb population is practically "nil," the scales swing over heavily
+against the ruling classes, and either one will see Montenegro absorb
+Scutari, to be in turn absorbed by Scutari itself; or we shall see
+the crimes of Austro-Hungary repeated upon a smaller scale, and
+Montenegro will be some day condemned before a tribunal of Europe for
+continued injustice to the people entrusted to her. The Albanians loathe
+the Serb even more than they hate the Turk, and at present, in spite of
+the fact that they are on their best manners, the Montenegrin police and
+soldiery have the appearance of a debt collector in the house of one who
+has backed a friend's bill.
+
+[Illustration: DISEMBARKATION OF A TURKISH BRIDE.]
+
+[Illustration: GOVERNOR PETROVITCH AND HIS DAUGHTER IN THEIR STATE
+BARGE.]
+
+An Albanian noble said to Jan, "We are quiet now: the Powers have no
+time to waste upon us, and we are not going to revolt and let ourselves
+be murdered without redress. But, if after the war things are not
+righted, monsieur, there will be a revolution every day."
+
+We saw a pelican, and of course some one had to try and kill it; but
+luckily the criminal was an average shot only. The pelican flew off
+flapping its broad white wings. The Frenchman told us that the Turkish
+lady round the corner is a gipsy bride to be. A light dawned upon us.
+The bed, these boxes we were sitting upon: she was taking her furniture
+with her. Jan peered round at her. She was sitting on a low stool, and
+the two screens were standing at duty. They had chosen the most secluded
+spot in the boat, which was next to the boilers. The day itself was very
+hot, and the atmosphere within the poor bride's thick coverings must
+have been awful, though when nobody was looking she was allowed to raise
+for a second the many thicknesses of black chiffon which shrouded her
+face, and to gasp a few chestfulls of fresh air.
+
+Dr. Ob suddenly produced a large sheep's head which he dissected with
+medical knowledge. He gouged out an eye which he offered to Jo; upon her
+refusing the succulent morsel he gave a sigh of relief and wolfed it
+himself. One of the men on board had a fiddle, and played us across the
+lake. Some one said, "Give us the Merry Widow."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Come on," said his tempter, "there's no one here. Give it us." At last,
+looking at Miss Petrovitch and us, the musician timidly started the
+music, for the "Merry Widow" is "straffed" in Montenegro as one of the
+characters is a caricature of Prince Danilo, hence everybody plays it
+with gusto in private.
+
+We came again to Plavnitza. A huge crowd of Turks were waiting for us;
+one wild befezzed ruffian had a concertina and was capering to his own
+strains.
+
+We were suddenly disturbed, the box was wrested away, the bundles also,
+the bed was carried off, also a tin dish too small for a bath, too big
+for a basin, and a tin watering pot--the bride's trousseau. The bride
+was seized by two men, her brothers we were told, and carried up the
+stairs to a waiting brougham, the trousseau was piled upon a bullock
+cart, and shouting and singing and dancing the _cortège_ moved out of
+sight.
+
+At Virbazar the steamer could not come to the quay, so the authorities
+ran a five-inch rounded tree trunk from the boat to the mud. Many dared
+the perilous crossing, and one nearly fell into the water. Dr. Ob was
+furious, and at last a plank was substituted. Then we found that the
+only way off the mud was by clambering round a corner of wall on some
+shaky stepping stones. Dr. Ob fumed, his little round face grew rounder,
+his moustache went up and down, he threatened everybody with instant
+execution, like the Red Queen in "Alice." Then he found that no motor
+was awaiting us. He rushed to the telephone while we had a belated
+lunch. No motors; one was out taking the Serbian officers for a
+joy-ride; Prince Peter had taken the other to Antivari. Montenegro
+seemed to have no more. We soothed ourselves with "American" grapes.
+This grape tastes not unlike strawberries and cream, but not having the
+same sentimental associations, does not come off quite as well. We heard
+a motor coming. Dr. Ob ran out to intercept it. It was crammed. Then
+the telephone boy brought a message that Prince Peter's motor would not
+return till to-morrow.
+
+Miss Petrovitch wrung her hands.
+
+"We cannot stay here the night," she said.
+
+"Are the bugs awful?" we asked.
+
+"It's not the bugs, it's those dreadful women," she answered. "We shall
+all be murdered in our beds."
+
+Now the women appeared to us most inoffensive.
+
+Dr. Ob was purple with rage. He stamped his foot.
+
+"But I am a minister," he kept repeating crescendo, till he shouted to
+the villagers, "But I am a minister."
+
+It is impossible to take Montenegro seriously. Situations occur at every
+corner which remind one irresistibly of "the Rose and the Ring," and we
+wondered what would happen next. There were other belated passengers who
+had hoped for conveyance, and the Frenchman's carriage had not turned
+up. Dr. Ob at last decided to commandeer a cocked hat boat rowed by four
+women with which to navigate the river to Rieka, and thence by carriage
+to Cettinje if carriages came. It was six p.m., we might reach Rieka by
+ten.
+
+We rowed out through the half-sunken trees. At the end of a spit of land
+was a man gnawing a piece of raw beef. We shouted to him to ask what he
+was doing; and he answered that he was curing his malaria. The two women
+in the bow were very pretty, one was a mere child.
+
+There were wisps of sunset cloud in the sky, and soon night came quite
+down.
+
+As it grew dark all sense of motion disappeared. The boat shrugged
+uneasily with the movement of the oars, the rowlocks made of loops of
+twisted osier creaked, but one could not perceive that one was going
+forwards. The hills lost their solidity, becoming mere holes in the grey
+blue of the sky, a bright planet made a light smudge on the ruffled
+water in which the stars could not reflect. As we crept forwards into
+the river and the mountains closed in, the water became more calm, and
+the stars came out one by one beneath us, while in the ripple of our
+wake the image of the planet ran up continuously in strings of little
+golden balls like a juggling trick.
+
+The Frenchman turned his head and made a noise like the rowlocks. "Il
+faut chanter quand même," he explained, "pour encourager les autres." Jo
+then started "Frère Jacques." Jan and Dr. Ob took it up till the
+Frenchman burst in with an entirely different time and key. Then one of
+the oar girls began a queer little melody on four notes only, and all
+the four women joined, one end of the boat answering the other. They
+sang through their noses, and high up in the falsetto. By shutting one's
+eyes one could imagine a great ox waggon drawn uphill by four bullocks
+and one of the wheels ungreased. Yet it was not unpleasing, this queer
+shrill, recurrent rhythm, the monotonous creak and splash of the oars,
+the mystery of feeling one's way in the blue gloom, through reed and
+water-lily beds, up this cliff-bound river, and far away the faint
+twitter--also recurrent and monotonous--of some nightjar....
+
+The night grew bitterly cold on the water. One of our passengers, a
+little Russian dressmaker, had malaria and shivered with ague. Jo gave
+her her cloak. The Frenchman's cook was unsuitably dressed, for she had
+on but a thin chiffon blouse. We ourselves had summer clothes, and we
+were all mightily glad to see the glare of Rieka in the sky.
+
+Our luck be praised, there were two old carriages with older horses, and
+another for the Frenchman. We supped moderately at a restaurant kept by
+an Austrian, and still shivering scrambled into the carriages. We had no
+lights, but the road was visible by the stars.
+
+We went up and up, up the same road down which we had come three days
+before. Below one could see strange planes of different darknesses, but
+not any shape, and soon one was too aware of physical discomfort to
+notice the night. Besides, one had had enough of night. Miss Petrovitch
+told the boy to hurry up the horses; he beat them; she then rebuked him
+for beating them. After a while the boy grew tired of her contradictory
+orders, and lying down on the box fell fast asleep. The poor old horses
+plodded along. To right and left were immense precipices, but nobody
+seemed to care.
+
+We reached Cettinje about two a.m., found the hotel open, and a room
+ready for us, and in spite of our frozen limbs were soon asleep.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO
+
+
+We went next day to see the doctor, who was late, so we strolled out to
+the market. They were selling grapes and figs, fresh walnuts, and lots
+of little dried fish, strung on to rings of willow, from the lake of
+Scutari. The scene, with the men in their costumes of red and blue, the
+women all respectably dressed in long embroidered coats of pale blue or
+white, and the village idiot, a man prancing about dressed in nothing
+but a woman's overall, was very gay. We caught the doctor later. He was
+talking with a Mrs. G----, an Englishwoman, from the hospital at
+Podgoritza: she was trying to hustle him as one hustles the butcher who
+has belated the meat. The doctor had let up his efforts since his orgy
+of respectability in Scutari, and his beard and whiskers were enjoying a
+half-inch holiday from the razor. With him was a Slav-Hungarian, who
+recommended us to go home by Gussigne, Plav and Ipek, the best scenery
+in all Montenegro he said; he himself had just returned from Scutari,
+whence he had advanced with a Montenegrin army halfway across Albania.
+At each village the natives had fled, burying their corn and driving off
+their cattle, leaving the villages deserted, and the army, starving, had
+at last been forced to retire. Dr. Ob promised us a motor by four, but
+added that they had no oil and very little benzine. Then growing more
+confidential, he took us by the buttonholes and asked us to use our best
+influence with the Count de Salis, and request him to tell the Admiralty
+to allow petrol to be brought up from Salonika, where the British had
+laid an embargo upon it. He promised pathetically that _all_ the petrol
+would be brought up overland.
+
+Intensely amused by the doctor's idea of our importance, we solemnly
+delivered his message to the Count.
+
+We went to the Serbian Minister, a charming man with a freebooter's
+face, for our passports, and then back to Dr. Ob. The motor was going
+off at 6.30 he said. We cheered internally, for we were getting tired of
+Cettinje, which reminded us of a watchmaker's wife with her best silk
+dress on. On our way downstairs we called in to thank the Minister of
+War for our jolly trip; and he wished us "Bon voyage."
+
+We got en route almost up to time, with us was Mrs. G----, who was also
+going back as far as Podgoritza. She was storekeeper and accountant for
+the Wounded Allies, and ever had a hard and troublesome task between
+what she needed and what she could get from the Sanitary Department. She
+took the front seat with Jo, and inside Jan found a French sailor of the
+wireless telegraphy, who had had typhoid fever, but was now going back
+to work. As we rattled down the curves and along the edge of the
+darkening chasms of the mountain side, he summed up with the brevity of
+a "rapin."
+
+"Dans la journée ici, vous savez, il y'a de quoi faire des clichés."
+
+We stopped at Rieka for water, and then on once more. In the glare of
+our headlights, little clumps of soldiers, with donkeys loaded with the
+new uniforms, loomed suddenly out of the darkness. Once a donkey took
+fright and bolted back, and the soldier in charge yelled and pointed his
+rifle at us. If we had moved he would have shot without compunction.
+Later the men had bivouacked, and all along the rest of the road we
+passed little fires of fresh brushwood, the sparks pouring up like
+fountains into the night, round which the soldiers and drivers were
+sitting and singing their weird songs.
+
+At Podgoritza we found Dr. Lilias Hamilton at supper with her staff. She
+has had rather a hard time. The hospital was intended for Ipek, but for
+some reason, although there were wounded in the town, the Montenegrins
+decided to move it to Podgoritza, where there were none. After a
+difficult journey across the mountains they settled down, but could
+never get sufficient transport from the Government to bring their stores
+over, except in small quantities. They started to work, but as there
+were few soldiers to treat, Dr. Lilias, being a lady, interested herself
+in the Turkish female population, a thing which the Montenegrins thought
+a criminal waste of time, and tried to stop.
+
+We got a bedroom in the hotel, and tired out, tried to sleep; but the
+occupants of the café began a set of howling songs, very unmusical, and
+kept us awake till past twelve. We have never heard this kind of singing
+anywhere else.
+
+Next day we crossed the river and explored the quaint and beautiful
+streets of the Turkish quarter. The people are equally offensive on both
+sides of the town; however, Podgoritza seems to be the White-chapel of
+Montenegro--and we finally had to take refuge in the sheds of the French
+wireless telegraphy. The commandant at the motor depôt again treated us
+rudely, but the Prefect was nice, this time. He promised us a carriage
+on the morrow if no motor were forthcoming.
+
+After supper the people began the awful howling songs; also there was a
+wild orchestra which had one clarinet for melody and about ten deep
+bass trumpets for accompaniment.
+
+Next morning no carriage came, so off to the Prefect. He promised one
+"odmah," which being translated is "at once," but means really within
+"eight or nine hours." We waited. Nine a.m. passed. Ten a.m. went by. A
+small boy sneaked up and tried to sell some contraband tobacco; but Jan
+had just bought "State." An angry Turkish gentleman came and said that
+his horses had been requisitioned to take us to Andrievitza, and that we
+weren't going to get them till one o'clock, because he was using them.
+We returned to the Prefect, not to complain--oh no--but to ask him to
+telegraph to Andrievitza that we were coming. He was naturally surprised
+to see us again, and explanations followed. A very humbled and much
+better tempered Turk came to the café to say that the horses would be
+with us "odmah."
+
+A drizzle had been falling all the morning; at last the carriage came.
+Our driver was a wretched half-starved, high-cheeked Moslem in rags,
+whose trousers were only made draught proof by his sitting on the holes.
+He tried to squeeze another passenger upon us; but we were wiser, and
+were just not able to understand what he was saying. Our Turk's method
+of driving was to tie the reins to the carriage rail, flourishing a whip
+and shouting with vigour; every ten minutes he glanced uneasily
+backwards to see that nothing had broken loose or come away.
+
+The valley we entered had been very deep, but at some period had been
+half filled by a deposit of sand and pebble which had hardened into a
+crumbling rock. We were driving over the gravelly shelf, above our head
+rose walls of limestone, and deep below was the river which had eaten
+the softer agglomerate into a hundred fantastic caverns. All along the
+road we passed groups of tramping volunteers fresh from America with
+store clothes and suitcases; the sensible were also festooned with
+boots. It was pretty cold sitting in the carriage, and it grew colder as
+we mounted.
+
+At last we halted to rest the horses at a café. The influence of "Pod"
+was heavy still. A group of grumpy people were sitting around a fire
+built in the middle of the floor; they did not greet us--which is
+unusual in Montenegro--but continued the favourite Serb recreation of
+spitting. In the centre of them was an old man on a chair, also
+expectorating, and by his side one older and scraggier, his waistcoat
+covered with snuff and medals, palpitated in a state of senile decay,
+holding in a withered hand a palmfull of snuff which he had forgotten to
+inhale. There were a lot of women saying nothing and spitting. A sour,
+hard-faced woman admitted that there was coffee.
+
+Jo, trying to cheer things up a bit, said brightly--
+
+"Is it far to Andrievitza?"
+
+A woman mumbled, "Far, bogami."
+
+Jo again: "It is cold on the road."
+
+A long silence, broken with the sound of spitting, followed. At last a
+woman in the darkest corner murmured--
+
+"Cold, bogami."
+
+It was like the opening of a Maeterlinckian play, but we gave it up,
+sipped our coffee, and when we had finished, fled outside into the cold
+which, after all, was warmer than these people's welcome. Outside we met
+a young man who spoke German, and as he wanted to show off, he stopped
+to converse. We were joined by an older man who claimed to be his
+father. The father was really a jolly old boy. He said his son was a
+puny weakling, but as for himself he never had had a doctor in his life.
+So Jan tried his mettle with a cigar. An officer, a filthy old peasant
+in the remains of a battered uniform, joined the group, but he was not
+charming; however, Jan offered him a cigarette. The old yokel rushed on
+his fate. He said--
+
+"Cigarettes are all very well; but I would rather have one of those you
+gave to the other fellow."
+
+The road wound on and up in the usual way, rain came down at intervals,
+and it grew colder and colder. At last we extracted all our spare
+clothes from the knapsack and put them on. We reached the top of the
+pass and began to rattle down the descent on the further side, and we
+kept our spirits up, in the growing gloom, by singing choruses: "The old
+Swanee river" and "Uncle Ned."
+
+We pulled up at dusk at a dismal hovel, on piles, with rickety wooden
+stairs leading to a dimly lighted balcony over which fell deep wooden
+eaves.
+
+"Is this Jabooka?" we asked, for we had been told to alight at Jabooka.
+
+"No," said the driver; "we cannot reach Jabooka to-night. But here are
+fine beds, fine, fine, fine!"
+
+We climbed in. The rooms were whitewashed and looked all right, but
+there was a funny smell. We shall know what it means a second time.
+There was a crowd of American Montenegrin volunteers in the kitchen. One
+gay fellow was in a bright green dressing-gown like overcoat: he said
+that his wife--a hard-featured woman who looked as if nobody loved
+her--had brought his saddle horse. We got some hard-boiled eggs and
+maize bread. Maize bread is always a little gritty, for it has in its
+substance no binding material, but when it is well cooked and has plenty
+of crust is quite eatable. French cooking is far away, however, and the
+bread is usually a sort of soggy, half-baked flabby paste, most
+unpalatable and most indigestible. Here was the worst bread we yet had
+found.
+
+They took us down a dark passage, in which huge lumps of raw meat
+hanging from the walls struck one's hand with a chill, flabby caress as
+one passed. In our room, four benches were arranged into a pair of
+widish couches; mattresses were given us and coarse hand-woven rugs. We
+were then left. But we could not sleep; somehow lice were in one's mind,
+and at last Jan awoke and lit the tiny oil lamp. He immediately slew a
+bug; then another; then a whopper; then one escaped; then Jo got one. In
+desperation we got up, smeared ourselves with paraffin, and lay down
+again in a dismal distressed doze till morning.
+
+Our driver was a dilatory dog: we had said that we would leave at five
+a.m., and at six he was washing his teeth in the little stream which
+acted as the village sewer. As we were waiting our green-coated friend
+got away on his saddle horse, with his wife walking at its tail; the
+other Americans climbed into a great three-horse waggon, dragged their
+suit-cases after them, and off they went. We left nearer seven than six.
+The air was chilly, and though there were bits of blue in the sky, the
+hills were floating in mist, and there was a sharp shower. There were
+more groups of Americans trudging along, and also a fair number of
+peasants, the women, as usual, dignified and beautiful. Very hungry we
+at last came to Jabooka. A jolly woman--we were getting away from
+"Pod"--welcomed us and dragged us into the kitchen. She asked Jo many
+questions, one being, "What relation is he to you, that man with whom
+you travel?" The fire on the floor was nearly out, but she rained sticks
+on to it, blew up the great central log, which is the backbone, into a
+blaze, and soon the smoke was pouring into our eyes and filtering up
+amongst the hams in the roof. We were drinking a splendid café au lait
+when an old woman peered in at the door.
+
+"Very beautiful Jabooka," she said.
+
+We agreed heartily.
+
+"Not dear either," she said.
+
+We expressed surprise.
+
+"You can buy cheap," she went on.
+
+We regretted that we did not wish to.
+
+"But you must eat to live," she protested.
+
+We intimated that this was of the nature of a truism, but failed to see
+the connection.
+
+"But look at them," she expostulated, holding out a large basket of
+apples; and we suddenly remembered that "Jabooka" means also apples, and
+realized that she was not a land agent.
+
+Then on once more. In the deep valleys were large modern sawmills, but
+the houses were ever poor, and the windows grew smaller and smaller and
+were without glass. At the junction of the Kolashin road, from the
+north, we picked up a jolly Montenegrin with a big dog. He was a driver
+by profession, and he hurried our lethargic progress a little. Then the
+front spring broke. It was mended with wire and a piece of tree; when we
+started again the reins snapped.
+
+We halted once more at a café filled with Americans; some had only left
+their native land six months agone, yet to the peasant they were all
+"Americans." Some of them seemed very dissatisfied with the reception
+which they had received, and we don't wonder. "In Ipek I coulden get my
+room," said one, "tho' I 'ad wired for 't, 'cause one o' them 'airy
+popes [Greek priests] 'ad come wid 'is fambly. I 'ad to sleep like a
+'og, you fellers, jess like a 'og." We had been under the impression
+that burning patriotism had called all these men back to their country,
+but one sturdy fellow disabused us.
+
+"No, you fellers," he said, "there weren't no work for us in 'Murrica.
+Mos' o' the places 'ad closed down ter a shift or two at the mos' per
+wik. And fer fellers wats used to livin' purty well there weren't enough
+ter pay board alone. We gotter come or we'd a starved." Of course this
+was not true of many.
+
+On again, rain and sun alternating, but still we were cold, feet
+especially.
+
+These mountains, these continual groups of slouching, slouch-hatted
+"Americans," these little weathered log cabins, falling streams, and
+pine trees reminded one of some tale of Bret Harte, and one found one's
+self expecting the sudden appearance of Broncho Billy or Jack Hamlin
+mounted upon a fiery mustang. But we cleared the top of the pass without
+meeting either, and started on our last long downhill to Andrievitza.
+Cheered by the rapidity of our motion the two ruffians on the box
+started a howling Podgoritzian kind of melody, exceedingly discordant.
+The driver, careless that one of our springs was but wired tree, and
+that wheels in Montenegro are easily decomposed, flogged his horses
+unmercifully, rattling along the extreme edge of one hundred foot
+precipices. We stopped at a café for the driver to get coffee; rattled
+on again, stopped to inquire the price of hay; more rattle; stopped for
+the driver to say, "How de doo" to a pal; more rattle; stopped to ask a
+man if his dog has had puppies yet.... But we protested.
+
+Andrievitza was the prettiest village we had yet seen in Montenegro,
+and was full of more "Americans." In the street a small boy urged us to
+go to "Radoikovitches," but we went to the hotel. The hotel was full,
+because a Pasha from Scutari had arrived with his three wives, and all
+their families. So we permitted the little yellow-haired urchin to lead
+us to "Radoikovitches." A woman received us, without gusto, till she
+learned that Jo was Jan's wife, when she cheered up. A charming old
+officer stood rakia all round in our honour. The mayor came in to greet
+us, and we felt that at last Pod had been pushed behind for ever.
+
+The mayor was a pleasant fellow, speaking French, and he confided in us
+that he was suffering from a "maladie d'estomac." When we thought we had
+sympathized enough, we asked him how far it was, and could we have
+horses to go to Petch. He answered that it was two days, or rather one
+and a half, and that the horses would await us at twelve on the
+following day. We went to bed early to make up for last night, but Jan,
+having felt rather tickly all day, hunted the corners of his shirt and
+found--dare we mention it--a louse, souvenir de Liéva Riéka.
+
+As we were breakfasting next day our driver, who had been most
+unpleasant the whole time, sidled up and asked Jan to sign a paper.
+While Jan was doing so the driver burst into a volley of explanations.
+We thought that he was asking for a tip, but made out that he had lost
+(or gambled) the ten kronen which his employer had given to him for
+expenses. We had intended to give him no tip, for on the yesterday he
+had refused to carry our bags, but this made us waver. We asked Mr. Rad,
+etc., what we should do.
+
+"Sign his paper," he answered gruffly, "and kick him out; he's only a
+dirty Turk anyhow."
+
+The mayor sent our horses round early; but we stuck to our decision to
+start in the afternoon, and ordered lunch at twelve. There was a huge
+crowd gathered in front of the inn, and we saw that the Pasha and his
+harem were off. One wife wore a blue furniture cover over her, one a
+green, and one a brown, so that he might know them apart from the
+outside, for they all had heavy black veils before their faces. The
+Pasha himself seemed rather a decent fellow, and had much of the air of
+a curate conducting a school feast. Four children were thrust into two
+baskets which were slung on each side of one small horse, and various
+furniture, including a small bath (or large basin), was strapped on to
+others, and the Pasha followed by his wives set off walking, the Pasha
+occasionally throwing a graceful remark behind him.
+
+The mayor lunched with us, and for a man who has, as he says, anæmia of
+the stomach, chronic dysentery, and inflammation of the intestines, he
+ate most freely, and if such is his daily habit, he deserved all he had
+got.
+
+Our guide was the most picturesque we have yet had. He was an Albanian
+with a shaven poll save for a tuft by which the angels will one day lift
+him to heaven, small white cap like a saucer, over which was wound a
+twisted dirty white scarf, short white coat heavily embroidered with
+black braid, tight trousers, also heavily embroidered, but the waistband
+only pulled up to where the buttock begins to slide away--we wondered
+continuously why they never fell off--and the long space between coat
+and trousers filled with tightly wound red and orange belt. He called
+himself Ramases, or some such name. Our saddles were pretty good, the
+stirrups like shovels, the horses the best (barring at the Front) we had
+had since Prepolji.
+
+We rode over a creaky bridge, Jan's horse refusing, so he went through
+the river, and out into the new road which is being made to Ipek. Men
+and women, almost all in Albanian costumes, were scraping, digging,
+drilling and blasting; some of the women wore a costume we had not yet
+seen, very short cotton skirt above the knees, and long, embroidered
+leggings. We passed this high-road "in posse" and, the little horses
+stepping along, presently caught up a trail of donkeys, the proprietor
+of which, a friend of Ramases, had a face like a post-impressionist
+sculpture.
+
+We passed the donkeys and came to the usual sort of café, rough log hut,
+fire on floor--but one of the women therein gave Jo her only
+apple--decidedly we were away from Pod.
+
+On again along river valleys. Jan's saddle had a knob in the seat that
+began to insinuate. On every hill were cut maize patches, the red
+stubble in the sunset looking like fields of blood.
+
+In the dusk we came to Velika, a wooden witchlike village, where we were
+to stay the night, and where, as we had expected, the Pasha, ten minutes
+ahead of us, had commandeered all the accommodation. The captain,
+however, was very good, and gave us a policeman to find lodgings for us.
+By this time it was dark. He led us into a pitch black lane where the
+mud came over our boots, then we clambered up a loose earth cliff and
+stood looking into a room whose only light was from a small fire, as
+usual on the floor. Over the fire was a large pot, and a meagre-faced
+woman was stirring the brew. Behind her a small baby in a red and white
+striped blanket was pushed up to its armpits through a hole on four
+legs, where it hung. In a dark corner a small boy was worrying a black
+cat.
+
+"Can you give these English a bed?" demanded the policeman.
+
+The woman shook her head sadly. "Mozhe," she said, which means "It is
+possible."
+
+After supper, Bovril and cheese omelette, we went out to seek the café.
+We trudged back through the mud and stumbled into a house full of
+lattice work, like a Chinese store. Startled we tried another. This time
+we came into a stable, but there was a ladder leading upwards, and at
+the top a lighted room, so we decided to explore. We climbed up and came
+into a large loft in which six long legged, heavily bearded Albanians
+were squatting about a fire; a gipsy woman with wild tousled hair and
+hanging breasts was in the corner of the hearth, and was telling some
+long monotonous tale. An Albanian, who spoke Serb, told us to come in
+and have coffee. It was like the illustration of some tale from the
+Arabian Nights. After a while we climbed out again into the night, and
+went home. Ramases hung about shyly, and the woman explained that he had
+nowhere to sleep; so we arranged that she should house him also.
+
+Even as we poked our noses out of the door there was a promise of a fine
+day. Below us we could see the Pasha up and superintending the packing
+of his family and furniture. We celebrated by opening our last tin of
+jam, which we had carried carefully all the way, waiting for an
+occasion. We left the remains of the jam for the small family, and as we
+were mounting we saw their faces smeared and streaked with "First
+Quality Damson." We started the climb almost at once. The early morning
+smoke filtering through the slats made an outer cone, of faint blue,
+above the black roof of every hut and cottage; here and there were
+traces of roadmaking, groups of Albanian workmen on stretches of
+levelled earth which our trail crossed at irregular intervals. Presently
+we entered the clouds, and were wrapped about with a thin mist faintly
+smelling of smoke. After a while we climbed above them, and looking down
+could see the clouds mottling all the landscape, and through holes
+little patches of sunlit field or wood peering through like the eyes of
+a Turkish woman through her yashmak.
+
+Our horses panted and sweated up the long and arduous slope for two
+mortal hours, up and ever up; but all things come to an end, and at last
+we reached the top. We sat down to rest our weary animals and, lo! by us
+passed long strings of mules and ponies bearing the very benzine about
+which so much fuss had been made in Cettinje. Alas for our reputations
+as miracle workers! Had this blessed stuff only come a week later we
+should even have passed in Montenegro as first cousins of the king at
+least; but this was a little too prompt.
+
+There was landscape enough here for any budding Turners, but we two had
+still eight hours to go and not money enough to loiter. On the higher
+peaks of the mountains there was already a fresh powdering of snow; in
+the valleys the clouds had almost cleared away, leaving a thin film of
+moisture which made shadows of pure ultramarine beneath the trees. Your
+modern commercial grinder cannot sell you this colour, it needs some of
+that pure jewel powder which old Swan kept in a bottle for use on his
+masterpiece, but found never a subject noble enough. Some of that stuff
+prepared from the receipt of old Cennino Cennini which ends "this is a
+work, fine and delicate, suitable for the hands of young maidens, but
+beware of old women." Pure Lapis Lazuli.
+
+[Illustration: THE IPEK PASS IN WINTER.]
+
+But it became difficult even for us to admire landscape, for breakfast
+had disappeared within us, and lunch seemed far away, so once more
+recourse to the "compressed luncheon." There are three stages in the
+taste of the "Tabloid." Stage one, when it smacks of glue; stage two,
+when it has a flavour of inferior beef tea, say 11.30 a.m.; stage three,
+when it resembles nothing but the gravy of the most delicious beef
+steak. That is about 2.30, and your lunch some hours in retard. We
+had reached stage three, and even Jo succumbed to the charms of the
+"Tab."
+
+Famished we came to a café.
+
+"Eggs?" we gasped to the host.
+
+"Nema" (haven't got any), he replied.
+
+"Milk?"
+
+"Nema."
+
+"Cheese?" crescendo.
+
+"Nema."
+
+"Bread?" fortissimo.
+
+"Nema."
+
+Despairing we swallowed three more luncheon tablets each and whined for
+tea. Ramases, who seemed to get along on tea alone, promised us a
+well-stocked café in an hour and a half.
+
+The second café was purely Albanian. We climbed up some rickety stairs
+into a room which had--strange to relate--a fireplace. About the room
+was a sleeping dais where three or four black and white ruffians were
+couched. There was a little window with a deep seat into which we
+squeezed and loudly demanded eggs, bread and cheese. An old woman all
+rags and tatters came in and squeezed up alongside, where she crouched,
+spinning a long wool thread and staring up into Jo's face. Several cats
+were lounging about the room, but one came close and began to squirm as
+though she were "setting" a mouse. Suddenly she pounced, seized the old
+woman's food bag from her feet, swept it on to the floor, and
+disappeared with it beneath the dais, where all the rest of the cats
+followed. The old woman, who had been plying distaff and spindle the
+while, let out a yell of fury and half disappeared beneath the platform.
+We all roared with laughter, while beneath us the cats spat and the old
+woman cursed, beating about with the handle of her distaff till she had
+rescued her dinner. She backed out with the bag, sat down again and
+started spinning once more as though nothing had happened.
+
+Beyond this café the track became very stony and rough. We passed a
+typical couple. The man was carrying a light bag full of bottles, while
+the women had on her back a huge wooden chest, in which things rattled
+and bumped as she stumped along.
+
+Jo looked at her with pity. "That's heavy," she said.
+
+The woman stared stupidly and answered nothing; but the man smiled and
+said--
+
+"Yes, heavy. Bogami."
+
+We passed more caravans of that all too soon benzine. Cliffs began to
+tower up on every side, and precipices to fall away beneath our feet to
+a greenish roaring torrent; great springs spouted from the rocks and
+dashed down upon the stones below in shredded foam: one was pink in
+colour. Here once a general and his lady were riding, and the lady's
+horse slipped. The general grasped her but lost his own balance, and
+both fell into the river and were killed. The track wound up and down,
+often very slippery underfoot, and the horses, shod with the usual flat
+plates of iron, were slithering and sliding on the edge of the
+precipices. At last we got off and walked. It was an immense relief: our
+saddles were intensely hard, stirrups unequal lengths, and with knots
+which rubbed unmercifully on the shins. We passed a man who was
+evidently an Englishman, and he stared at us as we passed, but neither
+stopped. The gorge grew deeper, the stream more rapid. The cliffs
+towered higher, black and grey in huge perpendicular stripes. We heard
+sounds of thunder or of blasting which reverberated in the canyon; it
+was oppressive and gloomy, and one shuddered to think what it would be
+like if an earthquake occurred. The cliffs ceased abruptly in a huge
+grass slope on which crowds of people were working on the new road; we
+crossed the river over a wooden bridge.
+
+We came down into Ipek suddenly, past the old orange towered monastery,
+which lies, its outer walls half buried, keeping the landslides at bay.
+Ramases, who had suddenly put on another air, flung his leg over the
+saddle--he had previously been sitting sideways--and twisted his
+moustache skywards. Jo wished to canter on, but he sternly forbade her,
+flipping her horse on the nose and driving it back when she tried to
+pass; for it would have damned his manly dignity for ever had a woman
+preceded him.
+
+Our first view of Ipek was of a forest of minarets shooting up from the
+orchards, not a house was to be seen. Ramases tried to make us lodge in
+a vague looking building. We asked him if that were the best hotel. He
+answered nonchalantly, "Nesnam" (don't know); so we hunted for
+ourselves, discovering in the main square a blue house labelled "Hotel
+Skodar" in large letters.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IPEK, DECHANI AND A HAREM
+
+
+
+We entered the courtyard of the inn. Tiny as it was all Ipek seemed to
+be plucking poultry in it. An urbane old woman came forward, evidently
+the owner. She had short arms, and her hair grey at the roots was
+stained with henna, which matched her eyes. A dog fancier once told us
+never to buy a dog with light-coloured eyes if we wanted a trustful
+loving nature, so we wondered if it applied to humans.
+
+She showed us a tiny dungeon-like room entirely filled up by two beds.
+We were not impressed; but she assured us that we should have a large
+beautiful room the next day for the same price. So we engaged it and
+strolled out into the evening.
+
+Buffaloes were sitting in couples round the big square. They chewed the
+cud with an air of incomparable wisdom so remote from the look of
+reproachful misery that is generally worn by an ox. Goats came in from
+the hills with their hair clipped in layers, which gave them the
+appearance of ladies in five-decker skirts; and children were playing a
+queer game. They jumped loosely round in circles with bent knees, making
+a whooping-cough noise followed by a splutter. We saw it often
+afterwards, and decided that it must be the equivalent to our "Ring o'
+Roses."
+
+Work was over for the day, the sun set behind the hills which ringed us
+round, and we went to kill time in a café.
+
+While we were exchanging coffees with an "American," who was showing us
+the excellences of his wooden leg which he had made himself, a
+breathless man ran in.
+
+He had been searching the town for us. The governor had ordered him to
+put us up, as his had the notoriety of being a clean house. Having taken
+a room already with the amiable old lady we feared to disappoint her, so
+we decided not to move. The man piteously hoped that we were not
+offended; and we explained at length.
+
+When we reached the hotel again our old hostess bustled up, more sugary
+than ever.
+
+"We have just thought of a little rearrangement," she said.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Well, do you understand, the inn is very full to-night, so we thought
+it best that you should both take the one bed and I and my daughter
+will take the other."
+
+"Oh," said we, "in that case we had better move altogether, we have
+anoth--"
+
+"Indeed, no no," said the old lady, horrified. "Stay, stay. There sit
+down. It is good, keep your beds." She patted us and left us.
+
+We had an uninspired dinner. Greasy soup, tough boiled meat which had
+produced the soup, minced boiled meat in pepper pods, and two pears
+which turned out to be bad. The company, composed of officers and
+nondescripts, pleased us no better than the dinner, so we decided to eat
+elsewhere on the morrow.
+
+The governor's secretary came in to arrange for an interview with his
+chief--yet another Petrovitch and brother to the governor of Scutari. By
+this time we had each imbibed a dozen Turkish coffees during the day,
+but we slept for all that from nine until nine in the morning.
+
+Marko Petrovitch, whom we saw early, was the best and last Petrovitch we
+met in Montenegro. Like all the Petrovitches he wore national costume.
+He was handsome, shy, and kindly, said we must go to Dechani the most
+famous of Balkan monasteries, and promised us a cart for the journey.
+
+After leaving the governor we plunged into melodrama.
+
+Hearing a noise we discovered crowds of weeping women and children round
+the steps of a shop. A young man in French fireman's uniform seemed to
+be very active, and an old trousered woman passively rolled down the
+steps after receiving a box on the ears.
+
+We thought it was a policeman arresting an elderly thief; but Jo, seeing
+blood on the lady's face, told him he was a "bad man." He lurched,
+staring at her stupidly. His companions, more firemen, came forward
+grinning sheepishly, and we recommended them to lead him away out of
+mischief. But the next minute a balloon-trousered child rushed up to us
+and tugged at Jan's coat.
+
+"Quick, the devil man is doing more bad things."
+
+We ran down the road beyond the village and saw him in the distance
+dancing on an old Turk's bare feet with hobnailed boots, alternating
+this amusement with cuffs on the face. We sprinted along, and seeing a
+convenient little river wriggling along by the roadside, Jan caught him
+by the neck and the seat of his trousers, swung him round, and pitched
+him in. The man sat for a moment, bewildered, in the water, and then
+climbed out uttering dreadful oaths; but as he came up Jan knocked him
+into the water again.
+
+Men in firemen's uniforms appeared from all sides, shouting--
+
+"What are you doing? You mustn't. Who are you?"
+
+"We know the governor," said Jo. The men were making gestures of
+deference when the reprobate rushed from the river, aiming a whirling
+blow at Jan which missed.
+
+The men hurled themselves on him, but he grabbed Jan's coat to which he
+clung, howling in unexpected English--
+
+"Shake 'ands wi' y' ennemi." Suddenly everybody spoke English, and we
+wondered into what sort of a fairy tale had we fallen.
+
+It was lunch time so we did not stay for explanations, but hurried back
+to the town with the weeping old Turk, gave him our small change, which
+seemed to cure the pains in his feet, and hunted for the other hotel.
+
+It was tucked away in a romantic back street. The bar room was tiny, but
+it was very pleasant to sit round little tables under shady trees in the
+courtyard.
+
+"What have you for lunch?" we asked a solid-looking waiter boy.
+
+"Nema Ruchak, bogami." We have no lunch. We looked at all the other
+people absorbing meat and soup.
+
+"Give us what you have."
+
+"We have nothing, bogami."
+
+"Have you soup?"
+
+"Yes, bogami."
+
+"And cheese?"
+
+"Ima, ima, bogami."
+
+"That will do for us."
+
+He thereupon brought macaroni soup, boiled meat, roast meat, fried
+potatoes, cheese, grapes, and coffee.
+
+We never found out why in Montenegro they should make it a point of
+honour to say they have nothing. It resembles the Chinese habit of
+alluding to a "loathsome" wife and a "disgusting" daughter.
+
+After lunch we visited our own hotel and found mine hostess waiting for
+us with her short arms akimbo. She wanted the "beautiful large bedroom"
+to which we had moved in the morning, finding it the same size as the
+one below, but rather lighter. Its former occupant had arrived, and we
+were to go back to the dungeon.
+
+"That is not good," said Jo, and we flatly refused to go downstairs.
+
+"If we leave this room we go altogether."
+
+She again patted us and begged us to consider the matter closed. We
+could stick to the room.
+
+Certainly that dog fancier was right.
+
+There was a very old monastery which we had passed as we rode into
+Ipek.
+
+Although we are more interested in the people of the present than in
+ruins of the past, these old Serbian monuments leave so strange a memory
+of a civilization suddenly cut off at its zenith that they have an
+emotional appeal far apart from that of archæology. These little oases
+of culture preserved amongst a wilderness of Turk tempt the traveller
+with a romance which is now vanishing from Roman and Greek ruins.
+
+The Ipek monastery is a beautiful old place with the walls half buried
+on one side. The old church, orange outside, is very dark within, but
+contains many beautiful paintings. Surely here is the home of Post
+Impressionism and of Futurism. The decorations of the bases of the
+pillars are quite futuristic even orpeistic.
+
+The pictures are Byzantine. But the Turks have picked out the eyes, as
+they always do. One enormous painting of a head which filled a
+semicircle over a door is particularly fine. Most halos are round, but
+the painter had deemed the ears and beard worthy of extra bulges in this
+saint's halo, which added to the decorative effect.
+
+Beautiful apple trees were dotted about the big garden through which the
+wriggly river ran. Ducks, geese and turkeys wandered around, so fat that
+they were indifferent to the meal that was being served out to them. A
+boy woke up the mother of a family of young turkeys and pushed her
+towards the dinner with his foot. She hurried there involuntarily and
+sat down for a nap with her back to the plate, the picture of outraged
+dignity.
+
+We got into conversation with a priest, who insisted we should call upon
+the archbishop. The Metropolitan was a cheery soul, wearing a
+Montenegrin pork-pie hat very much on one side, and black riding
+breeches which showed as his long robes fluttered during his many
+gesticulations.
+
+While with him we lost the impression that we were living in the unreal
+times of the Rose and the Ring. He was intensely civilized, spoke French
+excellently, and had many a good story of his life in Constantinople and
+other places. For the English he had great affection. The last
+Englishman in Ipek, a king's messenger, had flown to the monastery to
+escape from the Hotel Europe and its bugs. The next morning he would not
+get up. The archbishop went to his room to remonstrate.
+
+"No, no," said he; "I spent two nights under a ceiling which rained bugs
+upon me, and I know a good bed when I've got it."
+
+Coffee and cigarettes came in, of the best, and the rakia was a thing
+apart from the acrid stuff we were accustomed to.
+
+He admitted its superiority. The plums came from his own estate, and
+were distilled by the monks. The great difficulty was to prevent him
+from giving us too much.
+
+We talked of the war, and he related many atrocities, winding up with
+"Of course, England must win; but what will become of us in the
+meanwhile?"
+
+That evening we had a visitor. A very large Montenegrin in French
+fireman's uniform knocked at the door. He said his name was Nikola
+Pavlovitch. He had been sent by the governor to apologise for the
+"trouble" Jan had had that morning with the drunken soldier.
+
+"'E in jail now, 'e verry sorry and say if you forgive 'im, mister, 'e
+never touch rakia, never no more. 'E good chap reely. Got too much rakia
+this mornin', 'E think about Turks an' get kinder mad some'ow. 'E don't
+know what 'e done; first thing 'e knows 'e finds 'imself in river."
+
+Nikola Pavlovitch was, though not an officer, the commandant of a
+contingent of miners from America. The governor had told him also to
+offer himself as cicerone for the morrow, the cart having been ordered
+for our trip to Dechani.
+
+We didn't like cicerones and demurred.
+
+"I kin talk for you," he said. But we owned to speaking Serb.
+
+"I know all de country, kin tell you things: bin 'ere twenty years
+ago."
+
+We saw he wanted to come, and noticed that he had a very likable face,
+strong features, straight kindly eyes. We realized that he would be a
+very pleasant companion and arranged to meet at the stable the next day.
+
+And so, at last, we drove in one of the queer little Serb carts we had
+avoided so anxiously. A few planks nailed together and bound around with
+an insecure rail, four wheels slipped on to the axles with no pins to
+hold them, a Turkish driver dangling his legs--such was our chariot.
+Some hay was produced to improvise a seat; we bought some apples on
+tick, as the vendor said he had no change for our one shilling note, and
+off we drove.
+
+Nikola Pavlovitch started yarning almost at once, and we never had a
+dull moment. He was a comitaj once, in the old days when Turkey owned
+Macedonia and the Sanjak. He said that nearly all comitaj were men of
+education and intelligence. When Turkish rule became oppressive, when
+too many Christian girls were stolen and vanished for ever into harems,
+the comitaj appeared, farms were raided, minute but fierce battles were
+fought; but in spite of this continual supervision, occasional and
+mysterious murders were needed to keep down the excesses of the Turk.
+
+Pavlovitch waved a hand towards the sullen mountains of Albania, which
+were on our right.
+
+"Dose Swabs don' tink o' nuttin' but killin'. Jess ornary slaughter,
+Mister Jim. Now dat Jakovitza [a town to the south] dat don't mean
+nuttin but 'blood' in their talk, 'lots o' blood' dat's what it means.
+Sure. Dese peoples don' respect nuttin but killin'; an' when you've done
+in 'bout fifty other fellers you'r reckoned a almighty tough. If you
+wanted to voyage dere, f'r instance, you'd 'ave ter get a promise o'
+peace, a 'Besa' they calls it, from one of dese tough fellers, and he
+makes 'imself responsible to end any feller wat disturbs you; 'e can
+post a babby along o' you and so long as the kiddie's wid yer nobody'll
+touch you. Dats so, Mister Jim, you bleeve me. But all de same, dey've
+fixed it up so's dis killing business ain't perlite wen deres women
+about, so every feller taks 'is wife along 'o 'im so's not to be ended
+right away."
+
+Every house by the roadside was a fortress, loopholes only in the ground
+floor, windows peering from beneath the eaves and turrets with gunslits
+at the second story; here and there were old Turkish blockhouses, solid
+and square, showing how the conquerors had feared the conquered.
+
+"One o' dese tough fellers 'e kill more'n hundred fellers. Great chief
+'e is. Wen 'e was sixteen 'is fader get condemned ter prison way in
+Mitrovitza. Dis young tough 'e walk inter court nex' day, in 'e kill de
+judge and two of de officers and 'scape inter de mountains."
+
+Nick himself when he was a comitaj had twice been caught by the Turks.
+Once he was shot in thirteen places at once, but was found by some
+Christian women and eventually recovered; the second time the Turks beat
+him almost to death with fencing staves, and though they thought him
+dying put him on an ox cart and sent him to the interior of Turkey.
+
+"I was ravin' mad dat journey," he said. "I don' want ter go ter 'ell if
+it's like dat."
+
+They put him in hospital and treated him kindly; but once better they
+threw him into a Turkish gaol. He described how the prison was dark as
+night, because the poorer prisoners blocked up the windows, stretching
+their arms through for doles from the passers-by.
+
+"We was all eaten wi' lice," he went on, "an' if de folks 'adn't sent me
+money an' food I'd a starved to def, sure. 'N den dey bribes de governor
+'n a soldier, 'n dey lets me 'scape."
+
+He lay a cripple in Montenegro six months, but in the summer crawled
+down to the Bocche de Cattaro and on the sweltering shores of the
+Adriatic built himself a primitive sweat bath. In a few weeks he was
+better, and in a few months cured. He then went to the mines in America,
+for he dared not return to Macedonia. He saved £800 and returned with
+it to his sister's in Serbia, but was so oppressed by the misery about
+him that he gave away all his money and went back.
+
+"Dere's lots a mineral in dese mountains, you feller. I show you one
+lump feller got a' Ipek, an' I guess it's silver, sure. Wen de war over
+you come back an' we'll go over dem places tergedder. Dere's coal too.
+Lots."
+
+He told us that the wretched skeleton who was driving us had power in
+Turkish days to commandeer the services of Christian labourers, and to
+pay them nothing.
+
+We passed by placid fields containing cows, horses, donkeys. The country
+seemed untouched by war. Those cows could never have drawn heavy carts
+and lain exhausted and foodless after a heavy day's work. The horses
+reminded one of the sleek mares owned by old ladies who lived in awe of
+their coachmen.
+
+For this all belonged to Dechani, and it was beyond the power of the
+state to touch their riches; nor had they been molested even in the days
+of Turkish rule.
+
+"You see, monastery 'e pay money to the toughest Albanians--Albanian
+they give besa--and nobody never do no 'arm to the monasteries. Russia
+she send much money, she send always her priest to Dechani and the
+Turks they keep sorter respectful."
+
+Our first sight of Dechani disappointed us a little, the proportions
+lacked the beauty of the Ipek church; but the big old door marked by the
+fire the Turks had built against it, decades before, cheered us up a
+bit.
+
+A pleasant priest with a smooth face and ringlets two feet long greeted
+us and led us to the little Russian hospital which was fitted into the
+Abbey, warning us not to bang our heads against the heavy oak beams in
+the corridors.
+
+The Russians welcomed us heartily, preparing the most wonderful tea,
+Australian butter, white bread made with flour brought from Russia.
+
+Pavlovitch enjoyed himself immensely. Food was thin in the barracks. But
+he was very worried about the priest's long ringlets.
+
+"I'd soon cure 'im, a month diggin' de trench!" he murmured.
+
+After tea we examined the church. The interior was one miraculous blue:
+pictures with blue backgrounds, apostles with blue draperies, blue
+skies, a wonderful lapis lazuli.
+
+Once the Moslems had overpowered the defenders of the church and had got
+in, the eyes of some of the saints were picked through the plaster.
+Legend runs, however, that while they were desecrating the tomb of Tzar
+Stephan who founded the church, the tomb of the queen, which lay
+alongside, exploded with a violent report and terror struck the Turks,
+who fled.
+
+They showed us the queen's tomb, split from top to bottom. The priests
+naturally claim a miracle; but Pavlovitch said, "I tink dey verry
+clever, dey done dat wi' gunpowder."
+
+The Tzar Stephan had wished to build the church of gold and precious
+stones, but a soothsayer said--
+
+"No, my lord, build it of plain stone, for your empire will be robbed
+from you, and if it be of gold greedy men will tear it to pieces, but if
+it be of plain stone it will remain a monument for ever."
+
+So he built it of fine marble. The central pillars were forty feet high,
+and each cut from a single piece, with grotesque carved capitals. The
+great screen was wonderfully carved and gilded. Wherever one looked was
+decoration, almost in excess.
+
+Ringlets invited us to tea with the Russian bishop who was in charge. He
+was a stout, sweet-mannered little man, who shook his head woefully over
+the war.
+
+Somehow Pavlovitch discovered that he and the bishop were the same age,
+forty-eight. We contrasted Pavlovitch's spare athletic frame with the
+well-fed shape of the bishop, and felt instinctively which was the
+better Christian. Coffee and slatka were brought in. This slatka is
+always handed to callers in well-regulated Serbian households. It is jam
+accompanied by many little spoons and glasses of water. Each guest dips
+out a spoonful, licks the spoon, drinks the water, and places his spoon
+in the glass. There is also a curious custom with regard to the coffee.
+If a guest outstays his welcome, a second cup is brought in and
+ceremoniously placed before him--but, of course, this hint depends upon
+how it is done.
+
+"It is Friday," remarked Pavlovitch, regretfully. "Odder days we gits
+mighty good meal." He was very anxious for us to stay the night so that
+we should fit in a first-class breakfast, but the morrow was the Ipek
+fair, and we could not miss that.
+
+Night was coming so we hurried off and drove away. The horses went quite
+fast, as we had made them a present of some barley. We had discovered
+that since the beginning of the war, when they had been requisitioned by
+the Montenegrin Government, they had lived on nothing but hay, and the
+owner, who was driving them, said that they would soon die, and that
+when they did he would not receive a penny and would be a ruined man. He
+added pathetically--
+
+"One does not like to see one's beasts die like that, for after all one
+is fond of them."
+
+We arrived after dark, and ordered supper for three. The inn lady was
+scandalized.
+
+"But that is a common soldier," she said. "There are many fine folk in
+the dining-room, arrived to-day. The General--"
+
+So we dined upon the landing.
+
+The next day we got up very early, went down to the dining-room and
+found it was full of sleeping forms; we had coffee in our room.
+
+We wandered round the market. It was still too early, people were
+arriving and spreading their wares, men were hanging bright carpets on
+the white walls. Beggars were everywhere, exhibiting their gains in
+front of them. If one could understand they seemed to cry like this--
+
+"Ere y'are, the old firm; put your generous money on the real thing. I
+'as more misery to the square inch than any other 'as to the square
+yard."
+
+We found bargaining impossible, as they only spoke Albanian, and we
+could only get as far as "Sar," how much.
+
+Pavlovitch turned up later and was very helpful. We hurried him to a
+silver shop which was displaying a round silver boss. He beat them down
+from sixteen to ten dinars, after which we plunged into a side street
+filled with women squatted cross-legged behind a collection of
+everything that an industrious woman who owns sheep can confection.
+
+"I have nothing for thee," said an old woman to Jo, who peered into her
+basket--Pavlovitch translating.
+
+Jo withdrew a tiny pair of stockings--a marvel of knitting in many
+coloured patterns.
+
+"What about these?" she said.
+
+"Hast thou children?"
+
+"No; but how much?" said Jo.
+
+The price was four piastres. Jo gave four groschen and the old woman
+peered anxiously at the money in her palm.
+
+"It is too much," she said.
+
+Pavlovitch explained that somehow four groschen worked out to more than
+four piastres; but we left her to calculate what fractions of a centime
+she had gained.
+
+Our old innkeeper looked very truculent when we entered.
+
+"Are you going to lunch here?"
+
+"No; we left word."
+
+"Then you can't stay here."
+
+[Illustration: IN THE BAZAAR OF IPEK.]
+
+[Illustration: STREET COFFEE SELLER IN IPEK.]
+
+We pointed out that her meals were bad and very dear. She retaliated by
+making a fearful noise, and invited us to go and sleep at the Europe;
+but we remembered the Archbishop's story and stood firm.
+
+"If you don't leave us in peace we will appeal to the Governor."
+
+"Do, do. Go to the Governor," said the old lady, her little girl, a
+wry-mouthed charwoman and a little boy whom Jo had noticed stealing our
+cigarettes. The dog joined in and barked vociferously.
+
+We went to the Governor who was near by. "They don't understand
+innkeeping here, and she is a drunken old slut," he said, and sent for
+her husband.
+
+We went defiantly again to the Europe for lunch.
+
+Jo had been expressing her wish to Pavlovitch to visit a harem. He came
+to tell us that it had been arranged, as the chief of the police was a
+friend of his, and he had asked a rich Moslem to let her visit his
+wives. The Moslem had graciously assented, saying that he would do it as
+a great favour to the chief of the police, and that no "European" woman
+had ever visited an Ipek harem.
+
+We went down the broad street with its brilliant houses, admiring the
+gaudy colours of the women's trousers. "What a pity," we said, "that
+such a word as _loud_ was invented in the English language."
+
+Outside a huge doorway were sitting the chief of police and the wealthy
+Albanian. We were introduced with great ceremony, and the Moslem, losing
+no time, took Jo through the doorway into a courtyard. At the end was
+another door guarded by a responsible-looking Albanian. He stood aside,
+and she entered another court full of trees and a basket-work hut. She
+passed through the lower story, which was full of grain, and ascended
+into a beautiful room with a seat built all round it.
+
+It was entirely furnished with carpets. He waved his hand to the seat,
+called to his wives much as a sportsman summons his dogs, and left.
+
+They came in, three women, simply dressed in chemise and flowered cotton
+bloomers. Their voices were shaking with excitement, and they were
+fearfully upset because Jo got up to shake hands with them.
+
+They only spoke Albanian, and a few words of Serb. One had been very
+beautiful, but her teeth were decayed, another was a healthy-looking
+young woman, and the third was frankly hideous.
+
+They brought coffee, the chief wife presenting it with her hand across
+her chest--a polite way of saying--
+
+"I am your slave."
+
+Jo spoke Serb, and they clearly said in Albanian--
+
+"If only we could tell what you are saying."
+
+After which every one sat and beamed, and they kept calling for
+somebody.
+
+A plump dark-eyed girl came in, the first wife's daughter. She spoke
+Serb, and interpreted for the wives.
+
+They wanted to know everything, but knew so little that they could grasp
+nothing.
+
+Where had Jo come from? She tried London, Paris; no use, they had never
+heard of them--two weeks on the sea--they didn't know what the sea was,
+nor ships nor boats. They had never left Ipek and only knew the little
+curly river.
+
+The girl said that "devoikas" did not learn to read and write. That was
+for the men.
+
+Jo finally explained that she had ridden on horseback from Plevlie. Then
+they gasped--
+
+"How far you have travelled! What a wonderful life, and does your
+husband let you speak to other men?"
+
+She asked them what they did.
+
+"Nothing." "Sewing?" "A little," they owned with elegant ease.
+
+The chief wife had recently lost one of her children, but did not seem
+to know of what it had died.
+
+"I should think a woman doctor would be useful here," said Jo.
+
+They screamed with laughter. "How funny! Why, she would be _so_ thick!"
+they said, stretching their arms as wide as they could.
+
+They kept inventing pretexts for keeping her, but when she rose to go
+for the third time they regretfully bade her farewell, the daughter took
+both her hands and imprinted a smacking kiss.
+
+Outside the healthy-looking wife emerged from the basket hut, where she
+was evidently preparing some delicacy to bring up, and showed signs of
+deep disappointment.
+
+The responsible-looking man who let her out also expressed his regrets
+that she had not stayed longer. In the great street doorway was seated
+the husband, but no Jan, no Pavlovitch, so Jo sat with him, somewhat
+embarrassed, eating bits of apple which he peeled for her.
+
+In the afternoon we went to bid farewell to the Archbishop and took
+Pavlovitch with us. The Archbishop gave Pavlovitch a poor welcome until
+he heard his name.
+
+"Are _you_ Nikola Pavlovitch, of whom I have heard so much from the
+Governor? I thought you were only a common soldier. I have met you at
+last."
+
+We felt we were really consorting with the great.
+
+Jo related her harem experiences, and he told of the attempts of the
+young Turks in Constantinople to abolish the veil, of how he had
+assisted at small dinner parties where the ladies had discarded their
+veils, and of the ferocity with which the priests and leaders had fought
+and quashed the movement.
+
+One lady had ventured unveiled into the bazaar, and one of the lowest of
+women had given her a blow on the face. On appealing to a policeman she
+had received small comfort, as he told her she ought to be ashamed of
+herself.
+
+As we went home we met women coming home from the fair with unsold
+carpets. They accosted us and wanted to know why we were writing them in
+the morning so that they could tell their relatives all about it.
+
+When we reached our bedroom the old innkeeper came in. In dulcet tones
+she admired our purchases. We were rather stiff.
+
+Suddenly she fell upon Jo's neck saying, "You mustn't be angry with me,"
+and remained there explaining.
+
+When she left, Jo looked gravely at Jan, took a toothcomb, let down her
+hair, and worked hard for a while.
+
+Next day we went for a long walk. As we were returning a terrific storm
+burst over us. We had left our mackintoshes in the inn, and were soon
+wet through. We got back just at supper time, and after, as Jan had no
+change of clothing, he decided to go to bed in his wet things, heaping
+blankets and rugs over himself in the hopes of being dry by the morrow.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO--II
+
+
+Jan awoke nearly dry, or in a sort of warm dampness, at 4.30 a.m. Not a
+soul was about, and we packed by candle. There was a purple dawn, and
+the towering cliffs behind the minarets glowed a deep cerise for at
+least ten minutes ere the light reached the town. The streets were still
+and deserted, but at last an old man with a coffee machine on his back,
+and a tin waistbelt full of pigeon-holes containing cups, took a seat at
+a corner. At six he was surrounded by groups of Albanian workmen
+drinking coffee, and he beckoned us to come and take coffee with him,
+but we were suspicious of the cleanliness of his crockery. A
+miserable-looking woman in widow's weeds was loitering about the door of
+the post office, and with her was a tattered girl surrounded by trunks,
+suit-cases, and bandboxes, so we guessed they were there to be fellow
+passengers. A waggon loaded with boxes halted before them, but the widow
+declined to let _her_ baggage go by it.
+
+At last the post waggon came. It was a small springless openwork cart
+with a rounded hood on it, so that it could roll when it upset--which
+was the rule rather than the exception--luggage accommodation was
+provided only for the "soap and tooth-brush" type of traveller; but the
+widow insisted upon packing in all her movables, and after that we four
+squeezed into what room was left. The seat was low, one's chin and knees
+were in dangerous proximity, and a less ideal position for travelling
+some thirty-five miles could not be imagined. The widow's portmanteau,
+all knobs and locks, was arranged to coincide with Jo's spine. The
+tattered maid was loaded with five packages on her knees which she could
+not control, so we looked as cheerful as we could and said to ourselves,
+"Anyway it will do in the book."
+
+At the start Jan was rather grateful for the squash, for the air was
+chilly; soon the damp, exposed parts of his clothing cooled to freezing
+point, and it was lucky that they were not more extensive.
+
+As we rolled over the craters and crests of the--what had once
+been--stone-paved streets, the driver halted, here to buy a large loaf
+of bread, there to purchase smelly cheese, and finally to pick up a
+gold-laced officer, whom we took to be the post-guard. The driver, who
+sat back to back with Jan, grumbled at him because he took up too much
+room. But Jan replied that it was his own fault for not making the
+carriage bigger, and that his knees were not telescopic. We received the
+post of Montenegro, for this was the only road out; it consisted of
+three letters and a circular, so we judged that Montenegrin censorship
+was pretty strict.
+
+The road was flat, the surrounding country covered with little scrubby
+oak bushes, in and out of which ran innumerable black pigs who had long
+cross pieces bound to their necks to prevent them from pushing through
+hedges into the few maize fields. As the miles passed Jan slowly began
+to dry, his temperature went up and his temper became better. The widow,
+we discovered, was the relict of a Greek doctor who had died of typhus
+in Plevlie, and she was returning to her native land.
+
+Presently we came to a small inn, a hut like all others, and the driver
+commanded us to get out. By this time we were accustomed to the sight of
+nobles kissing market women relatives, and it did not surprise us to see
+the officer embrace the rather dirty hostess of the inn and kiss all the
+children; but when he took his place behind the bar and began to serve
+the coffee!... It was a minute before we realized that he had not been
+guarding the three letters and the circular, but merely was returning
+home.
+
+At the Montenegrin frontier, which was some hours on, a soldier asked us
+for a lift, as though he could not see that we were already bulging at
+all points with excess luggage; at the Serbian frontier Jan was asked
+for his passport, and as they did not demand that of the widow, we
+concluded that they imagined her to be Mrs. Gordon, and Jo and the
+tattered one, two handmaids.
+
+Immediately over the frontier the road began to be Serbian, but not as
+Serbian as it became later on, and we reached Rudnik--and lunch--in good
+condition. Another carriage similar to our own was here, containing a
+Turkish family. The father, a great stalwart Albanian, and the son a
+budding priest in cerise socks. The priest was carrying food to his
+carriage, and we discovered that a woman was within, stowed away at the
+back like the widow's luggage, and carefully protected by two curtains,
+so that no eye should behold her. Her sufferings between Rudnik and
+Mitrovitza can be imagined when you have heard ours.
+
+From Rudnik we walked to ease our cramped limbs, and the road became so
+bad that the driver went across country to avoid it. Here is the receipt
+for making a Serbian road.
+
+"The engineer in charge shall send two hundred bullock trains from Here
+to There. He shall then find out along which path the greater number
+have travelled (_i.e._ which has the deepest ruts), after which an
+Austrian surveyor shall map it and mark it, 'Road to There.' Should the
+ruts become so deep that the carts are sliding upon their bottoms rather
+than travelling upon their wheels, an overseer must be sent to throw
+stones at it. He and ten devils worse than himself shall heave rocks
+till they think they have hurt it enough, when they may return home,
+leaving the road ten times worse than before, for the boulders by no
+means are to fill the ruts, but only to render them more exciting."
+
+Oh, we walked. Indeed, we walked a good deal more than the driver
+thought complimentary, we got out at every uphill, and put steam on so
+that we should not be caught on the downhills. By supreme efforts we
+managed to get in four hours' walking out of the torturous thirteen.
+Once--when we were a long way ahead--we were stopped by a gendarme.
+
+"Where are your passports?" demanded he.
+
+"In the post-waggon," replied Jan.
+
+"Why did you leave your passports in the post-waggon?"
+
+"Because they were in the pocket of my great-coat."
+
+"Why did you leave your great-coat in the post-waggon?"
+
+"Because it is hot."
+
+"I shall have to arrest you," quoth the gendarme.
+
+But his officer came from an adjoining building and told him not to make
+a fool of himself, and on we went, taking short cuts, following the
+telegraph poles, which staggered across country like a file of
+drunkards.
+
+Eventually the carriage caught us up and the driver insisted that we
+should get in. He added that he could not lose all day while we walked,
+and that he would never get to Mitrovitza; it seemed superfluous to
+point out that we had gone quicker than he, but to avoid argument we
+clambered in. The driver, in a temper, slashed his horses, and off we
+went, over ruts and stones full speed ahead. It was like being in a
+small boat in a smart cross-choppy sea, with little torpedoes exploding
+beneath the keel at three minute intervals; and this road was marked on
+the map as a first-class road; the mind staggers at what the second and
+third-class must be like. These countries are still barbarous at heart,
+but Europe cries out upon open atrocities, and so they have invented the
+post-waggon. After all, pain is a thing one can add up, and the sum
+total of misery produced by the post, travelling daily, must in time
+exceed that of the Spanish Inquisition. Thus do they gratify their
+brutal natures.
+
+We bounded along. The brakes did not work, the carriage banged against
+the horses' hocks, who, in turn, leapt forwards, and our four heads met
+in a resounding thump in the centre of the waggon; after which Jo
+insisted that the widow should turn her hatpins to the other side. The
+widow's luggage cast loose and hit us in cunning places when we were not
+looking. The cart rocked and heaved, and we expected it to turn over.
+There were other waggons on the road--heavy, slow ox carts, exporting
+wool or importing benzine or ammunition, with wheels of any shape bar
+round--some were even octagonal; and as they filed along they gave forth
+sounds reminiscent of Montenegrin song, a last wail from the hospitable
+little country whose borders we were leaving behind us.
+
+The driver promised us a better road further on; but the better road
+never came, and we hung on waiting for something to break and give us
+relief. There were hints, it is true, unfinished hints: some day men
+will be able to travel in comfort from Mitrovitza to Ipek, but the day
+is not yet. It is strange how the human frame gets used to things, and
+we grew to believe that our driver not only liked, but joyed in each
+extra bang and jolt--collected them as it were--for certainly he never
+avoided anything, though occasionally he wound at the brake, but that
+was only for show, because he knew that it did not work.
+
+We reached Mitrovitza at dark with bones unbroken, and rattled down a
+road with vague white Turkish houses upon one side, and a muddy looking
+stream reflecting dull lights on the other. One last lurid lunge, we
+leapt across a drain and broke a trace bar, but too late, we had
+arrived.
+
+The Hotel Bristol was full--why are there so many hotels in Serbia named
+Bristol?--but we were received by a stupid-looking maid at the Kossovo,
+and were given a paper to sign, saying who we were. Then down to the
+restaurant, where we had a beefsteak which was a dream, and back to bed,
+which was a nightmare, for all night long we bounced and banged and
+bruised our journey over again, and awoke quite exhausted.
+
+The first impression of a town which is entered by moonlight is usually
+difficult to recover on the following morning, it is often like the
+glimpse of a pretty girl caught, say, in a theatre lobby, and the charm
+may never be rewoven. So it was with Mitrovitza, which in daylight
+seemed just a dull, ordinary Turkish town. The Prefect was a bear, and
+sent us on a long unnecessary walk to the station, a mile and a half.
+Sitting on the road was the dirtiest beggar we had yet seen. As we came
+towards her she chanted our praises, bowing before us and kissing the
+dust; but she aroused only feelings of disgust and getting nothing, she
+turned to curses till we were out of sight. The chief imports at the
+station seemed to be cannons and maize; the only exports, millstones,
+which looked like and seemed almost as palatable as Serbian bread. We
+did our business without trouble, and coming back the beggar praised us
+once more till we had passed, then hurled even louder curses after us.
+
+We came to a tiny café in which were faint tinkling, musical sounds.
+
+Jan: "I wonder what that is?"
+
+Jo: "It sounds queer: shall we explore?"
+
+Jan: "I dunno, perhaps they wouldn't like us."
+
+Jo: "Come along. Let's see anyhow."
+
+And up we went. In a large room was a deep window seat, and in the
+window the queerest little Turkish dwarf imaginable. The little dwarf
+was sitting cross-legged, and was playing a plectrum instrument. His
+head was huge, his back was like a bow, and his plectrum arm bent into
+an S curve, which curled round his instrument as though it had been bent
+to fit. He was a born artist, and rapped out little airs and trills
+which made the heart dance. There were three soldiers at tables, and
+presently one sprang out on to the floor and began to posture and move
+his feet, a woman joined him; the little man's music grew wild and more
+rapid; another man sprang in, another woman joined, and soon all four
+were stamping and jigging till the floor rocked beneath them. We gave
+the little man a franc for his efforts, and his broad face nearly split
+in his endeavour to express a voiceless gratitude.
+
+We were no longer royalty, we were just dull, ordinary everyday folk,
+and at the station had endless formalities to go through, examinations
+of passes, etc., during which time all intending passengers were locked
+in the waiting-room. But at last we were allowed to take seats in the
+train, and off we went.
+
+We passed through the plain of Kossovo where old Serbian culture was
+prostrated before the onrush of the Turk, and whence Serbia has drawn
+all its legends and heroes; possibly the most unromantic looking spot in
+all Europe, save only Waterloo. Here, far to the left, was Mahmud's
+tomb:--Mahmud the great victor, stabbed the day before the battle, and
+dying as he saw his armies victorious. History contains no keener
+romance. Serge the hero, accompanied by two faithful servants, galloped
+to the Turkish camp, and commanded an interview with the Moslem
+general, who thought he was coming to be a traitor. In face of the
+Divan the hero flung himself from his horse, drew his sword, and stabbed
+Mahmud where he sat, surrounded by his armies. Before the astounded
+guards had recovered their surprise, Serge was again upon his great
+charger and was out of the camp, cutting down any who barred his
+passage. Mahmud did not die immediately, and his doctors slew a camel
+and thrust him into the still quivering animal; when the dead beast was
+cooling, they slew another, and thus the Moslem was kept alive till the
+Serbian hosts had been overthrown. He and the Serbian Czar were buried
+on the same field--one dead in victory, one in defeat.
+
+We trundled slowly over the great plain whose decision altered the fate
+of the world, for who knows what might have grown up under a great
+Byzantine culture? The farms were solidly built houses with great
+well-filled yards, surrounded by high and defensible walls. We came into
+stations where long shambling youths, dressed in badly made European
+clothes, lounged and ogled the girls in "this style, 14/6" dresses.
+Signs of culture!
+
+Why should the bowler hat, indiarubber collars, and bad teeth be
+indissolubly bound to "Education Bills" and "Factory Acts"? Why should
+the Serbian peasant be forced to give up his beautiful costume for
+celluloid cuffs, lose his artistic instincts in exchange for a made-up
+tie? It is the march of civilization, dear people, and must on no
+account be hindered.
+
+Coming back to Serbia from Montenegro was like slipping from a warm into
+a cool bath. One is irresistibly reminded that the Lords of Serbia
+withdrew to Montenegro, leaving the peasantry behind, for every peasant
+in the black mountains is a noble and carries a noble's dignity; while
+Karageorge was a pig farmer. There is a warmth in Montenegro--save only
+Pod.--which is not so evident in its larger brother; a welcome, which is
+not so easily found in Serbia. The Montenegrin peasant is like a great
+child, looking at the varied world with thirteenth-century unspoiled
+eyes; centuries of Turkish oppression has dulled the wit of the Serb,
+and at the outbreak of the war Teutonic culture was completing the
+process.
+
+We passed beneath the shadow of Shar Dagh, the highest peak in the
+peninsula, six thousand feet from the plain, springing straight up to a
+point for all to admire, a mountain indeed.
+
+We reached Uskub at dusk, found a hotel, and went out to dine. The
+restaurant was empty, but through a half-open door one could hear the
+sounds of music. The restaurant walls were--superfluously--decorated
+with paintings of food which almost took away one's appetite; but one
+enormous panel of a dressed sucking pig riding in a Lohengrin-like
+chariot over a purple sea amused us.
+
+In the beer hall a tinkly mandoline orchestra was playing, and a woman
+without a voice sang a popular song--one thought of the women on the
+Rieka River--a tired girl dressed in faded tights did a few easy
+contortions between the tables, and in a bored manner collected her meed
+of halfpence--we thought of the cheery idiot of Scutari. Was it worth
+it, we asked each other, this tinsel culture to which we had returned?
+And not bothering to answer the question went back to our hotel and to
+bed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+USKUB
+
+
+Uskub is a Smell on one side of which is built a prim little French town
+finished off with conventionally placed poplars in true Latin style; and
+on the other side lies a disreputable, rambling Turkish village
+culminating in a cone of rock upon which is the old fortress called the
+Grad.
+
+The country about Uskub is a great cemetery, and on every hand rise
+little rounded hills bristling with gravestones like almonds in a
+tipsy-cake. Strange old streets there are in Uskub. One comes suddenly
+upon half-buried mosques with grass growing from their dilapidated
+domes, a refuge only for chickens; some deserted baths, and in the midst
+of all, its outer walls like a prison and with prison windows, the old
+caravanserai.
+
+We crept to its gateway and through a crack saw visions of a romantic
+courtyard. The gate was locked, and we asked a little shoemaker--
+
+"Who has the key?"
+
+"It is now a leather tannery," he answered, and directed us to a
+shoemaker in another street. This was full of shoemakers, and we chased
+the key from shop to shop. It was like "Hunt the slipper." At last we
+ran it to earth in the second waistcoat of a negligent individual in a
+fez.
+
+How happy the merchant of old must have felt when he entered the
+courtyard after a long journey! The court was big and square, with a
+fountain in the centre, the pillars were blue, and the arches red. Tiers
+upon tiers of little rooms were built around; the expensive ones had
+windows and the cheap ones none, and the door of each was marked by the
+smoke of a thousand fires which had been lit within. Underneath were
+cubby holes for the merchants' goods, and behind it all was a great dark
+stable for the animals. Once shut up in the caravanserai one was safe
+from robbers, revolutions, and the outside world. Lying in the doorway,
+as if cast there by some gigantic ogre in a fit of temper, were two
+immense marble vases, and two queer carved stone figures. Who made these
+figures? Mystery--for Turkey does not carve. The old caravanserai no
+longer gives protection to the harassed traveller, it only cures his
+boots, for it has fallen from sanctuary to shoemakers, and the leather
+workers of Uskub cure their hides therein. Hence, despite its beauty, we
+did not loiter long, for we have ever held a bad smell more powerful
+than a beautiful view.
+
+Why don't towns look tragic when their bricks reek of tragedy? Why is
+industrial misery the only form in which the cry of the oppressed is
+allowed to take visible shape and to make the reputation of Realist
+artists? In Uskub is concentrated the whole problem of the Balkans and
+of Macedonia. Her brightly painted streets are filled with Serb, Bulgar,
+and Turk, each disliking the rule of the other, the Bulgar hating the
+Serb only worse than the Turk because the Serb is master. To the
+inquiring mind it is problematic how much of this hate is national, and
+how much political. Deprive these peasant populations of their jealous,
+land-grabbing propagandist rulers, and what rancour would remain between
+them? Intensive civilization, such as has been applied to these
+states--civilization which has swept one class to the twentieth century,
+while it leaves the others in its primitive simplicity--seems always to
+produce the worst results. Nations can only crawl to knowledge and to
+the possessions of riches, for politics to the simple are like "drinks"
+to the savage and equally deadly in effect.
+
+[Illustration: A WINE MARKET IN USKUB.]
+
+Can the problem ever be resolved? Can Serbia with half her manhood wiped
+out stand against her jealous neighbours? The creation of a lot of
+small states on republican principles seems a far-fetched idea, and yet
+it seems the best, especially if the menace of Turkey were removed, for
+there is little doubt that Turkey, rearmed by the German, might make one
+more effort to regain her lost territory under conditions vastly
+different from those which ruled in the Balkan conflict. Macedonia,
+Albania, and what is now Turkey in Europe, each made self-governing
+under the shield of the Alliance--why not?--and Serbia as compensation
+allowed to expand towards the north into territories which are wholly
+Serb in nationality and in feeling.
+
+We went through the pot market, whose orange earthenware was glowing in
+the sun, and came upon an old house with such a wonderful ultramarine
+courtyard that we went in to look. Over the door was written OLD
+SERB CAFÉ JANSIE HAN. After sketching there we entered the inn for
+coffee, and sat at tables made of thick blocks of marble smoothed only
+at the top. The innkeeper said it was built in the days of the Czar
+Duchan. If this were true, one would say that never had the interior
+been whitewashed since then. But there was an air of cosiness about it,
+and we visited it several times after. Near by was a little church with
+a wonderful carved screen and a picture of Elijah going to heaven in a
+chariot drawn by a pink horse, with the charioteer bumping along on a
+separate cloud, which served as the box. We watched the sun set from one
+of the tipsy-cake hills, sitting on a gravestone with an old Turkish
+shepherd, who seemed to derive great comfort from our company.
+
+The mountains around reflected the rosy lights of the sun in great flat
+masses.
+
+The muezzin sounded from the many minarets, and twilight was on us.
+Uskub, romantic, dirty, unhealthy Uskub, was soon shrouded in mist; a
+vision of unusual beauty.
+
+One thought of the awful winter it had passed through, when dead and
+dying had lain about the streets. Typhus, relapsing fever, and typhoid
+had gripped the town. Lady Paget's staff, while grappling with the
+trouble, had paid a heavy toll, as their hospital lay deep on the
+unhealthy part of the city. For a time the citadel was in the hands of
+an English unit. Before they were there it was a Serbian hospital, and
+the staff threw all the dirty, stained dressings over the cliff, down
+which they rolled to the road. The peasants used to collect these
+pestiferous morsels and made them into padded quilts. Little wonder that
+illness spread! In the summer Lady Paget's hospital withdrew to some
+great barracks on the hill. The paths were made of Turkish tombstones,
+which were always used in Uskub for road metal.
+
+The hospital staff was saddened by the recent death of Mr. Chichester,
+who had, like ourselves, just returned from a tour in the western
+mountains, where he caught paratyphoid and only lived a few days.
+
+One of the doctors had been in Albania, on an inoculating expedition. At
+Durazzo he had been received by Essad Pacha, who was delighted to have
+his piano played, and to watch the hammers working inside. Like Helen's
+babies, "he wanted to see the wheels go wound." The piano and piles of
+music must have been a memento of the Prince and Princess of Wied and of
+their unhappy attempts at being Mpret and Mpretess--or is it Mpretitza,
+or Mpretina? The music was still marked with her name, and was certainly
+not a present to Essad.
+
+The stamp of the English was on Uskub. Prices were high. One Turk
+offered us a rubbishy silver thing for fifteen dinars; and Jan laughed,
+saying that one could see the English had been there. Without blushing
+the man pointed to a twin article, saying he would let that go for five
+dinars.
+
+What caused us to feel that we had wandered enough? Was it the awful
+cinematograph show which led us through an hour and a half of melodrama
+without our grasping the plot, or was it that the large copper tray we
+bought filled us with a sense of responsibility?
+
+At this wavering moment Lady Paget held a meeting of her staff. We
+lunched there, and part of the truth leaked out after the meeting.
+
+The Bulgars really were coming in against us, and in a day or two we
+were to see things.
+
+That decided the matter. We went to the prefect's office for our pass.
+Firstly, we were ushered into a room occupied by a man in khaki, whose
+accent betrayed that he hailed from the States. He was "something
+sanitary," and belonged to the American commission, so we tried again.
+This time the porter took us up to a landing, said a few words into a
+doorway, and left us standing. As he was wandering in our vicinity, Jo
+tried one of her two talismans: it is the word "PREPOSTEROUS"
+ejaculated explosively, and is safely calculated to stagger a foreign
+soul. The other is a well-known dodge. If a person bothers you, look at
+his boots with a pained expression. He will soon take himself off--boots
+and all.
+
+The talisman worked, the pass was quickly managed, and we had but to
+spend our time among the shops again. We resisted the seductions of an
+old man with fifty knives in his belt, who reminded Jo of a horrible
+nightmare of her infancy.
+
+In her dream a grandfather with a basket had come peddling. Suddenly his
+coat, blowing aside, revealed not a body, but a busy sewing-machine in
+excellent working order. In her agitation, Jo fell out of bed.
+
+We sat consuming beer outside a café decked with pink flowered bushes in
+green boxes. One of the antique dames who cook sausages in the shadow of
+the cafés brought us a plate each--funny little hard things--and we
+bought cakes and nougat from perambulating Peter Piemen.
+
+The station platform was like the last scene of a pantomime. Every one
+we had met on our journeys rushed up and shook us by the hand.
+
+First a Belgian doctor, from Dr. Lilias Hamilton's unit in Podgoritza.
+He said Mrs. G. was also in the town, and that the others were all
+coming shortly. Then we met a young staff officer from Uzhitze, who was
+noted for his bravery. The train came in and we stumbled up to it in the
+dark. There was a crowd of women about the steps in difficulty with
+heavy bags. Jan ran forward to help one. She turned round. It was a
+sister from Dechani. The rest turned round. It was the whole Russian
+mission from Dechani.
+
+We proceeded along the corridor, and ran into two men. We mutually began
+to apologize.
+
+"Hello," we said, "how did you get here?" They were two Americans we had
+met in Salonika.
+
+We got our seats and went out of the train by the other door. As we
+passed the compartment we saw a familiar face. It was the little French
+courier.
+
+"Quel pays," he said, bounding up. "Et les Bulgars, quoi?"
+
+"Good Lord," said Jan. "Let's go out and get some fresh air."
+
+The only people lacking to complete the scene were the Sirdar and Dr.
+Clemow.
+
+A doctor who had just arrived from Salonika asked us to look after four
+English orderlies who, new to the country, were travelling to the Red
+Cross mission at Vrntze. With them were two trim, short-skirted, heavy
+booted, Belgian nurses, who were going to a Serbian field hospital.
+
+The train crawled. At times it was necessary to hold one's breath to see
+if we were moving at all. It was always possible that the Bulgars had
+blown up a bridge or so. One could imagine an anxious driver, his eyes
+fixed on the line in front, looking for Bulgarian comitaj.
+
+The travellers were restless. Our little French courier stood in the
+corridor looking fiercely at the black night; his back view eloquently
+expressive of his opinion of the Balkans.
+
+Later on we all slept. A frightful braying sound awoke us.
+
+No, not Bulgars--only the band. Same band, same station, same hour, same
+awful incompetence.
+
+So the princess had nothing to do with it!
+
+Trainloads bristling with ragged soldiers passed us--open truck-loads of
+them, carriage tops covered with sleeping men, some were clinging to the
+steps and to the buffers.
+
+Nish station had lost its sleepy air. Every one was energetically doing
+everything all wrong. The four orderlies and the two Belgian sisters
+were minus their passports. Some one had taken them away. These were run
+to earth in the station-master's office, and as the party had no idea
+where to go, we suggested they should come with us to the rest-house.
+
+The first person we met there was Dr. Clemow.
+
+"Have you got the Sirdar with you?" we asked.
+
+He answered that he had brought Paul, the young Montenegrin interpreter,
+with him. The English units in Montenegro had been recalled, and he had
+come to Nish to try to rescind the order for his unit.
+
+The town was at its gayest. The cloud had not yet dimmed the market.
+Peasants poured in, knowing nothing of the Bulgars, little thinking that
+they would be flying, starving, dying, in a few weeks' time. A Chinese
+vendor of paper gauds had come into the town, and all the pretty girls
+were wearing his absurdities pinned on to their head kerchiefs. One girl
+was so fine and bejewelled that we photographed her, to the delight of
+her lover, who stood aside to let us have a good view.
+
+A man was selling honey in the comb accompanied by his bees, which must
+have followed him for miles. They testified their displeasure at his
+selling their honey by stinging him and most of the buyers.
+
+No one seemed to know when the train was leaving. Station-master,
+porters, all had a different tale. At last we decided to risk seven
+o'clock in the evening, and the four orderlies and ourselves, copper
+tray and all, bade farewell to the Belgian sisters, who had cut off
+their hair, and wandered across to the station. The train arrived two
+hours late and stood, ready to go out, guarded by tatterdemalions with
+guns.
+
+"You can't get in yet," said one of them barring our way.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Ne snam."
+
+The freebooting instinct arose in us; we awaited our opportunity, dodged
+between two soldiers, and settled ourselves comfortably. Several
+officials looked in and said nothing; another came and forbade us to
+stay there, and passed on. An old woman came with a broom and cleaned
+up. We sat on our feet to get them out of the way, somebody squirted
+white disinfectant on the floor, and we were left in peace.
+
+The train started at eleven, moved as far as a siding and stayed till
+four. We found the four Red Cross men had only nine shillings between
+them. Three had stood all the way from Salonika, as during an
+unfortunate moment of interest in the view their seats had been
+appropriated by a fat Serbian officer, his wife and daughter. The
+fourth, a porter from Folkestone, had settled down on the floor, saying
+"he wasn't going to concarn himself with no voos."
+
+They had new uniforms, yellow mackintoshes, white kit bags, and
+beautiful cooking apparatus, which took to pieces and served a thousand
+purposes.
+
+In the chilly morning we got out at Stalatch, just too late for the
+Vrntze train. Luckily the station café was open.
+
+The four Englishmen ordered beefsteak, but were given long lean
+tasteless sausages. They asked for tea and were given black Turkish
+coffee in tiny cups half full of grounds. We asked about the trains, and
+were told we should catch the one next day. We argued, and extracted the
+promise of a luggage train, which would soon pass.
+
+Why is it that in Serbia they always, on principle, say, "You can't,"
+after which under pressure they own, "Somehow you can"? In Montenegro
+they say, "Certainly you can," after which they occasionally find that
+"Somehow you can't."
+
+At last the luggage train came. We sat on the step dangling our legs and
+peering down at the country below us.
+
+We were again held up at Krusevatz and bearded the officials. They
+promised to put on a special carriage for us when the next luggage-train
+should come in, some time that evening.
+
+[Illustration: BIG GUN PASSING THROUGH KRUSEVATZ.]
+
+Nothing for it but to lunch and to kill time. We watched the mountain
+batteries pass on their way to the Bulgarian frontier. One or two big
+cannon trailed by, drawn by oxen. Many horses looked wretched and
+half-starved.
+
+The Englishmen built a camp fire by the rail-road. Soon tea was brewing;
+we drank, and chewed walnuts, stared at by crowds of patient Serbian
+soldiers.
+
+We travelled with the treasurer of the district, a charming man who
+revelled in stories of a mischievous boyhood spent in a Jesuit
+establishment. The fathers had stuck to him nobly until he had mixed red
+paint with the holy water, and one of the fathers, while administering
+the service, had suddenly beheld his whole congregation marked on the
+forehead with damnatory crosses like criminals of old time. That ended
+his school days. He introduced us to an officer, whose business it was
+to search for spies, a restless man who was always feeling under the
+seats with his feet. Perhaps it was only cramp! The four Englishmen,
+cheered at the thought that their long journey was nearing its end,
+burst into song. The Serbs stood round listening to the melodies that
+were so different to their own plaintive wailings, and presently asked
+us to translate. We don't know if the subtleties of "Didn't want to do
+it," or "The little grey home in the west," were very clear in the
+translations, as they seemed puzzled.
+
+Arrived at Vrntze, we found no carriages to meet us. The station-master
+at Krusevatz had promised to telephone, but as usual had not done it. We
+had to break the news to our Englishmen, who, their songs over, had
+naturally fallen into tired depression, and had to tell them that a
+three-kilometre walk was before us, and one man had better stay to look
+after the baggage. Carriages were telephoned for, but they would be long
+in coming.
+
+They were! We arrived at the village--no carriages. We agitated. The spy
+searcher came out of the café--to which he and the "Bad Boy's Diary" man
+had driven--and made people run about. They said the carriages had
+already gone. We denied it, so they woke up the coachman.
+
+We took the three men to the hospital and went back to sit in the café
+with our new friends and met many old ones. The local chemist cheered
+and promised us a present of mackintosh cotton to celebrate our return.
+We had spent Easter morning in his shop eating purple eggs and drinking
+tea enlivened with brandy, while the choir came in and chanted beautiful
+Easter songs to us.
+
+An hour rolled by, the café closed, our friends disappeared. We went to
+meet the carriages from the station; at last they arrived, with Mr. Owen
+half asleep amidst the kitbags.
+
+It was far into the night when we arrived at our hospital burdened with
+our two bags and the copper tray.
+
+The night nurse, a kitten, and a round woolly puppy welcomed us.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MAINLY RETROSPECTIVE
+
+
+Hospital work again. How strange we felt. A sad-faced little Serbian
+lady, widowed through typhus, was interpreting for the out-patients
+while Jo was away; but she was alone in the world and did not want to
+go--so Jo, homesick for her beloved out-patients, had to make the best
+of it and do other work. The Serbian youth who had been put on the staff
+as secretary, was dangerously ill with typhoid fever, which he had
+picked up at Kragujevatz. The typhus barrack was a children's hospital,
+containing little waifs chosen from the out-patients, and a few women.
+
+In the early days when we had first arrived at Vrntze there were several
+overfilled Serbian and one Greek hospital. They were only cafés and
+large villas, unsanitary, stuffy, and overworked. The windows were never
+open, and through the huge sheets of plate glass could be dimly seen in
+the thick blue tobacco smoke a higgledy-piggledy crowd of beds. Often
+two men lay in one bed covered with their dirty great coats, while
+typhus patients and wounded men slept together. One man lay unconscious
+for several days in the window, his feet in his dinner-plate. At last he
+died, his feet still in the dinner. Mr. Berry took on a hydropathic
+establishment which had been completed just before the first Balkan War.
+This was used as the central hospital, where the staff lodged, and the
+most serious surgical cases were nursed. In the basement an
+operating-room was rigged up, there were bathrooms, disinfecting-rooms,
+a laundry, and an engine-house, where gimcrack German machinery in fits
+and starts provided us with electric light and hot water. The village
+school on the hill opposite was annexed and cleaned by a sculptor, a
+singer, a painter, and a judge of the Royal Horse Show. This was run as
+a convalescent home, and was the cause of many a muddy sit down, as it
+lay on the top of a greasy hill.
+
+Other large buildings were gradually added, sulphured, and cleaned until
+we had six hospitals, one of which was run for some time in connection
+with the Red Cross unit.
+
+Typhus had not stricken the village badly, but the old barracks were
+full of cases which developed several days after each batch of wounded
+came.
+
+The Red Cross unit took on the typhus barracks. Mr. Berry, seeing that
+surgery was for the moment a secondary thing, and having received a
+batch of Austrian prisoners riddled with typhus, built some barracks not
+far from the school. Glass was unobtainable, so thin muslin was used for
+the windows.
+
+The first precaution against bad air that Mr. Berry took in preparing
+his chief surgical ward was to smash all top panes of the windows with a
+broom, thus earning the name of the Window Breaker. Whenever the wind
+blew through the draughty corridors and glass rattled down from the
+sashes, word went round that "Mr. Berry has been at it again."
+
+Our unit and the Red Cross ran a quarantine hospital together. It was
+originally the state café and lay in the park of the watering-place.
+Near by were the sulphur baths. We ripped out the stuffy little wooden
+dressing-rooms, to the joy of the bath attendant, who possessed the
+facsimile of Tolstoi's face, and with the _débris_ we built a large shed
+outside for the reception of the wounded.
+
+In the early days they came in large batches from other hospitals,
+pathetic septic cases, their lives ruined for want of proper care. We
+put their clothes in bags for future disinfecting, and the men, mildly
+perplexed, were bathed, shaved, and sent to the "clearing-house," as it
+was called. Those who developed typhus went to the barracks, and the
+rest were drafted to the various hospitals in the village.
+
+The clothes were first sulphurized to kill the lice, and then, until Dr.
+Boyle's disinfector appeared, boiled. This was important, as typhus is
+propagated by infected lice. Even forty-eight hours of sulphur did not
+destroy the nits. One day the sulphur-room was opened after twenty-four
+hours. Live lice were discovered congregated round the tops of the bags.
+Jan put some in a bottle. They immediately fought each other, tooth and
+nail, rolling and scrambling in a mass just like a rugby-football scrum,
+and continued the fight for twelve hours at least, thus proving that the
+scientific writer who says that the louse is a delicate creature and
+only lives a few hours off the body can know little of the Serbian
+breed.
+
+The town, when we arrived, was a bouquet of assorted and nasty smells,
+of which the authorities seemed proud. We cleaned up the streets by
+running a little artificial river down the gutter. Mr. Berry had the
+chief of the police sacked and instituted a sort of sanitary vigilance
+committee. We took over the local but very primitive sewage works--a
+field into which all the filth of the town was drained.
+
+The slaughter-house was discovered. It was an old wooden shed built
+over the lower end of the stream which washed the village from end to
+end, draining successively the typhus barracks, the baths, and all the
+hospitals. The shed itself was old and worm-eaten. The walls were caked
+with the blood of years, yet the meat was always hung against them after
+having been well soused in the filthy water. Mr. Berry decided to build
+a new one: some of the money was subscribed through Mr. Blease by the
+Liverpool Liberal Club; the rest Mr. Berry paid himself. At once the
+state began to quarrel with the commune as to the ownership of the
+proposed treasure. So the smells disappeared and the town engineer was
+furious, saying he would "Put all right" when we left.
+
+Luckily one of the chief men in the town had lived in America and knew
+the value of cleanliness. Mr. Berry was offered an honorary Colonelcy;
+but he refused, saying he would prefer to be made sanitary officer for
+the town.
+
+[Illustration: IN-PATIENTS.]
+
+The spring came, bringing with it no fighting. A great offensive was
+expected, had been ordered, in fact, but we heard later that the army
+refused to advance. The work was very much lighter. Very few men were
+entirely helpless. The hospitals, which were still emptying themselves
+and whose men were coming to us, sent the survival of the fittest. Most
+of the beds were carried out under the trees after the morning
+dressings were done, and the men lay gossiping and smoking when they
+could get tobacco. Outside visitors were rare. The Serbian ladies do not
+go round the hospitals with cigarettes and sweets, and to find a Serbian
+woman nursing is an anomaly.
+
+Report says that many flung themselves into it with energy during the
+first Balkan War, but that four years of it, ending with typhus, had
+dulled their enthusiasm. It is not fair to blame them. To nurse from
+morning till night in a putrid Serbian hospital with all windows closed
+requires more than devotion and complete indifference to life. Three
+Serbian ladies came to sew pillow cases and sheets every afternoon, and
+one of them gave up still more time to teach the patients reading and
+writing.
+
+But the town was full, in the summer, of smartly dressed women, and the
+village priest never once visited our hospitals. Hearing of the English
+missions and their work, peasants began to come from the mountains
+around, and the out-patient department became, under Dr. Helen Boyle, a
+matter for strenuous mornings.
+
+Many of these poor things had never seen a doctor in their lives. Serbia
+even in peace-time had not produced many medical men, and those who
+existed had no time to attend the poor gratis.
+
+The percentage of consumptives was enormous. Every family shuts its
+windows and doors for the winter and proceeds industriously to spit, and
+so the disease spreads.
+
+Diphtheria patients rode and walked often for ten hours and waited in
+the courtyard, and people far gone with typhus staggered along in the
+blazing spring sun.
+
+One jolly old ragatops with typhus arrived in the afternoon with a
+violent temperature, and Jo settled him comfortably in the courtyard
+with his head on a sink until Mrs. Berry should come in to see about
+taking him into the barracks. He seemed quite happy about himself, but
+very worried about his blind beggar brother and his two half-blind
+children, whose sight had been ruined by smallpox.
+
+For the latter nothing could be done.
+
+Another time she kept two boys waiting to see if Mrs. Berry could take
+them into her typhus barracks. One had scarlet fever, and the other was
+a young starving clerk in a galloping consumption, thirty-six hours from
+his home.
+
+Afraid to raise their hopes, and not knowing if there would be room for
+them, Jo told them that they were to have some very strong medicine that
+could only be administered two hours after a dose of hot milk and
+biscuit (the medicine was only bovril). By this time Mrs. Berry arrived
+and managed to squeeze the boys in.
+
+However, we were told to clear the hospitals, for the wounded were
+expected.
+
+"What could be done with the scarlet fever boy?" At last an idea came:
+"The Mortuary," built by the Horse Show Judge with such joy. The
+mortuary that we had all gone to admire as a work of art.
+
+But the scarlet fever boy did not seem to see it that way, for in the
+night he escaped, and we have never seen him since.
+
+Diphtheria was so prevalent that the Red Cross on receiving a patient,
+gathered in the whole family for a few days, inoculated, washed, and
+gargled it. They also toured the villages around, digging out typhus and
+other infectious cases, thus stopping the spread of infection. They had
+a most energetic matron, Miss Caldwell, who had already nursed in
+Cettinje during the Balkan Wars, and we have already told how she
+managed the Montenegrins.
+
+Often the patients came in ox-carts. Too ill to be lifted out, they had
+to be examined and treated in the carts. Dr. Boyle acquired a special
+nimbleness in jumping in and out of these contrivances armed with
+stethescope, spoons, bowls, and dressings. We accumulated a congregation
+of "regulars," who came to be dressed every day--gathered feet,
+suppurating glands, eczema, etc.
+
+One old mother with a bad leg was bandaged up with boracic ointment and
+told to come back in two days. She came. Jo undid the bandage. All the
+old lady's fleas had swarmed to the boracic till it looked like a
+fly-paper. After which we used Vermigeli.
+
+All wore brightly woven belts, sometimes two or three, each a yard and a
+half long, tightly wound round their bodies, thus making their waists
+wider than their hips. One girl was black and blue with the pattern
+showing on her skin, and many men were suffering from the evils of tight
+lacing.
+
+The village priest received belts as fees from the peasants when he
+married them. He sent us a message to say he had some for sale, so we
+went in a body to his house, were received by his daughter, who looked
+like a cow-girl, turned over a basketful of belts, and bought largely.
+After which he put up the price.
+
+Jo went on night duty for the first time.
+
+A queer experience this, starting the day's work at half-past seven in
+the evening and finishing at seven in the morning--breakfasting when
+other people are dining; hearing their contented laughter as they go off
+to bed; and then a queer loneliness and the ugly ticking of a clock. One
+creeps round the big ward. What a noisy thing breathing is. Some one
+groans, "Sestra, I cannot sleep." This man has not been ordered morphia.
+Silence once more broken only by the sound of the breathing, distant
+howling of dogs from the darkness or the hoot of an owl. The old
+frostbite man coughs; he coughs again insistently. Both say "Yes" to hot
+milk. So down to the big kitchen, some mice scatter by, the puppy wakes
+up and thinks it is time for a game. A woman's voice calls loudly,
+"Sestra." Taking the milk off, Sestra hurries across the courtyard and
+along the corridor to the little rooms with the puppy tugging at her
+skirt. The woman wants water; she has wakened the other women--they want
+water. When silence again comes back into the ward, one notes
+instinctively the vivid colouring of the two big blue windows at the far
+end, the long lines of beds disappearing into the darkness, the dim
+light of the lantern on the table showing up the cheap clock and a few
+flowers. The intensity of light upon this clock is only equalled by the
+intensity of one's thoughts upon the clock. The minute-hand drags on as
+though it were weary with the day's work. A groan ticks off the quarters
+and cries for water or milk the half-hours. At last one o'clock. Time
+for a midnight meal. Eggs and cocoa hurriedly eaten without appetite in
+the kitchen, but breaking the monotony. Back to the ward again, one of
+the patients very restless, in great pain. Poor fellow, he has had a
+long and hard time of it, fifteen months in bed and all due to early
+neglect.
+
+"Sestra," he says, "sestra," and holds out a handkerchief heavy with
+coin. "Tell the doctor to take me down to the operating-room and cure me
+or not let me wake up."
+
+Between four and five there is more movement in the ward. Groans give
+way to yawns. In the windows the blue is paling to grey. Cocks are
+crowing now quite close, now faintly, like an echo. Suddenly the world
+is filled with work, "washings, brushings, combings, cleanings,
+temperatures, breakfasts, medicines, some beds to make, reports, all
+fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle, until at last the day-sisters come
+and relieve, and yawning at the daylight one eats warmed-up dinner while
+the others are having breakfast."
+
+After a seven weeks' absence one was bound to miss many old friends in
+the ward. Some had gone home, others were back in the army. Old Number
+13, the king of the ward, was still there. He had a dark brown face and
+white hair, and was furious if any dared to call him a gipsy.
+
+"I am a respectable farmer," he said, "and I own seventeen pigs, a
+horse, and five sheep, a wife, and two children."
+
+He loved to tell of his wedding. It was done in the correct old Serbian
+style. He went with his mother and a gun to the chosen one's house,
+where she was waiting alone, her parents tactfully keeping out of the
+way. They abducted the lady, who was treated with great honour as a
+visitor in her future father-in-law's house.
+
+"Father" turned up next morning. Rakia was served, and father divulged
+ceremoniously how many pigs he could spare to them for keeping his
+daughter.
+
+Number 13 wanted to know everything: how old was Jo, how much she was
+paid?
+
+"What, you are not paid?" he said in amazement. "Then the English are
+wonderful! In Serbia our women would not do that."
+
+Poor little John Willie still left a blank, though he had died long
+before. His name was not John Willie, but it sounded rather like it, so
+we just turned it into John Willie. He loved the name, and told his
+father about it.
+
+They sat all afternoon hand-in-hand, saying at intervals, "Dgonn Oolie,"
+and chuckling.
+
+Jan once had brought back from a spring visit to Kragujevatz some
+horrible sun hats.
+
+They were the cast-off eccentricities of the fashions of six years ago,
+and had drifted from the Rue de la Paix to this obscure Serbian shop
+which was selling them as serious articles of clothing. Jo tried them
+on, and one of the nurses became so weak with laughter that she tumbled
+all the way downstairs.
+
+Finding them quite impossible, Jo bequeathed them to the ward, where
+they were snapped up enthusiastically.
+
+The ugliest was an immense sailor hat, the crown nearly as wide as the
+brim, but the head hole would have fitted a doll. However, John Willie
+fancied that hat and was always to be seen, a tiny, round-backed figure,
+wandering slowly in a long blue dressing-gown, blue woolly boots, and
+the enormous hat perched on the top of his pathetically drooping head.
+
+One day poor little John Willie became fearfully ill. His parents
+arrived and sat dumbly gazing at him for two nights, while he panted his
+poor little life away. His friend the Velika Dete (big child), once a
+fierce comitaj, was moved away from the "Malo Dete," to make more room,
+and he sulked, while the Austrian prisoner orderlies ran to and fro with
+water for his head, milk, all the things that a poor little dying boy
+might need; and old Number 13 passed to and fro shaking his head, for he
+had been long in hospital and had seen many people die.
+
+A man with knees bent (he said with scroogling them up all winter in the
+cold) was put in John Willie's place. The Velika Dete came back, but he
+would not speak to "Bent Knees" for weeks.
+
+By this time the Austrian prisoners were very well trained and made
+excellent orderlies in the ward. An ex-Carlton waiter was very dexterous
+in sidling down the ward: on his five fingers a tray perched high,
+containing dressing-bowls and pots bristling with forceps, scissors, and
+various other instruments.
+
+His chief talent lay in peppering frostbitten toes with iodoform
+powder--a reminiscence of the sugar castor.
+
+Our housemaid was a leather tanner, whom Jo's baby magpie mistook for
+its parent, as he fed it at intervals every morning. A Czech in typhus
+cloths spent his days down in the disinfecting, operating and bathrooms.
+He had been an overseer in a factory and had added to his income by
+writing love-stories for the papers. A butcher was installed in the
+kitchens. Once a week he became an artist, killing a sheep according to
+the best Prague ideals.
+
+All our prisoners, about forty in number, clung to the English hospitals
+as their only chance of life, for in other places sixty per cent. had
+died of typhus.
+
+The Serbs, though bearing no animosity, could do little for them. We saw
+the quarters of some men working on the road. These were show quarters
+and supposed to be clean. Each room had an outside door. On the floor
+was room for six men and hay enough to stuff one pillow. They had no
+rugs, and the Serbs could give them none. The cold in the winter must
+have been intense.
+
+We had come back to this little world after seven weeks' wandering, and
+almost immediately Jan had gone off to Kragujevatz with a broken motor.
+
+While he was away Jo got letters from England and Paris, which made her
+realize that things were rather in a mess, and we should have to go
+home. We had left England intending to stay in Serbia three months, and
+had been then nearly nine.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+SOME PAGES FROM MR. GORDON'S DIARY
+
+
+OCTOBER 2ND. Got a wire from Kragujevatz to say that the motor
+hood is ready and that we must go over to get it fitted. We cleaned and
+oiled the car, and at two ran it down the hill, but it would not start.
+Found two sparking plugs cracked and the magneto very weak. When we had
+fixed it up it was too late. Four a.m. to-morrow morning.
+
+OCTOBER 3RD. Started in the dark, Mr. Berry, Sister Hammond,
+Sava, I, and a female relation of some minister or other who wanted to
+go to Kralievo. The motor working badly, as it is impossible to get the
+proper spare parts. Three young owls were sitting in the middle of the
+road scared by our headlights; we hit one, the other two flew away. Sava
+and I stopped and tinkered at the old machine for about an hour, changed
+all the sparking plugs again, after which she went better. We reached
+Kralievo without incident, where we cast loose the female relation. From
+Kralievo passed over the Morava, which was pretty floody and had
+knocked the road about a bit. The road led right through the Shumadia
+country, where the first revolts of the Serbian nation against their
+Turkish oppressors were engendered. We passed the old Serbian
+churchyard. I never passed by without going in. These queer old
+tombstones all painted in days when pure decoration had a religious
+appeal, these tattered red and white and black banners lend such a gay
+air to death; these swords and pistols and medals carved into the stone
+seem almost carrying a bombast to heaven. On one side of each tombstone
+is the name of its owner, preceded by the legend, "Here lies the slave
+of God." Do slaves love their masters?
+
+When we passed this road in the winter, black funeral flags hung from
+almost every hut, and even now the rags still flap in the breeze. A
+Serbian boy, clad in dirty cottons, shouted to us, making
+gesticulations. We slowed down and stopped.
+
+"Bombe," he cried. "Aeropla-ane. Pet," he held up five fingers, "y jedan
+je bili slomile. Vidite shrapnel."
+
+He pointed. We saw a quiet, early autumn landscape, the blue sky
+slightly flecked with thin horizontal streaks of cloud. Any scene less
+warlike could not have been imagined.
+
+"Vidite tamo," he cried once more.
+
+Straining our eyes one could just see, between the lowest strata of
+cloud, a series of small white round clouds floating.
+
+"Shrapnel," said Sava, pointing.
+
+"They hit one," said Mr. Berry.
+
+I let in the clutch, we sped on once more. Bang! a tire burst.
+
+Motor driving in Serbia is not a profession, it is an art. We were on
+another of these first-class Serbian roads. Presently we came to a long
+downhill.
+
+"That is the place," said Mr. Berry to Sister Hammond, "where we spent
+the night last winter when the motor stuck in the mud. There, beneath
+that tree."
+
+We shrugged our way down the hill, and presently came into the gipsy
+environments of Kragujevatz.
+
+A man stopped us, holding up a hand.
+
+"Bombe," he said.
+
+We got out. In the soft earth at the side of the road was a neat hole,
+four inches in diameter. Peering down we could see the steel handle of
+the unburst bomb. We next passed a smashed paling, in the garden behind
+a crowd were searching for relics. An old woman had been killed, they
+said. We turned into the main street and plunged into a large crowd. The
+pavement had been torn up, and people were grubbing in the mud; pieces
+of charred wood were passed from hand to hand.
+
+"That's a bit of propeller," said one. "No; it's a bit of the frame,"
+said another. A girl proudly held up a large piece of map scorched all
+round the edges.
+
+"And the men?" we asked.
+
+"Nemachke (Germans)," answered the crowd; "both dead; one here, one over
+there," pointing to the middle of the road.
+
+We came into the Stobarts' camp, pitched up on the hill behind the
+Kragujevatz pleasure ground.
+
+"Did you see the aeroplanes?" they cried, running towards us.
+
+"No," we answered; "but we saw the shrapnel."
+
+"One was hit--it was wonderful. They were flying just over here, and a
+shrapnel burst quite close; and then one saw a thin stream of smoke come
+from the plane; then a little flicker. It seemed to fall so slowly. Then
+it burst into flames and came down like a great comet."
+
+"D----n!" we said: "if only that machine had been working right
+yesterday."
+
+We took our car down to the arsenal, and I left Sava to take it to bits
+and get it opened out, for there had been a bit of a knock in the crank
+case. The remains of the smashed aeroplane were piled in the yard, and
+from the way it had twisted up without breaking one could see from what
+beautiful metal the machinery was made. Some of the French experts
+denied that the guns had hit it--giving as their reason that one of its
+own bombs had exploded. But one of the engineers put his hand into a big
+hole which was beneath the crank case and drew out a shrapnel ball. I
+thought that would settle it, but the Frenchmen were not convinced. The
+shells were bursting fifty metres too low, they said. Fifteen bombs had
+fallen about the arsenal, and one man, a non-commissioned officer, had
+been killed.
+
+Met Hardinge and Mawson: they both saw the aeroplane fall, and were not
+fifty yards from the place where it struck.
+
+Walked back to the Stobarts' camp for lunch. A French aeroplane had come
+over from Belgrade too late; now it rose slowly in the air and sailed
+off. Saw the two dead aviators; both had evidently been killed at once,
+for they were charred, not blistered.
+
+Colonel Phillips, ex-Governor of Scutari, and English military attaché,
+came up with the Italian attaché. A bomb had fallen just before the
+colonel's house and missed his servant by a hair's-breadth. The Italian
+was in a room opposite the Crown Prince's palace; he thought that the
+falling machine was going to crash through the roof, but it fell in the
+street not ten yards away. The camp itself was packing hard, for Mrs.
+Stobart had just decided to form a "flying field ambulance."
+
+Mr. Berry and I had a tent assigned to us.
+
+October 4th. Awoke to sounds like some one hitting a board with a
+mallet. Ran outside. One found the aeroplane from the little clouds of
+shrapnel, for it was flying very high, and was like a speck. Clouds of
+smoke were rolling from one quarter of the town, and we thought that a
+big fire was beginning, but it was extinguished. Another aeroplane came
+later. The guns began long before it could be seen. It dropped two bombs
+over the powder factory, and two in the town. Mrs. Stobart ordered
+everybody from the camp; but nobody left except the patients, who were
+driven a mile out and dumped in a wood. A long procession of townsfolk
+filed continuously by, running from the danger. The aeroplane dropped
+two more bombs in the town, and came back flying right over the camp. It
+was a queer feeling, staring right up at the plane, and wondering if
+another bomb were not falling silently towards one.
+
+I went down to the arsenal to see about the car; and Mr. Berry and Miss
+Hammond went off to see the anti-aircraft guns. Mrs. Stobart had asked
+me to go out on the Rudnik road to see a car which had broken down, and
+had promised to send a motor to fetch me. Before we could leave, news
+was brought that another aeroplane had been telephoned. Presently we
+could hear the guns beginning. Hardinge turned up, and we looked out for
+the machine. We saw the aeroplane coming straight towards us; everybody
+rushed for the cellars, but I wanted to stay outside for the last
+moment. Hardinge was with me. Suddenly I lost sight of the plane. I ran
+farther out to look for it, and suddenly there was a report, and a great
+column of smoke just outside the arsenal. There was another behind the
+rifle shops, and another behind the boiler sheds. Now the aeroplane was
+overhead. I heard a noise like tearing silk, and lay flat upon the
+ground shouting to Hardinge--
+
+"Lie flat, d----n you!"
+
+It seemed ages before it burst. Dust and bits flew everywhere; the
+windows all sprang out into the yard. I looked for Hardinge, but he was
+unharmed. I had expected to be terrified, but I was feeling so bothered
+about Hardinge that I had no time to think about myself.
+
+We heard a shrill crying, "Oh--h! oh--h!"
+
+I ran forward, crying to Hardinge, "A man's hurt!" He answered, "Is he?"
+The dust was so thick I could not see at first, but as it cleared I
+found a workman lying on back and elbows, his knees drawn up as though
+he were trussed; his head waved from side to side, and he was uttering
+spasmodic cries. I said to him, "Where? where?" and he placed a hand to
+his stomach.
+
+The man had been struck just below the ribs by a large piece of bomb,
+blood was welling from the wound, so I pushed his shirt into it, and ran
+back to the office. Mrs. Stobart's car had been brought by a lady and a
+youth named Boon, who had both taken cover in the cellar; so I dug up
+the girl, whose name I have forgotten, as I hoped she knew "first aid."
+Together we ran to the man, leaving Boon to bring the ambulance.
+"Bandages," we demanded. "Haven't any," answered the few Serbs who had
+gathered round; "the first aid house has been blown to pieces." We
+crammed our handkerchiefs into the place, and a cotton-wool arm pad
+which was brought, and we then took off the man's own puttees and tied
+him up with them. As we were doing this somebody cried--
+
+"Aeroplanes returning."
+
+Immediately every Serb and Austrian fled. The girl, Hardinge, and I were
+left alone. It was a false alarm. With the returning crowd came a large
+man, who was weeping.
+
+[Illustration: BROKEN AEROPLANE IN THE ARSENAL AT KRAG.]
+
+[Illustration: WHERE THE "PLANE" FELL.]
+
+[Illustration: HOUSE NEAR THE ARSENAL DAMAGED BY BOMBS.]
+
+"Oh, my poor brother! oh, my poor brother! What have they done to
+thee? Why should this evil have befallen thee?"
+
+As we finished tying him up, Hardinge said, "Is it any good lying down?"
+
+I answered, "If this poor chap had been lying down he would not have
+been hurt."
+
+There was no stretcher, so we lifted the wounded man on a blanket into
+the ambulance, which Boon had now brought. The girl and the brother
+climbed within. I took the steering wheel. Boon wound up the engine, and
+swung alongside me. The driving was a difficult problem. Whether to
+drive fast and get to the hospital, or whether to go slow and spare the
+wounded man as much pain as was possible? The road was awful: once it
+had been laid with stone pavement, but many of the stones were missing,
+and in so bad a condition was it that although several bombs had fallen
+in the streets, one could not distinguish the bomb craters from the
+ordinary holes in the road. At last I decided that as it was not a
+fracture I would go as quickly as I dared. Above the clatter of the
+machinery I could hear the weeping of the brother and the intermittent
+cries of the wounded man, "Water, water."
+
+"I think he's going," said the girl through the curtains.
+
+At last we reached the hospital. We laid the man on the ground and the
+doctors did all they could. But it was useless, the piece of shell had
+cut in directly beneath the heart. In ten minutes he was dead. I turned
+to the brother and laying both hands upon his shoulders said--
+
+"Your poor brother was too badly hit. We could not save him."
+
+He stared at me for a moment, not understanding. Then he turned and
+flung himself down upon the body, weeping more bitterly than before.
+
+I went to the ambulance and took it back to its place.
+
+The aeroplane returning from the arsenal had flung three gratuitous
+bombs at the camp itself, one had fallen in the Serbian hospital yard,
+and had killed an Austrian prisoner; one had fallen in the top corner of
+the camp field, but had not exploded. The third had missed, only by a
+little, the room in which the two dead German aeroplanists were lying,
+had plunged into the Stobarts' storeroom, and had burst in the last case
+of marmalade which they possessed. It was an awful mess. Had it fallen
+three yards to the left it would have killed the chief cook, who was
+just on the other side of the wall.
+
+I went back to the arsenal. None of the bombs had struck any important
+part, almost all had fallen in open places, though one had burst on the
+roof of the woodshed, only a few yards from the petrol store. Two cans
+of petrol had been punctured by bits of shell, and Austrian prisoners
+were hurriedly pumping them out. Almost half the work of the arsenal was
+done by Austrian prisoners. Another bomb had fallen in the horseshoe
+store, and inside horseshoes were everywhere, some even sticking in the
+beams like great staples. I had no idea before that the bombs had such
+force. Sava said he had been standing in a doorway and a bomb had
+exploded quite close, a piece had whizzed by his nose and had torn down
+the name board over his head. When he turned round to go on with the
+work the aide had fled and never appeared again.
+
+I met Dr. Churchin. He is one of the best Serbs I have yet met, a
+philosopher. He was looking after the English units in Kragujevatz and I
+learnt did it excellently, and with a devotion to his duties altogether
+unusual. He told me that I had been nominated an honorary captain; but I
+am under the impression that it is an honour I cannot by national law
+accept.
+
+We went in the afternoon in the car towards Rudnik to examine the one
+which had broken down. I soon saw that nothing could be done on the
+spot, and ordered it to continue its "bullocky" progress to the camp. In
+the evening went off to the Government motor school, where I found my
+old friend Ristich and Colonel Derrock; both these men are first-class
+Serbs--jolly, keen and friendly.
+
+October 5th. Our car not being finished, Mr. Berry and Sister Hammond
+went back to Vrntze in a car lent by Colonel Derrock. I was to stay till
+all the repairs were completed on ours. There was another scare of
+aeroplanes, and the whole town emptied itself, families pouring by en
+route for the country; but the planes did not come. I went down to the
+arsenal and got on with the repairs. Dr. May lent me her camera and I
+got some photos. Mrs. Stobart went off with her "flying field force,"
+taking with her nearly all the men and almost all the cars: if the
+hospital get many serious cases I imagined that they would be dreadfully
+shorthanded.
+
+In the night the two German aeroplanists were buried without military
+honours. The Serbs said that they were assassins and deserved nothing.
+Still, Kragujevatz is an arsenal.
+
+October 6th. Another aeroplane scare; town emptied itself once more. Dr.
+MacLaren and I rushed off to the anti-aircraft guns, hoping to get some
+photos; but nothing occurred. Got the Rudnik car running by taking Mr.
+McBlack's useless car to pieces. In the evening two sisters went to
+Uskub. One of the sisters went to get her bag, and I took what I thought
+to be a short cut to help her. I passed between the tents, and was
+striding along, when--Plop! I found myself swimming in a deep tank of
+water. The sister heard me fall, and ran back to the camp crying out--
+
+"Help, help! The stranger is drowning in the bath-water sewage tank."
+
+I clambered out, and hastily fled to my tent, where kindly souls brought
+me an indiarubber bath and hot water. I also got some refugee pyjamas,
+in which I wandered about for the rest of the evening. My clothes were
+taken to the kitchen and hung over the big stove.
+
+October 7th. Went to the arsenal in borrowed refugee clothes miles too
+large. Worried the car till it worked. At lunch clothes dry. Got away by
+three, Hardinge coming with us. Night came on before we got home. Our
+car is a beastly nuisance in the dark, the lamps, electric and worked
+from the magneto, only giving light when going at full speed, which is
+impossible on these roads. I was just boasting to Harding that I had
+never run into anything except the owl, when I hit a cow. Figures
+appeared cursing from the darkness; we cursed back for allowing the
+animal to stray; other figures appeared cursing on our side. The motor
+was pushed back, the cow got up and walked off, and on we went. Found Jo
+on night shift. Got some supper, fixed up a bed for Hardinge, and so
+self to bed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LAST DAYS AT VRNTZE
+
+
+Up till now Vrntze was undisturbed by the war; the fine ladies were
+walking the streets much as usual, and were bringing pressure upon
+Gaschitch, the commandant, to make us close one of our hospitals, so
+that it might be reopened as a lodging-house. The chemist and Jan had an
+amusing conversation about the uncle of Nicholas I. It seems he was a
+great poet.
+
+"Sir," said the chemist, earnestly, "I can assure you that he was one of
+the greatest poets that ever has lived. Were Serbian a language as
+universally spoken as is English, he would stand beside Shakespeare in
+the world's estimation, if not before. The depth of his philosophy, sir,
+it is astounding and so deep. There are passages in his poetry which I
+have studied for weeks on end and never yet been able to understand."
+
+The true explanation is that the great poet translated an old work of
+German philosophy into Serbian, and very likely did not understand all
+the original himself.
+
+We got more letters urging us to return. Our studios in Paris and all
+our work of the last eight years seemed in danger of being sold up. So
+Jan went once more to the Chief. He asked us to stay until at least the
+first batch of wounded arrived, for none of the others had had
+experience of the receiving arrangements, and of the disinfecting. We
+moved our beds and baggage to the school, which Jo was to take over as a
+convalescent hospital.
+
+By the way, one of our doctors had a queer soothsaying experience. She
+was told that she was one day going to a foreign country with an S in
+the name. She would be quite safe in her first job, but that she would
+be offered a post in a large grey building from which if she accepted
+she might not escape alive, but in any case would be flying for her
+life, and that she and all her companions would suffer great hardships
+and sleep on dirty straw in awful places. She was offered a job at the
+Farmers' hospital in Belgrade. She refused. It is a great grey building,
+and we now heard that Belgrade was being violently bombarded and all had
+to escape. Rumours came of great German attacks on Shabatz and
+Obrenovatz.
+
+The next day Serbian refugees arrived from Belgrade itself: they said
+that the town was in flames and that fierce fighting was taking place in
+the streets. Posheravatz was deserted, and a great battle was raging
+about its outskirts. There were reports that the King of Bulgaria had
+abdicated and that the Germans at Chabatz had been defeated, leaving
+8000 prisoners in Serbian hands. Neuhat came to Jan in great glee.
+
+"We have captured a German major," he said, "and he says that never was
+there a soldier like the Serb. He has fought English and French and
+Russians, but he says our troops are the most wonderful of all."
+
+"Jolly sensible chap," said Jan. "I'd say the same myself if I was a
+prisoner."
+
+Major Gaschitch told Dr. Berry that if the Serbian army retreated we
+were to retreat with them. Blease and Jan got hard at work putting rope
+handles to the packing-cases and labelling them for special purposes.
+One of our lady doctors was valued in the morning. In the outpatient
+department a question arose about marriage. A Serb patient said--
+
+"I can marry any time I like. Pah! In Serbia one can get two maidens for
+twopence, and three widows for a mariasch (1/2_d._)."
+
+Everybody was now running about with maps, violently explaining the
+situation to everybody else, and all explaining differently. Major
+Gaschitch had fixed Novi Bazar as our probable haven, and Mr. Berry
+borrowed our map to see if there were a direct road over Gotch mountain,
+and suggested that Jan might get a horse and ride over to see. Alas,
+only a fourth-class road was marked, and heaven knows what that may be
+like: lots of country and choose for yourself probably. A woman was
+brought in with what she said was a bullet through the breast; it
+occurred during the celebration of the marriage ceremony, which lasted a
+week. The girl was brought by her father, the bridegroom having rushed
+off to the church to pray. The wound looked very like a dagger thrust.
+
+The new slaughter-house was a fine erection. The walls were almost
+finished and the roof was being assembled. One of the Austrian prisoners
+had discovered a talent for stone carving, and Miss Dickenson was
+designing a frieze for the door and on each side. There was a fine
+ceremony--while we had been away--at the foundation, and Mr. Berry made
+a speech in Serbian. The disinfector had also arrived and was soon got
+into working order.
+
+The news got better. The Austrians were now driven out of Belgrade with
+immense slaughter, the whole line of the Danube and of the Save had
+been reoccupied by the Serbs. Blease and Jan wondered if it were
+necessary to go on with the rope handles. Our first wounded man arrived
+in the evening, a non-commissioned officer, with a slightly wounded
+thumb. He had arrived by train, asked in the town which was the most
+comfortable hospital, and had walked up. We represented that we weren't
+looking for thumbs, but had to put him up for the night; this meant the
+whole business of washing, shaving, and disinfecting his clothes.
+
+We heard that the French and English had arrived in Nish, 70,000 men,
+and that they had been greeted with the wildest enthusiasm; but against
+that was set the fact that Belgrade after all was not quite clear of
+Austrians, in fact, they still held half the town, but that the "Swobs"
+were not getting on at Chabatz. "Swobs" in Serbian are any of a Germanic
+country, while in Austria it is a term of opprobrium, meaning "German."
+One of our "Czech" orderlies said to Jo, pathetically--
+
+"I never thought that I should be called a 'Swob.'"
+
+Next day came a warning that two hundred wounded, serious cases, were to
+be expected, so everything and everybody was in a rush. The bathrooms to
+be cleaned, disinfecting-room and bags to be got ready, wards cleared
+as much as was possible.
+
+The wounded did not come, and the next day they did not come. The
+chemist said that all the Austrians had been driven back, but that the
+Bulgars had at last attacked. Mr. Berry thought the news rather serious,
+and told us that Gaschitch had said that we must be prepared to move at
+twenty-four hours' notice; so back we went to the work on the boxes.
+Next day news was brought that the Bulgars had drawn back, and had said
+that the Serbs had attacked them first, that the Powers had declared war
+on Bulgaria, and that the Russians had bombarded Varna.
+
+At last we got news that the wounded were really coming. We hurried into
+our disinfecting garments--looking like pantaloons,--and scissors were
+served out to all the assistants. It was dark before the first motor
+load came.
+
+The undressing-room was a large white-stone floored room with four long
+plank beds covered with mackintosh; behind was the bathroom. The first
+wounded man was pushed in through the window on a stretcher, a brown
+crumpled heap of misery, and groaning. We laid him carefully on the bed
+while the doctor searched for the wound. While she was examining him a
+second was handed in. No need to examine this one. Bloody head bandage
+and great blue swollen eyelids told plainly where his wound was. We
+stripped the clothes as carefully as was possible from the poor fellows.
+Those who were too bad to go to the bathroom were washed where they lay.
+One orderly with soap and razors shaved every hair from each; and
+several plied clippers on the matted heads. Outside was one electric
+lamp which threw strong lights and darker shadows, making a veritable
+Rembrandt of the scene, lighting up the white clad forms of the
+assistants who were drawing out the stretchers, the big square end of
+the ambulance car, and picking out from the gloom of the garden a rose
+tree which bore one white rose.
+
+The wounded were indescribably dirty, and their clothes in a shocking
+state, all stiff with blood. Jo took charge of the clothes bags, seeing
+that no man's clothes were mixed with any others. The men all seemed
+dazed, each soldier seemed to have the same protest upon his mind. "This
+wasn't the idea at all, I was not to be wounded. Why am I here?" One
+suddenly felt the brutal inanity of modern warfare; one felt that if the
+ones who had started this war could only be forced to spend three months
+in a war hospital, receiving and undressing the fruits of their plots,
+they would have a different view of the glory and honour of battle.
+
+Each man had sewn in his belt some talisman to protect him from
+danger--small brass or lead image or medal, bought from the village
+priest.
+
+There was confusion at first, for almost all were new to their tasks;
+the barbers were carrying stretchers when they ought to have been
+barbering; the clippers were scrubbing instead of doing their proper
+work; but, nevertheless, it was marvellously rapid. The motor tore back
+to the station, and by the time it had returned its first load had been
+washed, shaved, arrayed in clean pyjamas, and either lay in bed in the
+ward, or were waiting their turn outside the operating theatre.
+
+Mr. Berry was hard at work: there were several cases shot through the
+brain, one through the lungs, one through the heart, and one through the
+spine; this latter was paralysed.
+
+Some wounded came in carriages; it was very difficult to get them on to
+the stretchers without giving them unnecessary pain, because of the
+shape of the "fiacres." At last all were passed through.
+
+Do not think us heartless if we rubbed our hands and said, "Some very
+good cases, what!" for emotional pity can be separated from professional
+pleasure, and if these things had to be we were pleased that the serious
+ones had come to us; had not gone to a Serbian hospital.
+
+Next day we sorted clothes. Every uniform had to be taken from its bag,
+tabulated, searched for money or food, and repacked. They were swarming
+with vermin, but we wore mackintosh overalls which are supposed to be
+anathema to the beasties. More operations. One of the men had been hit
+in the cerebellum, and was quite blind. The boy who had been hit in the
+lungs prayed for a cigarette and an apple, he felt sure they would do
+him good. We sorted more clothes. One of the men had a pocket full of
+scissors--evidently regimental barber; another's pockets were crammed
+with onions; a third had a half-eaten apple, as though the fight had
+surprised him in the middle of his dessert. The cerebellum man wanted
+his purse. We could not find it; after exhaustive inquiry found that the
+lung youth had stolen it. Another patient claimed he had lost thirty-six
+francs; so down we had to go once more, search his package--the
+smelliest of the lot--and at last found the money pinned into the lining
+of his coat, also a watch. Jan took them back to him, wound up the watch
+and set it. The grateful owner said that the watch was an ornament, but
+that he could not read it.
+
+The French were never in Nish at all--all lies; but Austrian aeroplanes
+had bombed it and killed several people. The Bulgarian comitaj cut the
+line at Vranja, but had been badly beaten in a battle near Zaichar. The
+flight over Gotch degenerated into a joke, and Jo was commissioned to do
+a caricature of it.
+
+Suddenly a refugee turned up, the hostess of the rest house in Nish. She
+was very worried about the loss of her fifteen trunks, which she had had
+to leave, and which contained all her family mementoes and miniatures.
+She hoped that the scare would only last a few days. The Bulgars had
+occupied Veles though, which was bad news. Another refugee lady from
+Belgrade came in. More patients. Forty-nine for the "Merkur" hospital.
+Lots of running about, but at last all were bedded.
+
+A Serbian comitaj girl came in in the afternoon, looking for a lady
+doctor. She was a fine upstanding creature with a strong, almost fierce,
+face. There had been six of her, she said, but one had been killed. The
+bombardment of Varna turned out to be a lie, but they said that all the
+Bulgars at Vrnja had been surrounded. Major Gaschitch also said that if
+Serbia could hold out till the 10th, something wonderful was going to
+happen.
+
+Our visitors had rather a hard time. One of them was trotting into the
+little sitting-room of the hospital. She opened the door and started
+back aghast. There was a man within clad in nothing but a large pair of
+moustaches. She fled. Mr. Berry having nowhere to examine a stray
+patient had occupied the room at an unlucky moment. More wounded were
+expected, so we got into our war paint, and they arrived five hours
+later than we had expected them. They came in "fiacres," and climbed off
+very easily. We inquired, "Where wounded?" "Belgrade." "When?" "Three
+months ago." Not a serious case amongst them, and we had heard that the
+badly equipped hospitals at Krusevatz were crowded with the most
+frightful cases. We were furious. A lot more wounded came to the "State"
+café. None seriously hurt, and after examination one man had no wound to
+show at all, nor shock, nor anything. He had simply run away. There were
+several hand cases, some blackened with powder, proving that the poor
+devils had shot themselves to get out of it. One man would not have his
+hair cut because he said that he was in mourning for his brother, and
+his hat was decorated with a crown of black lace. At the same time some
+serious cases came to the main hospital; one man seemed to have been
+shot the whole length of his body, the bullet entering at the shoulder
+and emerging behind the hip. A small boy sat scratching. Jo said to him,
+"Why dost thou scratch?" He answered with a shout of fatuous content,
+"I have lice, I have lice," and scratched once more.
+
+The disinfector was working overtime, clothes were poured upon us from
+all the other hospitals. Another alarm that wounded were coming, but
+they never came. In their place an English clergyman arrived from Krag.
+News came of the fall of Uskub, and that Lady Paget had been captured
+with all her staff. Next day the wounded came, many more than had been
+expected. Jan got rather strong signs of inflammatory rheumatism
+threatening, so he went to bed for a couple of days with salicylate.
+
+The Serbian authorities were beginning to lose their heads. In the
+morning they said that the "State" was to be made into a hospital for
+officers, and chased all the patients out; in the afternoon they decided
+that it was not, and chased back the patients--who had been divided
+amongst the other hospitals. Thus they kept us busy and accomplished
+nothing. In the evening another batch of wounded came in.
+
+Nearly all the reports of the previous week were now confessed to be
+lies. A Serbian minister had been dying in the town, and the good
+stories were made up to keep him cheerful. Now he was dead the truth
+leaked out. The Austrians and Germans were advancing on every side, the
+Serbs making no resistance since Belgrade. The Bulgars had occupied the
+whole of the line south of Nish. The French and English were advancing
+with extreme difficulty. The Farmers' unit trailed into the town, no
+conveyance having been arranged for them from the station. The Scottish
+women were already here, having come in the night; they had to sleep
+twelve or fifteen in a room. Next day a small contingent of the wounded
+Allies arrived.
+
+Sir Ralph Paget arrived in a whirl. Leaders of units appeared from all
+sides, and a hurried conference was held.
+
+Mr. Berry called a meeting at two. He said Paget had announced that the
+game was up; that all members of units should have the option of going
+home, and that he (Paget) was going to Kralievo to see about transports.
+Jan got to work on the map, and decided that the best route out would be
+one to Novi Bazar, and thence by tracks to Berane. There were villages
+marked in the mountains which did not seem so high as those by Ipek,
+also the road, if there were one, would be at least two days shorter.
+
+Sir Ralph came back next day, and knowing that we had but lately
+returned from Montenegro, he asked Jan a lot of questions about the
+road, etc. Sir Ralph's latest decision was that all men of military
+age--not doctors--should attempt to cross the mountains into Montenegro.
+He could not say if any transport could be provided, or if there would
+be any means of escaping from Montenegro, and in consequence he advised
+no women to move, as they would be better where they were, than in
+facing the risks of the mountains; they would not be in the same danger
+as the orderlies, for whom internment was to be expected. Dr. Holmes
+decided to accompany us, as he said he wasn't going to doctor Germans,
+and he might be useful to the retreating Serbian army. Ellis also said
+that he would come and would bring his car, which would help us at least
+some of the way. Sir Ralph asked Jan to take charge of the party of the
+English Red Cross, and we went back to our rooms to repack, for Jo had
+already arranged things for internment, Mr. Blease decided to come with
+us. Nobody knew what the dangers would be, or where the Austrians and
+Germans were, and many doubted if it were possible to get through. The
+season was getting late, and snow was daily to be expected. Some
+imaginative people enlarged on "the brigands" and "wolves," but we did
+not think that they counted for much. The chief problems were, if we
+could get shelter each night, and could we carry enough food to support
+us in case we could get none, which seemed very possible.
+
+We got an order from Gaschitch for bread from the Serbian authorities.
+We were going off into country, the real conditions of which nobody
+knew, and our friends took leave of us, many expecting to see us back in
+a few days. The Austrian prisoners were very sad at our going.
+
+The station was dark and gloomy, the little gimcrack Turkish kiosk--like
+a bit of the White City--was filled with Red Cross stoves and beds. Two
+trains came in, but neither was for Kralievo; one was Red Cross and the
+other for Krusevatz. A lot of boys, in uniform, clambered on board and
+shouting out, "Sbogom Vrntze," were borne off into the night. Our
+spirits fell lower and lower. We thought of the friends we were leaving
+behind us, and of what we had before us. The reaction had set in,
+intensified by the gloom and cold of the station.
+
+Hours later the train arrived. The only third-class carriage was filled
+to overflowing, people were standing on the platform and sitting on the
+steps. We tried the trucks. All were crammed so full that the doors
+could not be opened.
+
+"You'd better go to-morrow," said the station-master.
+
+"We're not going through that a second time," we said. "Can't we climb
+on to the roof?"
+
+We scrambled up. There were other men there, lying in brown heaps. We
+made some of them move up a little, stowed our blankets and knapsacks,
+and sat amongst them.
+
+"Are you all right?" shouted the station-master.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Good-bye, then. Lie down when you come to the bridges, or you'll get
+your heads knocked off."
+
+We lay down at once, taking no risks, not knowing when the bridges were
+coming. Luckily the wind was with us, and the night was warm. The engine
+showered sparks into the air, which fell little hot touches on to our
+faces and hands. Later a little rain fell.
+
+Kralievo at three a.m. We did not know the town so Jo stormed the
+telegraph office. The officials tried to shut the door, but she got her
+foot into it.
+
+"When I ask you a polite question you might answer it," she said.
+
+"You can get shelter next door," said one grumpily.
+
+We tried next door. It was crowded, and the heat within was unbearable.
+We saw a door in the opposite wall and opened it--back into the
+telegraph office. There were people sleeping there already, so without
+asking permission we dumped our baggage and lay down on the floor. The
+officials said nothing.
+
+After a while two French generals (or somethings) came in. They were
+refused as we were, but they took no notice, unpacked their blankets and
+lay down under the great central table. With them was a wife, she sat
+miserably on a chair. The room got so stuffy when the door was shut that
+she wished it opened; the draught was so bad when the door was open that
+she immediately wished it shut. Unfortunately she got mixed: the Serbian
+for open is very like the word for shut, and she used them reversed.
+There was much confusion. Just as the officials were getting used to her
+inversions, she corrected herself. More confusion. An English girl came
+in, pushed aside the papers on the big table, and began to brew cocoa on
+a Primus stove which she had brought with her. The officials looked
+helplessly at each other. Jan recognized her as one of the Stobart unit
+from Krag: she had got astray from her band, but was now rejoining them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+KRALIEVO
+
+
+We roused ourselves at seven a.m. A damp, chilly fog was hanging low
+over the valley, it penetrated to the skin, and one shuddered. The
+railway was congested, but train arrived after train, open trucks all
+packed with men whose breath rose in steam, and whose clothes were
+sparkling with the dew. We stepped from the station door into a thick
+black "pease puddingy" mud, as though the Thames foreshore had been
+churned up by traffic. Standing knee deep in the mud were weary oxen and
+horses attached to carts of all descriptions, with wheels whose rims,
+swollen by the mire, were sunk almost to the axles. Across the mud,
+surrounded by shaky red brick walls, the District Civil Hospital showed
+pale in the morning, and we made towards it, splashing.
+
+We came to the lodge: an English girl was doing something to a kitchen
+stove. She stared at us.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"We've just come from Vrnjatchka Banja," we explained.
+
+She took Jo to the hospital, while Blease and Jan dropped their heavy
+luggage and washed in a basin, provided by a Serb servant girl. Jo did
+not return. Jan went to the hospital to look for her.
+
+Crowds of men were at the door, crowds in ragged and filthy uniforms,
+with bandages on arms, or foot, or brow, dirty stained bandages with
+bloodstains upon them. Some of the men were crouching on the ground,
+some were lying against the house, fast asleep. Somehow we got through
+them. The passage was full of men, and men were asleep, festooned on the
+stone stairs. The smell was horrible. Beyond a swinging glass door
+Scottish women were hurrying to and fro bandaging the men as they
+entered, and passing them out on the other side of the building. The
+Serbs waited with the stoicism of the Oriental, their long lean faces
+drawn with hunger, pain and fatigue. Now and again some man turned
+uneasily in his sleep and groaned. A detachment of "Stobarts" had found
+a lodging upstairs, in a bedroom with plank beds; amongst them we found
+some old friends.
+
+Leaving them we went into the village to look for a meal, back through
+the mud. Soldiers, peasants, women, children, horse carts and bullock
+waggons, all were pushing here and there, broken down and deserted
+motor cars were standing in the middle of the road. In the great round
+central "Place" confusion was worse, animals, carts, and refugee
+bivouacks being all squashed together on the market place.
+
+White-bearded officers with grey-green uniforms were gesticulating to
+white-bearded civilians outside the Café de Paris. A motor rushed up,
+disgorged three men in Russian uniform and fled. A small fat man vainly
+endeavouring to attract the attention of a staff officer grasped him by
+the arm; the staff officer shook him off angrily. Soldiers lounged
+against the walls and peered in through the dirty windows....
+
+Within, the big dark room was crammed. Opening the door was like turning
+a corner of cliff by the seashore. Almost all, at the tables, were men:
+officers, tradesmen, clerks, talking in eager tense words. We found
+three seats. Nobody had anything to eat or drink. Three men came to the
+table next to us. They exhibited two loaves of bread to the others, and
+had the air of some one who had done something very clever. We were
+famished.
+
+Suddenly half the café rose and rushed to a small counter almost hidden
+in the gloom of the far end. Coffee can be got, said some one. Blease,
+who could get out the easier, went to explore. In a short while he
+wandered back saying that he had got a waiter. A man came through
+selling apples. We bought some. At last the waiter came.
+
+"Café au lait," said we.
+
+"And bread," we added, as he turned away.
+
+"Nema," he answered, looking back.
+
+"Well eggs, then."
+
+"Nema."
+
+"What have you got?"
+
+"We have nothing but meat."
+
+"No potatoes?"
+
+"No."
+
+We got a sort of Serbian stew, the meat so tough that one had to saw the
+morsels apart with a knife and bolt them whole. As we were operating, a
+soldier leaned up against our table, and stared at our plates with a
+wistful longing. Jo caught his eye. She scraped together all our
+leavings; what misery we could have relieved, had we had money enough,
+in Serbia then.
+
+We paid our bill with a ten dinar (franc) note. The waiter fingered it a
+moment.
+
+"Haven't you any money?" he asked.
+
+"That is money."
+
+"Silver, I mean."
+
+"No."
+
+He hesitated a moment. Then went away, turning the note over in his
+hands. After a while he returned and gave us our change.
+
+The day passed in a queer sort of daze of doing things; between one act
+and another there was no definite sequence. The town itself was in a
+sort of suppressed twitter, everybody's movements seemed exaggerated,
+the eager ones moved faster, impelled by a sort of fear; the slow ones
+went slower, their feet dragging in a kind of despondency. At one time
+we found ourselves clambering up some steps to the mayor's office, in
+search of bread. By a window on the far side of the room was a man with
+a pale face, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and light hair:
+Churchin. We ran to him.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he said gloomily.
+
+We explained.
+
+"I don't think you can get any transport," he said; "but later I'll see
+if I can do anything."
+
+We thanked him. "But transport or no transport, we are going." Jan
+showed him the bread order. He read it and pointed to the Nachanlik.
+
+The Nachanlik read our order, scowled and passed it on to another man,
+an officer. The officer read the order, looked us sulkily from head to
+foot, then he pushed the paper back to us.
+
+"We have only bread for soldiers."
+
+"But--we are an English Mission."
+
+"Only for soldiers here. We have nothing to do with English Missions."
+
+Fearing that we had come to the wrong place we retired.
+
+At another time we were climbing up back stairs to what had been the
+temporary lodgings of the English legation. But it was empty and
+deserted; Sir Ralph Paget had not yet come.
+
+There were bread shops, but they were all shut and guarded by soldiers.
+Jan saw some bread in a window. He went into the dirty café, which was
+crowded with soldiers, some sitting on the floor and some on the tables.
+
+"Whose bread?" asked he.
+
+"Ours."
+
+"Will you sell me a loaf?"
+
+"We won't sell a crumb."
+
+We bought some apples from a man with a Roman lever balance, and chewed
+them as we went along.
+
+At the hospital the "Stobarts" were packing up. A motor was coming for
+them in the afternoon. We heard that Dr. May and the Krag people were at
+Studenitza, an old monastery, halfway along the road to Rashka. On the
+flat fields behind the station were another gang of "Stobarts," the
+dispensary from Lapovo. One Miss H---- was in trouble, for thieves had
+pushed their arms beneath the tent flaps in the night and had captured
+her best boots.
+
+"There are cases full of boots on the railway," said some one,
+consoling.
+
+"But those are men's boots," said another.
+
+Part of the morning we spent sitting on the banks of the Ebar River and
+watching the bridge, wondering if Ellis would come with his car. Ten
+times we thought we could see it, and each time were deceived.
+
+The French aeroplanes came in. They hovered over the town seeking a flat
+place, finally swooping down on to the marshy plain on which the
+"Stobarts" were encamped. They landed, dashing through the shallow
+puddles and flinging the water in great showers on every side. As each
+landed it wheeled into line and was pegged down. Behind them was a line
+of cannons, the Serbian engineers were hard at work, smashing off their
+sighting apparatus, destroying the breech blocks, and jagging the lining
+with cold chisels. Some of the cannon were Turkish. All the morning,
+through the noise of the town, the shouting of the bullock drivers, the
+pant of the motor cars, and the steady tap, tap of the engineers'
+mallets, came the faint booming of the battle at Mladnovatch, not
+fifteen miles away.
+
+After lunch we went again to the café. Again it was full, and we were
+forced to wait for a table. Just as we sat down a woman with a drawn,
+anxious face came up to us, clutched Jo by the arm and said eagerly--
+
+"Is it true that you are going to Montenegro?"
+
+"Yes," answered Jo. "If we can get there."
+
+"Could you give me only a little advice, madame? You see we do not know
+what to do. My husband--he is an old man, and he is an Austro-Serb. If
+the enemy catch him they will hang him."
+
+"I'm afraid he will have to walk," said Jo.
+
+"But he is so old," said the woman, with tears in her eyes; "he is
+fifty."
+
+"We ourselves will have to walk," said Jo. "Make him a knapsack for his
+food. Give him warm clothes. It is his only chance of safety. And," she
+added, "the sooner he gets away the better, for in a little all the food
+on the road will be eaten up, and one will starve."
+
+The woman thanked us. "I will make him go at once," she said, and ran
+out wringing her hands.
+
+A Russian woman with a thin-faced man sat at her table.
+
+"You are going to Montenegro?" she said.
+
+We nodded.
+
+"I too am going. I am a good sportswoman. I have walked fifty kilometres
+in one day."
+
+We looked at her well-corseted figure, her rather congested face, and
+had already seen thin high-heeled shoes.
+
+"I will come with you, yes?"
+
+The little man interrupted. "Why do you say such things, Olga? You know
+that you cannot walk a mile."
+
+We pointed out that we were going to march across the Austrian front,
+and that no one could tell us where the Austrians were exactly; that our
+safety depended to some extent on our speed, and that the failure of one
+to make the pace meant the failure of all. The little man drew her away.
+
+In the afternoon a miserable fit of depression took us, but we pushed it
+behind us. To the hospital for tea, taking with us a tin of cocoa and
+some condensed milk, which the people lacked. Biscuits and treacle, the
+treacle looted from the railway, where an obliging guard had said that
+he could not give permission to take it, but that he could look the
+other way. We heard the tale of Kragujevatz, of the camp and all the
+buildings filled to overflowing. More aeroplane raids; and of the sudden
+order to evacuate. All the wounded who could crawl were got from their
+beds and turned into the street by the authorities to go: if they could
+not walk, to crawl. A few Serb and Austrian doctors were left to guard
+and watch those too ill to go; with them some Swedish and Dutch sisters,
+and the Netherlands flag flying from the hospitals. Dr. Churchin seemed
+to have been the good genius of the Missions, never flagging in his
+efforts for them.
+
+We heard that a Colonel Milhaelovitch was the bread officer. He lived
+somewhere in the back of the big yellow schoolhouse at the end of the
+street. After tea we wandered drearily down to seek him, gained
+permission from a sentry, and clambered up some stone stairs. Jan saw an
+acquaintance from the Nish ministry, asked him a question, and was
+ushered ... straight into the Ministry of War. They seemed in a
+frightful stew about something, an air of disorder reigned everywhere,
+but somebody found time to look at the order.
+
+"Nachanlik," said he.
+
+"We've been there already."
+
+"Well, go there again and say we sent you, and that they must give you
+bread."
+
+We were worn out by this. Jo went off to the plank bed which the
+Stobarts had promised to her, while Jan and Blease to the tents, where
+Sir Ralph's men were sheltering.
+
+All the streets were edged with motionless bullock carts, in which men
+were sleeping, and even in the mud between their wheels were the dim
+forms of the weary soldiery. The two splashed across the marsh and found
+the tents.
+
+Rogerson and Willett were there; Willett was seedy. Another Englishman
+named Hamilton, who had an umbrella which he had sworn to take back
+with him to England. Also two Austro-Serb boys who had been acting as
+interpreters.
+
+West and Mawson were not there. Rogerson said that Sir Ralph had sent
+them with Mrs. M----to see the road and conditions at Mitrovitza; nobody
+knew when they would be back. We got two beds, but there were no
+mattresses on the springs. Jan rolled up in his Serbian rug, but it was
+loosely woven, and not as warm as he had hoped. Just not warm enough,
+one only dozed. About eleven o'clock, Cutting came in with Owen,
+Watmough, Hilder, and Elmer. They had come from Vrnjatchka Banja with
+Dr. Holmes. Some one had told them that we had deserted them and had
+gone off to Rashka on our own; they were cheered to find us still there.
+After that we lay awake discussing details. None of them had realized
+the difficulties of the road and the probable lack of food, though the
+Red Cross men had brought with them a case of emergency rations. Jan
+exposed his idea of the route; somebody said that there was some corned
+beef and rice in a Red Cross train on the siding.
+
+Intermittently in the silences one could still hear the sound of the
+guns.
+
+Next morning at breakfast Dr. Holmes came in. He had thought us gone,
+and so had procured for himself and the sister who was with him, seats
+in a Government motor which was going to Mitrovitza. We all splashed
+across the marshy grass to the siding where the stores were. In the
+empty trucks on the line families were camping, and some had fitted them
+up like little homes. We found the truck, and with efforts dug out
+twelve tins of corned beef, a case of condensed milk, one of treacle,
+and two tins of sugar. We emptied a kitbag and filled it with rice.
+
+The hospital was fuller than ever. The Scottish nurses were toiling as
+quickly as they could, and each man received a couple of hard ship's
+biscuits from a great sack, when his wounds were dressed. He immediately
+wolfed the hard biscuits and lay down; in one minute he was asleep, and
+the hospital grounds were strewn with the sleeping men. From time to
+time sergeants came in, roused the sleepers, formed them into
+detachments, and marched them off.
+
+The Stobarts met us wringing their hands. There was no bread, nor could
+they procure any. Jan took their order, and we promised to see what
+could be done. As we passed the station we saw surging crowds of men,
+from the midst came cries of pain, and sticks were falling in blows.
+
+"Good Lord, what's that?" we cried.
+
+We plunged into the crowd. Some of the men and boys were gnawing
+angrily at pieces of biscuit which they held in their hands. The crowd
+surged more violently, the sticks were plied with greater vigour;
+presently the crowd fell back snarling. The ground which they left was
+covered with the crumbs of trampled biscuit, and the soldiers drove the
+crowd yet further back, beating with sticks and cursing. A bread sack
+being unloaded from a waggon had burst, the hungry crowd had pounced ...
+that was all. As we withdrew we saw the fortunate ones still gnawing
+ferociously at the hard morsels which they had captured.
+
+We took our passes to the mayor once more. He received us angrily.
+
+"I told you yesterday," he said.
+
+"The War Office sent us," said Jan, sweetly, "and said that you must
+give us bread."
+
+"I have no bread," said the mayor. "You must go to Colonel
+Milhaelovitch."
+
+We tramped back to the yellow school. There was no sentry, and a queer
+air of forlornness seemed to pervade. We asked a loiterer for the
+colonel's office. He pointed. We climbed yet another stair and found a
+pair of large rooms; they were empty. Town papers were scattered on the
+floor, one table was overturned.
+
+A man lounged in. "Where is the colonel?" we asked.
+
+"Ne snam bogami," he said, twisting a cigarette.
+
+"Well, find out," said Jan.
+
+He lounged away and presently returned with another.
+
+"The colonel has evacuated," said the other; "he went naturally with the
+Ministry of War to Rashka last night."
+
+We went back in a fury to the mayor.
+
+"You knew this," we cried angrily to him.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Where can we get bread?"
+
+He took up the passes and looked at them. His face lightened.
+
+"This one," he said, turning to another, "is written--Give them bread to
+the value of three francs. We will give them three francs."
+
+"No you won't," said we; "you'll give us bread. You cannot leave these
+English sisters to starve."
+
+After some grumbling he said we could inquire at the "first army." We
+made him write out an order; we also made him give us a clerk to
+accompany us. He gave us a tattered old man whose toes were sticking
+from his boots.
+
+We presented both orders at the "first army." It refused at once. We
+threatened it with the War Office and with the mayor. After some demur
+it sent us across the town again to the "magazine" office.
+
+At the magazine office we were more wily. We presented our little order
+for three humble loaves. He first said "Nema," then admitted that there
+was bread and that we could have it. We then showed the order for the
+other loaves.
+
+"No, no," he cried, "you cannot have all that bread."
+
+We pointed out that it was not much for a whole mission. He still
+refused. So Jo got up and made a little speech. It was a nasty little
+speech, but they deserved it, for we had found that they had bread.
+
+She pointed out that the English Missions had now been working in Serbia
+for a year, gratis; that no matter if we got no transport we were going
+to get to England, and that it would not look well in the English papers
+if we wrote a true account of our experiences, saying that they had
+allowed the English Missions to starve. The threat of publicity finished
+him. He grumbling consented to give us ten loaves in addition to our own
+to last for two days. Not daring to leave them, and to send an orderly
+for them, we rolled them up in Jo's overcoat and staggered down the road
+to the hospital.
+
+On the way we met an old Serbian peasant woman. She walked for a while
+with us, turning her eyes to heaven and crying--
+
+"What times we live in. Only God can help, only God."
+
+At the hospital we met Sir Ralph Paget. He told us that the Transport
+Board had promised him ten ox carts for the morrow. Two large motor
+lorries had turned up to take the two contingents of the "Stobarts."
+They were packing in, and we asked them to take our holdall as far as
+Rashka, for we were still distrustful of the ox carts. We had begun to
+get into a habit of not believing in anything till it was actually
+there.
+
+An Englishman came suddenly in with a face purple with anger and
+swearing. He was the dispenser from Krag who had been left at Lapovo to
+bring on the stores.
+
+"What's the matter?" we cried.
+
+"Brought my motor from Lapovo with the hospital stuff," he said
+furiously. "Left it out there on the road. Came in here to tell you
+about it; and when I go back the cussed thing isn't there. Found all the
+stores in a beastly bullock cart. The people said that a Serb officer
+had come along, turned all our stuff out, and gone off with the motor. *
+* * *."
+
+There was nothing to be done, so we went on packing. An aeroplane was
+seen in the distance; everybody watched it.
+
+"Taube," said somebody.
+
+The Taube sailed slowly round, surveying the town. It passed right
+overhead. Everybody stared upwards wondering if it were going to "bomb,"
+for we were just opposite to the railway station. But it passed over and
+flew away. As it went guns fired at it, and many of the Serbs let off
+their rifles. We have often wondered where all the bits of the shells go
+to, for nobody ever seems to be hit by them, even when they are bursting
+right overhead.
+
+The motor gave several snorts, everybody climbed aboard. The driver let
+in the clutch, there was a tearing sound from underneath, but the motor
+did not go. One of the drivers clambered down, and after examination
+said that it could not go on that day, and they immediately began to
+take it to pieces. The aeroplane came back twice, sailing to and fro
+without hindrance.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANT WOMEN LEAVING THEIR VILLAGE.]
+
+[Illustration: SERB FAMILY BY THE ROADSIDE.]
+
+It is impossible to describe properly the feeling in the town: it was
+like standing in the influence of high-pressure electricity, even in the
+daytime the soldiers in their rags--but with barbarously coloured rugs
+and knapsacks--were sleeping in the hedges and gutters. There were vague
+rumours that Rumania and Greece had finally joined in; many seized upon
+these statements as being true, and one found little oases of rejoicings
+amongst the almost universal pessimism. We ourselves doubted the
+reports. Sir Ralph's ox carts--in an interview with Churchin--dwindled
+down to a possible two; but Jan got a letter in the evening saying that
+there were ten country carts for the next morning. Six were for us and
+four for the "Stobarts," and that we were to take the Indian tents with
+us.
+
+We went back to the tents early to get a good start next day. Rogerson
+and Willett were sorting their clothes. Hamilton had decided, as he
+could not walk, to go back to Vrntze with the Red Cross stores which
+Paget was sending to the hospital. As we were turning in, Dr. Holmes
+arrived. He had not got the seat in the motor, but was going next day.
+Later two mud-bespattered figures came in. They were West and Mawson.
+
+We questioned them eagerly, and although they were worn out they
+answered all they could.
+
+The road was passable. They had scarcely slept for four days, Mitrovitza
+was already crammed with fugitives, and rooms were not to be found. On
+the way back the motor was working badly; the mud was awful. Then the
+petrol ran out. They stopped a big car which was loaded with petrol and
+ammunition, and asked for some. They got a little, and as they were
+going to start the big car suddenly burst into flames: some fool having
+struck a match to see if the petrol was properly turned off. Great
+flames roared up into the air, and it was a long time before the car
+was sufficiently burnt down to pass it.
+
+West said that it was a most marvellous picture.
+
+A little farther on a tyre had burst, and they had been forced to come
+back on the rims. They eagerly welcomed Jan's idea of the Novi Bazar
+route, feeling sure that if they once got to Mitrovitza it would be long
+before they got away, and very doubtful if they could get lodging there.
+
+Again we could hear the guns in the night, and news had come in that
+Krag had been occupied and that the German cavalry were making towards
+Kralievo.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA
+
+
+The men were up before three-thirty to strike the tents, having slept
+but little. Breakfast was prepared and waiting at five-thirty in the big
+hospital bedroom; but the women ate of it alone.
+
+Jo sallied forth to the camp, anxious to know what had happened. She
+found a testy little company. For two hours they had been struggling in
+the dark with tents and waiting for the carts and for a policeman, as
+all the riff-raff of the town was gathering to loot our leavings.
+
+At last the carts were run to earth standing outside the hospital in a
+line--ten little springless carts in charge of a stupid-looking corporal
+who had misunderstood his orders. He moreover refused to move, saying he
+"had his orders."
+
+The indefatigable Churchin was found, and sent him off with a flea in
+his ear. When he arrived at the camp we found a woman and household
+luggage in one of the carts. He said it was his wife, and objected to
+our putting anything into that cart. We told him he would have to lump
+it, and he got sulky; as each extra package was put on a cart he said
+that it would break to pieces. Certainly the tents were very heavy, but
+we had been ordered to take them. When the carts were loaded up to the
+last degree they moved slowly through the mud and drew up at the
+hospital. We were sadly overladen. Our party consisted of Mawson, West,
+Cutting, Rogerson, Willett, Blease, Angelo, Whatmough, Elmer, Owen, and
+Hilder--the last four being our friends of the railway journey from
+Nish. We were thirteen. Temporarily with us also were the two little
+Austro-Serbian boys. The other four carriages were occupied by a doctor
+and three members of the Stobart unit, two "Scottish Women," their
+orderly and a Russian medical student who had been a political prisoner.
+
+Leaving the town was a slow business, as it was being evacuated. Our
+little procession proceeded very slowly. Most of us walked. Jo drove
+with two of the Stobarts, watching from a seat of vantage the packed
+masses of people who wormed their way in and out between the ox carts.
+The road was blocked by some gigantic baking ovens on wheels. Hundreds
+of boys, big seventeen-year-old boys with guns, and little limping
+fellows from thirteen to sixteen, wearing bright rugs rolled over their
+shoulders, were dragging along in single file. Their faces were white,
+and their noses red, sergeants were beating the backward ones along with
+a ramrod. One of them said--
+
+"I have eaten nothing for three days--give me bread." We had no bread,
+but we discovered some Petit-Beurre biscuits, and left him turning them
+over and over.
+
+The whole town buzzed: motor cars, surrounded by curses, insinuated
+their way through the crammed streets; whips were cracking, men were
+quarrelling but all had their faces turned towards the road to Rashka,
+which we realized would be as full as at straphanging time in the Tube.
+The boys passed us, then we passed them. They passed us again. Hundreds
+of Austrian prisoners were being hurried along, goodness knows where.
+Neat young clerks, suit case in hand, elbowed their way through the
+crowd. Young staff officers were walking, jostled by beggars. Jo called
+to an old man who was driving a cart full of modern furniture, his face
+drawn into wrinkles of misery--
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Ne snam," he answered, staring hopelessly before him.
+
+Wounded men were everywhere, tottering and hobbling along, for none
+wanted to be taken prisoners. Some had ship's biscuit, which they tried
+to soften in the dirty ditch water, others were lapping like dogs out
+of the puddles. Sometimes a motor far ahead stuck in the mud, and we had
+to wait often half an hour until it could be induced to move. Gipsies
+passed, better mounted and worse clad than other folk, some of them half
+naked. Many soldiers had walked through their opankies and their feet
+were bound up with rag. Why in this country of awful mud has the opankie
+been invented? It is a sole turned up at the edges and held on by a
+series of straps and plaited ornamentations useless in mud or wet, which
+penetrates through it in all directions.
+
+We arrived at an open space and halted for lunch. Water had to be
+fetched. It trickled from a wooden spout out of the hill and before our
+cooking pot was filled we were surrounded by thirsty soldiers, who were
+consigning us to the hottest of places for our slowness. Cutting
+displayed a hitherto buried talent for building fires. We unpacked the
+food and soon a gorgeous curry was bubbling in an empty biscuit tin with
+Angelo, Sir Ralph Paget's chef, at the spoon. A leviathan motor car
+lurched by containing all that was left of the Stobart unit. Another
+monster passed, piled with Russian nurses and doctors. A face was
+peeping out at the back, eyes rolled upwards, moustaches bristling. Was
+it? Yes, it was--"Quel Pays"--but he did not recognize us.
+
+[Illustration: THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA.]
+
+The baking ovens appeared again, and we felt we had stayed long enough.
+Some of our party were very fagged after their various adventures since
+leaving Nish, so they climbed on to the carriages wherever there was a
+downhill. The road wound up a narrow stony valley down which was flowing
+a muddy stream. The trees on our side of the river were still green, on
+the other bank they were bright orange, blood red and all the tints of a
+Serbian autumn. The road full of moving people was like another river,
+flowing only more sluggishly then the Ebar itself. For us in future, the
+autumn will always hold a sinister aspect. These trees seemed to have
+put on their gayest robes to mock at the dreary processions. At
+intervals by the roadside sat an ox dead beat and forsaken by its owner
+as useless.
+
+Dusk came, bringing depression; the travellers on the curly road looked
+like mere shades. Coat collars went up and hands were pocketed. Little
+camp fires began to twinkle here and there on the hillsides. We came to
+a large open space where many fires blazed, respectfully encircling a
+French aeroplane section. Opposite was a high peak topped by a Turkish
+castle. There we wished to halt, but the corporal said we must push on,
+as he wished to get food for the horses. After we had passed the castle
+the dusk grew rapidly darker and the road narrower and more muddy.
+Although camp fires twinkled from every level space, the never ending
+stream of fugitives seemed to grow no less. Darkness only added to the
+tragic mystery of the flight. The bullock carts poured along, the
+soldiers crowded by.
+
+A horse went down, the owner stripped the saddle off, flung it into a
+cart and cursing stumbled on into the darkness. The carts following took
+no notice of the poor horse but drove over it, the wheel lifting as they
+rolled across its body. We shouted to the owner; but he was gone, so we
+turned one or two of the carts off, and made them go round. But we could
+not stay there all night. The horse was too done, and too much injured
+by the cruel passage to move, so Jan reluctantly pulled out his
+"automatic" and, standing clear of its hoofs, put two bullets through
+its brain. It shuddered, lifted two hoofs and beat the air and sank into
+a heap.
+
+On we went progressing for mile after mile in the mire, but never a
+house did we see, nor a spot to camp on. At last the corporal gave up
+the quest for hay, and we were faced with the problem of spending the
+night on a narrow road bounded on one side by cliffs beneath which ran
+the Ebar, and on the other by an almost perpendicular bank. The night
+was black, the mud a foot deep, and a stream ran across the road. The
+carriages drew up in single file and we discussed the sleeping problem,
+while Cutting cooked bovril on an ill-behaved Primus stove. Our drivers
+had to sleep on the carts. The women also had carts to sleep in; and the
+Scottish women offered Jo a place in their already well-filled carriage.
+The men were fitted somehow into the rest of the carts, while Jo, Jan,
+and Blease found a ledge below the road, and though it was very
+squelchy, they spread a mackintosh sheet and rolled up on it in their
+rugs.
+
+No sooner were they really settled and sleeping than a voice said,
+"You'll have to get up: an officer says the carriages must move on--the
+King is coming." It was West. We sat up. Between us and the dim lights
+of the carts the black shadows of the crowds passed without end.
+
+"I'll go and talk to them," said Jo; and unrolled herself, struggled and
+fumbled with her boots and floundered into the blackness, where a
+mounted officer was delivering orders. Shouts could be heard, lights
+waved, horses whinnied, splashing their feet in the puddles as they were
+being violently pulled here and there, and our poor little carts were
+moving ahead into obscurity. Jo told him they were a Red Cross
+party--that the carts were small, and couldn't they stay where they
+were? The officer inspected the poor little carts, made his best bow,
+and said, "Yes, they can stay."
+
+But the corporal did not listen to Jo's orders. He belonged to a country
+which rates women and cattle together, and the carts moved relentlessly
+on. With difficulty Jo found the ledge again on which Jan was sitting
+with the rugs, talking to the scenery in a manner which was not pretty.
+
+Blease came up, and the three of us shouldered the things and stumbled
+off to find the vanished carriages, which were half a mile down the
+road. Jan flung his baggage on to somebody and soundly boxed the
+corporal's ears, calling him a "gloop." Instantly the corporal felt that
+"here was a man he could really understand," and from that moment became
+a devoted adherent, studying our slightest whim, and at intervals humbly
+laying walnuts before us.
+
+A man came up to Jan.
+
+"I believe that man is drunk," said he; "I said that your carts might
+stand."
+
+"Who are you?" said Jan.
+
+"I was once the conductor of the Crown Prince's orchestra," he said;
+"now I am traffic superintendent. It is difficult. I had a horse, a
+jolly little brown horse, but he gave out and I had to leave him behind
+on the road." There were tears in the man's voice. "He was a good
+horse, but it was too hard for him. Now I have to walk."
+
+"I shot your horse," said Jan. "They were driving over its body."
+
+"He was a nice horse," said the man again, "a nice horse, and now I have
+to walk. Well, good-bye, you can rest here."
+
+He splashed away in the mud.
+
+Our new sleeping place was worse: the mud was deeper, the road narrower.
+Jo tried to escape the mud and made for the roadside, but the ground
+moved under her and some muttered curses arose. She was walking not on
+grass but on crowds of sleeping boys, and very nearly trod on a face. We
+settled down again on our mackintosh sheet but did not sleep. Some
+soldiers were firing off guns and throwing bombs into the river all
+night. Near us lay Owen, who coughed for a couple of hours, after which
+he gave up the spot as being too wet, and lay in a cart on Whatmough's
+face.
+
+It rained, Jo had the fidgets, and Jan expostulated. The mackintosh was
+too small for us and we got gloriously wet. It is a curious feeling--the
+rain pattering on one's face when trying to sleep. By the time one
+becomes accustomed to the monotony of the tiny drops--_splash_ a big
+drop from a tree. Water collects in folds of hat or rug, and suddenly
+cascades down one's neck.
+
+At four in the morning the corporal crept up submissively to ask if we
+might move on, as the horses were cold and hungry. Only too glad, dark
+as it was, we rolled up our damp bundles and put them in the waggons
+with the sleeping people, who awoke, pink-eyed and puzzled at the sudden
+progress forward of their uncomfortable beds. Whatmough, who was
+convinced that the bombs and gunshots of the night before were spent
+Austrian shells sailing over the hill, said--
+
+"That's the first time I've ever liked a fellow sleeping on my face."
+
+One of the Stobart nurses, who had used the remains of the hay as a
+pillow, had been awake all night trying to prevent a hungry horse from
+eating her hair along with the hay. With determination she had donned a
+Balaklava helmet and trudged along all day in it, even later when the
+sun came out. Blease, too, started the chillsome dawn in a Balaklava
+wearing shawlwise a rug that had been made of bits of various coloured
+woollen scarfs. Jan used as a protection from the rain Jo's white
+mackintosh apron filleted round his head with a bit of string and
+dangling behind with a profusion of tapes and fasteners.
+
+Under his khaki great-coat and about a foot longer he wore a white
+jaconet hospital coat. Jo had a pair of roomy ski boots into which she
+had fitted two pairs of stockings; one had been knitted for her by a
+Serbian girl, and they were so thick and hard that no suspender would
+hold them up, so they stood, concertinawise, over the boots. One of our
+drivers, a witch-faced old man, had a dark red cloak with a peaked hood;
+and West having lost his hat had donned a Serbian soldier's cap, which
+he was taking away as a curiosity. His arm was giving him pain. It was
+very red and inflamed and no one knew what was the matter with it.
+
+We travelled for an hour or so, and then everything on the road came to
+a standstill--something was in the way. Half an hour passed, nothing was
+done. Several miles of drivers were talking, gesticulating, and
+blaspheming; so Jan took on the job of traffic superintendent, and after
+a time, with a little backing here and twisting there, the problem was
+solved and we moved on. Still no hay stations could be found, and we
+were also hungry, having had no breakfast. We passed a mound covered
+with thousands of Austrian prisoners waking up in the twilight. Another
+hill was black with boys. Still no station. Then we saw some haystacks
+being taken to pieces by various drivers. Our ten coachmen ran to the
+stacks and came back with loads of hay which they packed in the carts.
+In five minutes the haystacks existed no more.
+
+"Better not leave that good hay for the Swobs," said the corporal, as he
+whipped up the horses. We passed a dressing-station. It was a sort of
+laager of ox carts over which flew the red cross. Wounded soldiers were
+sitting and lying on the grass everywhere, while doctors and nurses were
+hurrying to and fro with bandages and lint.
+
+Water was difficult to find. At last we stopped at the top of a hill in
+a furious wind. The water which we got from a stream looked filthy, but
+we boiled it thoroughly in a biscuit tin, and Angelo again presided over
+a magnificent curry filled with bully beef, while we hit our toes on the
+ground to keep warm. A wounded soldier was brought up by a friend. He
+had not been attended to for days, and we did the best we could for him.
+
+A carriage passed laden with two tiny boxes--a policeman on either side.
+Although the boxes were small the carriage seemed so heavy that the
+horses could scarcely drag it, and two well-dressed men who were riding
+on the carriage often had to get out and push. We wondered if the boxes
+were filled with gold. The dreary processions of starving boys shuffled
+up again; some were crying, some helping others along, one had an
+English jam tin hanging round his neck. Sir Ralph Paget appeared in a
+motor car, loaded with packages and three other people. We stopped him,
+and he told Jan that at Novi Bazar he could get no information of the
+path which Jan suggested, and added that he advised us to come to
+Mitrovitza. The Scottish women were to give up the idea of a
+dressing-station in Novi Bazar and to stop at Rashka. The Serbs had told
+him that there was a good chance of Uskub being retaken, in which case
+we could all go comfortably to Salonika by rail. In the other case,
+there were three roads out of the country from Mitrovitza, which he
+thought better than trusting to one road, if it existed.
+
+Jan told him that the carriages were giving way under the strain of the
+tents, two of the axle struts having broken; and he suggested that if we
+did not jettison the tents, some of the carriages would probably never
+get as far as Rashka. Sir Ralph told him to do what he thought best.
+
+So we pitched the two heavy tops and the long bamboo poles overboard,
+keeping the sides.
+
+"Oh, what are you doing with our tents?" said one of the Scottish
+nurses.
+
+This was complicated! We understood the tents were Sir Ralph's.
+
+All the men swore they were Sir Ralph's tents, they had seen them at
+Nish. The "Scottish Woman" said she knew the tents well, and they had
+cost £50 each. The men from Nish still claimed the tents, and said that
+war was war and they had left thousands of pounds' worth of stores,
+tents, etc., and had been obliged to discard even motor cars.
+
+"And very extravagant it was of you," she said.
+
+Jan pointed out that if we did not leave the tents we should very
+shortly have to discard both tents and carts, which would be even more
+extravagant.
+
+She reluctantly cheered up, and we drove away in the sunshine. Before we
+turned the corner we could see an excited mass of soldiers, peasants,
+and boys rushing to the tents with their clasp knives. Perhaps, as
+coverings, they saved many people's lives on the cold nights to come.
+
+[Illustration: RETREATING AMMUNITION TRAIN.]
+
+More and more exhausted oxen were to be seen lying by the roadside. A
+huge cart drove over one. We all arose in our seats, horrified--but the
+old ox was all right, still chewing the cud. Over the cliff lay the
+smashed remains of a cart--its owners were flaying the dead horse. A
+peasant with bowed head led his cart past us. Drawing it was one ox--its
+partner was in the cart, lifting its head spasmodically--finished.
+Quantities of carts passed us filled with furniture, baths, and
+luggage. A smartly dressed family was picnicking by the roadside,
+sitting on deck-chairs. Colonel P---- and Admiral T---- slipped by in a
+shabby little red motor. They stopped and told us they were going to
+Rashka. It was good to see English faces again. A familiar figure went
+by. It was the brave young officer from Uzhitze. We gave a lift to a
+footsore lieutenant, who laughed as we trudged in the mud.
+
+"Ah, English and sport," he said.
+
+Crowds were congregated round a man who was carrying over his shoulder a
+whole sheep on a spit and chopping bits off for buyers. On a hillside a
+woman was handing out rakia. We thought she was selling it, but were
+told that it was a funeral and she was giving rakia to all who wanted
+it. Starving Austrian prisoners rushed for a glass and were not refused.
+The Crown Prince passed, touching his hat to fifty kilometres of his
+people. This time we were not going to be caught by the darkness, so we
+stopped near a village at half-past three. The sides of the two tents
+made good shelters for us. They were set up, looking like two long
+card-houses, and we used bits of canvas for flooring, very necessary, as
+it was so wet. Our fires were quickly made with superfluous tent pegs,
+and the rice bag was again drawn forth. A groaning soldier with
+bloodstained bandage asked us to help him. His arm had not been dressed
+for some time. The doctor with us at first thought he had better not be
+tampered with; but finally agreed to look at his wound, which was
+bleeding violently.
+
+She tore up a towel and bound him up tightly. He said he was going to
+Studenitza, a long day's walk, though he was nearly fainting.
+
+On the hill opposite was a huge encampment of boys. As the darkness grew
+all disappeared but the light of the fires. It looked like an ancient
+battleship with the portholes on fire. We slept, the women fairly
+comfortably, but the men were overcrowded.
+
+Heavy rain came on and poured through the top of the card houses.
+
+"Now I know what the men suffer in the trenches," said a very young
+girl, when she awoke in a pool of water.
+
+"Guess you don't--they'd call this clover," said a sleepy voice.
+
+Looking our oddest we trudged off in the gloom and wet of next morning,
+leaping across rivulets of water which hurtled down the roads. West's
+arm was worse, Willett was recovering from a bad chill, Mawson had not
+yet got a decent night's rest for a week--every one longed for a house.
+
+"Dobra Dan," said a voice. It was the friend of the wounded man we had
+bound up the first day.
+
+"Where is your friend?" we asked.
+
+"I lost him," he answered.
+
+We climbed for three hours then waited, blocked. A military motor had
+stuck deeply in the mud and the wheels were buzzing round uselessly, so
+we helped to dig her out. Every one's inside cried for breakfast, and
+when at last we found a swampy plain, Whatmough and Cutting flung
+themselves upon an old tree trunk and cut it up for firewood.
+
+We always had "company" to these picnic meals, hungry soldiers, mere
+ragbags held together by bones, crept around us and learnt for the first
+time the joys of curry and cocoa.
+
+As we came round the corner into sight of the town a large block of
+temporary encampments stretched away beyond the river to our left.
+Beyond them was a flat plain on which was a large tent with a red cross
+painted over it. High behind the town towered a grey hill on which was a
+white Turkish blockhouse, for though where we were driving had always
+been Serbia, Rashka lay just on the boundary. We drove into a narrow
+street, presently coming to a stop where two motor cars blocked the
+way.
+
+The Commandant from Kragujevatz, who had promised transport to all
+English hospitals, was standing on the road. He seemed very flustered
+and bothered lest we should want him to do something for us. We assured
+him we wanted nothing except bread, for neither we nor our drivers had
+had bread for three days. The colonel shrugged his shoulders and made a
+face.
+
+"You might get it perhaps at the hospital."
+
+Another officer, in a long black staff coat, laughed. He pulled a hard
+biscuit out of each pocket, looked at them fondly and pushed them back
+again.
+
+"I've got mine anyway," he said. "Bread is ten shillings a loaf if you
+can buy it."
+
+Annoyed by the colonel's manner Jo began to mount her high horse and
+became blunt. He was instantly suave.
+
+He seemed dismayed at our idea (to which we still held) of going to Novi
+Bazar before Mitrovitza to see if really no route existed there.
+
+"Impossible," said he; "bridges are broken between Rashka and Novi
+Bazar, and there is no route through the mountains from there."
+
+We remembered that the country had been under Turkish rule there years
+before, and guessed that probably the Serbs had not yet been able to
+exploit new and lonely routes. At every side in the streets were faces
+we knew, the head medical this and the chief military that.
+
+Our personal carts went off in charge of the corporal, who was looking
+for bread from the Government, for of course all bread shops were shut
+permanently.
+
+The Scottish sisters had not found a refuge, and messengers kept on
+coming back saying this place was full and that place had no room.
+
+Colonel G---- became even less likable. It seemed as though there were
+no organisation of any kind in the town. At last, when dark had well
+fallen, a man said a room had been cleared for them in the hospital. The
+motor cars moved slowly off and we told the rest of our carts to follow,
+as Colonel G----said we might get bread at the same place. We stumbled
+after them through pitch black streets, so uneven that one did not know
+if one were in the ditch or on the road itself; one lost all sense of
+direction and only tried not to lose sight of the flickering lights of
+the carts. Jo at last climbed into one, and the carts rumbled over a
+wooden bridge and began to go up a steep hill. We came suddenly to a
+rambling wooden house and our carts dived into a deep ditch. Jo leapt
+off just in time to save hers from turning right over. Crowds of wounded
+Serbians were standing at the foot of a rickety outside staircase. Above
+was a dressing-station, and a dark smelly room with no beds, which was
+to be the sisters' home. We could get no bread and so went out once more
+into the dark. We did not know where our carts had gone, but some one
+said if we went in "that" direction we should find them. On we went
+uphill, losing our way in a maize field. In front of us were hundreds of
+camp fires. At the first we asked if they had seen the English. They
+shrugged their shoulders in negative. We asked at the next; same result.
+We had the awful thought that we should have to search every camp fire
+before we found our people, but luckily almost fell over Mawson, who had
+been fetching water. We were going in quite the wrong direction and but
+for this lucky meeting might have wandered for hours.
+
+A good fire was blazing in front of the tents. An Austrian prisoner cut
+wood for us in exchange for a meal. He came from a large encampment
+whose fires were blazing near by. Dr. Holmes and a sister emerged
+through the smoke; they had at last got a cart and horse. With them was
+an Austrian subject flying for his life. He had lived for years in
+Serbia, his sympathies and ancestry were Serbian, but if the Austrians
+got him he would be hanged. We wondered if it was the husband of the
+frantic woman at Kralievo, but did not ask.
+
+One went early to bed these nights. The men spread out into two
+card-houses while Jo was hospitably given a real camp-bedstead in a
+corner of the Stobarts' kitchen, on the floor of which slept their men
+and also West, whose arm was getting worse.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+NOVI BAZAR
+
+
+We awoke to find where we were. The little encampment which we had seen
+to our left on entering the town, was now far on our right. The flat
+plain--where was the large tent with the red cross painted over it--had
+been our bed, the tent behind us; to our right was the brown hill topped
+by the old Turkish blockhouse; and in front a cut maize field with its
+solid red stubble sloped directly to the river, beyond which lay the
+village massed on the opposite slope up to a white church. Immediately
+below us on the river edge were the roofs of the "Stobarts'" refuge and
+of the Scottish women's hospital. Poplar trees in all the panoply of
+autumn sprang up from the valley with their tops full of the blackest
+crows, who cawed discordantly at the dawn. Our fire had gone out, but
+the Austrian had left enough wood, another was quickly started; but we
+found that Angelo in making his curries had melted all the solder from
+the empty biscuit tins and not one would hold water. So there was a
+hurried transference of biscuits from a whole one.
+
+From where we sat sipping our cocoa, we could see the hurried coming and
+going of motors in the main square, and groups of bullock waggons and
+soldiers about the fence of the church. A great street which split the
+village in two from top to bottom--the old Turkish frontier--was almost
+empty. The corporal proposed to visit the military commandant in search
+of hay and bread. So Jan dragged on his wet boots and set off with him
+down the hill, collecting Jo from the "Stobarts" on the way.
+
+We crossed the rickety wooden bridge, passed between the _alfresco_
+encampments--like travelling tinkers--of waggoners and soldiers which
+lined the roads, up the great frontier street and so into the square.
+All that now was SERBIA was concentrated in this little village. Private
+houses had suddenly become ministries; cafés, headquarters; and shops,
+departmental offices. The square was the central automobile station, and
+cars under repair or adjustment were in every corner. Beneath the church
+paling a camp of waggoners had a large bonfire and were cooking a whole
+sheep on a spit. Austrian prisoners with white, drawn faces were
+wandering about, staring with half unseeing eyes; a Serbian soldier was
+chewing a hard biscuit, and a prisoner crept up to him begging for a
+corner of the bread; the soldier broke off a piece and gave it to him.
+
+About the gate of the commandant's office were gathered Serbs and
+Austrians all waiting for bread. We pushed our way in. The hay was
+quickly arranged, but the bread was another matter.
+
+"We have no bread," said the commandant.
+
+"But," we objected, "all those men waiting outside. They would not come
+here if you had no bread."
+
+The commandant pulled his moustache.
+
+"We have bread only for soldiers."
+
+There was a sudden commotion outside. The door was burst open; two
+soldiers entered dragging with them a man--a peasant; his eyes were
+staring, his face blanched. We then noticed that he was holding his
+shoulders in a curious manner, and realized that his arms were bound
+with his own belt. The two soldiers pushed him into an inner room, but
+the officials were busy, so he was stood in a corner.
+
+"What has he done?" we asked.
+
+"We have only bread for soldiers," repeated the commandant. Bread was
+evidently the most important.
+
+"We have a Government order."
+
+He scanned it, pounced upon the three franc phrase and offered us money.
+We pointed out that bread was indicated to the value--
+
+"We have no bread for the English," he said at last.
+
+Jo once more made the nasty little speech which we had found so
+effective at Kralievo. It worked like a charm. An enormous sack filled
+with loaves was dragged out and from it he choose three. We mentioned
+the man once more. The commandant shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"He's going to be killed," he said. "Some soldiers looted his yard and
+he shot one."
+
+He then asked the corporal if he would take flour instead of bread. The
+corporal agreed, adding that in that case, of course, they would get a
+bit more.
+
+"Of course, you won't," said the commandant.
+
+We sent the corporal back to the camp with the loaves, and with a little
+trouble found the house where Colonel P---- and Admiral T----had
+lodgings. It was a gay little cottage, and both were at breakfast. They
+welcomed us and generously offered us their spare eggs, though eggs were
+scarce. The admiral had a large-scale map--made, of course, by
+Austria--and we hunted it for our road. Paths were marked quite clearly,
+and houses at most convenient intervals. It seemed a far superior path
+to the Ipek pass, both regarding shelter and length.
+
+"But," we said, "Sir Ralph suggests that we go to Mitrovitza, because
+the Serbs say that Uskub will fall in a few days."
+
+"I should get out of the country as soon as you can," said one.
+
+"It is exceedingly unlikely that Uskub can fall," said the other. But
+they promised us as definite information as they were allowed to give if
+we would return for tea, by when the aeroplane reconnaissance should
+have come in.
+
+We went back to the camp with the news.
+
+Colonel G---- came up and tried to wipe out the impression which he had
+made the evening before. He repeated that Uskub must certainly fall
+within the week, and that we should be very silly to go off to Novi
+Bazar, which we could never reach because the bridge had been washed
+away.
+
+All the hill behind was crowded with Austrian prisoners. They had
+received one loaf between every three men, and said that it had to last
+three days. They did not know where they were going. Blease went through
+their lines, and at last found an old servant--a Hungarian. He was a
+stoic.
+
+"One lives till one is dead," said he.
+
+The hospital was doing a brisk trade in wounded: sisters and doctors
+both hard at work. The "Stobarts" were resting, and had built a camp
+fire outside the door of their hovel. We got lunch ready, ruining
+recklessly another biscuit tin. While we were eating it a Serb came
+near.
+
+"I am starving," he said.
+
+We gave him some curry and rice. He devoured it.
+
+"To-morrow," he said, "I go back to commando."
+
+We pointed to his hand, which was bound in dirty linen.
+
+"But?"
+
+"It is better to go back though wounded than be starved to death."
+
+We also held a court of justice. A driver complained that one of the
+Englishmen had given him a pair of boots and that the corporal had taken
+them.
+
+"CORPORAL!!"
+
+He came grinning. We exposed the complaint.
+
+"Certainly the man had a pair of boots," said he; "but he has them no
+longer. Now, they are mine, I have taken them."
+
+"But they were given to him."
+
+"But I have taken them. I needed new boots." He exhibited his own, which
+were split.
+
+We told him that possession by capture was not recognized in our circle,
+and ordered immediate restitution. He agreed gloomily, no doubt feeling
+that the foundations of his world were falling about his ears, and what
+was the use of being a corporal anyway?
+
+In the afternoon we sought out the motor authorities, finding our old
+friends Ristich and Derrok in command. They easily promised us transport
+for Sir Ralph Paget's box and henchmen--no trouble at all they said. Yet
+had we not known them personally we might have waited a month without
+help. One is irresistibly reminded at every turn that the Near East
+means the East near the East and not the East near the West.
+
+We went to the English colonel's, but no news was yet forthcoming, and
+we were, after a jolly tea, invited back at eight.
+
+The camp was in darkness by the time we reached it once more. The fire
+lit up the men sitting about it, and the two inverted V's of the tent
+entrances; very faintly behind could be seen the outline of the line of
+little tented waggons. We had collected an additional member, Miss
+Brindley of the "Stobarts." She was very keen to get home, as her
+parents were anxious, and both her brothers at the front. Jo gave one
+look at her and said "Certainly." She had rushed immediately into the
+town and had laid in a stock of beans and lentils, as her contribution
+to the common stock. They were all she could buy.
+
+After supper back to the colonel's, and at last got definite news. It
+was unlikely that Skoplje would fall, and very little use loitering in
+hopes. The colonel advised Jan to get his party out by the best route
+possible, and we took a grateful farewell.
+
+Coming back to the camp Jan had a nasty half-hour. Should we go by
+Mitrovitza, or should we go by Berane? In the first case there was the
+long route, the difficulty of getting lodgings and of transport, the
+risk of falling behind the Serbian General Staff, and of finding the
+country bare, the high passes of Petch and the snow; Willett was only
+just recovering from a bad chill, West's arm had grown much worse, and
+had been operated on in the morning by a doctor with a pair of scissors
+_faute de mieux_--a most agonizing process. On the other hand, the
+Berane route was unknown to the authorities, and might have fallen so
+into decay that it was useless; we did not know where the Austro-Germans
+were, and they might be already on the outskirts of Novi Bazar; if any
+of us fell ill we should certainly be captured. It was a toss up.
+Finally he asked the others. They said--
+
+"What you think best. You know the country."
+
+We finally decided to go to Novi Bazar and make inquiries. If there were
+no road we could go thence to Mitrovitza, and would only have lost a
+day. If, as the colonel said, the bridge was washed away, we could
+probably ford the river.
+
+Then to bed. One could not sleep really well, for the rugs did not give
+sufficient warmth, and the chill striking up from the ground penetrated
+everything.
+
+Took the road to Novi Bazar next day. Miss Brindley joined us with a
+parcel of blankets and a knapsack and a mackintosh lent by a friend. She
+had lost her boots, or the local cobbler had lost them, but most
+appropriately a motor had arrived and on it was a pair of new soldier's
+boots unclaimed. She took them, cut the feet of a pair of indiarubber
+Wellingtons and pulled them over her stockings, and put a smile on her
+face which never came off in spite of any fatigue.
+
+Hilder and Antonio went off with Sir Ralph's box. The "Stobarts" wished
+us good luck, and away we clattered over the rickety bridge, up through
+the town and out into the Novi Bazar road. The surface was fairly good,
+and the day turned brilliant. We had left the six sisters and their
+luggage behind with their respective units, and so had four extra
+waggons to carry our stuff. We rattled along cheerily, only dismounting
+at the occasional patches of mud which we met.
+
+After a while we decided to lunch. We came to a café and halted.
+
+"Have you coffee?" we asked.
+
+"Ima."
+
+"Will you give us all coffee?"
+
+"We have no sugar," said the hostess; so we had no coffee.
+
+We got out a tin of biscuits and lunched on those. As we were passing
+them round a soldier stopped.
+
+"What are you selling those for?" he asked, under the impression that we
+were a travelling shop. We gave him some, to his great astonishment.
+
+On we went again. Down below us in a field the corporal spotted a
+hayrick. Like stage villains the coachmen clambered down the hill, each
+with a rope--spoil from the discarded tents. They attacked the rick and
+soon nothing was left. As they staggered back, each hidden beneath an
+enormous load of hay--looking themselves like walking ricks--a Turk in
+black and white clothes ran down from above furiously brandishing a
+three-pronged fork.
+
+"What are you doing?" he yelled.
+
+The corporal stood stiffly and said--
+
+"It is war. We are the State. It is of no value for you to preach."
+
+The owner went dolefully down the hill, and stood looking at where his
+stack had been.
+
+"We have again prevented those Germans from stealing good hay," said the
+corporal with satisfaction. Each cart looked not unlike a hay wain
+returning from the fields, and we scrambled up on to the top feeling
+like children in the autumn. After we had gone a mile we began to wonder
+why we had given the owner no compensation: evidently the corporal's
+influence was turning us into scoundrels.
+
+At last the broken bridge. Only a shallow stream across which our carts
+splashed joyfully. On the other side was a small church with a beautiful
+blue tower. And soon we were in the outskirts of Novi Bazar, the most
+ordinary town of the Sanjak, combining the dull parts of Plevlie with
+the dull parts of Ipek. There was a stream down the middle of the road,
+in which some of the inhabitants were washing, while one sat on his
+haunches holding up a small looking-glass with one hand and shaving
+himself.
+
+We bustled off to the mayor's office. Found him as usual in a back
+street in a shabby office up shaky wooden stairs. The mayor knew nothing
+of any road to Berane; so baffled, we again found the street. We went
+to the shabby Turkish shops of the bazaar and inquired.
+
+"Certainly," said the shopkeepers, "a good path to Berane, and not high.
+No; not so high as that by Ipek."
+
+We returned to the mayor's office. He seemed little inclined to consent,
+and demanded to see our pass. Jo again made her little--but so
+useful--speech. The mayor called in an Albanian. After a long
+consultation the mayor said that he had no horses.
+
+"Then we will take our carriage horses," said we.
+
+"There are no roads for carriages," said the mayor.
+
+"Then we will take the horses without the carriages."
+
+The mayor called in two more men: they considered the pass once more.
+
+"You may have the carriages two days more," he decided at last. "Go to
+Tutigne. As far as that the carriages will travel. There are many horses
+there, and you can get pack ponies."
+
+Coming out we ran into Colonel Stajitch of Valievo. The colonel is a
+Serbian gentleman, fine figure, beautiful face, and white hair and
+moustaches. He greeted us, asked us our news. We told him of our
+projected journey. He became thoughtful and after a while said good-bye.
+We took our convoy through the town to a field on the outskirts where
+we pitched the camp.
+
+We borrowed the corporal's axe and hewed for some time in a thorn hedge,
+without getting much profit but many prickles, and finally decided to
+take a paling from a Turkish cemetery, for there was no one about.
+
+Soon we had a jolly fire, and Cutting and Whatmough got to work on the
+food. Dr. Holmes turned up. He had arrived the day before and had found
+lodgings in an inn. West's arm was still inflamed and very painful. The
+doctor looked at it and said it needed more incision. West and Miss
+Brindley went off with him.
+
+An old ragamuffin wandered up with a loaf of maize bread. He offered it
+to the corporal for three dinars; but the corporal took it away and gave
+him two. The old man made a great outcry. We demanded the cause. The
+unlawful corporal was again hailed to justice, his corporalship seeming
+more valueless than ever, and to give him a lesson we bought the bread
+for three dinars, for it was worth it.
+
+We suddenly discovered that none of the Red Cross men had papers or
+passes. What was to be done? We were conniving at an almost unlawful
+expedition, and Jan was very doubtful if we could cross the Montenegrin
+frontier. But after a consultation we decided to bluff it into
+Montenegro if necessary, and then telegraph to Cettinje to help us out.
+
+It was now dark and West and Miss Brindley had not come back. So Jan and
+Jo went off to look for them. We searched two cafés--meeting again with
+our old acquaintance the schoolmaster from Nish--plunged into all sorts
+of odd corners, and at last met Colonel Stajitch in a restaurant. He
+greeted us.
+
+"I have a great favour to ask," he said diffidently. "If I might I
+should like to give to you a little appendix. It is my son. He is
+seventeen, but is very big for his age. If the Austrians catch him I do
+not know what will become of him."
+
+We were introduced to the boy, and at once consented.
+
+"I will decide for certain to-morrow," said the colonel. "Can I meet you
+at seven o'clock?"
+
+We hunted once more for West. Ran him to earth at last in the Hotel de
+Paris. This hotel could perhaps have existed in the Butte de Montmartre,
+but even there it would have been considered a disgrace. We had to pass
+through a long room crammed with sleeping soldiery, stepping across them
+to get to the door opposite. Every window was tight shut, and after one
+horrified gulp we held our breath till we reached the interior
+courtyard. Here, too, were sleeping men, and all along the balconies and
+passages were more.
+
+We found Holmes' room. West was there, rather white and just recovering
+from the anæsthetic. We sat down. Dr. Holmes had thought of coming with
+us, but the authorities had looked suspiciously at his passes, which
+were made out to Mitrovitza, so he decided to go on there. We wished
+that he had come, as a doctor would have been a great comfort had we
+really needed him.
+
+After a rest West was well enough to go back to the camp.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE UNKNOWN ROAD
+
+
+As we stood around the camp fire drinking our cocoa a queer ragged old
+Albanian crept up and watched us with a smile. He was the owner of the
+house near by, whose palings we had almost looted. We offered him cocoa,
+which he liked immensely; and asked him about the road to Tutigne. He
+said--
+
+"There is a road for carts--I know it."
+
+"Will you show it us?" said Jo.
+
+He gave a wild yell and ran away, waving a stick.
+
+"What ----?!!!! ----"
+
+It was nothing, only the pigs had invaded his cabbage patch. He came
+back later with an enormous apple, which he presented to Jo.
+
+"Have you apples for sale?"
+
+He shook his head, saying "Ima, ima."
+
+We bought several pounds, arranged with him to guide us later to the
+carriage road, and hurried into the town to buy provisions.
+
+There we met Colonel Stajitch. "Will you take my boy?"
+
+"Delighted. Are his papers in order?"
+
+The mayor hereupon turned up, and the colonel's face grew longer as they
+conversed.
+
+"The mayor cannot give me the necessary permits without Government
+sanction," he said. "I must get it from Rashka by telephone. It will
+take an hour. Can you wait?"
+
+We spent the time shopping. Each shop looked as empty as if it had been
+through a Saturday night's sale. One had elderly raisins, another had a
+few potatoes. We found some onions, bought another cooking pot and
+kitchen necessaries, and packed them in the carts which had arrived in
+the town. Nobody would take paper money unless we bought ten francs'
+worth. After waiting an hour and a half we hunted down the colonel. The
+telephone official told us he had got leave from the Government. At last
+we found him in the mayor's office, bristling with papers and the
+passport.
+
+"I have got you an armed policeman as escort," he said, waving the
+papers, "and the boy has a good horse, twenty pounds in gold, and twenty
+in silver."
+
+We found the boy waiting with the carriages. He wore a strange little
+brown cashmere Norfolk jersey and very superior black riding breeches.
+Dressed more romantically he would have made an ideal Prince for an
+Arabian Nights' story. His father accompanied us until our Albanian
+guide announced--
+
+"Here begins the carriage road."
+
+Their parting must have been a hard thing. The father could not tell how
+his son's expedition would end, and the son was leaving his father to an
+unknown fate. They embraced, smiling cheerily, and the boy rode on ahead
+of us all, blowing his nose and cursing his horse.
+
+In many places the "carriage road" was no road at all. The carts lurched
+and bumped over rivers, boulders, fields, and the inevitable mud.
+Several times we had to jump on our carts as they dragged us over deep
+and rapid rivers. After three hours we stopped at a farm, our mounted
+policeman called out the owners and autocratically ordered two of the
+young men to accompany us as guides and guards.
+
+They came, bearing their guns, white fezzed, white clothed, black
+braided youths with shaven polls and flashing teeth. We began to climb,
+and for hours and hours we toiled upwards. The carriages lumbered
+painfully far behind us, led by their elderly and panting drivers.
+
+"If this is what they call a good and easy road," we thought, "it would
+have been better to harness four horses to each cart, and to have left
+five carts behind."
+
+The horses came from the plain of Chabatz, and had probably never seen a
+hill in their lives.
+
+"These horses will die," said the corporal; but he seemed more
+interested in hunting for water for himself than in the struggles of the
+poor beasts.
+
+One of our Albanian guides was overwhelmed with the beauty of Cutting's
+silver-plated revolver.
+
+"How much did you pay for it?"
+
+"Thirty francs," said Cutting, shooting at the scenery.
+
+Jan produced his automatic, but the Albanian scorned it as one would
+turn from a lark to a bird of Paradise. He turned the glittering object
+over lovingly, thought, felt in his pockets, drew out a green and red
+knitted purse, and shook his head.
+
+"I will give you thirty francs."
+
+But Cutting wasn't on the bargain. He pocketed the treasure again, and
+we plodded on.
+
+"How far are we from Tutigne?" we asked.
+
+"Four hours," said a dignified Albanian, who had joined our party.
+
+"No, two hours," said another.
+
+"Three at most," corrected a third.
+
+The first man lifted his hand. "I say four hours, and it is four hours.
+With such horses as these we crawl."
+
+We reached a desolate tableland at dusk. Here the horses halted for some
+while. With the halt came a sudden desire to stay there for good. It
+seemed as if we should never reach Tutigne. The evening brought with it
+chilly damp breezes, and the footsore company was getting quite
+disheartened.
+
+"Let us camp here," said everybody.
+
+But the policeman had a mailbag to deliver that night, and we had to
+push on. Experienced as we were in Serbian roads, never had we seen such
+mud. Down, down sank our feet, and we could only extract them again
+clinging to the carts with the sound of a violent kiss. We tried to
+escape it by climbing into the thick brushwood, only to find it again,
+stickier and more slippery, while the bushes grasped us with thorny arms
+and athletically switched our faces. A moonless darkness came upon us
+and we had to walk just behind the carriages, peering at the square yard
+of road illuminated by candles in our penny lanterns.
+
+Occasionally a voice greeted us. We asked how far Tutigne was.
+
+"About an hour," was the invariable answer all along the line.
+
+But the dignified guide was right. After four hours we reached the main
+street, arriving slowly to the music of incredible clatter as our little
+carts leapt and jolted over hundreds of big pointed stones laid
+carefully side by side--Tutigne's concession to Macadam.
+
+There were faint lights in some of the little wooden houses. Others
+stood dark and unfriendly. We stopped. Curses filled the air. An ox-cart
+was lying right across the road. After shouting himself hoarse the
+policeman woke up an old man in a house near by--the owner. He
+rheumatically grumbled in his doorway; so the gendarme called our
+Albanians, and in two twos they had turned the cart upside down in a
+ditch, saying--
+
+"It serves you right."
+
+Voices sounded in the darkness. The carriages lurched on. Presently they
+left the road and turned on to grass, they seemed to be leaving the
+village behind. We did not know where they were going, and were so tired
+that we did not care, if only they would get somewhere and stop, which
+at last they did. We jumped off into a squelch of water.
+
+"Good heavens, this won't do!"
+
+We searched the whole field for a dry spot, but though it was a
+hillside, it was a swamp. We chose the least marshy place and built a
+fire.
+
+"Where is the mayor?" we asked of the strange faces dimly to be seen in
+the light of our fire.
+
+They pointed to two cottage window lights. We went towards them, at
+last realizing our proximity by stumbling into a dung-heap and knocking
+against a pig-stye. There was a narrow stairway, and above it a big
+landing. A man followed and knocked at a door for us.
+
+The mayor appeared--a little man--square in face, hair, beard and
+figure.
+
+We explained ourselves and showed our letter. He looked grave at our
+demand for horses; said we would talk it over on the morrow, and
+sympathized about the swampy field.
+
+"Would you like to sleep here on the floor?" he said, showing us a
+clean-looking office. "We regret we have no beds."
+
+We were delighted. His wife, who had gone to bed, appeared in a striped
+petticoat and a second one worn as a shawl.
+
+"The tables shall be moved and the stove lit," she said. "It will be
+ready in a few minutes."
+
+We picked our way back to the fire, avoiding the dung-heap and pig-stye,
+whereby we nearly fell into a cesspool. Cocoa was brewing, one
+card-house had been erected as a shelter for some of our things. The
+drivers were crouched round their own fire cooking something. It was
+difficult to find our bundles in the carts as one only recognized them
+by the drivers. We climbed in feeling about by the light of a match. Jo
+found a foot in one.
+
+"How can we find things with people lying on them?" she said to the
+foot.
+
+It remained immobile; she pulled it--no response. She tugged it. A face
+lifted itself at the far end of the cart. It was the corporal's wife
+lying on her own possessions, very tired and rather cross. Jo patted her
+remorsefully and decamped.
+
+We must have looked like a regiment of gnomes bearing forbidden treasure
+as we hobbled through the darkness, laden with our bundles of blankets.
+The light in the office nearly blinded us, and the heat from the stove
+struck us like a violent blow. The mayor, his wife, two hurriedly
+dressed children and several other people received us. There was an
+awkward silence. Jo murmured in the background--
+
+"It is manners here to go up, shake hands, and say one's name."
+
+Very uncomfortably everybody did so, one by one. Another silence. We
+racked our brains--the weather--our journey--the war. One had nothing
+sensible to say about anything. Jo asked the children's age. The
+information was supplied. Silence. We filled the gap by smiling. At last
+the mayor's wife said we must be worn out, and they all left us.
+
+The mayor crept back. "Don't talk about the military situation," he
+said; "if these Turks knew it they might kill us all." Then he shut the
+door.
+
+We flew to a window and opened it, changed our stockings, hung wet boots
+and socks over the stove, ate bully beef, and rolled up, pillowing our
+heads on our little sacks--thirteen sleepy people.
+
+The mayor's wife opened the door an inch and peeped at us as we lay,
+looking, indeed, more like a jumble sale than anything. Mawson wore a
+Burglar cap tied under his chin, and a collection of khaki mufflers,
+looking equipped for a Channel crossing. Miss Brindley's head was tied
+up in a bandana handkerchief; Jo's in a purple oilsilk hood; others
+shared mackintosh sheets and blankets; West pulled his Serbian cap right
+down to his mouth. Jan put on the white mackintosh dressing-coat, over
+that his greatcoat, then he spread out a red, green, yellow and black
+striped Serbian rug, rolled up in it with many contortions, and pushed
+his feet into a tent bag. Blease in a Balaklava, showing nose like an
+Arctic explorer, got into a black oilskin, one corner of which had been
+repaired with a large yellow patch, he then rolled up in oddments
+collected from the company, as his own overcoat had been stolen, and
+bound it all together by tying the many coloured knitted rug around him,
+after putting the lamp out inadvertently with his head.
+
+In the morning we interviewed the mayor. He read and reread the letter
+from the Novi Bazar mayor, took an interest in the social supremacy of
+Stajitch's father, who was a man of birth, but said he had no horses.
+
+Jo appealed to his better feelings. He scratched his head.
+
+"Yes, truly one must try to help the English," he said, but looked very
+glum.
+
+"I will have the neighbouring hamlets searched for horses."
+
+We thanked him and wandered into the village café. An old man with black
+sprouting eye-brows à la Nick Winter, was sitting there. He had walked
+for five days, eating only apples.
+
+"Very good food too," he said. "Here is my luggage."
+
+He pointed to a knotted handkerchief containing a tiny loaf of bread
+which he had just acquired. His goal was a monastery in Montenegro,
+where he said they would house and feed him for the winter in exchange
+for a little work.
+
+At 11.30 three horses were brought. Three more were promised, so we
+reluctantly decided to start the next day. There was nothing to do.
+
+Our carriages went. We gave the corporal a card-house to take back to
+Rashka with little faith that he would not try to stick to it. He had
+not returned the boots to their owner, so we took them from him and
+gave them to their rightful owner, and handed over to the corporal a
+spare pair of our own boots to keep him honest.
+
+At dawn Stajitch, who had been sleeping in style upon a friend's table,
+came to say we had six horses, but a professor had turned up in the
+night and was coming with us. He had been so exhausted with the walk
+that his policeman had carried him most of the way. Not pleased, we went
+to inspect him. He was small, corpulent, and was sitting with clasped
+woolly gloves, goloshed feet, and a diffident smile.
+
+He explained to us that he was delicate, and as he was no walker it
+would be necessary for him to ride one horse. So we packed our food,
+sacks, blankets, mackintoshes and the card-house as best we could on the
+remaining five horses.
+
+No sooner had we left the village, and all signs of road or bridle path,
+with a new policeman and two or three ragged Albanians, than one of the
+horses broke loose and began to dance--first the tango, then the waltz.
+The pack, which was but insecurely attached, stood the tango, but with
+the waltz a bag of potatoes swung loose at the end of a rope, its
+gyroscopic action swinging the horse quicker and quicker until it was
+spinning on one toe. Then the girths broke, saddle and all came to the
+ground. The brute looked round as if saying "That's that," and cantered
+off, followed slowly by the professor on horseback. We called. He
+appeared to take no notice. At last he turned round saying--
+
+"The horse will not."
+
+Jo leapt in the air kicking.
+
+"Do that with your heels," she said.
+
+But we had to send the policeman to help him. He rode hour by hour,
+hitting his beast with a bent umbrella, and lifting two fat hands to
+heaven.
+
+"Teshko" (It is hard), he whined.
+
+"_Ni_ je teshko" (It is not hard), said Miss Brindley, cheerfully
+trudging along.
+
+We wanted to stop at the top of a hill for lunch.
+
+"Horrible," he said. "Here the brigands will shoot us from the bushes,"
+and pushed ahead, being held on by the grinning policeman.
+
+We pulled out some biscuits and margarine, and drank water from our
+bottles, cigarettes went round, and we charged ahead. In front was the
+professor falling off his horse and being put on again.
+
+We were very anxious about the frontier. Most of our party were
+travelling without official permits, as they had known nothing about
+such things; but we hoped that being English Red Cross and having
+passports there would not be much trouble. We arrived at a little
+village, three or four wooden houses. Three pompous old men came to meet
+us, and we took coffee together outside the inn. They were very
+surprised to hear we were English, and said that no English had ever
+passed that way before.
+
+At the frontier, an hour further on, a man and his wife came down from a
+little house on the hill and stopped us. They examined the papers of the
+two Serbs, but left us alone, to our huge relief. We breathed again.
+
+Soon after, however, Whatmough rushed up to Jan and Jo, who were talking
+to a ragged woman.
+
+"Do come and talk. An officer has arrested West and Mawson."
+
+We ran ahead to find a perplexed mounted officer surrounded by our
+party. He had come upon West and Mawson walking on ahead and took them
+to be Bulgarian comitaj.
+
+"No, that's not an English uniform," he said, and searched them for
+firearms. When the others came he wavered. Miss Brindley did not look
+like a comitaj; and by the time we arrived he began to talk about the
+military situation in the Balkans, and rode off with the politest of
+farewells.
+
+If there isn't a telegraph wire to guide, don't take short cuts. Jan,
+Stajitch, and Jo tried to race the darkness by cutting straight down a
+ravine. We lost the horses, lost every one else, and we came out again
+on to a hill crest. No one was to be seen. After a while the professor
+rode by, led by his policeman, who had been almost suffocated by
+laughter all day.
+
+"Teshko, teshko," moaned the professor.
+
+"Ni je teshko," we said. "But where are the horses?"
+
+He waved a hand vaguely behind him. Rogerson, Whatmough, and Owen came
+up. It was getting dark and a mist was rising. So we left the three at
+the corner to mark where it was and went back. For a long time we
+stumbled in the darkness, shouting, but no horses could we find. At last
+we decided to turn back, wondering if they too had lost their way and
+decided to camp out. There were shouts in the valley beyond. A light
+flashed and some one fired off a revolver. There was a candle end in
+Jan's bag, and by its dim light we found a road. It went downwards, so
+we thought it might be the right one. Suddenly it turned in the wrong
+direction, but as there were hoof marks on it we decided to follow it as
+it must lead somewhere--we could not search the whole countryside with a
+candle. Just as we were in despair the road seemed to shake itself and
+twisted back again. We heard more shouting and saw a light, and at last
+found Miss Brindley and Mawson, who were waiting for us.
+
+"We have been to the village," they said.
+
+We asked them about the horses. They said they were all there!!!!
+
+That professor again!
+
+Some one heard trickling water, and with a cry of joy we put our mouths
+under the jet of water which spouted from a little trough which jutted
+from the hill. Nothing could be seen of the village when we arrived, but
+it seemed very long and very stony. An old peasant with a candle led us
+for what seemed miles between high palisades of wood until we reached
+the inn.
+
+There was a big room with a stove in the middle and many Montenegrins in
+uniform were sitting about. Some of our party were already asleep, worn
+out on the benches. We opened a tin of beef, got some bread and kaimack
+and woke up the others for their evening meal. While we were eating a
+Montenegrin staff officer said--
+
+"Your commandant, the professor--"
+
+"What?" said we.
+
+"Your commandant, the professor, has said you will rest here to-morrow."
+
+We told him the professor was no commandant of ours, and that we
+certainly would not rest there to-morrow.
+
+"Well," said the staff officer, "he has certainly ordered horses for the
+day after from the captain."
+
+We were too tired to rectify matters at once, and our meal finished, we
+rolled up on the dirty floor.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE FLEA-PIT
+
+
+Those comfortable folks who have never slept out of a bed do not know
+how annoying a blanket may be, if there is nothing into which to tuck
+its folds. Wrap yourself up in one, lie flat and motionless on the
+floor, and we guarantee that in an hour the blanket has unrolled itself
+and is making frantic efforts to escape. Every night on the road
+resolved into a half-dazed attempt to hold on to the elusive wrap. Sleep
+came in as a second consideration, and when we say we awoke on any
+particular morning, it really means that we got up, though several of us
+in the intervals of blanket catching did get in a snore or two.
+
+Well, we got up, then, in good time next day, hoping to rectify the
+professor's interference, and stumbling along with Stajitch, we reached
+the high-roofed "Dürer" dwelling where resided the commandant of the
+village. In the kitchen we found two women with bare feet, two children
+and a man half undressed. He brought in the captain, also in negligée.
+Now, mark, we were in Montenegro. We exposed our grievance to the
+captain and roundly denounced the professor as an interfering old
+beggar. The captain first gave us coffee, second hurried us to his
+office, third called in three henchmen and issued rapid orders.
+
+"Certainly, certainly. You shall have all the horses you need. Just only
+wait one little quarter of an hour. I will give you four policemen to go
+with you."
+
+We protested that four was too many.
+
+"No, no," he said, "you had better have four."
+
+We went back joyfully to the hotel. Cutting or one of the others had
+been exploring and had gotten twenty eggs. The hotel people consented to
+cook them. While we were outside looking at the mosques and wondering
+when the horses were coming, the professor walked into the bar-room.
+
+"Ah," said he, "eggs."
+
+"They belong to the English," said the hostess.
+
+"Good," said the professor, and swallowed four.
+
+Just then we returned.
+
+"But there are only sixteen eggs," said we.
+
+"The professor has eaten the others," said the woman, pointing.
+
+In a minute the professor wished that he had not. Jan took the
+opportunity of saying a few things which had been boiling within him. He
+accused the wretched man of interference in assuming control of the
+expedition; he said that he was a mere hanger-on, and a useless and
+selfish one at that.
+
+The professor wilted. He made a thousand apologies, and finally ran off
+wringing his fat hands, found with great difficulty four more eggs and
+cast them into the boiling water.
+
+"There," he said, "you can have your four eggs."
+
+"It's not the eggs," answered Jan, "it's you."
+
+Jo was roaring with laughter. Some of the morning she had been in a
+woman's house listening to one of the policeman's tales of the
+professor, and soon the whole village was rocking with amusement at
+"Teshko."
+
+At last the horses arrived--six miserable-looking beasts, but this time
+all had shoes. One was commandeered by the professor.
+
+"He is the greatest philosopher in all Serbia," whispered an official to
+Jan.
+
+"Ah, I guessed there must be some reason," said Jan.
+
+We had a send-off, all the village came to see us go away. The day was
+a repetition of our previous experiences. A long tramp in the mud. At
+the top of the highest pass we had yet reached was an old wooden
+blockhouse.
+
+We came upon it unexpectedly, rounding a corner. Montenegrin soldiers
+were cooking at a wood fire; but we were surprised to find all round the
+square log cabin deep rifle pits, the best we had yet seen in Serbia.
+
+"Good Lord, what are those for?" said Jan.
+
+"This is an old Turkish post," said the sergeant. "It has been kept up.
+We don't know why."
+
+We walked off meditating. Montenegrins do not squander soldiers without
+reason; and then one's mind went back to the four armed guards who were
+accompanying us.
+
+We discovered the truth later, let us tell the story here.
+
+Berane, to which we were descending, was once a populous growing Turkish
+town. After the Balkan war it fell into Montenegrin territories. The
+Montenegrins chased out all the Turkish landowners, who fled to these
+mountains, where they formed bands of brigands and caused no little
+consternation and trouble to the authorities, who could not catch them.
+The authorities passed a little Act, reinstating the landowners in
+their territories; but when an attempt was made to put the Act into
+force, it was found that the authorities themselves were in possession
+of the lands. What was to be done? The blockhouse was the solution.
+
+We stopped at a primitive café and lunched. Jo gave the children some
+chocolate. They did not know what it was. She smeared some on to the
+baby's lips, and after that it sucked hard. Soon the little girl licked
+hers; but the boy, more suspicious, would not eat, holding the lump till
+it melted into a sticky mass in his fingers. The scenery was very
+beautiful. There was a faint rain which greyed everything, and the near
+birches had lost all their leaves and the twigs made a reddish fog
+through which could be seen the slopes of the opposite hillsides. The
+professor began to be worried about the rain.
+
+"If this should turn to snow," said he, "we would be snowed up. And I am
+sure I don't know what I should do if I were snowed up."
+
+We hoped to reach our halting place, which was called Vrbitza, before
+dark; but it was further away than our informant had said. Once more we
+found ourselves floundering about in the mud of the village path after
+dusk. We reached houses which we could not see; walked over slippery
+poles set over heaven knows what middens. Clambered up creaky steps
+into the usual sort of dirty wooden room--and there, his stockings off,
+warming his toes at the blaze of the wood fire, was "Eyebrows."
+
+We were immediately attracted by three paintings on the wall. They were
+decorative designs, very beautiful. We asked the proprietor who had done
+them.
+
+"I did," he said.
+
+"Will you sell them?" we asked.
+
+He giggled like a girl. "Ah, who would buy them?" he said.
+
+"We will."
+
+"I couldn't let you have them for less than sixpence," he said. "You see
+the papers cost a penny each."
+
+Whatmough coveted one, so he had his choice, we took the other two.
+
+The policeman came to tell us that rooms had been prepared in two clean
+houses. We scrambled out into the dark again, stumbled along in the mud,
+and at last found an open square of light, through which we came into a
+room.
+
+There was a red rug over half the floor, and a brasier on three legs
+filled with charcoal standing in the centre. One or two of our men had
+already found the place and were lying on the rug. In one corner was a
+large baking oven like a beehive, half in one and half in the room next
+door. A wide shelf ran from the beehive almost to the open door. There
+were two small windows, each about the size of this book wide open. Jan
+and Jo sniffed. Where had they smelt that odour before?
+
+An old woman in Albanian costume crept up to Jo and caught her by the
+skirt.
+
+"See," she said, dragging her into the next room, "here is a fine bed.
+The ladies will sleep with me this night."
+
+Jo looked at the old lady's greasy hair and filthy raiment.
+
+"We always sleep with our own people," she said firmly.
+
+The old lady protested. All the while our men were packing the baggage
+beneath the shelf. It was a tight fit, but at last it was got in.
+
+The professor entered once more on the scene.
+
+"This house will do very well for the common people," he said, "but the
+Herr Commandant" (meaning Jan) "and the two ladies will come over to
+sleep with me."
+
+"No, we won't," said Jan, Jo and Miss Brindley in one voice.
+
+"Then what will you do?"
+
+"We will give you two policemen, or all four if you like. We will pack
+in here somehow. You can take the other house all to yourself."
+
+"That will not do," said the professor. "If you are all determined to
+sleep here, I too, will come here. You will need somebody to protect
+you."
+
+Jo's back went up.
+
+"If you are afraid to sleep in the other house," she said, "you can
+sleep here with us. But if you are coming here to protect us, we don't
+require _you_."
+
+"But you do not understand," said the professor kindly, as if to a
+child: "there is danger. You will need me to protect you."
+
+"Not in the least," answered Jo. "If you will say that you are afraid,
+we will offer you our shelter. Otherwise you can have all four policemen
+at the other house."
+
+The professor was afraid to say that he was afraid, so after stating
+that we were curious people, he went off with the guards.
+
+With great difficulty we packed in. Cutting and Whatmough were forced to
+climb on to the shelf and the brazier was pushed out of the room. One by
+one we rolled up in our rugs, made pillows out of a pair of boots or a
+cocoa tin, cursed each other for taking up so much space, and at last
+all were jammed together like sardines. It was like the family in the
+drawing: If father says turn, we all turn.
+
+We did not rest well. Thirteen people in a room which would comfortably
+hold three was a little too close packing. There was a lot of grumbling
+coming from one corner, and after a while a light was struck.
+
+"Good lord," said somebody, "my pillow's crawling!"
+
+Bugs were cascading down the walls. Stajitch jumped to his feet, and
+began stamping hard. "Rivers of them," he yelled.
+
+Cutting and Whatmough were groaning about the heat, so we opened the
+door. Immediately all the dogs of the village, half wolves, hurled
+themselves at the lighted space. Stajitch slammed it just in time; had
+they burst in, lying down as we were, we should have been unable to
+protect ourselves.
+
+A dark face peered in between the baking oven and the wall, a swarthy
+Albanian face. It looked at us and then silently withdrew.
+
+"It doesn't matter," said somebody at last, "we've got to stick it."
+
+We roused up neither rested nor refreshed. The room seen in the dim
+light of the morning seemed even more revolting than it had been the
+night before. We demanded the bill, it was brought--five francs for
+apples which we had bought. And for the room? Nothing. We gave our host
+three francs extra, and he bowed, putting his hands to his bosom and
+kissed our palms.
+
+There was a good stiff clay soil waiting for our tiring feet, and by the
+time we reached Berane, there was no thought of going further. Almost
+every one was exhausted.
+
+We reached the shores of the river. The bridge had been washed away, but
+the inhabitants had made a boat like a sort of huge wooden shoe which
+they dragged to and fro with ropes. We clambered in and were hauled
+over. Our baggage had not yet arrived, so Jan and Stajitch ordered lunch
+for the others and went down to see about it. Just as they were landed
+on the opposite bank the rope broke. So all the Montenegrins and
+Albanians who were working the ferry went off to a midday meal, leaving
+the two with the pangs of hunger growling within, sitting on the bank.
+
+After two hours' waiting the rope was repaired, and they got back to
+lunch famishing. We then arranged sleeping places and locked up all the
+baggage in an empty shop. Our room was one of those ordinary Montenegrin
+bedrooms plastered with pictures. Amongst them was a postcard, and on it
+was printed large in English in blue crystalline letters, "Never
+Again."
+
+Whence did it come, this enigmatic postcard, and what did it mean? It
+seemed almost a solemn warning; yet in a hotel bedroom. What did the
+hostess think it meant?
+
+"Never Again."
+
+Some of the men came in cheering, having found Turkish delight in one of
+the shops. We were sadly needing sugar, as our last tin had been stolen
+along with lots of other things. So we indulged in "Turkish" not wisely.
+
+The professor got up to his old games again. Again he had told the
+commandant that he was leading the British, and that we would rest the
+next day, and again Jan had to pick him off his perch.
+
+Some got a bed that night, the others had to sleep "in rows," half under
+the beds and half projecting out. The people on the beds said it was a
+funny sight.
+
+When we unpacked at night we found who had been robbing us. The
+policemen. We had missed many more things, but found that the amount
+varied in direct ratio to the number of police who guarded us. All our
+spare boots were now gone, Blease's overcoat, and also Miss Brindley's.
+Jo had lost her only other coat and skirt, and one or two mackintoshes
+were missing. Now we knew why the police wore long-skirted coats; but
+what a disappointment the one must have had who lifted Jo's coat and
+skirt.
+
+Got off again in good time the next morning. Cutting and three others
+stayed behind to look after the police. Lucky they did, because one of
+the horses wore out, and the police would have left it on the road, pack
+and all. As it was we left the horse grazing, but the baggage was
+transferred.
+
+There had been a decentish level road made from Andrievitza half way to
+Berane, and women were working hard on the extension in the hopes of
+getting it finished for the Serbs; but that they could never do, for
+there were but few of them. Further on many of the bridges were
+unfinished, and in one or two places a landslide had carried away the
+road itself, leaving a deep clinging mud in its place, but we were
+getting used to mud.
+
+We met "Eyebrows" once more, just at the entrance to the village; but he
+was going on to Pod, so had finally got a day ahead of us. Found rooms
+in our old resting place.
+
+The professor was threatening to accompany us to Italy--he was like the
+old man of the sea. We got a telegram from the English Minister, saying
+that he did not think we could ever get to Italy from Scutari. We
+preferred to trust to our luck which so far had been wonderful,
+especially in the matter of weather. In the evening the captain sent to
+say that twenty horses would await us the next day. A motor car would
+have been sent, he added, but almost all the bridges were washed away
+and they could get no nearer than Liéva Riéka.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+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]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+INTO ALBANIA
+
+
+We caught the mayor in the morning. He was in his shirt-sleeves and he
+said that the auto had been arranged for. It came and we packed in. On
+the back perched a boy who outsmelt any Serb we had ever found. It
+seemed impossible that a human could so smell and yet live. Suddenly the
+boy drew a packet from his pocket and the smell became intolerable. He
+unwrapped a piece of cheese and, gasping for breath, we watched it
+disappear. When it had gone we breathed more freely, but the odour still
+clung to the youth, and we were not sorry when the auto pulled up at the
+village of Plavnitza on the edge of the lake. A man, who said that he
+had been sent to help us, dragged us to the telephone office. He worried
+the instrument for a while and announced that the boat would be here in
+two hours. It would have come earlier, but somehow they couldn't make
+steam get up. We expected it to come in four, and so went off to get
+something to eat.
+
+The lake was very high, coming right up to the road. All the low fields
+were covered with water as far as one could see. The girl at the inn was
+shuddering and shivering with malaria, and we gave her some quinine. At
+last the steamer came.
+
+We had to pack into one of those cockhat boats, as the quay was
+separated from the village by half a mile of water. When we got to the
+steamer, the captain leaned over the side and shouted--
+
+"Where are the mattresses?"
+
+"What mattresses?" said the harbour-master.
+
+"When are you going to start?" demanded we, clambering on board.
+
+"When I get the mattresses," said the captain.
+
+"But what mattresses?" replied the harbour-master.
+
+"I was sent to get mattresses," said the captain, "and here I wait till
+they come."
+
+This was a nuisance, nobody had said anything about the mattresses.
+
+"I shan't go till to-morrow anyhow," said the skipper.
+
+"I think we'd all better go back to Podgoritza and come again
+to-morrow," said the man in charge.
+
+"We don't move from here," said Jo, firmly. "If he won't go we'll sit on
+this boat--which was sent for us--and sing songs all night so that he
+shan't sleep."
+
+The captain refused to move without the mattresses and we refused to go
+back, so a violent argument ensued. We remained adamant. At last in
+despair the harbour master said that he would go and telephone. Night
+was coming on, the deck was chilly, so Jan went to explore. The quay was
+half under water, but by jumping from stone to stone one could get
+about, and Jan discovered an entrance into the stone storehouse. The
+door was boarded up, but he forced his way in, discovering a huge empty
+interior banked up well above the water. At one end was a platform made
+of boards on tubs. An ideal bed. He called the company and they arranged
+themselves on the planks, though some were dismayed at the prospect of
+getting no supper. The boards were loose and as each took his place they
+bobbed up and down. Miss Brindley said that it seemed like sleeping on
+the keyboard of a piano. We did not expect to see anything before
+morning of the harbour-master or of Stajitch who had gone with him; but
+just as we were settled and beginning to snore and the rats were running
+about, Stajitch poked his head through the window and said that the boat
+was going immediately. We reluctantly got up, for we were really rather
+cosy, packed again and hopped in the moonlight from stone to stone till
+we got to the ship--which was the same old Turkish gunboat on which we
+had travelled once before. The thing was then explained--a telegraphic
+mistake. The captain had been ordered to fetch the strangers: but
+strangers and mattresses are only one letter different, "n" or "m," this
+letter had been transposed.
+
+Luckily it was a beautiful moonlight night. The lake was wonderfully
+romantic. A fat Serbian captain, who seemed to know Stajitch, made a
+request. He said that he had been cut off from his division, which was
+at Monastir, and that he was going to try and rejoin them. He ask us if
+he could join our party, as it would come cheaper at the hotels and he
+could get transport.
+
+It was pretty cold on the lake, but we wrapped ourselves in our blankets
+and said the view was lovely. Hunger was also gnawing within us, so we
+were glad when at last the rumbling old engines halted and the steamer
+gave three hoots. We waited anxiously, and at last a large rowboat came
+sideways against the steamer. Four carriages were waiting in the bazaar.
+A very polite Montenegrin doctor welcomed us at the hotel and we got
+some much desired food.
+
+Bed was beginning to be a mere commonplace now, but we enjoyed it for
+all that, and slept well into the morning.
+
+Scutari wore its usual air of "the ballet" when we arose. The ladies
+dressed all in their best clothes, and with great flowing veils and wide
+skirted coats were hobbling to church. The shopkeepers, with their long
+black and white legs and coloured shirts, were lounging about the low
+counters of their shops, smoking and drinking coffee brought them (on
+little swinging trays) by boys.
+
+The British consul had taken up his quarters at the "Maison Piget." The
+house was gated, as are all Albanian houses, but this gate was like an
+old feudal portal. The doors were wonderfully carved and were opened by
+our old friend the Wolf. We had thought him to be a servant of Suma's,
+but it appeared that he belonged to the British Empire.
+
+The house was crammed full of arms: a little cannon threatened us on the
+stairway, swords, claymores, creeses, falchions, scimitars, glaives,
+dirks, and yatagans were nailed on all the walls, and there were muskets
+of every sort and size, heavy arquebuses from the north and gas-pipe
+guns and Arab horsemen firelocks with polished stocks like the handle of
+a corkscrew, all inlaid with gold, silver, and mother-of-pearl.
+
+"Yes," said the consul, gazing reflectively, "he had a taste for
+weapons. And also for old cookery books."
+
+The consul said that he thought that there was a boat at San Giovanni.
+We cheered, for our luck seemed to be holding, and while he went off to
+the Italian consul we went to the governor to beg for transport. Neither
+consul nor governor was in, but we caught the Italian consul in the
+afternoon. He admitted that there was a boat, but warned us that it was
+no nosegay. He said that two Frenchmen who had thought of taking it had
+sent him back a telegram which had quite unnerved him.
+
+"Et je n'ai jamais dit qu'elle était une Transatlantique," he said,
+waving his arms.
+
+He said that the archbishop had told him that a party of English had
+come into the town last night, "en haillons," but that he had not
+believed it possible. However, he had seen two of us in the street that
+morning, and had realized that it was true.
+
+We said that any boat would do. He warned us of the danger of
+submarines.
+
+At the consul's house we found the captain of the Miridites awaiting us.
+He was a heavy-looking man with European clothes and a fez. After the
+ceremonious coffee he made a set speech, saying that he was paying his
+duties to the great British Empire, and that England was their only
+hope. The consul sat rather wishing that he wouldn't, and that his
+servant had said that he was not at home. In common with most of the
+Christian rulers of Albania this gentleman seemed to have spent most of
+his time in exile.
+
+Returning to the hotel Jan found that Jo had been purchasing, and he
+dragged her and Miss Brindley off to see the archbishop. The cathedral
+still carries the scars of the first bombardment. The archbishop, a
+large flat man, gave us each a hand as though he expected us to kiss it;
+he had a huge archiepispocal ring and a lot of imperiosity. He seemed
+more political than bishopy, though most of the Churchmen are; and there
+is the tale of one who said, "I would rather people went to drill than
+to church." There were a lot of wealthy looking Albanians sitting round
+and being respectable. The archbishop spoke no French nor German, only
+Italian. But Jan, with the help of a lot of old musical terms, and an
+imperfectly forgotten Spanish, managed to convey to him some
+intelligible compliments and sentences. We got out at last, and his
+eminence accompanied us to the top of the stairs and gave us the
+difficult problem of bowing backwards as we went down. This visit was
+necessary, as we might have had to get a "Besa" from him if we meant to
+go through to Durazzo.
+
+The Serbian captain who had been on the Turkish gunboat met us in the
+street. He dragged us into a café and began to order beer by the
+half-dozen. He presented Jo with a small Turkish gold coin, which was
+valued at five shillings, as a bribe to allow him to join our party. As
+he already had permission it seemed superfluous.
+
+Some of our party were still pretty seedy. Two had gone to a shop in
+search of castor oil. A very old and withered chemist, who spoke bad
+French, invited them in and asked for an account of their adventures,
+interrupting them with explosions of "Ah poves, poves, poves, poves."
+"Ah, poves, poves, poves, poves," between every incident and also at the
+final request for the medicine. He showed them to the door and suddenly
+burst into unexpected English.
+
+"Good naite, vairey good. I am your poppa."
+
+In the hotel café we found two French aeroplanists, for four had arrived
+that day, sailing down over the city, to the great terror of the
+inhabitants. They seemed to be afflicted with the same idea as "Quel
+Pays."
+
+"Ah, monsieur et dame," said they, "quel pays."
+
+We asked them how things were.
+
+"We have just come from Prizren. The Serbs are in a dreadful condition.
+All the roads are covered with starving and dying people. The troops are
+eating dead horses and roots. There have been violent snow blizzards all
+over the mountains. We saw some of your people, too, doctors and nurses,
+they were going off to Ipek, 'dans une condition déplorable.' We came
+across the mountains; one of us is lost. Awful country, nowhere to land
+if anything went wrong and one of our machines has not arrived. God
+knows what has happened to them. The rest of us are all coming along on
+foot. We burnt fifty motor cars yesterday, monsieur, that made a blaze."
+
+We asked them what sort of a time they had had in Serbia; but much of
+their answer is unpublishable.
+
+"Each time we ascended every Serbian regiment fired at us. Once we came
+down over a battalion and the whole lot fired volleys, and when we
+landed and stood in front of our machine holding up our hands," they
+pantomimed, "they continued to fire at us. Then they came and took us
+prisoners, and were going to shoot us, although one of us had a military
+medal. A schoolmaster recognised us as French and rescued us. Our
+machine was broken; but we could get no transport and had to walk thirty
+kilometres back to our base without food.
+
+"Another time we were chasing an Austrian, the Serbian batteries fired
+at us, monsieur, not at the enemy. Our officers had to send from the
+aerodrome to tell them to stop."
+
+As we were going to bed the Montenegrin doctor came in.
+
+"I am sent by the governor, monsieur," said he. "We do not consider it
+safe, this boat idea. Austrian submarines are everywhere, and the
+governor would feel it as a personal responsibility if you were drowned.
+We will provide carriages to Alessio and thence arrange horses--only one
+day and a half on to Durazzo. Thence Essad Pasha will give you his motor
+boat and you can easily get to Valona."
+
+Our men groaned at the thought of more journeying. They were all
+thoroughly fed up with the road, though personally we rather liked the
+idea. We had heard that Durazzo was very interesting, and would have
+liked to have met Essad, though we did not know just how his politics
+were trending. We decided to see the Italian consul once more.
+
+Next day we hunted up the mayor, Mahram Beg, a Turk, for he also could
+give us a "Besa" if necessary. He was at last discovered, a little
+crumpled looking man in an office. We were not allowed to interview him
+in private, but a Montenegrin was there and all conversation had to
+pass by him like through an imperfect telephone. We gave the mayor a
+greeting from Colonel P----and little else. A very disappointing
+interview.
+
+Jan went off to see the governor, who received him kindly. He said that
+he would arrange everything, but that it was difficult for him with the
+Italian consul, as the Powers did not recognize the Montenegrin
+occupation.
+
+"You see, monsieur, here I am the law, and yet the law does not
+recognize me."
+
+The Italian assured us that the Montenegrins were wrong, and that of
+course the boat would be escorted, and the danger reduced to its least
+possible amount. Just after we had left him we heard two things which
+made us jump.
+
+A body of English officers had landed at Medua, and ninety English
+refugees from Serbia were _en route_ for Scutari. Could we not catch the
+transport and at the same time leave room for the others? Suma came in,
+and we consulted him. He was doubtful if the horses could be got at
+Alessio for us.
+
+"You see, it is Albania and not Montenegro," he repeated.
+
+We accordingly hunted up the doctor. He promised us horses for the
+morrow. The carriages had all gone to fetch the English officers. We
+asked him about Alessio, and he assured us that the telephone message
+had been received saying that they were waiting. We asked him several
+times until he grew angry and said--
+
+"Do you doubt my honour, then?"
+
+Before we went to bed the hotel proprietor came to us.
+
+"Do you pay or the Government?" asked he; and seemed very relieved when
+we told him that we paid. The Montenegrins are neither loved nor trusted
+here.
+
+The next morning the horses came, but very late. In the crowd watching
+our departure was an old Albanian without a moustache. That was a
+strange sight; we looked harder. It was a woman. She must have been one
+of those who had sworn eternal virginity, and so achieve all a man's
+privileges, even eating with them instead of getting the scraps left
+over from the meal. But the punishment of death awaited her if she
+failed her vow. Here was one, chuckling and grinning at some of us in
+our attempts to mount the weird saddles and weirder steeds which had
+been provided. The Serb captain had a carriage, and another carriage
+took all our baggage, which had now sadly dwindled owing to the
+continued depredations of the police. We straggled out of the town and
+through the crowded bazaar, for it was a Saturday. Passed the Venetian
+fort and the river from which stuck the funnel of the steamer so
+mysteriously sunk one night. We had heard that the Turkish gun flat
+which had transported us had burst her boilers, so now the Montenegrins
+had no steamers left.
+
+The road was level and better than many we had come over, though once or
+twice the carriages were hopelessly mired, and had to be pushed across.
+West's horse had ideas about side streets, and bolted down each as he
+came to it.
+
+We met the Adriatic Commission. Mr. Lamb and Mr. George Paget, returning
+after so long an absence, were in the first carriage. We recognized Mr.
+Paget at once, for though either of them might have liked old arms, only
+one would have collected old cookery books. The rest of the commission
+came along later. They stopped us. We expected questions about the
+Serbs; but no. They said--
+
+"Can one buy underclothing in Scutari?"
+
+Their baggage transport had been sunk by an Austrian submarine and they
+had only what they were wearing. We wished each other luck and went on.
+There was no hope of arriving at Alessio that night, we had started too
+late. As evening was falling, we came to an Albanian inn and decided to
+put up.
+
+There was a stable full of manure on the ground floor, through which one
+had to pass, and in the dark one was continually slipping into the
+midden or running one's head unexpectedly into horses' hindquarters. Up
+a rickety stair were two rooms. The floor rocked as we walked over it,
+and every moment we expected to go through and be precipitated into the
+manure below. The walls and floor were so loosely made that the wind
+blew through in all directions, and we called it the "castle in the
+air." We supped on chickens which we had brought from Scutari, and
+Whatmough and Elmer made a fire in the yard and got us cocoa. By this
+time we were all getting fed up with romantic surroundings, and wanted
+something more solid. The swarthy countenances about the bonfire, the
+queer costumes in the flickering fire, left us unmoved.
+
+Sleep was impossible. The wind caught one in every corner, threatening
+lumbago. Stajitch fled and camped outside in one of the carriages,
+despite the rain.
+
+[Illustration: ALBANIAN MULE DRIVERS CAMPING.]
+
+We started as early as possible--dawn. Whatmough, Cutting, Jo and Jan
+lost the road, but were eventually rescued by a policeman. About eleven
+one of the carriages broke down, and we had to repair it with tree and
+wire. Here the houses were again like fortresses, and everybody
+stared at us as though we came from the moon.
+
+We reached the bank opposite Alessio--a small Turkish-looking village
+divided between a mud-bank and a hillside. We were about to turn over
+the bridge when news was brought that a motor-boat belonging to Essad
+was in San Giovanni harbour. We sent a policeman galloping on to stop
+it, and followed as fast as our meagre horses would allow. We also heard
+that a submarine had been in the port the day before and had tried to
+torpedo the ships lying there--but had missed.
+
+We cantered on, pressing along a stony road which was almost level with
+the salt marshes on either side. San Giovanni appeared after about an
+hour and a half. We rode down on to the beach. The motor-boat was
+getting up anchor. We yelled to the skipper, but he understood no Serb;
+so we translated through a Turk who was lounging about. The skipper said
+that he could not embark us there as it was Montenegrin territory, but
+that if we would go back to Alessio he would wait for us at the mouth of
+the river and take us down that very night. This seemed too good to be
+true and we hurried back, passing an Austrian torpedo which had run up
+on the brown sand--a present from yesterday's raid. We turned the others
+and cantered ahead to get a boat; reached the bridge once more and
+crossed into Albania. Officials ran from all sides to stop us, but we
+ignored them, dismounted, and ran to the side of the river where boats
+were loading, overloading with passengers. The boatmen refused to take
+us if we had no passes from the governor.
+
+We hunted the governor's office up the hillside, panting in our haste.
+We burst in upon him. He was a dirty man in an unclean shirt and unkempt
+trousers.
+
+"We want to go by the motor-boat," we explained.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked, picking his teeth.
+
+"We are the English about whom the governor of Scutari has telegraphed."
+
+"I don't know anything about you," he said. His manner was ungracious.
+
+"But," we said, "they assured us that they had telegraphed from
+Scutari."
+
+The telegraph clerk was brought, and denied that any message had come.
+
+"Anyhow," said the governor, "the motor-boat is for Albanian soldiers
+only, and has gone twenty minutes ago. I can do nothing for you without
+authority from Durazzo."
+
+We wandered dismally back through the town and were immediately
+arrested by the bridge officials because we had not paid the toll rates.
+We paid double to get rid of them.
+
+We found an inn. It was the usual sort of building only of stone, and so
+dirtier than the others. Some travelling show seemed to have left its
+scenery in lieu of its bill, for bits of painted canvas did duty as
+partitions.
+
+There was a room with six beds, but one was reserved for an Albanian
+officer. We took the rest. We loitered about all the afternoon, and in
+the evening the Albanian officer came in. He was a beaky-faced,
+unpleasant-looking man, but he procured us some bread, which we sorely
+lacked. The hotel had little food, so we gave them our rice. By this
+time fleas had got into it, and seeming to like it had bred in
+quantities. Still as we had nothing else it had to be cooked, and we
+picked out the boiled fleas as well as we were able. The Serbian captain
+started drinking with the Albanian, and soon both were well over the
+edge of sobriety.
+
+They came up long after we had turned in, fell over Cutting, who cursed
+them without stint, and tumbled on to the beds which we had left for
+them. The Albanian made some remarks about the ladies, which from the
+tone were insults; but we were unable to chastize him, or we should all
+have been put into prison.
+
+They snored and coughed all night, and spat about in the dark. Those who
+were sleeping near cowered beneath the mackintosh sheets and prayed for
+luck. But in the morning we found that they had been spitting on the
+wall.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+"ONE MORE RIBBER TO CROSS"
+
+
+The Mayor of Alessio had said that there were lots of horses, if we had
+Essad's permission; but the Turkish captain said that there were none,
+only at San Giovanni were they to be found. It was pelting with rain,
+but Blease and we decided to walk over to explore for ourselves. Jan
+first wrote a very stiff letter to the Governor of Scutari about the
+non-arrival of the telegram, and off we went, having borrowed oilskins
+and sou'westers. The Serb captain insisted on coming with us.
+
+In half an hour the storm had made the stony road into a series of deep
+ponds which nearly joined each other, so Jo tucked her now ragged skirt
+into a bright woven Serbian belt and walked along with the water
+streaming from coat to boots. It became rather a pleasure to splash
+through ten-inch deep puddles, knowing that one could not possibly get
+any wetter, and this joy was intensified by the knowledge that the
+Serbian captain was being soaked and didn't like it.
+
+San Giovanni consists of a series of huts, each like Burns' birthplace,
+grouped on the shelving side of a stony cliff. The bay itself is
+semi-circular, with a long cape jutting out to the south, the extremity
+of which almost always is floating in the air, owing to the mirage. In
+the bay were two rusty steamers--one the _Benedetto_, which had been
+promised to us by the Italian governor--several old wooden sailers, and
+a lot of smallish fishing smacks very brightly painted and with raised
+poop and prow. A group of Albanians were toiling at sacks which cumbered
+the little wooden jetty.
+
+We immediately hunted out Captain Fabiano, the Italian commander of the
+wireless telegraph, and found him in a little house at the northern horn
+of the bay. He received us gaily. He spoke an excellent French, so that
+the Serbian captain could not butt in and interfere, as was his habit.
+Fabiano said that it would take a long time to get a wire to Brindisi,
+where we had heard were several ships of the English fleet, very bored
+and craving for something to do; we had hoped to get into communication
+with them. Then Jan had a brain wave.
+
+"Is not the wind good for Durazzo?" asked he.
+
+"Splendid," said Fabiano, "and no submarines to-day."
+
+"Could we not get a fishing boat?"
+
+"I will send and see."
+
+While we were waiting he told us that he was sheltering the crew of the
+ship which had been transporting the English mission's kit. The captain
+of the little transport had set fire to the benzine which his boat was
+carrying, which act so enraged the submarine captain that he fired three
+torpedoes into her, and afterwards mounted his conning tower and fired
+ten full clips from his revolver at the swimming men. Luckily revolver
+shooting requires much practice. The men had clung to an overturned boat
+and had all eventually reached shore, after which they had to march a
+day and a half without boots or food, often fording rivers which came to
+their waists. Fabiano said that he was going to send them home on the
+_Benedetto_.
+
+The captain of the port sent back word that we could have a boat
+immediately--much to Fabiano's surprise. But most of the party were at
+Alessio. We hurried off to see the captain of the port. Explanations,
+certainly when the luggage came; and off went Jan with a guide to get
+pack ponies. Halfway back to Alessio was the stable, but the steeds were
+not ready, so Jan was ushered up into a top room where was a huge fire,
+over which an Albanian was stewing a cormorant with all its feathers on.
+There were other Albanians and a very old Montenegrin soldier. He
+admired everything English, even Jan's tobacco which he had bought in
+Pod.
+
+We got to Alessio and packed everything hurriedly, paid the bill, tipped
+an old soldier two dinars, and off. As we passed over the bridge the
+clerk came running behind us. We had not paid the bridge fees, he said.
+
+"How much?" asked Jan.
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"Two dinars," said he. He had been talking to the soldier.
+
+Meanwhile Jo and Blease had found refuge in the house of the military
+commandant. It was a hovel like all the houses, but they were given a
+huge log fire which was built on the mud floor. Their stockings were
+soon hanging on a line above the blaze, and their shins were scorching,
+while they drank wonderful liqueur which was hospitably poured out by
+the beautiful old host.
+
+Turkish coffee was prepared for them by a soldier in a bursting French
+fireman's uniform.
+
+The captain's fire was the rendezvous of the village. Amiable and
+picturesque people came in and talked about the unhealthiness of the
+place, the relative bravery of nations with a special reference to the
+courage of Montenegrins, and about the submarine raid and of how the
+Austrian captain had repeatedly fired his revolver at the sailors of
+the boat he had sunk while they were swimming in the water. Their eyes
+were streaming, not with emotion, but because in Montenegro one has no
+chimneys.
+
+At dusk the rest of us arrived. The port captain said "To-morrow," so we
+climbed up to the inn, examined the stores, a few tins of tunny,
+mackerel, and milk, and the thirteen made the best of the bar-room floor
+for the night, booted and ready in case a transport for the _Benedetto_
+should arrive.
+
+In the morning the captain said we could have the boat that night, and
+in the evening he said we could have it in the morning. His excuse was
+that the Borra was blowing its hardest, and no sailor could be found to
+venture out; but Fabiano said that this was not true.
+
+The real reason was the sleek Austrian torpedo lying on the beach, for
+the Dulcinos are famed on the Adriatic coast because of their timidity.
+
+Time passed drearily. The only amusement we had was to go and annoy the
+captain of the port by asking when we could have a boat. The wind was
+too cold for constitutionals, and we piled on all our clothes and sat on
+our knapsacks in the bar-room--for there was no fire--and talked
+wistfully of sausages, Yorkshire Relish and underdone beefsteaks.
+
+We had much time for meditation, and pondered over the downfall of
+Serbia. Why had the Serbian Government so resolutely refused to make any
+territorial concessions to Bulgaria, when it was obvious that the entry
+of Bulgaria into the conflict meant the ruin of Serbia? Why had they
+permitted the Austrians to build their big gun emplacements on the
+Danube without interruption? Why had they not withdrawn to the hills and
+then built proper defences with barbed wire entanglements and
+labyrinths? for properly entrenched they might have defied the
+Austro-German forces for months. Some day, perhaps, these questions may
+have to be answered.
+
+One day a party came in. They had passed through Vrntze much later than
+we, and we heard that Dr. Berry and an assistant had been seen hurriedly
+nailing boards on to the slaughter-house roof. They, too, had come by
+the Novi Bazar route. They said that the other routes were deep in snow
+and that the sufferings of the army were terrible. That a great portion
+had been hemmed in at Prizren, and that the Bulgars had shelled the
+passes so that they could not escape. They themselves had escaped the
+advancing Austrians by the skin of their teeth owing to good horses.
+
+[Illustration: UNLOADING THE "BENEDETTO," SAN GIOVANNI DI MEDUA.]
+
+The snow came down, driving along the valleys and whitening all the
+hills; the cold grew more intense, and the desire for English beefsteaks
+became an obsession: one talked of little else--or of Christmas. Food
+was becoming scarce. The tinned mackerel was diminishing; some days we
+had no bread. We walked once as far as Fabiano's wireless. The men were
+living in a shed made of wattle, and the Borra whistled through the
+cracks. There was a stove round which we sat while the men gave us tea;
+but the warmth it induced in one's face only intensified the feeling of
+cold on the back. Outside in the snow was a long-distance telescope, and
+peering through one could see the conning tower of the Austrian
+submarine, a faint hump on the sea by the southernmost point. As we
+returned to the cold hotel we passed the Montenegrin batteries: cannon
+too small to be of any use and the gunners of which were all so ill that
+they could not handle them.
+
+Two Frenchmen had been in San Giovanni for ten days, and their anxiety
+to go was up to fever point. They took it in turns to stand "pour
+observer," wrapped up to their noses, in a doorway, watching the
+_Benedetto_ in case she should give them the slip. We called them
+Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
+
+One night somebody rushed up to their room. Booted, they jumped out of
+bed, and ran about overhead. We thirteen scrambled up and intercepted
+them between the stairs and the door. "Pour observer, steam-funnel,"
+they shouted, and disappeared into the night, followed by their valet
+with two hold-alls. They soon came back, very cold, and announced that
+steam had been seen issuing from the _Benedetto's_ funnel. They had
+rushed to it in an open boat, and had learnt that the _Benedetto_ was
+ordered to be in readiness. She fumed quietly for three days, and then
+was commandeered by the Serbian Government.
+
+One day we saw a French aeroplane, an old friend of ours. Immediately
+every one working in the port tore up hill, men jumped off the big boats
+into little ones and rowed like a cinematograph turned double speed.
+
+The commandant roared reassuringly from his attic window, and an officer
+tried to beat the men back. Seeing us convulsed with laughter, they
+turned sheepishly; but the little boats wagged on, people jumping into
+the water as they neared shore.
+
+"Come and sit round my fire," said the commandant. So we again imbibed
+coffee and discussed courage. It was explained to us that none of the
+men in the boats were Montenegrins, and we politely agreed.
+
+Hearing that a Red Cross party was in the village people came and asked
+for medical aid. We explained that we had no doctors, but they begged
+us to come and see the invalids.
+
+Doctors and chemists were unobtainable, and soldiers were dying every
+day.
+
+We had no hesitation in tackling the Montenegrin soldiers, for at least
+we could do no harm, considering that our whole pharmacopœia was a
+little boracic, some bismuth capsules, Epsom salts, quinine, iodine, and
+one of the party owned a bottle of some patent unknown stuff, against
+fever and many other ailments.
+
+We were first taken to the barracks in the evening, scrambling up a
+stony hill. The building looked like the disreputable ruins of
+somebody's "Folly." Half the roof was off, and the walls were full of
+holes. We stumbled up some black steps and entered a huge dark barn with
+four log fires down the centre of the room.
+
+Round these were huddled crowds of men. They pulled some rough planks
+out of a hole in the wall to let in the sunset light, and the icy Borra
+rushed in, playing with the smoke and setting the men to coughing. Here
+and there on the ground were long mounds, covered completely with rough
+hand-woven rugs. These were the invalids, who moaned as the rugs were
+pulled off their faces. A great many had malaria; others had, as far as
+we could see, very bad pleurisy; and one old Albanian with rattling
+breath was huddled up in a far corner, too miserable to speak.
+
+Whatmough sent for a dribble of camphorated oil he had stored in his
+knapsack, "to cheer them up," said he, and rubbed everybody who had pain
+and a cough.
+
+"Give them hot drinks," said Jo, in a large way. "Milk or--"
+
+"Milk! There is no milk in Medua," said the sergeant.
+
+"No tinned milk--eggs to be bought?"
+
+"Nothing, no meat; we have not even enough bread, and that is all we
+get."
+
+Very depressed, we sent them the remains of our Bovril and some tins of
+milk from the tiny hotel store, and bought the last three eggs in the
+place.
+
+"Can't you send for more?" we asked.
+
+"The hens are five hours away," said the proprietor, and didn't see why
+he should send for eggs even if we paid heavily for them. He had
+malaria--and nothing mattered.
+
+We saw our patients daily, and the ones who weren't going to die got a
+little better, so this made our reputation. People poured in from the
+hills around, and we were much embarrassed. Our white-lipped waiter
+confided to each member of the party that he had a lump on his knee.
+
+Every one became very busy and put off looking at it. We discussed it.
+
+What could a lump on the knee be which did not make a busy waiter limp?
+And what on earth could we do for him when he wouldn't rest, and we were
+reduced to boracic powder and bismuth capsules? We gave him a tube of
+quinine, though, for his next attack of malaria.
+
+The longer we rested in San Giovanni the more hopeless seemed the chance
+of getting away from it. The Serbian Government was close on our heels,
+and once they caught us up, there would be little left for us. That
+evening we were sitting with the Frenchmen, it was Monday. They, too,
+were depressed, and at last Tweedledum said--
+
+"We shall never reach Paris, we shall be here for ever and ever."
+
+"Oh," said Jan, rashly, "I think we ought to be home in a week."
+
+Dum put on the superior French air, which is aggravating even in a nice
+man.
+
+"Vous croyez?" he said.
+
+"I'll bet on it," said Jan.
+
+"A dinner," answered Dum.
+
+"Good," said Jan.
+
+This lent a new interest to life.
+
+The very next day the Frenchmen told us that the Serb Government had
+arrived at Scutari; the Montenegrin Governor had telegraphed to
+commandeer and keep back the _Benedetto_. We had been forgotten, and the
+French boat was to leave at dawn under escort.
+
+She had been strictly forbidden by her owners to take passengers, but
+the Frenchmen had arranged through their minister to go by that boat if
+she left the first.
+
+Telegraphic communication with the English minister at Cettinje was
+practically impossible; the only thing was to appeal to the captain.
+First we rushed up the hill, and interviewed Captain Fabiano, who had
+already made various efforts to get us off. He promised to try and
+influence the French captain.
+
+Then we flung ourselves into a boat and made for the little steamer.
+People were looking at something with opera glasses, and our boatmen
+took fright and wanted to row straight for land. Jan cursed them so
+much, however, that they began to fear us more than imaginary submarines
+or aeroplanes, and brought us alongside the vessel.
+
+The captain was ashore, taking a walk; the crew very sympathetically
+made contradictory suggestions as to his whereabouts.
+
+At last we caught him. He was nice, but had strict orders, he said, to
+take no one.
+
+"But, monsieur," we said, "if we were swimming in the sea, or cast off
+on a desert island, you would rescue us."
+
+He admitted it.
+
+"Well, what is the difference? Here we cannot get away; the food is
+growing less and less."
+
+He objected that he had no boats, and no life-saving apparatus.
+
+"That is nothing. We must get away from here. We will give you a paper
+saying that it is on our own responsibility. In this country one cannot
+telegraph, the telegrams never arrive. You know the Balkans."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Oui, oui, c'est un pays où le Bon Dieu n'a pas passé, ou au moins il a
+peut-être passé en aeroplane."
+
+At last he agreed to take us if we could get a letter from Fabiano, and
+so take the responsibility from his shoulders. This we got. Fabiano said
+"Au revoir, bon voyage" for the fifth time, and at dawn we got a call,
+and quitted the bar-room floor for ever. Fabiano wished us "bon voyage"
+for the sixth time in the chilly dawn, and we embarked.
+
+The mate, a little round man, greeted us, and in the moments when they
+were not rushing about with ropes and chains the cook explained the
+Austrian submarine attack.
+
+"You see, monsieur et dame," said he, "they came in over there. The
+_Benedetto_ was lying outside of that sandbank, and that is the torpedo
+which is lying on the beach. The one aimed at us came straight, one
+could see the whorls of the water coming straight at us, but it just
+tipped the sandbank and dived underneath our keel. It stuck in the mud
+then, and the water boiled over it for a long while."
+
+The mate cut one of the anchors because they were afraid of fouling the
+sunken torpedo, and we steamed slowly out from the shelter of the
+sandbank.
+
+No escort was visible, and soon the sailors began to look anxious. They
+scanned the horizon anxiously. At last one cried, "There she is." Far
+away against the western dawn could be seen a thin needle mark of smoke.
+In half an hour we were quite close, an Italian destroyer was convoying
+a small steamer. The destroyer swung round under our stern, while the
+steamer, its funnels set back, raced for San Giovanni looking like a
+frightened puppy tearing towards home. The grey warship surged past us,
+and out towards the horizon once more, our captain shouting to them that
+he could get to Brindisi by midnight. Far away on the sky-line could be
+seen the three funnels of a cruiser.
+
+We breakfasted on tinned mackerel, an unlucky dish. The _Harmonie_,
+empty of cargo, was like an eggshell in the water. She bounced and
+rolled and bounded from wave to wave, half of the time her screw out of
+the water. The breakfast did not nourish many. Far on the horizon could
+be seen the destroyer and the cruiser sweeping in gigantic circles.
+
+Half a kilometre away a periscope suddenly appeared, then the submarine
+dived, rose once more, showing the rounded conning tower, dived, rose
+again, like a porpoise at play.
+
+"See," cried the sailors, "how well are we guarded. Outermost the
+cruiser, then the destroyer, and innermost the submarine." The cruiser
+and destroyer took big sweeps once more and steamed off behind us
+towards Cattaro.
+
+Our boat rolled its way from dawn to dusk. We sought refuge in the coal
+hole, some lay down in the little officers' cabin. After dark the sea
+grew more rough, and splashing over the deck drove even the most ill to
+find shelter. Whatmough staggered to the companion, tripped over
+something, and fell the length of the stair accompanied by a hard object
+which hit him and made hissing sounds like a bicycle pump. He was too
+seasick to investigate, but next morning found the ship's tortoise lying
+on its back and feebly waving its feet and head.
+
+Then the engines slowly ceased, and there was silence. What had
+happened? The steamer gave four timid hoots. The people in the cabin lay
+in the darkness wondering if they had broken down, for it was not nearly
+midnight. At last the mate came in.
+
+"Why, you're all in the dark," he said.
+
+Some one asked, "When shall we get to Brindisi?"
+
+"We're there," said the mate.
+
+The steamer rocked on the sea, waiting for an escort through the mine
+field, lights were sparkling in the distance, and now and then
+flashlights cut the dark blue of the sky. Great black ships surged by in
+the gloom, ships with insistent queries as to who we were and whence we
+came.
+
+At last an escort came: we were berthed and lay about waiting for the
+dawn.
+
+Long after day came the doctor, who passed us, and we stepped ashore
+saying--
+
+"Thank God we are back in Europe once again."
+
+Two days later San Giovanni was bombarded by an Austrian cruiser, and
+all the shipping was sunk, _Benedetto_ and all.
+
+We were heartily welcomed in Brindisi by the English colony, and at the
+consul's office learned that the submarine was an Austrian, and that the
+cruiser had made the sweep to chase it away. Jo, Miss Brindley, and Jan
+went to Rome, where they ere feasted by more English, while at
+Milan--where the rest of the party spent the night--a whole theatre
+stood and cheered them when they came in.
+
+Jan won his bet by four minutes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: Route Map of the Authors' Wanderings]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Albania, 109, 154, 185
+
+Alessio, 351, 355-359, 362
+
+Andrievitza, 126, 128, 133, 326
+
+
+Belgrade, 228, 229
+
+Berane, 114, 291, 294, 295, 326
+
+Brindisi, 360, 374
+
+
+Cattaro, 94, 156
+
+Cettinje, 48, 64, 78, 85, 91, 92, 96, 121, 123, 139, 205, 297, 336, 337
+
+Chabatz, 229
+
+Chainitza, 42, 49, 52, 53, 66
+
+
+Danilograd, 87
+
+Dechani, 147, 152, 157, 158, 190
+
+Dormitor Mountains, 64, 74, 75
+
+Dreina, 57
+
+Durazzo, 350, 356, 360
+
+
+Ebar River, 250, 267, 268
+
+
+Gorazhda, 57, 59
+
+Gotch, 236
+
+Gussigne, 122
+
+
+Ipek, 114, 122, 124, 132, 134, 143, 144, 145, 154, 175, 294, 330
+
+
+Jabliak, 64, 70, 74
+
+Jabooka, 129, 131, 330, 331
+
+Jakovitza, 114
+
+
+Kolashin, 132
+
+Kossovo, 176, 178
+
+Krag, Kragujevatz, 198, 209, 212, 213, 223, 224, 238, 243, 252, 262,
+                   280, 330
+
+Kralievo, 213, 241, 242, 262, 282
+
+Krusevatz, 7, 24, 25, 194, 196, 237, 241
+
+
+Lapovo, 259
+
+Liéva Riéka, 134, 327, 334
+
+Lim River, 36
+
+
+Macedonia, 154, 184, 185
+
+Metalka, 51
+
+Mitrovitza, 155, 175, 176, 255, 261, 262, 275, 280, 288, 291, 292, 298
+
+Morava, 1
+
+
+Negbina, 35
+
+Nickshitch, 66, 80, 83
+
+Nish, 10-14, 20, 21, 40, 190, 235, 236, 275, 279
+
+Novi Bazar, 68, 230, 239, 262, 275, 280, 284, 288, 292, 294
+
+Novi Varosh, 33, 35, 36
+
+
+Obrenovatz, 228
+
+
+Plavnitza, 107, 116, 341
+
+Plevlie, 38, 41, 43, 62, 72, 77, 80, 114, 165, 171, 294
+
+Plav, 122
+
+Pod, Podgoritza, 64, 85, 88, 89, 90, 101, 124, 125, 127, 189, 326, 328,
+                 335, 339
+
+Posheravatz, 229
+
+Prepolji, 36, 37, 54
+
+Prizren, 349
+
+
+Rashka, 257, 259, 265, 275, 279, 300, 308
+
+Rieka, 99, 124
+
+Rudnik, 172, 223
+
+
+Salonika, 15-17, 20, 44, 46, 190, 193
+
+San Giovanni di Medua, 346, 351, 355, 360
+
+Sanjak, 87, 96, 114, 154, 294
+
+Soutari, 76, 84, 92, 94, 97, 101, 105, 107, 108, 110, 112, 113, 114,
+         122, 147, 217, 275, 326, 344
+
+Shavnik, 76, 84
+
+Shar Dagh, 180
+
+Sofia, 64
+
+Studenitza, 249, 278
+
+
+Tara, 68
+
+Tarabosch, 103
+
+Trsternick, 25
+
+Tutigne, 295, 299, 303, 304
+
+
+Uskub, 14, 18, 180, 182, 183, 184, 186, 225, 238, 275, 288, 291
+
+Uzhitze, 1, 3, 27, 28, 38, 40, 48, 277
+
+
+Valievo, 295
+
+Vela, 236
+
+Velika, 137
+
+Virbazar, 117
+
+Voinik Mountains, 75
+
+Vranje, 235, 236
+
+Vrbitza, 319
+
+Vrnjatchka Banja, Vrntze, 2, 18, 26, 27, 190, 194, 196, 198, 227,
+                          245, 261
+
+
+Zaichar, 13, 236
+
+Zlatibor, 31, 33
+
+
+THE END
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Luck of Thirteen, by Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
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+Project Gutenberg's The Luck of Thirteen, by Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Luck of Thirteen
+       Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia
+
+Author: Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
+
+Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17291]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of
+public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: JO AT THE MACHINE GUN.]
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN
+
+WANDERINGS AND FLIGHT THROUGH MONTENEGRO AND SERBIA
+
+BY
+
+MR. AND MRS. JAN GORDON
+
+
+WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND A MAP
+TAIL PIECES BY CORA J. GORDON
+COLOUR PLATES BY JAN GORDON
+
+
+NEW YORK
+E.P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
+681 FIFTH AVENUE
+1916
+
+
+PRINTED BY
+WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED
+LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                            PAGE
+
+        INTRODUCTION                                  1
+
+    II. NISH AND SALONIKA                            10
+
+   III. OFF TO MONTENEGRO                            20
+
+    IV. ACROSS THE FRONTIER                          31
+
+     V. THE MONTENEGRIN FRONT ON THE DRINA           47
+
+    VI. NORTHERN MONTENEGRO                          66
+
+   VII. TO CETTINJE                                  85
+
+  VIII. THE LAKE OF SCUTARI                          99
+
+    IX. SCUTARI                                     105
+
+     X. THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO                   122
+
+    XI. IPEK, DECHANI AND A HAREM                   145
+
+   XII. THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO--II               169
+
+  XIII. USKUB                                       182
+
+   XIV. MAINLY RETROSPECTIVE                        198
+
+    XV. SOME PAGES FROM MR. GORDON'S DIARY          213
+
+   XVI. LAST DAYS AT VRNTZE                         227
+
+  XVII. KRALIEVO                                    244
+
+ XVIII. THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA                        263
+
+   XIX. NOVI BAZAR                                  284
+
+    XX. THE UNKNOWN ROAD                            299
+
+   XXI. THE FLEA-PIT                                315
+
+  XXII. ANDRIEVITZA TO POD                          328
+
+ XXIII. INTO ALBANIA                                341
+
+  XXIV. "ONE MORE RIBBER TO CROSS"                  359
+
+        INDEX                                       377
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+               COLOURED PLATES
+
+                                                  FACING PAGE
+
+Jo at the Machine Gun                          _Frontispiece_
+
+The Ipek Pass in Winter                                   140
+
+Retreating Ammunition Train                               276
+
+Albanian Mule-drivers Camping                             354
+
+
+               HALF-TONE PLATES
+
+Out-patients                                                4
+
+Shoeing Bullocks                                            4
+
+Peasant Women in Gala Costume, Nish                        20
+
+Serb Convalescents at Uzhitze                              28
+
+Serb and Montenegrin Officers on the Drina                 58
+
+A Concealed Gun Emplacement on the Drina                   58
+
+Peasant Women of the Mountains                             76
+
+A Village of North Montenegro                              76
+
+Jo and Mr. Suma in the Scutari Bazaar                     110
+
+Christian Women hiding from the Photographer              112
+
+Scutari--Bazaar and Old Venetian Fortress                 112
+
+Disembarkation of a Turkish Bride                         114
+
+Governor Petrovitch and his Daughter in their State Barge 114
+
+In the Bazaar of Ipek                                     162
+
+Street Coffee Seller in Ipek                              162
+
+A Wine Market in Uskub                                    184
+
+Big Gun passing through Krusevatz                         194
+
+In-patients                                               202
+
+Broken Aeroplane in the Arsenal at Krag                   220
+
+Where the "Plane" fell                                    220
+
+House near the Arsenal damaged by Bombs                   220
+
+Peasant Women leaving their Village                       260
+
+Serb Family by the Roadside                               260
+
+The Flight of Serbia                                      266
+
+Unloading the _Benedetto_, San Giovanni di Medua          364
+
+Route Map of the Authors' Wanderings         _At end of text_
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+It is curious to follow anything right back to its inception, and to
+discover from what extraordinary causes results are due. It is strange,
+for instance, to find that the luck of the thirteen began right back at
+the time when Jan, motoring back from Uzhitze down the valley of the
+Morava, coming fastish round a corner, plumped right up to the axle in a
+slough of clinging wet sandy mud. The car almost shrugged its shoulders
+as it settled down, and would have said, if cars could speak, "Well,
+what are you going to do about that, eh?" It was about the 264th mud
+hole in which Jan's motor had stuck, and we sat down to wait for the
+inevitable bullocks. But it was a Sunday and bullocks were few; the wait
+became tedious, and in the intervals of thought which alternated with
+the intervals of exasperation, Jan realized that he needed a holiday.
+
+To be explicit. Jan was acting as engineer to Dr. Berry's Serbian
+Mission from the Royal Free Hospital:--Jan Gordon, and Jo is his wife,
+Cora Josephine Gordon, artist, and V.A.D.
+
+We had a six months of work behind us. We had seen the typhus, and had
+dodged the dreaded louse who carries the infection, we had seen the
+typhus dwindle and die with the onrush of summer. We had helped to clean
+and prepare six hospitals at Vrntze or Vrnjatchka Banja--whichever you
+prefer. We had helped Mr. Berry, the great surgeon, to ventilate his
+hospitals by smashing the windows--one had been a child again for a
+moment. Jo had learned Serbian and was assisting Dr. Helen Boyle, the
+Brighton mind specialist, to run a large and flourishing out-patient
+department to which tuberculosis and diphtheria--two scourges of
+Serbia--came in their shoals. We had endeavoured to ward off typhoid by
+initiating a sort of sanitary vigilance committee, having first sacked
+the chief of police: we had laid drains, which the chief Serbian
+engineer said he would pull up as soon as we had gone away. We had
+helped in the plans of a very necessary slaughter-house, which Mr. Berry
+was going to present to the town. There was an excuse for Jan's desire.
+The English papers had been howling about the typhus months after the
+disease had been chased out by English, French, and American doctors,
+who had disinfected the country till it reeked of formalin and sulphur;
+shoals of devoted Englishwomen were still pouring over, generously ready
+to risk their lives in a danger which no longer existed. Our own unit,
+which had dwindled to a comfortable--almost a family--number, with Mr.
+Berry as father, had been suddenly enlarged by an addition of ten. These
+ten complicated things, they all naturally wanted work, and we had
+cornered all the jobs.
+
+So, after the fatigues of February, March, and April, and the heat of
+June, Jan quite decided on that Uzhitze mud patch that a holiday would
+do little harm to himself, and good to everybody else. Then, however,
+came the problem of Jo. Jo is a socialistic sort of a person with
+conservative instincts. She has the feminine ability to get her wheels
+on a rail and run comfortably along till Jan appears like a big railway
+accident and throws the scenery about; but once the resolution
+accomplished she pursues the idea with a determination and ferocity
+which leaves Jan far in the background.
+
+Jo had her out-patient department. Every morning, wet or fine, crowds of
+picturesque peasants would gather about the little side door of our
+hospital, women in blazing coloured hand-woven skirts, like Joseph's
+coat, children in unimaginable rags, but with the inevitable belt
+tightly bound about their little stomachs, men covered with tuberculous
+sores and so forth, on some days as many as a hundred. Jo, having
+finished breakfast, had then to assume a commanding air, and to stamp
+down the steps into the crowd, sort out the probable diphtheria
+cases--this by long practice,--forbid anybody to approach them under
+pain of instant disease, get the others into a vague theatre queue,
+which they never kept, and then run back into the office to assist the
+doctor and to translate. All this, repeated daily, was highly
+interesting of course, and so when Jan suggested the tour she "didn't
+want to do it."
+
+But authority was on Jan's side. Jo had had a mild accident: a
+diphtheria patient fled to avoid being doctored, they often did, and Jo
+had chased after her; she tripped, fell, drove her teeth through her
+lower lip, and for a moment was stunned. When they caught the patient
+they found that it was the wrong person--but that is beside the subject.
+Dr. Boyle thought that Jo had had a mild concussion and threw her weight
+at Jan's side. Dr. Berry was quite agreeable, and gave us a commission
+to go to Salonika to start with and find a disinfector which had gone
+astray. Another interpreter was found, so Jo took leave of her
+out-patients.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In Serbia it was necessary to get permission to move. Jan went to the
+major for the papers. There were crowds of people on the major's
+steps, and Jan learned that all the peasants and loafers had been
+called in to certify, so that nobody should avoid their military
+service. Later we parted, taking two knapsacks. Dr. Boyle and Miss
+Dickenson were very generous, giving us large supplies of chocolate,
+Brand's essence, and corned beef for our travels, and we had two boxes
+of "compressed luncheons," black horrible-looking gluey tabloids which
+claim to be soup, fish, meat, vegetables and pudding in one swallow.
+
+[Illustration: OUT-PATIENTS.]
+
+[Illustration: SHOEING BULLOCKS.]
+
+The Austrian prisoners bade us a sad farewell, but many friends
+accompanied us to the station, and the rotund major and his rounder wife
+did us the like honour. Our major was a queer mixture: he was jolly
+because he was fat, and he was stern because he had a beaky nose, and in
+any interview one had first to ascertain whether the stomach or the nose
+held the upper hand, so to speak. With the wife one was always sure--she
+had a snub nose. On this occasion the major furiously boxed the Austrian
+prisoner coachman's ears, telling us that he was the best he had ever
+had. The unfortunate driver was a picture of rueful pleasure. The two
+plump dears stood waving four plump hands till we had rumbled round the
+corner of the landscape.
+
+In the train to Nish it was intensely hot. We had sixteen or seventeen
+fellow-passengers in our third-class wooden-seated carriage--all the
+firsts had been removed, because they could not be disinfected--and the
+windows, with the exception of two, had been screwed tightly down. Every
+time we stood up to look at the landscape somebody slipped into our
+seat, and we were continually sitting down into unexpected laps.
+Expostulations, apologies, and so on. Somebody had gnawed a piece from
+one of the wheels, and we lurched through the scenery with a banging
+metallic clangour which made conversation difficult, in spite of which
+Jo astonished the natives by her colloquial and fluent Serbian. We had
+an enormous director of a sanitary department and a plump wife,
+evidently risen, but fat people rise in Serbia automatically like
+balloons. We had three meagre old gentlemen, one unshaven for a week,
+one whiskered since twenty years with Piccadilly weepers like a stage
+butler; some ultra fashionable girls and men; and a dear old dumb woman
+wearing three belts, who had been a former outpatient; and several
+sticky families of children.
+
+The old gentlemen took a huge interest in Jo. They drew her out in
+Serbian, and at every sentence turned each to the other and elevated
+their hands, ejaculating "kako!" (how!) in varying terms of admiration
+and flattery.
+
+The American has not yet ousted the Turk from Serbia, and the bite from
+our wheel banged off the revolutions of our sedate passing. Trsternik's
+church--modern but good taste--gleamed like a jewel in the sun against
+the dark hills. On either hand were maize fields with stalks as tall as
+a man, their feathery tops veiling the intense green of the herbage with
+a film, russet like cobwebs spun in the setting sun. There were plum
+orchards--for the manufacture of plum brandy--so thick with fruit that
+there was more purple than green in the branches, and between the trunks
+showed square white ruddy-roofed hovels with great squat tile-decked
+chimneys. Some of the houses were painted with decorations of bright
+colours, vases of flowers or soldiers, and on one was a detachment of
+crudely drawn horsemen, dark on the white walls, meant to represent the
+heroes of old Serbian poetry.
+
+To Krusevatz the valley broadened, and the sinking sun tinted the
+widening maize-tops till the fields were great squares of gold. We had
+no lights in the train, and presently dusk closed down, seeming to shut
+each up within his or her own mind. The hills grew very dark and
+distant, and on the faint rising mist the trees seemed to stand about
+with their hands in their pockets like vegetable Charlie Chaplins.
+
+A junction, and a rush for tables at the little out-of-door restaurant.
+In the country from which we have just come all seemed peace, but here
+in truth was war. Passing shadowy in the faint lights were soldiers;
+soldiers crouched in heaps in the dark corners of the station; yet more
+soldiers and soldiers again huddled in great square box trucks or open
+waggons waiting patiently for the train which was four or five hours
+late. There were women with them, wives or sisters or daughters, with
+great heavy knapsacks and stolid unexpressive faces.
+
+While we were dreaming of this romance of war, and of the coming romance
+of our own tour, a little man dumped himself at our table, explained
+that he had a pain in his kidneys, and started an interminable story
+about his wife and a dog. He was Jan's devoted admirer, and declared
+that Jan had performed a successful operation upon him, though Jan is no
+surgeon, and had never set eyes upon the man before.
+
+Georgevitch rescued us. Georgevitch was fat, tall, young and genial, and
+was military storekeeper at Vrntze. He was an ideal storekeeper and
+looked the part, but he had been a comitaj. He had roamed the country
+with belts full of bombs and holsters full of pistols, he and 189
+others, with two loaves of bread per man and then "Ever Forwards." Of
+the 189 others only 22 were left, and one was a patient at our hospital
+where we called him the "Velika Dete" or "big child," because of his
+sensibility. With Georgevitch was a dark woman with keen sparkling eyes.
+Alone, this woman had run the typhus barracks in Vrntze until the
+arrival of the English missions. She was a Montenegrin; no Serbian woman
+could be found courageous enough to undertake the task. After struggling
+all the winter, she was taken ill about a fortnight after the arrival of
+the English. The Red Cross Mission took care of her and she recovered.
+
+We left our bore still talking about his wife and the dog, and fled to
+their table, where we chatted till our train arrived. We found a
+coupé--a carriage with only one long seat--the exigencies of which
+compelled Jan to be all night with Jo's boots on his face, and we so
+slept as well as we were able.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+NISH AND SALONIKA
+
+
+To our dismay a rare thing happened--our train was punctual, and we
+arrived in Nish at four o'clock. It was cold and misty. The station was
+desolate and the town asleep. Around us in the courtyard ragged soldiers
+were lying with their heads pillowed on brightly striped bags. A nice
+old woman who had asked Jo how old she was, what relation Jan was to
+her, whether they had children, and where she had learnt Serbian,
+suddenly lost all her interest in us and hurried off with voluble
+friends whose enormous plaits around their flat red caps betokened the
+respectable middle-class women.
+
+Piccadilly weepers vanished and a depressed little quartet was left on
+the platform--our two selves, a lean schoolmaster, and an egg-shaped man
+who never spoke a word. We found a clerk sitting in an office. He said
+we could not leave our bags in his room, but as we made him own that we
+could not put them anywhere else he looked the other way while we
+dropped them in the corner.
+
+In the faint mist of the early morning the great overgrown village of
+one-storied houses seemed like a real town buried up to its attics in
+fog. We found a café which was shut, and sat waiting on green chairs
+outside. Around us old men were talking of the news in the papers. They
+said that Bulgaria was making territorial demands, and as the Balkan
+governments covet land above all things they felt pessimistic as to
+whether Serbia would concede anything, and said, shaking their heads,
+"It will be another Belgium."
+
+We celebrated the opening of the café by ordering five Turkish coffees
+each, and the schoolmaster and we alternately stood treat. Jo loaded up
+with aspirin to deaden a toothache which was worrying her.
+
+We spent a cynical morning in interviews with people who were supposed
+to know about missing luggage. Both they and we were aware that the
+first hospital which got a wandering packing-case froze on to it, and if
+inconvenient people came to hunt for their property the dismayed and
+guilty ones hurriedly painted the case, saying to each other, "After all
+it's in a good cause, and it's better than if it were stolen."
+
+Then we went to see the powers who can say "no" to those who want to do
+pleasant things, and were handed an amendment to a plea for a tour round
+Serbia, including the front, which we had sent to them and which had
+been pigeon-holed for a month.
+
+"But we don't want to see a lot of monasteries," said Jan, as he gazed
+at a little circle drawn round the over-visited part of Serbia. The
+powers were adamant and seemed to think they had done very well for us.
+We went away sadly, for monasteries had not been the idea at all.
+
+Half an hour later we were pursuing an entirely different object. We had
+discovered that Sir Ralph Paget was housing about £1000 worth of stores
+destined for Dr. Clemow's hospital--which was in Montenegro--and which
+needed an escort. He was somewhat puzzled at our altruistic anxiety to
+take them off his hands, but was much relieved at the thought that he
+could get rid of them.
+
+We hurried to the station, rescued our knapsacks under the nose of a new
+official who looked very much surprised, and boarded the English rest
+house near by. English people were sitting in deck chairs outside the
+papier-maché house which stood surrounded by a couple of tents and a
+wooden kitchen in a field. Austrian prisoners were preparing lunch, and
+we were introduced to Seemitch the dog.
+
+Though young, Seemitch was fat and exhibited signs of a much-varied
+ancestry. The original Seemitch, an important Serb with long gold
+teeth, was very indignant that a dog, and such a dog, should be called
+after him, so Sir Ralph arranged that of the two other puppies one
+should be called after him and the other after Mr. Hardinge his
+secretary. Thus the man Seemitch's dignity was restored.
+
+At the station, to our great joy, we met two American doctors from
+Zaichar. One we had mourned for dead and were astonished to see him,
+shadow-like, stiff-kneed, and sitting uncomfortably on a chair in the
+middle of the platform. Months before he had pricked himself with a
+needle while operating on a gangrenous case, and had since lain
+unconscious with blood-poisoning.
+
+While we were cheering over his recovery, a little Frenchman slipped
+into our reserved compartment, which was only a coupé, and had seized
+the window seat. Jan found him lubricating his mouth, already full of
+dinner, with wine from a bottle. As he showed no signs of seeing reason
+from the male, Jo tried feminine indignation. "That seat is mine," she
+snapped to his back-tilted head.
+
+"Good. I exact nothing," he said, wiping his moustache upwards. She
+suggested that if any exacting was to be done she possessed the
+exclusive rights.
+
+"Quel pays," he answered. Jo thought he was casting aspersions on
+England and on her as the nearest representative, and the air became
+distinctly peppery. The Frenchman hurriedly explained that he was
+alluding to Serbia, so they buried the hatchet and became acquaintances.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Uskub, or Skoplje, and one hour to wait. All about the great plains the
+mountains were just growing ruddy with the dawn, and we gulped boiling
+coffee at the station restaurant.
+
+One of the American doctors seemed restless. Some one had told him it
+was advisable to keep an eye on the luggage. They began to shunt the
+train, and soon he was stumbling about the sidings in a resolute attempt
+not to lose sight of the luggage van. We sympathetically wished him good
+luck and walked past into the Turkish quarter, adopted by two dogs which
+followed us all the way. We had a hurried glimpse of queer-shaped,
+many-coloured houses, trousered women, and a general Turkishness.
+
+We returned to find our American friend furious, full of the superior
+methods of luggage registration in the States.
+
+We had beer with him at the frontier, delicious cool stuff with a
+mollifying influence. He told us he held the record for one month's
+hernia operations in Serbia. We were later to meet his rival, a Canadian
+doctor, in Montenegro.
+
+Locked in the train, we awaited the medical examination, and sat
+feeling self-consciously healthy. At last the Greek doctor opened the
+door, glanced at a knapsack, and vanished. We were certified healthy.
+
+It was a beautiful dark blue night when we arrived at Salonika. Crowds
+of people were dining at little tables which filled the streets off the
+quay, in spite of the awful smells which came up from the harbour.
+
+It is impossible to sleep late in Salonika. Soon after dawn children
+possess the town--bootblacks, paper-sellers, perambulating drapers'
+shops; all children crying their wares noisily. The only commodity that
+the children don't peddle is undertaken by mules laden with glass
+fronted cases hanging on each side and which are filled with meat.
+
+We breakfasted in the street, revelling in the early morning and shooing
+away the children, who never gave us a moment's grace. In self-defence
+we had our boots blacked, for the ambulating bootblack molests no longer
+the owner of a well-polished pair of boots. It is queer to walk about in
+a town where one-third of the population is only pecuniarily interested
+in the momentary appearance of feet and never look at a face, like the
+man with the muckrake with eyes glued on life as it is led two inches
+from the ground.
+
+When we had finished searching for disinfectors and dentists we
+wandered up the hill through the romantic streets. Jan sketched busily,
+but toothache had rather sapped Jo's industry, and she generally found
+some large stone to sit on, whence to contemplate.
+
+An old woman's face, peering round the doorway, discovered her sitting
+on the doorstep, a Greek dustman gazing stupidly at her.
+
+In two minutes they were talking hard. The old woman was a Bulgarian,
+but they were able to understand each other. What Jo told the old woman
+was translated to the dustman, and when Jan came up they were introduced
+each to the other, the dustman with his broom bowing to the ground like
+some old-time court usher.
+
+Once a Greek woman offered a chair to Jo. She was much embarrassed, as
+the only Greek words she had picked up were "How much?" and "Yet
+another;" and as both seemed unsuitable she tried to put her gratitude
+into the width of her smile.
+
+We scrambled on ever afterwards through streets which were more like
+cliff climbs than roads. The sun grew red till all Salonika lay at our
+feet a maze of magenta shadow. We sat down in an old Turkish cemetery,
+where we could watch the old wall sliding down to plains of gold, where,
+falling into ruins, it lent its degraded stones for the construction of
+Turkish hovels.
+
+A kitten with paralysed hind legs crawled up to us and accepted a little
+rubbing. When dusk came we moved on, marvelling at the inexhaustible
+picturesqueness of Salonika.
+
+As we clambered down the breakneck paths, the priests were illuminating
+the minarets with hundreds of twinkling lights.
+
+The next day was the Feast. Mahommedans were everywhere. By the women's
+trousers, which twinkled beneath the shrouding veils, one could see that
+they were gorgeously dressed. Befezzed men were lounging and smoking in
+all the café's.
+
+In the evening once more we wandered up through the old Turkish quarter.
+We heard a curious noise like a hymn played by bagpipes, rhythmically
+accompanied in syncopation by a very flabby drum. Round the corner came
+four jolly niggers blowing pipes, and the drummer behind them. Very slim
+young men with bright sashes and light trousers were twisting,
+posturing, and dancing joyfully. One of them threw to Jo the most
+graceful kiss she had ever seen.
+
+We left Salonika in the morning, having been wakened by new sounds.
+Thousands of marching feet, songs. This was puzzling.
+
+In the train a young Greek told us that his nation had mobilized against
+the Bulgars, but that it was not very serious. He said that there had
+been very friendly feeling in Greece for England, but that we had done
+our best to kill it.
+
+"You see, monsieur," he explained, "your offer to give away our land. It
+is not yours to give. You say that does not matter, but that colonies,
+great colonies in Africa will replace the small part of land that we may
+surrender. Kavalla is more valuable to Grecian hearts than all Africa,
+for how could we desert our Grecian brothers and place them beneath the
+rule of the Turk or Bulgar?"
+
+On the train were more American doctors. One had just arrived, and was
+still full of enthusiasm for scenery and sanitation. Also there was
+Princess ---- surrounded by packing cases. Some months earlier she had
+visited our hospitals in Vrntze and she had asked if one of our V.A.D.'s
+could be sent to her as housemaid. Seeing her in the station, Jo
+involuntarily ran over in her mind, was she "sober, honest and
+obliging?"
+
+The American doctors and we picnicked together. We ate bully beef and a
+huge water melon. The heat was awful. The velvet seats seemed to invade
+one's body and come through at the other side. One of the doctors sat on
+the step of the train, and Jo found him nodding and smiling as he
+dreamt. She rescued him before he fell off.
+
+After twelve hours they left us. Uskub once more and an hour to wait. We
+sat behind trees in boxes on the platform and ate omelet with a nice
+old Jew and his ten-year-old daughter, who already spoke five languages.
+
+Then to sleep. We found our half coupé contained a second seat which
+could be pulled down, so we each had a bed. At four in the morning we
+were awakened by the most awful imitation of a German band.
+
+What had happened? We looked out. It was barely dawn, and a wretched
+little orchestra was grouped at the edge of the tiny station. Every
+instrument was cracked and was tuned one-sixteenth tone different from
+its companions. What it lacked in musical ability it made up in energy.
+
+Why, oh, _why_ at that hour, we never found out. Perhaps it was in
+honour of the Princess, poor lady!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+OFF TO MONTENEGRO
+
+
+Back to Nish in the rain, and Jo was wearing a cotton frock. There may
+be more dismal towns than this Nish, but I have yet to see them, and
+this, although the great squares were packed with gaily coloured
+peasants--some feast, we imagined--carts full of melons, melons on the
+ground, melons framing the faces of the greedy--cerise green-rind moons
+projecting from either cheek. The Montenegrin consul was not at home, so
+off we went to the Foreign Office to give a letter to Mr. Grouitch, who
+sent us to the Sanitary Department of the War Office (henceforth known
+as S.D.W.O.). S.D.W.O. wouldn't move without a letter from "Sir Paget."
+We got the letter from "Sir Paget" and back to the S.D.W.O., to find it
+shut in our faces, and to learn that it did not reopen till four.
+
+Then came the matter of Jo's tooth. This abscess had been nagging all
+the time, it had vigorously tried to get between Jo and the scenery. We
+had sought dentists in Salonika, rejecting one because his hall was too
+dirty, a second because she (yes, a she) was practising on her father's
+certificates, the third, a little Spaniard, had red-hot pokered the
+gums thereof and only annoyed it. But we had heard there was a Russian
+dentist in Nish, a very good one. The Russian dentist turned out to be a
+girl, and tiny--she spoke no Serb, but Jo managed, by means of the
+second cousinship of the language, to make out what she said in Russian.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANT WOMEN IN GALA COSTUME--NISH.]
+
+"The tooth must come out," squeaked the small dentist.
+
+"Can't you save it?" prayed Jo; "it's the best one I've got, and the one
+to which I send all the Serbian meat."
+
+"It must come out," squeaked the Russ.
+
+"Can't you save it?" prayed Jo.
+
+"It must come out," reiterated the Russ.
+
+"You're very small," said Jo, doubtfully.
+
+This annoyed the dentist. She pushed unwilling Jo into a chair, produced
+a pair of pincers, and, oh, woe! she wrenched to the north, she wrenched
+to the south, she wrenched to the east, and there was the tooth, nearly
+as big as the dentist herself.
+
+"I never can eat Serbian meat again," murmured Jo as she mopped her
+mouth.
+
+After tea we returned to the S.D.W.O., and by means of our letter and
+our Englishness we got in front of all the unfortunate people who had
+been waiting for hours, and received our passes, etc., immediately.
+
+Sir Ralph Paget's storekeeper wouldn't work on Sunday, so we had also
+to rest, and we celebrated by staying in bed late and going for a walk
+in the afternoon with an Englishman who was _en route_ for Sofia. We
+came to a little village where every house was surrounded by high walls
+made of wattle. The women soon crowded round, imagining Mr. B---- a
+doctor. Jo pretended to translate, and gave advice for a girl with
+consumption, and an old woman whose hand was stiff from typhus, and we
+had to give the money for the latter's unguent. For the consumptive she
+said, "Open the windows, rest, and don't spit"; but that isn't a
+peasant's idea of doctoring: they want medicine or magic, one or the
+other, which doesn't matter.
+
+The train started "after eight" on Monday evening. The English boys at
+the Rest house were very good to us, adding to our small stock of
+necessities a "Tommy's treasure," two mackintosh capes, and some oxo
+cubes. One youth said, "You won't want to travel a second time on a
+Serbian luggage train"; then ruefully, "I've done it! The shunting,
+phew!"
+
+A Serbian railway station is a public meeting-place; along the platform,
+but railed off from the train, is a restaurant which is one of the
+favourite cafés of the town. It is such fun to the still childish
+Serbian mind to sit sipping beer or wine and watch the trains run about,
+and hear the whistles. We had our supper amongst the gay crowd, and
+then pushed out into the darkened goods station to find our travelling
+bedroom, for we were to sleep in the waggons--beds and mattresses having
+been provided--and we had borrowed blankets from the Rest house.
+
+We found our truck and climbed in. There were certainly beds enough, for
+there were thirty light iron folding bedsteads piled up at one end. We
+chose two, and, not satisfied with the stacking of the others, Jan
+repiled them, with an eye on what our friend had said about Serbian
+shunting. Even then Jo was not happy about them.
+
+We sat on our beds, reading or staring out of our open door at the
+twinkle of the station lights, the moving flares of the engines, and the
+fountains of sparks which rushed from their chimneys; listening to the
+chains of bumps which denoted a shunting train. We heard another chain
+of bumps, which rattled rapidly towards us and suddenly--a most awful
+CRASH. The candle went out, and we were flung from bed on to the floor.
+Our truck hurtled down the line at about thirty miles an hour, and
+suddenly struck some solid object. Another wild crash, and the whole
+twenty-eight beds flung themselves upon the place where we had been, and
+smashed our couches to the ground.
+
+We have read stories of the Spanish Inquisition about rooms which grow
+smaller, and at last crush the unfortunate victim to a jelly: we can
+now appreciate the feeling of the unfortunate victim aforesaid. There
+were piles of packing-cases at either end of the van, and for the next
+hour, as we were hurtled up and down by the Serbian engine-driver, at
+each crash these packing-cases crept nearer and nearer. The beds had
+fallen across the door, so it was impossible to escape. When the lower
+cases had reached the beds they halted, but the upper ones still crept
+on towards us. In the short, wild intervals of peace Jan tried to push
+the cases back and restore momentary stability. In addition to
+diminishing room, we were flung about with every crash, landing on the
+corner of a packing-case, on the edge of an iron bedstead, and with each
+crash the light went out. We will give not one jot of advantage to your
+prisoner in the Spanish Inquisition, save that we escaped whereas he did
+not.
+
+The engine-driver tired of the sport just in time to save our limbs, if
+not lives, and he dragged the train out of the station into the dark.
+
+At Krusevatch we halted for the next day. After a discussion with the
+station-master, who asked us to come down first at six p.m., then at
+four, then at one, and lastly in two hours, at nine a.m. we strolled up
+towards the town. There was an old beggar on the road, and he was
+cuddling a "goosla," or Serbian one-stringed fiddle, which sounds not
+unlike a hive of bees in summer-time, and is played not with the tips of
+the fingers, as a violin, but with the fat part of the first phalanx. As
+soon as he heard our footsteps he began to howl, and to saw at his
+miserable instrument; and as soon as he had received our contribution he
+stopped suddenly. We were worth no more effort; but we admired his
+frankness.
+
+Krusevatz market-place is like the setting of a Serbian opera. The
+houses are the kind of houses that occupy the back scenery of opera, and
+in the middle is an abominable statue commemorating something, which is
+just in the bad taste which would mar an opera setting. There was an old
+man wandering about with two knapsacks, one on his back and one on his
+chest, and from the orifice of each peered out innumerable ducks' heads.
+We returned to the station at nine, but were told that nothing could be
+done till one. So we went up to the churchyard, spread our mackintoshes,
+and got a much-needed sleep. The church is very old, but isn't much to
+look at, and we, being no archæologists, would sooner look at that of
+Trsternick, though it is modern.
+
+We returned to the station to unload our trucks, for at this point the
+broad-gauge line ceases, and there is but a narrow-gauge into the
+mountains. A band of Austrian prisoners were detailed to help us, and
+they at once recognized us, and knew that we came from Vrntze. They were
+in a wretched condition: their clothes were torn, they said that they
+had no change of underclothes, and were swarming with vermin, nor could
+they be cleaned, for they worked even on Sundays, and had no time to
+wash their clothes. They begged us for soap, and asked us to send them a
+change of raiment from Vrntze. We explained sadly that we were not going
+back just yet, but we could oblige them with the soap, for a case had
+been broken open, and the waggon was strewn with bars. We also gave some
+to the engine-driver, as a bribe to shunt us gently.
+
+We imagined that the soap had burst because of the shunting, but in our
+second truck discovered that this same shunting had been strangely
+selective. It had, for instance, opened a case of brandy, it had burst a
+box of tinned tongue, and even opened some of the tins which were strewn
+in the truck. And yet the truck had been sealed, both doors. Several
+cases of biscuits, too, had been abstracted, and all this must have
+happened under the very noses of the Englishmen who had supervised the
+loading. Some of the prisoners said that they were starving, so we
+distributed our spare crusts amongst them, and they ate them greedily
+enough.
+
+In the fields by the railway were queer pallid green plants which
+puzzled us. They were like tall cabbages, and shone with a curious
+ghostly intensity in the gloaming.
+
+We dangled our feet over the side of our waggon watching the flitting
+scenery. At one point we passed a train in which were other English
+people, who stared amazed at us and waved their hands as we disappeared.
+Dusk was down when we passed Vrntze, and we reached the gorges of Ovchar
+in the dark. We thundered through tunnels and out over hanging
+precipices, the river beneath us a faint band of greyish light in the
+blackness of the mountains.
+
+Uzhitze in the morning at 4.30; it was cold and wet. Jan wanted to hurry
+off to the hotel, but Jo sensibly refused, and we settled down till a
+decent hour.
+
+The hotel was a huge room with a smaller yard; on the one side of the
+yard were the kitchens, etc., and on the other a string of bedrooms. We
+then crossed the big square to the Nachanlik's (or mayor's) office.
+
+Outside the mayor's office we found an old friend. He had been a patient
+in our hospital, and gangrene, following typhus, had so poisoned his
+legs that both were amputated. He had been discharged the day before,
+and had travelled up from Vrntze, some eight hours, in an open truck.
+The Serbian authorities had brought him from the station and had propped
+him on a wooden bench outside the mayor's office, where he had remained
+all night, and where we found him. He was a charming fellow, though very
+silent. Once when Jo had remarked upon this silence he had answered,
+"When a man has no longer any legs it is fitting that he should be
+silent."
+
+He was waiting for his father, who lived twelve hours away in the
+mountains. The old man came with a donkey, and there was a most
+affecting meeting between the old father and his poor mutilated son.
+Tears flowed freely on either side, for Serbs are still simple enough to
+be unashamed of emotion. The donkey had an ordinary saddle, on to which
+our friend was hoisted. He balanced tentatively for a moment, then shook
+his head. A pack-saddle was substituted.
+
+"It is hard," he said, "young enough, and yet like a useless bale of
+goods."
+
+Twenty hours he had endured, and yet had twelve to go--thirty-two hours
+for a man without legs. This will show of what some Serbs are made.
+
+Within the office we found a professor whom we had met before, and who
+was acting as assistant mayor. We took him to the station and estimated
+that thirty-two waggons would deal with our stuff.
+
+[Illustration: SERB CONVALESCENTS AT UZHITZE.]
+
+Jo and Jan went for a stroll, Uzhitze, especially in the back
+streets, is like a Dürer etching--that one of the Prodigal Son, for
+instance, all tiny, peaky-roofed houses. We took a siesta in the
+afternoon, but Jan was dragged out to talk to our professor, who
+explained that it was impossible for the Serbian Government to find
+thirty-two ox-carts at once, so the convoy must make two journeys. He
+also said that horses would be provided for us, and that we would take
+two or three days to do the trip, but that the ox-waggons would be at
+least seven, which was death to our romantic dream of toiling
+laboriously up almost inaccessible mountains at the head of straining
+ox-carts, sleeping by the roadside, brigands, and all that.
+
+We went down to the station, unloaded the truck and checked the numbers.
+A few were missing, but not so many as we had expected.
+
+A regiment of soldiers were called up; at a word of command they pounced
+upon our packing-cases and hurried them off to a storehouse. The smaller
+cases were left to go on donkeys, two on either side.
+
+The professor dined with us. He is an Anglophile, and was determined
+after the war to go to England in order to discover the secret of her
+greatness. He had a theory that it lay in our educational laws, which he
+wanted to transplant into Serbia wholesale. Jan thought not, and
+suggested that it might lie even deeper than that.
+
+Next day was a Prazhnik, or feast day, and the great square was crowded
+with peasantry in their beautiful hand-woven clothes. There were
+soldiers straight back from the lines chaffing and flirting with the
+pretty girls, and presently a group began to dance the "Kola" about a
+man who played a pipe. It is not difficult to dance the Kola. You join
+hands till a ring is formed, and then shuffle round and round. If you
+have aspirations to style you fling your legs about as much as space
+will allow, and we noticed how much better the men danced than the
+girls, who were almost all very clumsy.
+
+We were to be called at six, so went to bed early, and in spite of the
+odours from the yard slept soundly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ACROSS THE FRONTIER
+
+
+We got up in good time, breakfasted, but there was no sign of horses.
+After waiting two hours a square man was brought up to us by the waiter
+and introduced as our guide. The professor, who had promised to see us
+off, was apparently clinging to his bed, for he did not come. Our guide
+was a taciturn, loose-limbed fellow, but had nice eyes and a charming
+manner; he helped us on to our horses, and off we went. Jan was rather
+anxious at the start, for he had done very little riding since
+childhood; but his horse was quiet, and soon he had persuaded himself
+that he was a cavalier from birth. Jo was riding astride for the second
+time in her life.
+
+We took the road to Zlatibor (golden hill). There was a heavy mist, the
+hills were just outlined in faint washes on the fog, and as we mounted
+the zig-zag path, higher and higher, the town became small and fairylike
+beneath us; and a soldiers' camp made a queer chessboard on the green of
+the valley. Jo's horse cast a shoe almost at the start, but the guide
+said that it did not matter. We went on and ever up, our horses
+clambering like goats. The scenery was on the whole very English, and
+not unlike the Devonshire side of Dartmoor.
+
+Our guide took us a two mile detour to show us his house. Later we
+reached a tiny village with a queer church. We off-saddled for a moment,
+and were welcomed by the inhabitants, who gave us Turkish coffee and
+plum brandy (rakia), while in exchange we made them cigarettes of
+English tobacco. At sixteen kilometres we reached a larger village,
+where we decided to lunch. We were astonished by the sudden appearance
+of a French doctor. He was delighted to see us, more so when he found
+that we both spoke French, and invited us to coffee. We lunched with our
+guide at the local inn. We ordered pig; indeed there was nothing else to
+order.
+
+"How much?" said mine host.
+
+"For three," answered we.
+
+"But how much is that?" replied mine host. "You see, each man eats
+differently." So we ordered one kilo to go on with.
+
+Half a pig was wrenched from a spit in front of the big fire, carried
+sizzling outside to the wood block, where the waiter hewed it apart with
+the axe.
+
+We had discovered peculiarities in our horses. They had conscientious
+objections to going abreast, and always walked single file; this was
+owing to the narrowness of the mountain paths. Jo's horse, which somehow
+looked like Monkey Brand, insisted on taking the second place, and would
+by no means go third. At last we reached the top of Zlatibor--which gets
+its name from a peculiar golden cheese which it produces. The view is
+like that from the Cat and Fiddle in Derbyshire, only bigger in scale,
+and from thence the ride began to be interminable. It grew darker, we
+walked down the hills to ease our aching knees, and Jan decided that
+horse riding was no go.
+
+Finally the guide decided that it was too late to reach Novi Varosh that
+night, and so the direction was altered. The road grew stony and more
+stony. A bitter breeze came up with the evening. We came to a green
+valley, at the end of which was a rocky gorge, down which ran the
+twistiest stream: it seemed as though it had been designed by a lump of
+mercury on a wobbling plate. We turned from the gorge on to a hill so
+rocky that the path was only visible where former horse-hoofs had
+stained the stones with red earth.
+
+The village consisted of an enormous school, a little church, soldiers
+encamped round fires in the churchyard, and seven or eight wooden
+hovels. Our guide stopped at the door of the dirtiest and rapped. A
+furtive woman's face peered out into the gloom. We climbed painfully
+from our saddles, for we had been thirteen hours on the road.
+
+"Beds?" said the guide to the woman.
+
+"Good Lord!" thought we.
+
+She shook her head dolefully and said, "Ima," which means "there is."
+Serbians nod for no. The woman slid out into the night and passed to
+another building, climbed the stairs to a veranda and disappeared.
+
+It grew colder, the guide was busy unharnessing the horses, so shivering
+we sought refuge in the dirty house, which was not quite so bad within
+as we had feared. It was furnished with a long table and two benches
+only, and was lighted by a small fire which was burning on a huge open
+hearth, and which gave no heat at all. The woman came back and led us to
+the other house for supper, which was boiled eggs, and the guide
+generously shared his own bread with us, as we had none. There was no
+water to drink, and Jo tried, not very successfully, to quench her
+thirst with rakia.
+
+There were but two beds, and on inquiry finding that there was no place
+for the guide, we allotted one bed to him. On our own bed the sheets had
+evidently not been changed since it was first made, and the pillow which
+once had been white was a dark ironclad grey. We undid our mackintoshes
+and spread them over both counterpane and pillow. We lay down clothed as
+we were, and by the time we had finished our preparations the guide was
+already snoring.
+
+As soon as the light was turned out the whole room began to tick like
+ten agitated clocks, and all about us in the darkness began strange
+noises of life: rats scampered in all directions and were finally
+hurdling over our heads. We had taken some aspirin to ward off the
+stiffness of unaccustomed exercise, but we were sore, and the narrowness
+of the bed forced us to lie on our backs; exhaustion, however, conquered
+all discomforts, and we slept. Jo awoke in the night and yelped to find
+that the mackintosh had slipped and that her head was resting on the
+pillow.
+
+We were up again at 5.30, and Vladimir, the guide, suggested that we
+should breakfast at Novi Varosh, four hours on; but our stomachs were
+not of cast iron, and we clamoured for eggs. We got them, left
+Negbina--that was the name of the village--about seven, and once more
+adventured on the road.
+
+By eight we had passed the old Serbian frontier: the country was growing
+more interesting, like the foothills of the Tyrol; on the streams were
+inefficient-looking old wooden mills, the water rushing madly down a
+slope and hitting a futile little wheel which turned laboriously.
+
+Novi Varosh, with roofs of weathered wood gleaming purplish amongst the
+trees, was a wonderful little town, and quite unlike any other we had
+seen; clean without, and if the energy of its citizens at the village
+pump is a good sample, clean within also, for Serbia. Here are Turks
+too: ladies in veil and trousers, and trousered kiddies with clothes of
+orange, yellow and purple. Twice in the streets we were stopped by
+authority. Our lunch was well cooked, one can clearly see this has not
+been Serbia for long, for the Serbs are the worst eaters in the world.
+Jo gave medical advice to a Serb, and on once more.
+
+On the road were travellers never ending in their variety, and one
+father was mounted with a pack behind him, and on the top of the pack
+his little daughter clad in many coloured cottons, clasping him tight
+round the neck and peering inquisitively from behind his ear.
+
+About three p.m. we reached the Lim. The road climbs to a great height,
+and the peasants in their gay costumes were reaping, some of the fields
+so steep that we wondered how they stood upon them; on the opposite
+cliff was an old robber castle like a Rhine fortress.
+
+The Serbian town of Prepolji introduced itself by six Turks lying by
+the roadside, then there were three Turkish families, afterwards an
+assorted dozen of small girls in trousers, finally, an old man doddering
+along in a turban and a veiled beggar woman, who demanded backsheesh.
+"Where are the Serbs?" we thought.
+
+The Greek church looked as if it had been new built, so that the Serbs
+could claim Prepolji as a Christian town, and had a biscuit tin roof not
+yet rusted.
+
+Our hotel was like that where Mr. Pickwick first met Sam Weller, a large
+open court with a crazy wooden balcony at the second story, and the
+bedrooms opening on to the balcony. When we opened our knapsacks to get
+out washing materials, we found that the heat of the horse had melted
+all the chocolate in Jan's, and it had run over everything. It was a
+mess, but chocolate was precious, and every piece had to be rescued. We
+had only been ten hours in the saddle, but we descended stiffly, and
+were pounced on by a foolish looking man, with a head to which Jo took
+immediate offence. This fellow attached himself to us during the whole
+of our stay, and was an intolerable nuisance; we nicknamed him "glue
+pot," and only at our moment of departure discovered that he was the
+mayor who had been trying to do us honour.
+
+The next day was Sunday, and the village full of peasants. Stiff-legged
+and groaning a little within ourselves we walked about the town making
+observations: Turkish soldiers, Turkish policemen, Turkish recruits, but
+all the peasants Serb. The country costume is different from that of the
+north, the perpendicular stripe on the skirt has here given way to
+horizontal bands of colour, and some women wear a sort of exaggerated
+ham frill about the waist. The men's waistcoats were very ornate, and
+much embroidery was upon their coats.
+
+An English nurse came into the town in the afternoon. She, a Russian
+girl, and an English orderly had driven from Plevlie, en route to
+Uzhitze. Half-way along the wheel of their carriage had broken in
+pieces, so they finished the road on foot. Curiously enough we had
+travelled from England to Malta with this lady, Sister Rawlins, on the
+same transport. The Russian girl had been married only the day before to
+a Montenegrin officer, nephew of the Sirdar Voukotitch,
+Commander-in-Chief of the North, and she was flying back to Russia to
+collect her goods and furniture.
+
+Next day as we were sketching in the picturesque main street, from the
+distance came the sounds of a weird wailing, drawing slowly closer and
+closer.
+
+"Hurra," thought we--two minds with but a single, etc.,--"a
+funeral--magnificent. Just the thing to complete the scene."
+
+A string of donkeys came round the corner, on either flank each animal
+bore a case marked with a large red cross. Amongst the animals were
+donkey-boys, and it was from their lips came the dismal wailing. Never
+have we seen so ragged and wretched a crew. The boys were evidently the
+"unfits," and they looked it, every face showed the wan, pallid shadow
+of hunger and disease. A few old men in huge fur caps, with rifles on
+their backs, stumbled along, guarding the precious convoy. "Glue pot"
+led us all to a large empty building, once a Turkish merchant's store,
+where the cases were to be housed. The bullock carts with the heavier
+packages came in in the evening, and we sent the men five litres of plum
+brandy to put some warmth into their miserable bodies. This moved them
+once more to singing, but we think the songs sounded a little less
+dreary.
+
+The Commandant asked for, and got, half a dozen sheets from us as a sort
+of superior backsheesh, and promised us horses for the morrow.
+
+The next morning dawned dismally. Miss Rawlins and her companions were
+to go on by post cart, and their conveyance arrived first, only two and
+a half hours late. It was a sort of tinker's tent on four rickety
+wheels. There seemed to be barely room for one within the dark interior,
+but both Miss Rawlins and the little Russian climbed in somehow.
+Charlie, the orderly, clung on by his eyelids in front, and off they
+went. We last saw two faces peering back at us beneath the fringe of the
+tent. They had no luck. Half-way to Uzhitze the cart upset and they were
+all rolled into the ditch, missing a precipice of sixty feet or so by
+the merest fraction.
+
+Our own horses arrived later, we mounted, and with cheers from the
+assembled authorities, we rode off.
+
+The rain came down in a steady drizzle; we discovered that the
+waterproof cloaks which we had borrowed from Nish were not very
+weathertight. We climbed right up into the clouds, but still the rain
+held on. From the floating mist jutted great boulders and huge red
+cliffs. Our guide put up an umbrella and rode along crouching beneath
+it. At 1400 metres we reached an inn, where we lunched. A Montenegrin
+commissioner insisted on paying our bill, and said that we would do the
+same for him when he came to England. Every one in Serbia or Montenegro
+is interested in ages. They were astounded at ours. They said that Jo
+would have been seventeen if she were Serbian; and one rose, shook Jan
+warmly by the hand and said he must have "navigated" the marriage well.
+
+We rode over the frontier, but we were not yet in the real Montenegro.
+This is not the black mountain where the last dregs of old Serbian
+aristocracy defied the Turk, this is still the Sanjak, three years ago
+Turkish, and with pleasant pasturages spreading on either hand.
+
+At last we came up over Plevlie. To one corner we could see the town
+creeping in a crescent about the foot of a grey hill, far away on the
+other side was a little monastery, forlorn and white, like a shivering
+saint, and between a great valley with four purplish humps in the midst
+of the corn and maize fields, like great whales bursting through a
+patchwork quilt.
+
+Our horses were thoroughly cheered up, and we passed through the long
+streets of the town at a lively trot, a thing Jo was taught as a child
+to consider bad form.
+
+A semi-transparent little man in a black hat stood on the hotel steps
+beckoning to us. But we had no use for hotel touts, and waved our sticks
+saying, "Hospital." He seemed curiously disappointed.
+
+The hospital, many long low buildings, lay buried in a park of trees.
+The staff lived in a tiny house near by, where we were welcomed by the
+cook, Mrs. Roworth. She explained that as the house was hardly capable
+of holding its ten or twelve occupants, a room had been taken for us at
+the inn, but that we were to meal with them.
+
+"Not that you will like the food," she said, "for it's all tinned, and I
+have only twenty-five shillings a week to buy milk, bread, and fresh
+meat."
+
+We wondered why, in such a fertile country, a party of hard-working
+people should be condemned to eat tinned mackerel and vegetables brought
+all the way from England?
+
+However, the dinner was excellent--all "disguised," she said, for she
+had during the few weeks she had been there concentrated on the art of
+disguising bully beef and worse problems, and had sternly put Dr. Clemow
+on omelets and beefsteaks, as his digestion had caved in under six
+months' unadulterated tinned food.
+
+We met old friends, fellow travellers on the way out. In those days they
+were a wistful little party, wondering how they were going to reach
+Montenegro, the Adriatic being impossible. At last one of the passes was
+hurriedly improved for them by a thousand prisoners, and they rode
+through in the snow. Since then typhus had raged, two of their number
+had been very ill, and one had died. Their energy had been tremendous,
+and everywhere in the country they were spoken of as the wonderful
+English hospital, and even from Chainitza, where there was a Russian
+hospital, soldiers walked a long day's march in order to be treated by
+the English.
+
+Dr. Roger's rival was there, the perpetrator of ninety hernia operations
+a week--or was it more?
+
+All this on tinned food!
+
+Our hotel room proved large and comfortable with a talkative willing
+Turk in attendance. We slept immensely and were wakened by yet another
+horrible cock crowing. All Balkan cocks seem to have bronchitis.
+
+Plevlie is a red-tiled nucleus with a fringe of wood-roofed Serb houses
+planted round it. There are ten mosques, while the only Greek church
+stands forlorn on the other side of the great hollow two miles away.
+
+The town is not really Montenegrin. It has the cosmopolitan character of
+all the Sanjak, Turks, Austro-Turks and Serbs--a mixture like that at
+Marseilles or Port Said.
+
+The shops are Turkish, though their turbaned owners, sitting
+cross-legged on the floor-counters, can speak only Serb--a thing which
+puzzled us at the time.
+
+We saw veiled women and semi-veiled children everywhere, thickly
+latticed windows with curious eyes peeping through, and yards with high
+wooden palings above to prevent the possible young men on the houses
+opposite from catching a glimpse of the fair ladies in the gardens.
+
+Plenty of long-legged Montenegrin officers--with flat caps bearing the
+King's initials, and five rings representing the dynasties of the ruling
+house--filled the streets, and also the inevitable ragged soldiers with
+gorgeous bags on their backs.
+
+Some of the women, too, were wearing these caps, but theirs were yet
+smaller and tipped over their noses, like the pork pie hat of our
+grandmothers. One closely veiled woman showed the silhouette sticking up
+through her veil just like a blacking tin.
+
+The Mahommedan is much more fanatic in these parts than his more
+civilized brother of Salonika or Constantinople. Women of the two
+religions do not visit. The hatred is partially political, and Jo began
+to realize that her dream of visiting a harem would not be easy to
+achieve. We met three women walking down a lonely street. Although their
+faces were covered with several thicknesses of black chiffon, they
+modestly placed them against the wall and stood there, three shapeless
+bundles, until we were out of sight.
+
+Jan's feelings were very much hurt, but he soon got used to being
+treated like a dangerous dragon.
+
+When we reached our hotel again we found the élite of the town waiting
+in the bar-room for us. There was a huge jolly Greek priest, all big hat
+and velvet, the prefect, the schoolmaster, a linguist, and the little
+black-hatted man whom we had mistaken for a hotel tout.
+
+The priest was president of the Montenegrin Red Cross, the prefect was a
+former Prime Minister and a Voukotitch. All important men who are not
+Petroviches are Voukotitches; the first being members of the king's and
+the second of the queen's family.
+
+The little black-hatted man was secretary of the Red Cross, and was
+formally attached to us while there as cicerone. He explained to us that
+they had all been in the hotel expecting us the night before, with a
+beautiful dinner which had been prepared in our honour.
+
+We apologized and inwardly noted the grateful temperament of the
+Montenegrin. We were solemnly treated to coffee and brandy, and the
+jolly priest emptied his cigarette box into Jo's lap. When the first
+polite ceremoniousness had worn off we asked delicately about the front.
+
+"Did we wish to see the front?"
+
+Certainly, said the prefect, we should have the first horses that should
+come back to the town, and the little transparent shadow man should
+accompany us. And our letter to the Sirdar Voukotitch, commander in
+chief of the north?--He should be told about it on his return that
+evening from the front.
+
+At sunset the muezzin sounded, cracked voices cried unmelodiously from
+all the minaret tops. Immediately, as if it were their signal, all the
+crows arose from the town, hovered around in batches for a moment,
+chattering, and flew away up the hill to roost in the trees round the
+hospital till sunrise.
+
+Salonika rings with children's cries, Dawson city with the howlings of
+dogs, but the towns of the Sanjak have no better music than the croaking
+of carrion crows.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MONTENEGRIN FRONT ON THE DRINA
+
+
+When Jan awoke it was dark, and he was with difficulty rousing Jo when
+suddenly a voice howled through the keyhole that the horses were
+waiting. Jan grabbed his watch--5 a.m.; but the horses had been ordered
+for six. Hastily chewing dry biscuit, Jan jumped into his clothes and
+ran down. There was a small squat youth with a flabby Mongolian face
+hovering between the yard door and the inn, and Jan following him
+discovered three horses saddled and waiting. He hastily ordered white
+coffee to be prepared, and ran up again to hurry Jo and to pack. He
+rushed down again to pay the bill, but found that the Montenegrin Red
+Cross had charged itself with everything, very generously, so he ran up
+once more to nag at Jo. The secretary, whom we called "the shadow," had
+not appeared, so we inquired from the squint-eyed youth, received many
+"Bogamis" as answer, but nothing definite; so we decided, as it was now
+past six, that he had changed his mind and had sent this chinee-looking
+fellow, whom we named "Bogami," in his place.
+
+Jan's horse was like an early "John" drawing of a slender but antiquated
+siren, all beautiful curves. Jo's would in England long ago have taken
+the boat to Antwerp; her saddle stood up in a huge hump behind and had a
+steeple in front, and was covered by what looked like an old bearskin
+hearthrug in a temper, one stirrup like a fire shovel was yards too
+long, the other far too short, and were set well at the back.
+
+"What queer horses!" we remarked.
+
+"Bogami," said Bogami; "when there are no horses these are good horses,
+Bogami."
+
+"Where is the secretary?"
+
+"Bogami nesnam" (don't know).
+
+From Uzhitze we had good horses, from Prepolji moderate, now these;
+imagination staggered at what we should descend to if we did a fourth
+lap to Cettinje, for instance, but we climbed up. Jo with her queerly
+placed stirrups perched forward something like a racing cyclist.
+Bogami's horse was innocent of garniture, save for a piece of chain
+bound about its lower jaw, but he slung his great coat over the saw edge
+of its backbone and leapt on. He must have had a coccyx of cast iron. We
+had to kick the animals into a walk--there were fifty kilometres to go.
+
+After a while we began to wonder if it would not be quicker to get off
+and foot it, but we did catch up and eventually pass a Red Cross Turk.
+We saw a soldier striding ahead. By kicks and shouts we raised a sprint
+along the level road; we drew even with him, and then began a race; on
+the uphills we beat him, on the downhills he caught up and passed in
+front. He was a taciturn fellow, and save that he was going to Fochar we
+learnt nothing about him. On a long uphill we gained a hundred yards,
+and by supreme efforts held our gains. He eventually disappeared from
+view, and we were rejoicing at our speed when we realized that the
+telegraph wires were no longer with us--one can always find the nearest
+way by following the telegraph, for governments do not waste wire. Jan
+looked for them and found them streaming away to the left, and among
+them, well up on the horizon, our enemy the soldier.
+
+"Look," we cried to Bogami, "isn't that the shortest way? The wires go
+there."
+
+"Bogami," he replied; "wires can, horses can't, bogami."
+
+There is a fine military road to Chainitza, made by the Austrians, but
+it remains a white necklace on the hills, almost an ornament to the
+landscape. No one seemed to use it, while our old Turkish road which
+snaked and twisted up and down was pitted with the hoofs of countless
+horses. It is a stony path, and our animals were shod with flat plates
+instead of horseshoes; they slipped and slithered, and we wondered if in
+youth they had ever had lessons in skating.
+
+There was a heavy mist, but it began to break up, and through peepholes
+one caught fleeting glimpses of distant patterning of field and forest,
+and hints of great hills. The sun showed like a great pale moon on the
+horizon. There were other travellers on the old Turkish trail, horsemen,
+Bosnians in great dark claret-coloured turbans, or Montenegrins in their
+flat khaki caps, peasants in dirty white cotton pyjamas, thumping before
+them animals with pack-swollen sides, soldiers only recognizable from
+the peasants by the rifle on their backs, and Turks; most were jolly
+fellows, and hailed us cheerfully.
+
+From a house by the roadside burst a sheep, followed by five men. They
+chased the animal down the road whistling to it. We had never heard that
+whistling was effectual with sheep, and certainly it did not succeed
+very well in this instance.
+
+Somewhere beyond this house Jan's inside began to cry for food, two
+biscuits and a cup of _café au lait_ being little upon which to found a
+long day's riding. He tentatively tried a "compressed luncheon." Its
+action was satisfactory, but whether it resulted from real nourishment
+contained in the black-looking glue, or whether it came from a sticking
+together of the coating of the stomach, we have not yet decided. Jo
+preferred rather to endure the hunger.
+
+Bogami had quite a charm; for instance, he appreciated our troubles with
+the beasts we were riding. Jo's horse stumbled a good deal on the
+downhills; her saddle was very uncomfortable and so narrow that she
+could never change her position. We came into most magnificent scenery,
+the beauty of which made a deep impression even upon our empty selves.
+There were deep green valleys, rising to peaks and hills which faded
+away ridge behind ridge of blue into the distant Serbian mountains,
+great pine woods of delicate drooping trees which came down and folded
+in on every side, and though it was almost September there were
+strawberries still ripe at the edge of the road, little red luscious
+blobs amidst the green.
+
+Metalka at one o'clock, and we were on the real Montenegrin frontier.
+There are two Metalkas, a Montenegrin and an Austrian, and they are
+divided one from the other by a strip of land some ten yards across
+which rips the village in two like the track of a little cyclone. Bogami
+directed us to a shanty labelled "Hotel of Europe." A large woman was
+blocking the door; we demanded food, she took no notice. Hunger was
+clamouring within us. We demanded a second time. She waved her hand
+majestically to her rival in Austria, at whose tables Montenegrin
+officers were sitting with coffee.
+
+An officer greeted us.
+
+"We had expected you yesterday," he said.
+
+We waved to the horses.
+
+"No horses."
+
+"That is a pity," he murmured. "You see, there was something to eat
+yesterday!"
+
+In spite of his pessimism we got eggs and wine. Bogami had a large
+crowd, to whom he lectured, and we sent him out some eggs.
+
+After lunch we pushed on, in conquered territory. To Chainitza they said
+was one hour and a half, it proved nearer three.
+
+We joined some peasants, and they told us that they were going to the
+great festival. The old mother halted at a sort of sheep pen by the
+roadside; when she rejoined us she was wiping her eyes.
+
+"That was my brother," she explained; "he was killed in the war;" for it
+is the custom to erect memorial stones by the roadside. Many of these
+are very quaint, sometimes painted with a soldier, or else with the
+rifle, sword, pistols and medals of the deceased.
+
+Chainitza lies in a backwater, where the deep valley makes a sudden
+bend. When we came to it the sun was in our eyes, and halfway between
+the crest and the river the town seemed to float in a bluish mist; two
+white mosques stood out against the trees, and the roof of one was not
+one dome, but many like an inverted egg frier, or almost as though it
+was boiling over.
+
+We were stopped at the entry by a sentry.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To the Russian Hospital."
+
+He took us in charge and led us, in spite of protestations, to the
+hotel. A man in a shabby frock-coat received us, and Jo, mistaking him
+for the innkeeper, clamoured once more for the Russians. The shabby man
+explained that he was the Prefect, and that this was a State reception.
+We began to be awed by our own dignity. We explained to him that the
+Shadow had changed his mind and had sent Bogami instead.
+
+Bogami brought our knapsacks to our room, where he was immobilized by
+the sight of himself in the looking-glass of the wardrobe; probably he
+had never seen such a thing before, and he goggled at it. He at last
+backed slowly from the room.
+
+We rested a while, then descended to find--the Shadow.
+
+He was rather hurt with us, and wanted to know why the ---- we had gone
+off without him. We explained, compared watches, and found that Jan's
+was an hour too fast. The poor Shadow had been chasing us on a borrowed
+horse, with our permissions to travel in his pocket, and wildly hoping
+that he would catch us up before we were arrested as spies.
+
+We had tea with the Russians in a little arbour on the roadside, and
+chewed sweets which had just arrived from Petrograd, having been three
+months on the journey, but none the worse for that. Many officers came,
+amongst them the husband of the little Russian girl we had met at
+Prepolji. They all seemed to be Voukotitches, and at last the Sirdar
+himself honoured us. He is a huge man, and yet seemed to take up more
+room than his size warrants. He has a flat, almost plate-like face, with
+pallid blue eyes which seemed to focus some way beyond the object of his
+regard. Were his moustache larger he would be rather like Lord
+Kitchener, and he was very pleased at the obvious compliment. He poses a
+little, moves seldom but suddenly, and shoots his remarks as though
+words of command. He was very kind to us, and was immensely astonished
+at Jo's Serbian, holding up his hands and saying "Kako" at every one of
+her speeches. He suggested that poor Bogami should be beaten, but we
+begged him off. Captain Voukotitch, the husband of a day, was appointed
+to be our guide for the morrow--because Jo spoke Serbian.
+
+After tea we went up to the bubbly mosque, which was in reality the
+Greek church. We entered a large gate; on the one side of a yard was the
+church, and on the other a big two-storied rest-house, where one could
+lodge while paying devotions or doing pilgrimages. Its long balconies
+were filled with country folk all come for the festival, and who were
+feasting and laughing as though the war did not exist. The courtyard was
+filled with men and women in Bosnian costumes, white and dark red
+embroideries. Through the open door of the church one could see the
+silhouettes of the peasants bowing before the Ikons and relics. It was
+almost dark, and one man began to play a little haunting melody upon a
+wooden pipe, but though they linked arms and shuffled their feet, the
+young men did not dance.
+
+At supper the Shadow revealed a quaint sense of humour, and so to bed.
+
+The next morning was lovely, and we started at seven with the youngest
+Voukotitch and the others. Some officers had lent us their horses, and
+Voukotitch had proudly produced his English saddle for Jo. On the road
+the spirit of mischief entered him.
+
+"You can ride all right," he said; "wouldn't you like to go to the
+nearest machine-gun to the Austrian lines?"
+
+"Rather," said Jo.
+
+"You'll have to do some stiff riding, though. I know the major, and he
+is bored to death. He'll let us."
+
+"But what about the bullets?" said the Shadow.
+
+In time the major was produced, emerging from a cottage by the roadside,
+other officers with him, and we had a merry coffee party in an arbour.
+One told Jo that he was a lawyer. The few Montenegrins who had the
+misfortune to be educated were not allowed to serve at the front, but he
+had been lucky enough through influence to be allowed to take a
+commission. He had not seen much serious fighting, however, as no move
+had been made for several months.
+
+Then we tackled the hills. "Come along," said the major, cheerfully; and
+his horse's nose went down and its tail went up, and off it slid
+downhill. We had seen the Italian officers do such things on the
+cinematograph, but little thought that we should be in the same
+position. We supposed it would be all right. Jo's horse became nearly
+vertical, and she sat back against its tail. Jan followed. Sometimes a
+sheet of rock was across the path--then we slid; sometimes the sand
+became very soft--we slid again. Then a muddy bit, and the horse
+squelched down on his hind quarters.
+
+Here we met a Serbian captain who was in charge of the battery. He was
+very lonely, and delighted to have a chance to talk, and he talked hard
+all day, showed us a neat reservoir his men had built, explained to us
+that beautiful uniforms were coming from Russia soon for the weirdly
+garbed beings who were guarding the hills, and asked us to lunch behind
+the trenches under a canopy of boughs.
+
+While lunch was being prepared he took us round his artillery, and into
+his observation station on the top of a crooked tree. Below us we could
+see the river Dreina--on the other side of which was Gorazhda, held by
+the Austrians--and the fortified hills behind.
+
+It seemed impossible that this wide peaceful scene was menacing with a
+threat of death, yet at intervals one could hear a faint "pop! pop!" as
+though far-away giants were holding feast and opening great champagne
+bottles. Away in the hills could be seen an encampment of white tents,
+which caused a mild excitement, for they had not been there the day
+before, and we were told that they were quite out of range.
+
+During lunch the youngest Voukotitch tempted the major--who was in
+splendid mood--suggesting that it was rather tame to go home after
+having come within mere bowing distance of the Austrians, and that a few
+stray bullets would not incommode us.
+
+The major saw reason fairly quickly, so we bestrode our horses again and
+continued our switchback course. At an open space where the Austrians
+could shoot at us if they wished we had to plunge down the hill quickly,
+keeping a distance of one hundred yards from each other.
+
+The little Shadow prudently got off his horse and used its body as a
+shield.
+
+We banged at the door of a cottage, and a young lieutenant came out;
+somebody said he was nineteen and a hero.
+
+[Illustration: SERB AND MONTENEGRIN OFFICERS ON THE DRINA.]
+
+
+[Illustration: A CONCEALED GUN EMPLACEMENT ON THE DRINA.]
+
+Here we left our horses and began to scramble through brambles along a
+narrow path, climbing up the back of a little hill on the crest of which
+were the machine guns. Just before we got to the top we plunged into a
+tunnel which bored through the hill; at the end was the gun. The hero
+scrambled in, wriggled the gun about and explained. He invited Jo to
+shoot. She squashed past him; there was a knob at the back of the gun
+on which she pressed her thumbs, and she immediately wanted another pair
+with which to stop her ears. The gun jammed suddenly. The hero pulled
+the belt about, and Jo set it going once more.
+
+The Austrian machine guns answered back and kept this up, so Jo pressed
+the knob again and yet again. Then we got into the trenches above.
+Whenever Jo popped her head over the trenches for a good look there were
+faint reports from the mountain opposite. One or two bullets whizzed
+over our heads, and we realized that they were aiming at Jo's big white
+hat.
+
+Jan climbed down the hill and took snap-shots of Gorazhda; the enemy got
+a couple of pretty near shots at him.
+
+When the Montenegrins thought this sport was becoming monotonous they
+remembered the business of the day. A big house in Gorazhda was said to
+be full of Hungarian officers, and they wanted to get the range of this
+with one of the big guns. This decision had been made a day or two
+before with much deliberation. This they thought the State could afford.
+The precious shell was brought out, and every one fondled it.
+
+Men were called out and huge preparations were made for sighting and
+taking aim. We scuttled round with field glasses, and finally stood on
+tiptoe behind branches on a mound by the side of the gun. There were
+many soldiers fussing in the dug-out, and at last they pulled the
+string.
+
+"Goodness! Now we've done it," Jo thought, as the mountains sent back
+the fearful report in decreasing echoes. We seemed to wait an eternity,
+and then "something white" happened far beyond the village.
+
+The officers looked at each other with long faces. "A bad miss--the
+expense."
+
+We felt the resources of the Montenegrin Empire were tottering. Awful!
+Could they afford another?
+
+Finally, with great courage, they decided that it was better to spend
+two shells on getting a decent aim than to lose one for nothing. The
+terrific bang went off again, and this time the "something white"
+happened right on the roof of the house. The Hungarian officers all ran
+out, and the machine guns below jabbered at them. Nobody was killed as
+far as we know, but every one was content and delighted.
+
+Sunset was approaching, and we rode away quickly, only stopping once to
+drag a reluctant old Turk from the mountain side and make him sing to
+the accompaniment of a one-stringed goosla. He hated to do it as all
+his best songs were about triumphant Mahommedans crushing Serbs, and of
+course he couldn't sing those.
+
+He sat grumpily cross-legged on the ground, encircled by our horses,
+droning a song of two notes, touching the string quickly with the flat
+lower part of his fingers.
+
+We left him very suddenly because the darkness comes quickly in those
+hills, so we made for the high-road as hard as we could.
+
+We rode fast to the Colonel's cottage, sat down to the dinner table,
+which was decked with pale blue napkins, and a fine-looking old
+Voukotitch, an ex-M.P. in national costume, acted as butler. In spite of
+his seventy odd years he had joined the army as a common soldier. He
+refused all invitations to sit with us, for he knew his place. The young
+husband was his nephew, and they kissed fondly on leave-taking.
+
+We rode back in the moonlight. At one spot on the road was a sawmill,
+and the huge white pine logs lying all about looked like the fallen
+columns of some ruined Athenian temple. We tried to enjoy the moment,
+and to brush aside the awful thought that we must remount Rosinante and
+Co. next day.
+
+The Shadow was terribly puffed up about his feat. The following morning
+as we were sketching in the town, an officer approached respectfully.
+
+"His excellency the Sirdar invites you to supper," he said.
+
+We considered a moment, for we had intended to return to Plevlie. The
+Shadow broke in.
+
+"It is inconvenient to come to supper," he said to our horror. "Tell his
+excellency that the gentleman and lady will come to lunch if he wishes
+it."
+
+The Sirdar meekly sent answer that lunch would suit him very well, and
+we could drive back with him to Plevlie. "Would we come to his house at
+12.30?"
+
+The Prefect told us that we ought to go to the lunch at twelve, because
+the Sirdar's clock was always half an hour fast. We arrived, but the
+Sirdar evidently had been considering us, he did not appear for the half
+an hour, so we sat with his staff sipping rakia by the roadside.
+
+The lunch was excellent, but the Sirdar's carriage, like every other
+carriage in Montenegro, was a weird, ancient, rusty arabesquish affair,
+tied together with wire. We had two resplendent staff officers, armed to
+the teeth, who galloped ahead, we had two superior non-coms., also armed
+to the dentals, galloping behind, while on the box sat a man with gun,
+pistols, sword, dagger and a bottle of wine and water which we passed
+round whenever the Sirdar became hoarse. The coachman was as old and as
+shabby as his carriage, and every five miles or so was forced to descend
+and tie up yet another mishap with wire--ordinary folks' carriages are
+only repaired with string.
+
+The Sirdar occupied almost the whole of the back seat, and Jo was
+squeezed into the crack which was left. Jan was perched on a sort of
+ledge, facing them. The carriage was narrow, six legs were two too many
+for the space. Jan's were the superfluous ones. He tried this pose, he
+tried that, but in spite of his contortions he endured much of the seven
+hours' journey in acute discomfort and the latter part in torture.
+
+In spite of his throat the Sirdar did nearly all the talking. The
+country we were passing through were scenes of his battles: with one arm
+he threw a company over this hill, with a hand, nearly hitting Jan in
+the eye, he marched an army corps along that valley; he explained how he
+had been forced to give up the Ministry of War because there was no
+other efficient commander for the north.
+
+A blue ridge of pine trees appeared on our right hand.
+
+"You see those hills," said the Sirdar: "I'll tell you the story of a
+reply of mine, a funny reply. I ordered a general last winter to march
+across those hills. He said that the troops would starve. I looked him
+in the eye. Then you will eat wolves, I shouted. He went."
+
+If we passed peasants he stopped them. He seemed to have an
+extraordinary memory for names and faces.
+
+"Never forget a face," he said, "never forget its name. That is the
+secret of popularity."
+
+He was very anxious that we should go to Cettinje and to Scutari. He
+kindly promised to see about it, to arrange for our horses and to have
+our passage telegraphed before us. At Podgoritza he said a government
+motor-car should wait for us. He advised us to make a detour from the
+straight road and to see the famous black lake of Jabliak and the
+Dormitor mountains. We thanked him gratefully. He waved our thanks
+aside.
+
+"And I will write to my friend the Minister of War. He will arrange that
+you go to Scutari." He then explained all the reasons why Montenegro
+should hold Scutari when the war was over.
+
+"It was ours," he said; "we only gave it up to Venice so that she should
+protect us from the Turk. If we do not hold Scutari, Montenegro can
+never become a state, so if we cannot keep her we might as well give up
+Cettinje. After all we are but taking back what was once ours."
+
+He was daily expecting the uniforms from Russia, and asked every soldier
+on the road for news. At last one said that he had seen them.
+
+"The stuff is rather thin, your excellency, but the boots are splendid."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+NORTHERN MONTENEGRO
+
+
+We were accosted by a clean-limbed, joyous youth, who bore on his cap
+the outstretched winged badge of the police. He said--
+
+"Mister Sirdar, he tell me take you alon' o' Nickshitch."
+
+Sure enough the next morning there he was, with three horses, which if
+not the identical animals of our Chainitza trip were sisters or brothers
+to them. It was a wretched day, gusty, and the rain sweeping round the
+corners of the old streets. Early as was the hour, the wretched
+prisoners were peering through the lattice windows of their prison,
+which evidently once had been the harem of some wealthy Turk; where
+beauties had once lain on voluptuous couches, wretched criminals now
+crouched half-starved, racked with disease, and as we passed held out
+skinny arms. All Montenegrin saddles are bound on with string, even
+those of the highest in the land; indeed, one cannot imagine how the
+people did before string was invented, and ours began to slip before we
+were well clear of the town. Necessary adjustments were made, and on
+once more.
+
+Our guide was well armed--he carried two murderous-looking pistols, and
+a long rifle slung over his back. He was in high spirits and showed us
+that the proper way to ride Montenegrin horses was to drop the reins on
+to the animal's neck, kick it in the stomach with both feet, elevating
+your arms and uttering the most unearthly yells. Thus terrified, the
+unfortunate wreck would canter a few yards, and our cicerone would turn
+in his saddle and grin back at us, who were humanely contented with the
+solemn jog-trot of our aged steeds along the well-worn horse-track--for
+there was no road.
+
+We crawled along, wretched in the downpour, the scenery completely
+hidden by the clouds; but towards midday, as we climbed ever higher and
+higher, we plunged into pine forests where the rain began to thin to
+mist, veiling the trees with layers of drifting fog. Out of the forests
+we came--the rain having ceased--into a strange-looking landscape, whose
+japanesiness is equalled possibly only by Japan itself. There were the
+queer rounded hills, the gnarled and twisted little pines and dim
+fir-clad slopes cutting the sky with sharp grey silhouettes.
+
+Here we stopped to eat. We opened a tin of meat and made rough
+sandwiches with the coarse brown or black bread which is the staple food
+of Serbian nations. When we were satisfied there was meat left in the
+tin. Two wretched, ragged children came on the road singing some
+half-Eastern chant, and we hailed them. They refused the food with
+dignity, and marched on offended.
+
+We came to the Grand Canyon of Colorado--we beg its pardon--of
+Montenegro, The Tara. Great cliffs towered high on either side, great
+grey, rugged cliffs topped with pine and scrub oak. Down, down, down to
+the river, an hour, and we crossed the bridge out of Novi Bazar into
+Montenegro--thirty years free from the Turk. We halted at a little
+coffee stall made of boughs. Jan wanted to get a photo, but the women
+were so shy that Jo had to push them out into the open.
+
+On the way up the other cliff our guide became communicative. He had
+been in America, in the mining camps, and spoke fair American.
+
+"In ole days, dese was de borders," he said; "'ere de Serb, 'n dere de
+Turk. Natchurally dey 'ate each oder. Dey waz two fellers 'ad fair cold
+feet, one 'ere, one over dere, Turk 'n our chapy. Every day dey come
+down to de ribber 'n dey plug't de odder chap wid dere ole pistols what
+filled at de nose. But dey neber hit nuttin. One day de Serb 'e got mad
+and avade in de ribber, but 'e did'n 'it de Turk. Nex' day dey hot'
+avade in 'arf way across. Dey miss again. De tird day dey avades in rite
+ter de middle, 'n each shoots up de odder dead. Yessir, 'n dere bodies
+float down ter 'ere."
+
+He looked up and pointed.
+
+"Dey was a gooman up dere," he said.
+
+"A gooman?"
+
+"Yes, a man wat 'ad a gooman all to 'isself."
+
+"!!!!"
+
+"Dey was an ole town all made o' stones," our guide explained, "where
+dis man made 'is gooman. You know wat a gooman is?--kill all de fellers
+what pass 'n do wat you likes."
+
+We understood suddenly that "Government" was indicated.
+
+"Dat's wat I say," he answered, "gooman--'e was killed by a Montenegrin
+chap wat throwed 'im orf de cliffs, 'n a Turk gets all 'is land. Dat's
+'ow dey was done dose days. Dere ain't much 'o de ole town lef now."
+
+"We 'ad to chase de Turk outer 'ere," he went on; "lots 'o fighting, but
+we 'ad luck. You see, dey 'ad two lines, 'an we got de first line before
+'e was ready, 'n wiped 'im out, so de secon' line did'n know if it was
+'im retreatin' or us advancin', and we was into 'em before dey 'ad made
+up dere minds. Yessir."
+
+The ascent was terribly laborious. Our animals were sweating, though
+they were carrying nothing but the knapsacks.
+
+"Ye see dat flat stone?" said the guide. "Dat's were de gooman feller
+'ide 'is gold. Dey was tree Italians chaps 'ere 'n dey turn ober dat
+stone ter roll it downill. 'N underneat was all dat feller's gold. Dat
+madum larf, I tell yer."
+
+We climbed higher and yet higher; we thought we would never reach the
+crest. The sweat poured from us, and we were drenched.
+
+On the top there were but few stones of the old castle, and we rode over
+the ruins. We passed into a queer pallid country, pale grey houses, pale
+yellow or pale green fields, grey sky and stones, a violently rolling
+plain where our guide lost his way, and we became increasingly aware of
+the discomfort of our saddles, and prayed for the journey to end.
+
+We refound the route, and asked a peasant, "How far to Jabliak?"
+
+"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
+
+We cheered.
+
+At the end of twenty minutes we asked once more.
+
+"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
+
+At the end of twenty minutes more we asked again, our spirits were
+falling.
+
+"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
+
+"* * *!"
+
+We then asked a peasant and his wife. The woman considered for a moment.
+
+"About an hour," she said.
+
+Her husband turned and swore at her.
+
+"Bogami, don't believe her, gentlemen," he cried, "it's only a quarter
+of an hour."
+
+We left them quarrelling.
+
+It grew dark, and we grew miserable. Jabliak seemed like a dream, and we
+like poor wandering Jews, cursed ever to roam on detestable saddles in
+this queer pallid country.
+
+At last a peasant said it was five minutes off, and then it really was a
+quarter of an hour distant.
+
+We came down from the hills to find the whole aristocracy--one
+captain--not to say all their populace, out on the green to do us
+honour. They had been informed by telegraph of our august decision to
+sleep in their wooden village. When we got off our horses our knees were
+so cramped that we could scarcely stand, and we hobbled after the
+captain into a bitterly cold room without furniture. Various
+Montenegrins came and looked at us, and an old veterinary surgeon, also
+_en route_, but in the opposite direction, conversed in bad German. The
+old vet. was a Roumanian, and the only animal doctor in all Montenegro.
+
+To their great surprise we demanded something to eat.
+
+"Supper is at nine," they said severely.
+
+"But we have had nothing since ten this morning," we protested.
+
+"But supper will be ready at nine," they said again.
+
+After a lot of trouble we got some scrambled eggs, but nothing would
+persuade our guide, whose name, by the way, was "Mike," to have
+anything. It almost seemed improper to eat at the wrong hours, even if
+one was hungry.
+
+After supper we sat growing colder and colder. At last, in desperation,
+we asked if there were no place in the village which had a fire.
+
+"Oh yes, there is a fire in the other café," and thither we were
+conducted.
+
+We were in a jolly wooden room, with a blazing stove and a most welcome
+fugginess. The hostess brought us rakia, coffee and walnuts, and did her
+utmost to make us comfortable. Montenegrins crowded in, and discussed
+the probable end of the war. There was little enthusiasm shown, most of
+the talk was of the hardships, and a little grumbling that the farms
+were going to pieces because of the lack of men.
+
+Before leaving Plevlie, Dr. Clemow had presented Jan with a box of Red
+Cross cigars, and he handed one to the captain. The official received it
+gratefully.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "Cigars, eh! One does not often see those nowadays."
+
+The cigar was a Trichinopoli. Jan said nothing, but watched. The captain
+lit the cigar manfully, and for some minutes puffed, looking the
+apotheosis of aristocracy. Presently his puffing ceased, he looked
+thoughtful, and then saying that he had forgotten an important paper
+which he had not signed, he fled. We found the cigars most useful
+afterwards, as a sort of spiritual disinfector, infallible against
+bores.
+
+Into the cracks of the ceiling were stuck white and yellow flowers,
+thyme and other plants, till the roof looked like an inverted
+flower-bed. We had noticed this custom before, and asked Mike if it had
+any significance.
+
+"Oh yes," he answered, "all dose tings, dey stuck up dere 'gainst de
+fleas 'n bugs."
+
+This was translated into Serbian, and the woman boxed his ears.
+
+We supped on meat--three courses--meat, meat, meat, and so tough that
+our teeth bounced off, and we were compelled to bolt the morsels whole.
+One course tired us out, weary as we already were with our journey, but
+Mike, making up for his former abstinence, wolfed all his own share and
+what remained over from ours.
+
+The night was so cold that we went to bed in our clothes, and even then
+could not sleep for hours.
+
+We woke with difficulty to a glorious day, and found that what we had
+thought yesterday to be a plain was in truth a great plateau surrounded
+by towering grey mountains on which were gulfs and gullies filled with
+eternal snow. Jabliak is a queer village, fifty or sixty weathered
+wooden houses--with the high-peaked roof of Northern Serbia--flung down
+into this wilderness, where the grass and crops fight for existence with
+the pushing stones, and where the summer is so short that the captain's
+plum tree--the only one--will not ripen save in exceptional years. Never
+a wheel comes to Jabliak, and so it is a village without streets.
+Everything which passes here is horse-or woman-borne, and for hay they
+use long narrow sledges which slide over the stones and slippery grass
+as though it were snow.
+
+"Urrgh," said a man, "you should see this in winter. Snow ten and twelve
+feet deep, and only just the roofs and the tops of the telegraph-poles
+emerging."
+
+The village escorted us to see the famous Black Lake below the peaks of
+Dormitor.
+
+The lake is beautiful enough, but too big for mystery, too small to be
+impressive. One had imagined it twinkling like the wicked pupil of a
+witch's eye, with cornea of white stones and eye-lashes of pine trees,
+and we desecrated even its stillness by shooting at wild duck with a
+rifle.
+
+Jan had been describing to the villagers how well Jo rode; they now
+think he is a liar. Her horse took an unexpected jump at a small
+obstacle; the huge hump at the back of the saddle rose suddenly, threw
+her forward, and before she had realized anything, she was hanging
+almost upside down about the horse's neck, helpless because of the
+enormous steeple in front. This horse, as though quite used to similar
+occurrences, stood quietly contemplative, till Mike had restored her to
+a perpendicular.
+
+Then on again. At times the tracks grew very muddy, and the horses
+side-slipped a good deal. At the top of a pass we halted to get coffee
+from a leafy hut. Before us were the mountains of Voynik, a blue ridge
+with shadowy, strange crevasses and cliffs; behind us Dormitor was still
+visible, a faint stain on the sky, as though that great canopy had been
+dragging edges in the dew.
+
+Four women clambered up towards us. When they had reached the top they
+flung down their enormous knapsacks and sat down. They were a cheery,
+pretty set, and we asked them where they were going.
+
+"To the front," they said.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Those are for our husbands and brothers," answered they, patting the
+huge coloured knapsacks.
+
+"How far have you to walk?" we asked.
+
+"Four more days."
+
+"And how far have you walked?"
+
+"Four days."
+
+No complaining, no repining, just a statement of fact, these women were
+cheerfully tramping eight days with bundles weighing from 45 to 50
+pounds upon their backs, to take a few luxuries, or necessities, to
+their fighting kin.
+
+We bade them a jolly farewell, wished them luck, and started downhill.
+
+The track became so steep that we had to descend from our horses and
+walk, and so we came to Shavnik.
+
+Shavnik is not of wood; it is stone, and as we came into its little
+square--with the white river-bed on one side--we realized that no
+welcome attended us. To our indignant dismay the inn was full, and no
+telegram from the "State" had arrived.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANT WOMEN OF THE MOUNTAINS.]
+
+[Illustration: A VILLAGE OF NORTH MONTENEGRO.]
+
+We learned that in Montenegro are two kinds of travellers--royalties
+and nobodies. Royalties are done for, nobodies do the best they can. We
+found a not overclean room over a shop--there was nothing better--we had
+already experienced worse: so we ordered supper, and went off to the
+telegraph station, to make sure that we arrived as "Royalty" at the next
+stop.
+
+A man suddenly burst into the office, crying, "Sirdar! Sirdar!"
+
+Jo and Jan made their way through the darkness to the inn, squeezed
+between sweating horses to the door. We were admitted.
+
+The Sirdar received us kindly, but was dreadfully tired, and looked
+years older than he had two days before. He had ridden some 150
+kilometres in sixteen hours, had left Chainitza at two o'clock in the
+morning, and had been in the saddle ever since. He is a famous horseman,
+but is no longer young. Almost all his escort had succumbed to the
+speed, and he was full of the story of his orderly's horse which had
+done 300 kilometres in four days, and was the only animal which had come
+through with him, he having changed mounts at Plevlie. We left him and
+went straight to bed.
+
+Just as we were comfortably dozing off, a man burst into the room and
+demanded "Mike," and said something about a horse. Jan dressed hurriedly
+and clattered downstairs. It was pitch dark. He ran to the stable, felt
+his way in, and struck a match. There were two horses, one was lying on
+its side, evidently foundered and dying but Jan felt that they would not
+have disturbed him for that. By matchlight again he found that his own
+horses had been turned out by the Sirdar's orderly, and that one was
+missing. Mike was not to be found, but the missing horse was discovered
+by a small boy in the dry river-bed apparently in search of water. Jan
+retired to his bedroom to find that in his absence two more strangers
+had burst in, to Jo's indignation. He pushed them out and locked the
+door.
+
+When we awoke the Sirdar had already retaken his whirlwind
+course--evidently grave news called him to Cettinje--leaving the
+orderly's gallant horse dead behind him.
+
+"He kills many horses," said a peasant, shaking his head; "he rides
+fast--always."
+
+We crossed the dry bed of the river and prepared for the hill in front
+of us. Suddenly Mike's horse plunged into a bog. The poor beast sprawled
+in the treacherous green up to its stomach, and, thinking its last hour
+had come, groaned loudly. Mike threw himself from the saddle, and with
+great effort at last extracted his horse, which emerged trembling and
+dripping with slime. Mike grinned ruefully.
+
+"I orter remembered," he admitted. "Sirdar, 'e get in dere one day
+'imself."
+
+This day's riding was the worst we had yet experienced. Our horses were
+fagged, the road abominable, great stones everywhere on the degenerated
+Turkish roads.
+
+The Turkish road is a narrowish path of flat paving-stones laid directly
+upon mother earth: but that is the first stage. In the second stage the
+paving-stones have begun to turn and lie like slates on a roof; in the
+third they have turned completely on edge, like a row of dominoes, and
+the horses, stepping delicately between the obstacles, pound the exposed
+earth to deep trenches of semi-liquid mud. In the fourth stage the
+stones have entirely disappeared, leaving only the trenches which the
+horses have formed, so that the path is like a sheet of violently
+corrugated iron. Most of the tracks are now between the third and fourth
+stages of degeneration. One never knows how far the horse will plunge
+his legs into the trenches, for sometimes they are very shallow, and
+sometimes the leg is engulfed to the shoulder.
+
+Jan's horse slipped over one domino, went up to the shoulder into a
+trench, and off came the rider. Luckily he fell upon a heap of stones,
+and not into the mud, but he decided for all that to walk for a bit.
+
+Every now and then one came across traces of the construction of a great
+road--white new stone embankments that started out of nothing, and went
+to nowhere, and Mike confessed that he had lost the path once more--
+
+"When I come out of dat confounded mod!"
+
+After a hustle across country we found the road, and wished that we had
+not, for it was a Turkish track in its most belligerent form.
+
+At last we reached the top and rested awhile. Mike showed us his
+revolver.
+
+"He good revolver," he said. "De las' man I shoot he killin' a vooman. I
+come. He run away. I tell 'im to stop, but he no stop, so I shoot 'im
+leg. 'E try to 'it me wi' a gon."
+
+The man got fourteen years.
+
+We pushed on again, and on the road picked up an overcoat, which later
+we were able to restore to its owner, a Turk, who was going to
+Nickshitch to buy sugar and salt for Plevlie.
+
+Bits of the big white road appeared and reappeared with insistence. We
+asked who was responsible for its inception.
+
+"Sirdar," said Mike; "he good boy. Much work."
+
+The country was now like brown velvet spread over heaps of gigantic
+potatoes.
+
+Our horses grew slower and slower, and the inn which we were seeking
+seemed ever further and further away. We passed many peasants, and had
+evidently entered the land of Venus, for each one was more beautiful
+than the neighbour. Since Jabliak we had not seen an ugly man or woman,
+and the dignity of their carriage was exceeded only by the nobleness of
+their features. Ugly women must be valuable in these parts, and probably
+marry early; humans ever prize the rare above the beautiful.
+
+Mike spoke to many of the girls, asking them their names and of their
+homes. One had his own name--which we forget--and he said that she must
+be his cousin, and that if she would wait where she was he would come
+back later and give her a lift.
+
+At last we came to the wooden inn.
+
+The better-class inns have dining-room and kitchen separate, the
+second-class both are one, but in each case the fire is made on a heap
+of earth piled in the centre of the floor; there is no chimney, and the
+smoke fills the room with a blue haze, smarting in the eyes; it drifts
+up to the roof, where hams are hung, and finds its way out through the
+cracks in the wooden roofing slats. This inn was second-class, and along
+one wall was a deep trough, in which were four huge lumps of a white
+substance which puzzled us. First we thought it was snow, but that
+seemed impossible; then we thought it was salt--but why?
+
+It was snow, there being no water fit to drink, so the snow was stored
+in the winter in huge underground cellars.
+
+We got coffee and kaimak--a sort of cross between sour milk and cream
+cheese--and as a great honour the lady of the house, a villainously
+dirty-looking woman, brought us two eggs. Jan's was bad, but he put it
+aside, saying nothing, for it is impossible to explain to these people
+what is a "bad" egg--all are alike to them.
+
+We took an affectionate leave of Mike, for here we degenerated to a
+carriage, which was waiting us, and he rode off, dragging our tired
+horses behind him.
+
+As we were getting into the carriage the dirty woman ran up and, before
+Jo could ward it off, planted a loving kiss on either cheek.
+
+We flung our weary limbs upon the rusty cushions. Our driver was a
+cheery fellow, who only answered "quite" to everything we said. We drove
+through miles of country so stony that all the world had turned grey as
+though it had remembered how old it was. The road twisted and curled
+about the mountains like the flourish of Corporal Trim's stick: below
+one could see the road, only half a mile off as the crow flies, but a
+good five miles by the curves. We were blocked by a great hay-cart. Our
+driver shouted and cursed without effect, so he climbed down from the
+box, and, running round the hay, slashed the driver of it with his whip.
+We expected a free fight, but nothing occurred. When the hay had
+modestly drawn aside, we found "only a girl." Poor thing! she looked
+rueful enough.
+
+The road was the best we had seen in all the Balkans, white and
+well-surfaced like an English country highway, and at last we clattered
+into Nickshitch, the most important town of Northern Montenegro. It was
+like a fair-sized Cornish village, with little stone houses and
+stone-walled gardens filled with sunflowers.
+
+A charming old major came to the inn to do us the honour we had
+telegraphed for, and together we strolled about the streets. There is a
+pretty Greek church at one end on a formal mound, and behind the town
+runs a sheer fin of rock topped by an old castle where once had lived
+another man who "was a gooman all to hisself;" now it is a monastery,
+and one of the most picturesque in Montenegro.
+
+We dined upon beautiful trout fresh from the river, and large green
+figs. Undressing, Jan found a louse in his shirt--that came from the
+dirty bedroom at Shavnik evidently. He went to bed, but his troubles
+were not yet over; there was another foreign presence, a presence which
+raised large and itching lumps. He hunted without success for some time,
+but at last caught and exterminated an enormous bug. After which there
+was peace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TO CETTINJE
+
+
+The rain poured all night. At five o'clock they called us, telling us
+_not_ to wake up as the motor would come later. At six they knocked
+again, saying--
+
+"Get up quickly; the carriage is at the door."
+
+No explanations.
+
+We hurried so much that we left our best soap and our mascot, a
+beautiful little wooden chicken, behind for ever. The major was waiting
+in the bar room.
+
+We were sorry to say good-bye, he was lonely, and we liked him; but we
+lost no time, as we were seven hours from Podgoritza and goodness knows
+how far from Cettinje.
+
+The carriage and coachman were the same as yesterday's, but his
+expression was so lugubrious in the downpouring rain that he looked
+another man.
+
+Just outside the village he picked up a friend and put her in the
+carriage. She was a velvet-coated old lady with a flat white face and
+two bright birdlike brown eyes which she never took off us.
+Conversation was impossible, as she had only one tooth, round which her
+speech whistled unintelligibly, and she hiccuped loudly once in every
+half-hour. We were most uncomfortable. The hood was up, and a piece of
+tarpaulin was stretched from it across to the coachman's seat, blocking
+out the view except for the little we could see through a tiny triangle.
+
+What with three humans, our bags, the old lady's bundle, and an enormous
+sponge cake, we were very cramped, and whenever we tried to move a
+stiffened knee her bright eye was on it, and she made some suitable
+remark to which we always had to answer with "Ne rasumem," "I don't
+understand," the while beaming at her to show we appreciated her efforts
+to put us at our ease.
+
+The mist and rain entirely obscured the view. Now and then a tree showed
+as a thumb-mark on the grey. We little knew that we were passing through
+some of the most marvellous scenery in Europe.
+
+The carriage settled down with a bump. Something wrong with the harness;
+string was produced, and it was made usable for the next half-hour.
+Carriages in Montenegro must have been designed in the days when
+builders thought more of voluptuous curves than of breaking strains, for
+we have never been in one of them without many halts, during which the
+coachman endeavoured to tie the carriage together with string or wire to
+prevent it from coming in two.
+
+We stopped at wayside inns and politely treated the old lady to coffee
+at a penny a cup to make up for our inappreciation of her conversational
+powers.
+
+Women passed carrying the usual enormous bundles. Sometimes they were
+accompanied by husbands or brothers, who strolled along entirely
+unladen.
+
+Jo busily sketched everybody she saw.
+
+Passers-by demanded, "What is she doing?" and the onlookers answered--
+
+"She is writing us;" for everything that is done with pencil on paper is
+to them writing.
+
+One pretty young woman shook her fist, laughing--
+
+"If I could write, I would write _you_," she said.
+
+We were no longer in the Sanjak. Turkish influence had vanished, and we
+longed to see the famous Black Mountains of old Montenegro.
+
+At Danilograd we marvelled at the enormous expensive bridge which seemed
+to lead to nothing but a couple of tiny villages. We missed the
+picturesque Turkish houses, built indeed only for to-day like their
+roads, but full of unexpected corners and mysterious balconies. The
+Montenegrin houses were small and simple, four walls and a roof, like
+the drawing of a three-year-old child. The only thing lacking was the
+curly smoke coming from the chimney. Broad streets lined with these
+houses were unexhilarating in effect, and would have been more
+depressing except for the bright colours with which they were painted.
+
+When the horses were replete after their midday meal we loaded up,
+adding to our numbers a taciturn man who sat on the box. We rolled on to
+Podgoritza, arriving at two o'clock in a steady downpour.
+
+Podgoritza seemed unaware of our arrival. The streets were empty, and
+the Prefect's offices were tenanted only by the porter, a Turk, who
+remarked that the Prefect was taking his siesta, and seemed to think
+that was the end of it.
+
+This was awful, after being Highnesses for a week, to be treated just
+like ordinary people, and perhaps to lose all chance of reaching
+Cettinje that night.
+
+"Produce the Prefect," said Jo, stamping her foot, but the Turk only
+smiled and suggested a visit to the adjutant's office. Back to the
+carriage we went and drove to a place like a luggage depôt. No adjutant,
+nothing but giggling boys. Our coachman became restive and said his
+horses were tired of the rain, so we deposited the old lady,
+substituted a man in American clothes who seemed sympathetic, and drove
+back to the Prefect's office with him. There we found a sleepy
+lieutenant who ordered coffee, while our American-speaking friend
+explained to him that we were very Great People, and that something
+ought immediately to be done for us. So the officer promised to get the
+Prefect as soon as possible, and we went to the hotel to drink more
+coffee with our baggy-trousered friend, who told us that he was one of a
+huge contingent of Montenegrins who had travelled from America to fight
+for the little country. "Say, who are your pals?" said a nasal voice,
+and the owner, a pleasant-looking man in a broad-shouldered mackintosh,
+took a seat at our table. He was also a Montenegrin, and had been mining
+in America for some years. More coffees were ordered. We confided to the
+new American Montenegrin that we did not like Podgoritza, and he tried
+to find excuses--the hour, the bad weather. The hotel-keeper came up and
+intimated in awestruck tones that the Prefect had just looked in with
+some friends.
+
+Our appearance did not seem to impress the Prefect in the least, and
+small wonder. He owned to having received a telegram about us, but there
+was no motor-car available for that day, and he departed.
+
+"The Prefect is only more unpleasant than Podgoritza," said Jo to the
+American in the mackintosh; but he deduced dyspepsia.
+
+The Prefect, having been to his office and having seen the lieutenant,
+came back in five minutes, rather more suave in manner, and announced
+impressively that he was going to give us his own carriage.
+
+But the rain, the giggling boys, the smiling Turk, and the sudden drop
+from royalty to insignificance had been rankling in Jo's mind. She sat
+back haughtily and remarked--
+
+"But the Sirdar promised us a motor-car."
+
+"I will go and see if it is possible," said the Prefect, and he dashed
+out into the rain. He returned full of apologies. All the motors were
+out, but he would send his carriage round immediately. "A delightful
+carriage," he added.
+
+It arrived--a landau such as one would find at Waddingsgate-super-Mare,
+so free from scars that every Montenegrin turned to look at it.
+
+The hotel-keepers, our American friends, and the Prefect and his captain
+stood pointing out its beauties, and we left them standing in the rain.
+
+"I shall always put on side in this country," said Jo as she bit a large
+mouthful of cheese.
+
+We pounded along, and the day slowly grew darker. We passed an
+encampment, where the firelight thrown up on to the trees made a weird
+and jolly sight.
+
+The hours passed by slowly. Suddenly (our coachman was probably dozing)
+we ran into something. It was a carriage, a square grey thing. Our
+coachman howled to it, and it started slowly forward up the steep hill.
+A bright light streamed from the windows and cut a radiant path in the
+foggy rains. Some one threw away a cigar-end. The wet road shining in
+the glare of our pink candles, and the lightning flashing intermittently
+so that the mountain-tops sprang out to disappear again in the darkness;
+we felt as if we were living in the introduction of a mystery story from
+the _Strand Magazine_.
+
+At last in the misty rain we saw the aura of the lights of Cettinje. At
+last we wound slowly into wet streets, passed our mysterious companion
+without being able to see who was in it, and so to the hotel. Since the
+morning we had driven fourteen hours, and we were glad beyond measure to
+stretch and to find really comfortable beds.
+
+The next day we got up early. There was much to do. We were to see the
+War Minister about Scutari, to present a letter of introduction to the
+English minister, and to inspect the town.
+
+Nature has half filled a big crater with silt, and the Montenegrins
+have half covered it with Cettinje.
+
+It is a polychromatic village of little square houses, cheerfully
+dreary, and one does not see its uses except to be out of the way. The
+only building with any architectural beauty is the monastery where the
+old bishops reigned, and which must have many a queer tale to tell.
+
+Asking for the Count de Salis, the English minister, we were directed to
+the diplomatic street, a collection of tiny houses grouped respectfully
+in front of the Palace, which itself was no larger than a Park Lane
+house laid edgeways, and with the paint peeling from its walls.
+
+Over the front door of each little house a sort of barber's pole stuck
+outwards, striped with the national colours of the minister living
+within.
+
+We noticed with pride and relief that the Count de Salis' pole was
+painted a reticent white. The sympathetic old lady who opened the door
+directed us to the Legation. There we found him inspecting the damages
+wreaked by the storm of overnight. The Legation was big and cold, and as
+the handsome fireplaces sent out by the British Board of Works were for
+anthracite only (and Montenegro produces only wood), the English
+minister preferred his warm cottage to the unheated Palace.
+
+He wished us luck in our quest for Scutari, and asked us to tea. We
+then hurried to an awful building where the governing of Montenegro was
+done--a concrete erection, presented to Montenegro by the British
+Government, and an exact imitation of one of our workhouses. Here we
+found the Minister of War, a gorgeously dressed little man with a
+pleasant grandfatherly gleam in his eye. He only spoke Serbian, but with
+him was an unshaven young man whose chest was covered with gold
+danglers, who immediately began to air his quite passable French. We
+explained what we had been doing and what we wanted to do. The War
+Minister had not heard of US from the Sirdar, who had been resting after
+his terrific ride, but said that they were to see each other that day.
+The little man beamed upon us, and said they always wished to do
+anything for the English, but he must first see the Sirdar.
+
+"By the bye," he said, "I forgot to introduce you. This is Prince Peter,
+commander of the forces on the Adriatic coast." The young man arose and
+clicked his heels. We too got up. He shook hands with us solemnly, and
+Jo, unused to addressing Royalty, said, "Dobra Dan" (Good day).
+
+Then we all sat down again, a further rendezvous was arranged for the
+evening, and we left, carrying away the impression that the War Minister
+and we had bowed thirty times to each other before we got out of the
+door.
+
+Out in the streets, as we were sketching, we saw a large smile under a
+Staff officer's cap bearing down upon us. It was the Sirdar, quite
+rested and looking twenty years younger. He was going to the War
+Minister's, and promised to arrange at once for our visit to Scutari. He
+looked at our cryptic drawings of road scavengers, threw up his hands
+and ejaculating "Kako"--strode out of our lives.
+
+Tea in the little house with the discreet white pole was a great
+pleasure. Such tea we had not drunk since leaving England--butter, jam
+made by the old housekeeper, who pointed this out to us when she brought
+in a relay of hot water.
+
+She was the daughter of a man who had been exiled from his village
+because he had taken a prominent part in a blood feud, and the old
+Gospodar had told him he would be healthier elsewhere. So they had
+emigrated as far as Serbia, where she had learnt to read and write.
+
+A lady of good family but bad character suddenly decided to leave
+Montenegro, and fled to the shores of Cattaro, carrying with her a large
+number of State secrets. The Court was aghast. What was to be done?
+
+A villain was needed. The father was decided upon, and with the help of
+the lady's brothers she was kidnapped, carried back to Montenegro, and
+disappeared for ever. For which noble work he was permitted to return to
+his village.
+
+The old lady had a supreme contempt for the Montenegrins who had not
+"travelled," but she looked upon the growing pomp of the Court with
+suspicion.
+
+"Ah," she said, "those were fine days when the king was only the
+Gospodar, and there were none of these gold embroidered uniforms about,
+and the Queen and I used to slide down the Palace banisters together."
+
+In those days the Royal family inhabited the top story only, while the
+ground floor was filled with wood for the winter. Just round the corner
+was the old pink palace, now used as a riding school. It had been the
+first place in Montenegro to possess a billiard-table. So,
+billiard-tables being rarer and more curious than kings--the palace had
+been called the BILLIADO.
+
+The Queen, whatever agility she may have possessed once when navigating
+banisters, is now a sedate and domestic person, and doesn't hold with
+bluestockings, notwithstanding the "Higher Education" of some of her
+daughters.
+
+The story goes that once when the King was away she inaugurated one of
+those thorough-paced spring cleanings dear to most women's hearts;
+ordered the dining-room furniture into the street, and superintended the
+beating of it. Women hold a poor position in Montenegro, but one of
+character can carry all before her. A well-known English nurse was
+managing a hospital in Cettinje during the first Balkan War. One of her
+patients, though well connected as peasants often are in Montenegro, was
+a drunken old reprobate, and she told the authorities he must go. They
+demurred--his relations must not be offended. She insisted. They did
+nothing. One morning they found him, bed and all, in the middle of the
+street opposite the King's palace.
+
+The authorities swallowed their lesson.
+
+In the evening we walked over the stony hills with our host, and first
+had a glimpse of the real character of the country which had for so long
+kept the Turks at bay. One realized how much the people owed to the land
+for their boasted independence. Barren rock and scrub oak, no army could
+live here in sufficient numbers to subdue even a semi-warlike nation.
+Cettinje has been burned many a time by the Moslem, but starvation
+eventually drove him back to the fatter plains of the Sanjak, leaving a
+profitless victory behind him. Napoleon and Moscow over again.
+
+More miners from America passed with their showy machine-woven clothes,
+accompanied by their wives, who had evidently stayed behind in the old
+country. Otherwise they would have picked up new-fangled ideas about the
+rights of women, and would certainly have refused to shoulder the
+enormous American suit cases while their men ambled carelessly in front.
+
+The next day we had a further interview with the War Minister, who
+introduced to us a man in corduroys, the only really round-faced person
+we had met in Montenegro. Part of his name was "Ob," so as we forgot the
+rest of it we called him Dr. Ob. He was the minister of drains, and such
+things. As nothing had been previously explained to him about us, he
+covered his mystification by hailing us jovially, after which he
+misconstrued everything we said.
+
+He became very excited when we said we had brought 14,000 kilos of
+stores into Montenegro.
+
+"But we have not got it yet," he ejaculated. We explained that it was
+for the English hospital, and he subsided, very disappointed.
+
+Scutari was talked over again, and Dr. Ob promised to come and tell us
+that evening if Cettinje could supply a motor for the next morning.
+
+More bows and smiles, and we left wondering. Montenegrins always promise
+even when they have no intention of performance--something like the
+stage Irishman,--and we were surprised when Dr. Ob met us in the evening
+and said that the motor was arranged for next morning at eight.
+
+We tea'd with the count once more. In the next house lived a gorgeous
+old gentleman, and we heard that he had been War Minister for forty odd
+years. After thirty years or so of office it was considered that he
+could better uphold the dignity of his position were he able to sign his
+name. So he had to learn.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE LAKE OF SCUTARI
+
+
+Dr. Ob, dressed in thick corduroys and an enormous pith helmet, arrived
+punctually with the motor, a Montenegrin Government motor. He had two
+companions, a girl simply dressed with coat and skirt which did not
+match, and cotton gloves whose burst finger ends were not darned, a Miss
+Petrovitch, and an officer. The coachwork--if one may dignify it by such
+a phrase--which was made from packing cases, had a thousand creaks and
+one abominable squeak, which made conversation impossible. The scenery
+was all grey rock and little scrubby trees; the road was magnificent and
+wound and twisted about the mountain side like a whip lash. Driving down
+these curves was no amateur's game, and we saw immediately that our
+chauffeur knew his job. We came over a ridge, and in the far distance,
+gleaming like the sun itself, a corner of the Lake of Scutari showed
+between two hill crests.
+
+We ran into a fertile valley, passed through Rieka--where was the first
+Slavonic printing-press--and up into the barren mountains once more.
+The peasants seem very industrious, every little pocket of earth is here
+carefully cultivated and banked almost in Arab fashion. The houses, too,
+were better, and rather Italian with painted balconies, but are built of
+porous stone and are damp in winter. The Rieka river ran along the road
+for some way, very green and covered with water-lily pods.
+
+We passed a standing carriage, in which was a large man in Montenegrin
+clothes, and a little further on passed a man in a grey suit walking.
+Dr. Ob gesticulated wildly, and pulled up the motor to gather in a
+Frenchman--somebody in the French legation who was going to Scutari for
+a week end. He turned suddenly to Jan.
+
+"Ce n'est pas une vie, monsieur," were the first words he uttered. He
+admired Miss Petrovitch very much, and told us in an undertone that she
+was a daughter of the governor of Scutari, niece of the King of
+Montenegro, and one of "les familles le plus chic."
+
+We descended steeply to the Port, ten variously coloured houses and
+twenty-five variously clothed people. Miss Petrovitch, to our amazement,
+embraced a rather dirty old peasant, the doctor disappeared to find us
+luncheon, the Frenchman to wash, and we strolled about.
+
+A voice hailed us, and turning round, we found our mackintoshed American
+of Pod. We took him to the inn and stood him a drink. Dr. Ob came in and
+we introduced; but Dr. Ob was snifty and the American shy. His home was
+near by and he wished us to visit him, but there was no time.
+
+We lunched in a bedroom plastered with pictures. Montenegrins seem to be
+ashamed of walls, and they adore royalty. In every room one finds
+portraits of the King of Montenegro, the queen, the princes, the King of
+Italy, his queen, the Tzar of Russia, the grand dukes and duchesses, the
+King of Serbia and his princes, and to cap all a sort of comprehensive
+tableau of all the male crowned heads of Europe--including
+Turkey--balanced by another commemorating all the queens of
+Europe--excluding Turkey--the spaces left between these august people
+are filled with family portraits, framed samplers, picture postcards or
+a German print showing the seven ages of man over a sort of step-ladder.
+
+After lunch, loaded with grapes which Miss Petrovitch's peasant friend
+brought us, we trooped down to the steamer, which had been an old
+Turkish gun monitor and had been captured when the Montenegrins took
+Scutari.
+
+The boat was crowded, and the Frenchman took refuge in the captain's
+cabin, which was crammed with red pepper pods, and went to sleep. Jo
+began sketching at once. There were two full-blooded niggers aboard with
+us: they were descendants of the Ethiopian slaves of the harems; but the
+race is dying out, for the climate does not suit them. We steamed out
+into the lake, down the "kingly" canal, a shallow ditch in the mud.
+Magnificent mountains rush down on every side to the water, in which
+stunted willow trees with myriad roots--like mangroves--find an
+amphibious existence. We passed through their groves, hooting as though
+we were leaving Liverpool, and out into the eau-de-nil waters of the
+open lake.
+
+In three hours we reached Plavnitza, a quay on the mud, where more
+passengers were waiting for our already crowded craft. There were
+officers, peasants, Turks, and soldiers clad in French firemen's
+uniforms. These uniforms, by the way, caused a lot of ill-feeling in
+Montenegro. The French sent them out in a spirit of pure economical
+charity, and had the Frenchmen not been, on the average, small, and the
+Montenegrin, contrariwise, large, perhaps the gift would have been
+received with a better grace; but the sight of these enormous men
+bursting in all places from their all too tight regimentals, was
+ludicrous, and the soldiers felt it keenly.
+
+Two women came aboard, attached to officers, and wearing long light
+blue coats, the ceremonious dress of all classes; one carried a wooden
+cradle strapped on her back, the woman with no cradle had in her arms a
+baby of some ten or eleven months, which she fed alternately on grapes
+and pomegranate seeds. With each was a large family including a beastly
+little boy who spat all over the decks, and one of the fathers, a stern
+gold-laced officer, carried a dogwhip with which to rule his offspring.
+
+After a while we caught sight of Tarabosch, the famous mountain, and
+then the silhouette of the old Venetian fortress. From the water
+projected the funnels of yet another Turkish ship which had been sunk in
+the Balkan war, and we steamed into the amphibious trees on the mudflats
+of Scutari.
+
+A boat with chairs in it came for us and we disembarked. The boat was
+rather like one of those that children make from paper, called cocked
+hats, only rather elongated, and the rowers pushed at the oars which
+hung from twisted osier loops. Governor Petrovitch met us on the quay.
+He was a fine-featured old man dressed in all the barbaric splendour of
+a full national costume, pale green long-skirted coat, red gold
+embroidered waistcoat, and baggy dark blue knee breeches with a huge
+amount of waste material in the seat. He kissed his daughter and greeted
+us genially. We clambered into the usual dilapidated cab with the usual
+dilapidated horses, and off to the hotel.
+
+The women on the roadside were clad in picturesque ever-varying
+costumes. There were narrow carts with high Indian-like wheels studded
+with large nails; there were Albanians in costumes of black and white,
+everything we had hoped or expected.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+SCUTARI
+
+
+After a wash we went into the streets. It was the Orient, just as
+Eastern as Colombo or Port Said. The little fruit and jewellers' shops
+with square lanterns, the tailors sitting cross-legged in their windows,
+the strange medley of costumes--even the long lean dogs looked as if
+they had been kicked from the doors of a thousand mosques.
+
+We left the shops for further explorations. Scutari has always been
+described as such a beautiful town. The adjective does not seem
+picturesque: yes, quaint, strange decidedly. One's second impression
+after the shops is this:--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Miles and miles of walls with great doors. The main streets branch out
+into thousands of impasses each ending in a locked door. There are
+hardly any connecting streets, for somebody's walled garden is between.
+The Mahommedans hide in seclusion on one side of the town, while their
+hated enemies the Christians live on the other. Each house, Turk or
+Christian, has the same air of defiant privacy, the only difference
+being that the Turk's windows are blocked with painted lattice. The
+Mahommedan women's faces are covered with several thicknesses of
+chiffon, generally black, while the Christian peasant women walk about
+with an eye and a half peering from the shrouding folds of a cotton head
+shawl which they hold tightly under their noses.
+
+With difficulty we found the English consul's house, as the Albanians
+speak no Serb and Montenegrins were not to be found at every street
+corner. At last we found it appropriately enough in the Rue du Consulat
+d'Angleterre. A gorgeous old butler resembling a wolf ushered us from
+the blank walled street into a beautiful square garden filled with
+flowering shrubs and creepers. Not to be outdone by the colours of the
+flowers, the butler was clad in a red waistcoat, embroidered with gold,
+a green cloth coat, blue baggy trousers, and a red fez with a tassel
+nearly a yard long, while a connoisseur's mouth would have watered at
+the sight of his antique silver watch-chain with its exquisitely worked
+hanging blobs.
+
+The interior of the house gave an impression of vast roominess. Wide
+stairs, a huge upper landing like a reception-room, a panelled
+drawing-room large enough to lose one's self in, ornamented by primitive
+frescoes on the walls above the panels.
+
+The English consul was an old Albanian gentleman with delightful
+manners. For a long time he had been suffering from an illness which had
+started from a wound in the head, received during the siege of Scutari.
+After the inevitable coffee and cigarettes his son wandered out with us
+and showed us the interesting parts of the town. Out of a big doorway
+came two women in gorgeous clothes. They had been paying a morning call,
+and bade farewell to their hostess. Doubtless they were mother and
+daughter.
+
+One was faded and beautiful; the younger was of the plump cream and
+roses variety with modestly downcast eyes. Both wore enormous white lace
+Mary Queen of Scots' veils, great baggy trousers made of stiff shiny
+black stuff, which was gathered into hard gold embroidered pipes which
+encased the ankles and upwards. These pipes were so stiff that they had
+to walk with straight knees and feet far apart. Their full cavalier
+coats were thickly covered with many kilometres of black braid sewn on
+in curly patterns, and the girl wore at least a hundred golden coins
+hung in semicircles on her chest.
+
+They left the third woman at the door and walked back a few steps down
+the road, then turned, and laying hand on breast, bowed ceremoniously,
+first the mother, then the daughter, who never lifted her eyes; another
+twenty steps and again the same performance; still once more, after
+which they slowly waddled round the corner. Suma told us they wore the
+costume of the _haute bourgeoisie_, and probably the girl had been taken
+to see her future mother-in-law.
+
+The next vision that met our eyes was the doctor in his best clothes,
+frock-coat, white spats, gloves, and a minute pork-pie cap perched on
+the top of his spherical countenance.
+
+"In Scutari it is necessary that I should be _en tenue_," was his
+explanation.
+
+Suma parted with us, promising to take us to the bazaar the next day,
+and we spent the afternoon sketching and avoiding a dumb idiot who tried
+to amuse us by standing on his head in front of whatever object we chose
+to sketch, and at intervals thrust into our hands a letter which he
+thought was a money producing talisman. It said in English, "Kick this
+chap if he bothers you."
+
+There are other traces of the English soldiery here. Little children
+with outstretched hands flock round, saying in coaxing tones "Garn," or
+"Git away you," under the impression that they are saying "please."
+
+At a street corner we saw a professional beggar, a shattered man of
+drooping misery, his rags vieing with the colour of the road. Jo began
+to sketch, but he promptly sat up, twirled his long moustaches, and from
+a worm became a lion. One may be a beggar in Albania, but as long as one
+has moustaches one is at least a man.
+
+The bazaar next day filled our wildest dreams. Queerly clad peasants of
+all tribes came down from the mountains bearing rugs, rubbish, white
+cloths, cheese, honey, poultry, pigs, and they sat on the ground behind
+their wares in the blazing heat, while all the rest of Northern Albania
+came to purchase. The little shops set out their pottery, silver-ware
+and brightly striped veils. Jo lifted up a woman's leather belt covered
+with silver, thinking how nice it would look on a modern skirt; but she
+dropped it with a crash, for the leather was a quarter of an inch thick,
+and the silver equally weighty.
+
+Veiled women bargained and chaffered with the rest, some dressed in
+white with black chiffon covering their faces, and others still more
+bizarre, wore flowered chiffon, one large flower perhaps covering the
+area of one cheek and nose.
+
+More fanatic in religion than their men, they objected to being
+sketched, crouching to the ground and covering themselves completely
+with draperies, so we had to desist.
+
+There can be no arguments about beauty in these lands. It goes by
+"volume."
+
+Put the ladies on the scales, and in case of a tie, measure them round
+the hips.
+
+Vendors pressed gold-embroidered zouaves, antique arms and filigree
+silver-ware upon us; but we ever looked elsewhere, and Jo suddenly
+pounced on a handkerchief, or rather a conglomeration of bits sewn
+together, each being a remnant of brilliant coloured patterned stuff.
+
+"But that has no value," said Suma, smiling.
+
+"Never mind, I shall wear it as a hat," said Jo; and Suma, somewhat
+perplexed, lowered his dignity and bargained for it.
+
+We next saw a brilliantly striped rug hanging on the wall behind an old
+woman, red, green, yellow, black and white, just what we wanted. She
+consented to take thirteen silver cronen for it, but no Montenegrin
+paper. She explained she was poor. She had brought up the sheep, spun
+and dyed the wool, and had woven the beautiful thing, and now she wanted
+silver because outside Scutari, in which the Montenegrins forced
+acceptance of their notes by corporal punishment, paper was worth
+nothing. To get the silver we went into a general store and sold a
+sovereign.
+
+[Illustration: JO AND MR. SUMA IN THE SCUTARI BAZAAR.]
+
+While we were waiting for the money-changer, two Miridite women came in.
+They had short hair dyed black, white coarse linen chemises with
+large sleeves, embroidered zouaves, white skirts with front and back
+aprons lavishly embroidered, striped trousers, and stockings knitted on
+great diagonal patterns.
+
+One of them told Suma that their village was in possession of Essad
+Pacha, that all their husbands had fled, and were still fighting in the
+hills.
+
+Suma, for a joke, asked her what she thought of Jo. Passing her eyes
+over Jo's uninflated frame, she hesitated, but was urged to speak the
+truth.
+
+"I think she is forty," she remarked; and then somehow Jo was not quite
+pleased.
+
+The midday heat being overwhelming we took a cab and drove back along
+two kilometres of dusty road. A veiled woman stopped the coachman,
+asking him to give her tired little girl a lift. Jehu refused, through
+awe of us; but we insisted on taking her, and begged the woman to come
+in too. Jo held out her hands, but the woman shrank back horrified,
+though obviously worn out with the heat.
+
+"That is a pity," laughed Suma. "I hoped she would do it. It would have
+been a new experience for me."
+
+Jo confided to him her burning desire to enter a harem, but as he had no
+Mahommedan friends he thought the possibility remote.
+
+Two more bourgeois women passed. Jan photographed them, but not before
+they hid their faces with umbrellas. Even the Christian men are
+intensely jealous, and their women have some Turkish ideals. We spent
+the afternoon sketching outside a barber's shop, coffee being brought to
+us on a hanging tray with a little fire on it to keep the coffee warm.
+Opposite was a shop which combined the trades of blacksmith and
+fishmonger. It seemed the strangest mixture.
+
+We dined with the Frenchman. He was a queer fellow, seeming only
+interested in economies, his digestion and his old age; and he discussed
+the possible places where an old man might live in comfort. Egypt, he
+dismissed: too hot, and an old man does not want to travel. The Greek
+islands had earthquakes. Corfu, he had heard, was depressing; while in
+the Canaries there was sometimes a wind and one might catch cold. We
+suggested "heaven," and he looked hurt. He had been in Scutari in
+December. He told us that after dark it was impossible to walk down the
+great main street, which divides Christian from Turk, without carrying a
+lighted lantern to signal that you were not on nefarious intent, or you
+might be shot.
+
+[Illustration: CHRISTIAN WOMEN HIDING FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHER.]
+
+[Illustration: SCUTARI--BAZAAR AND OLD VENETIAN FORTRESS.]
+
+Mr. Suma came along the next day in good time and gave Jan a letter for
+the Count de Salis. We bade him a most cordial farewell, assuring him
+prophetically that we should revisit Scutari--little did we dream in
+what circumstances,--and he said we would then see the "Maison Pigit," a
+show castle which he had, in vain, urged us to visit. Paget was an
+Englishman who seems to have spent ten or twelve years dreaming away
+life in Scutari, and collecting ancient weapons. With the outbreak of
+the South African war he disappeared. He was then heard of fighting for
+the Turk against the Italian, and later for the Turk against the Balkan
+alliance. He has never returned.
+
+With Dr. Ob we drove to the quay, on the road passing an old woman
+staggering along beneath the weight of a complete iron and brass
+bedstead.
+
+As we got out of our carriage we noticed a rabble of Turks hurrying
+towards us. In its midst was a brougham with windows tight shut and
+veiled, from which we guessed that some light of the harem was to be a
+fellow passenger. The carriage halted, and whatever was within was
+hustled from the farthest door and in the midst of the dense mob of men
+hurried down the quay. The side of the steamer was crowded with craft,
+so we passed beneath the stern to embark on the far side, to find that
+the Turkish lady and her escort had passed beneath the bows for a
+similar purpose. We caused a flutter, the beauty was hastily lifted on
+board like a bale of goods, and we caught a glimpse of magnificent pink
+brocaded trousers and jewelled shoes beneath her red orange covering.
+Two women--one a Christian--followed, and when she was seated, bent over
+her as a sort of screen to hide even her clothes from the gaze of the
+naughty infidel.
+
+Governor Petrovitch came down to the quay to bid us good-bye. With him
+came his daughter, who was returning with us. She had nothing
+interesting to say about Scutari. The Frenchman had brought with him a
+cook whom he had engaged to look after his digestion.
+
+We found comfortable seats on a long box with a bale as a back rest, and
+the governor sent two chairs for the ladies. As we steamed away we
+pondered on the problem of Scutari.
+
+There are in all, say, 300,000 Serbs, a high estimate, in all
+Montenegro. The population of the Sanjak and its cities, Plevlie, Ipek,
+Berane, and Jakovitza, are of course largely Mussulman or Albanian, and
+already the balance of people in the little mountain kingdom is
+wavering. If Montenegro adds to herself Scutari, a town in which the
+Serb population is practically "nil," the scales swing over heavily
+against the ruling classes, and either one will see Montenegro absorb
+Scutari, to be in turn absorbed by Scutari itself; or we shall see
+the crimes of Austro-Hungary repeated upon a smaller scale, and
+Montenegro will be some day condemned before a tribunal of Europe for
+continued injustice to the people entrusted to her. The Albanians loathe
+the Serb even more than they hate the Turk, and at present, in spite of
+the fact that they are on their best manners, the Montenegrin police and
+soldiery have the appearance of a debt collector in the house of one who
+has backed a friend's bill.
+
+[Illustration: DISEMBARKATION OF A TURKISH BRIDE.]
+
+[Illustration: GOVERNOR PETROVITCH AND HIS DAUGHTER IN THEIR STATE
+BARGE.]
+
+An Albanian noble said to Jan, "We are quiet now: the Powers have no
+time to waste upon us, and we are not going to revolt and let ourselves
+be murdered without redress. But, if after the war things are not
+righted, monsieur, there will be a revolution every day."
+
+We saw a pelican, and of course some one had to try and kill it; but
+luckily the criminal was an average shot only. The pelican flew off
+flapping its broad white wings. The Frenchman told us that the Turkish
+lady round the corner is a gipsy bride to be. A light dawned upon us.
+The bed, these boxes we were sitting upon: she was taking her furniture
+with her. Jan peered round at her. She was sitting on a low stool, and
+the two screens were standing at duty. They had chosen the most secluded
+spot in the boat, which was next to the boilers. The day itself was very
+hot, and the atmosphere within the poor bride's thick coverings must
+have been awful, though when nobody was looking she was allowed to raise
+for a second the many thicknesses of black chiffon which shrouded her
+face, and to gasp a few chestfulls of fresh air.
+
+Dr. Ob suddenly produced a large sheep's head which he dissected with
+medical knowledge. He gouged out an eye which he offered to Jo; upon her
+refusing the succulent morsel he gave a sigh of relief and wolfed it
+himself. One of the men on board had a fiddle, and played us across the
+lake. Some one said, "Give us the Merry Widow."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Come on," said his tempter, "there's no one here. Give it us." At last,
+looking at Miss Petrovitch and us, the musician timidly started the
+music, for the "Merry Widow" is "straffed" in Montenegro as one of the
+characters is a caricature of Prince Danilo, hence everybody plays it
+with gusto in private.
+
+We came again to Plavnitza. A huge crowd of Turks were waiting for us;
+one wild befezzed ruffian had a concertina and was capering to his own
+strains.
+
+We were suddenly disturbed, the box was wrested away, the bundles also,
+the bed was carried off, also a tin dish too small for a bath, too big
+for a basin, and a tin watering pot--the bride's trousseau. The bride
+was seized by two men, her brothers we were told, and carried up the
+stairs to a waiting brougham, the trousseau was piled upon a bullock
+cart, and shouting and singing and dancing the _cortège_ moved out of
+sight.
+
+At Virbazar the steamer could not come to the quay, so the authorities
+ran a five-inch rounded tree trunk from the boat to the mud. Many dared
+the perilous crossing, and one nearly fell into the water. Dr. Ob was
+furious, and at last a plank was substituted. Then we found that the
+only way off the mud was by clambering round a corner of wall on some
+shaky stepping stones. Dr. Ob fumed, his little round face grew rounder,
+his moustache went up and down, he threatened everybody with instant
+execution, like the Red Queen in "Alice." Then he found that no motor
+was awaiting us. He rushed to the telephone while we had a belated
+lunch. No motors; one was out taking the Serbian officers for a
+joy-ride; Prince Peter had taken the other to Antivari. Montenegro
+seemed to have no more. We soothed ourselves with "American" grapes.
+This grape tastes not unlike strawberries and cream, but not having the
+same sentimental associations, does not come off quite as well. We heard
+a motor coming. Dr. Ob ran out to intercept it. It was crammed. Then
+the telephone boy brought a message that Prince Peter's motor would not
+return till to-morrow.
+
+Miss Petrovitch wrung her hands.
+
+"We cannot stay here the night," she said.
+
+"Are the bugs awful?" we asked.
+
+"It's not the bugs, it's those dreadful women," she answered. "We shall
+all be murdered in our beds."
+
+Now the women appeared to us most inoffensive.
+
+Dr. Ob was purple with rage. He stamped his foot.
+
+"But I am a minister," he kept repeating crescendo, till he shouted to
+the villagers, "But I am a minister."
+
+It is impossible to take Montenegro seriously. Situations occur at every
+corner which remind one irresistibly of "the Rose and the Ring," and we
+wondered what would happen next. There were other belated passengers who
+had hoped for conveyance, and the Frenchman's carriage had not turned
+up. Dr. Ob at last decided to commandeer a cocked hat boat rowed by four
+women with which to navigate the river to Rieka, and thence by carriage
+to Cettinje if carriages came. It was six p.m., we might reach Rieka by
+ten.
+
+We rowed out through the half-sunken trees. At the end of a spit of land
+was a man gnawing a piece of raw beef. We shouted to him to ask what he
+was doing; and he answered that he was curing his malaria. The two women
+in the bow were very pretty, one was a mere child.
+
+There were wisps of sunset cloud in the sky, and soon night came quite
+down.
+
+As it grew dark all sense of motion disappeared. The boat shrugged
+uneasily with the movement of the oars, the rowlocks made of loops of
+twisted osier creaked, but one could not perceive that one was going
+forwards. The hills lost their solidity, becoming mere holes in the grey
+blue of the sky, a bright planet made a light smudge on the ruffled
+water in which the stars could not reflect. As we crept forwards into
+the river and the mountains closed in, the water became more calm, and
+the stars came out one by one beneath us, while in the ripple of our
+wake the image of the planet ran up continuously in strings of little
+golden balls like a juggling trick.
+
+The Frenchman turned his head and made a noise like the rowlocks. "Il
+faut chanter quand même," he explained, "pour encourager les autres." Jo
+then started "Frère Jacques." Jan and Dr. Ob took it up till the
+Frenchman burst in with an entirely different time and key. Then one of
+the oar girls began a queer little melody on four notes only, and all
+the four women joined, one end of the boat answering the other. They
+sang through their noses, and high up in the falsetto. By shutting one's
+eyes one could imagine a great ox waggon drawn uphill by four bullocks
+and one of the wheels ungreased. Yet it was not unpleasing, this queer
+shrill, recurrent rhythm, the monotonous creak and splash of the oars,
+the mystery of feeling one's way in the blue gloom, through reed and
+water-lily beds, up this cliff-bound river, and far away the faint
+twitter--also recurrent and monotonous--of some nightjar....
+
+The night grew bitterly cold on the water. One of our passengers, a
+little Russian dressmaker, had malaria and shivered with ague. Jo gave
+her her cloak. The Frenchman's cook was unsuitably dressed, for she had
+on but a thin chiffon blouse. We ourselves had summer clothes, and we
+were all mightily glad to see the glare of Rieka in the sky.
+
+Our luck be praised, there were two old carriages with older horses, and
+another for the Frenchman. We supped moderately at a restaurant kept by
+an Austrian, and still shivering scrambled into the carriages. We had no
+lights, but the road was visible by the stars.
+
+We went up and up, up the same road down which we had come three days
+before. Below one could see strange planes of different darknesses, but
+not any shape, and soon one was too aware of physical discomfort to
+notice the night. Besides, one had had enough of night. Miss Petrovitch
+told the boy to hurry up the horses; he beat them; she then rebuked him
+for beating them. After a while the boy grew tired of her contradictory
+orders, and lying down on the box fell fast asleep. The poor old horses
+plodded along. To right and left were immense precipices, but nobody
+seemed to care.
+
+We reached Cettinje about two a.m., found the hotel open, and a room
+ready for us, and in spite of our frozen limbs were soon asleep.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO
+
+
+We went next day to see the doctor, who was late, so we strolled out to
+the market. They were selling grapes and figs, fresh walnuts, and lots
+of little dried fish, strung on to rings of willow, from the lake of
+Scutari. The scene, with the men in their costumes of red and blue, the
+women all respectably dressed in long embroidered coats of pale blue or
+white, and the village idiot, a man prancing about dressed in nothing
+but a woman's overall, was very gay. We caught the doctor later. He was
+talking with a Mrs. G----, an Englishwoman, from the hospital at
+Podgoritza: she was trying to hustle him as one hustles the butcher who
+has belated the meat. The doctor had let up his efforts since his orgy
+of respectability in Scutari, and his beard and whiskers were enjoying a
+half-inch holiday from the razor. With him was a Slav-Hungarian, who
+recommended us to go home by Gussigne, Plav and Ipek, the best scenery
+in all Montenegro he said; he himself had just returned from Scutari,
+whence he had advanced with a Montenegrin army halfway across Albania.
+At each village the natives had fled, burying their corn and driving off
+their cattle, leaving the villages deserted, and the army, starving, had
+at last been forced to retire. Dr. Ob promised us a motor by four, but
+added that they had no oil and very little benzine. Then growing more
+confidential, he took us by the buttonholes and asked us to use our best
+influence with the Count de Salis, and request him to tell the Admiralty
+to allow petrol to be brought up from Salonika, where the British had
+laid an embargo upon it. He promised pathetically that _all_ the petrol
+would be brought up overland.
+
+Intensely amused by the doctor's idea of our importance, we solemnly
+delivered his message to the Count.
+
+We went to the Serbian Minister, a charming man with a freebooter's
+face, for our passports, and then back to Dr. Ob. The motor was going
+off at 6.30 he said. We cheered internally, for we were getting tired of
+Cettinje, which reminded us of a watchmaker's wife with her best silk
+dress on. On our way downstairs we called in to thank the Minister of
+War for our jolly trip; and he wished us "Bon voyage."
+
+We got en route almost up to time, with us was Mrs. G----, who was also
+going back as far as Podgoritza. She was storekeeper and accountant for
+the Wounded Allies, and ever had a hard and troublesome task between
+what she needed and what she could get from the Sanitary Department. She
+took the front seat with Jo, and inside Jan found a French sailor of the
+wireless telegraphy, who had had typhoid fever, but was now going back
+to work. As we rattled down the curves and along the edge of the
+darkening chasms of the mountain side, he summed up with the brevity of
+a "rapin."
+
+"Dans la journée ici, vous savez, il y'a de quoi faire des clichés."
+
+We stopped at Rieka for water, and then on once more. In the glare of
+our headlights, little clumps of soldiers, with donkeys loaded with the
+new uniforms, loomed suddenly out of the darkness. Once a donkey took
+fright and bolted back, and the soldier in charge yelled and pointed his
+rifle at us. If we had moved he would have shot without compunction.
+Later the men had bivouacked, and all along the rest of the road we
+passed little fires of fresh brushwood, the sparks pouring up like
+fountains into the night, round which the soldiers and drivers were
+sitting and singing their weird songs.
+
+At Podgoritza we found Dr. Lilias Hamilton at supper with her staff. She
+has had rather a hard time. The hospital was intended for Ipek, but for
+some reason, although there were wounded in the town, the Montenegrins
+decided to move it to Podgoritza, where there were none. After a
+difficult journey across the mountains they settled down, but could
+never get sufficient transport from the Government to bring their stores
+over, except in small quantities. They started to work, but as there
+were few soldiers to treat, Dr. Lilias, being a lady, interested herself
+in the Turkish female population, a thing which the Montenegrins thought
+a criminal waste of time, and tried to stop.
+
+We got a bedroom in the hotel, and tired out, tried to sleep; but the
+occupants of the café began a set of howling songs, very unmusical, and
+kept us awake till past twelve. We have never heard this kind of singing
+anywhere else.
+
+Next day we crossed the river and explored the quaint and beautiful
+streets of the Turkish quarter. The people are equally offensive on both
+sides of the town; however, Podgoritza seems to be the White-chapel of
+Montenegro--and we finally had to take refuge in the sheds of the French
+wireless telegraphy. The commandant at the motor depôt again treated us
+rudely, but the Prefect was nice, this time. He promised us a carriage
+on the morrow if no motor were forthcoming.
+
+After supper the people began the awful howling songs; also there was a
+wild orchestra which had one clarinet for melody and about ten deep
+bass trumpets for accompaniment.
+
+Next morning no carriage came, so off to the Prefect. He promised one
+"odmah," which being translated is "at once," but means really within
+"eight or nine hours." We waited. Nine a.m. passed. Ten a.m. went by. A
+small boy sneaked up and tried to sell some contraband tobacco; but Jan
+had just bought "State." An angry Turkish gentleman came and said that
+his horses had been requisitioned to take us to Andrievitza, and that we
+weren't going to get them till one o'clock, because he was using them.
+We returned to the Prefect, not to complain--oh no--but to ask him to
+telegraph to Andrievitza that we were coming. He was naturally surprised
+to see us again, and explanations followed. A very humbled and much
+better tempered Turk came to the café to say that the horses would be
+with us "odmah."
+
+A drizzle had been falling all the morning; at last the carriage came.
+Our driver was a wretched half-starved, high-cheeked Moslem in rags,
+whose trousers were only made draught proof by his sitting on the holes.
+He tried to squeeze another passenger upon us; but we were wiser, and
+were just not able to understand what he was saying. Our Turk's method
+of driving was to tie the reins to the carriage rail, flourishing a whip
+and shouting with vigour; every ten minutes he glanced uneasily
+backwards to see that nothing had broken loose or come away.
+
+The valley we entered had been very deep, but at some period had been
+half filled by a deposit of sand and pebble which had hardened into a
+crumbling rock. We were driving over the gravelly shelf, above our head
+rose walls of limestone, and deep below was the river which had eaten
+the softer agglomerate into a hundred fantastic caverns. All along the
+road we passed groups of tramping volunteers fresh from America with
+store clothes and suitcases; the sensible were also festooned with
+boots. It was pretty cold sitting in the carriage, and it grew colder as
+we mounted.
+
+At last we halted to rest the horses at a café. The influence of "Pod"
+was heavy still. A group of grumpy people were sitting around a fire
+built in the middle of the floor; they did not greet us--which is
+unusual in Montenegro--but continued the favourite Serb recreation of
+spitting. In the centre of them was an old man on a chair, also
+expectorating, and by his side one older and scraggier, his waistcoat
+covered with snuff and medals, palpitated in a state of senile decay,
+holding in a withered hand a palmfull of snuff which he had forgotten to
+inhale. There were a lot of women saying nothing and spitting. A sour,
+hard-faced woman admitted that there was coffee.
+
+Jo, trying to cheer things up a bit, said brightly--
+
+"Is it far to Andrievitza?"
+
+A woman mumbled, "Far, bogami."
+
+Jo again: "It is cold on the road."
+
+A long silence, broken with the sound of spitting, followed. At last a
+woman in the darkest corner murmured--
+
+"Cold, bogami."
+
+It was like the opening of a Maeterlinckian play, but we gave it up,
+sipped our coffee, and when we had finished, fled outside into the cold
+which, after all, was warmer than these people's welcome. Outside we met
+a young man who spoke German, and as he wanted to show off, he stopped
+to converse. We were joined by an older man who claimed to be his
+father. The father was really a jolly old boy. He said his son was a
+puny weakling, but as for himself he never had had a doctor in his life.
+So Jan tried his mettle with a cigar. An officer, a filthy old peasant
+in the remains of a battered uniform, joined the group, but he was not
+charming; however, Jan offered him a cigarette. The old yokel rushed on
+his fate. He said--
+
+"Cigarettes are all very well; but I would rather have one of those you
+gave to the other fellow."
+
+The road wound on and up in the usual way, rain came down at intervals,
+and it grew colder and colder. At last we extracted all our spare
+clothes from the knapsack and put them on. We reached the top of the
+pass and began to rattle down the descent on the further side, and we
+kept our spirits up, in the growing gloom, by singing choruses: "The old
+Swanee river" and "Uncle Ned."
+
+We pulled up at dusk at a dismal hovel, on piles, with rickety wooden
+stairs leading to a dimly lighted balcony over which fell deep wooden
+eaves.
+
+"Is this Jabooka?" we asked, for we had been told to alight at Jabooka.
+
+"No," said the driver; "we cannot reach Jabooka to-night. But here are
+fine beds, fine, fine, fine!"
+
+We climbed in. The rooms were whitewashed and looked all right, but
+there was a funny smell. We shall know what it means a second time.
+There was a crowd of American Montenegrin volunteers in the kitchen. One
+gay fellow was in a bright green dressing-gown like overcoat: he said
+that his wife--a hard-featured woman who looked as if nobody loved
+her--had brought his saddle horse. We got some hard-boiled eggs and
+maize bread. Maize bread is always a little gritty, for it has in its
+substance no binding material, but when it is well cooked and has plenty
+of crust is quite eatable. French cooking is far away, however, and the
+bread is usually a sort of soggy, half-baked flabby paste, most
+unpalatable and most indigestible. Here was the worst bread we yet had
+found.
+
+They took us down a dark passage, in which huge lumps of raw meat
+hanging from the walls struck one's hand with a chill, flabby caress as
+one passed. In our room, four benches were arranged into a pair of
+widish couches; mattresses were given us and coarse hand-woven rugs. We
+were then left. But we could not sleep; somehow lice were in one's mind,
+and at last Jan awoke and lit the tiny oil lamp. He immediately slew a
+bug; then another; then a whopper; then one escaped; then Jo got one. In
+desperation we got up, smeared ourselves with paraffin, and lay down
+again in a dismal distressed doze till morning.
+
+Our driver was a dilatory dog: we had said that we would leave at five
+a.m., and at six he was washing his teeth in the little stream which
+acted as the village sewer. As we were waiting our green-coated friend
+got away on his saddle horse, with his wife walking at its tail; the
+other Americans climbed into a great three-horse waggon, dragged their
+suit-cases after them, and off they went. We left nearer seven than six.
+The air was chilly, and though there were bits of blue in the sky, the
+hills were floating in mist, and there was a sharp shower. There were
+more groups of Americans trudging along, and also a fair number of
+peasants, the women, as usual, dignified and beautiful. Very hungry we
+at last came to Jabooka. A jolly woman--we were getting away from
+"Pod"--welcomed us and dragged us into the kitchen. She asked Jo many
+questions, one being, "What relation is he to you, that man with whom
+you travel?" The fire on the floor was nearly out, but she rained sticks
+on to it, blew up the great central log, which is the backbone, into a
+blaze, and soon the smoke was pouring into our eyes and filtering up
+amongst the hams in the roof. We were drinking a splendid café au lait
+when an old woman peered in at the door.
+
+"Very beautiful Jabooka," she said.
+
+We agreed heartily.
+
+"Not dear either," she said.
+
+We expressed surprise.
+
+"You can buy cheap," she went on.
+
+We regretted that we did not wish to.
+
+"But you must eat to live," she protested.
+
+We intimated that this was of the nature of a truism, but failed to see
+the connection.
+
+"But look at them," she expostulated, holding out a large basket of
+apples; and we suddenly remembered that "Jabooka" means also apples, and
+realized that she was not a land agent.
+
+Then on once more. In the deep valleys were large modern sawmills, but
+the houses were ever poor, and the windows grew smaller and smaller and
+were without glass. At the junction of the Kolashin road, from the
+north, we picked up a jolly Montenegrin with a big dog. He was a driver
+by profession, and he hurried our lethargic progress a little. Then the
+front spring broke. It was mended with wire and a piece of tree; when we
+started again the reins snapped.
+
+We halted once more at a café filled with Americans; some had only left
+their native land six months agone, yet to the peasant they were all
+"Americans." Some of them seemed very dissatisfied with the reception
+which they had received, and we don't wonder. "In Ipek I coulden get my
+room," said one, "tho' I 'ad wired for 't, 'cause one o' them 'airy
+popes [Greek priests] 'ad come wid 'is fambly. I 'ad to sleep like a
+'og, you fellers, jess like a 'og." We had been under the impression
+that burning patriotism had called all these men back to their country,
+but one sturdy fellow disabused us.
+
+"No, you fellers," he said, "there weren't no work for us in 'Murrica.
+Mos' o' the places 'ad closed down ter a shift or two at the mos' per
+wik. And fer fellers wats used to livin' purty well there weren't enough
+ter pay board alone. We gotter come or we'd a starved." Of course this
+was not true of many.
+
+On again, rain and sun alternating, but still we were cold, feet
+especially.
+
+These mountains, these continual groups of slouching, slouch-hatted
+"Americans," these little weathered log cabins, falling streams, and
+pine trees reminded one of some tale of Bret Harte, and one found one's
+self expecting the sudden appearance of Broncho Billy or Jack Hamlin
+mounted upon a fiery mustang. But we cleared the top of the pass without
+meeting either, and started on our last long downhill to Andrievitza.
+Cheered by the rapidity of our motion the two ruffians on the box
+started a howling Podgoritzian kind of melody, exceedingly discordant.
+The driver, careless that one of our springs was but wired tree, and
+that wheels in Montenegro are easily decomposed, flogged his horses
+unmercifully, rattling along the extreme edge of one hundred foot
+precipices. We stopped at a café for the driver to get coffee; rattled
+on again, stopped to inquire the price of hay; more rattle; stopped for
+the driver to say, "How de doo" to a pal; more rattle; stopped to ask a
+man if his dog has had puppies yet.... But we protested.
+
+Andrievitza was the prettiest village we had yet seen in Montenegro,
+and was full of more "Americans." In the street a small boy urged us to
+go to "Radoikovitches," but we went to the hotel. The hotel was full,
+because a Pasha from Scutari had arrived with his three wives, and all
+their families. So we permitted the little yellow-haired urchin to lead
+us to "Radoikovitches." A woman received us, without gusto, till she
+learned that Jo was Jan's wife, when she cheered up. A charming old
+officer stood rakia all round in our honour. The mayor came in to greet
+us, and we felt that at last Pod had been pushed behind for ever.
+
+The mayor was a pleasant fellow, speaking French, and he confided in us
+that he was suffering from a "maladie d'estomac." When we thought we had
+sympathized enough, we asked him how far it was, and could we have
+horses to go to Petch. He answered that it was two days, or rather one
+and a half, and that the horses would await us at twelve on the
+following day. We went to bed early to make up for last night, but Jan,
+having felt rather tickly all day, hunted the corners of his shirt and
+found--dare we mention it--a louse, souvenir de Liéva Riéka.
+
+As we were breakfasting next day our driver, who had been most
+unpleasant the whole time, sidled up and asked Jan to sign a paper.
+While Jan was doing so the driver burst into a volley of explanations.
+We thought that he was asking for a tip, but made out that he had lost
+(or gambled) the ten kronen which his employer had given to him for
+expenses. We had intended to give him no tip, for on the yesterday he
+had refused to carry our bags, but this made us waver. We asked Mr. Rad,
+etc., what we should do.
+
+"Sign his paper," he answered gruffly, "and kick him out; he's only a
+dirty Turk anyhow."
+
+The mayor sent our horses round early; but we stuck to our decision to
+start in the afternoon, and ordered lunch at twelve. There was a huge
+crowd gathered in front of the inn, and we saw that the Pasha and his
+harem were off. One wife wore a blue furniture cover over her, one a
+green, and one a brown, so that he might know them apart from the
+outside, for they all had heavy black veils before their faces. The
+Pasha himself seemed rather a decent fellow, and had much of the air of
+a curate conducting a school feast. Four children were thrust into two
+baskets which were slung on each side of one small horse, and various
+furniture, including a small bath (or large basin), was strapped on to
+others, and the Pasha followed by his wives set off walking, the Pasha
+occasionally throwing a graceful remark behind him.
+
+The mayor lunched with us, and for a man who has, as he says, anæmia of
+the stomach, chronic dysentery, and inflammation of the intestines, he
+ate most freely, and if such is his daily habit, he deserved all he had
+got.
+
+Our guide was the most picturesque we have yet had. He was an Albanian
+with a shaven poll save for a tuft by which the angels will one day lift
+him to heaven, small white cap like a saucer, over which was wound a
+twisted dirty white scarf, short white coat heavily embroidered with
+black braid, tight trousers, also heavily embroidered, but the waistband
+only pulled up to where the buttock begins to slide away--we wondered
+continuously why they never fell off--and the long space between coat
+and trousers filled with tightly wound red and orange belt. He called
+himself Ramases, or some such name. Our saddles were pretty good, the
+stirrups like shovels, the horses the best (barring at the Front) we had
+had since Prepolji.
+
+We rode over a creaky bridge, Jan's horse refusing, so he went through
+the river, and out into the new road which is being made to Ipek. Men
+and women, almost all in Albanian costumes, were scraping, digging,
+drilling and blasting; some of the women wore a costume we had not yet
+seen, very short cotton skirt above the knees, and long, embroidered
+leggings. We passed this high-road "in posse" and, the little horses
+stepping along, presently caught up a trail of donkeys, the proprietor
+of which, a friend of Ramases, had a face like a post-impressionist
+sculpture.
+
+We passed the donkeys and came to the usual sort of café, rough log hut,
+fire on floor--but one of the women therein gave Jo her only
+apple--decidedly we were away from Pod.
+
+On again along river valleys. Jan's saddle had a knob in the seat that
+began to insinuate. On every hill were cut maize patches, the red
+stubble in the sunset looking like fields of blood.
+
+In the dusk we came to Velika, a wooden witchlike village, where we were
+to stay the night, and where, as we had expected, the Pasha, ten minutes
+ahead of us, had commandeered all the accommodation. The captain,
+however, was very good, and gave us a policeman to find lodgings for us.
+By this time it was dark. He led us into a pitch black lane where the
+mud came over our boots, then we clambered up a loose earth cliff and
+stood looking into a room whose only light was from a small fire, as
+usual on the floor. Over the fire was a large pot, and a meagre-faced
+woman was stirring the brew. Behind her a small baby in a red and white
+striped blanket was pushed up to its armpits through a hole on four
+legs, where it hung. In a dark corner a small boy was worrying a black
+cat.
+
+"Can you give these English a bed?" demanded the policeman.
+
+The woman shook her head sadly. "Mozhe," she said, which means "It is
+possible."
+
+After supper, Bovril and cheese omelette, we went out to seek the café.
+We trudged back through the mud and stumbled into a house full of
+lattice work, like a Chinese store. Startled we tried another. This time
+we came into a stable, but there was a ladder leading upwards, and at
+the top a lighted room, so we decided to explore. We climbed up and came
+into a large loft in which six long legged, heavily bearded Albanians
+were squatting about a fire; a gipsy woman with wild tousled hair and
+hanging breasts was in the corner of the hearth, and was telling some
+long monotonous tale. An Albanian, who spoke Serb, told us to come in
+and have coffee. It was like the illustration of some tale from the
+Arabian Nights. After a while we climbed out again into the night, and
+went home. Ramases hung about shyly, and the woman explained that he had
+nowhere to sleep; so we arranged that she should house him also.
+
+Even as we poked our noses out of the door there was a promise of a fine
+day. Below us we could see the Pasha up and superintending the packing
+of his family and furniture. We celebrated by opening our last tin of
+jam, which we had carried carefully all the way, waiting for an
+occasion. We left the remains of the jam for the small family, and as we
+were mounting we saw their faces smeared and streaked with "First
+Quality Damson." We started the climb almost at once. The early morning
+smoke filtering through the slats made an outer cone, of faint blue,
+above the black roof of every hut and cottage; here and there were
+traces of roadmaking, groups of Albanian workmen on stretches of
+levelled earth which our trail crossed at irregular intervals. Presently
+we entered the clouds, and were wrapped about with a thin mist faintly
+smelling of smoke. After a while we climbed above them, and looking down
+could see the clouds mottling all the landscape, and through holes
+little patches of sunlit field or wood peering through like the eyes of
+a Turkish woman through her yashmak.
+
+Our horses panted and sweated up the long and arduous slope for two
+mortal hours, up and ever up; but all things come to an end, and at last
+we reached the top. We sat down to rest our weary animals and, lo! by us
+passed long strings of mules and ponies bearing the very benzine about
+which so much fuss had been made in Cettinje. Alas for our reputations
+as miracle workers! Had this blessed stuff only come a week later we
+should even have passed in Montenegro as first cousins of the king at
+least; but this was a little too prompt.
+
+There was landscape enough here for any budding Turners, but we two had
+still eight hours to go and not money enough to loiter. On the higher
+peaks of the mountains there was already a fresh powdering of snow; in
+the valleys the clouds had almost cleared away, leaving a thin film of
+moisture which made shadows of pure ultramarine beneath the trees. Your
+modern commercial grinder cannot sell you this colour, it needs some of
+that pure jewel powder which old Swan kept in a bottle for use on his
+masterpiece, but found never a subject noble enough. Some of that stuff
+prepared from the receipt of old Cennino Cennini which ends "this is a
+work, fine and delicate, suitable for the hands of young maidens, but
+beware of old women." Pure Lapis Lazuli.
+
+[Illustration: THE IPEK PASS IN WINTER.]
+
+But it became difficult even for us to admire landscape, for breakfast
+had disappeared within us, and lunch seemed far away, so once more
+recourse to the "compressed luncheon." There are three stages in the
+taste of the "Tabloid." Stage one, when it smacks of glue; stage two,
+when it has a flavour of inferior beef tea, say 11.30 a.m.; stage three,
+when it resembles nothing but the gravy of the most delicious beef
+steak. That is about 2.30, and your lunch some hours in retard. We
+had reached stage three, and even Jo succumbed to the charms of the
+"Tab."
+
+Famished we came to a café.
+
+"Eggs?" we gasped to the host.
+
+"Nema" (haven't got any), he replied.
+
+"Milk?"
+
+"Nema."
+
+"Cheese?" crescendo.
+
+"Nema."
+
+"Bread?" fortissimo.
+
+"Nema."
+
+Despairing we swallowed three more luncheon tablets each and whined for
+tea. Ramases, who seemed to get along on tea alone, promised us a
+well-stocked café in an hour and a half.
+
+The second café was purely Albanian. We climbed up some rickety stairs
+into a room which had--strange to relate--a fireplace. About the room
+was a sleeping dais where three or four black and white ruffians were
+couched. There was a little window with a deep seat into which we
+squeezed and loudly demanded eggs, bread and cheese. An old woman all
+rags and tatters came in and squeezed up alongside, where she crouched,
+spinning a long wool thread and staring up into Jo's face. Several cats
+were lounging about the room, but one came close and began to squirm as
+though she were "setting" a mouse. Suddenly she pounced, seized the old
+woman's food bag from her feet, swept it on to the floor, and
+disappeared with it beneath the dais, where all the rest of the cats
+followed. The old woman, who had been plying distaff and spindle the
+while, let out a yell of fury and half disappeared beneath the platform.
+We all roared with laughter, while beneath us the cats spat and the old
+woman cursed, beating about with the handle of her distaff till she had
+rescued her dinner. She backed out with the bag, sat down again and
+started spinning once more as though nothing had happened.
+
+Beyond this café the track became very stony and rough. We passed a
+typical couple. The man was carrying a light bag full of bottles, while
+the women had on her back a huge wooden chest, in which things rattled
+and bumped as she stumped along.
+
+Jo looked at her with pity. "That's heavy," she said.
+
+The woman stared stupidly and answered nothing; but the man smiled and
+said--
+
+"Yes, heavy. Bogami."
+
+We passed more caravans of that all too soon benzine. Cliffs began to
+tower up on every side, and precipices to fall away beneath our feet to
+a greenish roaring torrent; great springs spouted from the rocks and
+dashed down upon the stones below in shredded foam: one was pink in
+colour. Here once a general and his lady were riding, and the lady's
+horse slipped. The general grasped her but lost his own balance, and
+both fell into the river and were killed. The track wound up and down,
+often very slippery underfoot, and the horses, shod with the usual flat
+plates of iron, were slithering and sliding on the edge of the
+precipices. At last we got off and walked. It was an immense relief: our
+saddles were intensely hard, stirrups unequal lengths, and with knots
+which rubbed unmercifully on the shins. We passed a man who was
+evidently an Englishman, and he stared at us as we passed, but neither
+stopped. The gorge grew deeper, the stream more rapid. The cliffs
+towered higher, black and grey in huge perpendicular stripes. We heard
+sounds of thunder or of blasting which reverberated in the canyon; it
+was oppressive and gloomy, and one shuddered to think what it would be
+like if an earthquake occurred. The cliffs ceased abruptly in a huge
+grass slope on which crowds of people were working on the new road; we
+crossed the river over a wooden bridge.
+
+We came down into Ipek suddenly, past the old orange towered monastery,
+which lies, its outer walls half buried, keeping the landslides at bay.
+Ramases, who had suddenly put on another air, flung his leg over the
+saddle--he had previously been sitting sideways--and twisted his
+moustache skywards. Jo wished to canter on, but he sternly forbade her,
+flipping her horse on the nose and driving it back when she tried to
+pass; for it would have damned his manly dignity for ever had a woman
+preceded him.
+
+Our first view of Ipek was of a forest of minarets shooting up from the
+orchards, not a house was to be seen. Ramases tried to make us lodge in
+a vague looking building. We asked him if that were the best hotel. He
+answered nonchalantly, "Nesnam" (don't know); so we hunted for
+ourselves, discovering in the main square a blue house labelled "Hotel
+Skodar" in large letters.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IPEK, DECHANI AND A HAREM
+
+
+
+We entered the courtyard of the inn. Tiny as it was all Ipek seemed to
+be plucking poultry in it. An urbane old woman came forward, evidently
+the owner. She had short arms, and her hair grey at the roots was
+stained with henna, which matched her eyes. A dog fancier once told us
+never to buy a dog with light-coloured eyes if we wanted a trustful
+loving nature, so we wondered if it applied to humans.
+
+She showed us a tiny dungeon-like room entirely filled up by two beds.
+We were not impressed; but she assured us that we should have a large
+beautiful room the next day for the same price. So we engaged it and
+strolled out into the evening.
+
+Buffaloes were sitting in couples round the big square. They chewed the
+cud with an air of incomparable wisdom so remote from the look of
+reproachful misery that is generally worn by an ox. Goats came in from
+the hills with their hair clipped in layers, which gave them the
+appearance of ladies in five-decker skirts; and children were playing a
+queer game. They jumped loosely round in circles with bent knees, making
+a whooping-cough noise followed by a splutter. We saw it often
+afterwards, and decided that it must be the equivalent to our "Ring o'
+Roses."
+
+Work was over for the day, the sun set behind the hills which ringed us
+round, and we went to kill time in a café.
+
+While we were exchanging coffees with an "American," who was showing us
+the excellences of his wooden leg which he had made himself, a
+breathless man ran in.
+
+He had been searching the town for us. The governor had ordered him to
+put us up, as his had the notoriety of being a clean house. Having taken
+a room already with the amiable old lady we feared to disappoint her, so
+we decided not to move. The man piteously hoped that we were not
+offended; and we explained at length.
+
+When we reached the hotel again our old hostess bustled up, more sugary
+than ever.
+
+"We have just thought of a little rearrangement," she said.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Well, do you understand, the inn is very full to-night, so we thought
+it best that you should both take the one bed and I and my daughter
+will take the other."
+
+"Oh," said we, "in that case we had better move altogether, we have
+anoth--"
+
+"Indeed, no no," said the old lady, horrified. "Stay, stay. There sit
+down. It is good, keep your beds." She patted us and left us.
+
+We had an uninspired dinner. Greasy soup, tough boiled meat which had
+produced the soup, minced boiled meat in pepper pods, and two pears
+which turned out to be bad. The company, composed of officers and
+nondescripts, pleased us no better than the dinner, so we decided to eat
+elsewhere on the morrow.
+
+The governor's secretary came in to arrange for an interview with his
+chief--yet another Petrovitch and brother to the governor of Scutari. By
+this time we had each imbibed a dozen Turkish coffees during the day,
+but we slept for all that from nine until nine in the morning.
+
+Marko Petrovitch, whom we saw early, was the best and last Petrovitch we
+met in Montenegro. Like all the Petrovitches he wore national costume.
+He was handsome, shy, and kindly, said we must go to Dechani the most
+famous of Balkan monasteries, and promised us a cart for the journey.
+
+After leaving the governor we plunged into melodrama.
+
+Hearing a noise we discovered crowds of weeping women and children round
+the steps of a shop. A young man in French fireman's uniform seemed to
+be very active, and an old trousered woman passively rolled down the
+steps after receiving a box on the ears.
+
+We thought it was a policeman arresting an elderly thief; but Jo, seeing
+blood on the lady's face, told him he was a "bad man." He lurched,
+staring at her stupidly. His companions, more firemen, came forward
+grinning sheepishly, and we recommended them to lead him away out of
+mischief. But the next minute a balloon-trousered child rushed up to us
+and tugged at Jan's coat.
+
+"Quick, the devil man is doing more bad things."
+
+We ran down the road beyond the village and saw him in the distance
+dancing on an old Turk's bare feet with hobnailed boots, alternating
+this amusement with cuffs on the face. We sprinted along, and seeing a
+convenient little river wriggling along by the roadside, Jan caught him
+by the neck and the seat of his trousers, swung him round, and pitched
+him in. The man sat for a moment, bewildered, in the water, and then
+climbed out uttering dreadful oaths; but as he came up Jan knocked him
+into the water again.
+
+Men in firemen's uniforms appeared from all sides, shouting--
+
+"What are you doing? You mustn't. Who are you?"
+
+"We know the governor," said Jo. The men were making gestures of
+deference when the reprobate rushed from the river, aiming a whirling
+blow at Jan which missed.
+
+The men hurled themselves on him, but he grabbed Jan's coat to which he
+clung, howling in unexpected English--
+
+"Shake 'ands wi' y' ennemi." Suddenly everybody spoke English, and we
+wondered into what sort of a fairy tale had we fallen.
+
+It was lunch time so we did not stay for explanations, but hurried back
+to the town with the weeping old Turk, gave him our small change, which
+seemed to cure the pains in his feet, and hunted for the other hotel.
+
+It was tucked away in a romantic back street. The bar room was tiny, but
+it was very pleasant to sit round little tables under shady trees in the
+courtyard.
+
+"What have you for lunch?" we asked a solid-looking waiter boy.
+
+"Nema Ruchak, bogami." We have no lunch. We looked at all the other
+people absorbing meat and soup.
+
+"Give us what you have."
+
+"We have nothing, bogami."
+
+"Have you soup?"
+
+"Yes, bogami."
+
+"And cheese?"
+
+"Ima, ima, bogami."
+
+"That will do for us."
+
+He thereupon brought macaroni soup, boiled meat, roast meat, fried
+potatoes, cheese, grapes, and coffee.
+
+We never found out why in Montenegro they should make it a point of
+honour to say they have nothing. It resembles the Chinese habit of
+alluding to a "loathsome" wife and a "disgusting" daughter.
+
+After lunch we visited our own hotel and found mine hostess waiting for
+us with her short arms akimbo. She wanted the "beautiful large bedroom"
+to which we had moved in the morning, finding it the same size as the
+one below, but rather lighter. Its former occupant had arrived, and we
+were to go back to the dungeon.
+
+"That is not good," said Jo, and we flatly refused to go downstairs.
+
+"If we leave this room we go altogether."
+
+She again patted us and begged us to consider the matter closed. We
+could stick to the room.
+
+Certainly that dog fancier was right.
+
+There was a very old monastery which we had passed as we rode into
+Ipek.
+
+Although we are more interested in the people of the present than in
+ruins of the past, these old Serbian monuments leave so strange a memory
+of a civilization suddenly cut off at its zenith that they have an
+emotional appeal far apart from that of archæology. These little oases
+of culture preserved amongst a wilderness of Turk tempt the traveller
+with a romance which is now vanishing from Roman and Greek ruins.
+
+The Ipek monastery is a beautiful old place with the walls half buried
+on one side. The old church, orange outside, is very dark within, but
+contains many beautiful paintings. Surely here is the home of Post
+Impressionism and of Futurism. The decorations of the bases of the
+pillars are quite futuristic even orpeistic.
+
+The pictures are Byzantine. But the Turks have picked out the eyes, as
+they always do. One enormous painting of a head which filled a
+semicircle over a door is particularly fine. Most halos are round, but
+the painter had deemed the ears and beard worthy of extra bulges in this
+saint's halo, which added to the decorative effect.
+
+Beautiful apple trees were dotted about the big garden through which the
+wriggly river ran. Ducks, geese and turkeys wandered around, so fat that
+they were indifferent to the meal that was being served out to them. A
+boy woke up the mother of a family of young turkeys and pushed her
+towards the dinner with his foot. She hurried there involuntarily and
+sat down for a nap with her back to the plate, the picture of outraged
+dignity.
+
+We got into conversation with a priest, who insisted we should call upon
+the archbishop. The Metropolitan was a cheery soul, wearing a
+Montenegrin pork-pie hat very much on one side, and black riding
+breeches which showed as his long robes fluttered during his many
+gesticulations.
+
+While with him we lost the impression that we were living in the unreal
+times of the Rose and the Ring. He was intensely civilized, spoke French
+excellently, and had many a good story of his life in Constantinople and
+other places. For the English he had great affection. The last
+Englishman in Ipek, a king's messenger, had flown to the monastery to
+escape from the Hotel Europe and its bugs. The next morning he would not
+get up. The archbishop went to his room to remonstrate.
+
+"No, no," said he; "I spent two nights under a ceiling which rained bugs
+upon me, and I know a good bed when I've got it."
+
+Coffee and cigarettes came in, of the best, and the rakia was a thing
+apart from the acrid stuff we were accustomed to.
+
+He admitted its superiority. The plums came from his own estate, and
+were distilled by the monks. The great difficulty was to prevent him
+from giving us too much.
+
+We talked of the war, and he related many atrocities, winding up with
+"Of course, England must win; but what will become of us in the
+meanwhile?"
+
+That evening we had a visitor. A very large Montenegrin in French
+fireman's uniform knocked at the door. He said his name was Nikola
+Pavlovitch. He had been sent by the governor to apologise for the
+"trouble" Jan had had that morning with the drunken soldier.
+
+"'E in jail now, 'e verry sorry and say if you forgive 'im, mister, 'e
+never touch rakia, never no more. 'E good chap reely. Got too much rakia
+this mornin', 'E think about Turks an' get kinder mad some'ow. 'E don't
+know what 'e done; first thing 'e knows 'e finds 'imself in river."
+
+Nikola Pavlovitch was, though not an officer, the commandant of a
+contingent of miners from America. The governor had told him also to
+offer himself as cicerone for the morrow, the cart having been ordered
+for our trip to Dechani.
+
+We didn't like cicerones and demurred.
+
+"I kin talk for you," he said. But we owned to speaking Serb.
+
+"I know all de country, kin tell you things: bin 'ere twenty years
+ago."
+
+We saw he wanted to come, and noticed that he had a very likable face,
+strong features, straight kindly eyes. We realized that he would be a
+very pleasant companion and arranged to meet at the stable the next day.
+
+And so, at last, we drove in one of the queer little Serb carts we had
+avoided so anxiously. A few planks nailed together and bound around with
+an insecure rail, four wheels slipped on to the axles with no pins to
+hold them, a Turkish driver dangling his legs--such was our chariot.
+Some hay was produced to improvise a seat; we bought some apples on
+tick, as the vendor said he had no change for our one shilling note, and
+off we drove.
+
+Nikola Pavlovitch started yarning almost at once, and we never had a
+dull moment. He was a comitaj once, in the old days when Turkey owned
+Macedonia and the Sanjak. He said that nearly all comitaj were men of
+education and intelligence. When Turkish rule became oppressive, when
+too many Christian girls were stolen and vanished for ever into harems,
+the comitaj appeared, farms were raided, minute but fierce battles were
+fought; but in spite of this continual supervision, occasional and
+mysterious murders were needed to keep down the excesses of the Turk.
+
+Pavlovitch waved a hand towards the sullen mountains of Albania, which
+were on our right.
+
+"Dose Swabs don' tink o' nuttin' but killin'. Jess ornary slaughter,
+Mister Jim. Now dat Jakovitza [a town to the south] dat don't mean
+nuttin but 'blood' in their talk, 'lots o' blood' dat's what it means.
+Sure. Dese peoples don' respect nuttin but killin'; an' when you've done
+in 'bout fifty other fellers you'r reckoned a almighty tough. If you
+wanted to voyage dere, f'r instance, you'd 'ave ter get a promise o'
+peace, a 'Besa' they calls it, from one of dese tough fellers, and he
+makes 'imself responsible to end any feller wat disturbs you; 'e can
+post a babby along o' you and so long as the kiddie's wid yer nobody'll
+touch you. Dats so, Mister Jim, you bleeve me. But all de same, dey've
+fixed it up so's dis killing business ain't perlite wen deres women
+about, so every feller taks 'is wife along 'o 'im so's not to be ended
+right away."
+
+Every house by the roadside was a fortress, loopholes only in the ground
+floor, windows peering from beneath the eaves and turrets with gunslits
+at the second story; here and there were old Turkish blockhouses, solid
+and square, showing how the conquerors had feared the conquered.
+
+"One o' dese tough fellers 'e kill more'n hundred fellers. Great chief
+'e is. Wen 'e was sixteen 'is fader get condemned ter prison way in
+Mitrovitza. Dis young tough 'e walk inter court nex' day, in 'e kill de
+judge and two of de officers and 'scape inter de mountains."
+
+Nick himself when he was a comitaj had twice been caught by the Turks.
+Once he was shot in thirteen places at once, but was found by some
+Christian women and eventually recovered; the second time the Turks beat
+him almost to death with fencing staves, and though they thought him
+dying put him on an ox cart and sent him to the interior of Turkey.
+
+"I was ravin' mad dat journey," he said. "I don' want ter go ter 'ell if
+it's like dat."
+
+They put him in hospital and treated him kindly; but once better they
+threw him into a Turkish gaol. He described how the prison was dark as
+night, because the poorer prisoners blocked up the windows, stretching
+their arms through for doles from the passers-by.
+
+"We was all eaten wi' lice," he went on, "an' if de folks 'adn't sent me
+money an' food I'd a starved to def, sure. 'N den dey bribes de governor
+'n a soldier, 'n dey lets me 'scape."
+
+He lay a cripple in Montenegro six months, but in the summer crawled
+down to the Bocche de Cattaro and on the sweltering shores of the
+Adriatic built himself a primitive sweat bath. In a few weeks he was
+better, and in a few months cured. He then went to the mines in America,
+for he dared not return to Macedonia. He saved £800 and returned with
+it to his sister's in Serbia, but was so oppressed by the misery about
+him that he gave away all his money and went back.
+
+"Dere's lots a mineral in dese mountains, you feller. I show you one
+lump feller got a' Ipek, an' I guess it's silver, sure. Wen de war over
+you come back an' we'll go over dem places tergedder. Dere's coal too.
+Lots."
+
+He told us that the wretched skeleton who was driving us had power in
+Turkish days to commandeer the services of Christian labourers, and to
+pay them nothing.
+
+We passed by placid fields containing cows, horses, donkeys. The country
+seemed untouched by war. Those cows could never have drawn heavy carts
+and lain exhausted and foodless after a heavy day's work. The horses
+reminded one of the sleek mares owned by old ladies who lived in awe of
+their coachmen.
+
+For this all belonged to Dechani, and it was beyond the power of the
+state to touch their riches; nor had they been molested even in the days
+of Turkish rule.
+
+"You see, monastery 'e pay money to the toughest Albanians--Albanian
+they give besa--and nobody never do no 'arm to the monasteries. Russia
+she send much money, she send always her priest to Dechani and the
+Turks they keep sorter respectful."
+
+Our first sight of Dechani disappointed us a little, the proportions
+lacked the beauty of the Ipek church; but the big old door marked by the
+fire the Turks had built against it, decades before, cheered us up a
+bit.
+
+A pleasant priest with a smooth face and ringlets two feet long greeted
+us and led us to the little Russian hospital which was fitted into the
+Abbey, warning us not to bang our heads against the heavy oak beams in
+the corridors.
+
+The Russians welcomed us heartily, preparing the most wonderful tea,
+Australian butter, white bread made with flour brought from Russia.
+
+Pavlovitch enjoyed himself immensely. Food was thin in the barracks. But
+he was very worried about the priest's long ringlets.
+
+"I'd soon cure 'im, a month diggin' de trench!" he murmured.
+
+After tea we examined the church. The interior was one miraculous blue:
+pictures with blue backgrounds, apostles with blue draperies, blue
+skies, a wonderful lapis lazuli.
+
+Once the Moslems had overpowered the defenders of the church and had got
+in, the eyes of some of the saints were picked through the plaster.
+Legend runs, however, that while they were desecrating the tomb of Tzar
+Stephan who founded the church, the tomb of the queen, which lay
+alongside, exploded with a violent report and terror struck the Turks,
+who fled.
+
+They showed us the queen's tomb, split from top to bottom. The priests
+naturally claim a miracle; but Pavlovitch said, "I tink dey verry
+clever, dey done dat wi' gunpowder."
+
+The Tzar Stephan had wished to build the church of gold and precious
+stones, but a soothsayer said--
+
+"No, my lord, build it of plain stone, for your empire will be robbed
+from you, and if it be of gold greedy men will tear it to pieces, but if
+it be of plain stone it will remain a monument for ever."
+
+So he built it of fine marble. The central pillars were forty feet high,
+and each cut from a single piece, with grotesque carved capitals. The
+great screen was wonderfully carved and gilded. Wherever one looked was
+decoration, almost in excess.
+
+Ringlets invited us to tea with the Russian bishop who was in charge. He
+was a stout, sweet-mannered little man, who shook his head woefully over
+the war.
+
+Somehow Pavlovitch discovered that he and the bishop were the same age,
+forty-eight. We contrasted Pavlovitch's spare athletic frame with the
+well-fed shape of the bishop, and felt instinctively which was the
+better Christian. Coffee and slatka were brought in. This slatka is
+always handed to callers in well-regulated Serbian households. It is jam
+accompanied by many little spoons and glasses of water. Each guest dips
+out a spoonful, licks the spoon, drinks the water, and places his spoon
+in the glass. There is also a curious custom with regard to the coffee.
+If a guest outstays his welcome, a second cup is brought in and
+ceremoniously placed before him--but, of course, this hint depends upon
+how it is done.
+
+"It is Friday," remarked Pavlovitch, regretfully. "Odder days we gits
+mighty good meal." He was very anxious for us to stay the night so that
+we should fit in a first-class breakfast, but the morrow was the Ipek
+fair, and we could not miss that.
+
+Night was coming so we hurried off and drove away. The horses went quite
+fast, as we had made them a present of some barley. We had discovered
+that since the beginning of the war, when they had been requisitioned by
+the Montenegrin Government, they had lived on nothing but hay, and the
+owner, who was driving them, said that they would soon die, and that
+when they did he would not receive a penny and would be a ruined man. He
+added pathetically--
+
+"One does not like to see one's beasts die like that, for after all one
+is fond of them."
+
+We arrived after dark, and ordered supper for three. The inn lady was
+scandalized.
+
+"But that is a common soldier," she said. "There are many fine folk in
+the dining-room, arrived to-day. The General--"
+
+So we dined upon the landing.
+
+The next day we got up very early, went down to the dining-room and
+found it was full of sleeping forms; we had coffee in our room.
+
+We wandered round the market. It was still too early, people were
+arriving and spreading their wares, men were hanging bright carpets on
+the white walls. Beggars were everywhere, exhibiting their gains in
+front of them. If one could understand they seemed to cry like this--
+
+"Ere y'are, the old firm; put your generous money on the real thing. I
+'as more misery to the square inch than any other 'as to the square
+yard."
+
+We found bargaining impossible, as they only spoke Albanian, and we
+could only get as far as "Sar," how much.
+
+Pavlovitch turned up later and was very helpful. We hurried him to a
+silver shop which was displaying a round silver boss. He beat them down
+from sixteen to ten dinars, after which we plunged into a side street
+filled with women squatted cross-legged behind a collection of
+everything that an industrious woman who owns sheep can confection.
+
+"I have nothing for thee," said an old woman to Jo, who peered into her
+basket--Pavlovitch translating.
+
+Jo withdrew a tiny pair of stockings--a marvel of knitting in many
+coloured patterns.
+
+"What about these?" she said.
+
+"Hast thou children?"
+
+"No; but how much?" said Jo.
+
+The price was four piastres. Jo gave four groschen and the old woman
+peered anxiously at the money in her palm.
+
+"It is too much," she said.
+
+Pavlovitch explained that somehow four groschen worked out to more than
+four piastres; but we left her to calculate what fractions of a centime
+she had gained.
+
+Our old innkeeper looked very truculent when we entered.
+
+"Are you going to lunch here?"
+
+"No; we left word."
+
+"Then you can't stay here."
+
+[Illustration: IN THE BAZAAR OF IPEK.]
+
+[Illustration: STREET COFFEE SELLER IN IPEK.]
+
+We pointed out that her meals were bad and very dear. She retaliated by
+making a fearful noise, and invited us to go and sleep at the Europe;
+but we remembered the Archbishop's story and stood firm.
+
+"If you don't leave us in peace we will appeal to the Governor."
+
+"Do, do. Go to the Governor," said the old lady, her little girl, a
+wry-mouthed charwoman and a little boy whom Jo had noticed stealing our
+cigarettes. The dog joined in and barked vociferously.
+
+We went to the Governor who was near by. "They don't understand
+innkeeping here, and she is a drunken old slut," he said, and sent for
+her husband.
+
+We went defiantly again to the Europe for lunch.
+
+Jo had been expressing her wish to Pavlovitch to visit a harem. He came
+to tell us that it had been arranged, as the chief of the police was a
+friend of his, and he had asked a rich Moslem to let her visit his
+wives. The Moslem had graciously assented, saying that he would do it as
+a great favour to the chief of the police, and that no "European" woman
+had ever visited an Ipek harem.
+
+We went down the broad street with its brilliant houses, admiring the
+gaudy colours of the women's trousers. "What a pity," we said, "that
+such a word as _loud_ was invented in the English language."
+
+Outside a huge doorway were sitting the chief of police and the wealthy
+Albanian. We were introduced with great ceremony, and the Moslem, losing
+no time, took Jo through the doorway into a courtyard. At the end was
+another door guarded by a responsible-looking Albanian. He stood aside,
+and she entered another court full of trees and a basket-work hut. She
+passed through the lower story, which was full of grain, and ascended
+into a beautiful room with a seat built all round it.
+
+It was entirely furnished with carpets. He waved his hand to the seat,
+called to his wives much as a sportsman summons his dogs, and left.
+
+They came in, three women, simply dressed in chemise and flowered cotton
+bloomers. Their voices were shaking with excitement, and they were
+fearfully upset because Jo got up to shake hands with them.
+
+They only spoke Albanian, and a few words of Serb. One had been very
+beautiful, but her teeth were decayed, another was a healthy-looking
+young woman, and the third was frankly hideous.
+
+They brought coffee, the chief wife presenting it with her hand across
+her chest--a polite way of saying--
+
+"I am your slave."
+
+Jo spoke Serb, and they clearly said in Albanian--
+
+"If only we could tell what you are saying."
+
+After which every one sat and beamed, and they kept calling for
+somebody.
+
+A plump dark-eyed girl came in, the first wife's daughter. She spoke
+Serb, and interpreted for the wives.
+
+They wanted to know everything, but knew so little that they could grasp
+nothing.
+
+Where had Jo come from? She tried London, Paris; no use, they had never
+heard of them--two weeks on the sea--they didn't know what the sea was,
+nor ships nor boats. They had never left Ipek and only knew the little
+curly river.
+
+The girl said that "devoikas" did not learn to read and write. That was
+for the men.
+
+Jo finally explained that she had ridden on horseback from Plevlie. Then
+they gasped--
+
+"How far you have travelled! What a wonderful life, and does your
+husband let you speak to other men?"
+
+She asked them what they did.
+
+"Nothing." "Sewing?" "A little," they owned with elegant ease.
+
+The chief wife had recently lost one of her children, but did not seem
+to know of what it had died.
+
+"I should think a woman doctor would be useful here," said Jo.
+
+They screamed with laughter. "How funny! Why, she would be _so_ thick!"
+they said, stretching their arms as wide as they could.
+
+They kept inventing pretexts for keeping her, but when she rose to go
+for the third time they regretfully bade her farewell, the daughter took
+both her hands and imprinted a smacking kiss.
+
+Outside the healthy-looking wife emerged from the basket hut, where she
+was evidently preparing some delicacy to bring up, and showed signs of
+deep disappointment.
+
+The responsible-looking man who let her out also expressed his regrets
+that she had not stayed longer. In the great street doorway was seated
+the husband, but no Jan, no Pavlovitch, so Jo sat with him, somewhat
+embarrassed, eating bits of apple which he peeled for her.
+
+In the afternoon we went to bid farewell to the Archbishop and took
+Pavlovitch with us. The Archbishop gave Pavlovitch a poor welcome until
+he heard his name.
+
+"Are _you_ Nikola Pavlovitch, of whom I have heard so much from the
+Governor? I thought you were only a common soldier. I have met you at
+last."
+
+We felt we were really consorting with the great.
+
+Jo related her harem experiences, and he told of the attempts of the
+young Turks in Constantinople to abolish the veil, of how he had
+assisted at small dinner parties where the ladies had discarded their
+veils, and of the ferocity with which the priests and leaders had fought
+and quashed the movement.
+
+One lady had ventured unveiled into the bazaar, and one of the lowest of
+women had given her a blow on the face. On appealing to a policeman she
+had received small comfort, as he told her she ought to be ashamed of
+herself.
+
+As we went home we met women coming home from the fair with unsold
+carpets. They accosted us and wanted to know why we were writing them in
+the morning so that they could tell their relatives all about it.
+
+When we reached our bedroom the old innkeeper came in. In dulcet tones
+she admired our purchases. We were rather stiff.
+
+Suddenly she fell upon Jo's neck saying, "You mustn't be angry with me,"
+and remained there explaining.
+
+When she left, Jo looked gravely at Jan, took a toothcomb, let down her
+hair, and worked hard for a while.
+
+Next day we went for a long walk. As we were returning a terrific storm
+burst over us. We had left our mackintoshes in the inn, and were soon
+wet through. We got back just at supper time, and after, as Jan had no
+change of clothing, he decided to go to bed in his wet things, heaping
+blankets and rugs over himself in the hopes of being dry by the morrow.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO--II
+
+
+Jan awoke nearly dry, or in a sort of warm dampness, at 4.30 a.m. Not a
+soul was about, and we packed by candle. There was a purple dawn, and
+the towering cliffs behind the minarets glowed a deep cerise for at
+least ten minutes ere the light reached the town. The streets were still
+and deserted, but at last an old man with a coffee machine on his back,
+and a tin waistbelt full of pigeon-holes containing cups, took a seat at
+a corner. At six he was surrounded by groups of Albanian workmen
+drinking coffee, and he beckoned us to come and take coffee with him,
+but we were suspicious of the cleanliness of his crockery. A
+miserable-looking woman in widow's weeds was loitering about the door of
+the post office, and with her was a tattered girl surrounded by trunks,
+suit-cases, and bandboxes, so we guessed they were there to be fellow
+passengers. A waggon loaded with boxes halted before them, but the widow
+declined to let _her_ baggage go by it.
+
+At last the post waggon came. It was a small springless openwork cart
+with a rounded hood on it, so that it could roll when it upset--which
+was the rule rather than the exception--luggage accommodation was
+provided only for the "soap and tooth-brush" type of traveller; but the
+widow insisted upon packing in all her movables, and after that we four
+squeezed into what room was left. The seat was low, one's chin and knees
+were in dangerous proximity, and a less ideal position for travelling
+some thirty-five miles could not be imagined. The widow's portmanteau,
+all knobs and locks, was arranged to coincide with Jo's spine. The
+tattered maid was loaded with five packages on her knees which she could
+not control, so we looked as cheerful as we could and said to ourselves,
+"Anyway it will do in the book."
+
+At the start Jan was rather grateful for the squash, for the air was
+chilly; soon the damp, exposed parts of his clothing cooled to freezing
+point, and it was lucky that they were not more extensive.
+
+As we rolled over the craters and crests of the--what had once
+been--stone-paved streets, the driver halted, here to buy a large loaf
+of bread, there to purchase smelly cheese, and finally to pick up a
+gold-laced officer, whom we took to be the post-guard. The driver, who
+sat back to back with Jan, grumbled at him because he took up too much
+room. But Jan replied that it was his own fault for not making the
+carriage bigger, and that his knees were not telescopic. We received the
+post of Montenegro, for this was the only road out; it consisted of
+three letters and a circular, so we judged that Montenegrin censorship
+was pretty strict.
+
+The road was flat, the surrounding country covered with little scrubby
+oak bushes, in and out of which ran innumerable black pigs who had long
+cross pieces bound to their necks to prevent them from pushing through
+hedges into the few maize fields. As the miles passed Jan slowly began
+to dry, his temperature went up and his temper became better. The widow,
+we discovered, was the relict of a Greek doctor who had died of typhus
+in Plevlie, and she was returning to her native land.
+
+Presently we came to a small inn, a hut like all others, and the driver
+commanded us to get out. By this time we were accustomed to the sight of
+nobles kissing market women relatives, and it did not surprise us to see
+the officer embrace the rather dirty hostess of the inn and kiss all the
+children; but when he took his place behind the bar and began to serve
+the coffee!... It was a minute before we realized that he had not been
+guarding the three letters and the circular, but merely was returning
+home.
+
+At the Montenegrin frontier, which was some hours on, a soldier asked us
+for a lift, as though he could not see that we were already bulging at
+all points with excess luggage; at the Serbian frontier Jan was asked
+for his passport, and as they did not demand that of the widow, we
+concluded that they imagined her to be Mrs. Gordon, and Jo and the
+tattered one, two handmaids.
+
+Immediately over the frontier the road began to be Serbian, but not as
+Serbian as it became later on, and we reached Rudnik--and lunch--in good
+condition. Another carriage similar to our own was here, containing a
+Turkish family. The father, a great stalwart Albanian, and the son a
+budding priest in cerise socks. The priest was carrying food to his
+carriage, and we discovered that a woman was within, stowed away at the
+back like the widow's luggage, and carefully protected by two curtains,
+so that no eye should behold her. Her sufferings between Rudnik and
+Mitrovitza can be imagined when you have heard ours.
+
+From Rudnik we walked to ease our cramped limbs, and the road became so
+bad that the driver went across country to avoid it. Here is the receipt
+for making a Serbian road.
+
+"The engineer in charge shall send two hundred bullock trains from Here
+to There. He shall then find out along which path the greater number
+have travelled (_i.e._ which has the deepest ruts), after which an
+Austrian surveyor shall map it and mark it, 'Road to There.' Should the
+ruts become so deep that the carts are sliding upon their bottoms rather
+than travelling upon their wheels, an overseer must be sent to throw
+stones at it. He and ten devils worse than himself shall heave rocks
+till they think they have hurt it enough, when they may return home,
+leaving the road ten times worse than before, for the boulders by no
+means are to fill the ruts, but only to render them more exciting."
+
+Oh, we walked. Indeed, we walked a good deal more than the driver
+thought complimentary, we got out at every uphill, and put steam on so
+that we should not be caught on the downhills. By supreme efforts we
+managed to get in four hours' walking out of the torturous thirteen.
+Once--when we were a long way ahead--we were stopped by a gendarme.
+
+"Where are your passports?" demanded he.
+
+"In the post-waggon," replied Jan.
+
+"Why did you leave your passports in the post-waggon?"
+
+"Because they were in the pocket of my great-coat."
+
+"Why did you leave your great-coat in the post-waggon?"
+
+"Because it is hot."
+
+"I shall have to arrest you," quoth the gendarme.
+
+But his officer came from an adjoining building and told him not to make
+a fool of himself, and on we went, taking short cuts, following the
+telegraph poles, which staggered across country like a file of
+drunkards.
+
+Eventually the carriage caught us up and the driver insisted that we
+should get in. He added that he could not lose all day while we walked,
+and that he would never get to Mitrovitza; it seemed superfluous to
+point out that we had gone quicker than he, but to avoid argument we
+clambered in. The driver, in a temper, slashed his horses, and off we
+went, over ruts and stones full speed ahead. It was like being in a
+small boat in a smart cross-choppy sea, with little torpedoes exploding
+beneath the keel at three minute intervals; and this road was marked on
+the map as a first-class road; the mind staggers at what the second and
+third-class must be like. These countries are still barbarous at heart,
+but Europe cries out upon open atrocities, and so they have invented the
+post-waggon. After all, pain is a thing one can add up, and the sum
+total of misery produced by the post, travelling daily, must in time
+exceed that of the Spanish Inquisition. Thus do they gratify their
+brutal natures.
+
+We bounded along. The brakes did not work, the carriage banged against
+the horses' hocks, who, in turn, leapt forwards, and our four heads met
+in a resounding thump in the centre of the waggon; after which Jo
+insisted that the widow should turn her hatpins to the other side. The
+widow's luggage cast loose and hit us in cunning places when we were not
+looking. The cart rocked and heaved, and we expected it to turn over.
+There were other waggons on the road--heavy, slow ox carts, exporting
+wool or importing benzine or ammunition, with wheels of any shape bar
+round--some were even octagonal; and as they filed along they gave forth
+sounds reminiscent of Montenegrin song, a last wail from the hospitable
+little country whose borders we were leaving behind us.
+
+The driver promised us a better road further on; but the better road
+never came, and we hung on waiting for something to break and give us
+relief. There were hints, it is true, unfinished hints: some day men
+will be able to travel in comfort from Mitrovitza to Ipek, but the day
+is not yet. It is strange how the human frame gets used to things, and
+we grew to believe that our driver not only liked, but joyed in each
+extra bang and jolt--collected them as it were--for certainly he never
+avoided anything, though occasionally he wound at the brake, but that
+was only for show, because he knew that it did not work.
+
+We reached Mitrovitza at dark with bones unbroken, and rattled down a
+road with vague white Turkish houses upon one side, and a muddy looking
+stream reflecting dull lights on the other. One last lurid lunge, we
+leapt across a drain and broke a trace bar, but too late, we had
+arrived.
+
+The Hotel Bristol was full--why are there so many hotels in Serbia named
+Bristol?--but we were received by a stupid-looking maid at the Kossovo,
+and were given a paper to sign, saying who we were. Then down to the
+restaurant, where we had a beefsteak which was a dream, and back to bed,
+which was a nightmare, for all night long we bounced and banged and
+bruised our journey over again, and awoke quite exhausted.
+
+The first impression of a town which is entered by moonlight is usually
+difficult to recover on the following morning, it is often like the
+glimpse of a pretty girl caught, say, in a theatre lobby, and the charm
+may never be rewoven. So it was with Mitrovitza, which in daylight
+seemed just a dull, ordinary Turkish town. The Prefect was a bear, and
+sent us on a long unnecessary walk to the station, a mile and a half.
+Sitting on the road was the dirtiest beggar we had yet seen. As we came
+towards her she chanted our praises, bowing before us and kissing the
+dust; but she aroused only feelings of disgust and getting nothing, she
+turned to curses till we were out of sight. The chief imports at the
+station seemed to be cannons and maize; the only exports, millstones,
+which looked like and seemed almost as palatable as Serbian bread. We
+did our business without trouble, and coming back the beggar praised us
+once more till we had passed, then hurled even louder curses after us.
+
+We came to a tiny café in which were faint tinkling, musical sounds.
+
+Jan: "I wonder what that is?"
+
+Jo: "It sounds queer: shall we explore?"
+
+Jan: "I dunno, perhaps they wouldn't like us."
+
+Jo: "Come along. Let's see anyhow."
+
+And up we went. In a large room was a deep window seat, and in the
+window the queerest little Turkish dwarf imaginable. The little dwarf
+was sitting cross-legged, and was playing a plectrum instrument. His
+head was huge, his back was like a bow, and his plectrum arm bent into
+an S curve, which curled round his instrument as though it had been bent
+to fit. He was a born artist, and rapped out little airs and trills
+which made the heart dance. There were three soldiers at tables, and
+presently one sprang out on to the floor and began to posture and move
+his feet, a woman joined him; the little man's music grew wild and more
+rapid; another man sprang in, another woman joined, and soon all four
+were stamping and jigging till the floor rocked beneath them. We gave
+the little man a franc for his efforts, and his broad face nearly split
+in his endeavour to express a voiceless gratitude.
+
+We were no longer royalty, we were just dull, ordinary everyday folk,
+and at the station had endless formalities to go through, examinations
+of passes, etc., during which time all intending passengers were locked
+in the waiting-room. But at last we were allowed to take seats in the
+train, and off we went.
+
+We passed through the plain of Kossovo where old Serbian culture was
+prostrated before the onrush of the Turk, and whence Serbia has drawn
+all its legends and heroes; possibly the most unromantic looking spot in
+all Europe, save only Waterloo. Here, far to the left, was Mahmud's
+tomb:--Mahmud the great victor, stabbed the day before the battle, and
+dying as he saw his armies victorious. History contains no keener
+romance. Serge the hero, accompanied by two faithful servants, galloped
+to the Turkish camp, and commanded an interview with the Moslem
+general, who thought he was coming to be a traitor. In face of the
+Divan the hero flung himself from his horse, drew his sword, and stabbed
+Mahmud where he sat, surrounded by his armies. Before the astounded
+guards had recovered their surprise, Serge was again upon his great
+charger and was out of the camp, cutting down any who barred his
+passage. Mahmud did not die immediately, and his doctors slew a camel
+and thrust him into the still quivering animal; when the dead beast was
+cooling, they slew another, and thus the Moslem was kept alive till the
+Serbian hosts had been overthrown. He and the Serbian Czar were buried
+on the same field--one dead in victory, one in defeat.
+
+We trundled slowly over the great plain whose decision altered the fate
+of the world, for who knows what might have grown up under a great
+Byzantine culture? The farms were solidly built houses with great
+well-filled yards, surrounded by high and defensible walls. We came into
+stations where long shambling youths, dressed in badly made European
+clothes, lounged and ogled the girls in "this style, 14/6" dresses.
+Signs of culture!
+
+Why should the bowler hat, indiarubber collars, and bad teeth be
+indissolubly bound to "Education Bills" and "Factory Acts"? Why should
+the Serbian peasant be forced to give up his beautiful costume for
+celluloid cuffs, lose his artistic instincts in exchange for a made-up
+tie? It is the march of civilization, dear people, and must on no
+account be hindered.
+
+Coming back to Serbia from Montenegro was like slipping from a warm into
+a cool bath. One is irresistibly reminded that the Lords of Serbia
+withdrew to Montenegro, leaving the peasantry behind, for every peasant
+in the black mountains is a noble and carries a noble's dignity; while
+Karageorge was a pig farmer. There is a warmth in Montenegro--save only
+Pod.--which is not so evident in its larger brother; a welcome, which is
+not so easily found in Serbia. The Montenegrin peasant is like a great
+child, looking at the varied world with thirteenth-century unspoiled
+eyes; centuries of Turkish oppression has dulled the wit of the Serb,
+and at the outbreak of the war Teutonic culture was completing the
+process.
+
+We passed beneath the shadow of Shar Dagh, the highest peak in the
+peninsula, six thousand feet from the plain, springing straight up to a
+point for all to admire, a mountain indeed.
+
+We reached Uskub at dusk, found a hotel, and went out to dine. The
+restaurant was empty, but through a half-open door one could hear the
+sounds of music. The restaurant walls were--superfluously--decorated
+with paintings of food which almost took away one's appetite; but one
+enormous panel of a dressed sucking pig riding in a Lohengrin-like
+chariot over a purple sea amused us.
+
+In the beer hall a tinkly mandoline orchestra was playing, and a woman
+without a voice sang a popular song--one thought of the women on the
+Rieka River--a tired girl dressed in faded tights did a few easy
+contortions between the tables, and in a bored manner collected her meed
+of halfpence--we thought of the cheery idiot of Scutari. Was it worth
+it, we asked each other, this tinsel culture to which we had returned?
+And not bothering to answer the question went back to our hotel and to
+bed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+USKUB
+
+
+Uskub is a Smell on one side of which is built a prim little French town
+finished off with conventionally placed poplars in true Latin style; and
+on the other side lies a disreputable, rambling Turkish village
+culminating in a cone of rock upon which is the old fortress called the
+Grad.
+
+The country about Uskub is a great cemetery, and on every hand rise
+little rounded hills bristling with gravestones like almonds in a
+tipsy-cake. Strange old streets there are in Uskub. One comes suddenly
+upon half-buried mosques with grass growing from their dilapidated
+domes, a refuge only for chickens; some deserted baths, and in the midst
+of all, its outer walls like a prison and with prison windows, the old
+caravanserai.
+
+We crept to its gateway and through a crack saw visions of a romantic
+courtyard. The gate was locked, and we asked a little shoemaker--
+
+"Who has the key?"
+
+"It is now a leather tannery," he answered, and directed us to a
+shoemaker in another street. This was full of shoemakers, and we chased
+the key from shop to shop. It was like "Hunt the slipper." At last we
+ran it to earth in the second waistcoat of a negligent individual in a
+fez.
+
+How happy the merchant of old must have felt when he entered the
+courtyard after a long journey! The court was big and square, with a
+fountain in the centre, the pillars were blue, and the arches red. Tiers
+upon tiers of little rooms were built around; the expensive ones had
+windows and the cheap ones none, and the door of each was marked by the
+smoke of a thousand fires which had been lit within. Underneath were
+cubby holes for the merchants' goods, and behind it all was a great dark
+stable for the animals. Once shut up in the caravanserai one was safe
+from robbers, revolutions, and the outside world. Lying in the doorway,
+as if cast there by some gigantic ogre in a fit of temper, were two
+immense marble vases, and two queer carved stone figures. Who made these
+figures? Mystery--for Turkey does not carve. The old caravanserai no
+longer gives protection to the harassed traveller, it only cures his
+boots, for it has fallen from sanctuary to shoemakers, and the leather
+workers of Uskub cure their hides therein. Hence, despite its beauty, we
+did not loiter long, for we have ever held a bad smell more powerful
+than a beautiful view.
+
+Why don't towns look tragic when their bricks reek of tragedy? Why is
+industrial misery the only form in which the cry of the oppressed is
+allowed to take visible shape and to make the reputation of Realist
+artists? In Uskub is concentrated the whole problem of the Balkans and
+of Macedonia. Her brightly painted streets are filled with Serb, Bulgar,
+and Turk, each disliking the rule of the other, the Bulgar hating the
+Serb only worse than the Turk because the Serb is master. To the
+inquiring mind it is problematic how much of this hate is national, and
+how much political. Deprive these peasant populations of their jealous,
+land-grabbing propagandist rulers, and what rancour would remain between
+them? Intensive civilization, such as has been applied to these
+states--civilization which has swept one class to the twentieth century,
+while it leaves the others in its primitive simplicity--seems always to
+produce the worst results. Nations can only crawl to knowledge and to
+the possessions of riches, for politics to the simple are like "drinks"
+to the savage and equally deadly in effect.
+
+[Illustration: A WINE MARKET IN USKUB.]
+
+Can the problem ever be resolved? Can Serbia with half her manhood wiped
+out stand against her jealous neighbours? The creation of a lot of
+small states on republican principles seems a far-fetched idea, and yet
+it seems the best, especially if the menace of Turkey were removed, for
+there is little doubt that Turkey, rearmed by the German, might make one
+more effort to regain her lost territory under conditions vastly
+different from those which ruled in the Balkan conflict. Macedonia,
+Albania, and what is now Turkey in Europe, each made self-governing
+under the shield of the Alliance--why not?--and Serbia as compensation
+allowed to expand towards the north into territories which are wholly
+Serb in nationality and in feeling.
+
+We went through the pot market, whose orange earthenware was glowing in
+the sun, and came upon an old house with such a wonderful ultramarine
+courtyard that we went in to look. Over the door was written OLD
+SERB CAFÉ JANSIE HAN. After sketching there we entered the inn for
+coffee, and sat at tables made of thick blocks of marble smoothed only
+at the top. The innkeeper said it was built in the days of the Czar
+Duchan. If this were true, one would say that never had the interior
+been whitewashed since then. But there was an air of cosiness about it,
+and we visited it several times after. Near by was a little church with
+a wonderful carved screen and a picture of Elijah going to heaven in a
+chariot drawn by a pink horse, with the charioteer bumping along on a
+separate cloud, which served as the box. We watched the sun set from one
+of the tipsy-cake hills, sitting on a gravestone with an old Turkish
+shepherd, who seemed to derive great comfort from our company.
+
+The mountains around reflected the rosy lights of the sun in great flat
+masses.
+
+The muezzin sounded from the many minarets, and twilight was on us.
+Uskub, romantic, dirty, unhealthy Uskub, was soon shrouded in mist; a
+vision of unusual beauty.
+
+One thought of the awful winter it had passed through, when dead and
+dying had lain about the streets. Typhus, relapsing fever, and typhoid
+had gripped the town. Lady Paget's staff, while grappling with the
+trouble, had paid a heavy toll, as their hospital lay deep on the
+unhealthy part of the city. For a time the citadel was in the hands of
+an English unit. Before they were there it was a Serbian hospital, and
+the staff threw all the dirty, stained dressings over the cliff, down
+which they rolled to the road. The peasants used to collect these
+pestiferous morsels and made them into padded quilts. Little wonder that
+illness spread! In the summer Lady Paget's hospital withdrew to some
+great barracks on the hill. The paths were made of Turkish tombstones,
+which were always used in Uskub for road metal.
+
+The hospital staff was saddened by the recent death of Mr. Chichester,
+who had, like ourselves, just returned from a tour in the western
+mountains, where he caught paratyphoid and only lived a few days.
+
+One of the doctors had been in Albania, on an inoculating expedition. At
+Durazzo he had been received by Essad Pacha, who was delighted to have
+his piano played, and to watch the hammers working inside. Like Helen's
+babies, "he wanted to see the wheels go wound." The piano and piles of
+music must have been a memento of the Prince and Princess of Wied and of
+their unhappy attempts at being Mpret and Mpretess--or is it Mpretitza,
+or Mpretina? The music was still marked with her name, and was certainly
+not a present to Essad.
+
+The stamp of the English was on Uskub. Prices were high. One Turk
+offered us a rubbishy silver thing for fifteen dinars; and Jan laughed,
+saying that one could see the English had been there. Without blushing
+the man pointed to a twin article, saying he would let that go for five
+dinars.
+
+What caused us to feel that we had wandered enough? Was it the awful
+cinematograph show which led us through an hour and a half of melodrama
+without our grasping the plot, or was it that the large copper tray we
+bought filled us with a sense of responsibility?
+
+At this wavering moment Lady Paget held a meeting of her staff. We
+lunched there, and part of the truth leaked out after the meeting.
+
+The Bulgars really were coming in against us, and in a day or two we
+were to see things.
+
+That decided the matter. We went to the prefect's office for our pass.
+Firstly, we were ushered into a room occupied by a man in khaki, whose
+accent betrayed that he hailed from the States. He was "something
+sanitary," and belonged to the American commission, so we tried again.
+This time the porter took us up to a landing, said a few words into a
+doorway, and left us standing. As he was wandering in our vicinity, Jo
+tried one of her two talismans: it is the word "PREPOSTEROUS"
+ejaculated explosively, and is safely calculated to stagger a foreign
+soul. The other is a well-known dodge. If a person bothers you, look at
+his boots with a pained expression. He will soon take himself off--boots
+and all.
+
+The talisman worked, the pass was quickly managed, and we had but to
+spend our time among the shops again. We resisted the seductions of an
+old man with fifty knives in his belt, who reminded Jo of a horrible
+nightmare of her infancy.
+
+In her dream a grandfather with a basket had come peddling. Suddenly his
+coat, blowing aside, revealed not a body, but a busy sewing-machine in
+excellent working order. In her agitation, Jo fell out of bed.
+
+We sat consuming beer outside a café decked with pink flowered bushes in
+green boxes. One of the antique dames who cook sausages in the shadow of
+the cafés brought us a plate each--funny little hard things--and we
+bought cakes and nougat from perambulating Peter Piemen.
+
+The station platform was like the last scene of a pantomime. Every one
+we had met on our journeys rushed up and shook us by the hand.
+
+First a Belgian doctor, from Dr. Lilias Hamilton's unit in Podgoritza.
+He said Mrs. G. was also in the town, and that the others were all
+coming shortly. Then we met a young staff officer from Uzhitze, who was
+noted for his bravery. The train came in and we stumbled up to it in the
+dark. There was a crowd of women about the steps in difficulty with
+heavy bags. Jan ran forward to help one. She turned round. It was a
+sister from Dechani. The rest turned round. It was the whole Russian
+mission from Dechani.
+
+We proceeded along the corridor, and ran into two men. We mutually began
+to apologize.
+
+"Hello," we said, "how did you get here?" They were two Americans we had
+met in Salonika.
+
+We got our seats and went out of the train by the other door. As we
+passed the compartment we saw a familiar face. It was the little French
+courier.
+
+"Quel pays," he said, bounding up. "Et les Bulgars, quoi?"
+
+"Good Lord," said Jan. "Let's go out and get some fresh air."
+
+The only people lacking to complete the scene were the Sirdar and Dr.
+Clemow.
+
+A doctor who had just arrived from Salonika asked us to look after four
+English orderlies who, new to the country, were travelling to the Red
+Cross mission at Vrntze. With them were two trim, short-skirted, heavy
+booted, Belgian nurses, who were going to a Serbian field hospital.
+
+The train crawled. At times it was necessary to hold one's breath to see
+if we were moving at all. It was always possible that the Bulgars had
+blown up a bridge or so. One could imagine an anxious driver, his eyes
+fixed on the line in front, looking for Bulgarian comitaj.
+
+The travellers were restless. Our little French courier stood in the
+corridor looking fiercely at the black night; his back view eloquently
+expressive of his opinion of the Balkans.
+
+Later on we all slept. A frightful braying sound awoke us.
+
+No, not Bulgars--only the band. Same band, same station, same hour, same
+awful incompetence.
+
+So the princess had nothing to do with it!
+
+Trainloads bristling with ragged soldiers passed us--open truck-loads of
+them, carriage tops covered with sleeping men, some were clinging to the
+steps and to the buffers.
+
+Nish station had lost its sleepy air. Every one was energetically doing
+everything all wrong. The four orderlies and the two Belgian sisters
+were minus their passports. Some one had taken them away. These were run
+to earth in the station-master's office, and as the party had no idea
+where to go, we suggested they should come with us to the rest-house.
+
+The first person we met there was Dr. Clemow.
+
+"Have you got the Sirdar with you?" we asked.
+
+He answered that he had brought Paul, the young Montenegrin interpreter,
+with him. The English units in Montenegro had been recalled, and he had
+come to Nish to try to rescind the order for his unit.
+
+The town was at its gayest. The cloud had not yet dimmed the market.
+Peasants poured in, knowing nothing of the Bulgars, little thinking that
+they would be flying, starving, dying, in a few weeks' time. A Chinese
+vendor of paper gauds had come into the town, and all the pretty girls
+were wearing his absurdities pinned on to their head kerchiefs. One girl
+was so fine and bejewelled that we photographed her, to the delight of
+her lover, who stood aside to let us have a good view.
+
+A man was selling honey in the comb accompanied by his bees, which must
+have followed him for miles. They testified their displeasure at his
+selling their honey by stinging him and most of the buyers.
+
+No one seemed to know when the train was leaving. Station-master,
+porters, all had a different tale. At last we decided to risk seven
+o'clock in the evening, and the four orderlies and ourselves, copper
+tray and all, bade farewell to the Belgian sisters, who had cut off
+their hair, and wandered across to the station. The train arrived two
+hours late and stood, ready to go out, guarded by tatterdemalions with
+guns.
+
+"You can't get in yet," said one of them barring our way.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Ne snam."
+
+The freebooting instinct arose in us; we awaited our opportunity, dodged
+between two soldiers, and settled ourselves comfortably. Several
+officials looked in and said nothing; another came and forbade us to
+stay there, and passed on. An old woman came with a broom and cleaned
+up. We sat on our feet to get them out of the way, somebody squirted
+white disinfectant on the floor, and we were left in peace.
+
+The train started at eleven, moved as far as a siding and stayed till
+four. We found the four Red Cross men had only nine shillings between
+them. Three had stood all the way from Salonika, as during an
+unfortunate moment of interest in the view their seats had been
+appropriated by a fat Serbian officer, his wife and daughter. The
+fourth, a porter from Folkestone, had settled down on the floor, saying
+"he wasn't going to concarn himself with no voos."
+
+They had new uniforms, yellow mackintoshes, white kit bags, and
+beautiful cooking apparatus, which took to pieces and served a thousand
+purposes.
+
+In the chilly morning we got out at Stalatch, just too late for the
+Vrntze train. Luckily the station café was open.
+
+The four Englishmen ordered beefsteak, but were given long lean
+tasteless sausages. They asked for tea and were given black Turkish
+coffee in tiny cups half full of grounds. We asked about the trains, and
+were told we should catch the one next day. We argued, and extracted the
+promise of a luggage train, which would soon pass.
+
+Why is it that in Serbia they always, on principle, say, "You can't,"
+after which under pressure they own, "Somehow you can"? In Montenegro
+they say, "Certainly you can," after which they occasionally find that
+"Somehow you can't."
+
+At last the luggage train came. We sat on the step dangling our legs and
+peering down at the country below us.
+
+We were again held up at Krusevatz and bearded the officials. They
+promised to put on a special carriage for us when the next luggage-train
+should come in, some time that evening.
+
+[Illustration: BIG GUN PASSING THROUGH KRUSEVATZ.]
+
+Nothing for it but to lunch and to kill time. We watched the mountain
+batteries pass on their way to the Bulgarian frontier. One or two big
+cannon trailed by, drawn by oxen. Many horses looked wretched and
+half-starved.
+
+The Englishmen built a camp fire by the rail-road. Soon tea was brewing;
+we drank, and chewed walnuts, stared at by crowds of patient Serbian
+soldiers.
+
+We travelled with the treasurer of the district, a charming man who
+revelled in stories of a mischievous boyhood spent in a Jesuit
+establishment. The fathers had stuck to him nobly until he had mixed red
+paint with the holy water, and one of the fathers, while administering
+the service, had suddenly beheld his whole congregation marked on the
+forehead with damnatory crosses like criminals of old time. That ended
+his school days. He introduced us to an officer, whose business it was
+to search for spies, a restless man who was always feeling under the
+seats with his feet. Perhaps it was only cramp! The four Englishmen,
+cheered at the thought that their long journey was nearing its end,
+burst into song. The Serbs stood round listening to the melodies that
+were so different to their own plaintive wailings, and presently asked
+us to translate. We don't know if the subtleties of "Didn't want to do
+it," or "The little grey home in the west," were very clear in the
+translations, as they seemed puzzled.
+
+Arrived at Vrntze, we found no carriages to meet us. The station-master
+at Krusevatz had promised to telephone, but as usual had not done it. We
+had to break the news to our Englishmen, who, their songs over, had
+naturally fallen into tired depression, and had to tell them that a
+three-kilometre walk was before us, and one man had better stay to look
+after the baggage. Carriages were telephoned for, but they would be long
+in coming.
+
+They were! We arrived at the village--no carriages. We agitated. The spy
+searcher came out of the café--to which he and the "Bad Boy's Diary" man
+had driven--and made people run about. They said the carriages had
+already gone. We denied it, so they woke up the coachman.
+
+We took the three men to the hospital and went back to sit in the café
+with our new friends and met many old ones. The local chemist cheered
+and promised us a present of mackintosh cotton to celebrate our return.
+We had spent Easter morning in his shop eating purple eggs and drinking
+tea enlivened with brandy, while the choir came in and chanted beautiful
+Easter songs to us.
+
+An hour rolled by, the café closed, our friends disappeared. We went to
+meet the carriages from the station; at last they arrived, with Mr. Owen
+half asleep amidst the kitbags.
+
+It was far into the night when we arrived at our hospital burdened with
+our two bags and the copper tray.
+
+The night nurse, a kitten, and a round woolly puppy welcomed us.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MAINLY RETROSPECTIVE
+
+
+Hospital work again. How strange we felt. A sad-faced little Serbian
+lady, widowed through typhus, was interpreting for the out-patients
+while Jo was away; but she was alone in the world and did not want to
+go--so Jo, homesick for her beloved out-patients, had to make the best
+of it and do other work. The Serbian youth who had been put on the staff
+as secretary, was dangerously ill with typhoid fever, which he had
+picked up at Kragujevatz. The typhus barrack was a children's hospital,
+containing little waifs chosen from the out-patients, and a few women.
+
+In the early days when we had first arrived at Vrntze there were several
+overfilled Serbian and one Greek hospital. They were only cafés and
+large villas, unsanitary, stuffy, and overworked. The windows were never
+open, and through the huge sheets of plate glass could be dimly seen in
+the thick blue tobacco smoke a higgledy-piggledy crowd of beds. Often
+two men lay in one bed covered with their dirty great coats, while
+typhus patients and wounded men slept together. One man lay unconscious
+for several days in the window, his feet in his dinner-plate. At last he
+died, his feet still in the dinner. Mr. Berry took on a hydropathic
+establishment which had been completed just before the first Balkan War.
+This was used as the central hospital, where the staff lodged, and the
+most serious surgical cases were nursed. In the basement an
+operating-room was rigged up, there were bathrooms, disinfecting-rooms,
+a laundry, and an engine-house, where gimcrack German machinery in fits
+and starts provided us with electric light and hot water. The village
+school on the hill opposite was annexed and cleaned by a sculptor, a
+singer, a painter, and a judge of the Royal Horse Show. This was run as
+a convalescent home, and was the cause of many a muddy sit down, as it
+lay on the top of a greasy hill.
+
+Other large buildings were gradually added, sulphured, and cleaned until
+we had six hospitals, one of which was run for some time in connection
+with the Red Cross unit.
+
+Typhus had not stricken the village badly, but the old barracks were
+full of cases which developed several days after each batch of wounded
+came.
+
+The Red Cross unit took on the typhus barracks. Mr. Berry, seeing that
+surgery was for the moment a secondary thing, and having received a
+batch of Austrian prisoners riddled with typhus, built some barracks not
+far from the school. Glass was unobtainable, so thin muslin was used for
+the windows.
+
+The first precaution against bad air that Mr. Berry took in preparing
+his chief surgical ward was to smash all top panes of the windows with a
+broom, thus earning the name of the Window Breaker. Whenever the wind
+blew through the draughty corridors and glass rattled down from the
+sashes, word went round that "Mr. Berry has been at it again."
+
+Our unit and the Red Cross ran a quarantine hospital together. It was
+originally the state café and lay in the park of the watering-place.
+Near by were the sulphur baths. We ripped out the stuffy little wooden
+dressing-rooms, to the joy of the bath attendant, who possessed the
+facsimile of Tolstoi's face, and with the _débris_ we built a large shed
+outside for the reception of the wounded.
+
+In the early days they came in large batches from other hospitals,
+pathetic septic cases, their lives ruined for want of proper care. We
+put their clothes in bags for future disinfecting, and the men, mildly
+perplexed, were bathed, shaved, and sent to the "clearing-house," as it
+was called. Those who developed typhus went to the barracks, and the
+rest were drafted to the various hospitals in the village.
+
+The clothes were first sulphurized to kill the lice, and then, until Dr.
+Boyle's disinfector appeared, boiled. This was important, as typhus is
+propagated by infected lice. Even forty-eight hours of sulphur did not
+destroy the nits. One day the sulphur-room was opened after twenty-four
+hours. Live lice were discovered congregated round the tops of the bags.
+Jan put some in a bottle. They immediately fought each other, tooth and
+nail, rolling and scrambling in a mass just like a rugby-football scrum,
+and continued the fight for twelve hours at least, thus proving that the
+scientific writer who says that the louse is a delicate creature and
+only lives a few hours off the body can know little of the Serbian
+breed.
+
+The town, when we arrived, was a bouquet of assorted and nasty smells,
+of which the authorities seemed proud. We cleaned up the streets by
+running a little artificial river down the gutter. Mr. Berry had the
+chief of the police sacked and instituted a sort of sanitary vigilance
+committee. We took over the local but very primitive sewage works--a
+field into which all the filth of the town was drained.
+
+The slaughter-house was discovered. It was an old wooden shed built
+over the lower end of the stream which washed the village from end to
+end, draining successively the typhus barracks, the baths, and all the
+hospitals. The shed itself was old and worm-eaten. The walls were caked
+with the blood of years, yet the meat was always hung against them after
+having been well soused in the filthy water. Mr. Berry decided to build
+a new one: some of the money was subscribed through Mr. Blease by the
+Liverpool Liberal Club; the rest Mr. Berry paid himself. At once the
+state began to quarrel with the commune as to the ownership of the
+proposed treasure. So the smells disappeared and the town engineer was
+furious, saying he would "Put all right" when we left.
+
+Luckily one of the chief men in the town had lived in America and knew
+the value of cleanliness. Mr. Berry was offered an honorary Colonelcy;
+but he refused, saying he would prefer to be made sanitary officer for
+the town.
+
+[Illustration: IN-PATIENTS.]
+
+The spring came, bringing with it no fighting. A great offensive was
+expected, had been ordered, in fact, but we heard later that the army
+refused to advance. The work was very much lighter. Very few men were
+entirely helpless. The hospitals, which were still emptying themselves
+and whose men were coming to us, sent the survival of the fittest. Most
+of the beds were carried out under the trees after the morning
+dressings were done, and the men lay gossiping and smoking when they
+could get tobacco. Outside visitors were rare. The Serbian ladies do not
+go round the hospitals with cigarettes and sweets, and to find a Serbian
+woman nursing is an anomaly.
+
+Report says that many flung themselves into it with energy during the
+first Balkan War, but that four years of it, ending with typhus, had
+dulled their enthusiasm. It is not fair to blame them. To nurse from
+morning till night in a putrid Serbian hospital with all windows closed
+requires more than devotion and complete indifference to life. Three
+Serbian ladies came to sew pillow cases and sheets every afternoon, and
+one of them gave up still more time to teach the patients reading and
+writing.
+
+But the town was full, in the summer, of smartly dressed women, and the
+village priest never once visited our hospitals. Hearing of the English
+missions and their work, peasants began to come from the mountains
+around, and the out-patient department became, under Dr. Helen Boyle, a
+matter for strenuous mornings.
+
+Many of these poor things had never seen a doctor in their lives. Serbia
+even in peace-time had not produced many medical men, and those who
+existed had no time to attend the poor gratis.
+
+The percentage of consumptives was enormous. Every family shuts its
+windows and doors for the winter and proceeds industriously to spit, and
+so the disease spreads.
+
+Diphtheria patients rode and walked often for ten hours and waited in
+the courtyard, and people far gone with typhus staggered along in the
+blazing spring sun.
+
+One jolly old ragatops with typhus arrived in the afternoon with a
+violent temperature, and Jo settled him comfortably in the courtyard
+with his head on a sink until Mrs. Berry should come in to see about
+taking him into the barracks. He seemed quite happy about himself, but
+very worried about his blind beggar brother and his two half-blind
+children, whose sight had been ruined by smallpox.
+
+For the latter nothing could be done.
+
+Another time she kept two boys waiting to see if Mrs. Berry could take
+them into her typhus barracks. One had scarlet fever, and the other was
+a young starving clerk in a galloping consumption, thirty-six hours from
+his home.
+
+Afraid to raise their hopes, and not knowing if there would be room for
+them, Jo told them that they were to have some very strong medicine that
+could only be administered two hours after a dose of hot milk and
+biscuit (the medicine was only bovril). By this time Mrs. Berry arrived
+and managed to squeeze the boys in.
+
+However, we were told to clear the hospitals, for the wounded were
+expected.
+
+"What could be done with the scarlet fever boy?" At last an idea came:
+"The Mortuary," built by the Horse Show Judge with such joy. The
+mortuary that we had all gone to admire as a work of art.
+
+But the scarlet fever boy did not seem to see it that way, for in the
+night he escaped, and we have never seen him since.
+
+Diphtheria was so prevalent that the Red Cross on receiving a patient,
+gathered in the whole family for a few days, inoculated, washed, and
+gargled it. They also toured the villages around, digging out typhus and
+other infectious cases, thus stopping the spread of infection. They had
+a most energetic matron, Miss Caldwell, who had already nursed in
+Cettinje during the Balkan Wars, and we have already told how she
+managed the Montenegrins.
+
+Often the patients came in ox-carts. Too ill to be lifted out, they had
+to be examined and treated in the carts. Dr. Boyle acquired a special
+nimbleness in jumping in and out of these contrivances armed with
+stethescope, spoons, bowls, and dressings. We accumulated a congregation
+of "regulars," who came to be dressed every day--gathered feet,
+suppurating glands, eczema, etc.
+
+One old mother with a bad leg was bandaged up with boracic ointment and
+told to come back in two days. She came. Jo undid the bandage. All the
+old lady's fleas had swarmed to the boracic till it looked like a
+fly-paper. After which we used Vermigeli.
+
+All wore brightly woven belts, sometimes two or three, each a yard and a
+half long, tightly wound round their bodies, thus making their waists
+wider than their hips. One girl was black and blue with the pattern
+showing on her skin, and many men were suffering from the evils of tight
+lacing.
+
+The village priest received belts as fees from the peasants when he
+married them. He sent us a message to say he had some for sale, so we
+went in a body to his house, were received by his daughter, who looked
+like a cow-girl, turned over a basketful of belts, and bought largely.
+After which he put up the price.
+
+Jo went on night duty for the first time.
+
+A queer experience this, starting the day's work at half-past seven in
+the evening and finishing at seven in the morning--breakfasting when
+other people are dining; hearing their contented laughter as they go off
+to bed; and then a queer loneliness and the ugly ticking of a clock. One
+creeps round the big ward. What a noisy thing breathing is. Some one
+groans, "Sestra, I cannot sleep." This man has not been ordered morphia.
+Silence once more broken only by the sound of the breathing, distant
+howling of dogs from the darkness or the hoot of an owl. The old
+frostbite man coughs; he coughs again insistently. Both say "Yes" to hot
+milk. So down to the big kitchen, some mice scatter by, the puppy wakes
+up and thinks it is time for a game. A woman's voice calls loudly,
+"Sestra." Taking the milk off, Sestra hurries across the courtyard and
+along the corridor to the little rooms with the puppy tugging at her
+skirt. The woman wants water; she has wakened the other women--they want
+water. When silence again comes back into the ward, one notes
+instinctively the vivid colouring of the two big blue windows at the far
+end, the long lines of beds disappearing into the darkness, the dim
+light of the lantern on the table showing up the cheap clock and a few
+flowers. The intensity of light upon this clock is only equalled by the
+intensity of one's thoughts upon the clock. The minute-hand drags on as
+though it were weary with the day's work. A groan ticks off the quarters
+and cries for water or milk the half-hours. At last one o'clock. Time
+for a midnight meal. Eggs and cocoa hurriedly eaten without appetite in
+the kitchen, but breaking the monotony. Back to the ward again, one of
+the patients very restless, in great pain. Poor fellow, he has had a
+long and hard time of it, fifteen months in bed and all due to early
+neglect.
+
+"Sestra," he says, "sestra," and holds out a handkerchief heavy with
+coin. "Tell the doctor to take me down to the operating-room and cure me
+or not let me wake up."
+
+Between four and five there is more movement in the ward. Groans give
+way to yawns. In the windows the blue is paling to grey. Cocks are
+crowing now quite close, now faintly, like an echo. Suddenly the world
+is filled with work, "washings, brushings, combings, cleanings,
+temperatures, breakfasts, medicines, some beds to make, reports, all
+fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle, until at last the day-sisters come
+and relieve, and yawning at the daylight one eats warmed-up dinner while
+the others are having breakfast."
+
+After a seven weeks' absence one was bound to miss many old friends in
+the ward. Some had gone home, others were back in the army. Old Number
+13, the king of the ward, was still there. He had a dark brown face and
+white hair, and was furious if any dared to call him a gipsy.
+
+"I am a respectable farmer," he said, "and I own seventeen pigs, a
+horse, and five sheep, a wife, and two children."
+
+He loved to tell of his wedding. It was done in the correct old Serbian
+style. He went with his mother and a gun to the chosen one's house,
+where she was waiting alone, her parents tactfully keeping out of the
+way. They abducted the lady, who was treated with great honour as a
+visitor in her future father-in-law's house.
+
+"Father" turned up next morning. Rakia was served, and father divulged
+ceremoniously how many pigs he could spare to them for keeping his
+daughter.
+
+Number 13 wanted to know everything: how old was Jo, how much she was
+paid?
+
+"What, you are not paid?" he said in amazement. "Then the English are
+wonderful! In Serbia our women would not do that."
+
+Poor little John Willie still left a blank, though he had died long
+before. His name was not John Willie, but it sounded rather like it, so
+we just turned it into John Willie. He loved the name, and told his
+father about it.
+
+They sat all afternoon hand-in-hand, saying at intervals, "Dgonn Oolie,"
+and chuckling.
+
+Jan once had brought back from a spring visit to Kragujevatz some
+horrible sun hats.
+
+They were the cast-off eccentricities of the fashions of six years ago,
+and had drifted from the Rue de la Paix to this obscure Serbian shop
+which was selling them as serious articles of clothing. Jo tried them
+on, and one of the nurses became so weak with laughter that she tumbled
+all the way downstairs.
+
+Finding them quite impossible, Jo bequeathed them to the ward, where
+they were snapped up enthusiastically.
+
+The ugliest was an immense sailor hat, the crown nearly as wide as the
+brim, but the head hole would have fitted a doll. However, John Willie
+fancied that hat and was always to be seen, a tiny, round-backed figure,
+wandering slowly in a long blue dressing-gown, blue woolly boots, and
+the enormous hat perched on the top of his pathetically drooping head.
+
+One day poor little John Willie became fearfully ill. His parents
+arrived and sat dumbly gazing at him for two nights, while he panted his
+poor little life away. His friend the Velika Dete (big child), once a
+fierce comitaj, was moved away from the "Malo Dete," to make more room,
+and he sulked, while the Austrian prisoner orderlies ran to and fro with
+water for his head, milk, all the things that a poor little dying boy
+might need; and old Number 13 passed to and fro shaking his head, for he
+had been long in hospital and had seen many people die.
+
+A man with knees bent (he said with scroogling them up all winter in the
+cold) was put in John Willie's place. The Velika Dete came back, but he
+would not speak to "Bent Knees" for weeks.
+
+By this time the Austrian prisoners were very well trained and made
+excellent orderlies in the ward. An ex-Carlton waiter was very dexterous
+in sidling down the ward: on his five fingers a tray perched high,
+containing dressing-bowls and pots bristling with forceps, scissors, and
+various other instruments.
+
+His chief talent lay in peppering frostbitten toes with iodoform
+powder--a reminiscence of the sugar castor.
+
+Our housemaid was a leather tanner, whom Jo's baby magpie mistook for
+its parent, as he fed it at intervals every morning. A Czech in typhus
+cloths spent his days down in the disinfecting, operating and bathrooms.
+He had been an overseer in a factory and had added to his income by
+writing love-stories for the papers. A butcher was installed in the
+kitchens. Once a week he became an artist, killing a sheep according to
+the best Prague ideals.
+
+All our prisoners, about forty in number, clung to the English hospitals
+as their only chance of life, for in other places sixty per cent. had
+died of typhus.
+
+The Serbs, though bearing no animosity, could do little for them. We saw
+the quarters of some men working on the road. These were show quarters
+and supposed to be clean. Each room had an outside door. On the floor
+was room for six men and hay enough to stuff one pillow. They had no
+rugs, and the Serbs could give them none. The cold in the winter must
+have been intense.
+
+We had come back to this little world after seven weeks' wandering, and
+almost immediately Jan had gone off to Kragujevatz with a broken motor.
+
+While he was away Jo got letters from England and Paris, which made her
+realize that things were rather in a mess, and we should have to go
+home. We had left England intending to stay in Serbia three months, and
+had been then nearly nine.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+SOME PAGES FROM MR. GORDON'S DIARY
+
+
+OCTOBER 2ND. Got a wire from Kragujevatz to say that the motor
+hood is ready and that we must go over to get it fitted. We cleaned and
+oiled the car, and at two ran it down the hill, but it would not start.
+Found two sparking plugs cracked and the magneto very weak. When we had
+fixed it up it was too late. Four a.m. to-morrow morning.
+
+OCTOBER 3RD. Started in the dark, Mr. Berry, Sister Hammond,
+Sava, I, and a female relation of some minister or other who wanted to
+go to Kralievo. The motor working badly, as it is impossible to get the
+proper spare parts. Three young owls were sitting in the middle of the
+road scared by our headlights; we hit one, the other two flew away. Sava
+and I stopped and tinkered at the old machine for about an hour, changed
+all the sparking plugs again, after which she went better. We reached
+Kralievo without incident, where we cast loose the female relation. From
+Kralievo passed over the Morava, which was pretty floody and had
+knocked the road about a bit. The road led right through the Shumadia
+country, where the first revolts of the Serbian nation against their
+Turkish oppressors were engendered. We passed the old Serbian
+churchyard. I never passed by without going in. These queer old
+tombstones all painted in days when pure decoration had a religious
+appeal, these tattered red and white and black banners lend such a gay
+air to death; these swords and pistols and medals carved into the stone
+seem almost carrying a bombast to heaven. On one side of each tombstone
+is the name of its owner, preceded by the legend, "Here lies the slave
+of God." Do slaves love their masters?
+
+When we passed this road in the winter, black funeral flags hung from
+almost every hut, and even now the rags still flap in the breeze. A
+Serbian boy, clad in dirty cottons, shouted to us, making
+gesticulations. We slowed down and stopped.
+
+"Bombe," he cried. "Aeropla-ane. Pet," he held up five fingers, "y jedan
+je bili slomile. Vidite shrapnel."
+
+He pointed. We saw a quiet, early autumn landscape, the blue sky
+slightly flecked with thin horizontal streaks of cloud. Any scene less
+warlike could not have been imagined.
+
+"Vidite tamo," he cried once more.
+
+Straining our eyes one could just see, between the lowest strata of
+cloud, a series of small white round clouds floating.
+
+"Shrapnel," said Sava, pointing.
+
+"They hit one," said Mr. Berry.
+
+I let in the clutch, we sped on once more. Bang! a tire burst.
+
+Motor driving in Serbia is not a profession, it is an art. We were on
+another of these first-class Serbian roads. Presently we came to a long
+downhill.
+
+"That is the place," said Mr. Berry to Sister Hammond, "where we spent
+the night last winter when the motor stuck in the mud. There, beneath
+that tree."
+
+We shrugged our way down the hill, and presently came into the gipsy
+environments of Kragujevatz.
+
+A man stopped us, holding up a hand.
+
+"Bombe," he said.
+
+We got out. In the soft earth at the side of the road was a neat hole,
+four inches in diameter. Peering down we could see the steel handle of
+the unburst bomb. We next passed a smashed paling, in the garden behind
+a crowd were searching for relics. An old woman had been killed, they
+said. We turned into the main street and plunged into a large crowd. The
+pavement had been torn up, and people were grubbing in the mud; pieces
+of charred wood were passed from hand to hand.
+
+"That's a bit of propeller," said one. "No; it's a bit of the frame,"
+said another. A girl proudly held up a large piece of map scorched all
+round the edges.
+
+"And the men?" we asked.
+
+"Nemachke (Germans)," answered the crowd; "both dead; one here, one over
+there," pointing to the middle of the road.
+
+We came into the Stobarts' camp, pitched up on the hill behind the
+Kragujevatz pleasure ground.
+
+"Did you see the aeroplanes?" they cried, running towards us.
+
+"No," we answered; "but we saw the shrapnel."
+
+"One was hit--it was wonderful. They were flying just over here, and a
+shrapnel burst quite close; and then one saw a thin stream of smoke come
+from the plane; then a little flicker. It seemed to fall so slowly. Then
+it burst into flames and came down like a great comet."
+
+"D----n!" we said: "if only that machine had been working right
+yesterday."
+
+We took our car down to the arsenal, and I left Sava to take it to bits
+and get it opened out, for there had been a bit of a knock in the crank
+case. The remains of the smashed aeroplane were piled in the yard, and
+from the way it had twisted up without breaking one could see from what
+beautiful metal the machinery was made. Some of the French experts
+denied that the guns had hit it--giving as their reason that one of its
+own bombs had exploded. But one of the engineers put his hand into a big
+hole which was beneath the crank case and drew out a shrapnel ball. I
+thought that would settle it, but the Frenchmen were not convinced. The
+shells were bursting fifty metres too low, they said. Fifteen bombs had
+fallen about the arsenal, and one man, a non-commissioned officer, had
+been killed.
+
+Met Hardinge and Mawson: they both saw the aeroplane fall, and were not
+fifty yards from the place where it struck.
+
+Walked back to the Stobarts' camp for lunch. A French aeroplane had come
+over from Belgrade too late; now it rose slowly in the air and sailed
+off. Saw the two dead aviators; both had evidently been killed at once,
+for they were charred, not blistered.
+
+Colonel Phillips, ex-Governor of Scutari, and English military attaché,
+came up with the Italian attaché. A bomb had fallen just before the
+colonel's house and missed his servant by a hair's-breadth. The Italian
+was in a room opposite the Crown Prince's palace; he thought that the
+falling machine was going to crash through the roof, but it fell in the
+street not ten yards away. The camp itself was packing hard, for Mrs.
+Stobart had just decided to form a "flying field ambulance."
+
+Mr. Berry and I had a tent assigned to us.
+
+October 4th. Awoke to sounds like some one hitting a board with a
+mallet. Ran outside. One found the aeroplane from the little clouds of
+shrapnel, for it was flying very high, and was like a speck. Clouds of
+smoke were rolling from one quarter of the town, and we thought that a
+big fire was beginning, but it was extinguished. Another aeroplane came
+later. The guns began long before it could be seen. It dropped two bombs
+over the powder factory, and two in the town. Mrs. Stobart ordered
+everybody from the camp; but nobody left except the patients, who were
+driven a mile out and dumped in a wood. A long procession of townsfolk
+filed continuously by, running from the danger. The aeroplane dropped
+two more bombs in the town, and came back flying right over the camp. It
+was a queer feeling, staring right up at the plane, and wondering if
+another bomb were not falling silently towards one.
+
+I went down to the arsenal to see about the car; and Mr. Berry and Miss
+Hammond went off to see the anti-aircraft guns. Mrs. Stobart had asked
+me to go out on the Rudnik road to see a car which had broken down, and
+had promised to send a motor to fetch me. Before we could leave, news
+was brought that another aeroplane had been telephoned. Presently we
+could hear the guns beginning. Hardinge turned up, and we looked out for
+the machine. We saw the aeroplane coming straight towards us; everybody
+rushed for the cellars, but I wanted to stay outside for the last
+moment. Hardinge was with me. Suddenly I lost sight of the plane. I ran
+farther out to look for it, and suddenly there was a report, and a great
+column of smoke just outside the arsenal. There was another behind the
+rifle shops, and another behind the boiler sheds. Now the aeroplane was
+overhead. I heard a noise like tearing silk, and lay flat upon the
+ground shouting to Hardinge--
+
+"Lie flat, d----n you!"
+
+It seemed ages before it burst. Dust and bits flew everywhere; the
+windows all sprang out into the yard. I looked for Hardinge, but he was
+unharmed. I had expected to be terrified, but I was feeling so bothered
+about Hardinge that I had no time to think about myself.
+
+We heard a shrill crying, "Oh--h! oh--h!"
+
+I ran forward, crying to Hardinge, "A man's hurt!" He answered, "Is he?"
+The dust was so thick I could not see at first, but as it cleared I
+found a workman lying on back and elbows, his knees drawn up as though
+he were trussed; his head waved from side to side, and he was uttering
+spasmodic cries. I said to him, "Where? where?" and he placed a hand to
+his stomach.
+
+The man had been struck just below the ribs by a large piece of bomb,
+blood was welling from the wound, so I pushed his shirt into it, and ran
+back to the office. Mrs. Stobart's car had been brought by a lady and a
+youth named Boon, who had both taken cover in the cellar; so I dug up
+the girl, whose name I have forgotten, as I hoped she knew "first aid."
+Together we ran to the man, leaving Boon to bring the ambulance.
+"Bandages," we demanded. "Haven't any," answered the few Serbs who had
+gathered round; "the first aid house has been blown to pieces." We
+crammed our handkerchiefs into the place, and a cotton-wool arm pad
+which was brought, and we then took off the man's own puttees and tied
+him up with them. As we were doing this somebody cried--
+
+"Aeroplanes returning."
+
+Immediately every Serb and Austrian fled. The girl, Hardinge, and I were
+left alone. It was a false alarm. With the returning crowd came a large
+man, who was weeping.
+
+[Illustration: BROKEN AEROPLANE IN THE ARSENAL AT KRAG.]
+
+[Illustration: WHERE THE "PLANE" FELL.]
+
+[Illustration: HOUSE NEAR THE ARSENAL DAMAGED BY BOMBS.]
+
+"Oh, my poor brother! oh, my poor brother! What have they done to
+thee? Why should this evil have befallen thee?"
+
+As we finished tying him up, Hardinge said, "Is it any good lying down?"
+
+I answered, "If this poor chap had been lying down he would not have
+been hurt."
+
+There was no stretcher, so we lifted the wounded man on a blanket into
+the ambulance, which Boon had now brought. The girl and the brother
+climbed within. I took the steering wheel. Boon wound up the engine, and
+swung alongside me. The driving was a difficult problem. Whether to
+drive fast and get to the hospital, or whether to go slow and spare the
+wounded man as much pain as was possible? The road was awful: once it
+had been laid with stone pavement, but many of the stones were missing,
+and in so bad a condition was it that although several bombs had fallen
+in the streets, one could not distinguish the bomb craters from the
+ordinary holes in the road. At last I decided that as it was not a
+fracture I would go as quickly as I dared. Above the clatter of the
+machinery I could hear the weeping of the brother and the intermittent
+cries of the wounded man, "Water, water."
+
+"I think he's going," said the girl through the curtains.
+
+At last we reached the hospital. We laid the man on the ground and the
+doctors did all they could. But it was useless, the piece of shell had
+cut in directly beneath the heart. In ten minutes he was dead. I turned
+to the brother and laying both hands upon his shoulders said--
+
+"Your poor brother was too badly hit. We could not save him."
+
+He stared at me for a moment, not understanding. Then he turned and
+flung himself down upon the body, weeping more bitterly than before.
+
+I went to the ambulance and took it back to its place.
+
+The aeroplane returning from the arsenal had flung three gratuitous
+bombs at the camp itself, one had fallen in the Serbian hospital yard,
+and had killed an Austrian prisoner; one had fallen in the top corner of
+the camp field, but had not exploded. The third had missed, only by a
+little, the room in which the two dead German aeroplanists were lying,
+had plunged into the Stobarts' storeroom, and had burst in the last case
+of marmalade which they possessed. It was an awful mess. Had it fallen
+three yards to the left it would have killed the chief cook, who was
+just on the other side of the wall.
+
+I went back to the arsenal. None of the bombs had struck any important
+part, almost all had fallen in open places, though one had burst on the
+roof of the woodshed, only a few yards from the petrol store. Two cans
+of petrol had been punctured by bits of shell, and Austrian prisoners
+were hurriedly pumping them out. Almost half the work of the arsenal was
+done by Austrian prisoners. Another bomb had fallen in the horseshoe
+store, and inside horseshoes were everywhere, some even sticking in the
+beams like great staples. I had no idea before that the bombs had such
+force. Sava said he had been standing in a doorway and a bomb had
+exploded quite close, a piece had whizzed by his nose and had torn down
+the name board over his head. When he turned round to go on with the
+work the aide had fled and never appeared again.
+
+I met Dr. Churchin. He is one of the best Serbs I have yet met, a
+philosopher. He was looking after the English units in Kragujevatz and I
+learnt did it excellently, and with a devotion to his duties altogether
+unusual. He told me that I had been nominated an honorary captain; but I
+am under the impression that it is an honour I cannot by national law
+accept.
+
+We went in the afternoon in the car towards Rudnik to examine the one
+which had broken down. I soon saw that nothing could be done on the
+spot, and ordered it to continue its "bullocky" progress to the camp. In
+the evening went off to the Government motor school, where I found my
+old friend Ristich and Colonel Derrock; both these men are first-class
+Serbs--jolly, keen and friendly.
+
+October 5th. Our car not being finished, Mr. Berry and Sister Hammond
+went back to Vrntze in a car lent by Colonel Derrock. I was to stay till
+all the repairs were completed on ours. There was another scare of
+aeroplanes, and the whole town emptied itself, families pouring by en
+route for the country; but the planes did not come. I went down to the
+arsenal and got on with the repairs. Dr. May lent me her camera and I
+got some photos. Mrs. Stobart went off with her "flying field force,"
+taking with her nearly all the men and almost all the cars: if the
+hospital get many serious cases I imagined that they would be dreadfully
+shorthanded.
+
+In the night the two German aeroplanists were buried without military
+honours. The Serbs said that they were assassins and deserved nothing.
+Still, Kragujevatz is an arsenal.
+
+October 6th. Another aeroplane scare; town emptied itself once more. Dr.
+MacLaren and I rushed off to the anti-aircraft guns, hoping to get some
+photos; but nothing occurred. Got the Rudnik car running by taking Mr.
+McBlack's useless car to pieces. In the evening two sisters went to
+Uskub. One of the sisters went to get her bag, and I took what I thought
+to be a short cut to help her. I passed between the tents, and was
+striding along, when--Plop! I found myself swimming in a deep tank of
+water. The sister heard me fall, and ran back to the camp crying out--
+
+"Help, help! The stranger is drowning in the bath-water sewage tank."
+
+I clambered out, and hastily fled to my tent, where kindly souls brought
+me an indiarubber bath and hot water. I also got some refugee pyjamas,
+in which I wandered about for the rest of the evening. My clothes were
+taken to the kitchen and hung over the big stove.
+
+October 7th. Went to the arsenal in borrowed refugee clothes miles too
+large. Worried the car till it worked. At lunch clothes dry. Got away by
+three, Hardinge coming with us. Night came on before we got home. Our
+car is a beastly nuisance in the dark, the lamps, electric and worked
+from the magneto, only giving light when going at full speed, which is
+impossible on these roads. I was just boasting to Harding that I had
+never run into anything except the owl, when I hit a cow. Figures
+appeared cursing from the darkness; we cursed back for allowing the
+animal to stray; other figures appeared cursing on our side. The motor
+was pushed back, the cow got up and walked off, and on we went. Found Jo
+on night shift. Got some supper, fixed up a bed for Hardinge, and so
+self to bed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LAST DAYS AT VRNTZE
+
+
+Up till now Vrntze was undisturbed by the war; the fine ladies were
+walking the streets much as usual, and were bringing pressure upon
+Gaschitch, the commandant, to make us close one of our hospitals, so
+that it might be reopened as a lodging-house. The chemist and Jan had an
+amusing conversation about the uncle of Nicholas I. It seems he was a
+great poet.
+
+"Sir," said the chemist, earnestly, "I can assure you that he was one of
+the greatest poets that ever has lived. Were Serbian a language as
+universally spoken as is English, he would stand beside Shakespeare in
+the world's estimation, if not before. The depth of his philosophy, sir,
+it is astounding and so deep. There are passages in his poetry which I
+have studied for weeks on end and never yet been able to understand."
+
+The true explanation is that the great poet translated an old work of
+German philosophy into Serbian, and very likely did not understand all
+the original himself.
+
+We got more letters urging us to return. Our studios in Paris and all
+our work of the last eight years seemed in danger of being sold up. So
+Jan went once more to the Chief. He asked us to stay until at least the
+first batch of wounded arrived, for none of the others had had
+experience of the receiving arrangements, and of the disinfecting. We
+moved our beds and baggage to the school, which Jo was to take over as a
+convalescent hospital.
+
+By the way, one of our doctors had a queer soothsaying experience. She
+was told that she was one day going to a foreign country with an S in
+the name. She would be quite safe in her first job, but that she would
+be offered a post in a large grey building from which if she accepted
+she might not escape alive, but in any case would be flying for her
+life, and that she and all her companions would suffer great hardships
+and sleep on dirty straw in awful places. She was offered a job at the
+Farmers' hospital in Belgrade. She refused. It is a great grey building,
+and we now heard that Belgrade was being violently bombarded and all had
+to escape. Rumours came of great German attacks on Shabatz and
+Obrenovatz.
+
+The next day Serbian refugees arrived from Belgrade itself: they said
+that the town was in flames and that fierce fighting was taking place in
+the streets. Posheravatz was deserted, and a great battle was raging
+about its outskirts. There were reports that the King of Bulgaria had
+abdicated and that the Germans at Chabatz had been defeated, leaving
+8000 prisoners in Serbian hands. Neuhat came to Jan in great glee.
+
+"We have captured a German major," he said, "and he says that never was
+there a soldier like the Serb. He has fought English and French and
+Russians, but he says our troops are the most wonderful of all."
+
+"Jolly sensible chap," said Jan. "I'd say the same myself if I was a
+prisoner."
+
+Major Gaschitch told Dr. Berry that if the Serbian army retreated we
+were to retreat with them. Blease and Jan got hard at work putting rope
+handles to the packing-cases and labelling them for special purposes.
+One of our lady doctors was valued in the morning. In the outpatient
+department a question arose about marriage. A Serb patient said--
+
+"I can marry any time I like. Pah! In Serbia one can get two maidens for
+twopence, and three widows for a mariasch (1/2_d._)."
+
+Everybody was now running about with maps, violently explaining the
+situation to everybody else, and all explaining differently. Major
+Gaschitch had fixed Novi Bazar as our probable haven, and Mr. Berry
+borrowed our map to see if there were a direct road over Gotch mountain,
+and suggested that Jan might get a horse and ride over to see. Alas,
+only a fourth-class road was marked, and heaven knows what that may be
+like: lots of country and choose for yourself probably. A woman was
+brought in with what she said was a bullet through the breast; it
+occurred during the celebration of the marriage ceremony, which lasted a
+week. The girl was brought by her father, the bridegroom having rushed
+off to the church to pray. The wound looked very like a dagger thrust.
+
+The new slaughter-house was a fine erection. The walls were almost
+finished and the roof was being assembled. One of the Austrian prisoners
+had discovered a talent for stone carving, and Miss Dickenson was
+designing a frieze for the door and on each side. There was a fine
+ceremony--while we had been away--at the foundation, and Mr. Berry made
+a speech in Serbian. The disinfector had also arrived and was soon got
+into working order.
+
+The news got better. The Austrians were now driven out of Belgrade with
+immense slaughter, the whole line of the Danube and of the Save had
+been reoccupied by the Serbs. Blease and Jan wondered if it were
+necessary to go on with the rope handles. Our first wounded man arrived
+in the evening, a non-commissioned officer, with a slightly wounded
+thumb. He had arrived by train, asked in the town which was the most
+comfortable hospital, and had walked up. We represented that we weren't
+looking for thumbs, but had to put him up for the night; this meant the
+whole business of washing, shaving, and disinfecting his clothes.
+
+We heard that the French and English had arrived in Nish, 70,000 men,
+and that they had been greeted with the wildest enthusiasm; but against
+that was set the fact that Belgrade after all was not quite clear of
+Austrians, in fact, they still held half the town, but that the "Swobs"
+were not getting on at Chabatz. "Swobs" in Serbian are any of a Germanic
+country, while in Austria it is a term of opprobrium, meaning "German."
+One of our "Czech" orderlies said to Jo, pathetically--
+
+"I never thought that I should be called a 'Swob.'"
+
+Next day came a warning that two hundred wounded, serious cases, were to
+be expected, so everything and everybody was in a rush. The bathrooms to
+be cleaned, disinfecting-room and bags to be got ready, wards cleared
+as much as was possible.
+
+The wounded did not come, and the next day they did not come. The
+chemist said that all the Austrians had been driven back, but that the
+Bulgars had at last attacked. Mr. Berry thought the news rather serious,
+and told us that Gaschitch had said that we must be prepared to move at
+twenty-four hours' notice; so back we went to the work on the boxes.
+Next day news was brought that the Bulgars had drawn back, and had said
+that the Serbs had attacked them first, that the Powers had declared war
+on Bulgaria, and that the Russians had bombarded Varna.
+
+At last we got news that the wounded were really coming. We hurried into
+our disinfecting garments--looking like pantaloons,--and scissors were
+served out to all the assistants. It was dark before the first motor
+load came.
+
+The undressing-room was a large white-stone floored room with four long
+plank beds covered with mackintosh; behind was the bathroom. The first
+wounded man was pushed in through the window on a stretcher, a brown
+crumpled heap of misery, and groaning. We laid him carefully on the bed
+while the doctor searched for the wound. While she was examining him a
+second was handed in. No need to examine this one. Bloody head bandage
+and great blue swollen eyelids told plainly where his wound was. We
+stripped the clothes as carefully as was possible from the poor fellows.
+Those who were too bad to go to the bathroom were washed where they lay.
+One orderly with soap and razors shaved every hair from each; and
+several plied clippers on the matted heads. Outside was one electric
+lamp which threw strong lights and darker shadows, making a veritable
+Rembrandt of the scene, lighting up the white clad forms of the
+assistants who were drawing out the stretchers, the big square end of
+the ambulance car, and picking out from the gloom of the garden a rose
+tree which bore one white rose.
+
+The wounded were indescribably dirty, and their clothes in a shocking
+state, all stiff with blood. Jo took charge of the clothes bags, seeing
+that no man's clothes were mixed with any others. The men all seemed
+dazed, each soldier seemed to have the same protest upon his mind. "This
+wasn't the idea at all, I was not to be wounded. Why am I here?" One
+suddenly felt the brutal inanity of modern warfare; one felt that if the
+ones who had started this war could only be forced to spend three months
+in a war hospital, receiving and undressing the fruits of their plots,
+they would have a different view of the glory and honour of battle.
+
+Each man had sewn in his belt some talisman to protect him from
+danger--small brass or lead image or medal, bought from the village
+priest.
+
+There was confusion at first, for almost all were new to their tasks;
+the barbers were carrying stretchers when they ought to have been
+barbering; the clippers were scrubbing instead of doing their proper
+work; but, nevertheless, it was marvellously rapid. The motor tore back
+to the station, and by the time it had returned its first load had been
+washed, shaved, arrayed in clean pyjamas, and either lay in bed in the
+ward, or were waiting their turn outside the operating theatre.
+
+Mr. Berry was hard at work: there were several cases shot through the
+brain, one through the lungs, one through the heart, and one through the
+spine; this latter was paralysed.
+
+Some wounded came in carriages; it was very difficult to get them on to
+the stretchers without giving them unnecessary pain, because of the
+shape of the "fiacres." At last all were passed through.
+
+Do not think us heartless if we rubbed our hands and said, "Some very
+good cases, what!" for emotional pity can be separated from professional
+pleasure, and if these things had to be we were pleased that the serious
+ones had come to us; had not gone to a Serbian hospital.
+
+Next day we sorted clothes. Every uniform had to be taken from its bag,
+tabulated, searched for money or food, and repacked. They were swarming
+with vermin, but we wore mackintosh overalls which are supposed to be
+anathema to the beasties. More operations. One of the men had been hit
+in the cerebellum, and was quite blind. The boy who had been hit in the
+lungs prayed for a cigarette and an apple, he felt sure they would do
+him good. We sorted more clothes. One of the men had a pocket full of
+scissors--evidently regimental barber; another's pockets were crammed
+with onions; a third had a half-eaten apple, as though the fight had
+surprised him in the middle of his dessert. The cerebellum man wanted
+his purse. We could not find it; after exhaustive inquiry found that the
+lung youth had stolen it. Another patient claimed he had lost thirty-six
+francs; so down we had to go once more, search his package--the
+smelliest of the lot--and at last found the money pinned into the lining
+of his coat, also a watch. Jan took them back to him, wound up the watch
+and set it. The grateful owner said that the watch was an ornament, but
+that he could not read it.
+
+The French were never in Nish at all--all lies; but Austrian aeroplanes
+had bombed it and killed several people. The Bulgarian comitaj cut the
+line at Vranja, but had been badly beaten in a battle near Zaichar. The
+flight over Gotch degenerated into a joke, and Jo was commissioned to do
+a caricature of it.
+
+Suddenly a refugee turned up, the hostess of the rest house in Nish. She
+was very worried about the loss of her fifteen trunks, which she had had
+to leave, and which contained all her family mementoes and miniatures.
+She hoped that the scare would only last a few days. The Bulgars had
+occupied Veles though, which was bad news. Another refugee lady from
+Belgrade came in. More patients. Forty-nine for the "Merkur" hospital.
+Lots of running about, but at last all were bedded.
+
+A Serbian comitaj girl came in in the afternoon, looking for a lady
+doctor. She was a fine upstanding creature with a strong, almost fierce,
+face. There had been six of her, she said, but one had been killed. The
+bombardment of Varna turned out to be a lie, but they said that all the
+Bulgars at Vrnja had been surrounded. Major Gaschitch also said that if
+Serbia could hold out till the 10th, something wonderful was going to
+happen.
+
+Our visitors had rather a hard time. One of them was trotting into the
+little sitting-room of the hospital. She opened the door and started
+back aghast. There was a man within clad in nothing but a large pair of
+moustaches. She fled. Mr. Berry having nowhere to examine a stray
+patient had occupied the room at an unlucky moment. More wounded were
+expected, so we got into our war paint, and they arrived five hours
+later than we had expected them. They came in "fiacres," and climbed off
+very easily. We inquired, "Where wounded?" "Belgrade." "When?" "Three
+months ago." Not a serious case amongst them, and we had heard that the
+badly equipped hospitals at Krusevatz were crowded with the most
+frightful cases. We were furious. A lot more wounded came to the "State"
+café. None seriously hurt, and after examination one man had no wound to
+show at all, nor shock, nor anything. He had simply run away. There were
+several hand cases, some blackened with powder, proving that the poor
+devils had shot themselves to get out of it. One man would not have his
+hair cut because he said that he was in mourning for his brother, and
+his hat was decorated with a crown of black lace. At the same time some
+serious cases came to the main hospital; one man seemed to have been
+shot the whole length of his body, the bullet entering at the shoulder
+and emerging behind the hip. A small boy sat scratching. Jo said to him,
+"Why dost thou scratch?" He answered with a shout of fatuous content,
+"I have lice, I have lice," and scratched once more.
+
+The disinfector was working overtime, clothes were poured upon us from
+all the other hospitals. Another alarm that wounded were coming, but
+they never came. In their place an English clergyman arrived from Krag.
+News came of the fall of Uskub, and that Lady Paget had been captured
+with all her staff. Next day the wounded came, many more than had been
+expected. Jan got rather strong signs of inflammatory rheumatism
+threatening, so he went to bed for a couple of days with salicylate.
+
+The Serbian authorities were beginning to lose their heads. In the
+morning they said that the "State" was to be made into a hospital for
+officers, and chased all the patients out; in the afternoon they decided
+that it was not, and chased back the patients--who had been divided
+amongst the other hospitals. Thus they kept us busy and accomplished
+nothing. In the evening another batch of wounded came in.
+
+Nearly all the reports of the previous week were now confessed to be
+lies. A Serbian minister had been dying in the town, and the good
+stories were made up to keep him cheerful. Now he was dead the truth
+leaked out. The Austrians and Germans were advancing on every side, the
+Serbs making no resistance since Belgrade. The Bulgars had occupied the
+whole of the line south of Nish. The French and English were advancing
+with extreme difficulty. The Farmers' unit trailed into the town, no
+conveyance having been arranged for them from the station. The Scottish
+women were already here, having come in the night; they had to sleep
+twelve or fifteen in a room. Next day a small contingent of the wounded
+Allies arrived.
+
+Sir Ralph Paget arrived in a whirl. Leaders of units appeared from all
+sides, and a hurried conference was held.
+
+Mr. Berry called a meeting at two. He said Paget had announced that the
+game was up; that all members of units should have the option of going
+home, and that he (Paget) was going to Kralievo to see about transports.
+Jan got to work on the map, and decided that the best route out would be
+one to Novi Bazar, and thence by tracks to Berane. There were villages
+marked in the mountains which did not seem so high as those by Ipek,
+also the road, if there were one, would be at least two days shorter.
+
+Sir Ralph came back next day, and knowing that we had but lately
+returned from Montenegro, he asked Jan a lot of questions about the
+road, etc. Sir Ralph's latest decision was that all men of military
+age--not doctors--should attempt to cross the mountains into Montenegro.
+He could not say if any transport could be provided, or if there would
+be any means of escaping from Montenegro, and in consequence he advised
+no women to move, as they would be better where they were, than in
+facing the risks of the mountains; they would not be in the same danger
+as the orderlies, for whom internment was to be expected. Dr. Holmes
+decided to accompany us, as he said he wasn't going to doctor Germans,
+and he might be useful to the retreating Serbian army. Ellis also said
+that he would come and would bring his car, which would help us at least
+some of the way. Sir Ralph asked Jan to take charge of the party of the
+English Red Cross, and we went back to our rooms to repack, for Jo had
+already arranged things for internment, Mr. Blease decided to come with
+us. Nobody knew what the dangers would be, or where the Austrians and
+Germans were, and many doubted if it were possible to get through. The
+season was getting late, and snow was daily to be expected. Some
+imaginative people enlarged on "the brigands" and "wolves," but we did
+not think that they counted for much. The chief problems were, if we
+could get shelter each night, and could we carry enough food to support
+us in case we could get none, which seemed very possible.
+
+We got an order from Gaschitch for bread from the Serbian authorities.
+We were going off into country, the real conditions of which nobody
+knew, and our friends took leave of us, many expecting to see us back in
+a few days. The Austrian prisoners were very sad at our going.
+
+The station was dark and gloomy, the little gimcrack Turkish kiosk--like
+a bit of the White City--was filled with Red Cross stoves and beds. Two
+trains came in, but neither was for Kralievo; one was Red Cross and the
+other for Krusevatz. A lot of boys, in uniform, clambered on board and
+shouting out, "Sbogom Vrntze," were borne off into the night. Our
+spirits fell lower and lower. We thought of the friends we were leaving
+behind us, and of what we had before us. The reaction had set in,
+intensified by the gloom and cold of the station.
+
+Hours later the train arrived. The only third-class carriage was filled
+to overflowing, people were standing on the platform and sitting on the
+steps. We tried the trucks. All were crammed so full that the doors
+could not be opened.
+
+"You'd better go to-morrow," said the station-master.
+
+"We're not going through that a second time," we said. "Can't we climb
+on to the roof?"
+
+We scrambled up. There were other men there, lying in brown heaps. We
+made some of them move up a little, stowed our blankets and knapsacks,
+and sat amongst them.
+
+"Are you all right?" shouted the station-master.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Good-bye, then. Lie down when you come to the bridges, or you'll get
+your heads knocked off."
+
+We lay down at once, taking no risks, not knowing when the bridges were
+coming. Luckily the wind was with us, and the night was warm. The engine
+showered sparks into the air, which fell little hot touches on to our
+faces and hands. Later a little rain fell.
+
+Kralievo at three a.m. We did not know the town so Jo stormed the
+telegraph office. The officials tried to shut the door, but she got her
+foot into it.
+
+"When I ask you a polite question you might answer it," she said.
+
+"You can get shelter next door," said one grumpily.
+
+We tried next door. It was crowded, and the heat within was unbearable.
+We saw a door in the opposite wall and opened it--back into the
+telegraph office. There were people sleeping there already, so without
+asking permission we dumped our baggage and lay down on the floor. The
+officials said nothing.
+
+After a while two French generals (or somethings) came in. They were
+refused as we were, but they took no notice, unpacked their blankets and
+lay down under the great central table. With them was a wife, she sat
+miserably on a chair. The room got so stuffy when the door was shut that
+she wished it opened; the draught was so bad when the door was open that
+she immediately wished it shut. Unfortunately she got mixed: the Serbian
+for open is very like the word for shut, and she used them reversed.
+There was much confusion. Just as the officials were getting used to her
+inversions, she corrected herself. More confusion. An English girl came
+in, pushed aside the papers on the big table, and began to brew cocoa on
+a Primus stove which she had brought with her. The officials looked
+helplessly at each other. Jan recognized her as one of the Stobart unit
+from Krag: she had got astray from her band, but was now rejoining them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+KRALIEVO
+
+
+We roused ourselves at seven a.m. A damp, chilly fog was hanging low
+over the valley, it penetrated to the skin, and one shuddered. The
+railway was congested, but train arrived after train, open trucks all
+packed with men whose breath rose in steam, and whose clothes were
+sparkling with the dew. We stepped from the station door into a thick
+black "pease puddingy" mud, as though the Thames foreshore had been
+churned up by traffic. Standing knee deep in the mud were weary oxen and
+horses attached to carts of all descriptions, with wheels whose rims,
+swollen by the mire, were sunk almost to the axles. Across the mud,
+surrounded by shaky red brick walls, the District Civil Hospital showed
+pale in the morning, and we made towards it, splashing.
+
+We came to the lodge: an English girl was doing something to a kitchen
+stove. She stared at us.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"We've just come from Vrnjatchka Banja," we explained.
+
+She took Jo to the hospital, while Blease and Jan dropped their heavy
+luggage and washed in a basin, provided by a Serb servant girl. Jo did
+not return. Jan went to the hospital to look for her.
+
+Crowds of men were at the door, crowds in ragged and filthy uniforms,
+with bandages on arms, or foot, or brow, dirty stained bandages with
+bloodstains upon them. Some of the men were crouching on the ground,
+some were lying against the house, fast asleep. Somehow we got through
+them. The passage was full of men, and men were asleep, festooned on the
+stone stairs. The smell was horrible. Beyond a swinging glass door
+Scottish women were hurrying to and fro bandaging the men as they
+entered, and passing them out on the other side of the building. The
+Serbs waited with the stoicism of the Oriental, their long lean faces
+drawn with hunger, pain and fatigue. Now and again some man turned
+uneasily in his sleep and groaned. A detachment of "Stobarts" had found
+a lodging upstairs, in a bedroom with plank beds; amongst them we found
+some old friends.
+
+Leaving them we went into the village to look for a meal, back through
+the mud. Soldiers, peasants, women, children, horse carts and bullock
+waggons, all were pushing here and there, broken down and deserted
+motor cars were standing in the middle of the road. In the great round
+central "Place" confusion was worse, animals, carts, and refugee
+bivouacks being all squashed together on the market place.
+
+White-bearded officers with grey-green uniforms were gesticulating to
+white-bearded civilians outside the Café de Paris. A motor rushed up,
+disgorged three men in Russian uniform and fled. A small fat man vainly
+endeavouring to attract the attention of a staff officer grasped him by
+the arm; the staff officer shook him off angrily. Soldiers lounged
+against the walls and peered in through the dirty windows....
+
+Within, the big dark room was crammed. Opening the door was like turning
+a corner of cliff by the seashore. Almost all, at the tables, were men:
+officers, tradesmen, clerks, talking in eager tense words. We found
+three seats. Nobody had anything to eat or drink. Three men came to the
+table next to us. They exhibited two loaves of bread to the others, and
+had the air of some one who had done something very clever. We were
+famished.
+
+Suddenly half the café rose and rushed to a small counter almost hidden
+in the gloom of the far end. Coffee can be got, said some one. Blease,
+who could get out the easier, went to explore. In a short while he
+wandered back saying that he had got a waiter. A man came through
+selling apples. We bought some. At last the waiter came.
+
+"Café au lait," said we.
+
+"And bread," we added, as he turned away.
+
+"Nema," he answered, looking back.
+
+"Well eggs, then."
+
+"Nema."
+
+"What have you got?"
+
+"We have nothing but meat."
+
+"No potatoes?"
+
+"No."
+
+We got a sort of Serbian stew, the meat so tough that one had to saw the
+morsels apart with a knife and bolt them whole. As we were operating, a
+soldier leaned up against our table, and stared at our plates with a
+wistful longing. Jo caught his eye. She scraped together all our
+leavings; what misery we could have relieved, had we had money enough,
+in Serbia then.
+
+We paid our bill with a ten dinar (franc) note. The waiter fingered it a
+moment.
+
+"Haven't you any money?" he asked.
+
+"That is money."
+
+"Silver, I mean."
+
+"No."
+
+He hesitated a moment. Then went away, turning the note over in his
+hands. After a while he returned and gave us our change.
+
+The day passed in a queer sort of daze of doing things; between one act
+and another there was no definite sequence. The town itself was in a
+sort of suppressed twitter, everybody's movements seemed exaggerated,
+the eager ones moved faster, impelled by a sort of fear; the slow ones
+went slower, their feet dragging in a kind of despondency. At one time
+we found ourselves clambering up some steps to the mayor's office, in
+search of bread. By a window on the far side of the room was a man with
+a pale face, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and light hair:
+Churchin. We ran to him.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he said gloomily.
+
+We explained.
+
+"I don't think you can get any transport," he said; "but later I'll see
+if I can do anything."
+
+We thanked him. "But transport or no transport, we are going." Jan
+showed him the bread order. He read it and pointed to the Nachanlik.
+
+The Nachanlik read our order, scowled and passed it on to another man,
+an officer. The officer read the order, looked us sulkily from head to
+foot, then he pushed the paper back to us.
+
+"We have only bread for soldiers."
+
+"But--we are an English Mission."
+
+"Only for soldiers here. We have nothing to do with English Missions."
+
+Fearing that we had come to the wrong place we retired.
+
+At another time we were climbing up back stairs to what had been the
+temporary lodgings of the English legation. But it was empty and
+deserted; Sir Ralph Paget had not yet come.
+
+There were bread shops, but they were all shut and guarded by soldiers.
+Jan saw some bread in a window. He went into the dirty café, which was
+crowded with soldiers, some sitting on the floor and some on the tables.
+
+"Whose bread?" asked he.
+
+"Ours."
+
+"Will you sell me a loaf?"
+
+"We won't sell a crumb."
+
+We bought some apples from a man with a Roman lever balance, and chewed
+them as we went along.
+
+At the hospital the "Stobarts" were packing up. A motor was coming for
+them in the afternoon. We heard that Dr. May and the Krag people were at
+Studenitza, an old monastery, halfway along the road to Rashka. On the
+flat fields behind the station were another gang of "Stobarts," the
+dispensary from Lapovo. One Miss H---- was in trouble, for thieves had
+pushed their arms beneath the tent flaps in the night and had captured
+her best boots.
+
+"There are cases full of boots on the railway," said some one,
+consoling.
+
+"But those are men's boots," said another.
+
+Part of the morning we spent sitting on the banks of the Ebar River and
+watching the bridge, wondering if Ellis would come with his car. Ten
+times we thought we could see it, and each time were deceived.
+
+The French aeroplanes came in. They hovered over the town seeking a flat
+place, finally swooping down on to the marshy plain on which the
+"Stobarts" were encamped. They landed, dashing through the shallow
+puddles and flinging the water in great showers on every side. As each
+landed it wheeled into line and was pegged down. Behind them was a line
+of cannons, the Serbian engineers were hard at work, smashing off their
+sighting apparatus, destroying the breech blocks, and jagging the lining
+with cold chisels. Some of the cannon were Turkish. All the morning,
+through the noise of the town, the shouting of the bullock drivers, the
+pant of the motor cars, and the steady tap, tap of the engineers'
+mallets, came the faint booming of the battle at Mladnovatch, not
+fifteen miles away.
+
+After lunch we went again to the café. Again it was full, and we were
+forced to wait for a table. Just as we sat down a woman with a drawn,
+anxious face came up to us, clutched Jo by the arm and said eagerly--
+
+"Is it true that you are going to Montenegro?"
+
+"Yes," answered Jo. "If we can get there."
+
+"Could you give me only a little advice, madame? You see we do not know
+what to do. My husband--he is an old man, and he is an Austro-Serb. If
+the enemy catch him they will hang him."
+
+"I'm afraid he will have to walk," said Jo.
+
+"But he is so old," said the woman, with tears in her eyes; "he is
+fifty."
+
+"We ourselves will have to walk," said Jo. "Make him a knapsack for his
+food. Give him warm clothes. It is his only chance of safety. And," she
+added, "the sooner he gets away the better, for in a little all the food
+on the road will be eaten up, and one will starve."
+
+The woman thanked us. "I will make him go at once," she said, and ran
+out wringing her hands.
+
+A Russian woman with a thin-faced man sat at her table.
+
+"You are going to Montenegro?" she said.
+
+We nodded.
+
+"I too am going. I am a good sportswoman. I have walked fifty kilometres
+in one day."
+
+We looked at her well-corseted figure, her rather congested face, and
+had already seen thin high-heeled shoes.
+
+"I will come with you, yes?"
+
+The little man interrupted. "Why do you say such things, Olga? You know
+that you cannot walk a mile."
+
+We pointed out that we were going to march across the Austrian front,
+and that no one could tell us where the Austrians were exactly; that our
+safety depended to some extent on our speed, and that the failure of one
+to make the pace meant the failure of all. The little man drew her away.
+
+In the afternoon a miserable fit of depression took us, but we pushed it
+behind us. To the hospital for tea, taking with us a tin of cocoa and
+some condensed milk, which the people lacked. Biscuits and treacle, the
+treacle looted from the railway, where an obliging guard had said that
+he could not give permission to take it, but that he could look the
+other way. We heard the tale of Kragujevatz, of the camp and all the
+buildings filled to overflowing. More aeroplane raids; and of the sudden
+order to evacuate. All the wounded who could crawl were got from their
+beds and turned into the street by the authorities to go: if they could
+not walk, to crawl. A few Serb and Austrian doctors were left to guard
+and watch those too ill to go; with them some Swedish and Dutch sisters,
+and the Netherlands flag flying from the hospitals. Dr. Churchin seemed
+to have been the good genius of the Missions, never flagging in his
+efforts for them.
+
+We heard that a Colonel Milhaelovitch was the bread officer. He lived
+somewhere in the back of the big yellow schoolhouse at the end of the
+street. After tea we wandered drearily down to seek him, gained
+permission from a sentry, and clambered up some stone stairs. Jan saw an
+acquaintance from the Nish ministry, asked him a question, and was
+ushered ... straight into the Ministry of War. They seemed in a
+frightful stew about something, an air of disorder reigned everywhere,
+but somebody found time to look at the order.
+
+"Nachanlik," said he.
+
+"We've been there already."
+
+"Well, go there again and say we sent you, and that they must give you
+bread."
+
+We were worn out by this. Jo went off to the plank bed which the
+Stobarts had promised to her, while Jan and Blease to the tents, where
+Sir Ralph's men were sheltering.
+
+All the streets were edged with motionless bullock carts, in which men
+were sleeping, and even in the mud between their wheels were the dim
+forms of the weary soldiery. The two splashed across the marsh and found
+the tents.
+
+Rogerson and Willett were there; Willett was seedy. Another Englishman
+named Hamilton, who had an umbrella which he had sworn to take back
+with him to England. Also two Austro-Serb boys who had been acting as
+interpreters.
+
+West and Mawson were not there. Rogerson said that Sir Ralph had sent
+them with Mrs. M----to see the road and conditions at Mitrovitza; nobody
+knew when they would be back. We got two beds, but there were no
+mattresses on the springs. Jan rolled up in his Serbian rug, but it was
+loosely woven, and not as warm as he had hoped. Just not warm enough,
+one only dozed. About eleven o'clock, Cutting came in with Owen,
+Watmough, Hilder, and Elmer. They had come from Vrnjatchka Banja with
+Dr. Holmes. Some one had told them that we had deserted them and had
+gone off to Rashka on our own; they were cheered to find us still there.
+After that we lay awake discussing details. None of them had realized
+the difficulties of the road and the probable lack of food, though the
+Red Cross men had brought with them a case of emergency rations. Jan
+exposed his idea of the route; somebody said that there was some corned
+beef and rice in a Red Cross train on the siding.
+
+Intermittently in the silences one could still hear the sound of the
+guns.
+
+Next morning at breakfast Dr. Holmes came in. He had thought us gone,
+and so had procured for himself and the sister who was with him, seats
+in a Government motor which was going to Mitrovitza. We all splashed
+across the marshy grass to the siding where the stores were. In the
+empty trucks on the line families were camping, and some had fitted them
+up like little homes. We found the truck, and with efforts dug out
+twelve tins of corned beef, a case of condensed milk, one of treacle,
+and two tins of sugar. We emptied a kitbag and filled it with rice.
+
+The hospital was fuller than ever. The Scottish nurses were toiling as
+quickly as they could, and each man received a couple of hard ship's
+biscuits from a great sack, when his wounds were dressed. He immediately
+wolfed the hard biscuits and lay down; in one minute he was asleep, and
+the hospital grounds were strewn with the sleeping men. From time to
+time sergeants came in, roused the sleepers, formed them into
+detachments, and marched them off.
+
+The Stobarts met us wringing their hands. There was no bread, nor could
+they procure any. Jan took their order, and we promised to see what
+could be done. As we passed the station we saw surging crowds of men,
+from the midst came cries of pain, and sticks were falling in blows.
+
+"Good Lord, what's that?" we cried.
+
+We plunged into the crowd. Some of the men and boys were gnawing
+angrily at pieces of biscuit which they held in their hands. The crowd
+surged more violently, the sticks were plied with greater vigour;
+presently the crowd fell back snarling. The ground which they left was
+covered with the crumbs of trampled biscuit, and the soldiers drove the
+crowd yet further back, beating with sticks and cursing. A bread sack
+being unloaded from a waggon had burst, the hungry crowd had pounced ...
+that was all. As we withdrew we saw the fortunate ones still gnawing
+ferociously at the hard morsels which they had captured.
+
+We took our passes to the mayor once more. He received us angrily.
+
+"I told you yesterday," he said.
+
+"The War Office sent us," said Jan, sweetly, "and said that you must
+give us bread."
+
+"I have no bread," said the mayor. "You must go to Colonel
+Milhaelovitch."
+
+We tramped back to the yellow school. There was no sentry, and a queer
+air of forlornness seemed to pervade. We asked a loiterer for the
+colonel's office. He pointed. We climbed yet another stair and found a
+pair of large rooms; they were empty. Town papers were scattered on the
+floor, one table was overturned.
+
+A man lounged in. "Where is the colonel?" we asked.
+
+"Ne snam bogami," he said, twisting a cigarette.
+
+"Well, find out," said Jan.
+
+He lounged away and presently returned with another.
+
+"The colonel has evacuated," said the other; "he went naturally with the
+Ministry of War to Rashka last night."
+
+We went back in a fury to the mayor.
+
+"You knew this," we cried angrily to him.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Where can we get bread?"
+
+He took up the passes and looked at them. His face lightened.
+
+"This one," he said, turning to another, "is written--Give them bread to
+the value of three francs. We will give them three francs."
+
+"No you won't," said we; "you'll give us bread. You cannot leave these
+English sisters to starve."
+
+After some grumbling he said we could inquire at the "first army." We
+made him write out an order; we also made him give us a clerk to
+accompany us. He gave us a tattered old man whose toes were sticking
+from his boots.
+
+We presented both orders at the "first army." It refused at once. We
+threatened it with the War Office and with the mayor. After some demur
+it sent us across the town again to the "magazine" office.
+
+At the magazine office we were more wily. We presented our little order
+for three humble loaves. He first said "Nema," then admitted that there
+was bread and that we could have it. We then showed the order for the
+other loaves.
+
+"No, no," he cried, "you cannot have all that bread."
+
+We pointed out that it was not much for a whole mission. He still
+refused. So Jo got up and made a little speech. It was a nasty little
+speech, but they deserved it, for we had found that they had bread.
+
+She pointed out that the English Missions had now been working in Serbia
+for a year, gratis; that no matter if we got no transport we were going
+to get to England, and that it would not look well in the English papers
+if we wrote a true account of our experiences, saying that they had
+allowed the English Missions to starve. The threat of publicity finished
+him. He grumbling consented to give us ten loaves in addition to our own
+to last for two days. Not daring to leave them, and to send an orderly
+for them, we rolled them up in Jo's overcoat and staggered down the road
+to the hospital.
+
+On the way we met an old Serbian peasant woman. She walked for a while
+with us, turning her eyes to heaven and crying--
+
+"What times we live in. Only God can help, only God."
+
+At the hospital we met Sir Ralph Paget. He told us that the Transport
+Board had promised him ten ox carts for the morrow. Two large motor
+lorries had turned up to take the two contingents of the "Stobarts."
+They were packing in, and we asked them to take our holdall as far as
+Rashka, for we were still distrustful of the ox carts. We had begun to
+get into a habit of not believing in anything till it was actually
+there.
+
+An Englishman came suddenly in with a face purple with anger and
+swearing. He was the dispenser from Krag who had been left at Lapovo to
+bring on the stores.
+
+"What's the matter?" we cried.
+
+"Brought my motor from Lapovo with the hospital stuff," he said
+furiously. "Left it out there on the road. Came in here to tell you
+about it; and when I go back the cussed thing isn't there. Found all the
+stores in a beastly bullock cart. The people said that a Serb officer
+had come along, turned all our stuff out, and gone off with the motor. *
+* * *."
+
+There was nothing to be done, so we went on packing. An aeroplane was
+seen in the distance; everybody watched it.
+
+"Taube," said somebody.
+
+The Taube sailed slowly round, surveying the town. It passed right
+overhead. Everybody stared upwards wondering if it were going to "bomb,"
+for we were just opposite to the railway station. But it passed over and
+flew away. As it went guns fired at it, and many of the Serbs let off
+their rifles. We have often wondered where all the bits of the shells go
+to, for nobody ever seems to be hit by them, even when they are bursting
+right overhead.
+
+The motor gave several snorts, everybody climbed aboard. The driver let
+in the clutch, there was a tearing sound from underneath, but the motor
+did not go. One of the drivers clambered down, and after examination
+said that it could not go on that day, and they immediately began to
+take it to pieces. The aeroplane came back twice, sailing to and fro
+without hindrance.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANT WOMEN LEAVING THEIR VILLAGE.]
+
+[Illustration: SERB FAMILY BY THE ROADSIDE.]
+
+It is impossible to describe properly the feeling in the town: it was
+like standing in the influence of high-pressure electricity, even in the
+daytime the soldiers in their rags--but with barbarously coloured rugs
+and knapsacks--were sleeping in the hedges and gutters. There were vague
+rumours that Rumania and Greece had finally joined in; many seized upon
+these statements as being true, and one found little oases of rejoicings
+amongst the almost universal pessimism. We ourselves doubted the
+reports. Sir Ralph's ox carts--in an interview with Churchin--dwindled
+down to a possible two; but Jan got a letter in the evening saying that
+there were ten country carts for the next morning. Six were for us and
+four for the "Stobarts," and that we were to take the Indian tents with
+us.
+
+We went back to the tents early to get a good start next day. Rogerson
+and Willett were sorting their clothes. Hamilton had decided, as he
+could not walk, to go back to Vrntze with the Red Cross stores which
+Paget was sending to the hospital. As we were turning in, Dr. Holmes
+arrived. He had not got the seat in the motor, but was going next day.
+Later two mud-bespattered figures came in. They were West and Mawson.
+
+We questioned them eagerly, and although they were worn out they
+answered all they could.
+
+The road was passable. They had scarcely slept for four days, Mitrovitza
+was already crammed with fugitives, and rooms were not to be found. On
+the way back the motor was working badly; the mud was awful. Then the
+petrol ran out. They stopped a big car which was loaded with petrol and
+ammunition, and asked for some. They got a little, and as they were
+going to start the big car suddenly burst into flames: some fool having
+struck a match to see if the petrol was properly turned off. Great
+flames roared up into the air, and it was a long time before the car
+was sufficiently burnt down to pass it.
+
+West said that it was a most marvellous picture.
+
+A little farther on a tyre had burst, and they had been forced to come
+back on the rims. They eagerly welcomed Jan's idea of the Novi Bazar
+route, feeling sure that if they once got to Mitrovitza it would be long
+before they got away, and very doubtful if they could get lodging there.
+
+Again we could hear the guns in the night, and news had come in that
+Krag had been occupied and that the German cavalry were making towards
+Kralievo.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA
+
+
+The men were up before three-thirty to strike the tents, having slept
+but little. Breakfast was prepared and waiting at five-thirty in the big
+hospital bedroom; but the women ate of it alone.
+
+Jo sallied forth to the camp, anxious to know what had happened. She
+found a testy little company. For two hours they had been struggling in
+the dark with tents and waiting for the carts and for a policeman, as
+all the riff-raff of the town was gathering to loot our leavings.
+
+At last the carts were run to earth standing outside the hospital in a
+line--ten little springless carts in charge of a stupid-looking corporal
+who had misunderstood his orders. He moreover refused to move, saying he
+"had his orders."
+
+The indefatigable Churchin was found, and sent him off with a flea in
+his ear. When he arrived at the camp we found a woman and household
+luggage in one of the carts. He said it was his wife, and objected to
+our putting anything into that cart. We told him he would have to lump
+it, and he got sulky; as each extra package was put on a cart he said
+that it would break to pieces. Certainly the tents were very heavy, but
+we had been ordered to take them. When the carts were loaded up to the
+last degree they moved slowly through the mud and drew up at the
+hospital. We were sadly overladen. Our party consisted of Mawson, West,
+Cutting, Rogerson, Willett, Blease, Angelo, Whatmough, Elmer, Owen, and
+Hilder--the last four being our friends of the railway journey from
+Nish. We were thirteen. Temporarily with us also were the two little
+Austro-Serbian boys. The other four carriages were occupied by a doctor
+and three members of the Stobart unit, two "Scottish Women," their
+orderly and a Russian medical student who had been a political prisoner.
+
+Leaving the town was a slow business, as it was being evacuated. Our
+little procession proceeded very slowly. Most of us walked. Jo drove
+with two of the Stobarts, watching from a seat of vantage the packed
+masses of people who wormed their way in and out between the ox carts.
+The road was blocked by some gigantic baking ovens on wheels. Hundreds
+of boys, big seventeen-year-old boys with guns, and little limping
+fellows from thirteen to sixteen, wearing bright rugs rolled over their
+shoulders, were dragging along in single file. Their faces were white,
+and their noses red, sergeants were beating the backward ones along with
+a ramrod. One of them said--
+
+"I have eaten nothing for three days--give me bread." We had no bread,
+but we discovered some Petit-Beurre biscuits, and left him turning them
+over and over.
+
+The whole town buzzed: motor cars, surrounded by curses, insinuated
+their way through the crammed streets; whips were cracking, men were
+quarrelling but all had their faces turned towards the road to Rashka,
+which we realized would be as full as at straphanging time in the Tube.
+The boys passed us, then we passed them. They passed us again. Hundreds
+of Austrian prisoners were being hurried along, goodness knows where.
+Neat young clerks, suit case in hand, elbowed their way through the
+crowd. Young staff officers were walking, jostled by beggars. Jo called
+to an old man who was driving a cart full of modern furniture, his face
+drawn into wrinkles of misery--
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Ne snam," he answered, staring hopelessly before him.
+
+Wounded men were everywhere, tottering and hobbling along, for none
+wanted to be taken prisoners. Some had ship's biscuit, which they tried
+to soften in the dirty ditch water, others were lapping like dogs out
+of the puddles. Sometimes a motor far ahead stuck in the mud, and we had
+to wait often half an hour until it could be induced to move. Gipsies
+passed, better mounted and worse clad than other folk, some of them half
+naked. Many soldiers had walked through their opankies and their feet
+were bound up with rag. Why in this country of awful mud has the opankie
+been invented? It is a sole turned up at the edges and held on by a
+series of straps and plaited ornamentations useless in mud or wet, which
+penetrates through it in all directions.
+
+We arrived at an open space and halted for lunch. Water had to be
+fetched. It trickled from a wooden spout out of the hill and before our
+cooking pot was filled we were surrounded by thirsty soldiers, who were
+consigning us to the hottest of places for our slowness. Cutting
+displayed a hitherto buried talent for building fires. We unpacked the
+food and soon a gorgeous curry was bubbling in an empty biscuit tin with
+Angelo, Sir Ralph Paget's chef, at the spoon. A leviathan motor car
+lurched by containing all that was left of the Stobart unit. Another
+monster passed, piled with Russian nurses and doctors. A face was
+peeping out at the back, eyes rolled upwards, moustaches bristling. Was
+it? Yes, it was--"Quel Pays"--but he did not recognize us.
+
+[Illustration: THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA.]
+
+The baking ovens appeared again, and we felt we had stayed long enough.
+Some of our party were very fagged after their various adventures since
+leaving Nish, so they climbed on to the carriages wherever there was a
+downhill. The road wound up a narrow stony valley down which was flowing
+a muddy stream. The trees on our side of the river were still green, on
+the other bank they were bright orange, blood red and all the tints of a
+Serbian autumn. The road full of moving people was like another river,
+flowing only more sluggishly then the Ebar itself. For us in future, the
+autumn will always hold a sinister aspect. These trees seemed to have
+put on their gayest robes to mock at the dreary processions. At
+intervals by the roadside sat an ox dead beat and forsaken by its owner
+as useless.
+
+Dusk came, bringing depression; the travellers on the curly road looked
+like mere shades. Coat collars went up and hands were pocketed. Little
+camp fires began to twinkle here and there on the hillsides. We came to
+a large open space where many fires blazed, respectfully encircling a
+French aeroplane section. Opposite was a high peak topped by a Turkish
+castle. There we wished to halt, but the corporal said we must push on,
+as he wished to get food for the horses. After we had passed the castle
+the dusk grew rapidly darker and the road narrower and more muddy.
+Although camp fires twinkled from every level space, the never ending
+stream of fugitives seemed to grow no less. Darkness only added to the
+tragic mystery of the flight. The bullock carts poured along, the
+soldiers crowded by.
+
+A horse went down, the owner stripped the saddle off, flung it into a
+cart and cursing stumbled on into the darkness. The carts following took
+no notice of the poor horse but drove over it, the wheel lifting as they
+rolled across its body. We shouted to the owner; but he was gone, so we
+turned one or two of the carts off, and made them go round. But we could
+not stay there all night. The horse was too done, and too much injured
+by the cruel passage to move, so Jan reluctantly pulled out his
+"automatic" and, standing clear of its hoofs, put two bullets through
+its brain. It shuddered, lifted two hoofs and beat the air and sank into
+a heap.
+
+On we went progressing for mile after mile in the mire, but never a
+house did we see, nor a spot to camp on. At last the corporal gave up
+the quest for hay, and we were faced with the problem of spending the
+night on a narrow road bounded on one side by cliffs beneath which ran
+the Ebar, and on the other by an almost perpendicular bank. The night
+was black, the mud a foot deep, and a stream ran across the road. The
+carriages drew up in single file and we discussed the sleeping problem,
+while Cutting cooked bovril on an ill-behaved Primus stove. Our drivers
+had to sleep on the carts. The women also had carts to sleep in; and the
+Scottish women offered Jo a place in their already well-filled carriage.
+The men were fitted somehow into the rest of the carts, while Jo, Jan,
+and Blease found a ledge below the road, and though it was very
+squelchy, they spread a mackintosh sheet and rolled up on it in their
+rugs.
+
+No sooner were they really settled and sleeping than a voice said,
+"You'll have to get up: an officer says the carriages must move on--the
+King is coming." It was West. We sat up. Between us and the dim lights
+of the carts the black shadows of the crowds passed without end.
+
+"I'll go and talk to them," said Jo; and unrolled herself, struggled and
+fumbled with her boots and floundered into the blackness, where a
+mounted officer was delivering orders. Shouts could be heard, lights
+waved, horses whinnied, splashing their feet in the puddles as they were
+being violently pulled here and there, and our poor little carts were
+moving ahead into obscurity. Jo told him they were a Red Cross
+party--that the carts were small, and couldn't they stay where they
+were? The officer inspected the poor little carts, made his best bow,
+and said, "Yes, they can stay."
+
+But the corporal did not listen to Jo's orders. He belonged to a country
+which rates women and cattle together, and the carts moved relentlessly
+on. With difficulty Jo found the ledge again on which Jan was sitting
+with the rugs, talking to the scenery in a manner which was not pretty.
+
+Blease came up, and the three of us shouldered the things and stumbled
+off to find the vanished carriages, which were half a mile down the
+road. Jan flung his baggage on to somebody and soundly boxed the
+corporal's ears, calling him a "gloop." Instantly the corporal felt that
+"here was a man he could really understand," and from that moment became
+a devoted adherent, studying our slightest whim, and at intervals humbly
+laying walnuts before us.
+
+A man came up to Jan.
+
+"I believe that man is drunk," said he; "I said that your carts might
+stand."
+
+"Who are you?" said Jan.
+
+"I was once the conductor of the Crown Prince's orchestra," he said;
+"now I am traffic superintendent. It is difficult. I had a horse, a
+jolly little brown horse, but he gave out and I had to leave him behind
+on the road." There were tears in the man's voice. "He was a good
+horse, but it was too hard for him. Now I have to walk."
+
+"I shot your horse," said Jan. "They were driving over its body."
+
+"He was a nice horse," said the man again, "a nice horse, and now I have
+to walk. Well, good-bye, you can rest here."
+
+He splashed away in the mud.
+
+Our new sleeping place was worse: the mud was deeper, the road narrower.
+Jo tried to escape the mud and made for the roadside, but the ground
+moved under her and some muttered curses arose. She was walking not on
+grass but on crowds of sleeping boys, and very nearly trod on a face. We
+settled down again on our mackintosh sheet but did not sleep. Some
+soldiers were firing off guns and throwing bombs into the river all
+night. Near us lay Owen, who coughed for a couple of hours, after which
+he gave up the spot as being too wet, and lay in a cart on Whatmough's
+face.
+
+It rained, Jo had the fidgets, and Jan expostulated. The mackintosh was
+too small for us and we got gloriously wet. It is a curious feeling--the
+rain pattering on one's face when trying to sleep. By the time one
+becomes accustomed to the monotony of the tiny drops--_splash_ a big
+drop from a tree. Water collects in folds of hat or rug, and suddenly
+cascades down one's neck.
+
+At four in the morning the corporal crept up submissively to ask if we
+might move on, as the horses were cold and hungry. Only too glad, dark
+as it was, we rolled up our damp bundles and put them in the waggons
+with the sleeping people, who awoke, pink-eyed and puzzled at the sudden
+progress forward of their uncomfortable beds. Whatmough, who was
+convinced that the bombs and gunshots of the night before were spent
+Austrian shells sailing over the hill, said--
+
+"That's the first time I've ever liked a fellow sleeping on my face."
+
+One of the Stobart nurses, who had used the remains of the hay as a
+pillow, had been awake all night trying to prevent a hungry horse from
+eating her hair along with the hay. With determination she had donned a
+Balaklava helmet and trudged along all day in it, even later when the
+sun came out. Blease, too, started the chillsome dawn in a Balaklava
+wearing shawlwise a rug that had been made of bits of various coloured
+woollen scarfs. Jan used as a protection from the rain Jo's white
+mackintosh apron filleted round his head with a bit of string and
+dangling behind with a profusion of tapes and fasteners.
+
+Under his khaki great-coat and about a foot longer he wore a white
+jaconet hospital coat. Jo had a pair of roomy ski boots into which she
+had fitted two pairs of stockings; one had been knitted for her by a
+Serbian girl, and they were so thick and hard that no suspender would
+hold them up, so they stood, concertinawise, over the boots. One of our
+drivers, a witch-faced old man, had a dark red cloak with a peaked hood;
+and West having lost his hat had donned a Serbian soldier's cap, which
+he was taking away as a curiosity. His arm was giving him pain. It was
+very red and inflamed and no one knew what was the matter with it.
+
+We travelled for an hour or so, and then everything on the road came to
+a standstill--something was in the way. Half an hour passed, nothing was
+done. Several miles of drivers were talking, gesticulating, and
+blaspheming; so Jan took on the job of traffic superintendent, and after
+a time, with a little backing here and twisting there, the problem was
+solved and we moved on. Still no hay stations could be found, and we
+were also hungry, having had no breakfast. We passed a mound covered
+with thousands of Austrian prisoners waking up in the twilight. Another
+hill was black with boys. Still no station. Then we saw some haystacks
+being taken to pieces by various drivers. Our ten coachmen ran to the
+stacks and came back with loads of hay which they packed in the carts.
+In five minutes the haystacks existed no more.
+
+"Better not leave that good hay for the Swobs," said the corporal, as he
+whipped up the horses. We passed a dressing-station. It was a sort of
+laager of ox carts over which flew the red cross. Wounded soldiers were
+sitting and lying on the grass everywhere, while doctors and nurses were
+hurrying to and fro with bandages and lint.
+
+Water was difficult to find. At last we stopped at the top of a hill in
+a furious wind. The water which we got from a stream looked filthy, but
+we boiled it thoroughly in a biscuit tin, and Angelo again presided over
+a magnificent curry filled with bully beef, while we hit our toes on the
+ground to keep warm. A wounded soldier was brought up by a friend. He
+had not been attended to for days, and we did the best we could for him.
+
+A carriage passed laden with two tiny boxes--a policeman on either side.
+Although the boxes were small the carriage seemed so heavy that the
+horses could scarcely drag it, and two well-dressed men who were riding
+on the carriage often had to get out and push. We wondered if the boxes
+were filled with gold. The dreary processions of starving boys shuffled
+up again; some were crying, some helping others along, one had an
+English jam tin hanging round his neck. Sir Ralph Paget appeared in a
+motor car, loaded with packages and three other people. We stopped him,
+and he told Jan that at Novi Bazar he could get no information of the
+path which Jan suggested, and added that he advised us to come to
+Mitrovitza. The Scottish women were to give up the idea of a
+dressing-station in Novi Bazar and to stop at Rashka. The Serbs had told
+him that there was a good chance of Uskub being retaken, in which case
+we could all go comfortably to Salonika by rail. In the other case,
+there were three roads out of the country from Mitrovitza, which he
+thought better than trusting to one road, if it existed.
+
+Jan told him that the carriages were giving way under the strain of the
+tents, two of the axle struts having broken; and he suggested that if we
+did not jettison the tents, some of the carriages would probably never
+get as far as Rashka. Sir Ralph told him to do what he thought best.
+
+So we pitched the two heavy tops and the long bamboo poles overboard,
+keeping the sides.
+
+"Oh, what are you doing with our tents?" said one of the Scottish
+nurses.
+
+This was complicated! We understood the tents were Sir Ralph's.
+
+All the men swore they were Sir Ralph's tents, they had seen them at
+Nish. The "Scottish Woman" said she knew the tents well, and they had
+cost £50 each. The men from Nish still claimed the tents, and said that
+war was war and they had left thousands of pounds' worth of stores,
+tents, etc., and had been obliged to discard even motor cars.
+
+"And very extravagant it was of you," she said.
+
+Jan pointed out that if we did not leave the tents we should very
+shortly have to discard both tents and carts, which would be even more
+extravagant.
+
+She reluctantly cheered up, and we drove away in the sunshine. Before we
+turned the corner we could see an excited mass of soldiers, peasants,
+and boys rushing to the tents with their clasp knives. Perhaps, as
+coverings, they saved many people's lives on the cold nights to come.
+
+[Illustration: RETREATING AMMUNITION TRAIN.]
+
+More and more exhausted oxen were to be seen lying by the roadside. A
+huge cart drove over one. We all arose in our seats, horrified--but the
+old ox was all right, still chewing the cud. Over the cliff lay the
+smashed remains of a cart--its owners were flaying the dead horse. A
+peasant with bowed head led his cart past us. Drawing it was one ox--its
+partner was in the cart, lifting its head spasmodically--finished.
+Quantities of carts passed us filled with furniture, baths, and
+luggage. A smartly dressed family was picnicking by the roadside,
+sitting on deck-chairs. Colonel P---- and Admiral T---- slipped by in a
+shabby little red motor. They stopped and told us they were going to
+Rashka. It was good to see English faces again. A familiar figure went
+by. It was the brave young officer from Uzhitze. We gave a lift to a
+footsore lieutenant, who laughed as we trudged in the mud.
+
+"Ah, English and sport," he said.
+
+Crowds were congregated round a man who was carrying over his shoulder a
+whole sheep on a spit and chopping bits off for buyers. On a hillside a
+woman was handing out rakia. We thought she was selling it, but were
+told that it was a funeral and she was giving rakia to all who wanted
+it. Starving Austrian prisoners rushed for a glass and were not refused.
+The Crown Prince passed, touching his hat to fifty kilometres of his
+people. This time we were not going to be caught by the darkness, so we
+stopped near a village at half-past three. The sides of the two tents
+made good shelters for us. They were set up, looking like two long
+card-houses, and we used bits of canvas for flooring, very necessary, as
+it was so wet. Our fires were quickly made with superfluous tent pegs,
+and the rice bag was again drawn forth. A groaning soldier with
+bloodstained bandage asked us to help him. His arm had not been dressed
+for some time. The doctor with us at first thought he had better not be
+tampered with; but finally agreed to look at his wound, which was
+bleeding violently.
+
+She tore up a towel and bound him up tightly. He said he was going to
+Studenitza, a long day's walk, though he was nearly fainting.
+
+On the hill opposite was a huge encampment of boys. As the darkness grew
+all disappeared but the light of the fires. It looked like an ancient
+battleship with the portholes on fire. We slept, the women fairly
+comfortably, but the men were overcrowded.
+
+Heavy rain came on and poured through the top of the card houses.
+
+"Now I know what the men suffer in the trenches," said a very young
+girl, when she awoke in a pool of water.
+
+"Guess you don't--they'd call this clover," said a sleepy voice.
+
+Looking our oddest we trudged off in the gloom and wet of next morning,
+leaping across rivulets of water which hurtled down the roads. West's
+arm was worse, Willett was recovering from a bad chill, Mawson had not
+yet got a decent night's rest for a week--every one longed for a house.
+
+"Dobra Dan," said a voice. It was the friend of the wounded man we had
+bound up the first day.
+
+"Where is your friend?" we asked.
+
+"I lost him," he answered.
+
+We climbed for three hours then waited, blocked. A military motor had
+stuck deeply in the mud and the wheels were buzzing round uselessly, so
+we helped to dig her out. Every one's inside cried for breakfast, and
+when at last we found a swampy plain, Whatmough and Cutting flung
+themselves upon an old tree trunk and cut it up for firewood.
+
+We always had "company" to these picnic meals, hungry soldiers, mere
+ragbags held together by bones, crept around us and learnt for the first
+time the joys of curry and cocoa.
+
+As we came round the corner into sight of the town a large block of
+temporary encampments stretched away beyond the river to our left.
+Beyond them was a flat plain on which was a large tent with a red cross
+painted over it. High behind the town towered a grey hill on which was a
+white Turkish blockhouse, for though where we were driving had always
+been Serbia, Rashka lay just on the boundary. We drove into a narrow
+street, presently coming to a stop where two motor cars blocked the
+way.
+
+The Commandant from Kragujevatz, who had promised transport to all
+English hospitals, was standing on the road. He seemed very flustered
+and bothered lest we should want him to do something for us. We assured
+him we wanted nothing except bread, for neither we nor our drivers had
+had bread for three days. The colonel shrugged his shoulders and made a
+face.
+
+"You might get it perhaps at the hospital."
+
+Another officer, in a long black staff coat, laughed. He pulled a hard
+biscuit out of each pocket, looked at them fondly and pushed them back
+again.
+
+"I've got mine anyway," he said. "Bread is ten shillings a loaf if you
+can buy it."
+
+Annoyed by the colonel's manner Jo began to mount her high horse and
+became blunt. He was instantly suave.
+
+He seemed dismayed at our idea (to which we still held) of going to Novi
+Bazar before Mitrovitza to see if really no route existed there.
+
+"Impossible," said he; "bridges are broken between Rashka and Novi
+Bazar, and there is no route through the mountains from there."
+
+We remembered that the country had been under Turkish rule there years
+before, and guessed that probably the Serbs had not yet been able to
+exploit new and lonely routes. At every side in the streets were faces
+we knew, the head medical this and the chief military that.
+
+Our personal carts went off in charge of the corporal, who was looking
+for bread from the Government, for of course all bread shops were shut
+permanently.
+
+The Scottish sisters had not found a refuge, and messengers kept on
+coming back saying this place was full and that place had no room.
+
+Colonel G---- became even less likable. It seemed as though there were
+no organisation of any kind in the town. At last, when dark had well
+fallen, a man said a room had been cleared for them in the hospital. The
+motor cars moved slowly off and we told the rest of our carts to follow,
+as Colonel G----said we might get bread at the same place. We stumbled
+after them through pitch black streets, so uneven that one did not know
+if one were in the ditch or on the road itself; one lost all sense of
+direction and only tried not to lose sight of the flickering lights of
+the carts. Jo at last climbed into one, and the carts rumbled over a
+wooden bridge and began to go up a steep hill. We came suddenly to a
+rambling wooden house and our carts dived into a deep ditch. Jo leapt
+off just in time to save hers from turning right over. Crowds of wounded
+Serbians were standing at the foot of a rickety outside staircase. Above
+was a dressing-station, and a dark smelly room with no beds, which was
+to be the sisters' home. We could get no bread and so went out once more
+into the dark. We did not know where our carts had gone, but some one
+said if we went in "that" direction we should find them. On we went
+uphill, losing our way in a maize field. In front of us were hundreds of
+camp fires. At the first we asked if they had seen the English. They
+shrugged their shoulders in negative. We asked at the next; same result.
+We had the awful thought that we should have to search every camp fire
+before we found our people, but luckily almost fell over Mawson, who had
+been fetching water. We were going in quite the wrong direction and but
+for this lucky meeting might have wandered for hours.
+
+A good fire was blazing in front of the tents. An Austrian prisoner cut
+wood for us in exchange for a meal. He came from a large encampment
+whose fires were blazing near by. Dr. Holmes and a sister emerged
+through the smoke; they had at last got a cart and horse. With them was
+an Austrian subject flying for his life. He had lived for years in
+Serbia, his sympathies and ancestry were Serbian, but if the Austrians
+got him he would be hanged. We wondered if it was the husband of the
+frantic woman at Kralievo, but did not ask.
+
+One went early to bed these nights. The men spread out into two
+card-houses while Jo was hospitably given a real camp-bedstead in a
+corner of the Stobarts' kitchen, on the floor of which slept their men
+and also West, whose arm was getting worse.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+NOVI BAZAR
+
+
+We awoke to find where we were. The little encampment which we had seen
+to our left on entering the town, was now far on our right. The flat
+plain--where was the large tent with the red cross painted over it--had
+been our bed, the tent behind us; to our right was the brown hill topped
+by the old Turkish blockhouse; and in front a cut maize field with its
+solid red stubble sloped directly to the river, beyond which lay the
+village massed on the opposite slope up to a white church. Immediately
+below us on the river edge were the roofs of the "Stobarts'" refuge and
+of the Scottish women's hospital. Poplar trees in all the panoply of
+autumn sprang up from the valley with their tops full of the blackest
+crows, who cawed discordantly at the dawn. Our fire had gone out, but
+the Austrian had left enough wood, another was quickly started; but we
+found that Angelo in making his curries had melted all the solder from
+the empty biscuit tins and not one would hold water. So there was a
+hurried transference of biscuits from a whole one.
+
+From where we sat sipping our cocoa, we could see the hurried coming and
+going of motors in the main square, and groups of bullock waggons and
+soldiers about the fence of the church. A great street which split the
+village in two from top to bottom--the old Turkish frontier--was almost
+empty. The corporal proposed to visit the military commandant in search
+of hay and bread. So Jan dragged on his wet boots and set off with him
+down the hill, collecting Jo from the "Stobarts" on the way.
+
+We crossed the rickety wooden bridge, passed between the _alfresco_
+encampments--like travelling tinkers--of waggoners and soldiers which
+lined the roads, up the great frontier street and so into the square.
+All that now was SERBIA was concentrated in this little village. Private
+houses had suddenly become ministries; cafés, headquarters; and shops,
+departmental offices. The square was the central automobile station, and
+cars under repair or adjustment were in every corner. Beneath the church
+paling a camp of waggoners had a large bonfire and were cooking a whole
+sheep on a spit. Austrian prisoners with white, drawn faces were
+wandering about, staring with half unseeing eyes; a Serbian soldier was
+chewing a hard biscuit, and a prisoner crept up to him begging for a
+corner of the bread; the soldier broke off a piece and gave it to him.
+
+About the gate of the commandant's office were gathered Serbs and
+Austrians all waiting for bread. We pushed our way in. The hay was
+quickly arranged, but the bread was another matter.
+
+"We have no bread," said the commandant.
+
+"But," we objected, "all those men waiting outside. They would not come
+here if you had no bread."
+
+The commandant pulled his moustache.
+
+"We have bread only for soldiers."
+
+There was a sudden commotion outside. The door was burst open; two
+soldiers entered dragging with them a man--a peasant; his eyes were
+staring, his face blanched. We then noticed that he was holding his
+shoulders in a curious manner, and realized that his arms were bound
+with his own belt. The two soldiers pushed him into an inner room, but
+the officials were busy, so he was stood in a corner.
+
+"What has he done?" we asked.
+
+"We have only bread for soldiers," repeated the commandant. Bread was
+evidently the most important.
+
+"We have a Government order."
+
+He scanned it, pounced upon the three franc phrase and offered us money.
+We pointed out that bread was indicated to the value--
+
+"We have no bread for the English," he said at last.
+
+Jo once more made the nasty little speech which we had found so
+effective at Kralievo. It worked like a charm. An enormous sack filled
+with loaves was dragged out and from it he choose three. We mentioned
+the man once more. The commandant shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"He's going to be killed," he said. "Some soldiers looted his yard and
+he shot one."
+
+He then asked the corporal if he would take flour instead of bread. The
+corporal agreed, adding that in that case, of course, they would get a
+bit more.
+
+"Of course, you won't," said the commandant.
+
+We sent the corporal back to the camp with the loaves, and with a little
+trouble found the house where Colonel P---- and Admiral T----had
+lodgings. It was a gay little cottage, and both were at breakfast. They
+welcomed us and generously offered us their spare eggs, though eggs were
+scarce. The admiral had a large-scale map--made, of course, by
+Austria--and we hunted it for our road. Paths were marked quite clearly,
+and houses at most convenient intervals. It seemed a far superior path
+to the Ipek pass, both regarding shelter and length.
+
+"But," we said, "Sir Ralph suggests that we go to Mitrovitza, because
+the Serbs say that Uskub will fall in a few days."
+
+"I should get out of the country as soon as you can," said one.
+
+"It is exceedingly unlikely that Uskub can fall," said the other. But
+they promised us as definite information as they were allowed to give if
+we would return for tea, by when the aeroplane reconnaissance should
+have come in.
+
+We went back to the camp with the news.
+
+Colonel G---- came up and tried to wipe out the impression which he had
+made the evening before. He repeated that Uskub must certainly fall
+within the week, and that we should be very silly to go off to Novi
+Bazar, which we could never reach because the bridge had been washed
+away.
+
+All the hill behind was crowded with Austrian prisoners. They had
+received one loaf between every three men, and said that it had to last
+three days. They did not know where they were going. Blease went through
+their lines, and at last found an old servant--a Hungarian. He was a
+stoic.
+
+"One lives till one is dead," said he.
+
+The hospital was doing a brisk trade in wounded: sisters and doctors
+both hard at work. The "Stobarts" were resting, and had built a camp
+fire outside the door of their hovel. We got lunch ready, ruining
+recklessly another biscuit tin. While we were eating it a Serb came
+near.
+
+"I am starving," he said.
+
+We gave him some curry and rice. He devoured it.
+
+"To-morrow," he said, "I go back to commando."
+
+We pointed to his hand, which was bound in dirty linen.
+
+"But?"
+
+"It is better to go back though wounded than be starved to death."
+
+We also held a court of justice. A driver complained that one of the
+Englishmen had given him a pair of boots and that the corporal had taken
+them.
+
+"CORPORAL!!"
+
+He came grinning. We exposed the complaint.
+
+"Certainly the man had a pair of boots," said he; "but he has them no
+longer. Now, they are mine, I have taken them."
+
+"But they were given to him."
+
+"But I have taken them. I needed new boots." He exhibited his own, which
+were split.
+
+We told him that possession by capture was not recognized in our circle,
+and ordered immediate restitution. He agreed gloomily, no doubt feeling
+that the foundations of his world were falling about his ears, and what
+was the use of being a corporal anyway?
+
+In the afternoon we sought out the motor authorities, finding our old
+friends Ristich and Derrok in command. They easily promised us transport
+for Sir Ralph Paget's box and henchmen--no trouble at all they said. Yet
+had we not known them personally we might have waited a month without
+help. One is irresistibly reminded at every turn that the Near East
+means the East near the East and not the East near the West.
+
+We went to the English colonel's, but no news was yet forthcoming, and
+we were, after a jolly tea, invited back at eight.
+
+The camp was in darkness by the time we reached it once more. The fire
+lit up the men sitting about it, and the two inverted V's of the tent
+entrances; very faintly behind could be seen the outline of the line of
+little tented waggons. We had collected an additional member, Miss
+Brindley of the "Stobarts." She was very keen to get home, as her
+parents were anxious, and both her brothers at the front. Jo gave one
+look at her and said "Certainly." She had rushed immediately into the
+town and had laid in a stock of beans and lentils, as her contribution
+to the common stock. They were all she could buy.
+
+After supper back to the colonel's, and at last got definite news. It
+was unlikely that Skoplje would fall, and very little use loitering in
+hopes. The colonel advised Jan to get his party out by the best route
+possible, and we took a grateful farewell.
+
+Coming back to the camp Jan had a nasty half-hour. Should we go by
+Mitrovitza, or should we go by Berane? In the first case there was the
+long route, the difficulty of getting lodgings and of transport, the
+risk of falling behind the Serbian General Staff, and of finding the
+country bare, the high passes of Petch and the snow; Willett was only
+just recovering from a bad chill, West's arm had grown much worse, and
+had been operated on in the morning by a doctor with a pair of scissors
+_faute de mieux_--a most agonizing process. On the other hand, the
+Berane route was unknown to the authorities, and might have fallen so
+into decay that it was useless; we did not know where the Austro-Germans
+were, and they might be already on the outskirts of Novi Bazar; if any
+of us fell ill we should certainly be captured. It was a toss up.
+Finally he asked the others. They said--
+
+"What you think best. You know the country."
+
+We finally decided to go to Novi Bazar and make inquiries. If there were
+no road we could go thence to Mitrovitza, and would only have lost a
+day. If, as the colonel said, the bridge was washed away, we could
+probably ford the river.
+
+Then to bed. One could not sleep really well, for the rugs did not give
+sufficient warmth, and the chill striking up from the ground penetrated
+everything.
+
+Took the road to Novi Bazar next day. Miss Brindley joined us with a
+parcel of blankets and a knapsack and a mackintosh lent by a friend. She
+had lost her boots, or the local cobbler had lost them, but most
+appropriately a motor had arrived and on it was a pair of new soldier's
+boots unclaimed. She took them, cut the feet of a pair of indiarubber
+Wellingtons and pulled them over her stockings, and put a smile on her
+face which never came off in spite of any fatigue.
+
+Hilder and Antonio went off with Sir Ralph's box. The "Stobarts" wished
+us good luck, and away we clattered over the rickety bridge, up through
+the town and out into the Novi Bazar road. The surface was fairly good,
+and the day turned brilliant. We had left the six sisters and their
+luggage behind with their respective units, and so had four extra
+waggons to carry our stuff. We rattled along cheerily, only dismounting
+at the occasional patches of mud which we met.
+
+After a while we decided to lunch. We came to a café and halted.
+
+"Have you coffee?" we asked.
+
+"Ima."
+
+"Will you give us all coffee?"
+
+"We have no sugar," said the hostess; so we had no coffee.
+
+We got out a tin of biscuits and lunched on those. As we were passing
+them round a soldier stopped.
+
+"What are you selling those for?" he asked, under the impression that we
+were a travelling shop. We gave him some, to his great astonishment.
+
+On we went again. Down below us in a field the corporal spotted a
+hayrick. Like stage villains the coachmen clambered down the hill, each
+with a rope--spoil from the discarded tents. They attacked the rick and
+soon nothing was left. As they staggered back, each hidden beneath an
+enormous load of hay--looking themselves like walking ricks--a Turk in
+black and white clothes ran down from above furiously brandishing a
+three-pronged fork.
+
+"What are you doing?" he yelled.
+
+The corporal stood stiffly and said--
+
+"It is war. We are the State. It is of no value for you to preach."
+
+The owner went dolefully down the hill, and stood looking at where his
+stack had been.
+
+"We have again prevented those Germans from stealing good hay," said the
+corporal with satisfaction. Each cart looked not unlike a hay wain
+returning from the fields, and we scrambled up on to the top feeling
+like children in the autumn. After we had gone a mile we began to wonder
+why we had given the owner no compensation: evidently the corporal's
+influence was turning us into scoundrels.
+
+At last the broken bridge. Only a shallow stream across which our carts
+splashed joyfully. On the other side was a small church with a beautiful
+blue tower. And soon we were in the outskirts of Novi Bazar, the most
+ordinary town of the Sanjak, combining the dull parts of Plevlie with
+the dull parts of Ipek. There was a stream down the middle of the road,
+in which some of the inhabitants were washing, while one sat on his
+haunches holding up a small looking-glass with one hand and shaving
+himself.
+
+We bustled off to the mayor's office. Found him as usual in a back
+street in a shabby office up shaky wooden stairs. The mayor knew nothing
+of any road to Berane; so baffled, we again found the street. We went
+to the shabby Turkish shops of the bazaar and inquired.
+
+"Certainly," said the shopkeepers, "a good path to Berane, and not high.
+No; not so high as that by Ipek."
+
+We returned to the mayor's office. He seemed little inclined to consent,
+and demanded to see our pass. Jo again made her little--but so
+useful--speech. The mayor called in an Albanian. After a long
+consultation the mayor said that he had no horses.
+
+"Then we will take our carriage horses," said we.
+
+"There are no roads for carriages," said the mayor.
+
+"Then we will take the horses without the carriages."
+
+The mayor called in two more men: they considered the pass once more.
+
+"You may have the carriages two days more," he decided at last. "Go to
+Tutigne. As far as that the carriages will travel. There are many horses
+there, and you can get pack ponies."
+
+Coming out we ran into Colonel Stajitch of Valievo. The colonel is a
+Serbian gentleman, fine figure, beautiful face, and white hair and
+moustaches. He greeted us, asked us our news. We told him of our
+projected journey. He became thoughtful and after a while said good-bye.
+We took our convoy through the town to a field on the outskirts where
+we pitched the camp.
+
+We borrowed the corporal's axe and hewed for some time in a thorn hedge,
+without getting much profit but many prickles, and finally decided to
+take a paling from a Turkish cemetery, for there was no one about.
+
+Soon we had a jolly fire, and Cutting and Whatmough got to work on the
+food. Dr. Holmes turned up. He had arrived the day before and had found
+lodgings in an inn. West's arm was still inflamed and very painful. The
+doctor looked at it and said it needed more incision. West and Miss
+Brindley went off with him.
+
+An old ragamuffin wandered up with a loaf of maize bread. He offered it
+to the corporal for three dinars; but the corporal took it away and gave
+him two. The old man made a great outcry. We demanded the cause. The
+unlawful corporal was again hailed to justice, his corporalship seeming
+more valueless than ever, and to give him a lesson we bought the bread
+for three dinars, for it was worth it.
+
+We suddenly discovered that none of the Red Cross men had papers or
+passes. What was to be done? We were conniving at an almost unlawful
+expedition, and Jan was very doubtful if we could cross the Montenegrin
+frontier. But after a consultation we decided to bluff it into
+Montenegro if necessary, and then telegraph to Cettinje to help us out.
+
+It was now dark and West and Miss Brindley had not come back. So Jan and
+Jo went off to look for them. We searched two cafés--meeting again with
+our old acquaintance the schoolmaster from Nish--plunged into all sorts
+of odd corners, and at last met Colonel Stajitch in a restaurant. He
+greeted us.
+
+"I have a great favour to ask," he said diffidently. "If I might I
+should like to give to you a little appendix. It is my son. He is
+seventeen, but is very big for his age. If the Austrians catch him I do
+not know what will become of him."
+
+We were introduced to the boy, and at once consented.
+
+"I will decide for certain to-morrow," said the colonel. "Can I meet you
+at seven o'clock?"
+
+We hunted once more for West. Ran him to earth at last in the Hotel de
+Paris. This hotel could perhaps have existed in the Butte de Montmartre,
+but even there it would have been considered a disgrace. We had to pass
+through a long room crammed with sleeping soldiery, stepping across them
+to get to the door opposite. Every window was tight shut, and after one
+horrified gulp we held our breath till we reached the interior
+courtyard. Here, too, were sleeping men, and all along the balconies and
+passages were more.
+
+We found Holmes' room. West was there, rather white and just recovering
+from the anæsthetic. We sat down. Dr. Holmes had thought of coming with
+us, but the authorities had looked suspiciously at his passes, which
+were made out to Mitrovitza, so he decided to go on there. We wished
+that he had come, as a doctor would have been a great comfort had we
+really needed him.
+
+After a rest West was well enough to go back to the camp.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE UNKNOWN ROAD
+
+
+As we stood around the camp fire drinking our cocoa a queer ragged old
+Albanian crept up and watched us with a smile. He was the owner of the
+house near by, whose palings we had almost looted. We offered him cocoa,
+which he liked immensely; and asked him about the road to Tutigne. He
+said--
+
+"There is a road for carts--I know it."
+
+"Will you show it us?" said Jo.
+
+He gave a wild yell and ran away, waving a stick.
+
+"What ----?!!!! ----"
+
+It was nothing, only the pigs had invaded his cabbage patch. He came
+back later with an enormous apple, which he presented to Jo.
+
+"Have you apples for sale?"
+
+He shook his head, saying "Ima, ima."
+
+We bought several pounds, arranged with him to guide us later to the
+carriage road, and hurried into the town to buy provisions.
+
+There we met Colonel Stajitch. "Will you take my boy?"
+
+"Delighted. Are his papers in order?"
+
+The mayor hereupon turned up, and the colonel's face grew longer as they
+conversed.
+
+"The mayor cannot give me the necessary permits without Government
+sanction," he said. "I must get it from Rashka by telephone. It will
+take an hour. Can you wait?"
+
+We spent the time shopping. Each shop looked as empty as if it had been
+through a Saturday night's sale. One had elderly raisins, another had a
+few potatoes. We found some onions, bought another cooking pot and
+kitchen necessaries, and packed them in the carts which had arrived in
+the town. Nobody would take paper money unless we bought ten francs'
+worth. After waiting an hour and a half we hunted down the colonel. The
+telephone official told us he had got leave from the Government. At last
+we found him in the mayor's office, bristling with papers and the
+passport.
+
+"I have got you an armed policeman as escort," he said, waving the
+papers, "and the boy has a good horse, twenty pounds in gold, and twenty
+in silver."
+
+We found the boy waiting with the carriages. He wore a strange little
+brown cashmere Norfolk jersey and very superior black riding breeches.
+Dressed more romantically he would have made an ideal Prince for an
+Arabian Nights' story. His father accompanied us until our Albanian
+guide announced--
+
+"Here begins the carriage road."
+
+Their parting must have been a hard thing. The father could not tell how
+his son's expedition would end, and the son was leaving his father to an
+unknown fate. They embraced, smiling cheerily, and the boy rode on ahead
+of us all, blowing his nose and cursing his horse.
+
+In many places the "carriage road" was no road at all. The carts lurched
+and bumped over rivers, boulders, fields, and the inevitable mud.
+Several times we had to jump on our carts as they dragged us over deep
+and rapid rivers. After three hours we stopped at a farm, our mounted
+policeman called out the owners and autocratically ordered two of the
+young men to accompany us as guides and guards.
+
+They came, bearing their guns, white fezzed, white clothed, black
+braided youths with shaven polls and flashing teeth. We began to climb,
+and for hours and hours we toiled upwards. The carriages lumbered
+painfully far behind us, led by their elderly and panting drivers.
+
+"If this is what they call a good and easy road," we thought, "it would
+have been better to harness four horses to each cart, and to have left
+five carts behind."
+
+The horses came from the plain of Chabatz, and had probably never seen a
+hill in their lives.
+
+"These horses will die," said the corporal; but he seemed more
+interested in hunting for water for himself than in the struggles of the
+poor beasts.
+
+One of our Albanian guides was overwhelmed with the beauty of Cutting's
+silver-plated revolver.
+
+"How much did you pay for it?"
+
+"Thirty francs," said Cutting, shooting at the scenery.
+
+Jan produced his automatic, but the Albanian scorned it as one would
+turn from a lark to a bird of Paradise. He turned the glittering object
+over lovingly, thought, felt in his pockets, drew out a green and red
+knitted purse, and shook his head.
+
+"I will give you thirty francs."
+
+But Cutting wasn't on the bargain. He pocketed the treasure again, and
+we plodded on.
+
+"How far are we from Tutigne?" we asked.
+
+"Four hours," said a dignified Albanian, who had joined our party.
+
+"No, two hours," said another.
+
+"Three at most," corrected a third.
+
+The first man lifted his hand. "I say four hours, and it is four hours.
+With such horses as these we crawl."
+
+We reached a desolate tableland at dusk. Here the horses halted for some
+while. With the halt came a sudden desire to stay there for good. It
+seemed as if we should never reach Tutigne. The evening brought with it
+chilly damp breezes, and the footsore company was getting quite
+disheartened.
+
+"Let us camp here," said everybody.
+
+But the policeman had a mailbag to deliver that night, and we had to
+push on. Experienced as we were in Serbian roads, never had we seen such
+mud. Down, down sank our feet, and we could only extract them again
+clinging to the carts with the sound of a violent kiss. We tried to
+escape it by climbing into the thick brushwood, only to find it again,
+stickier and more slippery, while the bushes grasped us with thorny arms
+and athletically switched our faces. A moonless darkness came upon us
+and we had to walk just behind the carriages, peering at the square yard
+of road illuminated by candles in our penny lanterns.
+
+Occasionally a voice greeted us. We asked how far Tutigne was.
+
+"About an hour," was the invariable answer all along the line.
+
+But the dignified guide was right. After four hours we reached the main
+street, arriving slowly to the music of incredible clatter as our little
+carts leapt and jolted over hundreds of big pointed stones laid
+carefully side by side--Tutigne's concession to Macadam.
+
+There were faint lights in some of the little wooden houses. Others
+stood dark and unfriendly. We stopped. Curses filled the air. An ox-cart
+was lying right across the road. After shouting himself hoarse the
+policeman woke up an old man in a house near by--the owner. He
+rheumatically grumbled in his doorway; so the gendarme called our
+Albanians, and in two twos they had turned the cart upside down in a
+ditch, saying--
+
+"It serves you right."
+
+Voices sounded in the darkness. The carriages lurched on. Presently they
+left the road and turned on to grass, they seemed to be leaving the
+village behind. We did not know where they were going, and were so tired
+that we did not care, if only they would get somewhere and stop, which
+at last they did. We jumped off into a squelch of water.
+
+"Good heavens, this won't do!"
+
+We searched the whole field for a dry spot, but though it was a
+hillside, it was a swamp. We chose the least marshy place and built a
+fire.
+
+"Where is the mayor?" we asked of the strange faces dimly to be seen in
+the light of our fire.
+
+They pointed to two cottage window lights. We went towards them, at
+last realizing our proximity by stumbling into a dung-heap and knocking
+against a pig-stye. There was a narrow stairway, and above it a big
+landing. A man followed and knocked at a door for us.
+
+The mayor appeared--a little man--square in face, hair, beard and
+figure.
+
+We explained ourselves and showed our letter. He looked grave at our
+demand for horses; said we would talk it over on the morrow, and
+sympathized about the swampy field.
+
+"Would you like to sleep here on the floor?" he said, showing us a
+clean-looking office. "We regret we have no beds."
+
+We were delighted. His wife, who had gone to bed, appeared in a striped
+petticoat and a second one worn as a shawl.
+
+"The tables shall be moved and the stove lit," she said. "It will be
+ready in a few minutes."
+
+We picked our way back to the fire, avoiding the dung-heap and pig-stye,
+whereby we nearly fell into a cesspool. Cocoa was brewing, one
+card-house had been erected as a shelter for some of our things. The
+drivers were crouched round their own fire cooking something. It was
+difficult to find our bundles in the carts as one only recognized them
+by the drivers. We climbed in feeling about by the light of a match. Jo
+found a foot in one.
+
+"How can we find things with people lying on them?" she said to the
+foot.
+
+It remained immobile; she pulled it--no response. She tugged it. A face
+lifted itself at the far end of the cart. It was the corporal's wife
+lying on her own possessions, very tired and rather cross. Jo patted her
+remorsefully and decamped.
+
+We must have looked like a regiment of gnomes bearing forbidden treasure
+as we hobbled through the darkness, laden with our bundles of blankets.
+The light in the office nearly blinded us, and the heat from the stove
+struck us like a violent blow. The mayor, his wife, two hurriedly
+dressed children and several other people received us. There was an
+awkward silence. Jo murmured in the background--
+
+"It is manners here to go up, shake hands, and say one's name."
+
+Very uncomfortably everybody did so, one by one. Another silence. We
+racked our brains--the weather--our journey--the war. One had nothing
+sensible to say about anything. Jo asked the children's age. The
+information was supplied. Silence. We filled the gap by smiling. At last
+the mayor's wife said we must be worn out, and they all left us.
+
+The mayor crept back. "Don't talk about the military situation," he
+said; "if these Turks knew it they might kill us all." Then he shut the
+door.
+
+We flew to a window and opened it, changed our stockings, hung wet boots
+and socks over the stove, ate bully beef, and rolled up, pillowing our
+heads on our little sacks--thirteen sleepy people.
+
+The mayor's wife opened the door an inch and peeped at us as we lay,
+looking, indeed, more like a jumble sale than anything. Mawson wore a
+Burglar cap tied under his chin, and a collection of khaki mufflers,
+looking equipped for a Channel crossing. Miss Brindley's head was tied
+up in a bandana handkerchief; Jo's in a purple oilsilk hood; others
+shared mackintosh sheets and blankets; West pulled his Serbian cap right
+down to his mouth. Jan put on the white mackintosh dressing-coat, over
+that his greatcoat, then he spread out a red, green, yellow and black
+striped Serbian rug, rolled up in it with many contortions, and pushed
+his feet into a tent bag. Blease in a Balaklava, showing nose like an
+Arctic explorer, got into a black oilskin, one corner of which had been
+repaired with a large yellow patch, he then rolled up in oddments
+collected from the company, as his own overcoat had been stolen, and
+bound it all together by tying the many coloured knitted rug around him,
+after putting the lamp out inadvertently with his head.
+
+In the morning we interviewed the mayor. He read and reread the letter
+from the Novi Bazar mayor, took an interest in the social supremacy of
+Stajitch's father, who was a man of birth, but said he had no horses.
+
+Jo appealed to his better feelings. He scratched his head.
+
+"Yes, truly one must try to help the English," he said, but looked very
+glum.
+
+"I will have the neighbouring hamlets searched for horses."
+
+We thanked him and wandered into the village café. An old man with black
+sprouting eye-brows à la Nick Winter, was sitting there. He had walked
+for five days, eating only apples.
+
+"Very good food too," he said. "Here is my luggage."
+
+He pointed to a knotted handkerchief containing a tiny loaf of bread
+which he had just acquired. His goal was a monastery in Montenegro,
+where he said they would house and feed him for the winter in exchange
+for a little work.
+
+At 11.30 three horses were brought. Three more were promised, so we
+reluctantly decided to start the next day. There was nothing to do.
+
+Our carriages went. We gave the corporal a card-house to take back to
+Rashka with little faith that he would not try to stick to it. He had
+not returned the boots to their owner, so we took them from him and
+gave them to their rightful owner, and handed over to the corporal a
+spare pair of our own boots to keep him honest.
+
+At dawn Stajitch, who had been sleeping in style upon a friend's table,
+came to say we had six horses, but a professor had turned up in the
+night and was coming with us. He had been so exhausted with the walk
+that his policeman had carried him most of the way. Not pleased, we went
+to inspect him. He was small, corpulent, and was sitting with clasped
+woolly gloves, goloshed feet, and a diffident smile.
+
+He explained to us that he was delicate, and as he was no walker it
+would be necessary for him to ride one horse. So we packed our food,
+sacks, blankets, mackintoshes and the card-house as best we could on the
+remaining five horses.
+
+No sooner had we left the village, and all signs of road or bridle path,
+with a new policeman and two or three ragged Albanians, than one of the
+horses broke loose and began to dance--first the tango, then the waltz.
+The pack, which was but insecurely attached, stood the tango, but with
+the waltz a bag of potatoes swung loose at the end of a rope, its
+gyroscopic action swinging the horse quicker and quicker until it was
+spinning on one toe. Then the girths broke, saddle and all came to the
+ground. The brute looked round as if saying "That's that," and cantered
+off, followed slowly by the professor on horseback. We called. He
+appeared to take no notice. At last he turned round saying--
+
+"The horse will not."
+
+Jo leapt in the air kicking.
+
+"Do that with your heels," she said.
+
+But we had to send the policeman to help him. He rode hour by hour,
+hitting his beast with a bent umbrella, and lifting two fat hands to
+heaven.
+
+"Teshko" (It is hard), he whined.
+
+"_Ni_ je teshko" (It is not hard), said Miss Brindley, cheerfully
+trudging along.
+
+We wanted to stop at the top of a hill for lunch.
+
+"Horrible," he said. "Here the brigands will shoot us from the bushes,"
+and pushed ahead, being held on by the grinning policeman.
+
+We pulled out some biscuits and margarine, and drank water from our
+bottles, cigarettes went round, and we charged ahead. In front was the
+professor falling off his horse and being put on again.
+
+We were very anxious about the frontier. Most of our party were
+travelling without official permits, as they had known nothing about
+such things; but we hoped that being English Red Cross and having
+passports there would not be much trouble. We arrived at a little
+village, three or four wooden houses. Three pompous old men came to meet
+us, and we took coffee together outside the inn. They were very
+surprised to hear we were English, and said that no English had ever
+passed that way before.
+
+At the frontier, an hour further on, a man and his wife came down from a
+little house on the hill and stopped us. They examined the papers of the
+two Serbs, but left us alone, to our huge relief. We breathed again.
+
+Soon after, however, Whatmough rushed up to Jan and Jo, who were talking
+to a ragged woman.
+
+"Do come and talk. An officer has arrested West and Mawson."
+
+We ran ahead to find a perplexed mounted officer surrounded by our
+party. He had come upon West and Mawson walking on ahead and took them
+to be Bulgarian comitaj.
+
+"No, that's not an English uniform," he said, and searched them for
+firearms. When the others came he wavered. Miss Brindley did not look
+like a comitaj; and by the time we arrived he began to talk about the
+military situation in the Balkans, and rode off with the politest of
+farewells.
+
+If there isn't a telegraph wire to guide, don't take short cuts. Jan,
+Stajitch, and Jo tried to race the darkness by cutting straight down a
+ravine. We lost the horses, lost every one else, and we came out again
+on to a hill crest. No one was to be seen. After a while the professor
+rode by, led by his policeman, who had been almost suffocated by
+laughter all day.
+
+"Teshko, teshko," moaned the professor.
+
+"Ni je teshko," we said. "But where are the horses?"
+
+He waved a hand vaguely behind him. Rogerson, Whatmough, and Owen came
+up. It was getting dark and a mist was rising. So we left the three at
+the corner to mark where it was and went back. For a long time we
+stumbled in the darkness, shouting, but no horses could we find. At last
+we decided to turn back, wondering if they too had lost their way and
+decided to camp out. There were shouts in the valley beyond. A light
+flashed and some one fired off a revolver. There was a candle end in
+Jan's bag, and by its dim light we found a road. It went downwards, so
+we thought it might be the right one. Suddenly it turned in the wrong
+direction, but as there were hoof marks on it we decided to follow it as
+it must lead somewhere--we could not search the whole countryside with a
+candle. Just as we were in despair the road seemed to shake itself and
+twisted back again. We heard more shouting and saw a light, and at last
+found Miss Brindley and Mawson, who were waiting for us.
+
+"We have been to the village," they said.
+
+We asked them about the horses. They said they were all there!!!!
+
+That professor again!
+
+Some one heard trickling water, and with a cry of joy we put our mouths
+under the jet of water which spouted from a little trough which jutted
+from the hill. Nothing could be seen of the village when we arrived, but
+it seemed very long and very stony. An old peasant with a candle led us
+for what seemed miles between high palisades of wood until we reached
+the inn.
+
+There was a big room with a stove in the middle and many Montenegrins in
+uniform were sitting about. Some of our party were already asleep, worn
+out on the benches. We opened a tin of beef, got some bread and kaimack
+and woke up the others for their evening meal. While we were eating a
+Montenegrin staff officer said--
+
+"Your commandant, the professor--"
+
+"What?" said we.
+
+"Your commandant, the professor, has said you will rest here to-morrow."
+
+We told him the professor was no commandant of ours, and that we
+certainly would not rest there to-morrow.
+
+"Well," said the staff officer, "he has certainly ordered horses for the
+day after from the captain."
+
+We were too tired to rectify matters at once, and our meal finished, we
+rolled up on the dirty floor.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE FLEA-PIT
+
+
+Those comfortable folks who have never slept out of a bed do not know
+how annoying a blanket may be, if there is nothing into which to tuck
+its folds. Wrap yourself up in one, lie flat and motionless on the
+floor, and we guarantee that in an hour the blanket has unrolled itself
+and is making frantic efforts to escape. Every night on the road
+resolved into a half-dazed attempt to hold on to the elusive wrap. Sleep
+came in as a second consideration, and when we say we awoke on any
+particular morning, it really means that we got up, though several of us
+in the intervals of blanket catching did get in a snore or two.
+
+Well, we got up, then, in good time next day, hoping to rectify the
+professor's interference, and stumbling along with Stajitch, we reached
+the high-roofed "Dürer" dwelling where resided the commandant of the
+village. In the kitchen we found two women with bare feet, two children
+and a man half undressed. He brought in the captain, also in negligée.
+Now, mark, we were in Montenegro. We exposed our grievance to the
+captain and roundly denounced the professor as an interfering old
+beggar. The captain first gave us coffee, second hurried us to his
+office, third called in three henchmen and issued rapid orders.
+
+"Certainly, certainly. You shall have all the horses you need. Just only
+wait one little quarter of an hour. I will give you four policemen to go
+with you."
+
+We protested that four was too many.
+
+"No, no," he said, "you had better have four."
+
+We went back joyfully to the hotel. Cutting or one of the others had
+been exploring and had gotten twenty eggs. The hotel people consented to
+cook them. While we were outside looking at the mosques and wondering
+when the horses were coming, the professor walked into the bar-room.
+
+"Ah," said he, "eggs."
+
+"They belong to the English," said the hostess.
+
+"Good," said the professor, and swallowed four.
+
+Just then we returned.
+
+"But there are only sixteen eggs," said we.
+
+"The professor has eaten the others," said the woman, pointing.
+
+In a minute the professor wished that he had not. Jan took the
+opportunity of saying a few things which had been boiling within him. He
+accused the wretched man of interference in assuming control of the
+expedition; he said that he was a mere hanger-on, and a useless and
+selfish one at that.
+
+The professor wilted. He made a thousand apologies, and finally ran off
+wringing his fat hands, found with great difficulty four more eggs and
+cast them into the boiling water.
+
+"There," he said, "you can have your four eggs."
+
+"It's not the eggs," answered Jan, "it's you."
+
+Jo was roaring with laughter. Some of the morning she had been in a
+woman's house listening to one of the policeman's tales of the
+professor, and soon the whole village was rocking with amusement at
+"Teshko."
+
+At last the horses arrived--six miserable-looking beasts, but this time
+all had shoes. One was commandeered by the professor.
+
+"He is the greatest philosopher in all Serbia," whispered an official to
+Jan.
+
+"Ah, I guessed there must be some reason," said Jan.
+
+We had a send-off, all the village came to see us go away. The day was
+a repetition of our previous experiences. A long tramp in the mud. At
+the top of the highest pass we had yet reached was an old wooden
+blockhouse.
+
+We came upon it unexpectedly, rounding a corner. Montenegrin soldiers
+were cooking at a wood fire; but we were surprised to find all round the
+square log cabin deep rifle pits, the best we had yet seen in Serbia.
+
+"Good Lord, what are those for?" said Jan.
+
+"This is an old Turkish post," said the sergeant. "It has been kept up.
+We don't know why."
+
+We walked off meditating. Montenegrins do not squander soldiers without
+reason; and then one's mind went back to the four armed guards who were
+accompanying us.
+
+We discovered the truth later, let us tell the story here.
+
+Berane, to which we were descending, was once a populous growing Turkish
+town. After the Balkan war it fell into Montenegrin territories. The
+Montenegrins chased out all the Turkish landowners, who fled to these
+mountains, where they formed bands of brigands and caused no little
+consternation and trouble to the authorities, who could not catch them.
+The authorities passed a little Act, reinstating the landowners in
+their territories; but when an attempt was made to put the Act into
+force, it was found that the authorities themselves were in possession
+of the lands. What was to be done? The blockhouse was the solution.
+
+We stopped at a primitive café and lunched. Jo gave the children some
+chocolate. They did not know what it was. She smeared some on to the
+baby's lips, and after that it sucked hard. Soon the little girl licked
+hers; but the boy, more suspicious, would not eat, holding the lump till
+it melted into a sticky mass in his fingers. The scenery was very
+beautiful. There was a faint rain which greyed everything, and the near
+birches had lost all their leaves and the twigs made a reddish fog
+through which could be seen the slopes of the opposite hillsides. The
+professor began to be worried about the rain.
+
+"If this should turn to snow," said he, "we would be snowed up. And I am
+sure I don't know what I should do if I were snowed up."
+
+We hoped to reach our halting place, which was called Vrbitza, before
+dark; but it was further away than our informant had said. Once more we
+found ourselves floundering about in the mud of the village path after
+dusk. We reached houses which we could not see; walked over slippery
+poles set over heaven knows what middens. Clambered up creaky steps
+into the usual sort of dirty wooden room--and there, his stockings off,
+warming his toes at the blaze of the wood fire, was "Eyebrows."
+
+We were immediately attracted by three paintings on the wall. They were
+decorative designs, very beautiful. We asked the proprietor who had done
+them.
+
+"I did," he said.
+
+"Will you sell them?" we asked.
+
+He giggled like a girl. "Ah, who would buy them?" he said.
+
+"We will."
+
+"I couldn't let you have them for less than sixpence," he said. "You see
+the papers cost a penny each."
+
+Whatmough coveted one, so he had his choice, we took the other two.
+
+The policeman came to tell us that rooms had been prepared in two clean
+houses. We scrambled out into the dark again, stumbled along in the mud,
+and at last found an open square of light, through which we came into a
+room.
+
+There was a red rug over half the floor, and a brasier on three legs
+filled with charcoal standing in the centre. One or two of our men had
+already found the place and were lying on the rug. In one corner was a
+large baking oven like a beehive, half in one and half in the room next
+door. A wide shelf ran from the beehive almost to the open door. There
+were two small windows, each about the size of this book wide open. Jan
+and Jo sniffed. Where had they smelt that odour before?
+
+An old woman in Albanian costume crept up to Jo and caught her by the
+skirt.
+
+"See," she said, dragging her into the next room, "here is a fine bed.
+The ladies will sleep with me this night."
+
+Jo looked at the old lady's greasy hair and filthy raiment.
+
+"We always sleep with our own people," she said firmly.
+
+The old lady protested. All the while our men were packing the baggage
+beneath the shelf. It was a tight fit, but at last it was got in.
+
+The professor entered once more on the scene.
+
+"This house will do very well for the common people," he said, "but the
+Herr Commandant" (meaning Jan) "and the two ladies will come over to
+sleep with me."
+
+"No, we won't," said Jan, Jo and Miss Brindley in one voice.
+
+"Then what will you do?"
+
+"We will give you two policemen, or all four if you like. We will pack
+in here somehow. You can take the other house all to yourself."
+
+"That will not do," said the professor. "If you are all determined to
+sleep here, I too, will come here. You will need somebody to protect
+you."
+
+Jo's back went up.
+
+"If you are afraid to sleep in the other house," she said, "you can
+sleep here with us. But if you are coming here to protect us, we don't
+require _you_."
+
+"But you do not understand," said the professor kindly, as if to a
+child: "there is danger. You will need me to protect you."
+
+"Not in the least," answered Jo. "If you will say that you are afraid,
+we will offer you our shelter. Otherwise you can have all four policemen
+at the other house."
+
+The professor was afraid to say that he was afraid, so after stating
+that we were curious people, he went off with the guards.
+
+With great difficulty we packed in. Cutting and Whatmough were forced to
+climb on to the shelf and the brazier was pushed out of the room. One by
+one we rolled up in our rugs, made pillows out of a pair of boots or a
+cocoa tin, cursed each other for taking up so much space, and at last
+all were jammed together like sardines. It was like the family in the
+drawing: If father says turn, we all turn.
+
+We did not rest well. Thirteen people in a room which would comfortably
+hold three was a little too close packing. There was a lot of grumbling
+coming from one corner, and after a while a light was struck.
+
+"Good lord," said somebody, "my pillow's crawling!"
+
+Bugs were cascading down the walls. Stajitch jumped to his feet, and
+began stamping hard. "Rivers of them," he yelled.
+
+Cutting and Whatmough were groaning about the heat, so we opened the
+door. Immediately all the dogs of the village, half wolves, hurled
+themselves at the lighted space. Stajitch slammed it just in time; had
+they burst in, lying down as we were, we should have been unable to
+protect ourselves.
+
+A dark face peered in between the baking oven and the wall, a swarthy
+Albanian face. It looked at us and then silently withdrew.
+
+"It doesn't matter," said somebody at last, "we've got to stick it."
+
+We roused up neither rested nor refreshed. The room seen in the dim
+light of the morning seemed even more revolting than it had been the
+night before. We demanded the bill, it was brought--five francs for
+apples which we had bought. And for the room? Nothing. We gave our host
+three francs extra, and he bowed, putting his hands to his bosom and
+kissed our palms.
+
+There was a good stiff clay soil waiting for our tiring feet, and by the
+time we reached Berane, there was no thought of going further. Almost
+every one was exhausted.
+
+We reached the shores of the river. The bridge had been washed away, but
+the inhabitants had made a boat like a sort of huge wooden shoe which
+they dragged to and fro with ropes. We clambered in and were hauled
+over. Our baggage had not yet arrived, so Jan and Stajitch ordered lunch
+for the others and went down to see about it. Just as they were landed
+on the opposite bank the rope broke. So all the Montenegrins and
+Albanians who were working the ferry went off to a midday meal, leaving
+the two with the pangs of hunger growling within, sitting on the bank.
+
+After two hours' waiting the rope was repaired, and they got back to
+lunch famishing. We then arranged sleeping places and locked up all the
+baggage in an empty shop. Our room was one of those ordinary Montenegrin
+bedrooms plastered with pictures. Amongst them was a postcard, and on it
+was printed large in English in blue crystalline letters, "Never
+Again."
+
+Whence did it come, this enigmatic postcard, and what did it mean? It
+seemed almost a solemn warning; yet in a hotel bedroom. What did the
+hostess think it meant?
+
+"Never Again."
+
+Some of the men came in cheering, having found Turkish delight in one of
+the shops. We were sadly needing sugar, as our last tin had been stolen
+along with lots of other things. So we indulged in "Turkish" not wisely.
+
+The professor got up to his old games again. Again he had told the
+commandant that he was leading the British, and that we would rest the
+next day, and again Jan had to pick him off his perch.
+
+Some got a bed that night, the others had to sleep "in rows," half under
+the beds and half projecting out. The people on the beds said it was a
+funny sight.
+
+When we unpacked at night we found who had been robbing us. The
+policemen. We had missed many more things, but found that the amount
+varied in direct ratio to the number of police who guarded us. All our
+spare boots were now gone, Blease's overcoat, and also Miss Brindley's.
+Jo had lost her only other coat and skirt, and one or two mackintoshes
+were missing. Now we knew why the police wore long-skirted coats; but
+what a disappointment the one must have had who lifted Jo's coat and
+skirt.
+
+Got off again in good time the next morning. Cutting and three others
+stayed behind to look after the police. Lucky they did, because one of
+the horses wore out, and the police would have left it on the road, pack
+and all. As it was we left the horse grazing, but the baggage was
+transferred.
+
+There had been a decentish level road made from Andrievitza half way to
+Berane, and women were working hard on the extension in the hopes of
+getting it finished for the Serbs; but that they could never do, for
+there were but few of them. Further on many of the bridges were
+unfinished, and in one or two places a landslide had carried away the
+road itself, leaving a deep clinging mud in its place, but we were
+getting used to mud.
+
+We met "Eyebrows" once more, just at the entrance to the village; but he
+was going on to Pod, so had finally got a day ahead of us. Found rooms
+in our old resting place.
+
+The professor was threatening to accompany us to Italy--he was like the
+old man of the sea. We got a telegram from the English Minister, saying
+that he did not think we could ever get to Italy from Scutari. We
+preferred to trust to our luck which so far had been wonderful,
+especially in the matter of weather. In the evening the captain sent to
+say that twenty horses would await us the next day. A motor car would
+have been sent, he added, but almost all the bridges were washed away
+and they could get no nearer than Liéva Riéka.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+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]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+INTO ALBANIA
+
+
+We caught the mayor in the morning. He was in his shirt-sleeves and he
+said that the auto had been arranged for. It came and we packed in. On
+the back perched a boy who outsmelt any Serb we had ever found. It
+seemed impossible that a human could so smell and yet live. Suddenly the
+boy drew a packet from his pocket and the smell became intolerable. He
+unwrapped a piece of cheese and, gasping for breath, we watched it
+disappear. When it had gone we breathed more freely, but the odour still
+clung to the youth, and we were not sorry when the auto pulled up at the
+village of Plavnitza on the edge of the lake. A man, who said that he
+had been sent to help us, dragged us to the telephone office. He worried
+the instrument for a while and announced that the boat would be here in
+two hours. It would have come earlier, but somehow they couldn't make
+steam get up. We expected it to come in four, and so went off to get
+something to eat.
+
+The lake was very high, coming right up to the road. All the low fields
+were covered with water as far as one could see. The girl at the inn was
+shuddering and shivering with malaria, and we gave her some quinine. At
+last the steamer came.
+
+We had to pack into one of those cockhat boats, as the quay was
+separated from the village by half a mile of water. When we got to the
+steamer, the captain leaned over the side and shouted--
+
+"Where are the mattresses?"
+
+"What mattresses?" said the harbour-master.
+
+"When are you going to start?" demanded we, clambering on board.
+
+"When I get the mattresses," said the captain.
+
+"But what mattresses?" replied the harbour-master.
+
+"I was sent to get mattresses," said the captain, "and here I wait till
+they come."
+
+This was a nuisance, nobody had said anything about the mattresses.
+
+"I shan't go till to-morrow anyhow," said the skipper.
+
+"I think we'd all better go back to Podgoritza and come again
+to-morrow," said the man in charge.
+
+"We don't move from here," said Jo, firmly. "If he won't go we'll sit on
+this boat--which was sent for us--and sing songs all night so that he
+shan't sleep."
+
+The captain refused to move without the mattresses and we refused to go
+back, so a violent argument ensued. We remained adamant. At last in
+despair the harbour master said that he would go and telephone. Night
+was coming on, the deck was chilly, so Jan went to explore. The quay was
+half under water, but by jumping from stone to stone one could get
+about, and Jan discovered an entrance into the stone storehouse. The
+door was boarded up, but he forced his way in, discovering a huge empty
+interior banked up well above the water. At one end was a platform made
+of boards on tubs. An ideal bed. He called the company and they arranged
+themselves on the planks, though some were dismayed at the prospect of
+getting no supper. The boards were loose and as each took his place they
+bobbed up and down. Miss Brindley said that it seemed like sleeping on
+the keyboard of a piano. We did not expect to see anything before
+morning of the harbour-master or of Stajitch who had gone with him; but
+just as we were settled and beginning to snore and the rats were running
+about, Stajitch poked his head through the window and said that the boat
+was going immediately. We reluctantly got up, for we were really rather
+cosy, packed again and hopped in the moonlight from stone to stone till
+we got to the ship--which was the same old Turkish gunboat on which we
+had travelled once before. The thing was then explained--a telegraphic
+mistake. The captain had been ordered to fetch the strangers: but
+strangers and mattresses are only one letter different, "n" or "m," this
+letter had been transposed.
+
+Luckily it was a beautiful moonlight night. The lake was wonderfully
+romantic. A fat Serbian captain, who seemed to know Stajitch, made a
+request. He said that he had been cut off from his division, which was
+at Monastir, and that he was going to try and rejoin them. He ask us if
+he could join our party, as it would come cheaper at the hotels and he
+could get transport.
+
+It was pretty cold on the lake, but we wrapped ourselves in our blankets
+and said the view was lovely. Hunger was also gnawing within us, so we
+were glad when at last the rumbling old engines halted and the steamer
+gave three hoots. We waited anxiously, and at last a large rowboat came
+sideways against the steamer. Four carriages were waiting in the bazaar.
+A very polite Montenegrin doctor welcomed us at the hotel and we got
+some much desired food.
+
+Bed was beginning to be a mere commonplace now, but we enjoyed it for
+all that, and slept well into the morning.
+
+Scutari wore its usual air of "the ballet" when we arose. The ladies
+dressed all in their best clothes, and with great flowing veils and wide
+skirted coats were hobbling to church. The shopkeepers, with their long
+black and white legs and coloured shirts, were lounging about the low
+counters of their shops, smoking and drinking coffee brought them (on
+little swinging trays) by boys.
+
+The British consul had taken up his quarters at the "Maison Piget." The
+house was gated, as are all Albanian houses, but this gate was like an
+old feudal portal. The doors were wonderfully carved and were opened by
+our old friend the Wolf. We had thought him to be a servant of Suma's,
+but it appeared that he belonged to the British Empire.
+
+The house was crammed full of arms: a little cannon threatened us on the
+stairway, swords, claymores, creeses, falchions, scimitars, glaives,
+dirks, and yatagans were nailed on all the walls, and there were muskets
+of every sort and size, heavy arquebuses from the north and gas-pipe
+guns and Arab horsemen firelocks with polished stocks like the handle of
+a corkscrew, all inlaid with gold, silver, and mother-of-pearl.
+
+"Yes," said the consul, gazing reflectively, "he had a taste for
+weapons. And also for old cookery books."
+
+The consul said that he thought that there was a boat at San Giovanni.
+We cheered, for our luck seemed to be holding, and while he went off to
+the Italian consul we went to the governor to beg for transport. Neither
+consul nor governor was in, but we caught the Italian consul in the
+afternoon. He admitted that there was a boat, but warned us that it was
+no nosegay. He said that two Frenchmen who had thought of taking it had
+sent him back a telegram which had quite unnerved him.
+
+"Et je n'ai jamais dit qu'elle était une Transatlantique," he said,
+waving his arms.
+
+He said that the archbishop had told him that a party of English had
+come into the town last night, "en haillons," but that he had not
+believed it possible. However, he had seen two of us in the street that
+morning, and had realized that it was true.
+
+We said that any boat would do. He warned us of the danger of
+submarines.
+
+At the consul's house we found the captain of the Miridites awaiting us.
+He was a heavy-looking man with European clothes and a fez. After the
+ceremonious coffee he made a set speech, saying that he was paying his
+duties to the great British Empire, and that England was their only
+hope. The consul sat rather wishing that he wouldn't, and that his
+servant had said that he was not at home. In common with most of the
+Christian rulers of Albania this gentleman seemed to have spent most of
+his time in exile.
+
+Returning to the hotel Jan found that Jo had been purchasing, and he
+dragged her and Miss Brindley off to see the archbishop. The cathedral
+still carries the scars of the first bombardment. The archbishop, a
+large flat man, gave us each a hand as though he expected us to kiss it;
+he had a huge archiepispocal ring and a lot of imperiosity. He seemed
+more political than bishopy, though most of the Churchmen are; and there
+is the tale of one who said, "I would rather people went to drill than
+to church." There were a lot of wealthy looking Albanians sitting round
+and being respectable. The archbishop spoke no French nor German, only
+Italian. But Jan, with the help of a lot of old musical terms, and an
+imperfectly forgotten Spanish, managed to convey to him some
+intelligible compliments and sentences. We got out at last, and his
+eminence accompanied us to the top of the stairs and gave us the
+difficult problem of bowing backwards as we went down. This visit was
+necessary, as we might have had to get a "Besa" from him if we meant to
+go through to Durazzo.
+
+The Serbian captain who had been on the Turkish gunboat met us in the
+street. He dragged us into a café and began to order beer by the
+half-dozen. He presented Jo with a small Turkish gold coin, which was
+valued at five shillings, as a bribe to allow him to join our party. As
+he already had permission it seemed superfluous.
+
+Some of our party were still pretty seedy. Two had gone to a shop in
+search of castor oil. A very old and withered chemist, who spoke bad
+French, invited them in and asked for an account of their adventures,
+interrupting them with explosions of "Ah poves, poves, poves, poves."
+"Ah, poves, poves, poves, poves," between every incident and also at the
+final request for the medicine. He showed them to the door and suddenly
+burst into unexpected English.
+
+"Good naite, vairey good. I am your poppa."
+
+In the hotel café we found two French aeroplanists, for four had arrived
+that day, sailing down over the city, to the great terror of the
+inhabitants. They seemed to be afflicted with the same idea as "Quel
+Pays."
+
+"Ah, monsieur et dame," said they, "quel pays."
+
+We asked them how things were.
+
+"We have just come from Prizren. The Serbs are in a dreadful condition.
+All the roads are covered with starving and dying people. The troops are
+eating dead horses and roots. There have been violent snow blizzards all
+over the mountains. We saw some of your people, too, doctors and nurses,
+they were going off to Ipek, 'dans une condition déplorable.' We came
+across the mountains; one of us is lost. Awful country, nowhere to land
+if anything went wrong and one of our machines has not arrived. God
+knows what has happened to them. The rest of us are all coming along on
+foot. We burnt fifty motor cars yesterday, monsieur, that made a blaze."
+
+We asked them what sort of a time they had had in Serbia; but much of
+their answer is unpublishable.
+
+"Each time we ascended every Serbian regiment fired at us. Once we came
+down over a battalion and the whole lot fired volleys, and when we
+landed and stood in front of our machine holding up our hands," they
+pantomimed, "they continued to fire at us. Then they came and took us
+prisoners, and were going to shoot us, although one of us had a military
+medal. A schoolmaster recognised us as French and rescued us. Our
+machine was broken; but we could get no transport and had to walk thirty
+kilometres back to our base without food.
+
+"Another time we were chasing an Austrian, the Serbian batteries fired
+at us, monsieur, not at the enemy. Our officers had to send from the
+aerodrome to tell them to stop."
+
+As we were going to bed the Montenegrin doctor came in.
+
+"I am sent by the governor, monsieur," said he. "We do not consider it
+safe, this boat idea. Austrian submarines are everywhere, and the
+governor would feel it as a personal responsibility if you were drowned.
+We will provide carriages to Alessio and thence arrange horses--only one
+day and a half on to Durazzo. Thence Essad Pasha will give you his motor
+boat and you can easily get to Valona."
+
+Our men groaned at the thought of more journeying. They were all
+thoroughly fed up with the road, though personally we rather liked the
+idea. We had heard that Durazzo was very interesting, and would have
+liked to have met Essad, though we did not know just how his politics
+were trending. We decided to see the Italian consul once more.
+
+Next day we hunted up the mayor, Mahram Beg, a Turk, for he also could
+give us a "Besa" if necessary. He was at last discovered, a little
+crumpled looking man in an office. We were not allowed to interview him
+in private, but a Montenegrin was there and all conversation had to
+pass by him like through an imperfect telephone. We gave the mayor a
+greeting from Colonel P----and little else. A very disappointing
+interview.
+
+Jan went off to see the governor, who received him kindly. He said that
+he would arrange everything, but that it was difficult for him with the
+Italian consul, as the Powers did not recognize the Montenegrin
+occupation.
+
+"You see, monsieur, here I am the law, and yet the law does not
+recognize me."
+
+The Italian assured us that the Montenegrins were wrong, and that of
+course the boat would be escorted, and the danger reduced to its least
+possible amount. Just after we had left him we heard two things which
+made us jump.
+
+A body of English officers had landed at Medua, and ninety English
+refugees from Serbia were _en route_ for Scutari. Could we not catch the
+transport and at the same time leave room for the others? Suma came in,
+and we consulted him. He was doubtful if the horses could be got at
+Alessio for us.
+
+"You see, it is Albania and not Montenegro," he repeated.
+
+We accordingly hunted up the doctor. He promised us horses for the
+morrow. The carriages had all gone to fetch the English officers. We
+asked him about Alessio, and he assured us that the telephone message
+had been received saying that they were waiting. We asked him several
+times until he grew angry and said--
+
+"Do you doubt my honour, then?"
+
+Before we went to bed the hotel proprietor came to us.
+
+"Do you pay or the Government?" asked he; and seemed very relieved when
+we told him that we paid. The Montenegrins are neither loved nor trusted
+here.
+
+The next morning the horses came, but very late. In the crowd watching
+our departure was an old Albanian without a moustache. That was a
+strange sight; we looked harder. It was a woman. She must have been one
+of those who had sworn eternal virginity, and so achieve all a man's
+privileges, even eating with them instead of getting the scraps left
+over from the meal. But the punishment of death awaited her if she
+failed her vow. Here was one, chuckling and grinning at some of us in
+our attempts to mount the weird saddles and weirder steeds which had
+been provided. The Serb captain had a carriage, and another carriage
+took all our baggage, which had now sadly dwindled owing to the
+continued depredations of the police. We straggled out of the town and
+through the crowded bazaar, for it was a Saturday. Passed the Venetian
+fort and the river from which stuck the funnel of the steamer so
+mysteriously sunk one night. We had heard that the Turkish gun flat
+which had transported us had burst her boilers, so now the Montenegrins
+had no steamers left.
+
+The road was level and better than many we had come over, though once or
+twice the carriages were hopelessly mired, and had to be pushed across.
+West's horse had ideas about side streets, and bolted down each as he
+came to it.
+
+We met the Adriatic Commission. Mr. Lamb and Mr. George Paget, returning
+after so long an absence, were in the first carriage. We recognized Mr.
+Paget at once, for though either of them might have liked old arms, only
+one would have collected old cookery books. The rest of the commission
+came along later. They stopped us. We expected questions about the
+Serbs; but no. They said--
+
+"Can one buy underclothing in Scutari?"
+
+Their baggage transport had been sunk by an Austrian submarine and they
+had only what they were wearing. We wished each other luck and went on.
+There was no hope of arriving at Alessio that night, we had started too
+late. As evening was falling, we came to an Albanian inn and decided to
+put up.
+
+There was a stable full of manure on the ground floor, through which one
+had to pass, and in the dark one was continually slipping into the
+midden or running one's head unexpectedly into horses' hindquarters. Up
+a rickety stair were two rooms. The floor rocked as we walked over it,
+and every moment we expected to go through and be precipitated into the
+manure below. The walls and floor were so loosely made that the wind
+blew through in all directions, and we called it the "castle in the
+air." We supped on chickens which we had brought from Scutari, and
+Whatmough and Elmer made a fire in the yard and got us cocoa. By this
+time we were all getting fed up with romantic surroundings, and wanted
+something more solid. The swarthy countenances about the bonfire, the
+queer costumes in the flickering fire, left us unmoved.
+
+Sleep was impossible. The wind caught one in every corner, threatening
+lumbago. Stajitch fled and camped outside in one of the carriages,
+despite the rain.
+
+[Illustration: ALBANIAN MULE DRIVERS CAMPING.]
+
+We started as early as possible--dawn. Whatmough, Cutting, Jo and Jan
+lost the road, but were eventually rescued by a policeman. About eleven
+one of the carriages broke down, and we had to repair it with tree and
+wire. Here the houses were again like fortresses, and everybody
+stared at us as though we came from the moon.
+
+We reached the bank opposite Alessio--a small Turkish-looking village
+divided between a mud-bank and a hillside. We were about to turn over
+the bridge when news was brought that a motor-boat belonging to Essad
+was in San Giovanni harbour. We sent a policeman galloping on to stop
+it, and followed as fast as our meagre horses would allow. We also heard
+that a submarine had been in the port the day before and had tried to
+torpedo the ships lying there--but had missed.
+
+We cantered on, pressing along a stony road which was almost level with
+the salt marshes on either side. San Giovanni appeared after about an
+hour and a half. We rode down on to the beach. The motor-boat was
+getting up anchor. We yelled to the skipper, but he understood no Serb;
+so we translated through a Turk who was lounging about. The skipper said
+that he could not embark us there as it was Montenegrin territory, but
+that if we would go back to Alessio he would wait for us at the mouth of
+the river and take us down that very night. This seemed too good to be
+true and we hurried back, passing an Austrian torpedo which had run up
+on the brown sand--a present from yesterday's raid. We turned the others
+and cantered ahead to get a boat; reached the bridge once more and
+crossed into Albania. Officials ran from all sides to stop us, but we
+ignored them, dismounted, and ran to the side of the river where boats
+were loading, overloading with passengers. The boatmen refused to take
+us if we had no passes from the governor.
+
+We hunted the governor's office up the hillside, panting in our haste.
+We burst in upon him. He was a dirty man in an unclean shirt and unkempt
+trousers.
+
+"We want to go by the motor-boat," we explained.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked, picking his teeth.
+
+"We are the English about whom the governor of Scutari has telegraphed."
+
+"I don't know anything about you," he said. His manner was ungracious.
+
+"But," we said, "they assured us that they had telegraphed from
+Scutari."
+
+The telegraph clerk was brought, and denied that any message had come.
+
+"Anyhow," said the governor, "the motor-boat is for Albanian soldiers
+only, and has gone twenty minutes ago. I can do nothing for you without
+authority from Durazzo."
+
+We wandered dismally back through the town and were immediately
+arrested by the bridge officials because we had not paid the toll rates.
+We paid double to get rid of them.
+
+We found an inn. It was the usual sort of building only of stone, and so
+dirtier than the others. Some travelling show seemed to have left its
+scenery in lieu of its bill, for bits of painted canvas did duty as
+partitions.
+
+There was a room with six beds, but one was reserved for an Albanian
+officer. We took the rest. We loitered about all the afternoon, and in
+the evening the Albanian officer came in. He was a beaky-faced,
+unpleasant-looking man, but he procured us some bread, which we sorely
+lacked. The hotel had little food, so we gave them our rice. By this
+time fleas had got into it, and seeming to like it had bred in
+quantities. Still as we had nothing else it had to be cooked, and we
+picked out the boiled fleas as well as we were able. The Serbian captain
+started drinking with the Albanian, and soon both were well over the
+edge of sobriety.
+
+They came up long after we had turned in, fell over Cutting, who cursed
+them without stint, and tumbled on to the beds which we had left for
+them. The Albanian made some remarks about the ladies, which from the
+tone were insults; but we were unable to chastize him, or we should all
+have been put into prison.
+
+They snored and coughed all night, and spat about in the dark. Those who
+were sleeping near cowered beneath the mackintosh sheets and prayed for
+luck. But in the morning we found that they had been spitting on the
+wall.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+"ONE MORE RIBBER TO CROSS"
+
+
+The Mayor of Alessio had said that there were lots of horses, if we had
+Essad's permission; but the Turkish captain said that there were none,
+only at San Giovanni were they to be found. It was pelting with rain,
+but Blease and we decided to walk over to explore for ourselves. Jan
+first wrote a very stiff letter to the Governor of Scutari about the
+non-arrival of the telegram, and off we went, having borrowed oilskins
+and sou'westers. The Serb captain insisted on coming with us.
+
+In half an hour the storm had made the stony road into a series of deep
+ponds which nearly joined each other, so Jo tucked her now ragged skirt
+into a bright woven Serbian belt and walked along with the water
+streaming from coat to boots. It became rather a pleasure to splash
+through ten-inch deep puddles, knowing that one could not possibly get
+any wetter, and this joy was intensified by the knowledge that the
+Serbian captain was being soaked and didn't like it.
+
+San Giovanni consists of a series of huts, each like Burns' birthplace,
+grouped on the shelving side of a stony cliff. The bay itself is
+semi-circular, with a long cape jutting out to the south, the extremity
+of which almost always is floating in the air, owing to the mirage. In
+the bay were two rusty steamers--one the _Benedetto_, which had been
+promised to us by the Italian governor--several old wooden sailers, and
+a lot of smallish fishing smacks very brightly painted and with raised
+poop and prow. A group of Albanians were toiling at sacks which cumbered
+the little wooden jetty.
+
+We immediately hunted out Captain Fabiano, the Italian commander of the
+wireless telegraph, and found him in a little house at the northern horn
+of the bay. He received us gaily. He spoke an excellent French, so that
+the Serbian captain could not butt in and interfere, as was his habit.
+Fabiano said that it would take a long time to get a wire to Brindisi,
+where we had heard were several ships of the English fleet, very bored
+and craving for something to do; we had hoped to get into communication
+with them. Then Jan had a brain wave.
+
+"Is not the wind good for Durazzo?" asked he.
+
+"Splendid," said Fabiano, "and no submarines to-day."
+
+"Could we not get a fishing boat?"
+
+"I will send and see."
+
+While we were waiting he told us that he was sheltering the crew of the
+ship which had been transporting the English mission's kit. The captain
+of the little transport had set fire to the benzine which his boat was
+carrying, which act so enraged the submarine captain that he fired three
+torpedoes into her, and afterwards mounted his conning tower and fired
+ten full clips from his revolver at the swimming men. Luckily revolver
+shooting requires much practice. The men had clung to an overturned boat
+and had all eventually reached shore, after which they had to march a
+day and a half without boots or food, often fording rivers which came to
+their waists. Fabiano said that he was going to send them home on the
+_Benedetto_.
+
+The captain of the port sent back word that we could have a boat
+immediately--much to Fabiano's surprise. But most of the party were at
+Alessio. We hurried off to see the captain of the port. Explanations,
+certainly when the luggage came; and off went Jan with a guide to get
+pack ponies. Halfway back to Alessio was the stable, but the steeds were
+not ready, so Jan was ushered up into a top room where was a huge fire,
+over which an Albanian was stewing a cormorant with all its feathers on.
+There were other Albanians and a very old Montenegrin soldier. He
+admired everything English, even Jan's tobacco which he had bought in
+Pod.
+
+We got to Alessio and packed everything hurriedly, paid the bill, tipped
+an old soldier two dinars, and off. As we passed over the bridge the
+clerk came running behind us. We had not paid the bridge fees, he said.
+
+"How much?" asked Jan.
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"Two dinars," said he. He had been talking to the soldier.
+
+Meanwhile Jo and Blease had found refuge in the house of the military
+commandant. It was a hovel like all the houses, but they were given a
+huge log fire which was built on the mud floor. Their stockings were
+soon hanging on a line above the blaze, and their shins were scorching,
+while they drank wonderful liqueur which was hospitably poured out by
+the beautiful old host.
+
+Turkish coffee was prepared for them by a soldier in a bursting French
+fireman's uniform.
+
+The captain's fire was the rendezvous of the village. Amiable and
+picturesque people came in and talked about the unhealthiness of the
+place, the relative bravery of nations with a special reference to the
+courage of Montenegrins, and about the submarine raid and of how the
+Austrian captain had repeatedly fired his revolver at the sailors of
+the boat he had sunk while they were swimming in the water. Their eyes
+were streaming, not with emotion, but because in Montenegro one has no
+chimneys.
+
+At dusk the rest of us arrived. The port captain said "To-morrow," so we
+climbed up to the inn, examined the stores, a few tins of tunny,
+mackerel, and milk, and the thirteen made the best of the bar-room floor
+for the night, booted and ready in case a transport for the _Benedetto_
+should arrive.
+
+In the morning the captain said we could have the boat that night, and
+in the evening he said we could have it in the morning. His excuse was
+that the Borra was blowing its hardest, and no sailor could be found to
+venture out; but Fabiano said that this was not true.
+
+The real reason was the sleek Austrian torpedo lying on the beach, for
+the Dulcinos are famed on the Adriatic coast because of their timidity.
+
+Time passed drearily. The only amusement we had was to go and annoy the
+captain of the port by asking when we could have a boat. The wind was
+too cold for constitutionals, and we piled on all our clothes and sat on
+our knapsacks in the bar-room--for there was no fire--and talked
+wistfully of sausages, Yorkshire Relish and underdone beefsteaks.
+
+We had much time for meditation, and pondered over the downfall of
+Serbia. Why had the Serbian Government so resolutely refused to make any
+territorial concessions to Bulgaria, when it was obvious that the entry
+of Bulgaria into the conflict meant the ruin of Serbia? Why had they
+permitted the Austrians to build their big gun emplacements on the
+Danube without interruption? Why had they not withdrawn to the hills and
+then built proper defences with barbed wire entanglements and
+labyrinths? for properly entrenched they might have defied the
+Austro-German forces for months. Some day, perhaps, these questions may
+have to be answered.
+
+One day a party came in. They had passed through Vrntze much later than
+we, and we heard that Dr. Berry and an assistant had been seen hurriedly
+nailing boards on to the slaughter-house roof. They, too, had come by
+the Novi Bazar route. They said that the other routes were deep in snow
+and that the sufferings of the army were terrible. That a great portion
+had been hemmed in at Prizren, and that the Bulgars had shelled the
+passes so that they could not escape. They themselves had escaped the
+advancing Austrians by the skin of their teeth owing to good horses.
+
+[Illustration: UNLOADING THE "BENEDETTO," SAN GIOVANNI DI MEDUA.]
+
+The snow came down, driving along the valleys and whitening all the
+hills; the cold grew more intense, and the desire for English beefsteaks
+became an obsession: one talked of little else--or of Christmas. Food
+was becoming scarce. The tinned mackerel was diminishing; some days we
+had no bread. We walked once as far as Fabiano's wireless. The men were
+living in a shed made of wattle, and the Borra whistled through the
+cracks. There was a stove round which we sat while the men gave us tea;
+but the warmth it induced in one's face only intensified the feeling of
+cold on the back. Outside in the snow was a long-distance telescope, and
+peering through one could see the conning tower of the Austrian
+submarine, a faint hump on the sea by the southernmost point. As we
+returned to the cold hotel we passed the Montenegrin batteries: cannon
+too small to be of any use and the gunners of which were all so ill that
+they could not handle them.
+
+Two Frenchmen had been in San Giovanni for ten days, and their anxiety
+to go was up to fever point. They took it in turns to stand "pour
+observer," wrapped up to their noses, in a doorway, watching the
+_Benedetto_ in case she should give them the slip. We called them
+Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
+
+One night somebody rushed up to their room. Booted, they jumped out of
+bed, and ran about overhead. We thirteen scrambled up and intercepted
+them between the stairs and the door. "Pour observer, steam-funnel,"
+they shouted, and disappeared into the night, followed by their valet
+with two hold-alls. They soon came back, very cold, and announced that
+steam had been seen issuing from the _Benedetto's_ funnel. They had
+rushed to it in an open boat, and had learnt that the _Benedetto_ was
+ordered to be in readiness. She fumed quietly for three days, and then
+was commandeered by the Serbian Government.
+
+One day we saw a French aeroplane, an old friend of ours. Immediately
+every one working in the port tore up hill, men jumped off the big boats
+into little ones and rowed like a cinematograph turned double speed.
+
+The commandant roared reassuringly from his attic window, and an officer
+tried to beat the men back. Seeing us convulsed with laughter, they
+turned sheepishly; but the little boats wagged on, people jumping into
+the water as they neared shore.
+
+"Come and sit round my fire," said the commandant. So we again imbibed
+coffee and discussed courage. It was explained to us that none of the
+men in the boats were Montenegrins, and we politely agreed.
+
+Hearing that a Red Cross party was in the village people came and asked
+for medical aid. We explained that we had no doctors, but they begged
+us to come and see the invalids.
+
+Doctors and chemists were unobtainable, and soldiers were dying every
+day.
+
+We had no hesitation in tackling the Montenegrin soldiers, for at least
+we could do no harm, considering that our whole pharmacopoeia was a
+little boracic, some bismuth capsules, Epsom salts, quinine, iodine, and
+one of the party owned a bottle of some patent unknown stuff, against
+fever and many other ailments.
+
+We were first taken to the barracks in the evening, scrambling up a
+stony hill. The building looked like the disreputable ruins of
+somebody's "Folly." Half the roof was off, and the walls were full of
+holes. We stumbled up some black steps and entered a huge dark barn with
+four log fires down the centre of the room.
+
+Round these were huddled crowds of men. They pulled some rough planks
+out of a hole in the wall to let in the sunset light, and the icy Borra
+rushed in, playing with the smoke and setting the men to coughing. Here
+and there on the ground were long mounds, covered completely with rough
+hand-woven rugs. These were the invalids, who moaned as the rugs were
+pulled off their faces. A great many had malaria; others had, as far as
+we could see, very bad pleurisy; and one old Albanian with rattling
+breath was huddled up in a far corner, too miserable to speak.
+
+Whatmough sent for a dribble of camphorated oil he had stored in his
+knapsack, "to cheer them up," said he, and rubbed everybody who had pain
+and a cough.
+
+"Give them hot drinks," said Jo, in a large way. "Milk or--"
+
+"Milk! There is no milk in Medua," said the sergeant.
+
+"No tinned milk--eggs to be bought?"
+
+"Nothing, no meat; we have not even enough bread, and that is all we
+get."
+
+Very depressed, we sent them the remains of our Bovril and some tins of
+milk from the tiny hotel store, and bought the last three eggs in the
+place.
+
+"Can't you send for more?" we asked.
+
+"The hens are five hours away," said the proprietor, and didn't see why
+he should send for eggs even if we paid heavily for them. He had
+malaria--and nothing mattered.
+
+We saw our patients daily, and the ones who weren't going to die got a
+little better, so this made our reputation. People poured in from the
+hills around, and we were much embarrassed. Our white-lipped waiter
+confided to each member of the party that he had a lump on his knee.
+
+Every one became very busy and put off looking at it. We discussed it.
+
+What could a lump on the knee be which did not make a busy waiter limp?
+And what on earth could we do for him when he wouldn't rest, and we were
+reduced to boracic powder and bismuth capsules? We gave him a tube of
+quinine, though, for his next attack of malaria.
+
+The longer we rested in San Giovanni the more hopeless seemed the chance
+of getting away from it. The Serbian Government was close on our heels,
+and once they caught us up, there would be little left for us. That
+evening we were sitting with the Frenchmen, it was Monday. They, too,
+were depressed, and at last Tweedledum said--
+
+"We shall never reach Paris, we shall be here for ever and ever."
+
+"Oh," said Jan, rashly, "I think we ought to be home in a week."
+
+Dum put on the superior French air, which is aggravating even in a nice
+man.
+
+"Vous croyez?" he said.
+
+"I'll bet on it," said Jan.
+
+"A dinner," answered Dum.
+
+"Good," said Jan.
+
+This lent a new interest to life.
+
+The very next day the Frenchmen told us that the Serb Government had
+arrived at Scutari; the Montenegrin Governor had telegraphed to
+commandeer and keep back the _Benedetto_. We had been forgotten, and the
+French boat was to leave at dawn under escort.
+
+She had been strictly forbidden by her owners to take passengers, but
+the Frenchmen had arranged through their minister to go by that boat if
+she left the first.
+
+Telegraphic communication with the English minister at Cettinje was
+practically impossible; the only thing was to appeal to the captain.
+First we rushed up the hill, and interviewed Captain Fabiano, who had
+already made various efforts to get us off. He promised to try and
+influence the French captain.
+
+Then we flung ourselves into a boat and made for the little steamer.
+People were looking at something with opera glasses, and our boatmen
+took fright and wanted to row straight for land. Jan cursed them so
+much, however, that they began to fear us more than imaginary submarines
+or aeroplanes, and brought us alongside the vessel.
+
+The captain was ashore, taking a walk; the crew very sympathetically
+made contradictory suggestions as to his whereabouts.
+
+At last we caught him. He was nice, but had strict orders, he said, to
+take no one.
+
+"But, monsieur," we said, "if we were swimming in the sea, or cast off
+on a desert island, you would rescue us."
+
+He admitted it.
+
+"Well, what is the difference? Here we cannot get away; the food is
+growing less and less."
+
+He objected that he had no boats, and no life-saving apparatus.
+
+"That is nothing. We must get away from here. We will give you a paper
+saying that it is on our own responsibility. In this country one cannot
+telegraph, the telegrams never arrive. You know the Balkans."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Oui, oui, c'est un pays où le Bon Dieu n'a pas passé, ou au moins il a
+peut-être passé en aeroplane."
+
+At last he agreed to take us if we could get a letter from Fabiano, and
+so take the responsibility from his shoulders. This we got. Fabiano said
+"Au revoir, bon voyage" for the fifth time, and at dawn we got a call,
+and quitted the bar-room floor for ever. Fabiano wished us "bon voyage"
+for the sixth time in the chilly dawn, and we embarked.
+
+The mate, a little round man, greeted us, and in the moments when they
+were not rushing about with ropes and chains the cook explained the
+Austrian submarine attack.
+
+"You see, monsieur et dame," said he, "they came in over there. The
+_Benedetto_ was lying outside of that sandbank, and that is the torpedo
+which is lying on the beach. The one aimed at us came straight, one
+could see the whorls of the water coming straight at us, but it just
+tipped the sandbank and dived underneath our keel. It stuck in the mud
+then, and the water boiled over it for a long while."
+
+The mate cut one of the anchors because they were afraid of fouling the
+sunken torpedo, and we steamed slowly out from the shelter of the
+sandbank.
+
+No escort was visible, and soon the sailors began to look anxious. They
+scanned the horizon anxiously. At last one cried, "There she is." Far
+away against the western dawn could be seen a thin needle mark of smoke.
+In half an hour we were quite close, an Italian destroyer was convoying
+a small steamer. The destroyer swung round under our stern, while the
+steamer, its funnels set back, raced for San Giovanni looking like a
+frightened puppy tearing towards home. The grey warship surged past us,
+and out towards the horizon once more, our captain shouting to them that
+he could get to Brindisi by midnight. Far away on the sky-line could be
+seen the three funnels of a cruiser.
+
+We breakfasted on tinned mackerel, an unlucky dish. The _Harmonie_,
+empty of cargo, was like an eggshell in the water. She bounced and
+rolled and bounded from wave to wave, half of the time her screw out of
+the water. The breakfast did not nourish many. Far on the horizon could
+be seen the destroyer and the cruiser sweeping in gigantic circles.
+
+Half a kilometre away a periscope suddenly appeared, then the submarine
+dived, rose once more, showing the rounded conning tower, dived, rose
+again, like a porpoise at play.
+
+"See," cried the sailors, "how well are we guarded. Outermost the
+cruiser, then the destroyer, and innermost the submarine." The cruiser
+and destroyer took big sweeps once more and steamed off behind us
+towards Cattaro.
+
+Our boat rolled its way from dawn to dusk. We sought refuge in the coal
+hole, some lay down in the little officers' cabin. After dark the sea
+grew more rough, and splashing over the deck drove even the most ill to
+find shelter. Whatmough staggered to the companion, tripped over
+something, and fell the length of the stair accompanied by a hard object
+which hit him and made hissing sounds like a bicycle pump. He was too
+seasick to investigate, but next morning found the ship's tortoise lying
+on its back and feebly waving its feet and head.
+
+Then the engines slowly ceased, and there was silence. What had
+happened? The steamer gave four timid hoots. The people in the cabin lay
+in the darkness wondering if they had broken down, for it was not nearly
+midnight. At last the mate came in.
+
+"Why, you're all in the dark," he said.
+
+Some one asked, "When shall we get to Brindisi?"
+
+"We're there," said the mate.
+
+The steamer rocked on the sea, waiting for an escort through the mine
+field, lights were sparkling in the distance, and now and then
+flashlights cut the dark blue of the sky. Great black ships surged by in
+the gloom, ships with insistent queries as to who we were and whence we
+came.
+
+At last an escort came: we were berthed and lay about waiting for the
+dawn.
+
+Long after day came the doctor, who passed us, and we stepped ashore
+saying--
+
+"Thank God we are back in Europe once again."
+
+Two days later San Giovanni was bombarded by an Austrian cruiser, and
+all the shipping was sunk, _Benedetto_ and all.
+
+We were heartily welcomed in Brindisi by the English colony, and at the
+consul's office learned that the submarine was an Austrian, and that the
+cruiser had made the sweep to chase it away. Jo, Miss Brindley, and Jan
+went to Rome, where they ere feasted by more English, while at
+Milan--where the rest of the party spent the night--a whole theatre
+stood and cheered them when they came in.
+
+Jan won his bet by four minutes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: Route Map of the Authors' Wanderings]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Albania, 109, 154, 185
+
+Alessio, 351, 355-359, 362
+
+Andrievitza, 126, 128, 133, 326
+
+
+Belgrade, 228, 229
+
+Berane, 114, 291, 294, 295, 326
+
+Brindisi, 360, 374
+
+
+Cattaro, 94, 156
+
+Cettinje, 48, 64, 78, 85, 91, 92, 96, 121, 123, 139, 205, 297, 336, 337
+
+Chabatz, 229
+
+Chainitza, 42, 49, 52, 53, 66
+
+
+Danilograd, 87
+
+Dechani, 147, 152, 157, 158, 190
+
+Dormitor Mountains, 64, 74, 75
+
+Dreina, 57
+
+Durazzo, 350, 356, 360
+
+
+Ebar River, 250, 267, 268
+
+
+Gorazhda, 57, 59
+
+Gotch, 236
+
+Gussigne, 122
+
+
+Ipek, 114, 122, 124, 132, 134, 143, 144, 145, 154, 175, 294, 330
+
+
+Jabliak, 64, 70, 74
+
+Jabooka, 129, 131, 330, 331
+
+Jakovitza, 114
+
+
+Kolashin, 132
+
+Kossovo, 176, 178
+
+Krag, Kragujevatz, 198, 209, 212, 213, 223, 224, 238, 243, 252, 262,
+                   280, 330
+
+Kralievo, 213, 241, 242, 262, 282
+
+Krusevatz, 7, 24, 25, 194, 196, 237, 241
+
+
+Lapovo, 259
+
+Liéva Riéka, 134, 327, 334
+
+Lim River, 36
+
+
+Macedonia, 154, 184, 185
+
+Metalka, 51
+
+Mitrovitza, 155, 175, 176, 255, 261, 262, 275, 280, 288, 291, 292, 298
+
+Morava, 1
+
+
+Negbina, 35
+
+Nickshitch, 66, 80, 83
+
+Nish, 10-14, 20, 21, 40, 190, 235, 236, 275, 279
+
+Novi Bazar, 68, 230, 239, 262, 275, 280, 284, 288, 292, 294
+
+Novi Varosh, 33, 35, 36
+
+
+Obrenovatz, 228
+
+
+Plavnitza, 107, 116, 341
+
+Plevlie, 38, 41, 43, 62, 72, 77, 80, 114, 165, 171, 294
+
+Plav, 122
+
+Pod, Podgoritza, 64, 85, 88, 89, 90, 101, 124, 125, 127, 189, 326, 328,
+                 335, 339
+
+Posheravatz, 229
+
+Prepolji, 36, 37, 54
+
+Prizren, 349
+
+
+Rashka, 257, 259, 265, 275, 279, 300, 308
+
+Rieka, 99, 124
+
+Rudnik, 172, 223
+
+
+Salonika, 15-17, 20, 44, 46, 190, 193
+
+San Giovanni di Medua, 346, 351, 355, 360
+
+Sanjak, 87, 96, 114, 154, 294
+
+Soutari, 76, 84, 92, 94, 97, 101, 105, 107, 108, 110, 112, 113, 114,
+         122, 147, 217, 275, 326, 344
+
+Shavnik, 76, 84
+
+Shar Dagh, 180
+
+Sofia, 64
+
+Studenitza, 249, 278
+
+
+Tara, 68
+
+Tarabosch, 103
+
+Trsternick, 25
+
+Tutigne, 295, 299, 303, 304
+
+
+Uskub, 14, 18, 180, 182, 183, 184, 186, 225, 238, 275, 288, 291
+
+Uzhitze, 1, 3, 27, 28, 38, 40, 48, 277
+
+
+Valievo, 295
+
+Vela, 236
+
+Velika, 137
+
+Virbazar, 117
+
+Voinik Mountains, 75
+
+Vranje, 235, 236
+
+Vrbitza, 319
+
+Vrnjatchka Banja, Vrntze, 2, 18, 26, 27, 190, 194, 196, 198, 227,
+                          245, 261
+
+
+Zaichar, 13, 236
+
+Zlatibor, 31, 33
+
+
+THE END
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Luck of Thirteen, by Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Luck of Thirteen, by Cora J. Gordon and Jan Gordon.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Luck of Thirteen, by Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Luck of Thirteen
+       Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia
+
+Author: Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
+
+Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17291]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of
+public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image01" name="image01">
+   <img src="images/01.jpg"
+      alt="Jo at the Machine Gun."
+      title="Jo at the Machine Gun." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Jo at the Machine Gun.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h1>THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN</h1>
+
+<h2>WANDERINGS AND FLIGHT THROUGH MONTENEGRO AND SERBIA</h2>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>MR. AND MRS. JAN GORDON</h2>
+
+
+<h4>
+WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND A MAP<br />
+TAIL PIECES BY CORA J. GORDON<br />
+COLOUR PLATES BY JAN GORDON<br />
+</h4>
+
+
+<h5>
+NEW YORK<br />
+E.P. DUTTON AND COMPANY<br />
+681 FIFTH AVENUE<br />
+1916<br />
+</h5>
+
+
+<p class="center">
+PRINTED BY<br />
+WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED<br />
+LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagev" name="pagev"></a>Pg v</span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>CHAPTER</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'>PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Contents</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#pagev'>v</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">List of Illustrations</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#pagevii'>vii</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page1'>1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>II.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Nish and Salonika</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page10'>10</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>III.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Off to Montenegro</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page20'>20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>IV.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Across the Frontier</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page31'>31</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>V.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Montenegrin Front on the Drina</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page47'>47</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>VI.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Northern Montenegro</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page66'>66</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>VII.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">To Cettinje</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page85'>85</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>VIII.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Lake of Scutari</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page99'>99</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>IX.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Scutari</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page105'>105</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>X.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Highway of Montenegro</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page122'>122</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XI.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ipek, Dechani and a Harem</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page145'>145</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XII.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Highway of Montenegro&mdash;II</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page169'>169</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XIII.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Uskub</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page182'>182</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XIV.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mainly Retrospective</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page198'>198</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XV.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Some Pages from Mr. Gordon's Diary</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page213'>213</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XVI.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Last Days at Vrntze</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page227'>227</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XVII.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Kralievo</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page244'>244</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XVIII.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Flight of Serbia</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page263'>263</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XIX.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Novi Bazar</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page284'>284</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XX.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Unknown Road</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page299'>299</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagevi" name="pagevi"></a>Pg vi</span>XXI.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Flea-Pit</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page315'>315</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XXII.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Andrievitza to Pod</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page328'>328</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XXIII.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Into Albania</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page341'>341</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>XXIV.</td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">"One more Ribber to cross"</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page359'>359</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Index</span></td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#page377'>377</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagevii" name="pagevii"></a>Pg vii</span></p>
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'><b>COLOURED PLATES</b></td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='right'>FACING PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image01">Jo at the Machine Gun</a></td>
+  <td align='right'><i>Frontispiece</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image15">The Ipek Pass in Winter</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>140</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image27">Retreating Ammunition Train</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>276</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image28">Albanian Mule-drivers Camping</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>354</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'><b>HALF-TONE PLATES</b></td>
+  <td align='left'></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image02">Out-patients</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image03">Shoeing Bullocks</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image04">Peasant Women in Gala Costume, Nish</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>20</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image05">Serb Convalescents at Uzhitze</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>28</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image06">Serb and Montenegrin Officers on the Drina</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>58</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image07">A Concealed Gun Emplacement on the Drina</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>58</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image08">Peasant Women of the Mountains</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>76</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image09">A Village of North Montenegro</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>76</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image10">Jo and Mr. Suma in the Scutari Bazaar</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>110</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image11">Christian Women hiding from the Photographer</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>112</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image12">Scutari&mdash;Bazaar and Old Venetian Fortress</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>112</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image13">Disembarkation of a Turkish Bride</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>114</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image14">Governor Petrovitch and his Daughter in their State Barge</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>114</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image16">In the Bazaar of Ipek</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>162</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image17">Street Coffee Seller in Ipek</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>162</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><span class="pagenum"><a id="pageviii" name="pageviii"></a>Pg viii</span><a href="#image18">A Wine Market in Uskub</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>184</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image19">Big Gun passing through Krusevatz</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>194</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image20">In-patients</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>202</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image21">Broken Aeroplane in the Arsenal at Krag</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>220</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image22">Where the "Plane" fell</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>220</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image23">House near the Arsenal damaged by Bombs</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>220</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image24">Peasant Women leaving their Village</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>260</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image25">Serb Family by the Roadside</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>260</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image26">The Flight of Serbia</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>266</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image29">Unloading the <i>Benedetto</i>, San Giovanni di Medua</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>364</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'><a href="#image30">Route Map of the Authors' Wanderings</a></td>
+  <td align='right'><i>At end of text</i></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page1" name="page1"></a>Pg 1</span></p>
+<h2>THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is curious to follow anything right back to its inception, and to
+discover from what extraordinary causes results are due. It is strange,
+for instance, to find that the luck of the thirteen began right back at
+the time when Jan, motoring back from Uzhitze down the valley of the
+Morava, coming fastish round a corner, plumped right up to the axle in a
+slough of clinging wet sandy mud. The car almost shrugged its shoulders
+as it settled down, and would have said, if cars could speak, "Well,
+what are you going to do about that, eh?" It was about the 264th mud
+hole in which Jan's motor had stuck, and we sat down to wait for the
+inevitable bullocks. But it was a Sunday and bullocks were few; the wait
+became tedious, and in the intervals of thought which alternated with
+the intervals of exasperation, Jan realized that he needed a holiday.</p>
+
+<p>To be explicit. Jan was acting as engineer to Dr. Berry's Serbian
+Mission from the Royal Free<span class="pagenum"><a id="page2" name="page2"></a>Pg 2</span> Hospital:&mdash;Jan Gordon, and Jo is his wife,
+Cora Josephine Gordon, artist, and V.A.D.</p>
+
+<p>We had a six months of work behind us. We had seen the typhus, and had
+dodged the dreaded louse who carries the infection, we had seen the
+typhus dwindle and die with the onrush of summer. We had helped to clean
+and prepare six hospitals at Vrntze or Vrnjatchka Banja&mdash;whichever you
+prefer. We had helped Mr. Berry, the great surgeon, to ventilate his
+hospitals by smashing the windows&mdash;one had been a child again for a
+moment. Jo had learned Serbian and was assisting Dr. Helen Boyle, the
+Brighton mind specialist, to run a large and flourishing out-patient
+department to which tuberculosis and diphtheria&mdash;two scourges of
+Serbia&mdash;came in their shoals. We had endeavoured to ward off typhoid by
+initiating a sort of sanitary vigilance committee, having first sacked
+the chief of police: we had laid drains, which the chief Serbian
+engineer said he would pull up as soon as we had gone away. We had
+helped in the plans of a very necessary slaughter-house, which Mr. Berry
+was going to present to the town. There was an excuse for Jan's desire.
+The English papers had been howling about the typhus months after the
+disease had been chased out by English, French, and American doctors,
+who had disinfected the country till it reeked of formalin<span class="pagenum"><a id="page3" name="page3"></a>Pg 3</span> and sulphur;
+shoals of devoted Englishwomen were still pouring over, generously ready
+to risk their lives in a danger which no longer existed. Our own unit,
+which had dwindled to a comfortable&mdash;almost a family&mdash;number, with Mr.
+Berry as father, had been suddenly enlarged by an addition of ten. These
+ten complicated things, they all naturally wanted work, and we had
+cornered all the jobs.</p>
+
+<p>So, after the fatigues of February, March, and April, and the heat of
+June, Jan quite decided on that Uzhitze mud patch that a holiday would
+do little harm to himself, and good to everybody else. Then, however,
+came the problem of Jo. Jo is a socialistic sort of a person with
+conservative instincts. She has the feminine ability to get her wheels
+on a rail and run comfortably along till Jan appears like a big railway
+accident and throws the scenery about; but once the resolution
+accomplished she pursues the idea with a determination and ferocity
+which leaves Jan far in the background.</p>
+
+<p>Jo had her out-patient department. Every morning, wet or fine, crowds of
+picturesque peasants would gather about the little side door of our
+hospital, women in blazing coloured hand-woven skirts, like Joseph's
+coat, children in unimaginable rags, but with the inevitable belt
+tightly bound about their little stomachs, men covered with tuberculous
+sores and so forth, on some days<span class="pagenum"><a id="page4" name="page4"></a>Pg 4</span> as many as a hundred. Jo, having
+finished breakfast, had then to assume a commanding air, and to stamp
+down the steps into the crowd, sort out the probable diphtheria
+cases&mdash;this by long practice,&mdash;forbid anybody to approach them under
+pain of instant disease, get the others into a vague theatre queue,
+which they never kept, and then run back into the office to assist the
+doctor and to translate. All this, repeated daily, was highly
+interesting of course, and so when Jan suggested the tour she "didn't
+want to do it."</p>
+
+<p>But authority was on Jan's side. Jo had had a mild accident: a
+diphtheria patient fled to avoid being doctored, they often did, and Jo
+had chased after her; she tripped, fell, drove her teeth through her
+lower lip, and for a moment was stunned. When they caught the patient
+they found that it was the wrong person&mdash;but that is beside the subject.
+Dr. Boyle thought that Jo had had a mild concussion and threw her weight
+at Jan's side. Dr. Berry was quite agreeable, and gave us a commission
+to go to Salonika to start with and find a disinfector which had gone
+astray. Another interpreter was found, so Jo took leave of her
+out-patients.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In Serbia it was necessary to get permission to move. Jan went to the
+major for the papers. There were crowds of people on the major's
+steps,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page5" name="page5"></a>Pg 5</span> and Jan learned that all the peasants and loafers had been
+called in to certify, so that nobody should avoid their military
+service. Later we parted, taking two knapsacks. Dr. Boyle and Miss
+Dickenson were very generous, giving us large supplies of chocolate,
+Brand's essence, and corned beef for our travels, and we had two boxes
+of "compressed luncheons," black horrible-looking gluey tabloids which
+claim to be soup, fish, meat, vegetables and pudding in one swallow.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image02" name="image02">
+   <img src="images/02.jpg"
+      alt="OUT-PATIENTS."
+      title="OUT-PATIENTS." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">OUT-PATIENTS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image03" name="image03">
+   <img src="images/03.jpg"
+      alt="SHOEING BULLOCKS."
+      title="SHOEING BULLOCKS." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">SHOEING BULLOCKS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Austrian prisoners bade us a sad farewell, but many friends
+accompanied us to the station, and the rotund major and his rounder wife
+did us the like honour. Our major was a queer mixture: he was jolly
+because he was fat, and he was stern because he had a beaky nose, and in
+any interview one had first to ascertain whether the stomach or the nose
+held the upper hand, so to speak. With the wife one was always sure&mdash;she
+had a snub nose. On this occasion the major furiously boxed the Austrian
+prisoner coachman's ears, telling us that he was the best he had ever
+had. The unfortunate driver was a picture of rueful pleasure. The two
+plump dears stood waving four plump hands till we had rumbled round the
+corner of the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>In the train to Nish it was intensely hot. We had sixteen or seventeen
+fellow-passengers in our<span class="pagenum"><a id="page6" name="page6"></a>Pg 6</span> third-class wooden-seated carriage&mdash;all the
+firsts had been removed, because they could not be disinfected&mdash;and the
+windows, with the exception of two, had been screwed tightly down. Every
+time we stood up to look at the landscape somebody slipped into our
+seat, and we were continually sitting down into unexpected laps.
+Expostulations, apologies, and so on. Somebody had gnawed a piece from
+one of the wheels, and we lurched through the scenery with a banging
+metallic clangour which made conversation difficult, in spite of which
+Jo astonished the natives by her colloquial and fluent Serbian. We had
+an enormous director of a sanitary department and a plump wife,
+evidently risen, but fat people rise in Serbia automatically like
+balloons. We had three meagre old gentlemen, one unshaven for a week,
+one whiskered since twenty years with Piccadilly weepers like a stage
+butler; some ultra fashionable girls and men; and a dear old dumb woman
+wearing three belts, who had been a former outpatient; and several
+sticky families of children.</p>
+
+<p>The old gentlemen took a huge interest in Jo. They drew her out in
+Serbian, and at every sentence turned each to the other and elevated
+their hands, ejaculating "kako!" (how!) in varying terms of admiration
+and flattery.</p>
+
+<p>The American has not yet ousted the Turk<span class="pagenum"><a id="page7" name="page7"></a>Pg 7</span> from Serbia, and the bite from
+our wheel banged off the revolutions of our sedate passing. Trsternik's
+church&mdash;modern but good taste&mdash;gleamed like a jewel in the sun against
+the dark hills. On either hand were maize fields with stalks as tall as
+a man, their feathery tops veiling the intense green of the herbage with
+a film, russet like cobwebs spun in the setting sun. There were plum
+orchards&mdash;for the manufacture of plum brandy&mdash;so thick with fruit that
+there was more purple than green in the branches, and between the trunks
+showed square white ruddy-roofed hovels with great squat tile-decked
+chimneys. Some of the houses were painted with decorations of bright
+colours, vases of flowers or soldiers, and on one was a detachment of
+crudely drawn horsemen, dark on the white walls, meant to represent the
+heroes of old Serbian poetry.</p>
+
+<p>To Krusevatz the valley broadened, and the sinking sun tinted the
+widening maize-tops till the fields were great squares of gold. We had
+no lights in the train, and presently dusk closed down, seeming to shut
+each up within his or her own mind. The hills grew very dark and
+distant, and on the faint rising mist the trees seemed to stand about
+with their hands in their pockets like vegetable Charlie Chaplins.</p>
+
+<p>A junction, and a rush for tables at the little out-of-door restaurant.
+In the country from which<span class="pagenum"><a id="page8" name="page8"></a>Pg 8</span> we have just come all seemed peace, but here
+in truth was war. Passing shadowy in the faint lights were soldiers;
+soldiers crouched in heaps in the dark corners of the station; yet more
+soldiers and soldiers again huddled in great square box trucks or open
+waggons waiting patiently for the train which was four or five hours
+late. There were women with them, wives or sisters or daughters, with
+great heavy knapsacks and stolid unexpressive faces.</p>
+
+<p>While we were dreaming of this romance of war, and of the coming romance
+of our own tour, a little man dumped himself at our table, explained
+that he had a pain in his kidneys, and started an interminable story
+about his wife and a dog. He was Jan's devoted admirer, and declared
+that Jan had performed a successful operation upon him, though Jan is no
+surgeon, and had never set eyes upon the man before.</p>
+
+<p>Georgevitch rescued us. Georgevitch was fat, tall, young and genial, and
+was military storekeeper at Vrntze. He was an ideal storekeeper and
+looked the part, but he had been a comitaj. He had roamed the country
+with belts full of bombs and holsters full of pistols, he and 189
+others, with two loaves of bread per man and then "Ever Forwards." Of
+the 189 others only 22 were left, and one was a patient at our hospital
+where<span class="pagenum"><a id="page9" name="page9"></a>Pg 9</span> we called him the "Velika Dete" or "big child," because of his
+sensibility. With Georgevitch was a dark woman with keen sparkling eyes.
+Alone, this woman had run the typhus barracks in Vrntze until the
+arrival of the English missions. She was a Montenegrin; no Serbian woman
+could be found courageous enough to undertake the task. After struggling
+all the winter, she was taken ill about a fortnight after the arrival of
+the English. The Red Cross Mission took care of her and she recovered.</p>
+
+<p>We left our bore still talking about his wife and the dog, and fled to
+their table, where we chatted till our train arrived. We found a
+coup&eacute;&mdash;a carriage with only one long seat&mdash;the exigencies of which
+compelled Jan to be all night with Jo's boots on his face, and we so
+slept as well as we were able.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/04.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page10" name="page10"></a>Pg 10</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>NISH AND SALONIKA</h3>
+
+
+<p>To our dismay a rare thing happened&mdash;our train was punctual, and we
+arrived in Nish at four o'clock. It was cold and misty. The station was
+desolate and the town asleep. Around us in the courtyard ragged soldiers
+were lying with their heads pillowed on brightly striped bags. A nice
+old woman who had asked Jo how old she was, what relation Jan was to
+her, whether they had children, and where she had learnt Serbian,
+suddenly lost all her interest in us and hurried off with voluble
+friends whose enormous plaits around their flat red caps betokened the
+respectable middle-class women.</p>
+
+<p>Piccadilly weepers vanished and a depressed little quartet was left on
+the platform&mdash;our two selves, a lean schoolmaster, and an egg-shaped man
+who never spoke a word. We found a clerk sitting in an office. He said
+we could not leave our bags in his room, but as we made him own that we
+could not put them anywhere else he looked the other way while we
+dropped them in the corner.</p>
+
+<p>In the faint mist of the early morning the great<span class="pagenum"><a id="page11" name="page11"></a>Pg 11</span> overgrown village of
+one-storied houses seemed like a real town buried up to its attics in
+fog. We found a caf&eacute; which was shut, and sat waiting on green chairs
+outside. Around us old men were talking of the news in the papers. They
+said that Bulgaria was making territorial demands, and as the Balkan
+governments covet land above all things they felt pessimistic as to
+whether Serbia would concede anything, and said, shaking their heads,
+"It will be another Belgium."</p>
+
+<p>We celebrated the opening of the caf&eacute; by ordering five Turkish coffees
+each, and the schoolmaster and we alternately stood treat. Jo loaded up
+with aspirin to deaden a toothache which was worrying her.</p>
+
+<p>We spent a cynical morning in interviews with people who were supposed
+to know about missing luggage. Both they and we were aware that the
+first hospital which got a wandering packing-case froze on to it, and if
+inconvenient people came to hunt for their property the dismayed and
+guilty ones hurriedly painted the case, saying to each other, "After all
+it's in a good cause, and it's better than if it were stolen."</p>
+
+<p>Then we went to see the powers who can say "no" to those who want to do
+pleasant things, and were handed an amendment to a plea for a tour round
+Serbia, including the front, which we had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page12" name="page12"></a>Pg 12</span> sent to them and which had
+been pigeon-holed for a month.</p>
+
+<p>"But we don't want to see a lot of monasteries," said Jan, as he gazed
+at a little circle drawn round the over-visited part of Serbia. The
+powers were adamant and seemed to think they had done very well for us.
+We went away sadly, for monasteries had not been the idea at all.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later we were pursuing an entirely different object. We had
+discovered that Sir Ralph Paget was housing about &pound;1000 worth of stores
+destined for Dr. Clemow's hospital&mdash;which was in Montenegro&mdash;and which
+needed an escort. He was somewhat puzzled at our altruistic anxiety to
+take them off his hands, but was much relieved at the thought that he
+could get rid of them.</p>
+
+<p>We hurried to the station, rescued our knapsacks under the nose of a new
+official who looked very much surprised, and boarded the English rest
+house near by. English people were sitting in deck chairs outside the
+papier-mach&eacute; house which stood surrounded by a couple of tents and a
+wooden kitchen in a field. Austrian prisoners were preparing lunch, and
+we were introduced to Seemitch the dog.</p>
+
+<p>Though young, Seemitch was fat and exhibited signs of a much-varied
+ancestry. The original Seemitch, an important Serb with long gold
+teeth,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page13" name="page13"></a>Pg 13</span> was very indignant that a dog, and such a dog, should be called
+after him, so Sir Ralph arranged that of the two other puppies one
+should be called after him and the other after Mr. Hardinge his
+secretary. Thus the man Seemitch's dignity was restored.</p>
+
+<p>At the station, to our great joy, we met two American doctors from
+Zaichar. One we had mourned for dead and were astonished to see him,
+shadow-like, stiff-kneed, and sitting uncomfortably on a chair in the
+middle of the platform. Months before he had pricked himself with a
+needle while operating on a gangrenous case, and had since lain
+unconscious with blood-poisoning.</p>
+
+<p>While we were cheering over his recovery, a little Frenchman slipped
+into our reserved compartment, which was only a coup&eacute;, and had seized
+the window seat. Jan found him lubricating his mouth, already full of
+dinner, with wine from a bottle. As he showed no signs of seeing reason
+from the male, Jo tried feminine indignation. "That seat is mine," she
+snapped to his back-tilted head.</p>
+
+<p>"Good. I exact nothing," he said, wiping his moustache upwards. She
+suggested that if any exacting was to be done she possessed the
+exclusive rights.</p>
+
+<p>"Quel pays," he answered. Jo thought he was casting aspersions on
+England and on her as the nearest representative, and the air became<span class="pagenum"><a id="page14" name="page14"></a>Pg 14</span>
+distinctly peppery. The Frenchman hurriedly explained that he was
+alluding to Serbia, so they buried the hatchet and became acquaintances.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Uskub, or Skoplje, and one hour to wait. All about the great plains the
+mountains were just growing ruddy with the dawn, and we gulped boiling
+coffee at the station restaurant.</p>
+
+<p>One of the American doctors seemed restless. Some one had told him it
+was advisable to keep an eye on the luggage. They began to shunt the
+train, and soon he was stumbling about the sidings in a resolute attempt
+not to lose sight of the luggage van. We sympathetically wished him good
+luck and walked past into the Turkish quarter, adopted by two dogs which
+followed us all the way. We had a hurried glimpse of queer-shaped,
+many-coloured houses, trousered women, and a general Turkishness.</p>
+
+<p>We returned to find our American friend furious, full of the superior
+methods of luggage registration in the States.</p>
+
+<p>We had beer with him at the frontier, delicious cool stuff with a
+mollifying influence. He told us he held the record for one month's
+hernia operations in Serbia. We were later to meet his rival, a Canadian
+doctor, in Montenegro.</p>
+
+<p>Locked in the train, we awaited the medical<span class="pagenum"><a id="page15" name="page15"></a>Pg 15</span> examination, and sat
+feeling self-consciously healthy. At last the Greek doctor opened the
+door, glanced at a knapsack, and vanished. We were certified healthy.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful dark blue night when we arrived at Salonika. Crowds
+of people were dining at little tables which filled the streets off the
+quay, in spite of the awful smells which came up from the harbour.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to sleep late in Salonika. Soon after dawn children
+possess the town&mdash;bootblacks, paper-sellers, perambulating drapers'
+shops; all children crying their wares noisily. The only commodity that
+the children don't peddle is undertaken by mules laden with glass
+fronted cases hanging on each side and which are filled with meat.</p>
+
+<p>We breakfasted in the street, revelling in the early morning and shooing
+away the children, who never gave us a moment's grace. In self-defence
+we had our boots blacked, for the ambulating bootblack molests no longer
+the owner of a well-polished pair of boots. It is queer to walk about in
+a town where one-third of the population is only pecuniarily interested
+in the momentary appearance of feet and never look at a face, like the
+man with the muckrake with eyes glued on life as it is led two inches
+from the ground.</p>
+
+<p>When we had finished searching for disinfectors<span class="pagenum"><a id="page16" name="page16"></a>Pg 16</span> and dentists we
+wandered up the hill through the romantic streets. Jan sketched busily,
+but toothache had rather sapped Jo's industry, and she generally found
+some large stone to sit on, whence to contemplate.</p>
+
+<p>An old woman's face, peering round the doorway, discovered her sitting
+on the doorstep, a Greek dustman gazing stupidly at her.</p>
+
+<p>In two minutes they were talking hard. The old woman was a Bulgarian,
+but they were able to understand each other. What Jo told the old woman
+was translated to the dustman, and when Jan came up they were introduced
+each to the other, the dustman with his broom bowing to the ground like
+some old-time court usher.</p>
+
+<p>Once a Greek woman offered a chair to Jo. She was much embarrassed, as
+the only Greek words she had picked up were "How much?" and "Yet
+another;" and as both seemed unsuitable she tried to put her gratitude
+into the width of her smile.</p>
+
+<p>We scrambled on ever afterwards through streets which were more like
+cliff climbs than roads. The sun grew red till all Salonika lay at our
+feet a maze of magenta shadow. We sat down in an old Turkish cemetery,
+where we could watch the old wall sliding down to plains of gold, where,
+falling into ruins, it lent its degraded stones for the construction of
+Turkish hovels.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page17" name="page17"></a>Pg 17</span></p>
+
+<p>A kitten with paralysed hind legs crawled up to us and accepted a little
+rubbing. When dusk came we moved on, marvelling at the inexhaustible
+picturesqueness of Salonika.</p>
+
+<p>As we clambered down the breakneck paths, the priests were illuminating
+the minarets with hundreds of twinkling lights.</p>
+
+<p>The next day was the Feast. Mahommedans were everywhere. By the women's
+trousers, which twinkled beneath the shrouding veils, one could see that
+they were gorgeously dressed. Befezzed men were lounging and smoking in
+all the caf&eacute;'s.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening once more we wandered up through the old Turkish quarter.
+We heard a curious noise like a hymn played by bagpipes, rhythmically
+accompanied in syncopation by a very flabby drum. Round the corner came
+four jolly niggers blowing pipes, and the drummer behind them. Very slim
+young men with bright sashes and light trousers were twisting,
+posturing, and dancing joyfully. One of them threw to Jo the most
+graceful kiss she had ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>We left Salonika in the morning, having been wakened by new sounds.
+Thousands of marching feet, songs. This was puzzling.</p>
+
+<p>In the train a young Greek told us that his nation had mobilized against
+the Bulgars, but that it was not very serious. He said that there had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page18" name="page18"></a>Pg 18</span>
+been very friendly feeling in Greece for England, but that we had done
+our best to kill it.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, monsieur," he explained, "your offer to give away our land. It
+is not yours to give. You say that does not matter, but that colonies,
+great colonies in Africa will replace the small part of land that we may
+surrender. Kavalla is more valuable to Grecian hearts than all Africa,
+for how could we desert our Grecian brothers and place them beneath the
+rule of the Turk or Bulgar?"</p>
+
+<p>On the train were more American doctors. One had just arrived, and was
+still full of enthusiasm for scenery and sanitation. Also there was
+Princess &mdash;&mdash; surrounded by packing cases. Some months earlier she had
+visited our hospitals in Vrntze and she had asked if one of our V.A.D.'s
+could be sent to her as housemaid. Seeing her in the station, Jo
+involuntarily ran over in her mind, was she "sober, honest and
+obliging?"</p>
+
+<p>The American doctors and we picnicked together. We ate bully beef and a
+huge water melon. The heat was awful. The velvet seats seemed to invade
+one's body and come through at the other side. One of the doctors sat on
+the step of the train, and Jo found him nodding and smiling as he
+dreamt. She rescued him before he fell off.</p>
+
+<p>After twelve hours they left us. Uskub once more and an hour to wait. We
+sat behind trees<span class="pagenum"><a id="page19" name="page19"></a>Pg 19</span> in boxes on the platform and ate omelet with a nice
+old Jew and his ten-year-old daughter, who already spoke five languages.</p>
+
+<p>Then to sleep. We found our half coup&eacute; contained a second seat which
+could be pulled down, so we each had a bed. At four in the morning we
+were awakened by the most awful imitation of a German band.</p>
+
+<p>What had happened? We looked out. It was barely dawn, and a wretched
+little orchestra was grouped at the edge of the tiny station. Every
+instrument was cracked and was tuned one-sixteenth tone different from
+its companions. What it lacked in musical ability it made up in energy.</p>
+
+<p>Why, oh, <i>why</i> at that hour, we never found out. Perhaps it was in
+honour of the Princess, poor lady!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/05.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page20" name="page20"></a>Pg 20</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>OFF TO MONTENEGRO</h3>
+
+
+<p>Back to Nish in the rain, and Jo was wearing a cotton frock. There may
+be more dismal towns than this Nish, but I have yet to see them, and
+this, although the great squares were packed with gaily coloured
+peasants&mdash;some feast, we imagined&mdash;carts full of melons, melons on the
+ground, melons framing the faces of the greedy&mdash;cerise green-rind moons
+projecting from either cheek. The Montenegrin consul was not at home, so
+off we went to the Foreign Office to give a letter to Mr. Grouitch, who
+sent us to the Sanitary Department of the War Office (henceforth known
+as S.D.W.O.). S.D.W.O. wouldn't move without a letter from "Sir Paget."
+We got the letter from "Sir Paget" and back to the S.D.W.O., to find it
+shut in our faces, and to learn that it did not reopen till four.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the matter of Jo's tooth. This abscess had been nagging all
+the time, it had vigorously tried to get between Jo and the scenery. We
+had sought dentists in Salonika, rejecting one because his hall was too
+dirty, a second because she (yes, a she) was practising on her father's
+certificates, the third, a little Spaniard, had red-hot<span class="pagenum"><a id="page21" name="page21"></a>Pg 21</span> pokered the
+gums thereof and only annoyed it. But we had heard there was a Russian
+dentist in Nish, a very good one. The Russian dentist turned out to be a
+girl, and tiny&mdash;she spoke no Serb, but Jo managed, by means of the
+second cousinship of the language, to make out what she said in Russian.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image04" name="image04">
+   <img src="images/06.jpg"
+      alt="PEASANT WOMEN IN GALA COSTUME&mdash;NISH."
+      title="PEASANT WOMEN IN GALA COSTUME&mdash;NISH." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">PEASANT WOMEN IN GALA COSTUME&mdash;NISH.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"The tooth must come out," squeaked the small dentist.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you save it?" prayed Jo; "it's the best one I've got, and the one
+to which I send all the Serbian meat."</p>
+
+<p>"It must come out," squeaked the Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you save it?" prayed Jo.</p>
+
+<p>"It must come out," reiterated the Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"You're very small," said Jo, doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>This annoyed the dentist. She pushed unwilling Jo into a chair, produced
+a pair of pincers, and, oh, woe! she wrenched to the north, she wrenched
+to the south, she wrenched to the east, and there was the tooth, nearly
+as big as the dentist herself.</p>
+
+<p>"I never can eat Serbian meat again," murmured Jo as she mopped her
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>After tea we returned to the S.D.W.O., and by means of our letter and
+our Englishness we got in front of all the unfortunate people who had
+been waiting for hours, and received our passes, etc., immediately.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Ralph Paget's storekeeper wouldn't work<span class="pagenum"><a id="page22" name="page22"></a>Pg 22</span> on Sunday, so we had also
+to rest, and we celebrated by staying in bed late and going for a walk
+in the afternoon with an Englishman who was <i>en route</i> for Sofia. We
+came to a little village where every house was surrounded by high walls
+made of wattle. The women soon crowded round, imagining Mr. B&mdash;&mdash; a
+doctor. Jo pretended to translate, and gave advice for a girl with
+consumption, and an old woman whose hand was stiff from typhus, and we
+had to give the money for the latter's unguent. For the consumptive she
+said, "Open the windows, rest, and don't spit"; but that isn't a
+peasant's idea of doctoring: they want medicine or magic, one or the
+other, which doesn't matter.</p>
+
+<p>The train started "after eight" on Monday evening. The English boys at
+the Rest house were very good to us, adding to our small stock of
+necessities a "Tommy's treasure," two mackintosh capes, and some oxo
+cubes. One youth said, "You won't want to travel a second time on a
+Serbian luggage train"; then ruefully, "I've done it! The shunting,
+phew!"</p>
+
+<p>A Serbian railway station is a public meeting-place; along the platform,
+but railed off from the train, is a restaurant which is one of the
+favourite caf&eacute;s of the town. It is such fun to the still childish
+Serbian mind to sit sipping beer or wine and watch the trains run about,
+and hear the whistles. We had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page23" name="page23"></a>Pg 23</span> our supper amongst the gay crowd, and
+then pushed out into the darkened goods station to find our travelling
+bedroom, for we were to sleep in the waggons&mdash;beds and mattresses having
+been provided&mdash;and we had borrowed blankets from the Rest house.</p>
+
+<p>We found our truck and climbed in. There were certainly beds enough, for
+there were thirty light iron folding bedsteads piled up at one end. We
+chose two, and, not satisfied with the stacking of the others, Jan
+repiled them, with an eye on what our friend had said about Serbian
+shunting. Even then Jo was not happy about them.</p>
+
+<p>We sat on our beds, reading or staring out of our open door at the
+twinkle of the station lights, the moving flares of the engines, and the
+fountains of sparks which rushed from their chimneys; listening to the
+chains of bumps which denoted a shunting train. We heard another chain
+of bumps, which rattled rapidly towards us and suddenly&mdash;a most awful
+CRASH. The candle went out, and we were flung from bed on to the floor.
+Our truck hurtled down the line at about thirty miles an hour, and
+suddenly struck some solid object. Another wild crash, and the whole
+twenty-eight beds flung themselves upon the place where we had been, and
+smashed our couches to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>We have read stories of the Spanish Inquisition about rooms which grow
+smaller, and at last crush<span class="pagenum"><a id="page24" name="page24"></a>Pg 24</span> the unfortunate victim to a jelly: we can
+now appreciate the feeling of the unfortunate victim aforesaid. There
+were piles of packing-cases at either end of the van, and for the next
+hour, as we were hurtled up and down by the Serbian engine-driver, at
+each crash these packing-cases crept nearer and nearer. The beds had
+fallen across the door, so it was impossible to escape. When the lower
+cases had reached the beds they halted, but the upper ones still crept
+on towards us. In the short, wild intervals of peace Jan tried to push
+the cases back and restore momentary stability. In addition to
+diminishing room, we were flung about with every crash, landing on the
+corner of a packing-case, on the edge of an iron bedstead, and with each
+crash the light went out. We will give not one jot of advantage to your
+prisoner in the Spanish Inquisition, save that we escaped whereas he did
+not.</p>
+
+<p>The engine-driver tired of the sport just in time to save our limbs, if
+not lives, and he dragged the train out of the station into the dark.</p>
+
+<p>At Krusevatch we halted for the next day. After a discussion with the
+station-master, who asked us to come down first at six p.m., then at
+four, then at one, and lastly in two hours, at nine a.m. we strolled up
+towards the town. There was an old beggar on the road, and he was
+cuddling<span class="pagenum"><a id="page25" name="page25"></a>Pg 25</span> a "goosla," or Serbian one-stringed fiddle, which sounds not
+unlike a hive of bees in summer-time, and is played not with the tips of
+the fingers, as a violin, but with the fat part of the first phalanx. As
+soon as he heard our footsteps he began to howl, and to saw at his
+miserable instrument; and as soon as he had received our contribution he
+stopped suddenly. We were worth no more effort; but we admired his
+frankness.</p>
+
+<p>Krusevatz market-place is like the setting of a Serbian opera. The
+houses are the kind of houses that occupy the back scenery of opera, and
+in the middle is an abominable statue commemorating something, which is
+just in the bad taste which would mar an opera setting. There was an old
+man wandering about with two knapsacks, one on his back and one on his
+chest, and from the orifice of each peered out innumerable ducks' heads.
+We returned to the station at nine, but were told that nothing could be
+done till one. So we went up to the churchyard, spread our mackintoshes,
+and got a much-needed sleep. The church is very old, but isn't much to
+look at, and we, being no arch&aelig;ologists, would sooner look at that of
+Trsternick, though it is modern.</p>
+
+<p>We returned to the station to unload our trucks, for at this point the
+broad-gauge line ceases, and there is but a narrow-gauge into the
+mountains.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page26" name="page26"></a>Pg 26</span> A band of Austrian prisoners were detailed to help us, and
+they at once recognized us, and knew that we came from Vrntze. They were
+in a wretched condition: their clothes were torn, they said that they
+had no change of underclothes, and were swarming with vermin, nor could
+they be cleaned, for they worked even on Sundays, and had no time to
+wash their clothes. They begged us for soap, and asked us to send them a
+change of raiment from Vrntze. We explained sadly that we were not going
+back just yet, but we could oblige them with the soap, for a case had
+been broken open, and the waggon was strewn with bars. We also gave some
+to the engine-driver, as a bribe to shunt us gently.</p>
+
+<p>We imagined that the soap had burst because of the shunting, but in our
+second truck discovered that this same shunting had been strangely
+selective. It had, for instance, opened a case of brandy, it had burst a
+box of tinned tongue, and even opened some of the tins which were strewn
+in the truck. And yet the truck had been sealed, both doors. Several
+cases of biscuits, too, had been abstracted, and all this must have
+happened under the very noses of the Englishmen who had supervised the
+loading. Some of the prisoners said that they were starving, so we
+distributed our spare crusts amongst them, and they ate them greedily
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>In the fields by the railway were queer pallid<span class="pagenum"><a id="page27" name="page27"></a>Pg 27</span> green plants which
+puzzled us. They were like tall cabbages, and shone with a curious
+ghostly intensity in the gloaming.</p>
+
+<p>We dangled our feet over the side of our waggon watching the flitting
+scenery. At one point we passed a train in which were other English
+people, who stared amazed at us and waved their hands as we disappeared.
+Dusk was down when we passed Vrntze, and we reached the gorges of Ovchar
+in the dark. We thundered through tunnels and out over hanging
+precipices, the river beneath us a faint band of greyish light in the
+blackness of the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Uzhitze in the morning at 4.30; it was cold and wet. Jan wanted to hurry
+off to the hotel, but Jo sensibly refused, and we settled down till a
+decent hour.</p>
+
+<p>The hotel was a huge room with a smaller yard; on the one side of the
+yard were the kitchens, etc., and on the other a string of bedrooms. We
+then crossed the big square to the Nachanlik's (or mayor's) office.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the mayor's office we found an old friend. He had been a patient
+in our hospital, and gangrene, following typhus, had so poisoned his
+legs that both were amputated. He had been discharged the day before,
+and had travelled up from Vrntze, some eight hours, in an open truck.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page28" name="page28"></a>Pg 28</span>
+The Serbian authorities had brought him from the station and had propped
+him on a wooden bench outside the mayor's office, where he had remained
+all night, and where we found him. He was a charming fellow, though very
+silent. Once when Jo had remarked upon this silence he had answered,
+"When a man has no longer any legs it is fitting that he should be
+silent."</p>
+
+<p>He was waiting for his father, who lived twelve hours away in the
+mountains. The old man came with a donkey, and there was a most
+affecting meeting between the old father and his poor mutilated son.
+Tears flowed freely on either side, for Serbs are still simple enough to
+be unashamed of emotion. The donkey had an ordinary saddle, on to which
+our friend was hoisted. He balanced tentatively for a moment, then shook
+his head. A pack-saddle was substituted.</p>
+
+<p>"It is hard," he said, "young enough, and yet like a useless bale of
+goods."</p>
+
+<p>Twenty hours he had endured, and yet had twelve to go&mdash;thirty-two hours
+for a man without legs. This will show of what some Serbs are made.</p>
+
+<p>Within the office we found a professor whom we had met before, and who
+was acting as assistant mayor. We took him to the station and estimated
+that thirty-two waggons would deal with our stuff.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image05" name="image05">
+   <img src="images/07.jpg"
+      alt="SERB CONVALESCENTS AT UZHITZE."
+      title="SERB CONVALESCENTS AT UZHITZE." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">SERB CONVALESCENTS AT UZHITZE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Jo and Jan went for a stroll, Uzhitze, especially<span class="pagenum"><a id="page29" name="page29"></a>Pg 29</span> in the back
+streets, is like a D&uuml;rer etching&mdash;that one of the Prodigal Son, for
+instance, all tiny, peaky-roofed houses. We took a siesta in the
+afternoon, but Jan was dragged out to talk to our professor, who
+explained that it was impossible for the Serbian Government to find
+thirty-two ox-carts at once, so the convoy must make two journeys. He
+also said that horses would be provided for us, and that we would take
+two or three days to do the trip, but that the ox-waggons would be at
+least seven, which was death to our romantic dream of toiling
+laboriously up almost inaccessible mountains at the head of straining
+ox-carts, sleeping by the roadside, brigands, and all that.</p>
+
+<p>We went down to the station, unloaded the truck and checked the numbers.
+A few were missing, but not so many as we had expected.</p>
+
+<p>A regiment of soldiers were called up; at a word of command they pounced
+upon our packing-cases and hurried them off to a storehouse. The smaller
+cases were left to go on donkeys, two on either side.</p>
+
+<p>The professor dined with us. He is an Anglophile, and was determined
+after the war to go to England in order to discover the secret of her
+greatness. He had a theory that it lay in our educational laws, which he
+wanted to transplant into Serbia wholesale. Jan thought not, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page30" name="page30"></a>Pg 30</span>
+suggested that it might lie even deeper than that.</p>
+
+<p>Next day was a Prazhnik, or feast day, and the great square was crowded
+with peasantry in their beautiful hand-woven clothes. There were
+soldiers straight back from the lines chaffing and flirting with the
+pretty girls, and presently a group began to dance the "Kola" about a
+man who played a pipe. It is not difficult to dance the Kola. You join
+hands till a ring is formed, and then shuffle round and round. If you
+have aspirations to style you fling your legs about as much as space
+will allow, and we noticed how much better the men danced than the
+girls, who were almost all very clumsy.</p>
+
+<p>We were to be called at six, so went to bed early, and in spite of the
+odours from the yard slept soundly.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/08.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page31" name="page31"></a>Pg 31</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>ACROSS THE FRONTIER</h3>
+
+
+<p>We got up in good time, breakfasted, but there was no sign of horses.
+After waiting two hours a square man was brought up to us by the waiter
+and introduced as our guide. The professor, who had promised to see us
+off, was apparently clinging to his bed, for he did not come. Our guide
+was a taciturn, loose-limbed fellow, but had nice eyes and a charming
+manner; he helped us on to our horses, and off we went. Jan was rather
+anxious at the start, for he had done very little riding since
+childhood; but his horse was quiet, and soon he had persuaded himself
+that he was a cavalier from birth. Jo was riding astride for the second
+time in her life.</p>
+
+<p>We took the road to Zlatibor (golden hill). There was a heavy mist, the
+hills were just outlined in faint washes on the fog, and as we mounted
+the zig-zag path, higher and higher, the town became small and fairylike
+beneath us; and a soldiers' camp made a queer chessboard on the green of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page32" name="page32"></a>Pg 32</span> valley. Jo's horse cast a shoe almost at the start, but the guide
+said that it did not matter. We went on and ever up, our horses
+clambering like goats. The scenery was on the whole very English, and
+not unlike the Devonshire side of Dartmoor.</p>
+
+<p>Our guide took us a two mile detour to show us his house. Later we
+reached a tiny village with a queer church. We off-saddled for a moment,
+and were welcomed by the inhabitants, who gave us Turkish coffee and
+plum brandy (rakia), while in exchange we made them cigarettes of
+English tobacco. At sixteen kilometres we reached a larger village,
+where we decided to lunch. We were astonished by the sudden appearance
+of a French doctor. He was delighted to see us, more so when he found
+that we both spoke French, and invited us to coffee. We lunched with our
+guide at the local inn. We ordered pig; indeed there was nothing else to
+order.</p>
+
+<p>"How much?" said mine host.</p>
+
+<p>"For three," answered we.</p>
+
+<p>"But how much is that?" replied mine host. "You see, each man eats
+differently." So we ordered one kilo to go on with.</p>
+
+<p>Half a pig was wrenched from a spit in front of the big fire, carried
+sizzling outside to the wood block, where the waiter hewed it apart with
+the axe.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page33" name="page33"></a>Pg 33</span></p>
+
+<p>We had discovered peculiarities in our horses. They had conscientious
+objections to going abreast, and always walked single file; this was
+owing to the narrowness of the mountain paths. Jo's horse, which somehow
+looked like Monkey Brand, insisted on taking the second place, and would
+by no means go third. At last we reached the top of Zlatibor&mdash;which gets
+its name from a peculiar golden cheese which it produces. The view is
+like that from the Cat and Fiddle in Derbyshire, only bigger in scale,
+and from thence the ride began to be interminable. It grew darker, we
+walked down the hills to ease our aching knees, and Jan decided that
+horse riding was no go.</p>
+
+<p>Finally the guide decided that it was too late to reach Novi Varosh that
+night, and so the direction was altered. The road grew stony and more
+stony. A bitter breeze came up with the evening. We came to a green
+valley, at the end of which was a rocky gorge, down which ran the
+twistiest stream: it seemed as though it had been designed by a lump of
+mercury on a wobbling plate. We turned from the gorge on to a hill so
+rocky that the path was only visible where former horse-hoofs had
+stained the stones with red earth.</p>
+
+<p>The village consisted of an enormous school, a little church, soldiers
+encamped round fires in the churchyard, and seven or eight wooden
+hovels.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page34" name="page34"></a>Pg 34</span> Our guide stopped at the door of the dirtiest and rapped. A
+furtive woman's face peered out into the gloom. We climbed painfully
+from our saddles, for we had been thirteen hours on the road.</p>
+
+<p>"Beds?" said the guide to the woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord!" thought we.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head dolefully and said, "Ima," which means "there is."
+Serbians nod for no. The woman slid out into the night and passed to
+another building, climbed the stairs to a veranda and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>It grew colder, the guide was busy unharnessing the horses, so shivering
+we sought refuge in the dirty house, which was not quite so bad within
+as we had feared. It was furnished with a long table and two benches
+only, and was lighted by a small fire which was burning on a huge open
+hearth, and which gave no heat at all. The woman came back and led us to
+the other house for supper, which was boiled eggs, and the guide
+generously shared his own bread with us, as we had none. There was no
+water to drink, and Jo tried, not very successfully, to quench her
+thirst with rakia.</p>
+
+<p>There were but two beds, and on inquiry finding that there was no place
+for the guide, we allotted one bed to him. On our own bed the sheets had
+evidently not been changed since it was first made, and the pillow which
+once had been white was<span class="pagenum"><a id="page35" name="page35"></a>Pg 35</span> a dark ironclad grey. We undid our mackintoshes
+and spread them over both counterpane and pillow. We lay down clothed as
+we were, and by the time we had finished our preparations the guide was
+already snoring.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the light was turned out the whole room began to tick like
+ten agitated clocks, and all about us in the darkness began strange
+noises of life: rats scampered in all directions and were finally
+hurdling over our heads. We had taken some aspirin to ward off the
+stiffness of unaccustomed exercise, but we were sore, and the narrowness
+of the bed forced us to lie on our backs; exhaustion, however, conquered
+all discomforts, and we slept. Jo awoke in the night and yelped to find
+that the mackintosh had slipped and that her head was resting on the
+pillow.</p>
+
+<p>We were up again at 5.30, and Vladimir, the guide, suggested that we
+should breakfast at Novi Varosh, four hours on; but our stomachs were
+not of cast iron, and we clamoured for eggs. We got them, left
+Negbina&mdash;that was the name of the village&mdash;about seven, and once more
+adventured on the road.</p>
+
+<p>By eight we had passed the old Serbian frontier: the country was growing
+more interesting, like the foothills of the Tyrol; on the streams were
+inefficient-looking old wooden mills, the water rushing madly<span class="pagenum"><a id="page36" name="page36"></a>Pg 36</span> down a
+slope and hitting a futile little wheel which turned laboriously.</p>
+
+<p>Novi Varosh, with roofs of weathered wood gleaming purplish amongst the
+trees, was a wonderful little town, and quite unlike any other we had
+seen; clean without, and if the energy of its citizens at the village
+pump is a good sample, clean within also, for Serbia. Here are Turks
+too: ladies in veil and trousers, and trousered kiddies with clothes of
+orange, yellow and purple. Twice in the streets we were stopped by
+authority. Our lunch was well cooked, one can clearly see this has not
+been Serbia for long, for the Serbs are the worst eaters in the world.
+Jo gave medical advice to a Serb, and on once more.</p>
+
+<p>On the road were travellers never ending in their variety, and one
+father was mounted with a pack behind him, and on the top of the pack
+his little daughter clad in many coloured cottons, clasping him tight
+round the neck and peering inquisitively from behind his ear.</p>
+
+<p>About three p.m. we reached the Lim. The road climbs to a great height,
+and the peasants in their gay costumes were reaping, some of the fields
+so steep that we wondered how they stood upon them; on the opposite
+cliff was an old robber castle like a Rhine fortress.</p>
+
+<p>The Serbian town of Prepolji introduced itself<span class="pagenum"><a id="page37" name="page37"></a>Pg 37</span> by six Turks lying by
+the roadside, then there were three Turkish families, afterwards an
+assorted dozen of small girls in trousers, finally, an old man doddering
+along in a turban and a veiled beggar woman, who demanded backsheesh.
+"Where are the Serbs?" we thought.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek church looked as if it had been new built, so that the Serbs
+could claim Prepolji as a Christian town, and had a biscuit tin roof not
+yet rusted.</p>
+
+<p>Our hotel was like that where Mr. Pickwick first met Sam Weller, a large
+open court with a crazy wooden balcony at the second story, and the
+bedrooms opening on to the balcony. When we opened our knapsacks to get
+out washing materials, we found that the heat of the horse had melted
+all the chocolate in Jan's, and it had run over everything. It was a
+mess, but chocolate was precious, and every piece had to be rescued. We
+had only been ten hours in the saddle, but we descended stiffly, and
+were pounced on by a foolish looking man, with a head to which Jo took
+immediate offence. This fellow attached himself to us during the whole
+of our stay, and was an intolerable nuisance; we nicknamed him "glue
+pot," and only at our moment of departure discovered that he was the
+mayor who had been trying to do us honour.</p>
+
+<p>The next day was Sunday, and the village full<span class="pagenum"><a id="page38" name="page38"></a>Pg 38</span> of peasants. Stiff-legged
+and groaning a little within ourselves we walked about the town making
+observations: Turkish soldiers, Turkish policemen, Turkish recruits, but
+all the peasants Serb. The country costume is different from that of the
+north, the perpendicular stripe on the skirt has here given way to
+horizontal bands of colour, and some women wear a sort of exaggerated
+ham frill about the waist. The men's waistcoats were very ornate, and
+much embroidery was upon their coats.</p>
+
+<p>An English nurse came into the town in the afternoon. She, a Russian
+girl, and an English orderly had driven from Plevlie, en route to
+Uzhitze. Half-way along the wheel of their carriage had broken in
+pieces, so they finished the road on foot. Curiously enough we had
+travelled from England to Malta with this lady, Sister Rawlins, on the
+same transport. The Russian girl had been married only the day before to
+a Montenegrin officer, nephew of the Sirdar Voukotitch,
+Commander-in-Chief of the North, and she was flying back to Russia to
+collect her goods and furniture.</p>
+
+<p>Next day as we were sketching in the picturesque main street, from the
+distance came the sounds of a weird wailing, drawing slowly closer and
+closer.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurra," thought we&mdash;two minds with but a single, etc.,&mdash;"a
+funeral&mdash;magnificent. Just the thing to complete the scene."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page39" name="page39"></a>Pg 39</span></p>
+
+<p>A string of donkeys came round the corner, on either flank each animal
+bore a case marked with a large red cross. Amongst the animals were
+donkey-boys, and it was from their lips came the dismal wailing. Never
+have we seen so ragged and wretched a crew. The boys were evidently the
+"unfits," and they looked it, every face showed the wan, pallid shadow
+of hunger and disease. A few old men in huge fur caps, with rifles on
+their backs, stumbled along, guarding the precious convoy. "Glue pot"
+led us all to a large empty building, once a Turkish merchant's store,
+where the cases were to be housed. The bullock carts with the heavier
+packages came in in the evening, and we sent the men five litres of plum
+brandy to put some warmth into their miserable bodies. This moved them
+once more to singing, but we think the songs sounded a little less
+dreary.</p>
+
+<p>The Commandant asked for, and got, half a dozen sheets from us as a sort
+of superior backsheesh, and promised us horses for the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning dawned dismally. Miss Rawlins and her companions were
+to go on by post cart, and their conveyance arrived first, only two and
+a half hours late. It was a sort of tinker's tent on four rickety
+wheels. There seemed to be barely room for one within the dark interior,
+but both Miss Rawlins and the little Russian climbed in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page40" name="page40"></a>Pg 40</span> somehow.
+Charlie, the orderly, clung on by his eyelids in front, and off they
+went. We last saw two faces peering back at us beneath the fringe of the
+tent. They had no luck. Half-way to Uzhitze the cart upset and they were
+all rolled into the ditch, missing a precipice of sixty feet or so by
+the merest fraction.</p>
+
+<p>Our own horses arrived later, we mounted, and with cheers from the
+assembled authorities, we rode off.</p>
+
+<p>The rain came down in a steady drizzle; we discovered that the
+waterproof cloaks which we had borrowed from Nish were not very
+weathertight. We climbed right up into the clouds, but still the rain
+held on. From the floating mist jutted great boulders and huge red
+cliffs. Our guide put up an umbrella and rode along crouching beneath
+it. At 1400 metres we reached an inn, where we lunched. A Montenegrin
+commissioner insisted on paying our bill, and said that we would do the
+same for him when he came to England. Every one in Serbia or Montenegro
+is interested in ages. They were astounded at ours. They said that Jo
+would have been seventeen if she were Serbian; and one rose, shook Jan
+warmly by the hand and said he must have "navigated" the marriage well.</p>
+
+<p>We rode over the frontier, but we were not yet in the real Montenegro.
+This is not the black<span class="pagenum"><a id="page41" name="page41"></a>Pg 41</span> mountain where the last dregs of old Serbian
+aristocracy defied the Turk, this is still the Sanjak, three years ago
+Turkish, and with pleasant pasturages spreading on either hand.</p>
+
+<p>At last we came up over Plevlie. To one corner we could see the town
+creeping in a crescent about the foot of a grey hill, far away on the
+other side was a little monastery, forlorn and white, like a shivering
+saint, and between a great valley with four purplish humps in the midst
+of the corn and maize fields, like great whales bursting through a
+patchwork quilt.</p>
+
+<p>Our horses were thoroughly cheered up, and we passed through the long
+streets of the town at a lively trot, a thing Jo was taught as a child
+to consider bad form.</p>
+
+<p>A semi-transparent little man in a black hat stood on the hotel steps
+beckoning to us. But we had no use for hotel touts, and waved our sticks
+saying, "Hospital." He seemed curiously disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>The hospital, many long low buildings, lay buried in a park of trees.
+The staff lived in a tiny house near by, where we were welcomed by the
+cook, Mrs. Roworth. She explained that as the house was hardly capable
+of holding its ten or twelve occupants, a room had been taken for us at
+the inn, but that we were to meal with them.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page42" name="page42"></a>Pg 42</span></p>
+
+<p>"Not that you will like the food," she said, "for it's all tinned, and I
+have only twenty-five shillings a week to buy milk, bread, and fresh
+meat."</p>
+
+<p>We wondered why, in such a fertile country, a party of hard-working
+people should be condemned to eat tinned mackerel and vegetables brought
+all the way from England?</p>
+
+<p>However, the dinner was excellent&mdash;all "disguised," she said, for she
+had during the few weeks she had been there concentrated on the art of
+disguising bully beef and worse problems, and had sternly put Dr. Clemow
+on omelets and beefsteaks, as his digestion had caved in under six
+months' unadulterated tinned food.</p>
+
+<p>We met old friends, fellow travellers on the way out. In those days they
+were a wistful little party, wondering how they were going to reach
+Montenegro, the Adriatic being impossible. At last one of the passes was
+hurriedly improved for them by a thousand prisoners, and they rode
+through in the snow. Since then typhus had raged, two of their number
+had been very ill, and one had died. Their energy had been tremendous,
+and everywhere in the country they were spoken of as the wonderful
+English hospital, and even from Chainitza, where there was a Russian
+hospital, soldiers walked a long day's march in order to be treated by
+the English.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page43" name="page43"></a>Pg 43</span></p>
+
+<p>Dr. Roger's rival was there, the perpetrator of ninety hernia operations
+a week&mdash;or was it more?</p>
+
+<p>All this on tinned food!</p>
+
+<p>Our hotel room proved large and comfortable with a talkative willing
+Turk in attendance. We slept immensely and were wakened by yet another
+horrible cock crowing. All Balkan cocks seem to have bronchitis.</p>
+
+<p>Plevlie is a red-tiled nucleus with a fringe of wood-roofed Serb houses
+planted round it. There are ten mosques, while the only Greek church
+stands forlorn on the other side of the great hollow two miles away.</p>
+
+<p>The town is not really Montenegrin. It has the cosmopolitan character of
+all the Sanjak, Turks, Austro-Turks and Serbs&mdash;a mixture like that at
+Marseilles or Port Said.</p>
+
+<p>The shops are Turkish, though their turbaned owners, sitting
+cross-legged on the floor-counters, can speak only Serb&mdash;a thing which
+puzzled us at the time.</p>
+
+<p>We saw veiled women and semi-veiled children everywhere, thickly
+latticed windows with curious eyes peeping through, and yards with high
+wooden palings above to prevent the possible young men on the houses
+opposite from catching a glimpse of the fair ladies in the gardens.</p>
+
+<p>Plenty of long-legged Montenegrin officers&mdash;with<span class="pagenum"><a id="page44" name="page44"></a>Pg 44</span> flat caps bearing the
+King's initials, and five rings representing the dynasties of the ruling
+house&mdash;filled the streets, and also the inevitable ragged soldiers with
+gorgeous bags on their backs.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the women, too, were wearing these caps, but theirs were yet
+smaller and tipped over their noses, like the pork pie hat of our
+grandmothers. One closely veiled woman showed the silhouette sticking up
+through her veil just like a blacking tin.</p>
+
+<p>The Mahommedan is much more fanatic in these parts than his more
+civilized brother of Salonika or Constantinople. Women of the two
+religions do not visit. The hatred is partially political, and Jo began
+to realize that her dream of visiting a harem would not be easy to
+achieve. We met three women walking down a lonely street. Although their
+faces were covered with several thicknesses of black chiffon, they
+modestly placed them against the wall and stood there, three shapeless
+bundles, until we were out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Jan's feelings were very much hurt, but he soon got used to being
+treated like a dangerous dragon.</p>
+
+<p>When we reached our hotel again we found the &eacute;lite of the town waiting
+in the bar-room for us. There was a huge jolly Greek priest, all big hat
+and velvet, the prefect, the schoolmaster, a linguist,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page45" name="page45"></a>Pg 45</span> and the little
+black-hatted man whom we had mistaken for a hotel tout.</p>
+
+<p>The priest was president of the Montenegrin Red Cross, the prefect was a
+former Prime Minister and a Voukotitch. All important men who are not
+Petroviches are Voukotitches; the first being members of the king's and
+the second of the queen's family.</p>
+
+<p>The little black-hatted man was secretary of the Red Cross, and was
+formally attached to us while there as cicerone. He explained to us that
+they had all been in the hotel expecting us the night before, with a
+beautiful dinner which had been prepared in our honour.</p>
+
+<p>We apologized and inwardly noted the grateful temperament of the
+Montenegrin. We were solemnly treated to coffee and brandy, and the
+jolly priest emptied his cigarette box into Jo's lap. When the first
+polite ceremoniousness had worn off we asked delicately about the front.</p>
+
+<p>"Did we wish to see the front?"</p>
+
+<p>Certainly, said the prefect, we should have the first horses that should
+come back to the town, and the little transparent shadow man should
+accompany us. And our letter to the Sirdar Voukotitch, commander in
+chief of the north?&mdash;He should be told about it on his return that
+evening from the front.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page46" name="page46"></a>Pg 46</span></p>
+
+<p>At sunset the muezzin sounded, cracked voices cried unmelodiously from
+all the minaret tops. Immediately, as if it were their signal, all the
+crows arose from the town, hovered around in batches for a moment,
+chattering, and flew away up the hill to roost in the trees round the
+hospital till sunrise.</p>
+
+<p>Salonika rings with children's cries, Dawson city with the howlings of
+dogs, but the towns of the Sanjak have no better music than the croaking
+of carrion crows.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/09.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page47" name="page47"></a>Pg 47</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MONTENEGRIN FRONT ON THE DRINA</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Jan awoke it was dark, and he was with difficulty rousing Jo when
+suddenly a voice howled through the keyhole that the horses were
+waiting. Jan grabbed his watch&mdash;5 a.m.; but the horses had been ordered
+for six. Hastily chewing dry biscuit, Jan jumped into his clothes and
+ran down. There was a small squat youth with a flabby Mongolian face
+hovering between the yard door and the inn, and Jan following him
+discovered three horses saddled and waiting. He hastily ordered white
+coffee to be prepared, and ran up again to hurry Jo and to pack. He
+rushed down again to pay the bill, but found that the Montenegrin Red
+Cross had charged itself with everything, very generously, so he ran up
+once more to nag at Jo. The secretary, whom we called "the shadow," had
+not appeared, so we inquired from the squint-eyed youth, received many
+"Bogamis" as answer, but nothing definite; so we decided, as it was now
+past six, that he had changed his mind and had sent this chinee-looking
+fellow, whom we named "Bogami," in his place.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page48" name="page48"></a>Pg 48</span></p>
+
+<p>Jan's horse was like an early "John" drawing of a slender but antiquated
+siren, all beautiful curves. Jo's would in England long ago have taken
+the boat to Antwerp; her saddle stood up in a huge hump behind and had a
+steeple in front, and was covered by what looked like an old bearskin
+hearthrug in a temper, one stirrup like a fire shovel was yards too
+long, the other far too short, and were set well at the back.</p>
+
+<p>"What queer horses!" we remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Bogami," said Bogami; "when there are no horses these are good horses,
+Bogami."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the secretary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bogami nesnam" (don't know).</p>
+
+<p>From Uzhitze we had good horses, from Prepolji moderate, now these;
+imagination staggered at what we should descend to if we did a fourth
+lap to Cettinje, for instance, but we climbed up. Jo with her queerly
+placed stirrups perched forward something like a racing cyclist.
+Bogami's horse was innocent of garniture, save for a piece of chain
+bound about its lower jaw, but he slung his great coat over the saw edge
+of its backbone and leapt on. He must have had a coccyx of cast iron. We
+had to kick the animals into a walk&mdash;there were fifty kilometres to go.</p>
+
+<p>After a while we began to wonder if it would not be quicker to get off
+and foot it, but we did<span class="pagenum"><a id="page49" name="page49"></a>Pg 49</span> catch up and eventually pass a Red Cross Turk.
+We saw a soldier striding ahead. By kicks and shouts we raised a sprint
+along the level road; we drew even with him, and then began a race; on
+the uphills we beat him, on the downhills he caught up and passed in
+front. He was a taciturn fellow, and save that he was going to Fochar we
+learnt nothing about him. On a long uphill we gained a hundred yards,
+and by supreme efforts held our gains. He eventually disappeared from
+view, and we were rejoicing at our speed when we realized that the
+telegraph wires were no longer with us&mdash;one can always find the nearest
+way by following the telegraph, for governments do not waste wire. Jan
+looked for them and found them streaming away to the left, and among
+them, well up on the horizon, our enemy the soldier.</p>
+
+<p>"Look," we cried to Bogami, "isn't that the shortest way? The wires go
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"Bogami," he replied; "wires can, horses can't, bogami."</p>
+
+<p>There is a fine military road to Chainitza, made by the Austrians, but
+it remains a white necklace on the hills, almost an ornament to the
+landscape. No one seemed to use it, while our old Turkish road which
+snaked and twisted up and down was pitted with the hoofs of countless
+horses. It is a stony path, and our animals were shod with flat<span class="pagenum"><a id="page50" name="page50"></a>Pg 50</span> plates
+instead of horseshoes; they slipped and slithered, and we wondered if in
+youth they had ever had lessons in skating.</p>
+
+<p>There was a heavy mist, but it began to break up, and through peepholes
+one caught fleeting glimpses of distant patterning of field and forest,
+and hints of great hills. The sun showed like a great pale moon on the
+horizon. There were other travellers on the old Turkish trail, horsemen,
+Bosnians in great dark claret-coloured turbans, or Montenegrins in their
+flat khaki caps, peasants in dirty white cotton pyjamas, thumping before
+them animals with pack-swollen sides, soldiers only recognizable from
+the peasants by the rifle on their backs, and Turks; most were jolly
+fellows, and hailed us cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>From a house by the roadside burst a sheep, followed by five men. They
+chased the animal down the road whistling to it. We had never heard that
+whistling was effectual with sheep, and certainly it did not succeed
+very well in this instance.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere beyond this house Jan's inside began to cry for food, two
+biscuits and a cup of <i>caf&eacute; au lait</i> being little upon which to found a
+long day's riding. He tentatively tried a "compressed luncheon." Its
+action was satisfactory, but whether it resulted from real nourishment
+contained in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page51" name="page51"></a>Pg 51</span> black-looking glue, or whether it came from a sticking
+together of the coating of the stomach, we have not yet decided. Jo
+preferred rather to endure the hunger.</p>
+
+<p>Bogami had quite a charm; for instance, he appreciated our troubles with
+the beasts we were riding. Jo's horse stumbled a good deal on the
+downhills; her saddle was very uncomfortable and so narrow that she
+could never change her position. We came into most magnificent scenery,
+the beauty of which made a deep impression even upon our empty selves.
+There were deep green valleys, rising to peaks and hills which faded
+away ridge behind ridge of blue into the distant Serbian mountains,
+great pine woods of delicate drooping trees which came down and folded
+in on every side, and though it was almost September there were
+strawberries still ripe at the edge of the road, little red luscious
+blobs amidst the green.</p>
+
+<p>Metalka at one o'clock, and we were on the real Montenegrin frontier.
+There are two Metalkas, a Montenegrin and an Austrian, and they are
+divided one from the other by a strip of land some ten yards across
+which rips the village in two like the track of a little cyclone. Bogami
+directed us to a shanty labelled "Hotel of Europe." A large woman was
+blocking the door; we demanded food, she took no<span class="pagenum"><a id="page52" name="page52"></a>Pg 52</span> notice. Hunger was
+clamouring within us. We demanded a second time. She waved her hand
+majestically to her rival in Austria, at whose tables Montenegrin
+officers were sitting with coffee.</p>
+
+<p>An officer greeted us.</p>
+
+<p>"We had expected you yesterday," he said.</p>
+
+<p>We waved to the horses.</p>
+
+<p>"No horses."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a pity," he murmured. "You see, there was something to eat
+yesterday!"</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his pessimism we got eggs and wine. Bogami had a large
+crowd, to whom he lectured, and we sent him out some eggs.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch we pushed on, in conquered territory. To Chainitza they said
+was one hour and a half, it proved nearer three.</p>
+
+<p>We joined some peasants, and they told us that they were going to the
+great festival. The old mother halted at a sort of sheep pen by the
+roadside; when she rejoined us she was wiping her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"That was my brother," she explained; "he was killed in the war;" for it
+is the custom to erect memorial stones by the roadside. Many of these
+are very quaint, sometimes painted with a soldier, or else with the
+rifle, sword, pistols and medals of the deceased.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page53" name="page53"></a>Pg 53</span></p>
+
+<p>Chainitza lies in a backwater, where the deep valley makes a sudden
+bend. When we came to it the sun was in our eyes, and halfway between
+the crest and the river the town seemed to float in a bluish mist; two
+white mosques stood out against the trees, and the roof of one was not
+one dome, but many like an inverted egg frier, or almost as though it
+was boiling over.</p>
+
+<p>We were stopped at the entry by a sentry.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the Russian Hospital."</p>
+
+<p>He took us in charge and led us, in spite of protestations, to the
+hotel. A man in a shabby frock-coat received us, and Jo, mistaking him
+for the innkeeper, clamoured once more for the Russians. The shabby man
+explained that he was the Prefect, and that this was a State reception.
+We began to be awed by our own dignity. We explained to him that the
+Shadow had changed his mind and had sent Bogami instead.</p>
+
+<p>Bogami brought our knapsacks to our room, where he was immobilized by
+the sight of himself in the looking-glass of the wardrobe; probably he
+had never seen such a thing before, and he goggled at it. He at last
+backed slowly from the room.</p>
+
+<p>We rested a while, then descended to find&mdash;the Shadow.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page54" name="page54"></a>Pg 54</span></p>
+
+<p>He was rather hurt with us, and wanted to know why the &mdash;&mdash; we had gone
+off without him. We explained, compared watches, and found that Jan's
+was an hour too fast. The poor Shadow had been chasing us on a borrowed
+horse, with our permissions to travel in his pocket, and wildly hoping
+that he would catch us up before we were arrested as spies.</p>
+
+<p>We had tea with the Russians in a little arbour on the roadside, and
+chewed sweets which had just arrived from Petrograd, having been three
+months on the journey, but none the worse for that. Many officers came,
+amongst them the husband of the little Russian girl we had met at
+Prepolji. They all seemed to be Voukotitches, and at last the Sirdar
+himself honoured us. He is a huge man, and yet seemed to take up more
+room than his size warrants. He has a flat, almost plate-like face, with
+pallid blue eyes which seemed to focus some way beyond the object of his
+regard. Were his moustache larger he would be rather like Lord
+Kitchener, and he was very pleased at the obvious compliment. He poses a
+little, moves seldom but suddenly, and shoots his remarks as though
+words of command. He was very kind to us, and was immensely astonished
+at Jo's Serbian, holding up his hands and saying "Kako" at every one of
+her speeches. He suggested that poor Bogami should<span class="pagenum"><a id="page55" name="page55"></a>Pg 55</span> be beaten, but we
+begged him off. Captain Voukotitch, the husband of a day, was appointed
+to be our guide for the morrow&mdash;because Jo spoke Serbian.</p>
+
+<p>After tea we went up to the bubbly mosque, which was in reality the
+Greek church. We entered a large gate; on the one side of a yard was the
+church, and on the other a big two-storied rest-house, where one could
+lodge while paying devotions or doing pilgrimages. Its long balconies
+were filled with country folk all come for the festival, and who were
+feasting and laughing as though the war did not exist. The courtyard was
+filled with men and women in Bosnian costumes, white and dark red
+embroideries. Through the open door of the church one could see the
+silhouettes of the peasants bowing before the Ikons and relics. It was
+almost dark, and one man began to play a little haunting melody upon a
+wooden pipe, but though they linked arms and shuffled their feet, the
+young men did not dance.</p>
+
+<p>At supper the Shadow revealed a quaint sense of humour, and so to bed.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning was lovely, and we started at seven with the youngest
+Voukotitch and the others. Some officers had lent us their horses, and
+Voukotitch had proudly produced his English<span class="pagenum"><a id="page56" name="page56"></a>Pg 56</span> saddle for Jo. On the road
+the spirit of mischief entered him.</p>
+
+<p>"You can ride all right," he said; "wouldn't you like to go to the
+nearest machine-gun to the Austrian lines?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather," said Jo.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to do some stiff riding, though. I know the major, and he
+is bored to death. He'll let us."</p>
+
+<p>"But what about the bullets?" said the Shadow.</p>
+
+<p>In time the major was produced, emerging from a cottage by the roadside,
+other officers with him, and we had a merry coffee party in an arbour.
+One told Jo that he was a lawyer. The few Montenegrins who had the
+misfortune to be educated were not allowed to serve at the front, but he
+had been lucky enough through influence to be allowed to take a
+commission. He had not seen much serious fighting, however, as no move
+had been made for several months.</p>
+
+<p>Then we tackled the hills. "Come along," said the major, cheerfully; and
+his horse's nose went down and its tail went up, and off it slid
+downhill. We had seen the Italian officers do such things on the
+cinematograph, but little thought that we should be in the same
+position. We supposed it would be all right. Jo's horse became<span class="pagenum"><a id="page57" name="page57"></a>Pg 57</span> nearly
+vertical, and she sat back against its tail. Jan followed. Sometimes a
+sheet of rock was across the path&mdash;then we slid; sometimes the sand
+became very soft&mdash;we slid again. Then a muddy bit, and the horse
+squelched down on his hind quarters.</p>
+
+<p>Here we met a Serbian captain who was in charge of the battery. He was
+very lonely, and delighted to have a chance to talk, and he talked hard
+all day, showed us a neat reservoir his men had built, explained to us
+that beautiful uniforms were coming from Russia soon for the weirdly
+garbed beings who were guarding the hills, and asked us to lunch behind
+the trenches under a canopy of boughs.</p>
+
+<p>While lunch was being prepared he took us round his artillery, and into
+his observation station on the top of a crooked tree. Below us we could
+see the river Dreina&mdash;on the other side of which was Gorazhda, held by
+the Austrians&mdash;and the fortified hills behind.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed impossible that this wide peaceful scene was menacing with a
+threat of death, yet at intervals one could hear a faint "pop! pop!" as
+though far-away giants were holding feast and opening great champagne
+bottles. Away in the hills could be seen an encampment of white tents,
+which caused a mild excitement, for they<span class="pagenum"><a id="page58" name="page58"></a>Pg 58</span> had not been there the day
+before, and we were told that they were quite out of range.</p>
+
+<p>During lunch the youngest Voukotitch tempted the major&mdash;who was in
+splendid mood&mdash;suggesting that it was rather tame to go home after
+having come within mere bowing distance of the Austrians, and that a few
+stray bullets would not incommode us.</p>
+
+<p>The major saw reason fairly quickly, so we bestrode our horses again and
+continued our switchback course. At an open space where the Austrians
+could shoot at us if they wished we had to plunge down the hill quickly,
+keeping a distance of one hundred yards from each other.</p>
+
+<p>The little Shadow prudently got off his horse and used its body as a
+shield.</p>
+
+<p>We banged at the door of a cottage, and a young lieutenant came out;
+somebody said he was nineteen and a hero.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image06" name="image06">
+   <img src="images/10.jpg"
+      alt="SERB AND MONTENEGRIN OFFICERS ON THE DRINA."
+      title="SERB AND MONTENEGRIN OFFICERS ON THE DRINA." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">SERB AND MONTENEGRIN OFFICERS ON THE DRINA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image07" name="image07">
+   <img src="images/11.jpg"
+      alt="A CONCEALED GUN EMPLACEMENT ON THE DRINA."
+      title="A CONCEALED GUN EMPLACEMENT ON THE DRINA." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">A CONCEALED GUN EMPLACEMENT ON THE DRINA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Here we left our horses and began to scramble through brambles along a
+narrow path, climbing up the back of a little hill on the crest of which
+were the machine guns. Just before we got to the top we plunged into a
+tunnel which bored through the hill; at the end was the gun. The hero
+scrambled in, wriggled the gun about and explained. He invited Jo to
+shoot. She squashed past him; there<span class="pagenum"><a id="page59" name="page59"></a>Pg 59</span> was a knob at the back of the gun
+on which she pressed her thumbs, and she immediately wanted another pair
+with which to stop her ears. The gun jammed suddenly. The hero pulled
+the belt about, and Jo set it going once more.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrian machine guns answered back and kept this up, so Jo pressed
+the knob again and yet again. Then we got into the trenches above.
+Whenever Jo popped her head over the trenches for a good look there were
+faint reports from the mountain opposite. One or two bullets whizzed
+over our heads, and we realized that they were aiming at Jo's big white
+hat.</p>
+
+<p>Jan climbed down the hill and took snap-shots of Gorazhda; the enemy got
+a couple of pretty near shots at him.</p>
+
+<p>When the Montenegrins thought this sport was becoming monotonous they
+remembered the business of the day. A big house in Gorazhda was said to
+be full of Hungarian officers, and they wanted to get the range of this
+with one of the big guns. This decision had been made a day or two
+before with much deliberation. This they thought the State could afford.
+The precious shell was brought out, and every one fondled it.</p>
+
+<p>Men were called out and huge preparations were made for sighting and
+taking aim. We<span class="pagenum"><a id="page60" name="page60"></a>Pg 60</span> scuttled round with field glasses, and finally stood on
+tiptoe behind branches on a mound by the side of the gun. There were
+many soldiers fussing in the dug-out, and at last they pulled the
+string.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness! Now we've done it," Jo thought, as the mountains sent back
+the fearful report in decreasing echoes. We seemed to wait an eternity,
+and then "something white" happened far beyond the village.</p>
+
+<p>The officers looked at each other with long faces. "A bad miss&mdash;the
+expense."</p>
+
+<p>We felt the resources of the Montenegrin Empire were tottering. Awful!
+Could they afford another?</p>
+
+<p>Finally, with great courage, they decided that it was better to spend
+two shells on getting a decent aim than to lose one for nothing. The
+terrific bang went off again, and this time the "something white"
+happened right on the roof of the house. The Hungarian officers all ran
+out, and the machine guns below jabbered at them. Nobody was killed as
+far as we know, but every one was content and delighted.</p>
+
+<p>Sunset was approaching, and we rode away quickly, only stopping once to
+drag a reluctant old Turk from the mountain side and make him sing to
+the accompaniment of a one-stringed goosla.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page61" name="page61"></a>Pg 61</span> He hated to do it as all
+his best songs were about triumphant Mahommedans crushing Serbs, and of
+course he couldn't sing those.</p>
+
+<p>He sat grumpily cross-legged on the ground, encircled by our horses,
+droning a song of two notes, touching the string quickly with the flat
+lower part of his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>We left him very suddenly because the darkness comes quickly in those
+hills, so we made for the high-road as hard as we could.</p>
+
+<p>We rode fast to the Colonel's cottage, sat down to the dinner table,
+which was decked with pale blue napkins, and a fine-looking old
+Voukotitch, an ex-M.P. in national costume, acted as butler. In spite of
+his seventy odd years he had joined the army as a common soldier. He
+refused all invitations to sit with us, for he knew his place. The young
+husband was his nephew, and they kissed fondly on leave-taking.</p>
+
+<p>We rode back in the moonlight. At one spot on the road was a sawmill,
+and the huge white pine logs lying all about looked like the fallen
+columns of some ruined Athenian temple. We tried to enjoy the moment,
+and to brush aside the awful thought that we must remount Rosinante and
+Co. next day.</p>
+
+<p>The Shadow was terribly puffed up about his feat. The following morning
+as we were<span class="pagenum"><a id="page62" name="page62"></a>Pg 62</span> sketching in the town, an officer approached respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>"His excellency the Sirdar invites you to supper," he said.</p>
+
+<p>We considered a moment, for we had intended to return to Plevlie. The
+Shadow broke in.</p>
+
+<p>"It is inconvenient to come to supper," he said to our horror. "Tell his
+excellency that the gentleman and lady will come to lunch if he wishes
+it."</p>
+
+<p>The Sirdar meekly sent answer that lunch would suit him very well, and
+we could drive back with him to Plevlie. "Would we come to his house at
+12.30?"</p>
+
+<p>The Prefect told us that we ought to go to the lunch at twelve, because
+the Sirdar's clock was always half an hour fast. We arrived, but the
+Sirdar evidently had been considering us, he did not appear for the half
+an hour, so we sat with his staff sipping rakia by the roadside.</p>
+
+<p>The lunch was excellent, but the Sirdar's carriage, like every other
+carriage in Montenegro, was a weird, ancient, rusty arabesquish affair,
+tied together with wire. We had two resplendent staff officers, armed to
+the teeth, who galloped ahead, we had two superior non-coms., also armed
+to the dentals, galloping behind, while on the box sat a man with gun,
+pistols, sword, dagger and a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page63" name="page63"></a>Pg 63</span> bottle of wine and water which we passed
+round whenever the Sirdar became hoarse. The coachman was as old and as
+shabby as his carriage, and every five miles or so was forced to descend
+and tie up yet another mishap with wire&mdash;ordinary folks' carriages are
+only repaired with string.</p>
+
+<p>The Sirdar occupied almost the whole of the back seat, and Jo was
+squeezed into the crack which was left. Jan was perched on a sort of
+ledge, facing them. The carriage was narrow, six legs were two too many
+for the space. Jan's were the superfluous ones. He tried this pose, he
+tried that, but in spite of his contortions he endured much of the seven
+hours' journey in acute discomfort and the latter part in torture.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his throat the Sirdar did nearly all the talking. The
+country we were passing through were scenes of his battles: with one arm
+he threw a company over this hill, with a hand, nearly hitting Jan in
+the eye, he marched an army corps along that valley; he explained how he
+had been forced to give up the Ministry of War because there was no
+other efficient commander for the north.</p>
+
+<p>A blue ridge of pine trees appeared on our right hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You see those hills," said the Sirdar: "I'll tell you the story of a
+reply of mine, a funny reply. I ordered a general last winter to march
+across those<span class="pagenum"><a id="page64" name="page64"></a>Pg 64</span> hills. He said that the troops would starve. I looked him
+in the eye. Then you will eat wolves, I shouted. He went."</p>
+
+<p>If we passed peasants he stopped them. He seemed to have an
+extraordinary memory for names and faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Never forget a face," he said, "never forget its name. That is the
+secret of popularity."</p>
+
+<p>He was very anxious that we should go to Cettinje and to Scutari. He
+kindly promised to see about it, to arrange for our horses and to have
+our passage telegraphed before us. At Podgoritza he said a government
+motor-car should wait for us. He advised us to make a detour from the
+straight road and to see the famous black lake of Jabliak and the
+Dormitor mountains. We thanked him gratefully. He waved our thanks
+aside.</p>
+
+<p>"And I will write to my friend the Minister of War. He will arrange that
+you go to Scutari." He then explained all the reasons why Montenegro
+should hold Scutari when the war was over.</p>
+
+<p>"It was ours," he said; "we only gave it up to Venice so that she should
+protect us from the Turk. If we do not hold Scutari, Montenegro can
+never become a state, so if we cannot keep her we might as well give up
+Cettinje. After all we are but taking back what was once ours."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page65" name="page65"></a>Pg 65</span></p>
+
+<p>He was daily expecting the uniforms from Russia, and asked every soldier
+on the road for news. At last one said that he had seen them.</p>
+
+<p>"The stuff is rather thin, your excellency, but the boots are splendid."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/12.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page66" name="page66"></a>Pg 66</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>NORTHERN MONTENEGRO</h3>
+
+
+<p>We were accosted by a clean-limbed, joyous youth, who bore on his cap
+the outstretched winged badge of the police. He said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mister Sirdar, he tell me take you alon' o' Nickshitch."</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough the next morning there he was, with three horses, which if
+not the identical animals of our Chainitza trip were sisters or brothers
+to them. It was a wretched day, gusty, and the rain sweeping round the
+corners of the old streets. Early as was the hour, the wretched
+prisoners were peering through the lattice windows of their prison,
+which evidently once had been the harem of some wealthy Turk; where
+beauties had once lain on voluptuous couches, wretched criminals now
+crouched half-starved, racked with disease, and as we passed held out
+skinny arms. All Montenegrin saddles are bound on with string, even
+those of the highest in the land; indeed, one cannot imagine how the
+people did before string was invented, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page67" name="page67"></a>Pg 67</span> ours began to slip before we
+were well clear of the town. Necessary adjustments were made, and on
+once more.</p>
+
+<p>Our guide was well armed&mdash;he carried two murderous-looking pistols, and
+a long rifle slung over his back. He was in high spirits and showed us
+that the proper way to ride Montenegrin horses was to drop the reins on
+to the animal's neck, kick it in the stomach with both feet, elevating
+your arms and uttering the most unearthly yells. Thus terrified, the
+unfortunate wreck would canter a few yards, and our cicerone would turn
+in his saddle and grin back at us, who were humanely contented with the
+solemn jog-trot of our aged steeds along the well-worn horse-track&mdash;for
+there was no road.</p>
+
+<p>We crawled along, wretched in the downpour, the scenery completely
+hidden by the clouds; but towards midday, as we climbed ever higher and
+higher, we plunged into pine forests where the rain began to thin to
+mist, veiling the trees with layers of drifting fog. Out of the forests
+we came&mdash;the rain having ceased&mdash;into a strange-looking landscape, whose
+japanesiness is equalled possibly only by Japan itself. There were the
+queer rounded hills, the gnarled and twisted little pines and dim
+fir-clad slopes cutting the sky with sharp grey silhouettes.</p>
+
+<p>Here we stopped to eat. We opened a tin of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page68" name="page68"></a>Pg 68</span> meat and made rough
+sandwiches with the coarse brown or black bread which is the staple food
+of Serbian nations. When we were satisfied there was meat left in the
+tin. Two wretched, ragged children came on the road singing some
+half-Eastern chant, and we hailed them. They refused the food with
+dignity, and marched on offended.</p>
+
+<p>We came to the Grand Canyon of Colorado&mdash;we beg its pardon&mdash;of
+Montenegro, The Tara. Great cliffs towered high on either side, great
+grey, rugged cliffs topped with pine and scrub oak. Down, down, down to
+the river, an hour, and we crossed the bridge out of Novi Bazar into
+Montenegro&mdash;thirty years free from the Turk. We halted at a little
+coffee stall made of boughs. Jan wanted to get a photo, but the women
+were so shy that Jo had to push them out into the open.</p>
+
+<p>On the way up the other cliff our guide became communicative. He had
+been in America, in the mining camps, and spoke fair American.</p>
+
+<p>"In ole days, dese was de borders," he said; "'ere de Serb, 'n dere de
+Turk. Natchurally dey 'ate each oder. Dey waz two fellers 'ad fair cold
+feet, one 'ere, one over dere, Turk 'n our chapy. Every day dey come
+down to de ribber 'n dey plug't de odder chap wid dere ole pistols what
+filled at de nose. But dey neber hit nuttin. One day de Serb 'e got mad
+and avade in de ribber, but 'e did'n 'it<span class="pagenum"><a id="page69" name="page69"></a>Pg 69</span> de Turk. Nex' day dey hot'
+avade in 'arf way across. Dey miss again. De tird day dey avades in rite
+ter de middle, 'n each shoots up de odder dead. Yessir, 'n dere bodies
+float down ter 'ere."</p>
+
+<p>He looked up and pointed.</p>
+
+<p>"Dey was a gooman up dere," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"A gooman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a man wat 'ad a gooman all to 'isself."</p>
+
+<p>"!!!!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dey was an ole town all made o' stones," our guide explained, "where
+dis man made 'is gooman. You know wat a gooman is?&mdash;kill all de fellers
+what pass 'n do wat you likes."</p>
+
+<p>We understood suddenly that "Government" was indicated.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat's wat I say," he answered, "gooman&mdash;'e was killed by a Montenegrin
+chap wat throwed 'im orf de cliffs, 'n a Turk gets all 'is land. Dat's
+'ow dey was done dose days. Dere ain't much 'o de ole town lef now."</p>
+
+<p>"We 'ad to chase de Turk outer 'ere," he went on; "lots 'o fighting, but
+we 'ad luck. You see, dey 'ad two lines, 'an we got de first line before
+'e was ready, 'n wiped 'im out, so de secon' line did'n know if it was
+'im retreatin' or us advancin', and we was into 'em before dey 'ad made
+up dere minds. Yessir."</p>
+
+<p>The ascent was terribly laborious. Our animals<span class="pagenum"><a id="page70" name="page70"></a>Pg 70</span> were sweating, though
+they were carrying nothing but the knapsacks.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye see dat flat stone?" said the guide. "Dat's were de gooman feller
+'ide 'is gold. Dey was tree Italians chaps 'ere 'n dey turn ober dat
+stone ter roll it downill. 'N underneat was all dat feller's gold. Dat
+madum larf, I tell yer."</p>
+
+<p>We climbed higher and yet higher; we thought we would never reach the
+crest. The sweat poured from us, and we were drenched.</p>
+
+<p>On the top there were but few stones of the old castle, and we rode over
+the ruins. We passed into a queer pallid country, pale grey houses, pale
+yellow or pale green fields, grey sky and stones, a violently rolling
+plain where our guide lost his way, and we became increasingly aware of
+the discomfort of our saddles, and prayed for the journey to end.</p>
+
+<p>We refound the route, and asked a peasant, "How far to Jabliak?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bogami, quarter of an hour."</p>
+
+<p>We cheered.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of twenty minutes we asked once more.</p>
+
+<p>"Bogami, quarter of an hour."</p>
+
+<p>At the end of twenty minutes more we asked again, our spirits were
+falling.</p>
+
+<p>"Bogami, quarter of an hour."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page71" name="page71"></a>Pg 71</span></p>
+
+<p>"* * *!"</p>
+
+<p>We then asked a peasant and his wife. The woman considered for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"About an hour," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband turned and swore at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Bogami, don't believe her, gentlemen," he cried, "it's only a quarter
+of an hour."</p>
+
+<p>We left them quarrelling.</p>
+
+<p>It grew dark, and we grew miserable. Jabliak seemed like a dream, and we
+like poor wandering Jews, cursed ever to roam on detestable saddles in
+this queer pallid country.</p>
+
+<p>At last a peasant said it was five minutes off, and then it really was a
+quarter of an hour distant.</p>
+
+<p>We came down from the hills to find the whole aristocracy&mdash;one
+captain&mdash;not to say all their populace, out on the green to do us
+honour. They had been informed by telegraph of our august decision to
+sleep in their wooden village. When we got off our horses our knees were
+so cramped that we could scarcely stand, and we hobbled after the
+captain into a bitterly cold room without furniture. Various
+Montenegrins came and looked at us, and an old veterinary surgeon, also
+<i>en route</i>, but in the opposite direction, conversed in bad German. The
+old vet. was a Roumanian, and the only animal doctor in all Montenegro.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page72" name="page72"></a>Pg 72</span></p>
+
+<p>To their great surprise we demanded something to eat.</p>
+
+<p>"Supper is at nine," they said severely.</p>
+
+<p>"But we have had nothing since ten this morning," we protested.</p>
+
+<p>"But supper will be ready at nine," they said again.</p>
+
+<p>After a lot of trouble we got some scrambled eggs, but nothing would
+persuade our guide, whose name, by the way, was "Mike," to have
+anything. It almost seemed improper to eat at the wrong hours, even if
+one was hungry.</p>
+
+<p>After supper we sat growing colder and colder. At last, in desperation,
+we asked if there were no place in the village which had a fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, there is a fire in the other caf&eacute;," and thither we were
+conducted.</p>
+
+<p>We were in a jolly wooden room, with a blazing stove and a most welcome
+fugginess. The hostess brought us rakia, coffee and walnuts, and did her
+utmost to make us comfortable. Montenegrins crowded in, and discussed
+the probable end of the war. There was little enthusiasm shown, most of
+the talk was of the hardships, and a little grumbling that the farms
+were going to pieces because of the lack of men.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving Plevlie, Dr. Clemow had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page73" name="page73"></a>Pg 73</span> presented Jan with a box of Red
+Cross cigars, and he handed one to the captain. The official received it
+gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he said. "Cigars, eh! One does not often see those nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>The cigar was a Trichinopoli. Jan said nothing, but watched. The captain
+lit the cigar manfully, and for some minutes puffed, looking the
+apotheosis of aristocracy. Presently his puffing ceased, he looked
+thoughtful, and then saying that he had forgotten an important paper
+which he had not signed, he fled. We found the cigars most useful
+afterwards, as a sort of spiritual disinfector, infallible against
+bores.</p>
+
+<p>Into the cracks of the ceiling were stuck white and yellow flowers,
+thyme and other plants, till the roof looked like an inverted
+flower-bed. We had noticed this custom before, and asked Mike if it had
+any significance.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," he answered, "all dose tings, dey stuck up dere 'gainst de
+fleas 'n bugs."</p>
+
+<p>This was translated into Serbian, and the woman boxed his ears.</p>
+
+<p>We supped on meat&mdash;three courses&mdash;meat, meat, meat, and so tough that
+our teeth bounced off, and we were compelled to bolt the morsels whole.
+One course tired us out, weary as we already were with our journey, but
+Mike, making up for his<span class="pagenum"><a id="page74" name="page74"></a>Pg 74</span> former abstinence, wolfed all his own share and
+what remained over from ours.</p>
+
+<p>The night was so cold that we went to bed in our clothes, and even then
+could not sleep for hours.</p>
+
+<p>We woke with difficulty to a glorious day, and found that what we had
+thought yesterday to be a plain was in truth a great plateau surrounded
+by towering grey mountains on which were gulfs and gullies filled with
+eternal snow. Jabliak is a queer village, fifty or sixty weathered
+wooden houses&mdash;with the high-peaked roof of Northern Serbia&mdash;flung down
+into this wilderness, where the grass and crops fight for existence with
+the pushing stones, and where the summer is so short that the captain's
+plum tree&mdash;the only one&mdash;will not ripen save in exceptional years. Never
+a wheel comes to Jabliak, and so it is a village without streets.
+Everything which passes here is horse-or woman-borne, and for hay they
+use long narrow sledges which slide over the stones and slippery grass
+as though it were snow.</p>
+
+<p>"Urrgh," said a man, "you should see this in winter. Snow ten and twelve
+feet deep, and only just the roofs and the tops of the telegraph-poles
+emerging."</p>
+
+<p>The village escorted us to see the famous Black Lake below the peaks of
+Dormitor.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page75" name="page75"></a>Pg 75</span></p>
+
+<p>The lake is beautiful enough, but too big for mystery, too small to be
+impressive. One had imagined it twinkling like the wicked pupil of a
+witch's eye, with cornea of white stones and eye-lashes of pine trees,
+and we desecrated even its stillness by shooting at wild duck with a
+rifle.</p>
+
+<p>Jan had been describing to the villagers how well Jo rode; they now
+think he is a liar. Her horse took an unexpected jump at a small
+obstacle; the huge hump at the back of the saddle rose suddenly, threw
+her forward, and before she had realized anything, she was hanging
+almost upside down about the horse's neck, helpless because of the
+enormous steeple in front. This horse, as though quite used to similar
+occurrences, stood quietly contemplative, till Mike had restored her to
+a perpendicular.</p>
+
+<p>Then on again. At times the tracks grew very muddy, and the horses
+side-slipped a good deal. At the top of a pass we halted to get coffee
+from a leafy hut. Before us were the mountains of Voynik, a blue ridge
+with shadowy, strange crevasses and cliffs; behind us Dormitor was still
+visible, a faint stain on the sky, as though that great canopy had been
+dragging edges in the dew.</p>
+
+<p>Four women clambered up towards us. When they had reached the top they
+flung down their enormous knapsacks and sat down. They were a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page76" name="page76"></a>Pg 76</span> cheery,
+pretty set, and we asked them where they were going.</p>
+
+<p>"To the front," they said.</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Those are for our husbands and brothers," answered they, patting the
+huge coloured knapsacks.</p>
+
+<p>"How far have you to walk?" we asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Four more days."</p>
+
+<p>"And how far have you walked?"</p>
+
+<p>"Four days."</p>
+
+<p>No complaining, no repining, just a statement of fact, these women were
+cheerfully tramping eight days with bundles weighing from 45 to 50
+pounds upon their backs, to take a few luxuries, or necessities, to
+their fighting kin.</p>
+
+<p>We bade them a jolly farewell, wished them luck, and started downhill.</p>
+
+<p>The track became so steep that we had to descend from our horses and
+walk, and so we came to Shavnik.</p>
+
+<p>Shavnik is not of wood; it is stone, and as we came into its little
+square&mdash;with the white river-bed on one side&mdash;we realized that no
+welcome attended us. To our indignant dismay the inn was full, and no
+telegram from the "State" had arrived.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image08" name="image08">
+   <img src="images/13.jpg"
+      alt="PEASANT WOMEN OF THE MOUNTAINS."
+      title="PEASANT WOMEN OF THE MOUNTAINS." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">PEASANT WOMEN OF THE MOUNTAINS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image09" name="image09">
+   <img src="images/14.jpg"
+      alt="A VILLAGE OF NORTH MONTENEGRO."
+      title="A VILLAGE OF NORTH MONTENEGRO." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">A VILLAGE OF NORTH MONTENEGRO.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>We learned that in Montenegro are two kinds<span class="pagenum"><a id="page77" name="page77"></a>Pg 77</span> of travellers&mdash;royalties
+and nobodies. Royalties are done for, nobodies do the best they can. We
+found a not overclean room over a shop&mdash;there was nothing better&mdash;we had
+already experienced worse: so we ordered supper, and went off to the
+telegraph station, to make sure that we arrived as "Royalty" at the next
+stop.</p>
+
+<p>A man suddenly burst into the office, crying, "Sirdar! Sirdar!"</p>
+
+<p>Jo and Jan made their way through the darkness to the inn, squeezed
+between sweating horses to the door. We were admitted.</p>
+
+<p>The Sirdar received us kindly, but was dreadfully tired, and looked
+years older than he had two days before. He had ridden some 150
+kilometres in sixteen hours, had left Chainitza at two o'clock in the
+morning, and had been in the saddle ever since. He is a famous horseman,
+but is no longer young. Almost all his escort had succumbed to the
+speed, and he was full of the story of his orderly's horse which had
+done 300 kilometres in four days, and was the only animal which had come
+through with him, he having changed mounts at Plevlie. We left him and
+went straight to bed.</p>
+
+<p>Just as we were comfortably dozing off, a man burst into the room and
+demanded "Mike," and said something about a horse. Jan dressed hurriedly
+and clattered downstairs. It was pitch<span class="pagenum"><a id="page78" name="page78"></a>Pg 78</span> dark. He ran to the stable, felt
+his way in, and struck a match. There were two horses, one was lying on
+its side, evidently foundered and dying but Jan felt that they would not
+have disturbed him for that. By matchlight again he found that his own
+horses had been turned out by the Sirdar's orderly, and that one was
+missing. Mike was not to be found, but the missing horse was discovered
+by a small boy in the dry river-bed apparently in search of water. Jan
+retired to his bedroom to find that in his absence two more strangers
+had burst in, to Jo's indignation. He pushed them out and locked the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>When we awoke the Sirdar had already retaken his whirlwind
+course&mdash;evidently grave news called him to Cettinje&mdash;leaving the
+orderly's gallant horse dead behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"He kills many horses," said a peasant, shaking his head; "he rides
+fast&mdash;always."</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the dry bed of the river and prepared for the hill in front
+of us. Suddenly Mike's horse plunged into a bog. The poor beast sprawled
+in the treacherous green up to its stomach, and, thinking its last hour
+had come, groaned loudly. Mike threw himself from the saddle, and with
+great effort at last extracted his horse, which emerged trembling and
+dripping with slime. Mike grinned ruefully.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page79" name="page79"></a>Pg 79</span></p>
+
+<p>"I orter remembered," he admitted. "Sirdar, 'e get in dere one day
+'imself."</p>
+
+<p>This day's riding was the worst we had yet experienced. Our horses were
+fagged, the road abominable, great stones everywhere on the degenerated
+Turkish roads.</p>
+
+<p>The Turkish road is a narrowish path of flat paving-stones laid directly
+upon mother earth: but that is the first stage. In the second stage the
+paving-stones have begun to turn and lie like slates on a roof; in the
+third they have turned completely on edge, like a row of dominoes, and
+the horses, stepping delicately between the obstacles, pound the exposed
+earth to deep trenches of semi-liquid mud. In the fourth stage the
+stones have entirely disappeared, leaving only the trenches which the
+horses have formed, so that the path is like a sheet of violently
+corrugated iron. Most of the tracks are now between the third and fourth
+stages of degeneration. One never knows how far the horse will plunge
+his legs into the trenches, for sometimes they are very shallow, and
+sometimes the leg is engulfed to the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Jan's horse slipped over one domino, went up to the shoulder into a
+trench, and off came the rider. Luckily he fell upon a heap of stones,
+and not into the mud, but he decided for all that to walk for a bit.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page80" name="page80"></a>Pg 80</span></p>
+
+<p>Every now and then one came across traces of the construction of a great
+road&mdash;white new stone embankments that started out of nothing, and went
+to nowhere, and Mike confessed that he had lost the path once more&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When I come out of dat confounded mod!"</p>
+
+<p>After a hustle across country we found the road, and wished that we had
+not, for it was a Turkish track in its most belligerent form.</p>
+
+<p>At last we reached the top and rested awhile. Mike showed us his
+revolver.</p>
+
+<p>"He good revolver," he said. "De las' man I shoot he killin' a vooman. I
+come. He run away. I tell 'im to stop, but he no stop, so I shoot 'im
+leg. 'E try to 'it me wi' a gon."</p>
+
+<p>The man got fourteen years.</p>
+
+<p>We pushed on again, and on the road picked up an overcoat, which later
+we were able to restore to its owner, a Turk, who was going to
+Nickshitch to buy sugar and salt for Plevlie.</p>
+
+<p>Bits of the big white road appeared and reappeared with insistence. We
+asked who was responsible for its inception.</p>
+
+<p>"Sirdar," said Mike; "he good boy. Much work."</p>
+
+<p>The country was now like brown velvet spread over heaps of gigantic
+potatoes.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page81" name="page81"></a>Pg 81</span></p>
+
+<p>Our horses grew slower and slower, and the inn which we were seeking
+seemed ever further and further away. We passed many peasants, and had
+evidently entered the land of Venus, for each one was more beautiful
+than the neighbour. Since Jabliak we had not seen an ugly man or woman,
+and the dignity of their carriage was exceeded only by the nobleness of
+their features. Ugly women must be valuable in these parts, and probably
+marry early; humans ever prize the rare above the beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Mike spoke to many of the girls, asking them their names and of their
+homes. One had his own name&mdash;which we forget&mdash;and he said that she must
+be his cousin, and that if she would wait where she was he would come
+back later and give her a lift.</p>
+
+<p>At last we came to the wooden inn.</p>
+
+<p>The better-class inns have dining-room and kitchen separate, the
+second-class both are one, but in each case the fire is made on a heap
+of earth piled in the centre of the floor; there is no chimney, and the
+smoke fills the room with a blue haze, smarting in the eyes; it drifts
+up to the roof, where hams are hung, and finds its way out through the
+cracks in the wooden roofing slats. This inn was second-class, and along
+one wall was a deep trough, in which were four huge lumps of a white
+substance<span class="pagenum"><a id="page82" name="page82"></a>Pg 82</span> which puzzled us. First we thought it was snow, but that
+seemed impossible; then we thought it was salt&mdash;but why?</p>
+
+<p>It was snow, there being no water fit to drink, so the snow was stored
+in the winter in huge underground cellars.</p>
+
+<p>We got coffee and kaimak&mdash;a sort of cross between sour milk and cream
+cheese&mdash;and as a great honour the lady of the house, a villainously
+dirty-looking woman, brought us two eggs. Jan's was bad, but he put it
+aside, saying nothing, for it is impossible to explain to these people
+what is a "bad" egg&mdash;all are alike to them.</p>
+
+<p>We took an affectionate leave of Mike, for here we degenerated to a
+carriage, which was waiting us, and he rode off, dragging our tired
+horses behind him.</p>
+
+<p>As we were getting into the carriage the dirty woman ran up and, before
+Jo could ward it off, planted a loving kiss on either cheek.</p>
+
+<p>We flung our weary limbs upon the rusty cushions. Our driver was a
+cheery fellow, who only answered "quite" to everything we said. We drove
+through miles of country so stony that all the world had turned grey as
+though it had remembered how old it was. The road twisted and curled
+about the mountains like the flourish of Corporal Trim's stick: below
+one could see the road, only half<span class="pagenum"><a id="page83" name="page83"></a>Pg 83</span> a mile off as the crow flies, but a
+good five miles by the curves. We were blocked by a great hay-cart. Our
+driver shouted and cursed without effect, so he climbed down from the
+box, and, running round the hay, slashed the driver of it with his whip.
+We expected a free fight, but nothing occurred. When the hay had
+modestly drawn aside, we found "only a girl." Poor thing! she looked
+rueful enough.</p>
+
+<p>The road was the best we had seen in all the Balkans, white and
+well-surfaced like an English country highway, and at last we clattered
+into Nickshitch, the most important town of Northern Montenegro. It was
+like a fair-sized Cornish village, with little stone houses and
+stone-walled gardens filled with sunflowers.</p>
+
+<p>A charming old major came to the inn to do us the honour we had
+telegraphed for, and together we strolled about the streets. There is a
+pretty Greek church at one end on a formal mound, and behind the town
+runs a sheer fin of rock topped by an old castle where once had lived
+another man who "was a gooman all to hisself;" now it is a monastery,
+and one of the most picturesque in Montenegro.</p>
+
+<p>We dined upon beautiful trout fresh from the river, and large green
+figs. Undressing, Jan found a louse in his shirt&mdash;that came from the
+dirty<span class="pagenum"><a id="page84" name="page84"></a>Pg 84</span> bedroom at Shavnik evidently. He went to bed, but his troubles
+were not yet over; there was another foreign presence, a presence which
+raised large and itching lumps. He hunted without success for some time,
+but at last caught and exterminated an enormous bug. After which there
+was peace.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/15.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page85" name="page85"></a>Pg 85</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>TO CETTINJE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The rain poured all night. At five o'clock they called us, telling us
+<i>not</i> to wake up as the motor would come later. At six they knocked
+again, saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Get up quickly; the carriage is at the door."</p>
+
+<p>No explanations.</p>
+
+<p>We hurried so much that we left our best soap and our mascot, a
+beautiful little wooden chicken, behind for ever. The major was waiting
+in the bar room.</p>
+
+<p>We were sorry to say good-bye, he was lonely, and we liked him; but we
+lost no time, as we were seven hours from Podgoritza and goodness knows
+how far from Cettinje.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage and coachman were the same as yesterday's, but his
+expression was so lugubrious in the downpouring rain that he looked
+another man.</p>
+
+<p>Just outside the village he picked up a friend and put her in the
+carriage. She was a velvet-coated old lady with a flat white face and
+two<span class="pagenum"><a id="page86" name="page86"></a>Pg 86</span> bright birdlike brown eyes which she never took off us.
+Conversation was impossible, as she had only one tooth, round which her
+speech whistled unintelligibly, and she hiccuped loudly once in every
+half-hour. We were most uncomfortable. The hood was up, and a piece of
+tarpaulin was stretched from it across to the coachman's seat, blocking
+out the view except for the little we could see through a tiny triangle.</p>
+
+<p>What with three humans, our bags, the old lady's bundle, and an enormous
+sponge cake, we were very cramped, and whenever we tried to move a
+stiffened knee her bright eye was on it, and she made some suitable
+remark to which we always had to answer with "Ne rasumem," "I don't
+understand," the while beaming at her to show we appreciated her efforts
+to put us at our ease.</p>
+
+<p>The mist and rain entirely obscured the view. Now and then a tree showed
+as a thumb-mark on the grey. We little knew that we were passing through
+some of the most marvellous scenery in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage settled down with a bump. Something wrong with the harness;
+string was produced, and it was made usable for the next half-hour.
+Carriages in Montenegro must have been designed in the days when
+builders thought more of voluptuous curves than of breaking strains, for
+we have<span class="pagenum"><a id="page87" name="page87"></a>Pg 87</span> never been in one of them without many halts, during which the
+coachman endeavoured to tie the carriage together with string or wire to
+prevent it from coming in two.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped at wayside inns and politely treated the old lady to coffee
+at a penny a cup to make up for our inappreciation of her conversational
+powers.</p>
+
+<p>Women passed carrying the usual enormous bundles. Sometimes they were
+accompanied by husbands or brothers, who strolled along entirely
+unladen.</p>
+
+<p>Jo busily sketched everybody she saw.</p>
+
+<p>Passers-by demanded, "What is she doing?" and the onlookers answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"She is writing us;" for everything that is done with pencil on paper is
+to them writing.</p>
+
+<p>One pretty young woman shook her fist, laughing&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If I could write, I would write <i>you</i>," she said.</p>
+
+<p>We were no longer in the Sanjak. Turkish influence had vanished, and we
+longed to see the famous Black Mountains of old Montenegro.</p>
+
+<p>At Danilograd we marvelled at the enormous expensive bridge which seemed
+to lead to nothing but a couple of tiny villages. We missed the
+picturesque Turkish houses, built indeed only for to-day like their
+roads, but full of unexpected<span class="pagenum"><a id="page88" name="page88"></a>Pg 88</span> corners and mysterious balconies. The
+Montenegrin houses were small and simple, four walls and a roof, like
+the drawing of a three-year-old child. The only thing lacking was the
+curly smoke coming from the chimney. Broad streets lined with these
+houses were unexhilarating in effect, and would have been more
+depressing except for the bright colours with which they were painted.</p>
+
+<p>When the horses were replete after their midday meal we loaded up,
+adding to our numbers a taciturn man who sat on the box. We rolled on to
+Podgoritza, arriving at two o'clock in a steady downpour.</p>
+
+<p>Podgoritza seemed unaware of our arrival. The streets were empty, and
+the Prefect's offices were tenanted only by the porter, a Turk, who
+remarked that the Prefect was taking his siesta, and seemed to think
+that was the end of it.</p>
+
+<p>This was awful, after being Highnesses for a week, to be treated just
+like ordinary people, and perhaps to lose all chance of reaching
+Cettinje that night.</p>
+
+<p>"Produce the Prefect," said Jo, stamping her foot, but the Turk only
+smiled and suggested a visit to the adjutant's office. Back to the
+carriage we went and drove to a place like a luggage dep&ocirc;t. No adjutant,
+nothing but giggling boys. Our coachman became restive and said his
+horses were<span class="pagenum"><a id="page89" name="page89"></a>Pg 89</span> tired of the rain, so we deposited the old lady,
+substituted a man in American clothes who seemed sympathetic, and drove
+back to the Prefect's office with him. There we found a sleepy
+lieutenant who ordered coffee, while our American-speaking friend
+explained to him that we were very Great People, and that something
+ought immediately to be done for us. So the officer promised to get the
+Prefect as soon as possible, and we went to the hotel to drink more
+coffee with our baggy-trousered friend, who told us that he was one of a
+huge contingent of Montenegrins who had travelled from America to fight
+for the little country. "Say, who are your pals?" said a nasal voice,
+and the owner, a pleasant-looking man in a broad-shouldered mackintosh,
+took a seat at our table. He was also a Montenegrin, and had been mining
+in America for some years. More coffees were ordered. We confided to the
+new American Montenegrin that we did not like Podgoritza, and he tried
+to find excuses&mdash;the hour, the bad weather. The hotel-keeper came up and
+intimated in awestruck tones that the Prefect had just looked in with
+some friends.</p>
+
+<p>Our appearance did not seem to impress the Prefect in the least, and
+small wonder. He owned to having received a telegram about us, but there
+was no motor-car available for that day, and he departed.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page90" name="page90"></a>Pg 90</span></p>
+
+<p>"The Prefect is only more unpleasant than Podgoritza," said Jo to the
+American in the mackintosh; but he deduced dyspepsia.</p>
+
+<p>The Prefect, having been to his office and having seen the lieutenant,
+came back in five minutes, rather more suave in manner, and announced
+impressively that he was going to give us his own carriage.</p>
+
+<p>But the rain, the giggling boys, the smiling Turk, and the sudden drop
+from royalty to insignificance had been rankling in Jo's mind. She sat
+back haughtily and remarked&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But the Sirdar promised us a motor-car."</p>
+
+<p>"I will go and see if it is possible," said the Prefect, and he dashed
+out into the rain. He returned full of apologies. All the motors were
+out, but he would send his carriage round immediately. "A delightful
+carriage," he added.</p>
+
+<p>It arrived&mdash;a landau such as one would find at Waddingsgate-super-Mare,
+so free from scars that every Montenegrin turned to look at it.</p>
+
+<p>The hotel-keepers, our American friends, and the Prefect and his captain
+stood pointing out its beauties, and we left them standing in the rain.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall always put on side in this country," said Jo as she bit a large
+mouthful of cheese.</p>
+
+<p>We pounded along, and the day slowly grew<span class="pagenum"><a id="page91" name="page91"></a>Pg 91</span> darker. We passed an
+encampment, where the firelight thrown up on to the trees made a weird
+and jolly sight.</p>
+
+<p>The hours passed by slowly. Suddenly (our coachman was probably dozing)
+we ran into something. It was a carriage, a square grey thing. Our
+coachman howled to it, and it started slowly forward up the steep hill.
+A bright light streamed from the windows and cut a radiant path in the
+foggy rains. Some one threw away a cigar-end. The wet road shining in
+the glare of our pink candles, and the lightning flashing intermittently
+so that the mountain-tops sprang out to disappear again in the darkness;
+we felt as if we were living in the introduction of a mystery story from
+the <i>Strand Magazine</i>.</p>
+
+<p>At last in the misty rain we saw the aura of the lights of Cettinje. At
+last we wound slowly into wet streets, passed our mysterious companion
+without being able to see who was in it, and so to the hotel. Since the
+morning we had driven fourteen hours, and we were glad beyond measure to
+stretch and to find really comfortable beds.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we got up early. There was much to do. We were to see the
+War Minister about Scutari, to present a letter of introduction to the
+English minister, and to inspect the town.</p>
+
+<p>Nature has half filled a big crater with silt, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page92" name="page92"></a>Pg 92</span> the Montenegrins
+have half covered it with Cettinje.</p>
+
+<p>It is a polychromatic village of little square houses, cheerfully
+dreary, and one does not see its uses except to be out of the way. The
+only building with any architectural beauty is the monastery where the
+old bishops reigned, and which must have many a queer tale to tell.</p>
+
+<p>Asking for the Count de Salis, the English minister, we were directed to
+the diplomatic street, a collection of tiny houses grouped respectfully
+in front of the Palace, which itself was no larger than a Park Lane
+house laid edgeways, and with the paint peeling from its walls.</p>
+
+<p>Over the front door of each little house a sort of barber's pole stuck
+outwards, striped with the national colours of the minister living
+within.</p>
+
+<p>We noticed with pride and relief that the Count de Salis' pole was
+painted a reticent white. The sympathetic old lady who opened the door
+directed us to the Legation. There we found him inspecting the damages
+wreaked by the storm of overnight. The Legation was big and cold, and as
+the handsome fireplaces sent out by the British Board of Works were for
+anthracite only (and Montenegro produces only wood), the English
+minister preferred his warm cottage to the unheated Palace.</p>
+
+<p>He wished us luck in our quest for Scutari, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page93" name="page93"></a>Pg 93</span> asked us to tea. We
+then hurried to an awful building where the governing of Montenegro was
+done&mdash;a concrete erection, presented to Montenegro by the British
+Government, and an exact imitation of one of our workhouses. Here we
+found the Minister of War, a gorgeously dressed little man with a
+pleasant grandfatherly gleam in his eye. He only spoke Serbian, but with
+him was an unshaven young man whose chest was covered with gold
+danglers, who immediately began to air his quite passable French. We
+explained what we had been doing and what we wanted to do. The War
+Minister had not heard of US from the Sirdar, who had been resting after
+his terrific ride, but said that they were to see each other that day.
+The little man beamed upon us, and said they always wished to do
+anything for the English, but he must first see the Sirdar.</p>
+
+<p>"By the bye," he said, "I forgot to introduce you. This is Prince Peter,
+commander of the forces on the Adriatic coast." The young man arose and
+clicked his heels. We too got up. He shook hands with us solemnly, and
+Jo, unused to addressing Royalty, said, "Dobra Dan" (Good day).</p>
+
+<p>Then we all sat down again, a further rendezvous was arranged for the
+evening, and we left, carrying away the impression that the War Minister
+and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page94" name="page94"></a>Pg 94</span> we had bowed thirty times to each other before we got out of the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>Out in the streets, as we were sketching, we saw a large smile under a
+Staff officer's cap bearing down upon us. It was the Sirdar, quite
+rested and looking twenty years younger. He was going to the War
+Minister's, and promised to arrange at once for our visit to Scutari. He
+looked at our cryptic drawings of road scavengers, threw up his hands
+and ejaculating "Kako"&mdash;strode out of our lives.</p>
+
+<p>Tea in the little house with the discreet white pole was a great
+pleasure. Such tea we had not drunk since leaving England&mdash;butter, jam
+made by the old housekeeper, who pointed this out to us when she brought
+in a relay of hot water.</p>
+
+<p>She was the daughter of a man who had been exiled from his village
+because he had taken a prominent part in a blood feud, and the old
+Gospodar had told him he would be healthier elsewhere. So they had
+emigrated as far as Serbia, where she had learnt to read and write.</p>
+
+<p>A lady of good family but bad character suddenly decided to leave
+Montenegro, and fled to the shores of Cattaro, carrying with her a large
+number of State secrets. The Court was aghast. What was to be done?</p>
+
+<p>A villain was needed. The father was decided<span class="pagenum"><a id="page95" name="page95"></a>Pg 95</span> upon, and with the help of
+the lady's brothers she was kidnapped, carried back to Montenegro, and
+disappeared for ever. For which noble work he was permitted to return to
+his village.</p>
+
+<p>The old lady had a supreme contempt for the Montenegrins who had not
+"travelled," but she looked upon the growing pomp of the Court with
+suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," she said, "those were fine days when the king was only the
+Gospodar, and there were none of these gold embroidered uniforms about,
+and the Queen and I used to slide down the Palace banisters together."</p>
+
+<p>In those days the Royal family inhabited the top story only, while the
+ground floor was filled with wood for the winter. Just round the corner
+was the old pink palace, now used as a riding school. It had been the
+first place in Montenegro to possess a billiard-table. So,
+billiard-tables being rarer and more curious than kings&mdash;the palace had
+been called the <span class="smcap">Billiado</span>.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen, whatever agility she may have possessed once when navigating
+banisters, is now a sedate and domestic person, and doesn't hold with
+bluestockings, notwithstanding the "Higher Education" of some of her
+daughters.</p>
+
+<p>The story goes that once when the King was away she inaugurated one of
+those thorough-paced<span class="pagenum"><a id="page96" name="page96"></a>Pg 96</span> spring cleanings dear to most women's hearts;
+ordered the dining-room furniture into the street, and superintended the
+beating of it. Women hold a poor position in Montenegro, but one of
+character can carry all before her. A well-known English nurse was
+managing a hospital in Cettinje during the first Balkan War. One of her
+patients, though well connected as peasants often are in Montenegro, was
+a drunken old reprobate, and she told the authorities he must go. They
+demurred&mdash;his relations must not be offended. She insisted. They did
+nothing. One morning they found him, bed and all, in the middle of the
+street opposite the King's palace.</p>
+
+<p>The authorities swallowed their lesson.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening we walked over the stony hills with our host, and first
+had a glimpse of the real character of the country which had for so long
+kept the Turks at bay. One realized how much the people owed to the land
+for their boasted independence. Barren rock and scrub oak, no army could
+live here in sufficient numbers to subdue even a semi-warlike nation.
+Cettinje has been burned many a time by the Moslem, but starvation
+eventually drove him back to the fatter plains of the Sanjak, leaving a
+profitless victory behind him. Napoleon and Moscow over again.</p>
+
+<p>More miners from America passed with their<span class="pagenum"><a id="page97" name="page97"></a>Pg 97</span> showy machine-woven clothes,
+accompanied by their wives, who had evidently stayed behind in the old
+country. Otherwise they would have picked up new-fangled ideas about the
+rights of women, and would certainly have refused to shoulder the
+enormous American suit cases while their men ambled carelessly in front.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we had a further interview with the War Minister, who
+introduced to us a man in corduroys, the only really round-faced person
+we had met in Montenegro. Part of his name was "Ob," so as we forgot the
+rest of it we called him Dr. Ob. He was the minister of drains, and such
+things. As nothing had been previously explained to him about us, he
+covered his mystification by hailing us jovially, after which he
+misconstrued everything we said.</p>
+
+<p>He became very excited when we said we had brought 14,000 kilos of
+stores into Montenegro.</p>
+
+<p>"But we have not got it yet," he ejaculated. We explained that it was
+for the English hospital, and he subsided, very disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>Scutari was talked over again, and Dr. Ob promised to come and tell us
+that evening if Cettinje could supply a motor for the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>More bows and smiles, and we left wondering. Montenegrins always promise
+even when they have no intention of performance&mdash;something like the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page98" name="page98"></a>Pg 98</span>
+stage Irishman,&mdash;and we were surprised when Dr. Ob met us in the evening
+and said that the motor was arranged for next morning at eight.</p>
+
+<p>We tea'd with the count once more. In the next house lived a gorgeous
+old gentleman, and we heard that he had been War Minister for forty odd
+years. After thirty years or so of office it was considered that he
+could better uphold the dignity of his position were he able to sign his
+name. So he had to learn.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/16.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page99" name="page99"></a>Pg 99</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAKE OF SCUTARI</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dr. Ob, dressed in thick corduroys and an enormous pith helmet, arrived
+punctually with the motor, a Montenegrin Government motor. He had two
+companions, a girl simply dressed with coat and skirt which did not
+match, and cotton gloves whose burst finger ends were not darned, a Miss
+Petrovitch, and an officer. The coachwork&mdash;if one may dignify it by such
+a phrase&mdash;which was made from packing cases, had a thousand creaks and
+one abominable squeak, which made conversation impossible. The scenery
+was all grey rock and little scrubby trees; the road was magnificent and
+wound and twisted about the mountain side like a whip lash. Driving down
+these curves was no amateur's game, and we saw immediately that our
+chauffeur knew his job. We came over a ridge, and in the far distance,
+gleaming like the sun itself, a corner of the Lake of Scutari showed
+between two hill crests.</p>
+
+<p>We ran into a fertile valley, passed through Rieka&mdash;where was the first
+Slavonic printing-press&mdash;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page100" name="page100"></a>Pg 100</span>and up into the barren mountains once more.
+The peasants seem very industrious, every little pocket of earth is here
+carefully cultivated and banked almost in Arab fashion. The houses, too,
+were better, and rather Italian with painted balconies, but are built of
+porous stone and are damp in winter. The Rieka river ran along the road
+for some way, very green and covered with water-lily pods.</p>
+
+<p>We passed a standing carriage, in which was a large man in Montenegrin
+clothes, and a little further on passed a man in a grey suit walking.
+Dr. Ob gesticulated wildly, and pulled up the motor to gather in a
+Frenchman&mdash;somebody in the French legation who was going to Scutari for
+a week end. He turned suddenly to Jan.</p>
+
+<p>"Ce n'est pas une vie, monsieur," were the first words he uttered. He
+admired Miss Petrovitch very much, and told us in an undertone that she
+was a daughter of the governor of Scutari, niece of the King of
+Montenegro, and one of "les familles le plus chic."</p>
+
+<p>We descended steeply to the Port, ten variously coloured houses and
+twenty-five variously clothed people. Miss Petrovitch, to our amazement,
+embraced a rather dirty old peasant, the doctor disappeared to find us
+luncheon, the Frenchman to wash, and we strolled about.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page101" name="page101"></a>Pg 101</span></p>
+
+<p>A voice hailed us, and turning round, we found our mackintoshed American
+of Pod. We took him to the inn and stood him a drink. Dr. Ob came in and
+we introduced; but Dr. Ob was snifty and the American shy. His home was
+near by and he wished us to visit him, but there was no time.</p>
+
+<p>We lunched in a bedroom plastered with pictures. Montenegrins seem to be
+ashamed of walls, and they adore royalty. In every room one finds
+portraits of the King of Montenegro, the queen, the princes, the King of
+Italy, his queen, the Tzar of Russia, the grand dukes and duchesses, the
+King of Serbia and his princes, and to cap all a sort of comprehensive
+tableau of all the male crowned heads of Europe&mdash;including
+Turkey&mdash;balanced by another commemorating all the queens of
+Europe&mdash;excluding Turkey&mdash;the spaces left between these august people
+are filled with family portraits, framed samplers, picture postcards or
+a German print showing the seven ages of man over a sort of step-ladder.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch, loaded with grapes which Miss Petrovitch's peasant friend
+brought us, we trooped down to the steamer, which had been an old
+Turkish gun monitor and had been captured when the Montenegrins took
+Scutari.</p>
+
+<p>The boat was crowded, and the Frenchman took refuge in the captain's
+cabin, which was crammed<span class="pagenum"><a id="page102" name="page102"></a>Pg 102</span> with red pepper pods, and went to sleep. Jo
+began sketching at once. There were two full-blooded niggers aboard with
+us: they were descendants of the Ethiopian slaves of the harems; but the
+race is dying out, for the climate does not suit them. We steamed out
+into the lake, down the "kingly" canal, a shallow ditch in the mud.
+Magnificent mountains rush down on every side to the water, in which
+stunted willow trees with myriad roots&mdash;like mangroves&mdash;find an
+amphibious existence. We passed through their groves, hooting as though
+we were leaving Liverpool, and out into the eau-de-nil waters of the
+open lake.</p>
+
+<p>In three hours we reached Plavnitza, a quay on the mud, where more
+passengers were waiting for our already crowded craft. There were
+officers, peasants, Turks, and soldiers clad in French firemen's
+uniforms. These uniforms, by the way, caused a lot of ill-feeling in
+Montenegro. The French sent them out in a spirit of pure economical
+charity, and had the Frenchmen not been, on the average, small, and the
+Montenegrin, contrariwise, large, perhaps the gift would have been
+received with a better grace; but the sight of these enormous men
+bursting in all places from their all too tight regimentals, was
+ludicrous, and the soldiers felt it keenly.</p>
+
+<p>Two women came aboard, attached to officers,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page103" name="page103"></a>Pg 103</span> and wearing long light
+blue coats, the ceremonious dress of all classes; one carried a wooden
+cradle strapped on her back, the woman with no cradle had in her arms a
+baby of some ten or eleven months, which she fed alternately on grapes
+and pomegranate seeds. With each was a large family including a beastly
+little boy who spat all over the decks, and one of the fathers, a stern
+gold-laced officer, carried a dogwhip with which to rule his offspring.</p>
+
+<p>After a while we caught sight of Tarabosch, the famous mountain, and
+then the silhouette of the old Venetian fortress. From the water
+projected the funnels of yet another Turkish ship which had been sunk in
+the Balkan war, and we steamed into the amphibious trees on the mudflats
+of Scutari.</p>
+
+<p>A boat with chairs in it came for us and we disembarked. The boat was
+rather like one of those that children make from paper, called cocked
+hats, only rather elongated, and the rowers pushed at the oars which
+hung from twisted osier loops. Governor Petrovitch met us on the quay.
+He was a fine-featured old man dressed in all the barbaric splendour of
+a full national costume, pale green long-skirted coat, red gold
+embroidered waistcoat, and baggy dark blue knee breeches with a huge
+amount of waste material in the seat. He kissed his daughter and greeted
+us genially. We clambered<span class="pagenum"><a id="page104" name="page104"></a>Pg 104</span> into the usual dilapidated cab with the usual
+dilapidated horses, and off to the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>The women on the roadside were clad in picturesque ever-varying
+costumes. There were narrow carts with high Indian-like wheels studded
+with large nails; there were Albanians in costumes of black and white,
+everything we had hoped or expected.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/17.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page105" name="page105"></a>Pg 105</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>SCUTARI</h3>
+
+
+<p>After a wash we went into the streets. It was the Orient, just as
+Eastern as Colombo or Port Said. The little fruit and jewellers' shops
+with square lanterns, the tailors sitting cross-legged in their windows,
+the strange medley of costumes&mdash;even the long lean dogs looked as if
+they had been kicked from the doors of a thousand mosques.</p>
+
+<p>We left the shops for further explorations. Scutari has always been
+described as such a beautiful town. The adjective does not seem
+picturesque: yes, quaint, strange decidedly. One's second impression
+after the shops is this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/18.jpg"
+      alt="Shops"
+      title="Shops" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Miles and miles of walls with great doors. The main streets branch out
+into thousands of impasses each ending in a locked door. There are
+hardly any connecting streets, for somebody's<span class="pagenum"><a id="page106" name="page106"></a>Pg 106</span> walled garden is between.
+The Mahommedans hide in seclusion on one side of the town, while their
+hated enemies the Christians live on the other. Each house, Turk or
+Christian, has the same air of defiant privacy, the only difference
+being that the Turk's windows are blocked with painted lattice. The
+Mahommedan women's faces are covered with several thicknesses of
+chiffon, generally black, while the Christian peasant women walk about
+with an eye and a half peering from the shrouding folds of a cotton head
+shawl which they hold tightly under their noses.</p>
+
+<p>With difficulty we found the English consul's house, as the Albanians
+speak no Serb and Montenegrins were not to be found at every street
+corner. At last we found it appropriately enough in the Rue du Consulat
+d'Angleterre. A gorgeous old butler resembling a wolf ushered us from
+the blank walled street into a beautiful square garden filled with
+flowering shrubs and creepers. Not to be outdone by the colours of the
+flowers, the butler was clad in a red waistcoat, embroidered with gold,
+a green cloth coat, blue baggy trousers, and a red fez with a tassel
+nearly a yard long, while a connoisseur's mouth would have watered at
+the sight of his antique silver watch-chain with its exquisitely worked
+hanging blobs.</p>
+
+<p>The interior of the house gave an impression<span class="pagenum"><a id="page107" name="page107"></a>Pg 107</span> of vast roominess. Wide
+stairs, a huge upper landing like a reception-room, a panelled
+drawing-room large enough to lose one's self in, ornamented by primitive
+frescoes on the walls above the panels.</p>
+
+<p>The English consul was an old Albanian gentleman with delightful
+manners. For a long time he had been suffering from an illness which had
+started from a wound in the head, received during the siege of Scutari.
+After the inevitable coffee and cigarettes his son wandered out with us
+and showed us the interesting parts of the town. Out of a big doorway
+came two women in gorgeous clothes. They had been paying a morning call,
+and bade farewell to their hostess. Doubtless they were mother and
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>One was faded and beautiful; the younger was of the plump cream and
+roses variety with modestly downcast eyes. Both wore enormous white lace
+Mary Queen of Scots' veils, great baggy trousers made of stiff shiny
+black stuff, which was gathered into hard gold embroidered pipes which
+encased the ankles and upwards. These pipes were so stiff that they had
+to walk with straight knees and feet far apart. Their full cavalier
+coats were thickly covered with many kilometres of black braid sewn on
+in curly patterns, and the girl wore at least a hundred golden coins
+hung in semicircles on her chest.</p>
+
+<p>They left the third woman at the door and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page108" name="page108"></a>Pg 108</span> walked back a few steps down
+the road, then turned, and laying hand on breast, bowed ceremoniously,
+first the mother, then the daughter, who never lifted her eyes; another
+twenty steps and again the same performance; still once more, after
+which they slowly waddled round the corner. Suma told us they wore the
+costume of the <i>haute bourgeoisie</i>, and probably the girl had been taken
+to see her future mother-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>The next vision that met our eyes was the doctor in his best clothes,
+frock-coat, white spats, gloves, and a minute pork-pie cap perched on
+the top of his spherical countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"In Scutari it is necessary that I should be <i>en tenue</i>," was his
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Suma parted with us, promising to take us to the bazaar the next day,
+and we spent the afternoon sketching and avoiding a dumb idiot who tried
+to amuse us by standing on his head in front of whatever object we chose
+to sketch, and at intervals thrust into our hands a letter which he
+thought was a money producing talisman. It said in English, "Kick this
+chap if he bothers you."</p>
+
+<p>There are other traces of the English soldiery here. Little children
+with outstretched hands flock round, saying in coaxing tones "Garn," or
+"Git away you," under the impression that they are saying "please."</p>
+
+<p>At a street corner we saw a professional beggar,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page109" name="page109"></a>Pg 109</span> a shattered man of
+drooping misery, his rags vieing with the colour of the road. Jo began
+to sketch, but he promptly sat up, twirled his long moustaches, and from
+a worm became a lion. One may be a beggar in Albania, but as long as one
+has moustaches one is at least a man.</p>
+
+<p>The bazaar next day filled our wildest dreams. Queerly clad peasants of
+all tribes came down from the mountains bearing rugs, rubbish, white
+cloths, cheese, honey, poultry, pigs, and they sat on the ground behind
+their wares in the blazing heat, while all the rest of Northern Albania
+came to purchase. The little shops set out their pottery, silver-ware
+and brightly striped veils. Jo lifted up a woman's leather belt covered
+with silver, thinking how nice it would look on a modern skirt; but she
+dropped it with a crash, for the leather was a quarter of an inch thick,
+and the silver equally weighty.</p>
+
+<p>Veiled women bargained and chaffered with the rest, some dressed in
+white with black chiffon covering their faces, and others still more
+bizarre, wore flowered chiffon, one large flower perhaps covering the
+area of one cheek and nose.</p>
+
+<p>More fanatic in religion than their men, they objected to being
+sketched, crouching to the ground and covering themselves completely
+with draperies, so we had to desist.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page110" name="page110"></a>Pg 110</span></p>
+
+<p>There can be no arguments about beauty in these lands. It goes by
+"volume."</p>
+
+<p>Put the ladies on the scales, and in case of a tie, measure them round
+the hips.</p>
+
+<p>Vendors pressed gold-embroidered zouaves, antique arms and filigree
+silver-ware upon us; but we ever looked elsewhere, and Jo suddenly
+pounced on a handkerchief, or rather a conglomeration of bits sewn
+together, each being a remnant of brilliant coloured patterned stuff.</p>
+
+<p>"But that has no value," said Suma, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, I shall wear it as a hat," said Jo; and Suma, somewhat
+perplexed, lowered his dignity and bargained for it.</p>
+
+<p>We next saw a brilliantly striped rug hanging on the wall behind an old
+woman, red, green, yellow, black and white, just what we wanted. She
+consented to take thirteen silver cronen for it, but no Montenegrin
+paper. She explained she was poor. She had brought up the sheep, spun
+and dyed the wool, and had woven the beautiful thing, and now she wanted
+silver because outside Scutari, in which the Montenegrins forced
+acceptance of their notes by corporal punishment, paper was worth
+nothing. To get the silver we went into a general store and sold a
+sovereign.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image10" name="image10">
+   <img src="images/19.jpg"
+      alt="JO AND MR. SUMA IN THE SCUTARI BAZAAR."
+      title="JO AND MR. SUMA IN THE SCUTARI BAZAAR." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">JO AND MR. SUMA IN THE SCUTARI BAZAAR.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>While we were waiting for the money-changer, two Miridite women came in.
+They had short<span class="pagenum"><a id="page111" name="page111"></a>Pg 111</span> hair dyed black, white coarse linen chemises with
+large sleeves, embroidered zouaves, white skirts with front and back
+aprons lavishly embroidered, striped trousers, and stockings knitted on
+great diagonal patterns.</p>
+
+<p>One of them told Suma that their village was in possession of Essad
+Pacha, that all their husbands had fled, and were still fighting in the
+hills.</p>
+
+<p>Suma, for a joke, asked her what she thought of Jo. Passing her eyes
+over Jo's uninflated frame, she hesitated, but was urged to speak the
+truth.</p>
+
+<p>"I think she is forty," she remarked; and then somehow Jo was not quite
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>The midday heat being overwhelming we took a cab and drove back along
+two kilometres of dusty road. A veiled woman stopped the coachman,
+asking him to give her tired little girl a lift. Jehu refused, through
+awe of us; but we insisted on taking her, and begged the woman to come
+in too. Jo held out her hands, but the woman shrank back horrified,
+though obviously worn out with the heat.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a pity," laughed Suma. "I hoped she would do it. It would have
+been a new experience for me."</p>
+
+<p>Jo confided to him her burning desire to enter a harem, but as he had no
+Mahommedan friends he thought the possibility remote.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page112" name="page112"></a>Pg 112</span></p>
+
+<p>Two more bourgeois women passed. Jan photographed them, but not before
+they hid their faces with umbrellas. Even the Christian men are
+intensely jealous, and their women have some Turkish ideals. We spent
+the afternoon sketching outside a barber's shop, coffee being brought to
+us on a hanging tray with a little fire on it to keep the coffee warm.
+Opposite was a shop which combined the trades of blacksmith and
+fishmonger. It seemed the strangest mixture.</p>
+
+<p>We dined with the Frenchman. He was a queer fellow, seeming only
+interested in economies, his digestion and his old age; and he discussed
+the possible places where an old man might live in comfort. Egypt, he
+dismissed: too hot, and an old man does not want to travel. The Greek
+islands had earthquakes. Corfu, he had heard, was depressing; while in
+the Canaries there was sometimes a wind and one might catch cold. We
+suggested "heaven," and he looked hurt. He had been in Scutari in
+December. He told us that after dark it was impossible to walk down the
+great main street, which divides Christian from Turk, without carrying a
+lighted lantern to signal that you were not on nefarious intent, or you
+might be shot.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image11" name="image11">
+   <img src="images/20.jpg"
+      alt="CHRISTIAN WOMEN HIDING FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHER."
+      title="CHRISTIAN WOMEN HIDING FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHER." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">CHRISTIAN WOMEN HIDING FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHER.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image12" name="image12">
+   <img src="images/21.jpg"
+      alt="SCUTARI&mdash;BAZAAR AND OLD VENETIAN FORTRESS."
+      title="SCUTARI&mdash;BAZAAR AND OLD VENETIAN FORTRESS." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">SCUTARI&mdash;BAZAAR AND OLD VENETIAN FORTRESS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Suma came along the next day in good time and gave Jan a letter for
+the Count de Salis. We<span class="pagenum"><a id="page113" name="page113"></a>Pg 113</span> bade him a most cordial farewell, assuring him
+prophetically that we should revisit Scutari&mdash;little did we dream in
+what circumstances,&mdash;and he said we would then see the "Maison Pigit," a
+show castle which he had, in vain, urged us to visit. Paget was an
+Englishman who seems to have spent ten or twelve years dreaming away
+life in Scutari, and collecting ancient weapons. With the outbreak of
+the South African war he disappeared. He was then heard of fighting for
+the Turk against the Italian, and later for the Turk against the Balkan
+alliance. He has never returned.</p>
+
+<p>With Dr. Ob we drove to the quay, on the road passing an old woman
+staggering along beneath the weight of a complete iron and brass
+bedstead.</p>
+
+<p>As we got out of our carriage we noticed a rabble of Turks hurrying
+towards us. In its midst was a brougham with windows tight shut and
+veiled, from which we guessed that some light of the harem was to be a
+fellow passenger. The carriage halted, and whatever was within was
+hustled from the farthest door and in the midst of the dense mob of men
+hurried down the quay. The side of the steamer was crowded with craft,
+so we passed beneath the stern to embark on the far side, to find that
+the Turkish lady and her escort had passed beneath the bows for a
+similar purpose. We caused a flutter, the beauty was<span class="pagenum"><a id="page114" name="page114"></a>Pg 114</span> hastily lifted on
+board like a bale of goods, and we caught a glimpse of magnificent pink
+brocaded trousers and jewelled shoes beneath her red orange covering.
+Two women&mdash;one a Christian&mdash;followed, and when she was seated, bent over
+her as a sort of screen to hide even her clothes from the gaze of the
+naughty infidel.</p>
+
+<p>Governor Petrovitch came down to the quay to bid us good-bye. With him
+came his daughter, who was returning with us. She had nothing
+interesting to say about Scutari. The Frenchman had brought with him a
+cook whom he had engaged to look after his digestion.</p>
+
+<p>We found comfortable seats on a long box with a bale as a back rest, and
+the governor sent two chairs for the ladies. As we steamed away we
+pondered on the problem of Scutari.</p>
+
+<p>There are in all, say, 300,000 Serbs, a high estimate, in all
+Montenegro. The population of the Sanjak and its cities, Plevlie, Ipek,
+Berane, and Jakovitza, are of course largely Mussulman or Albanian, and
+already the balance of people in the little mountain kingdom is
+wavering. If Montenegro adds to herself Scutari, a town in which the
+Serb population is practically "nil," the scales swing over heavily
+against the ruling classes, and either one will see Montenegro absorb
+Scutari, to be in turn absorbed by Scutari itself; or we shall see<span class="pagenum"><a id="page115" name="page115"></a>Pg 115</span>
+the crimes of Austro-Hungary repeated upon a smaller scale, and
+Montenegro will be some day condemned before a tribunal of Europe for
+continued injustice to the people entrusted to her. The Albanians loathe
+the Serb even more than they hate the Turk, and at present, in spite of
+the fact that they are on their best manners, the Montenegrin police and
+soldiery have the appearance of a debt collector in the house of one who
+has backed a friend's bill.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image13" name="image13">
+   <img src="images/22.jpg"
+      alt="DISEMBARKATION OF A TURKISH BRIDE."
+      title="DISEMBARKATION OF A TURKISH BRIDE." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">DISEMBARKATION OF A TURKISH BRIDE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image14" name="image14">
+   <img src="images/23.jpg"
+      alt="GOVERNOR PETROVITCH AND HIS DAUGHTER IN THEIR STATE BARGE."
+      title="GOVERNOR PETROVITCH AND HIS DAUGHTER IN THEIR STATE BARGE." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">GOVERNOR PETROVITCH AND HIS DAUGHTER IN THEIR STATE BARGE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>An Albanian noble said to Jan, "We are quiet now: the Powers have no
+time to waste upon us, and we are not going to revolt and let ourselves
+be murdered without redress. But, if after the war things are not
+righted, monsieur, there will be a revolution every day."</p>
+
+<p>We saw a pelican, and of course some one had to try and kill it; but
+luckily the criminal was an average shot only. The pelican flew off
+flapping its broad white wings. The Frenchman told us that the Turkish
+lady round the corner is a gipsy bride to be. A light dawned upon us.
+The bed, these boxes we were sitting upon: she was taking her furniture
+with her. Jan peered round at her. She was sitting on a low stool, and
+the two screens were standing at duty. They had chosen the most secluded
+spot in the boat, which was next to the boilers. The day itself was very
+hot, and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page116" name="page116"></a>Pg 116</span> atmosphere within the poor bride's thick coverings must
+have been awful, though when nobody was looking she was allowed to raise
+for a second the many thicknesses of black chiffon which shrouded her
+face, and to gasp a few chestfulls of fresh air.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Ob suddenly produced a large sheep's head which he dissected with
+medical knowledge. He gouged out an eye which he offered to Jo; upon her
+refusing the succulent morsel he gave a sigh of relief and wolfed it
+himself. One of the men on board had a fiddle, and played us across the
+lake. Some one said, "Give us the Merry Widow."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on," said his tempter, "there's no one here. Give it us." At last,
+looking at Miss Petrovitch and us, the musician timidly started the
+music, for the "Merry Widow" is "straffed" in Montenegro as one of the
+characters is a caricature of Prince Danilo, hence everybody plays it
+with gusto in private.</p>
+
+<p>We came again to Plavnitza. A huge crowd of Turks were waiting for us;
+one wild befezzed ruffian had a concertina and was capering to his own
+strains.</p>
+
+<p>We were suddenly disturbed, the box was wrested away, the bundles also,
+the bed was carried off, also a tin dish too small for a bath, too big
+for a basin, and a tin watering pot&mdash;the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page117" name="page117"></a>Pg 117</span> bride's trousseau. The bride
+was seized by two men, her brothers we were told, and carried up the
+stairs to a waiting brougham, the trousseau was piled upon a bullock
+cart, and shouting and singing and dancing the <i>cort&egrave;ge</i> moved out of
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>At Virbazar the steamer could not come to the quay, so the authorities
+ran a five-inch rounded tree trunk from the boat to the mud. Many dared
+the perilous crossing, and one nearly fell into the water. Dr. Ob was
+furious, and at last a plank was substituted. Then we found that the
+only way off the mud was by clambering round a corner of wall on some
+shaky stepping stones. Dr. Ob fumed, his little round face grew rounder,
+his moustache went up and down, he threatened everybody with instant
+execution, like the Red Queen in "Alice." Then he found that no motor
+was awaiting us. He rushed to the telephone while we had a belated
+lunch. No motors; one was out taking the Serbian officers for a
+joy-ride; Prince Peter had taken the other to Antivari. Montenegro
+seemed to have no more. We soothed ourselves with "American" grapes.
+This grape tastes not unlike strawberries and cream, but not having the
+same sentimental associations, does not come off quite as well. We heard
+a motor coming. Dr. Ob ran out to intercept it. It was crammed.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page118" name="page118"></a>Pg 118</span> Then
+the telephone boy brought a message that Prince Peter's motor would not
+return till to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Petrovitch wrung her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"We cannot stay here the night," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Are the bugs awful?" we asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not the bugs, it's those dreadful women," she answered. "We shall
+all be murdered in our beds."</p>
+
+<p>Now the women appeared to us most inoffensive.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Ob was purple with rage. He stamped his foot.</p>
+
+<p>"But I am a minister," he kept repeating crescendo, till he shouted to
+the villagers, "But I am a minister."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to take Montenegro seriously. Situations occur at every
+corner which remind one irresistibly of "the Rose and the Ring," and we
+wondered what would happen next. There were other belated passengers who
+had hoped for conveyance, and the Frenchman's carriage had not turned
+up. Dr. Ob at last decided to commandeer a cocked hat boat rowed by four
+women with which to navigate the river to Rieka, and thence by carriage
+to Cettinje if carriages came. It was six p.m., we might reach Rieka by
+ten.</p>
+
+<p>We rowed out through the half-sunken trees. At the end of a spit of land
+was a man gnawing a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page119" name="page119"></a>Pg 119</span> piece of raw beef. We shouted to him to ask what he
+was doing; and he answered that he was curing his malaria. The two women
+in the bow were very pretty, one was a mere child.</p>
+
+<p>There were wisps of sunset cloud in the sky, and soon night came quite
+down.</p>
+
+<p>As it grew dark all sense of motion disappeared. The boat shrugged
+uneasily with the movement of the oars, the rowlocks made of loops of
+twisted osier creaked, but one could not perceive that one was going
+forwards. The hills lost their solidity, becoming mere holes in the grey
+blue of the sky, a bright planet made a light smudge on the ruffled
+water in which the stars could not reflect. As we crept forwards into
+the river and the mountains closed in, the water became more calm, and
+the stars came out one by one beneath us, while in the ripple of our
+wake the image of the planet ran up continuously in strings of little
+golden balls like a juggling trick.</p>
+
+<p>The Frenchman turned his head and made a noise like the rowlocks. "Il
+faut chanter quand m&ecirc;me," he explained, "pour encourager les autres." Jo
+then started "Fr&egrave;re Jacques." Jan and Dr. Ob took it up till the
+Frenchman burst in with an entirely different time and key. Then one of
+the oar girls began a queer little melody on four notes only, and all
+the four women joined, one end of the boat<span class="pagenum"><a id="page120" name="page120"></a>Pg 120</span> answering the other. They
+sang through their noses, and high up in the falsetto. By shutting one's
+eyes one could imagine a great ox waggon drawn uphill by four bullocks
+and one of the wheels ungreased. Yet it was not unpleasing, this queer
+shrill, recurrent rhythm, the monotonous creak and splash of the oars,
+the mystery of feeling one's way in the blue gloom, through reed and
+water-lily beds, up this cliff-bound river, and far away the faint
+twitter&mdash;also recurrent and monotonous&mdash;of some nightjar....</p>
+
+<p>The night grew bitterly cold on the water. One of our passengers, a
+little Russian dressmaker, had malaria and shivered with ague. Jo gave
+her her cloak. The Frenchman's cook was unsuitably dressed, for she had
+on but a thin chiffon blouse. We ourselves had summer clothes, and we
+were all mightily glad to see the glare of Rieka in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Our luck be praised, there were two old carriages with older horses, and
+another for the Frenchman. We supped moderately at a restaurant kept by
+an Austrian, and still shivering scrambled into the carriages. We had no
+lights, but the road was visible by the stars.</p>
+
+<p>We went up and up, up the same road down which we had come three days
+before. Below one could see strange planes of different darknesses, but
+not any shape, and soon one was too aware of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page121" name="page121"></a>Pg 121</span> physical discomfort to
+notice the night. Besides, one had had enough of night. Miss Petrovitch
+told the boy to hurry up the horses; he beat them; she then rebuked him
+for beating them. After a while the boy grew tired of her contradictory
+orders, and lying down on the box fell fast asleep. The poor old horses
+plodded along. To right and left were immense precipices, but nobody
+seemed to care.</p>
+
+<p>We reached Cettinje about two a.m., found the hotel open, and a room
+ready for us, and in spite of our frozen limbs were soon asleep.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/24.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page122" name="page122"></a>Pg 122</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO</h3>
+
+
+<p>We went next day to see the doctor, who was late, so we strolled out to
+the market. They were selling grapes and figs, fresh walnuts, and lots
+of little dried fish, strung on to rings of willow, from the lake of
+Scutari. The scene, with the men in their costumes of red and blue, the
+women all respectably dressed in long embroidered coats of pale blue or
+white, and the village idiot, a man prancing about dressed in nothing
+but a woman's overall, was very gay. We caught the doctor later. He was
+talking with a Mrs. G&mdash;&mdash;, an Englishwoman, from the hospital at
+Podgoritza: she was trying to hustle him as one hustles the butcher who
+has belated the meat. The doctor had let up his efforts since his orgy
+of respectability in Scutari, and his beard and whiskers were enjoying a
+half-inch holiday from the razor. With him was a Slav-Hungarian, who
+recommended us to go home by Gussigne, Plav and Ipek, the best scenery
+in all Montenegro he said; he himself had just returned from Scutari,
+whence<span class="pagenum"><a id="page123" name="page123"></a>Pg 123</span> he had advanced with a Montenegrin army halfway across Albania.
+At each village the natives had fled, burying their corn and driving off
+their cattle, leaving the villages deserted, and the army, starving, had
+at last been forced to retire. Dr. Ob promised us a motor by four, but
+added that they had no oil and very little benzine. Then growing more
+confidential, he took us by the buttonholes and asked us to use our best
+influence with the Count de Salis, and request him to tell the Admiralty
+to allow petrol to be brought up from Salonika, where the British had
+laid an embargo upon it. He promised pathetically that <i>all</i> the petrol
+would be brought up overland.</p>
+
+<p>Intensely amused by the doctor's idea of our importance, we solemnly
+delivered his message to the Count.</p>
+
+<p>We went to the Serbian Minister, a charming man with a freebooter's
+face, for our passports, and then back to Dr. Ob. The motor was going
+off at 6.30 he said. We cheered internally, for we were getting tired of
+Cettinje, which reminded us of a watchmaker's wife with her best silk
+dress on. On our way downstairs we called in to thank the Minister of
+War for our jolly trip; and he wished us "Bon voyage."</p>
+
+<p>We got en route almost up to time, with us was Mrs. G&mdash;&mdash;, who was also
+going back as far as<span class="pagenum"><a id="page124" name="page124"></a>Pg 124</span> Podgoritza. She was storekeeper and accountant for
+the Wounded Allies, and ever had a hard and troublesome task between
+what she needed and what she could get from the Sanitary Department. She
+took the front seat with Jo, and inside Jan found a French sailor of the
+wireless telegraphy, who had had typhoid fever, but was now going back
+to work. As we rattled down the curves and along the edge of the
+darkening chasms of the mountain side, he summed up with the brevity of
+a "rapin."</p>
+
+<p>"Dans la journ&eacute;e ici, vous savez, il y'a de quoi faire des clich&eacute;s."</p>
+
+<p>We stopped at Rieka for water, and then on once more. In the glare of
+our headlights, little clumps of soldiers, with donkeys loaded with the
+new uniforms, loomed suddenly out of the darkness. Once a donkey took
+fright and bolted back, and the soldier in charge yelled and pointed his
+rifle at us. If we had moved he would have shot without compunction.
+Later the men had bivouacked, and all along the rest of the road we
+passed little fires of fresh brushwood, the sparks pouring up like
+fountains into the night, round which the soldiers and drivers were
+sitting and singing their weird songs.</p>
+
+<p>At Podgoritza we found Dr. Lilias Hamilton at supper with her staff. She
+has had rather a hard time. The hospital was intended for Ipek, but<span class="pagenum"><a id="page125" name="page125"></a>Pg 125</span> for
+some reason, although there were wounded in the town, the Montenegrins
+decided to move it to Podgoritza, where there were none. After a
+difficult journey across the mountains they settled down, but could
+never get sufficient transport from the Government to bring their stores
+over, except in small quantities. They started to work, but as there
+were few soldiers to treat, Dr. Lilias, being a lady, interested herself
+in the Turkish female population, a thing which the Montenegrins thought
+a criminal waste of time, and tried to stop.</p>
+
+<p>We got a bedroom in the hotel, and tired out, tried to sleep; but the
+occupants of the caf&eacute; began a set of howling songs, very unmusical, and
+kept us awake till past twelve. We have never heard this kind of singing
+anywhere else.</p>
+
+<p>Next day we crossed the river and explored the quaint and beautiful
+streets of the Turkish quarter. The people are equally offensive on both
+sides of the town; however, Podgoritza seems to be the White-chapel of
+Montenegro&mdash;and we finally had to take refuge in the sheds of the French
+wireless telegraphy. The commandant at the motor dep&ocirc;t again treated us
+rudely, but the Prefect was nice, this time. He promised us a carriage
+on the morrow if no motor were forthcoming.</p>
+
+<p>After supper the people began the awful howling songs; also there was a
+wild orchestra which had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page126" name="page126"></a>Pg 126</span> one clarinet for melody and about ten deep
+bass trumpets for accompaniment.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning no carriage came, so off to the Prefect. He promised one
+"odmah," which being translated is "at once," but means really within
+"eight or nine hours." We waited. Nine a.m. passed. Ten a.m. went by. A
+small boy sneaked up and tried to sell some contraband tobacco; but Jan
+had just bought "State." An angry Turkish gentleman came and said that
+his horses had been requisitioned to take us to Andrievitza, and that we
+weren't going to get them till one o'clock, because he was using them.
+We returned to the Prefect, not to complain&mdash;oh no&mdash;but to ask him to
+telegraph to Andrievitza that we were coming. He was naturally surprised
+to see us again, and explanations followed. A very humbled and much
+better tempered Turk came to the caf&eacute; to say that the horses would be
+with us "odmah."</p>
+
+<p>A drizzle had been falling all the morning; at last the carriage came.
+Our driver was a wretched half-starved, high-cheeked Moslem in rags,
+whose trousers were only made draught proof by his sitting on the holes.
+He tried to squeeze another passenger upon us; but we were wiser, and
+were just not able to understand what he was saying. Our Turk's method
+of driving was to tie the reins to the carriage rail, flourishing a whip
+and shouting<span class="pagenum"><a id="page127" name="page127"></a>Pg 127</span> with vigour; every ten minutes he glanced uneasily
+backwards to see that nothing had broken loose or come away.</p>
+
+<p>The valley we entered had been very deep, but at some period had been
+half filled by a deposit of sand and pebble which had hardened into a
+crumbling rock. We were driving over the gravelly shelf, above our head
+rose walls of limestone, and deep below was the river which had eaten
+the softer agglomerate into a hundred fantastic caverns. All along the
+road we passed groups of tramping volunteers fresh from America with
+store clothes and suitcases; the sensible were also festooned with
+boots. It was pretty cold sitting in the carriage, and it grew colder as
+we mounted.</p>
+
+<p>At last we halted to rest the horses at a caf&eacute;. The influence of "Pod"
+was heavy still. A group of grumpy people were sitting around a fire
+built in the middle of the floor; they did not greet us&mdash;which is
+unusual in Montenegro&mdash;but continued the favourite Serb recreation of
+spitting. In the centre of them was an old man on a chair, also
+expectorating, and by his side one older and scraggier, his waistcoat
+covered with snuff and medals, palpitated in a state of senile decay,
+holding in a withered hand a palmfull of snuff which he had forgotten to
+inhale. There were a lot of women saying nothing and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page128" name="page128"></a>Pg 128</span> spitting. A sour,
+hard-faced woman admitted that there was coffee.</p>
+
+<p>Jo, trying to cheer things up a bit, said brightly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is it far to Andrievitza?"</p>
+
+<p>A woman mumbled, "Far, bogami."</p>
+
+<p>Jo again: "It is cold on the road."</p>
+
+<p>A long silence, broken with the sound of spitting, followed. At last a
+woman in the darkest corner murmured&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Cold, bogami."</p>
+
+<p>It was like the opening of a Maeterlinckian play, but we gave it up,
+sipped our coffee, and when we had finished, fled outside into the cold
+which, after all, was warmer than these people's welcome. Outside we met
+a young man who spoke German, and as he wanted to show off, he stopped
+to converse. We were joined by an older man who claimed to be his
+father. The father was really a jolly old boy. He said his son was a
+puny weakling, but as for himself he never had had a doctor in his life.
+So Jan tried his mettle with a cigar. An officer, a filthy old peasant
+in the remains of a battered uniform, joined the group, but he was not
+charming; however, Jan offered him a cigarette. The old yokel rushed on
+his fate. He said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Cigarettes are all very well; but I would rather have one of those you
+gave to the other fellow."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page129" name="page129"></a>Pg 129</span></p>
+
+<p>The road wound on and up in the usual way, rain came down at intervals,
+and it grew colder and colder. At last we extracted all our spare
+clothes from the knapsack and put them on. We reached the top of the
+pass and began to rattle down the descent on the further side, and we
+kept our spirits up, in the growing gloom, by singing choruses: "The old
+Swanee river" and "Uncle Ned."</p>
+
+<p>We pulled up at dusk at a dismal hovel, on piles, with rickety wooden
+stairs leading to a dimly lighted balcony over which fell deep wooden
+eaves.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this Jabooka?" we asked, for we had been told to alight at Jabooka.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the driver; "we cannot reach Jabooka to-night. But here are
+fine beds, fine, fine, fine!"</p>
+
+<p>We climbed in. The rooms were whitewashed and looked all right, but
+there was a funny smell. We shall know what it means a second time.
+There was a crowd of American Montenegrin volunteers in the kitchen. One
+gay fellow was in a bright green dressing-gown like overcoat: he said
+that his wife&mdash;a hard-featured woman who looked as if nobody loved
+her&mdash;had brought his saddle horse. We got some hard-boiled eggs and
+maize bread. Maize bread is always a little gritty, for it has in its
+substance no binding material, but when it is well cooked and has plenty
+of crust is quite eatable.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page130" name="page130"></a>Pg 130</span> French cooking is far away, however, and the
+bread is usually a sort of soggy, half-baked flabby paste, most
+unpalatable and most indigestible. Here was the worst bread we yet had
+found.</p>
+
+<p>They took us down a dark passage, in which huge lumps of raw meat
+hanging from the walls struck one's hand with a chill, flabby caress as
+one passed. In our room, four benches were arranged into a pair of
+widish couches; mattresses were given us and coarse hand-woven rugs. We
+were then left. But we could not sleep; somehow lice were in one's mind,
+and at last Jan awoke and lit the tiny oil lamp. He immediately slew a
+bug; then another; then a whopper; then one escaped; then Jo got one. In
+desperation we got up, smeared ourselves with paraffin, and lay down
+again in a dismal distressed doze till morning.</p>
+
+<p>Our driver was a dilatory dog: we had said that we would leave at five
+a.m., and at six he was washing his teeth in the little stream which
+acted as the village sewer. As we were waiting our green-coated friend
+got away on his saddle horse, with his wife walking at its tail; the
+other Americans climbed into a great three-horse waggon, dragged their
+suit-cases after them, and off they went. We left nearer seven than six.
+The air was chilly, and though there were bits of blue in the sky, the
+hills were floating in mist, and there<span class="pagenum"><a id="page131" name="page131"></a>Pg 131</span> was a sharp shower. There were
+more groups of Americans trudging along, and also a fair number of
+peasants, the women, as usual, dignified and beautiful. Very hungry we
+at last came to Jabooka. A jolly woman&mdash;we were getting away from
+"Pod"&mdash;welcomed us and dragged us into the kitchen. She asked Jo many
+questions, one being, "What relation is he to you, that man with whom
+you travel?" The fire on the floor was nearly out, but she rained sticks
+on to it, blew up the great central log, which is the backbone, into a
+blaze, and soon the smoke was pouring into our eyes and filtering up
+amongst the hams in the roof. We were drinking a splendid caf&eacute; au lait
+when an old woman peered in at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Very beautiful Jabooka," she said.</p>
+
+<p>We agreed heartily.</p>
+
+<p>"Not dear either," she said.</p>
+
+<p>We expressed surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"You can buy cheap," she went on.</p>
+
+<p>We regretted that we did not wish to.</p>
+
+<p>"But you must eat to live," she protested.</p>
+
+<p>We intimated that this was of the nature of a truism, but failed to see
+the connection.</p>
+
+<p>"But look at them," she expostulated, holding out a large basket of
+apples; and we suddenly remembered that "Jabooka" means also apples, and
+realized that she was not a land agent.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page132" name="page132"></a>Pg 132</span></p>
+
+<p>Then on once more. In the deep valleys were large modern sawmills, but
+the houses were ever poor, and the windows grew smaller and smaller and
+were without glass. At the junction of the Kolashin road, from the
+north, we picked up a jolly Montenegrin with a big dog. He was a driver
+by profession, and he hurried our lethargic progress a little. Then the
+front spring broke. It was mended with wire and a piece of tree; when we
+started again the reins snapped.</p>
+
+<p>We halted once more at a caf&eacute; filled with Americans; some had only left
+their native land six months agone, yet to the peasant they were all
+"Americans." Some of them seemed very dissatisfied with the reception
+which they had received, and we don't wonder. "In Ipek I coulden get my
+room," said one, "tho' I 'ad wired for 't, 'cause one o' them 'airy
+popes [Greek priests] 'ad come wid 'is fambly. I 'ad to sleep like a
+'og, you fellers, jess like a 'og." We had been under the impression
+that burning patriotism had called all these men back to their country,
+but one sturdy fellow disabused us.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you fellers," he said, "there weren't no work for us in 'Murrica.
+Mos' o' the places 'ad closed down ter a shift or two at the mos' per
+wik. And fer fellers wats used to livin' purty well there weren't enough
+ter pay board alone. We gotter<span class="pagenum"><a id="page133" name="page133"></a>Pg 133</span> come or we'd a starved." Of course this
+was not true of many.</p>
+
+<p>On again, rain and sun alternating, but still we were cold, feet
+especially.</p>
+
+<p>These mountains, these continual groups of slouching, slouch-hatted
+"Americans," these little weathered log cabins, falling streams, and
+pine trees reminded one of some tale of Bret Harte, and one found one's
+self expecting the sudden appearance of Broncho Billy or Jack Hamlin
+mounted upon a fiery mustang. But we cleared the top of the pass without
+meeting either, and started on our last long downhill to Andrievitza.
+Cheered by the rapidity of our motion the two ruffians on the box
+started a howling Podgoritzian kind of melody, exceedingly discordant.
+The driver, careless that one of our springs was but wired tree, and
+that wheels in Montenegro are easily decomposed, flogged his horses
+unmercifully, rattling along the extreme edge of one hundred foot
+precipices. We stopped at a caf&eacute; for the driver to get coffee; rattled
+on again, stopped to inquire the price of hay; more rattle; stopped for
+the driver to say, "How de doo" to a pal; more rattle; stopped to ask a
+man if his dog has had puppies yet.... But we protested.</p>
+
+<p>Andrievitza was the prettiest village we had yet<span class="pagenum"><a id="page134" name="page134"></a>Pg 134</span> seen in Montenegro,
+and was full of more "Americans." In the street a small boy urged us to
+go to "Radoikovitches," but we went to the hotel. The hotel was full,
+because a Pasha from Scutari had arrived with his three wives, and all
+their families. So we permitted the little yellow-haired urchin to lead
+us to "Radoikovitches." A woman received us, without gusto, till she
+learned that Jo was Jan's wife, when she cheered up. A charming old
+officer stood rakia all round in our honour. The mayor came in to greet
+us, and we felt that at last Pod had been pushed behind for ever.</p>
+
+<p>The mayor was a pleasant fellow, speaking French, and he confided in us
+that he was suffering from a "maladie d'estomac." When we thought we had
+sympathized enough, we asked him how far it was, and could we have
+horses to go to Petch. He answered that it was two days, or rather one
+and a half, and that the horses would await us at twelve on the
+following day. We went to bed early to make up for last night, but Jan,
+having felt rather tickly all day, hunted the corners of his shirt and
+found&mdash;dare we mention it&mdash;a louse, souvenir de Li&eacute;va Ri&eacute;ka.</p>
+
+<p>As we were breakfasting next day our driver, who had been most
+unpleasant the whole time, sidled up and asked Jan to sign a paper.
+While Jan was doing so the driver burst into a volley of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page135" name="page135"></a>Pg 135</span> explanations.
+We thought that he was asking for a tip, but made out that he had lost
+(or gambled) the ten kronen which his employer had given to him for
+expenses. We had intended to give him no tip, for on the yesterday he
+had refused to carry our bags, but this made us waver. We asked Mr. Rad,
+etc., what we should do.</p>
+
+<p>"Sign his paper," he answered gruffly, "and kick him out; he's only a
+dirty Turk anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>The mayor sent our horses round early; but we stuck to our decision to
+start in the afternoon, and ordered lunch at twelve. There was a huge
+crowd gathered in front of the inn, and we saw that the Pasha and his
+harem were off. One wife wore a blue furniture cover over her, one a
+green, and one a brown, so that he might know them apart from the
+outside, for they all had heavy black veils before their faces. The
+Pasha himself seemed rather a decent fellow, and had much of the air of
+a curate conducting a school feast. Four children were thrust into two
+baskets which were slung on each side of one small horse, and various
+furniture, including a small bath (or large basin), was strapped on to
+others, and the Pasha followed by his wives set off walking, the Pasha
+occasionally throwing a graceful remark behind him.</p>
+
+<p>The mayor lunched with us, and for a man who has, as he says, an&aelig;mia of
+the stomach, chronic<span class="pagenum"><a id="page136" name="page136"></a>Pg 136</span> dysentery, and inflammation of the intestines, he
+ate most freely, and if such is his daily habit, he deserved all he had
+got.</p>
+
+<p>Our guide was the most picturesque we have yet had. He was an Albanian
+with a shaven poll save for a tuft by which the angels will one day lift
+him to heaven, small white cap like a saucer, over which was wound a
+twisted dirty white scarf, short white coat heavily embroidered with
+black braid, tight trousers, also heavily embroidered, but the waistband
+only pulled up to where the buttock begins to slide away&mdash;we wondered
+continuously why they never fell off&mdash;and the long space between coat
+and trousers filled with tightly wound red and orange belt. He called
+himself Ramases, or some such name. Our saddles were pretty good, the
+stirrups like shovels, the horses the best (barring at the Front) we had
+had since Prepolji.</p>
+
+<p>We rode over a creaky bridge, Jan's horse refusing, so he went through
+the river, and out into the new road which is being made to Ipek. Men
+and women, almost all in Albanian costumes, were scraping, digging,
+drilling and blasting; some of the women wore a costume we had not yet
+seen, very short cotton skirt above the knees, and long, embroidered
+leggings. We passed this high-road "in posse" and, the little horses
+stepping along, presently caught up a trail of donkeys, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page137" name="page137"></a>Pg 137</span> proprietor
+of which, a friend of Ramases, had a face like a post-impressionist
+sculpture.</p>
+
+<p>We passed the donkeys and came to the usual sort of caf&eacute;, rough log hut,
+fire on floor&mdash;but one of the women therein gave Jo her only
+apple&mdash;decidedly we were away from Pod.</p>
+
+<p>On again along river valleys. Jan's saddle had a knob in the seat that
+began to insinuate. On every hill were cut maize patches, the red
+stubble in the sunset looking like fields of blood.</p>
+
+<p>In the dusk we came to Velika, a wooden witchlike village, where we were
+to stay the night, and where, as we had expected, the Pasha, ten minutes
+ahead of us, had commandeered all the accommodation. The captain,
+however, was very good, and gave us a policeman to find lodgings for us.
+By this time it was dark. He led us into a pitch black lane where the
+mud came over our boots, then we clambered up a loose earth cliff and
+stood looking into a room whose only light was from a small fire, as
+usual on the floor. Over the fire was a large pot, and a meagre-faced
+woman was stirring the brew. Behind her a small baby in a red and white
+striped blanket was pushed up to its armpits through a hole on four
+legs, where it hung. In a dark corner a small boy was worrying a black
+cat.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page138" name="page138"></a>Pg 138</span></p>
+
+<p>"Can you give these English a bed?" demanded the policeman.</p>
+
+<p>The woman shook her head sadly. "Mozhe," she said, which means "It is
+possible."</p>
+
+<p>After supper, Bovril and cheese omelette, we went out to seek the caf&eacute;.
+We trudged back through the mud and stumbled into a house full of
+lattice work, like a Chinese store. Startled we tried another. This time
+we came into a stable, but there was a ladder leading upwards, and at
+the top a lighted room, so we decided to explore. We climbed up and came
+into a large loft in which six long legged, heavily bearded Albanians
+were squatting about a fire; a gipsy woman with wild tousled hair and
+hanging breasts was in the corner of the hearth, and was telling some
+long monotonous tale. An Albanian, who spoke Serb, told us to come in
+and have coffee. It was like the illustration of some tale from the
+Arabian Nights. After a while we climbed out again into the night, and
+went home. Ramases hung about shyly, and the woman explained that he had
+nowhere to sleep; so we arranged that she should house him also.</p>
+
+<p>Even as we poked our noses out of the door there was a promise of a fine
+day. Below us we could see the Pasha up and superintending the packing
+of his family and furniture. We celebrated by<span class="pagenum"><a id="page139" name="page139"></a>Pg 139</span> opening our last tin of
+jam, which we had carried carefully all the way, waiting for an
+occasion. We left the remains of the jam for the small family, and as we
+were mounting we saw their faces smeared and streaked with "First
+Quality Damson." We started the climb almost at once. The early morning
+smoke filtering through the slats made an outer cone, of faint blue,
+above the black roof of every hut and cottage; here and there were
+traces of roadmaking, groups of Albanian workmen on stretches of
+levelled earth which our trail crossed at irregular intervals. Presently
+we entered the clouds, and were wrapped about with a thin mist faintly
+smelling of smoke. After a while we climbed above them, and looking down
+could see the clouds mottling all the landscape, and through holes
+little patches of sunlit field or wood peering through like the eyes of
+a Turkish woman through her yashmak.</p>
+
+<p>Our horses panted and sweated up the long and arduous slope for two
+mortal hours, up and ever up; but all things come to an end, and at last
+we reached the top. We sat down to rest our weary animals and, lo! by us
+passed long strings of mules and ponies bearing the very benzine about
+which so much fuss had been made in Cettinje. Alas for our reputations
+as miracle workers! Had this blessed stuff only come a week later we
+should<span class="pagenum"><a id="page140" name="page140"></a>Pg 140</span> even have passed in Montenegro as first cousins of the king at
+least; but this was a little too prompt.</p>
+
+<p>There was landscape enough here for any budding Turners, but we two had
+still eight hours to go and not money enough to loiter. On the higher
+peaks of the mountains there was already a fresh powdering of snow; in
+the valleys the clouds had almost cleared away, leaving a thin film of
+moisture which made shadows of pure ultramarine beneath the trees. Your
+modern commercial grinder cannot sell you this colour, it needs some of
+that pure jewel powder which old Swan kept in a bottle for use on his
+masterpiece, but found never a subject noble enough. Some of that stuff
+prepared from the receipt of old Cennino Cennini which ends "this is a
+work, fine and delicate, suitable for the hands of young maidens, but
+beware of old women." Pure Lapis Lazuli.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image15" name="image15">
+   <img src="images/25.jpg"
+      alt="The Ipek Pass in Winter."
+      title="The Ipek Pass in Winter." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Ipek Pass in Winter.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But it became difficult even for us to admire landscape, for breakfast
+had disappeared within us, and lunch seemed far away, so once more
+recourse to the "compressed luncheon." There are three stages in the
+taste of the "Tabloid." Stage one, when it smacks of glue; stage two,
+when it has a flavour of inferior beef tea, say 11.30 a.m.; stage three,
+when it resembles nothing but the gravy of the most delicious beef
+steak. That is about 2.30, and your lunch some hours in retard.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page141" name="page141"></a>Pg 141</span> We
+had reached stage three, and even Jo succumbed to the charms of the
+"Tab."</p>
+
+<p>Famished we came to a caf&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"Eggs?" we gasped to the host.</p>
+
+<p>"Nema" (haven't got any), he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Milk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nema."</p>
+
+<p>"Cheese?" crescendo.</p>
+
+<p>"Nema."</p>
+
+<p>"Bread?" fortissimo.</p>
+
+<p>"Nema."</p>
+
+<p>Despairing we swallowed three more luncheon tablets each and whined for
+tea. Ramases, who seemed to get along on tea alone, promised us a
+well-stocked caf&eacute; in an hour and a half.</p>
+
+<p>The second caf&eacute; was purely Albanian. We climbed up some rickety stairs
+into a room which had&mdash;strange to relate&mdash;a fireplace. About the room
+was a sleeping dais where three or four black and white ruffians were
+couched. There was a little window with a deep seat into which we
+squeezed and loudly demanded eggs, bread and cheese. An old woman all
+rags and tatters came in and squeezed up alongside, where she crouched,
+spinning a long wool thread and staring up into Jo's face. Several cats
+were lounging about the room, but one came close and began to squirm as
+though she were "setting" a mouse. Suddenly<span class="pagenum"><a id="page142" name="page142"></a>Pg 142</span> she pounced, seized the old
+woman's food bag from her feet, swept it on to the floor, and
+disappeared with it beneath the dais, where all the rest of the cats
+followed. The old woman, who had been plying distaff and spindle the
+while, let out a yell of fury and half disappeared beneath the platform.
+We all roared with laughter, while beneath us the cats spat and the old
+woman cursed, beating about with the handle of her distaff till she had
+rescued her dinner. She backed out with the bag, sat down again and
+started spinning once more as though nothing had happened.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this caf&eacute; the track became very stony and rough. We passed a
+typical couple. The man was carrying a light bag full of bottles, while
+the women had on her back a huge wooden chest, in which things rattled
+and bumped as she stumped along.</p>
+
+<p>Jo looked at her with pity. "That's heavy," she said.</p>
+
+<p>The woman stared stupidly and answered nothing; but the man smiled and
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, heavy. Bogami."</p>
+
+<p>We passed more caravans of that all too soon benzine. Cliffs began to
+tower up on every side, and precipices to fall away beneath our feet to
+a greenish roaring torrent; great springs spouted from the rocks and
+dashed down upon the stones<span class="pagenum"><a id="page143" name="page143"></a>Pg 143</span> below in shredded foam: one was pink in
+colour. Here once a general and his lady were riding, and the lady's
+horse slipped. The general grasped her but lost his own balance, and
+both fell into the river and were killed. The track wound up and down,
+often very slippery underfoot, and the horses, shod with the usual flat
+plates of iron, were slithering and sliding on the edge of the
+precipices. At last we got off and walked. It was an immense relief: our
+saddles were intensely hard, stirrups unequal lengths, and with knots
+which rubbed unmercifully on the shins. We passed a man who was
+evidently an Englishman, and he stared at us as we passed, but neither
+stopped. The gorge grew deeper, the stream more rapid. The cliffs
+towered higher, black and grey in huge perpendicular stripes. We heard
+sounds of thunder or of blasting which reverberated in the canyon; it
+was oppressive and gloomy, and one shuddered to think what it would be
+like if an earthquake occurred. The cliffs ceased abruptly in a huge
+grass slope on which crowds of people were working on the new road; we
+crossed the river over a wooden bridge.</p>
+
+<p>We came down into Ipek suddenly, past the old orange towered monastery,
+which lies, its outer walls half buried, keeping the landslides at bay.
+Ramases, who had suddenly put on another air, flung his leg over the
+saddle&mdash;he had previously<span class="pagenum"><a id="page144" name="page144"></a>Pg 144</span> been sitting sideways&mdash;and twisted his
+moustache skywards. Jo wished to canter on, but he sternly forbade her,
+flipping her horse on the nose and driving it back when she tried to
+pass; for it would have damned his manly dignity for ever had a woman
+preceded him.</p>
+
+<p>Our first view of Ipek was of a forest of minarets shooting up from the
+orchards, not a house was to be seen. Ramases tried to make us lodge in
+a vague looking building. We asked him if that were the best hotel. He
+answered nonchalantly, "Nesnam" (don't know); so we hunted for
+ourselves, discovering in the main square a blue house labelled "Hotel
+Skodar" in large letters.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/26.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page145" name="page145"></a>Pg 145</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>IPEK, DECHANI AND A HAREM</h3>
+
+
+
+<p>We entered the courtyard of the inn. Tiny as it was all Ipek seemed to
+be plucking poultry in it. An urbane old woman came forward, evidently
+the owner. She had short arms, and her hair grey at the roots was
+stained with henna, which matched her eyes. A dog fancier once told us
+never to buy a dog with light-coloured eyes if we wanted a trustful
+loving nature, so we wondered if it applied to humans.</p>
+
+<p>She showed us a tiny dungeon-like room entirely filled up by two beds.
+We were not impressed; but she assured us that we should have a large
+beautiful room the next day for the same price. So we engaged it and
+strolled out into the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Buffaloes were sitting in couples round the big square. They chewed the
+cud with an air of incomparable wisdom so remote from the look of
+reproachful misery that is generally worn by an ox. Goats came in from
+the hills with their hair clipped<span class="pagenum"><a id="page146" name="page146"></a>Pg 146</span> in layers, which gave them the
+appearance of ladies in five-decker skirts; and children were playing a
+queer game. They jumped loosely round in circles with bent knees, making
+a whooping-cough noise followed by a splutter. We saw it often
+afterwards, and decided that it must be the equivalent to our "Ring o'
+Roses."</p>
+
+<p>Work was over for the day, the sun set behind the hills which ringed us
+round, and we went to kill time in a caf&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>While we were exchanging coffees with an "American," who was showing us
+the excellences of his wooden leg which he had made himself, a
+breathless man ran in.</p>
+
+<p>He had been searching the town for us. The governor had ordered him to
+put us up, as his had the notoriety of being a clean house. Having taken
+a room already with the amiable old lady we feared to disappoint her, so
+we decided not to move. The man piteously hoped that we were not
+offended; and we explained at length.</p>
+
+<p>When we reached the hotel again our old hostess bustled up, more sugary
+than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"We have just thought of a little rearrangement," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"How so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, do you understand, the inn is very full to-night, so we thought
+it best that you should<span class="pagenum"><a id="page147" name="page147"></a>Pg 147</span> both take the one bed and I and my daughter
+will take the other."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said we, "in that case we had better move altogether, we have
+anoth&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, no no," said the old lady, horrified. "Stay, stay. There sit
+down. It is good, keep your beds." She patted us and left us.</p>
+
+<p>We had an uninspired dinner. Greasy soup, tough boiled meat which had
+produced the soup, minced boiled meat in pepper pods, and two pears
+which turned out to be bad. The company, composed of officers and
+nondescripts, pleased us no better than the dinner, so we decided to eat
+elsewhere on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>The governor's secretary came in to arrange for an interview with his
+chief&mdash;yet another Petrovitch and brother to the governor of Scutari. By
+this time we had each imbibed a dozen Turkish coffees during the day,
+but we slept for all that from nine until nine in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Marko Petrovitch, whom we saw early, was the best and last Petrovitch we
+met in Montenegro. Like all the Petrovitches he wore national costume.
+He was handsome, shy, and kindly, said we must go to Dechani the most
+famous of Balkan monasteries, and promised us a cart for the journey.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving the governor we plunged into melodrama.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page148" name="page148"></a>Pg 148</span></p>
+
+<p>Hearing a noise we discovered crowds of weeping women and children round
+the steps of a shop. A young man in French fireman's uniform seemed to
+be very active, and an old trousered woman passively rolled down the
+steps after receiving a box on the ears.</p>
+
+<p>We thought it was a policeman arresting an elderly thief; but Jo, seeing
+blood on the lady's face, told him he was a "bad man." He lurched,
+staring at her stupidly. His companions, more firemen, came forward
+grinning sheepishly, and we recommended them to lead him away out of
+mischief. But the next minute a balloon-trousered child rushed up to us
+and tugged at Jan's coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick, the devil man is doing more bad things."</p>
+
+<p>We ran down the road beyond the village and saw him in the distance
+dancing on an old Turk's bare feet with hobnailed boots, alternating
+this amusement with cuffs on the face. We sprinted along, and seeing a
+convenient little river wriggling along by the roadside, Jan caught him
+by the neck and the seat of his trousers, swung him round, and pitched
+him in. The man sat for a moment, bewildered, in the water, and then
+climbed out uttering dreadful oaths; but as he came up Jan knocked him
+into the water again.</p>
+
+<p>Men in firemen's uniforms appeared from all sides, shouting&mdash;</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page149" name="page149"></a>Pg 149</span></p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing? You mustn't. Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"We know the governor," said Jo. The men were making gestures of
+deference when the reprobate rushed from the river, aiming a whirling
+blow at Jan which missed.</p>
+
+<p>The men hurled themselves on him, but he grabbed Jan's coat to which he
+clung, howling in unexpected English&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Shake 'ands wi' y' ennemi." Suddenly everybody spoke English, and we
+wondered into what sort of a fairy tale had we fallen.</p>
+
+<p>It was lunch time so we did not stay for explanations, but hurried back
+to the town with the weeping old Turk, gave him our small change, which
+seemed to cure the pains in his feet, and hunted for the other hotel.</p>
+
+<p>It was tucked away in a romantic back street. The bar room was tiny, but
+it was very pleasant to sit round little tables under shady trees in the
+courtyard.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you for lunch?" we asked a solid-looking waiter boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Nema Ruchak, bogami." We have no lunch. We looked at all the other
+people absorbing meat and soup.</p>
+
+<p>"Give us what you have."</p>
+
+<p>"We have nothing, bogami."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page150" name="page150"></a>Pg 150</span></p>
+
+<p>"Have you soup?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, bogami."</p>
+
+<p>"And cheese?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ima, ima, bogami."</p>
+
+<p>"That will do for us."</p>
+
+<p>He thereupon brought macaroni soup, boiled meat, roast meat, fried
+potatoes, cheese, grapes, and coffee.</p>
+
+<p>We never found out why in Montenegro they should make it a point of
+honour to say they have nothing. It resembles the Chinese habit of
+alluding to a "loathsome" wife and a "disgusting" daughter.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch we visited our own hotel and found mine hostess waiting for
+us with her short arms akimbo. She wanted the "beautiful large bedroom"
+to which we had moved in the morning, finding it the same size as the
+one below, but rather lighter. Its former occupant had arrived, and we
+were to go back to the dungeon.</p>
+
+<p>"That is not good," said Jo, and we flatly refused to go downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"If we leave this room we go altogether."</p>
+
+<p>She again patted us and begged us to consider the matter closed. We
+could stick to the room.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly that dog fancier was right.</p>
+
+<p>There was a very old monastery which we had passed as we rode into
+Ipek.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page151" name="page151"></a>Pg 151</span></p>
+
+<p>Although we are more interested in the people of the present than in
+ruins of the past, these old Serbian monuments leave so strange a memory
+of a civilization suddenly cut off at its zenith that they have an
+emotional appeal far apart from that of arch&aelig;ology. These little oases
+of culture preserved amongst a wilderness of Turk tempt the traveller
+with a romance which is now vanishing from Roman and Greek ruins.</p>
+
+<p>The Ipek monastery is a beautiful old place with the walls half buried
+on one side. The old church, orange outside, is very dark within, but
+contains many beautiful paintings. Surely here is the home of Post
+Impressionism and of Futurism. The decorations of the bases of the
+pillars are quite futuristic even orpeistic.</p>
+
+<p>The pictures are Byzantine. But the Turks have picked out the eyes, as
+they always do. One enormous painting of a head which filled a
+semicircle over a door is particularly fine. Most halos are round, but
+the painter had deemed the ears and beard worthy of extra bulges in this
+saint's halo, which added to the decorative effect.</p>
+
+<p>Beautiful apple trees were dotted about the big garden through which the
+wriggly river ran. Ducks, geese and turkeys wandered around, so fat that
+they were indifferent to the meal that was being served out to them. A
+boy woke up the mother of a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page152" name="page152"></a>Pg 152</span> family of young turkeys and pushed her
+towards the dinner with his foot. She hurried there involuntarily and
+sat down for a nap with her back to the plate, the picture of outraged
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>We got into conversation with a priest, who insisted we should call upon
+the archbishop. The Metropolitan was a cheery soul, wearing a
+Montenegrin pork-pie hat very much on one side, and black riding
+breeches which showed as his long robes fluttered during his many
+gesticulations.</p>
+
+<p>While with him we lost the impression that we were living in the unreal
+times of the Rose and the Ring. He was intensely civilized, spoke French
+excellently, and had many a good story of his life in Constantinople and
+other places. For the English he had great affection. The last
+Englishman in Ipek, a king's messenger, had flown to the monastery to
+escape from the Hotel Europe and its bugs. The next morning he would not
+get up. The archbishop went to his room to remonstrate.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," said he; "I spent two nights under a ceiling which rained bugs
+upon me, and I know a good bed when I've got it."</p>
+
+<p>Coffee and cigarettes came in, of the best, and the rakia was a thing
+apart from the acrid stuff we were accustomed to.</p>
+
+<p>He admitted its superiority. The plums came from his own estate, and
+were distilled by the monks.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page153" name="page153"></a>Pg 153</span> The great difficulty was to prevent him
+from giving us too much.</p>
+
+<p>We talked of the war, and he related many atrocities, winding up with
+"Of course, England must win; but what will become of us in the
+meanwhile?"</p>
+
+<p>That evening we had a visitor. A very large Montenegrin in French
+fireman's uniform knocked at the door. He said his name was Nikola
+Pavlovitch. He had been sent by the governor to apologise for the
+"trouble" Jan had had that morning with the drunken soldier.</p>
+
+<p>"'E in jail now, 'e verry sorry and say if you forgive 'im, mister, 'e
+never touch rakia, never no more. 'E good chap reely. Got too much rakia
+this mornin', 'E think about Turks an' get kinder mad some'ow. 'E don't
+know what 'e done; first thing 'e knows 'e finds 'imself in river."</p>
+
+<p>Nikola Pavlovitch was, though not an officer, the commandant of a
+contingent of miners from America. The governor had told him also to
+offer himself as cicerone for the morrow, the cart having been ordered
+for our trip to Dechani.</p>
+
+<p>We didn't like cicerones and demurred.</p>
+
+<p>"I kin talk for you," he said. But we owned to speaking Serb.</p>
+
+<p>"I know all de country, kin tell you things: bin 'ere twenty years
+ago."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page154" name="page154"></a>Pg 154</span></p>
+
+<p>We saw he wanted to come, and noticed that he had a very likable face,
+strong features, straight kindly eyes. We realized that he would be a
+very pleasant companion and arranged to meet at the stable the next day.</p>
+
+<p>And so, at last, we drove in one of the queer little Serb carts we had
+avoided so anxiously. A few planks nailed together and bound around with
+an insecure rail, four wheels slipped on to the axles with no pins to
+hold them, a Turkish driver dangling his legs&mdash;such was our chariot.
+Some hay was produced to improvise a seat; we bought some apples on
+tick, as the vendor said he had no change for our one shilling note, and
+off we drove.</p>
+
+<p>Nikola Pavlovitch started yarning almost at once, and we never had a
+dull moment. He was a comitaj once, in the old days when Turkey owned
+Macedonia and the Sanjak. He said that nearly all comitaj were men of
+education and intelligence. When Turkish rule became oppressive, when
+too many Christian girls were stolen and vanished for ever into harems,
+the comitaj appeared, farms were raided, minute but fierce battles were
+fought; but in spite of this continual supervision, occasional and
+mysterious murders were needed to keep down the excesses of the Turk.</p>
+
+<p>Pavlovitch waved a hand towards the sullen mountains of Albania, which
+were on our right.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page155" name="page155"></a>Pg 155</span></p>
+
+<p>"Dose Swabs don' tink o' nuttin' but killin'. Jess ornary slaughter,
+Mister Jim. Now dat Jakovitza [a town to the south] dat don't mean
+nuttin but 'blood' in their talk, 'lots o' blood' dat's what it means.
+Sure. Dese peoples don' respect nuttin but killin'; an' when you've done
+in 'bout fifty other fellers you'r reckoned a almighty tough. If you
+wanted to voyage dere, f'r instance, you'd 'ave ter get a promise o'
+peace, a 'Besa' they calls it, from one of dese tough fellers, and he
+makes 'imself responsible to end any feller wat disturbs you; 'e can
+post a babby along o' you and so long as the kiddie's wid yer nobody'll
+touch you. Dats so, Mister Jim, you bleeve me. But all de same, dey've
+fixed it up so's dis killing business ain't perlite wen deres women
+about, so every feller taks 'is wife along 'o 'im so's not to be ended
+right away."</p>
+
+<p>Every house by the roadside was a fortress, loopholes only in the ground
+floor, windows peering from beneath the eaves and turrets with gunslits
+at the second story; here and there were old Turkish blockhouses, solid
+and square, showing how the conquerors had feared the conquered.</p>
+
+<p>"One o' dese tough fellers 'e kill more'n hundred fellers. Great chief
+'e is. Wen 'e was sixteen 'is fader get condemned ter prison way in
+Mitrovitza. Dis young tough 'e walk inter court<span class="pagenum"><a id="page156" name="page156"></a>Pg 156</span> nex' day, in 'e kill de
+judge and two of de officers and 'scape inter de mountains."</p>
+
+<p>Nick himself when he was a comitaj had twice been caught by the Turks.
+Once he was shot in thirteen places at once, but was found by some
+Christian women and eventually recovered; the second time the Turks beat
+him almost to death with fencing staves, and though they thought him
+dying put him on an ox cart and sent him to the interior of Turkey.</p>
+
+<p>"I was ravin' mad dat journey," he said. "I don' want ter go ter 'ell if
+it's like dat."</p>
+
+<p>They put him in hospital and treated him kindly; but once better they
+threw him into a Turkish gaol. He described how the prison was dark as
+night, because the poorer prisoners blocked up the windows, stretching
+their arms through for doles from the passers-by.</p>
+
+<p>"We was all eaten wi' lice," he went on, "an' if de folks 'adn't sent me
+money an' food I'd a starved to def, sure. 'N den dey bribes de governor
+'n a soldier, 'n dey lets me 'scape."</p>
+
+<p>He lay a cripple in Montenegro six months, but in the summer crawled
+down to the Bocche de Cattaro and on the sweltering shores of the
+Adriatic built himself a primitive sweat bath. In a few weeks he was
+better, and in a few months cured. He then went to the mines in America,
+for he dared<span class="pagenum"><a id="page157" name="page157"></a>Pg 157</span> not return to Macedonia. He saved &pound;800 and returned with
+it to his sister's in Serbia, but was so oppressed by the misery about
+him that he gave away all his money and went back.</p>
+
+<p>"Dere's lots a mineral in dese mountains, you feller. I show you one
+lump feller got a' Ipek, an' I guess it's silver, sure. Wen de war over
+you come back an' we'll go over dem places tergedder. Dere's coal too.
+Lots."</p>
+
+<p>He told us that the wretched skeleton who was driving us had power in
+Turkish days to commandeer the services of Christian labourers, and to
+pay them nothing.</p>
+
+<p>We passed by placid fields containing cows, horses, donkeys. The country
+seemed untouched by war. Those cows could never have drawn heavy carts
+and lain exhausted and foodless after a heavy day's work. The horses
+reminded one of the sleek mares owned by old ladies who lived in awe of
+their coachmen.</p>
+
+<p>For this all belonged to Dechani, and it was beyond the power of the
+state to touch their riches; nor had they been molested even in the days
+of Turkish rule.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, monastery 'e pay money to the toughest Albanians&mdash;Albanian
+they give besa&mdash;and nobody never do no 'arm to the monasteries. Russia
+she send much money, she send always her<span class="pagenum"><a id="page158" name="page158"></a>Pg 158</span> priest to Dechani and the
+Turks they keep sorter respectful."</p>
+
+<p>Our first sight of Dechani disappointed us a little, the proportions
+lacked the beauty of the Ipek church; but the big old door marked by the
+fire the Turks had built against it, decades before, cheered us up a
+bit.</p>
+
+<p>A pleasant priest with a smooth face and ringlets two feet long greeted
+us and led us to the little Russian hospital which was fitted into the
+Abbey, warning us not to bang our heads against the heavy oak beams in
+the corridors.</p>
+
+<p>The Russians welcomed us heartily, preparing the most wonderful tea,
+Australian butter, white bread made with flour brought from Russia.</p>
+
+<p>Pavlovitch enjoyed himself immensely. Food was thin in the barracks. But
+he was very worried about the priest's long ringlets.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd soon cure 'im, a month diggin' de trench!" he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>After tea we examined the church. The interior was one miraculous blue:
+pictures with blue backgrounds, apostles with blue draperies, blue
+skies, a wonderful lapis lazuli.</p>
+
+<p>Once the Moslems had overpowered the defenders of the church and had got
+in, the eyes of some of the saints were picked through the plaster.
+Legend runs, however, that while they were desecrating<span class="pagenum"><a id="page159" name="page159"></a>Pg 159</span> the tomb of Tzar
+Stephan who founded the church, the tomb of the queen, which lay
+alongside, exploded with a violent report and terror struck the Turks,
+who fled.</p>
+
+<p>They showed us the queen's tomb, split from top to bottom. The priests
+naturally claim a miracle; but Pavlovitch said, "I tink dey verry
+clever, dey done dat wi' gunpowder."</p>
+
+<p>The Tzar Stephan had wished to build the church of gold and precious
+stones, but a soothsayer said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No, my lord, build it of plain stone, for your empire will be robbed
+from you, and if it be of gold greedy men will tear it to pieces, but if
+it be of plain stone it will remain a monument for ever."</p>
+
+<p>So he built it of fine marble. The central pillars were forty feet high,
+and each cut from a single piece, with grotesque carved capitals. The
+great screen was wonderfully carved and gilded. Wherever one looked was
+decoration, almost in excess.</p>
+
+<p>Ringlets invited us to tea with the Russian bishop who was in charge. He
+was a stout, sweet-mannered little man, who shook his head woefully over
+the war.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow Pavlovitch discovered that he and the bishop were the same age,
+forty-eight. We contrasted Pavlovitch's spare athletic frame with the
+well-fed shape of the bishop, and felt<span class="pagenum"><a id="page160" name="page160"></a>Pg 160</span> instinctively which was the
+better Christian. Coffee and slatka were brought in. This slatka is
+always handed to callers in well-regulated Serbian households. It is jam
+accompanied by many little spoons and glasses of water. Each guest dips
+out a spoonful, licks the spoon, drinks the water, and places his spoon
+in the glass. There is also a curious custom with regard to the coffee.
+If a guest outstays his welcome, a second cup is brought in and
+ceremoniously placed before him&mdash;but, of course, this hint depends upon
+how it is done.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Friday," remarked Pavlovitch, regretfully. "Odder days we gits
+mighty good meal." He was very anxious for us to stay the night so that
+we should fit in a first-class breakfast, but the morrow was the Ipek
+fair, and we could not miss that.</p>
+
+<p>Night was coming so we hurried off and drove away. The horses went quite
+fast, as we had made them a present of some barley. We had discovered
+that since the beginning of the war, when they had been requisitioned by
+the Montenegrin Government, they had lived on nothing but hay, and the
+owner, who was driving them, said that they would soon die, and that
+when they did he would not receive a penny and would be a ruined man. He
+added pathetically&mdash;</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page161" name="page161"></a>Pg 161</span></p>
+
+<p>"One does not like to see one's beasts die like that, for after all one
+is fond of them."</p>
+
+<p>We arrived after dark, and ordered supper for three. The inn lady was
+scandalized.</p>
+
+<p>"But that is a common soldier," she said. "There are many fine folk in
+the dining-room, arrived to-day. The General&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>So we dined upon the landing.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we got up very early, went down to the dining-room and
+found it was full of sleeping forms; we had coffee in our room.</p>
+
+<p>We wandered round the market. It was still too early, people were
+arriving and spreading their wares, men were hanging bright carpets on
+the white walls. Beggars were everywhere, exhibiting their gains in
+front of them. If one could understand they seemed to cry like this&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ere y'are, the old firm; put your generous money on the real thing. I
+'as more misery to the square inch than any other 'as to the square
+yard."</p>
+
+<p>We found bargaining impossible, as they only spoke Albanian, and we
+could only get as far as "Sar," how much.</p>
+
+<p>Pavlovitch turned up later and was very helpful. We hurried him to a
+silver shop which was displaying a round silver boss. He beat them down
+from sixteen to ten dinars, after which we plunged<span class="pagenum"><a id="page162" name="page162"></a>Pg 162</span> into a side street
+filled with women squatted cross-legged behind a collection of
+everything that an industrious woman who owns sheep can confection.</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing for thee," said an old woman to Jo, who peered into her
+basket&mdash;Pavlovitch translating.</p>
+
+<p>Jo withdrew a tiny pair of stockings&mdash;a marvel of knitting in many
+coloured patterns.</p>
+
+<p>"What about these?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Hast thou children?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but how much?" said Jo.</p>
+
+<p>The price was four piastres. Jo gave four groschen and the old woman
+peered anxiously at the money in her palm.</p>
+
+<p>"It is too much," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Pavlovitch explained that somehow four groschen worked out to more than
+four piastres; but we left her to calculate what fractions of a centime
+she had gained.</p>
+
+<p>Our old innkeeper looked very truculent when we entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to lunch here?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; we left word."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you can't stay here."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image16" name="image16">
+   <img src="images/27.jpg"
+      alt="IN THE BAZAAR OF IPEK."
+      title="IN THE BAZAAR OF IPEK." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">IN THE BAZAAR OF IPEK.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image17" name="image17">
+   <img src="images/28.jpg"
+      alt="STREET COFFEE SELLER IN IPEK."
+      title="STREET COFFEE SELLER IN IPEK." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">STREET COFFEE SELLER IN IPEK.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>We pointed out that her meals were bad and very dear. She retaliated by
+making a fearful noise, and invited us to go and sleep at the Europe;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page163" name="page163"></a>Pg 163</span>
+but we remembered the Archbishop's story and stood firm.</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't leave us in peace we will appeal to the Governor."</p>
+
+<p>"Do, do. Go to the Governor," said the old lady, her little girl, a
+wry-mouthed charwoman and a little boy whom Jo had noticed stealing our
+cigarettes. The dog joined in and barked vociferously.</p>
+
+<p>We went to the Governor who was near by. "They don't understand
+innkeeping here, and she is a drunken old slut," he said, and sent for
+her husband.</p>
+
+<p>We went defiantly again to the Europe for lunch.</p>
+
+<p>Jo had been expressing her wish to Pavlovitch to visit a harem. He came
+to tell us that it had been arranged, as the chief of the police was a
+friend of his, and he had asked a rich Moslem to let her visit his
+wives. The Moslem had graciously assented, saying that he would do it as
+a great favour to the chief of the police, and that no "European" woman
+had ever visited an Ipek harem.</p>
+
+<p>We went down the broad street with its brilliant houses, admiring the
+gaudy colours of the women's trousers. "What a pity," we said, "that
+such a word as <i>loud</i> was invented in the English language."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page164" name="page164"></a>Pg 164</span></p>
+
+<p>Outside a huge doorway were sitting the chief of police and the wealthy
+Albanian. We were introduced with great ceremony, and the Moslem, losing
+no time, took Jo through the doorway into a courtyard. At the end was
+another door guarded by a responsible-looking Albanian. He stood aside,
+and she entered another court full of trees and a basket-work hut. She
+passed through the lower story, which was full of grain, and ascended
+into a beautiful room with a seat built all round it.</p>
+
+<p>It was entirely furnished with carpets. He waved his hand to the seat,
+called to his wives much as a sportsman summons his dogs, and left.</p>
+
+<p>They came in, three women, simply dressed in chemise and flowered cotton
+bloomers. Their voices were shaking with excitement, and they were
+fearfully upset because Jo got up to shake hands with them.</p>
+
+<p>They only spoke Albanian, and a few words of Serb. One had been very
+beautiful, but her teeth were decayed, another was a healthy-looking
+young woman, and the third was frankly hideous.</p>
+
+<p>They brought coffee, the chief wife presenting it with her hand across
+her chest&mdash;a polite way of saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am your slave."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page165" name="page165"></a>Pg 165</span></p>
+
+<p>Jo spoke Serb, and they clearly said in Albanian&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If only we could tell what you are saying."</p>
+
+<p>After which every one sat and beamed, and they kept calling for
+somebody.</p>
+
+<p>A plump dark-eyed girl came in, the first wife's daughter. She spoke
+Serb, and interpreted for the wives.</p>
+
+<p>They wanted to know everything, but knew so little that they could grasp
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Where had Jo come from? She tried London, Paris; no use, they had never
+heard of them&mdash;two weeks on the sea&mdash;they didn't know what the sea was,
+nor ships nor boats. They had never left Ipek and only knew the little
+curly river.</p>
+
+<p>The girl said that "devoikas" did not learn to read and write. That was
+for the men.</p>
+
+<p>Jo finally explained that she had ridden on horseback from Plevlie. Then
+they gasped&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How far you have travelled! What a wonderful life, and does your
+husband let you speak to other men?"</p>
+
+<p>She asked them what they did.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing." "Sewing?" "A little," they owned with elegant ease.</p>
+
+<p>The chief wife had recently lost one of her children, but did not seem
+to know of what it had died.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page166" name="page166"></a>Pg 166</span></p>
+
+<p>"I should think a woman doctor would be useful here," said Jo.</p>
+
+<p>They screamed with laughter. "How funny! Why, she would be <i>so</i> thick!"
+they said, stretching their arms as wide as they could.</p>
+
+<p>They kept inventing pretexts for keeping her, but when she rose to go
+for the third time they regretfully bade her farewell, the daughter took
+both her hands and imprinted a smacking kiss.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the healthy-looking wife emerged from the basket hut, where she
+was evidently preparing some delicacy to bring up, and showed signs of
+deep disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>The responsible-looking man who let her out also expressed his regrets
+that she had not stayed longer. In the great street doorway was seated
+the husband, but no Jan, no Pavlovitch, so Jo sat with him, somewhat
+embarrassed, eating bits of apple which he peeled for her.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon we went to bid farewell to the Archbishop and took
+Pavlovitch with us. The Archbishop gave Pavlovitch a poor welcome until
+he heard his name.</p>
+
+<p>"Are <i>you</i> Nikola Pavlovitch, of whom I have heard so much from the
+Governor? I thought you were only a common soldier. I have met you at
+last."</p>
+
+<p>We felt we were really consorting with the great.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page167" name="page167"></a>Pg 167</span></p>
+
+<p>Jo related her harem experiences, and he told of the attempts of the
+young Turks in Constantinople to abolish the veil, of how he had
+assisted at small dinner parties where the ladies had discarded their
+veils, and of the ferocity with which the priests and leaders had fought
+and quashed the movement.</p>
+
+<p>One lady had ventured unveiled into the bazaar, and one of the lowest of
+women had given her a blow on the face. On appealing to a policeman she
+had received small comfort, as he told her she ought to be ashamed of
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>As we went home we met women coming home from the fair with unsold
+carpets. They accosted us and wanted to know why we were writing them in
+the morning so that they could tell their relatives all about it.</p>
+
+<p>When we reached our bedroom the old innkeeper came in. In dulcet tones
+she admired our purchases. We were rather stiff.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she fell upon Jo's neck saying, "You mustn't be angry with me,"
+and remained there explaining.</p>
+
+<p>When she left, Jo looked gravely at Jan, took a toothcomb, let down her
+hair, and worked hard for a while.</p>
+
+<p>Next day we went for a long walk. As we were returning a terrific storm
+burst over us. We had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page168" name="page168"></a>Pg 168</span> left our mackintoshes in the inn, and were soon
+wet through. We got back just at supper time, and after, as Jan had no
+change of clothing, he decided to go to bed in his wet things, heaping
+blankets and rugs over himself in the hopes of being dry by the morrow.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/29.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page169" name="page169"></a>Pg 169</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO&mdash;II</h3>
+
+
+<p>Jan awoke nearly dry, or in a sort of warm dampness, at 4.30 a.m. Not a
+soul was about, and we packed by candle. There was a purple dawn, and
+the towering cliffs behind the minarets glowed a deep cerise for at
+least ten minutes ere the light reached the town. The streets were still
+and deserted, but at last an old man with a coffee machine on his back,
+and a tin waistbelt full of pigeon-holes containing cups, took a seat at
+a corner. At six he was surrounded by groups of Albanian workmen
+drinking coffee, and he beckoned us to come and take coffee with him,
+but we were suspicious of the cleanliness of his crockery. A
+miserable-looking woman in widow's weeds was loitering about the door of
+the post office, and with her was a tattered girl surrounded by trunks,
+suit-cases, and bandboxes, so we guessed they were there to be fellow
+passengers. A waggon loaded with boxes halted before them, but the widow
+declined to let <i>her</i> baggage go by it.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page170" name="page170"></a>Pg 170</span></p>
+
+<p>At last the post waggon came. It was a small springless openwork cart
+with a rounded hood on it, so that it could roll when it upset&mdash;which
+was the rule rather than the exception&mdash;luggage accommodation was
+provided only for the "soap and tooth-brush" type of traveller; but the
+widow insisted upon packing in all her movables, and after that we four
+squeezed into what room was left. The seat was low, one's chin and knees
+were in dangerous proximity, and a less ideal position for travelling
+some thirty-five miles could not be imagined. The widow's portmanteau,
+all knobs and locks, was arranged to coincide with Jo's spine. The
+tattered maid was loaded with five packages on her knees which she could
+not control, so we looked as cheerful as we could and said to ourselves,
+"Anyway it will do in the book."</p>
+
+<p>At the start Jan was rather grateful for the squash, for the air was
+chilly; soon the damp, exposed parts of his clothing cooled to freezing
+point, and it was lucky that they were not more extensive.</p>
+
+<p>As we rolled over the craters and crests of the&mdash;what had once
+been&mdash;stone-paved streets, the driver halted, here to buy a large loaf
+of bread, there to purchase smelly cheese, and finally to pick up a
+gold-laced officer, whom we took to be the post-guard. The driver, who
+sat back to back with<span class="pagenum"><a id="page171" name="page171"></a>Pg 171</span> Jan, grumbled at him because he took up too much
+room. But Jan replied that it was his own fault for not making the
+carriage bigger, and that his knees were not telescopic. We received the
+post of Montenegro, for this was the only road out; it consisted of
+three letters and a circular, so we judged that Montenegrin censorship
+was pretty strict.</p>
+
+<p>The road was flat, the surrounding country covered with little scrubby
+oak bushes, in and out of which ran innumerable black pigs who had long
+cross pieces bound to their necks to prevent them from pushing through
+hedges into the few maize fields. As the miles passed Jan slowly began
+to dry, his temperature went up and his temper became better. The widow,
+we discovered, was the relict of a Greek doctor who had died of typhus
+in Plevlie, and she was returning to her native land.</p>
+
+<p>Presently we came to a small inn, a hut like all others, and the driver
+commanded us to get out. By this time we were accustomed to the sight of
+nobles kissing market women relatives, and it did not surprise us to see
+the officer embrace the rather dirty hostess of the inn and kiss all the
+children; but when he took his place behind the bar and began to serve
+the coffee!... It was a minute before we realized that he had not been
+guarding<span class="pagenum"><a id="page172" name="page172"></a>Pg 172</span> the three letters and the circular, but merely was returning
+home.</p>
+
+<p>At the Montenegrin frontier, which was some hours on, a soldier asked us
+for a lift, as though he could not see that we were already bulging at
+all points with excess luggage; at the Serbian frontier Jan was asked
+for his passport, and as they did not demand that of the widow, we
+concluded that they imagined her to be Mrs. Gordon, and Jo and the
+tattered one, two handmaids.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately over the frontier the road began to be Serbian, but not as
+Serbian as it became later on, and we reached Rudnik&mdash;and lunch&mdash;in good
+condition. Another carriage similar to our own was here, containing a
+Turkish family. The father, a great stalwart Albanian, and the son a
+budding priest in cerise socks. The priest was carrying food to his
+carriage, and we discovered that a woman was within, stowed away at the
+back like the widow's luggage, and carefully protected by two curtains,
+so that no eye should behold her. Her sufferings between Rudnik and
+Mitrovitza can be imagined when you have heard ours.</p>
+
+<p>From Rudnik we walked to ease our cramped limbs, and the road became so
+bad that the driver went across country to avoid it. Here is the receipt
+for making a Serbian road.</p>
+
+<p>"The engineer in charge shall send two hundred<span class="pagenum"><a id="page173" name="page173"></a>Pg 173</span> bullock trains from Here
+to There. He shall then find out along which path the greater number
+have travelled (<i>i.e.</i> which has the deepest ruts), after which an
+Austrian surveyor shall map it and mark it, 'Road to There.' Should the
+ruts become so deep that the carts are sliding upon their bottoms rather
+than travelling upon their wheels, an overseer must be sent to throw
+stones at it. He and ten devils worse than himself shall heave rocks
+till they think they have hurt it enough, when they may return home,
+leaving the road ten times worse than before, for the boulders by no
+means are to fill the ruts, but only to render them more exciting."</p>
+
+<p>Oh, we walked. Indeed, we walked a good deal more than the driver
+thought complimentary, we got out at every uphill, and put steam on so
+that we should not be caught on the downhills. By supreme efforts we
+managed to get in four hours' walking out of the torturous thirteen.
+Once&mdash;when we were a long way ahead&mdash;we were stopped by a gendarme.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are your passports?" demanded he.</p>
+
+<p>"In the post-waggon," replied Jan.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you leave your passports in the post-waggon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because they were in the pocket of my great-coat."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page174" name="page174"></a>Pg 174</span></p>
+
+<p>"Why did you leave your great-coat in the post-waggon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is hot."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have to arrest you," quoth the gendarme.</p>
+
+<p>But his officer came from an adjoining building and told him not to make
+a fool of himself, and on we went, taking short cuts, following the
+telegraph poles, which staggered across country like a file of
+drunkards.</p>
+
+<p>Eventually the carriage caught us up and the driver insisted that we
+should get in. He added that he could not lose all day while we walked,
+and that he would never get to Mitrovitza; it seemed superfluous to
+point out that we had gone quicker than he, but to avoid argument we
+clambered in. The driver, in a temper, slashed his horses, and off we
+went, over ruts and stones full speed ahead. It was like being in a
+small boat in a smart cross-choppy sea, with little torpedoes exploding
+beneath the keel at three minute intervals; and this road was marked on
+the map as a first-class road; the mind staggers at what the second and
+third-class must be like. These countries are still barbarous at heart,
+but Europe cries out upon open atrocities, and so they have invented the
+post-waggon. After all, pain is a thing one can add up, and the sum
+total of misery produced by<span class="pagenum"><a id="page175" name="page175"></a>Pg 175</span> the post, travelling daily, must in time
+exceed that of the Spanish Inquisition. Thus do they gratify their
+brutal natures.</p>
+
+<p>We bounded along. The brakes did not work, the carriage banged against
+the horses' hocks, who, in turn, leapt forwards, and our four heads met
+in a resounding thump in the centre of the waggon; after which Jo
+insisted that the widow should turn her hatpins to the other side. The
+widow's luggage cast loose and hit us in cunning places when we were not
+looking. The cart rocked and heaved, and we expected it to turn over.
+There were other waggons on the road&mdash;heavy, slow ox carts, exporting
+wool or importing benzine or ammunition, with wheels of any shape bar
+round&mdash;some were even octagonal; and as they filed along they gave forth
+sounds reminiscent of Montenegrin song, a last wail from the hospitable
+little country whose borders we were leaving behind us.</p>
+
+<p>The driver promised us a better road further on; but the better road
+never came, and we hung on waiting for something to break and give us
+relief. There were hints, it is true, unfinished hints: some day men
+will be able to travel in comfort from Mitrovitza to Ipek, but the day
+is not yet. It is strange how the human frame gets used to things, and
+we grew to believe that our driver not only liked, but joyed in each
+extra bang and jolt&mdash;collected<span class="pagenum"><a id="page176" name="page176"></a>Pg 176</span> them as it were&mdash;for certainly he never
+avoided anything, though occasionally he wound at the brake, but that
+was only for show, because he knew that it did not work.</p>
+
+<p>We reached Mitrovitza at dark with bones unbroken, and rattled down a
+road with vague white Turkish houses upon one side, and a muddy looking
+stream reflecting dull lights on the other. One last lurid lunge, we
+leapt across a drain and broke a trace bar, but too late, we had
+arrived.</p>
+
+<p>The Hotel Bristol was full&mdash;why are there so many hotels in Serbia named
+Bristol?&mdash;but we were received by a stupid-looking maid at the Kossovo,
+and were given a paper to sign, saying who we were. Then down to the
+restaurant, where we had a beefsteak which was a dream, and back to bed,
+which was a nightmare, for all night long we bounced and banged and
+bruised our journey over again, and awoke quite exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>The first impression of a town which is entered by moonlight is usually
+difficult to recover on the following morning, it is often like the
+glimpse of a pretty girl caught, say, in a theatre lobby, and the charm
+may never be rewoven. So it was with Mitrovitza, which in daylight
+seemed just a dull, ordinary Turkish town. The Prefect was a bear, and
+sent us on a long unnecessary walk to the station, a mile and a half.
+Sitting on the road was<span class="pagenum"><a id="page177" name="page177"></a>Pg 177</span> the dirtiest beggar we had yet seen. As we came
+towards her she chanted our praises, bowing before us and kissing the
+dust; but she aroused only feelings of disgust and getting nothing, she
+turned to curses till we were out of sight. The chief imports at the
+station seemed to be cannons and maize; the only exports, millstones,
+which looked like and seemed almost as palatable as Serbian bread. We
+did our business without trouble, and coming back the beggar praised us
+once more till we had passed, then hurled even louder curses after us.</p>
+
+<p>We came to a tiny caf&eacute; in which were faint tinkling, musical sounds.</p>
+
+<p>Jan: "I wonder what that is?"</p>
+
+<p>Jo: "It sounds queer: shall we explore?"</p>
+
+<p>Jan: "I dunno, perhaps they wouldn't like us."</p>
+
+<p>Jo: "Come along. Let's see anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>And up we went. In a large room was a deep window seat, and in the
+window the queerest little Turkish dwarf imaginable. The little dwarf
+was sitting cross-legged, and was playing a plectrum instrument. His
+head was huge, his back was like a bow, and his plectrum arm bent into
+an S curve, which curled round his instrument as though it had been bent
+to fit. He was a born artist, and rapped out little airs and trills
+which made the heart dance. There were three soldiers at tables,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page178" name="page178"></a>Pg 178</span> and
+presently one sprang out on to the floor and began to posture and move
+his feet, a woman joined him; the little man's music grew wild and more
+rapid; another man sprang in, another woman joined, and soon all four
+were stamping and jigging till the floor rocked beneath them. We gave
+the little man a franc for his efforts, and his broad face nearly split
+in his endeavour to express a voiceless gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>We were no longer royalty, we were just dull, ordinary everyday folk,
+and at the station had endless formalities to go through, examinations
+of passes, etc., during which time all intending passengers were locked
+in the waiting-room. But at last we were allowed to take seats in the
+train, and off we went.</p>
+
+<p>We passed through the plain of Kossovo where old Serbian culture was
+prostrated before the onrush of the Turk, and whence Serbia has drawn
+all its legends and heroes; possibly the most unromantic looking spot in
+all Europe, save only Waterloo. Here, far to the left, was Mahmud's
+tomb:&mdash;Mahmud the great victor, stabbed the day before the battle, and
+dying as he saw his armies victorious. History contains no keener
+romance. Serge the hero, accompanied by two faithful servants, galloped
+to the Turkish camp, and commanded an interview with the Moslem
+general,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page179" name="page179"></a>Pg 179</span> who thought he was coming to be a traitor. In face of the
+Divan the hero flung himself from his horse, drew his sword, and stabbed
+Mahmud where he sat, surrounded by his armies. Before the astounded
+guards had recovered their surprise, Serge was again upon his great
+charger and was out of the camp, cutting down any who barred his
+passage. Mahmud did not die immediately, and his doctors slew a camel
+and thrust him into the still quivering animal; when the dead beast was
+cooling, they slew another, and thus the Moslem was kept alive till the
+Serbian hosts had been overthrown. He and the Serbian Czar were buried
+on the same field&mdash;one dead in victory, one in defeat.</p>
+
+<p>We trundled slowly over the great plain whose decision altered the fate
+of the world, for who knows what might have grown up under a great
+Byzantine culture? The farms were solidly built houses with great
+well-filled yards, surrounded by high and defensible walls. We came into
+stations where long shambling youths, dressed in badly made European
+clothes, lounged and ogled the girls in "this style, 14/6" dresses.
+Signs of culture!</p>
+
+<p>Why should the bowler hat, indiarubber collars, and bad teeth be
+indissolubly bound to "Education Bills" and "Factory Acts"? Why should
+the Serbian peasant be forced to give up his beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a id="page180" name="page180"></a>Pg 180</span> costume for
+celluloid cuffs, lose his artistic instincts in exchange for a made-up
+tie? It is the march of civilization, dear people, and must on no
+account be hindered.</p>
+
+<p>Coming back to Serbia from Montenegro was like slipping from a warm into
+a cool bath. One is irresistibly reminded that the Lords of Serbia
+withdrew to Montenegro, leaving the peasantry behind, for every peasant
+in the black mountains is a noble and carries a noble's dignity; while
+Karageorge was a pig farmer. There is a warmth in Montenegro&mdash;save only
+Pod.&mdash;which is not so evident in its larger brother; a welcome, which is
+not so easily found in Serbia. The Montenegrin peasant is like a great
+child, looking at the varied world with thirteenth-century unspoiled
+eyes; centuries of Turkish oppression has dulled the wit of the Serb,
+and at the outbreak of the war Teutonic culture was completing the
+process.</p>
+
+<p>We passed beneath the shadow of Shar Dagh, the highest peak in the
+peninsula, six thousand feet from the plain, springing straight up to a
+point for all to admire, a mountain indeed.</p>
+
+<p>We reached Uskub at dusk, found a hotel, and went out to dine. The
+restaurant was empty, but through a half-open door one could hear the
+sounds of music. The restaurant walls were&mdash;superfluously&mdash;decorated
+with paintings of food which<span class="pagenum"><a id="page181" name="page181"></a>Pg 181</span> almost took away one's appetite; but one
+enormous panel of a dressed sucking pig riding in a Lohengrin-like
+chariot over a purple sea amused us.</p>
+
+<p>In the beer hall a tinkly mandoline orchestra was playing, and a woman
+without a voice sang a popular song&mdash;one thought of the women on the
+Rieka River&mdash;a tired girl dressed in faded tights did a few easy
+contortions between the tables, and in a bored manner collected her meed
+of halfpence&mdash;we thought of the cheery idiot of Scutari. Was it worth
+it, we asked each other, this tinsel culture to which we had returned?
+And not bothering to answer the question went back to our hotel and to
+bed.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/30.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page182" name="page182"></a>Pg 182</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>USKUB</h3>
+
+
+<p>Uskub is a Smell on one side of which is built a prim little French town
+finished off with conventionally placed poplars in true Latin style; and
+on the other side lies a disreputable, rambling Turkish village
+culminating in a cone of rock upon which is the old fortress called the
+Grad.</p>
+
+<p>The country about Uskub is a great cemetery, and on every hand rise
+little rounded hills bristling with gravestones like almonds in a
+tipsy-cake. Strange old streets there are in Uskub. One comes suddenly
+upon half-buried mosques with grass growing from their dilapidated
+domes, a refuge only for chickens; some deserted baths, and in the midst
+of all, its outer walls like a prison and with prison windows, the old
+caravanserai.</p>
+
+<p>We crept to its gateway and through a crack saw visions of a romantic
+courtyard. The gate was locked, and we asked a little shoemaker&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Who has the key?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page183" name="page183"></a>Pg 183</span></p>
+
+<p>"It is now a leather tannery," he answered, and directed us to a
+shoemaker in another street. This was full of shoemakers, and we chased
+the key from shop to shop. It was like "Hunt the slipper." At last we
+ran it to earth in the second waistcoat of a negligent individual in a
+fez.</p>
+
+<p>How happy the merchant of old must have felt when he entered the
+courtyard after a long journey! The court was big and square, with a
+fountain in the centre, the pillars were blue, and the arches red. Tiers
+upon tiers of little rooms were built around; the expensive ones had
+windows and the cheap ones none, and the door of each was marked by the
+smoke of a thousand fires which had been lit within. Underneath were
+cubby holes for the merchants' goods, and behind it all was a great dark
+stable for the animals. Once shut up in the caravanserai one was safe
+from robbers, revolutions, and the outside world. Lying in the doorway,
+as if cast there by some gigantic ogre in a fit of temper, were two
+immense marble vases, and two queer carved stone figures. Who made these
+figures? Mystery&mdash;for Turkey does not carve. The old caravanserai no
+longer gives protection to the harassed traveller, it only cures his
+boots, for it has fallen from sanctuary to shoemakers, and the leather
+workers of Uskub cure their hides therein. Hence, despite its beauty, we
+did not loiter long,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page184" name="page184"></a>Pg 184</span> for we have ever held a bad smell more powerful
+than a beautiful view.</p>
+
+<p>Why don't towns look tragic when their bricks reek of tragedy? Why is
+industrial misery the only form in which the cry of the oppressed is
+allowed to take visible shape and to make the reputation of Realist
+artists? In Uskub is concentrated the whole problem of the Balkans and
+of Macedonia. Her brightly painted streets are filled with Serb, Bulgar,
+and Turk, each disliking the rule of the other, the Bulgar hating the
+Serb only worse than the Turk because the Serb is master. To the
+inquiring mind it is problematic how much of this hate is national, and
+how much political. Deprive these peasant populations of their jealous,
+land-grabbing propagandist rulers, and what rancour would remain between
+them? Intensive civilization, such as has been applied to these
+states&mdash;civilization which has swept one class to the twentieth century,
+while it leaves the others in its primitive simplicity&mdash;seems always to
+produce the worst results. Nations can only crawl to knowledge and to
+the possessions of riches, for politics to the simple are like "drinks"
+to the savage and equally deadly in effect.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image18" name="image18">
+   <img src="images/31.jpg"
+      alt="A WINE MARKET IN USKUB."
+      title="A WINE MARKET IN USKUB." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">A WINE MARKET IN USKUB.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Can the problem ever be resolved? Can Serbia with half her manhood wiped
+out stand against her jealous neighbours? The creation of a lot<span class="pagenum"><a id="page185" name="page185"></a>Pg 185</span> of
+small states on republican principles seems a far-fetched idea, and yet
+it seems the best, especially if the menace of Turkey were removed, for
+there is little doubt that Turkey, rearmed by the German, might make one
+more effort to regain her lost territory under conditions vastly
+different from those which ruled in the Balkan conflict. Macedonia,
+Albania, and what is now Turkey in Europe, each made self-governing
+under the shield of the Alliance&mdash;why not?&mdash;and Serbia as compensation
+allowed to expand towards the north into territories which are wholly
+Serb in nationality and in feeling.</p>
+
+<p>We went through the pot market, whose orange earthenware was glowing in
+the sun, and came upon an old house with such a wonderful ultramarine
+courtyard that we went in to look. Over the door was written <span class="smcap">Old
+Serb Caf&eacute; Jansie Han</span>. After sketching there we entered the inn for
+coffee, and sat at tables made of thick blocks of marble smoothed only
+at the top. The innkeeper said it was built in the days of the Czar
+Duchan. If this were true, one would say that never had the interior
+been whitewashed since then. But there was an air of cosiness about it,
+and we visited it several times after. Near by was a little church with
+a wonderful carved screen and a picture of Elijah going to heaven<span class="pagenum"><a id="page186" name="page186"></a>Pg 186</span> in a
+chariot drawn by a pink horse, with the charioteer bumping along on a
+separate cloud, which served as the box. We watched the sun set from one
+of the tipsy-cake hills, sitting on a gravestone with an old Turkish
+shepherd, who seemed to derive great comfort from our company.</p>
+
+<p>The mountains around reflected the rosy lights of the sun in great flat
+masses.</p>
+
+<p>The muezzin sounded from the many minarets, and twilight was on us.
+Uskub, romantic, dirty, unhealthy Uskub, was soon shrouded in mist; a
+vision of unusual beauty.</p>
+
+<p>One thought of the awful winter it had passed through, when dead and
+dying had lain about the streets. Typhus, relapsing fever, and typhoid
+had gripped the town. Lady Paget's staff, while grappling with the
+trouble, had paid a heavy toll, as their hospital lay deep on the
+unhealthy part of the city. For a time the citadel was in the hands of
+an English unit. Before they were there it was a Serbian hospital, and
+the staff threw all the dirty, stained dressings over the cliff, down
+which they rolled to the road. The peasants used to collect these
+pestiferous morsels and made them into padded quilts. Little wonder that
+illness spread! In the summer Lady Paget's hospital withdrew to some
+great barracks on the hill. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="page187" name="page187"></a>Pg 187</span> paths were made of Turkish tombstones,
+which were always used in Uskub for road metal.</p>
+
+<p>The hospital staff was saddened by the recent death of Mr. Chichester,
+who had, like ourselves, just returned from a tour in the western
+mountains, where he caught paratyphoid and only lived a few days.</p>
+
+<p>One of the doctors had been in Albania, on an inoculating expedition. At
+Durazzo he had been received by Essad Pacha, who was delighted to have
+his piano played, and to watch the hammers working inside. Like Helen's
+babies, "he wanted to see the wheels go wound." The piano and piles of
+music must have been a memento of the Prince and Princess of Wied and of
+their unhappy attempts at being Mpret and Mpretess&mdash;or is it Mpretitza,
+or Mpretina? The music was still marked with her name, and was certainly
+not a present to Essad.</p>
+
+<p>The stamp of the English was on Uskub. Prices were high. One Turk
+offered us a rubbishy silver thing for fifteen dinars; and Jan laughed,
+saying that one could see the English had been there. Without blushing
+the man pointed to a twin article, saying he would let that go for five
+dinars.</p>
+
+<p>What caused us to feel that we had wandered enough? Was it the awful
+cinematograph show which led us through an hour and a half of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page188" name="page188"></a>Pg 188</span> melodrama
+without our grasping the plot, or was it that the large copper tray we
+bought filled us with a sense of responsibility?</p>
+
+<p>At this wavering moment Lady Paget held a meeting of her staff. We
+lunched there, and part of the truth leaked out after the meeting.</p>
+
+<p>The Bulgars really were coming in against us, and in a day or two we
+were to see things.</p>
+
+<p>That decided the matter. We went to the prefect's office for our pass.
+Firstly, we were ushered into a room occupied by a man in khaki, whose
+accent betrayed that he hailed from the States. He was "something
+sanitary," and belonged to the American commission, so we tried again.
+This time the porter took us up to a landing, said a few words into a
+doorway, and left us standing. As he was wandering in our vicinity, Jo
+tried one of her two talismans: it is the word "<span class="smcap">Preposterous</span>"
+ejaculated explosively, and is safely calculated to stagger a foreign
+soul. The other is a well-known dodge. If a person bothers you, look at
+his boots with a pained expression. He will soon take himself off&mdash;boots
+and all.</p>
+
+<p>The talisman worked, the pass was quickly managed, and we had but to
+spend our time among the shops again. We resisted the seductions of an
+old man with fifty knives in his belt,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page189" name="page189"></a>Pg 189</span> who reminded Jo of a horrible
+nightmare of her infancy.</p>
+
+<p>In her dream a grandfather with a basket had come peddling. Suddenly his
+coat, blowing aside, revealed not a body, but a busy sewing-machine in
+excellent working order. In her agitation, Jo fell out of bed.</p>
+
+<p>We sat consuming beer outside a caf&eacute; decked with pink flowered bushes in
+green boxes. One of the antique dames who cook sausages in the shadow of
+the caf&eacute;s brought us a plate each&mdash;funny little hard things&mdash;and we
+bought cakes and nougat from perambulating Peter Piemen.</p>
+
+<p>The station platform was like the last scene of a pantomime. Every one
+we had met on our journeys rushed up and shook us by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>First a Belgian doctor, from Dr. Lilias Hamilton's unit in Podgoritza.
+He said Mrs. G. was also in the town, and that the others were all
+coming shortly. Then we met a young staff officer from Uzhitze, who was
+noted for his bravery. The train came in and we stumbled up to it in the
+dark. There was a crowd of women about the steps in difficulty with
+heavy bags. Jan ran forward to help one. She turned round. It was a
+sister from Dechani. The rest turned<span class="pagenum"><a id="page190" name="page190"></a>Pg 190</span> round. It was the whole Russian
+mission from Dechani.</p>
+
+<p>We proceeded along the corridor, and ran into two men. We mutually began
+to apologize.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello," we said, "how did you get here?" They were two Americans we had
+met in Salonika.</p>
+
+<p>We got our seats and went out of the train by the other door. As we
+passed the compartment we saw a familiar face. It was the little French
+courier.</p>
+
+<p>"Quel pays," he said, bounding up. "Et les Bulgars, quoi?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord," said Jan. "Let's go out and get some fresh air."</p>
+
+<p>The only people lacking to complete the scene were the Sirdar and Dr.
+Clemow.</p>
+
+<p>A doctor who had just arrived from Salonika asked us to look after four
+English orderlies who, new to the country, were travelling to the Red
+Cross mission at Vrntze. With them were two trim, short-skirted, heavy
+booted, Belgian nurses, who were going to a Serbian field hospital.</p>
+
+<p>The train crawled. At times it was necessary to hold one's breath to see
+if we were moving at all. It was always possible that the Bulgars<span class="pagenum"><a id="page191" name="page191"></a>Pg 191</span> had
+blown up a bridge or so. One could imagine an anxious driver, his eyes
+fixed on the line in front, looking for Bulgarian comitaj.</p>
+
+<p>The travellers were restless. Our little French courier stood in the
+corridor looking fiercely at the black night; his back view eloquently
+expressive of his opinion of the Balkans.</p>
+
+<p>Later on we all slept. A frightful braying sound awoke us.</p>
+
+<p>No, not Bulgars&mdash;only the band. Same band, same station, same hour, same
+awful incompetence.</p>
+
+<p>So the princess had nothing to do with it!</p>
+
+<p>Trainloads bristling with ragged soldiers passed us&mdash;open truck-loads of
+them, carriage tops covered with sleeping men, some were clinging to the
+steps and to the buffers.</p>
+
+<p>Nish station had lost its sleepy air. Every one was energetically doing
+everything all wrong. The four orderlies and the two Belgian sisters
+were minus their passports. Some one had taken them away. These were run
+to earth in the station-master's office, and as the party had no idea
+where to go, we suggested they should come with us to the rest-house.</p>
+
+<p>The first person we met there was Dr. Clemow.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you got the Sirdar with you?" we asked.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page192" name="page192"></a>Pg 192</span></p>
+
+<p>He answered that he had brought Paul, the young Montenegrin interpreter,
+with him. The English units in Montenegro had been recalled, and he had
+come to Nish to try to rescind the order for his unit.</p>
+
+<p>The town was at its gayest. The cloud had not yet dimmed the market.
+Peasants poured in, knowing nothing of the Bulgars, little thinking that
+they would be flying, starving, dying, in a few weeks' time. A Chinese
+vendor of paper gauds had come into the town, and all the pretty girls
+were wearing his absurdities pinned on to their head kerchiefs. One girl
+was so fine and bejewelled that we photographed her, to the delight of
+her lover, who stood aside to let us have a good view.</p>
+
+<p>A man was selling honey in the comb accompanied by his bees, which must
+have followed him for miles. They testified their displeasure at his
+selling their honey by stinging him and most of the buyers.</p>
+
+<p>No one seemed to know when the train was leaving. Station-master,
+porters, all had a different tale. At last we decided to risk seven
+o'clock in the evening, and the four orderlies and ourselves, copper
+tray and all, bade farewell to the Belgian sisters, who had cut off
+their hair, and wandered across to the station. The train arrived two
+hours<span class="pagenum"><a id="page193" name="page193"></a>Pg 193</span> late and stood, ready to go out, guarded by tatterdemalions with
+guns.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't get in yet," said one of them barring our way.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ne snam."</p>
+
+<p>The freebooting instinct arose in us; we awaited our opportunity, dodged
+between two soldiers, and settled ourselves comfortably. Several
+officials looked in and said nothing; another came and forbade us to
+stay there, and passed on. An old woman came with a broom and cleaned
+up. We sat on our feet to get them out of the way, somebody squirted
+white disinfectant on the floor, and we were left in peace.</p>
+
+<p>The train started at eleven, moved as far as a siding and stayed till
+four. We found the four Red Cross men had only nine shillings between
+them. Three had stood all the way from Salonika, as during an
+unfortunate moment of interest in the view their seats had been
+appropriated by a fat Serbian officer, his wife and daughter. The
+fourth, a porter from Folkestone, had settled down on the floor, saying
+"he wasn't going to concarn himself with no voos."</p>
+
+<p>They had new uniforms, yellow mackintoshes, white kit bags, and
+beautiful cooking apparatus,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page194" name="page194"></a>Pg 194</span> which took to pieces and served a thousand
+purposes.</p>
+
+<p>In the chilly morning we got out at Stalatch, just too late for the
+Vrntze train. Luckily the station caf&eacute; was open.</p>
+
+<p>The four Englishmen ordered beefsteak, but were given long lean
+tasteless sausages. They asked for tea and were given black Turkish
+coffee in tiny cups half full of grounds. We asked about the trains, and
+were told we should catch the one next day. We argued, and extracted the
+promise of a luggage train, which would soon pass.</p>
+
+<p>Why is it that in Serbia they always, on principle, say, "You can't,"
+after which under pressure they own, "Somehow you can"? In Montenegro
+they say, "Certainly you can," after which they occasionally find that
+"Somehow you can't."</p>
+
+<p>At last the luggage train came. We sat on the step dangling our legs and
+peering down at the country below us.</p>
+
+<p>We were again held up at Krusevatz and bearded the officials. They
+promised to put on a special carriage for us when the next luggage-train
+should come in, some time that evening.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image19" name="image19">
+   <img src="images/32.jpg"
+      alt="BIG GUN PASSING THROUGH KRUSEVATZ."
+      title="BIG GUN PASSING THROUGH KRUSEVATZ." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">BIG GUN PASSING THROUGH KRUSEVATZ.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Nothing for it but to lunch and to kill time. We watched the mountain
+batteries pass on their way to the Bulgarian frontier. One or two big<span class="pagenum"><a id="page195" name="page195"></a>Pg 195</span>
+cannon trailed by, drawn by oxen. Many horses looked wretched and
+half-starved.</p>
+
+<p>The Englishmen built a camp fire by the rail-road. Soon tea was brewing;
+we drank, and chewed walnuts, stared at by crowds of patient Serbian
+soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>We travelled with the treasurer of the district, a charming man who
+revelled in stories of a mischievous boyhood spent in a Jesuit
+establishment. The fathers had stuck to him nobly until he had mixed red
+paint with the holy water, and one of the fathers, while administering
+the service, had suddenly beheld his whole congregation marked on the
+forehead with damnatory crosses like criminals of old time. That ended
+his school days. He introduced us to an officer, whose business it was
+to search for spies, a restless man who was always feeling under the
+seats with his feet. Perhaps it was only cramp! The four Englishmen,
+cheered at the thought that their long journey was nearing its end,
+burst into song. The Serbs stood round listening to the melodies that
+were so different to their own plaintive wailings, and presently asked
+us to translate. We don't know if the subtleties of "Didn't want to do
+it," or "The little grey home in the west," were very clear in the
+translations, as they seemed puzzled.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page196" name="page196"></a>Pg 196</span></p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Vrntze, we found no carriages to meet us. The station-master
+at Krusevatz had promised to telephone, but as usual had not done it. We
+had to break the news to our Englishmen, who, their songs over, had
+naturally fallen into tired depression, and had to tell them that a
+three-kilometre walk was before us, and one man had better stay to look
+after the baggage. Carriages were telephoned for, but they would be long
+in coming.</p>
+
+<p>They were! We arrived at the village&mdash;no carriages. We agitated. The spy
+searcher came out of the caf&eacute;&mdash;to which he and the "Bad Boy's Diary" man
+had driven&mdash;and made people run about. They said the carriages had
+already gone. We denied it, so they woke up the coachman.</p>
+
+<p>We took the three men to the hospital and went back to sit in the caf&eacute;
+with our new friends and met many old ones. The local chemist cheered
+and promised us a present of mackintosh cotton to celebrate our return.
+We had spent Easter morning in his shop eating purple eggs and drinking
+tea enlivened with brandy, while the choir came in and chanted beautiful
+Easter songs to us.</p>
+
+<p>An hour rolled by, the caf&eacute; closed, our friends disappeared. We went to
+meet the carriages from the station; at last they arrived, with Mr. Owen
+half asleep amidst the kitbags.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page197" name="page197"></a>Pg 197</span></p>
+
+<p>It was far into the night when we arrived at our hospital burdened with
+our two bags and the copper tray.</p>
+
+<p>The night nurse, a kitten, and a round woolly puppy welcomed us.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/33.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page198" name="page198"></a>Pg 198</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>MAINLY RETROSPECTIVE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Hospital work again. How strange we felt. A sad-faced little Serbian
+lady, widowed through typhus, was interpreting for the out-patients
+while Jo was away; but she was alone in the world and did not want to
+go&mdash;so Jo, homesick for her beloved out-patients, had to make the best
+of it and do other work. The Serbian youth who had been put on the staff
+as secretary, was dangerously ill with typhoid fever, which he had
+picked up at Kragujevatz. The typhus barrack was a children's hospital,
+containing little waifs chosen from the out-patients, and a few women.</p>
+
+<p>In the early days when we had first arrived at Vrntze there were several
+overfilled Serbian and one Greek hospital. They were only caf&eacute;s and
+large villas, unsanitary, stuffy, and overworked. The windows were never
+open, and through the huge sheets of plate glass could be dimly seen in
+the thick blue tobacco smoke a higgledy-piggledy crowd of beds. Often
+two men lay in one bed covered with<span class="pagenum"><a id="page199" name="page199"></a>Pg 199</span> their dirty great coats, while
+typhus patients and wounded men slept together. One man lay unconscious
+for several days in the window, his feet in his dinner-plate. At last he
+died, his feet still in the dinner. Mr. Berry took on a hydropathic
+establishment which had been completed just before the first Balkan War.
+This was used as the central hospital, where the staff lodged, and the
+most serious surgical cases were nursed. In the basement an
+operating-room was rigged up, there were bathrooms, disinfecting-rooms,
+a laundry, and an engine-house, where gimcrack German machinery in fits
+and starts provided us with electric light and hot water. The village
+school on the hill opposite was annexed and cleaned by a sculptor, a
+singer, a painter, and a judge of the Royal Horse Show. This was run as
+a convalescent home, and was the cause of many a muddy sit down, as it
+lay on the top of a greasy hill.</p>
+
+<p>Other large buildings were gradually added, sulphured, and cleaned until
+we had six hospitals, one of which was run for some time in connection
+with the Red Cross unit.</p>
+
+<p>Typhus had not stricken the village badly, but the old barracks were
+full of cases which developed several days after each batch of wounded
+came.</p>
+
+<p>The Red Cross unit took on the typhus barracks.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page200" name="page200"></a>Pg 200</span> Mr. Berry, seeing that
+surgery was for the moment a secondary thing, and having received a
+batch of Austrian prisoners riddled with typhus, built some barracks not
+far from the school. Glass was unobtainable, so thin muslin was used for
+the windows.</p>
+
+<p>The first precaution against bad air that Mr. Berry took in preparing
+his chief surgical ward was to smash all top panes of the windows with a
+broom, thus earning the name of the Window Breaker. Whenever the wind
+blew through the draughty corridors and glass rattled down from the
+sashes, word went round that "Mr. Berry has been at it again."</p>
+
+<p>Our unit and the Red Cross ran a quarantine hospital together. It was
+originally the state caf&eacute; and lay in the park of the watering-place.
+Near by were the sulphur baths. We ripped out the stuffy little wooden
+dressing-rooms, to the joy of the bath attendant, who possessed the
+facsimile of Tolstoi's face, and with the <i>d&eacute;bris</i> we built a large shed
+outside for the reception of the wounded.</p>
+
+<p>In the early days they came in large batches from other hospitals,
+pathetic septic cases, their lives ruined for want of proper care. We
+put their clothes in bags for future disinfecting, and the men, mildly
+perplexed, were bathed, shaved, and sent to the "clearing-house," as it
+was called.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page201" name="page201"></a>Pg 201</span> Those who developed typhus went to the barracks, and the
+rest were drafted to the various hospitals in the village.</p>
+
+<p>The clothes were first sulphurized to kill the lice, and then, until Dr.
+Boyle's disinfector appeared, boiled. This was important, as typhus is
+propagated by infected lice. Even forty-eight hours of sulphur did not
+destroy the nits. One day the sulphur-room was opened after twenty-four
+hours. Live lice were discovered congregated round the tops of the bags.
+Jan put some in a bottle. They immediately fought each other, tooth and
+nail, rolling and scrambling in a mass just like a rugby-football scrum,
+and continued the fight for twelve hours at least, thus proving that the
+scientific writer who says that the louse is a delicate creature and
+only lives a few hours off the body can know little of the Serbian
+breed.</p>
+
+<p>The town, when we arrived, was a bouquet of assorted and nasty smells,
+of which the authorities seemed proud. We cleaned up the streets by
+running a little artificial river down the gutter. Mr. Berry had the
+chief of the police sacked and instituted a sort of sanitary vigilance
+committee. We took over the local but very primitive sewage works&mdash;a
+field into which all the filth of the town was drained.</p>
+
+<p>The slaughter-house was discovered. It was<span class="pagenum"><a id="page202" name="page202"></a>Pg 202</span> an old wooden shed built
+over the lower end of the stream which washed the village from end to
+end, draining successively the typhus barracks, the baths, and all the
+hospitals. The shed itself was old and worm-eaten. The walls were caked
+with the blood of years, yet the meat was always hung against them after
+having been well soused in the filthy water. Mr. Berry decided to build
+a new one: some of the money was subscribed through Mr. Blease by the
+Liverpool Liberal Club; the rest Mr. Berry paid himself. At once the
+state began to quarrel with the commune as to the ownership of the
+proposed treasure. So the smells disappeared and the town engineer was
+furious, saying he would "Put all right" when we left.</p>
+
+<p>Luckily one of the chief men in the town had lived in America and knew
+the value of cleanliness. Mr. Berry was offered an honorary Colonelcy;
+but he refused, saying he would prefer to be made sanitary officer for
+the town.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image20" name="image20">
+   <img src="images/34.jpg"
+      alt="IN-PATIENTS."
+      title="IN-PATIENTS." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">IN-PATIENTS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The spring came, bringing with it no fighting. A great offensive was
+expected, had been ordered, in fact, but we heard later that the army
+refused to advance. The work was very much lighter. Very few men were
+entirely helpless. The hospitals, which were still emptying themselves
+and whose men were coming to us, sent the survival of the fittest. Most
+of the beds were carried out under<span class="pagenum"><a id="page203" name="page203"></a>Pg 203</span> the trees after the morning
+dressings were done, and the men lay gossiping and smoking when they
+could get tobacco. Outside visitors were rare. The Serbian ladies do not
+go round the hospitals with cigarettes and sweets, and to find a Serbian
+woman nursing is an anomaly.</p>
+
+<p>Report says that many flung themselves into it with energy during the
+first Balkan War, but that four years of it, ending with typhus, had
+dulled their enthusiasm. It is not fair to blame them. To nurse from
+morning till night in a putrid Serbian hospital with all windows closed
+requires more than devotion and complete indifference to life. Three
+Serbian ladies came to sew pillow cases and sheets every afternoon, and
+one of them gave up still more time to teach the patients reading and
+writing.</p>
+
+<p>But the town was full, in the summer, of smartly dressed women, and the
+village priest never once visited our hospitals. Hearing of the English
+missions and their work, peasants began to come from the mountains
+around, and the out-patient department became, under Dr. Helen Boyle, a
+matter for strenuous mornings.</p>
+
+<p>Many of these poor things had never seen a doctor in their lives. Serbia
+even in peace-time had not produced many medical men, and those who
+existed had no time to attend the poor gratis.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page204" name="page204"></a>Pg 204</span></p>
+
+<p>The percentage of consumptives was enormous. Every family shuts its
+windows and doors for the winter and proceeds industriously to spit, and
+so the disease spreads.</p>
+
+<p>Diphtheria patients rode and walked often for ten hours and waited in
+the courtyard, and people far gone with typhus staggered along in the
+blazing spring sun.</p>
+
+<p>One jolly old ragatops with typhus arrived in the afternoon with a
+violent temperature, and Jo settled him comfortably in the courtyard
+with his head on a sink until Mrs. Berry should come in to see about
+taking him into the barracks. He seemed quite happy about himself, but
+very worried about his blind beggar brother and his two half-blind
+children, whose sight had been ruined by smallpox.</p>
+
+<p>For the latter nothing could be done.</p>
+
+<p>Another time she kept two boys waiting to see if Mrs. Berry could take
+them into her typhus barracks. One had scarlet fever, and the other was
+a young starving clerk in a galloping consumption, thirty-six hours from
+his home.</p>
+
+<p>Afraid to raise their hopes, and not knowing if there would be room for
+them, Jo told them that they were to have some very strong medicine that
+could only be administered two hours after a dose of hot milk and
+biscuit (the medicine was only<span class="pagenum"><a id="page205" name="page205"></a>Pg 205</span> bovril). By this time Mrs. Berry arrived
+and managed to squeeze the boys in.</p>
+
+<p>However, we were told to clear the hospitals, for the wounded were
+expected.</p>
+
+<p>"What could be done with the scarlet fever boy?" At last an idea came:
+"The Mortuary," built by the Horse Show Judge with such joy. The
+mortuary that we had all gone to admire as a work of art.</p>
+
+<p>But the scarlet fever boy did not seem to see it that way, for in the
+night he escaped, and we have never seen him since.</p>
+
+<p>Diphtheria was so prevalent that the Red Cross on receiving a patient,
+gathered in the whole family for a few days, inoculated, washed, and
+gargled it. They also toured the villages around, digging out typhus and
+other infectious cases, thus stopping the spread of infection. They had
+a most energetic matron, Miss Caldwell, who had already nursed in
+Cettinje during the Balkan Wars, and we have already told how she
+managed the Montenegrins.</p>
+
+<p>Often the patients came in ox-carts. Too ill to be lifted out, they had
+to be examined and treated in the carts. Dr. Boyle acquired a special
+nimbleness in jumping in and out of these contrivances armed with
+stethescope, spoons, bowls, and dressings. We accumulated a congregation
+of "regulars," who came to be dressed every day&mdash;gathered feet,
+suppurating glands, eczema, etc.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page206" name="page206"></a>Pg 206</span></p>
+
+<p>One old mother with a bad leg was bandaged up with boracic ointment and
+told to come back in two days. She came. Jo undid the bandage. All the
+old lady's fleas had swarmed to the boracic till it looked like a
+fly-paper. After which we used Vermigeli.</p>
+
+<p>All wore brightly woven belts, sometimes two or three, each a yard and a
+half long, tightly wound round their bodies, thus making their waists
+wider than their hips. One girl was black and blue with the pattern
+showing on her skin, and many men were suffering from the evils of tight
+lacing.</p>
+
+<p>The village priest received belts as fees from the peasants when he
+married them. He sent us a message to say he had some for sale, so we
+went in a body to his house, were received by his daughter, who looked
+like a cow-girl, turned over a basketful of belts, and bought largely.
+After which he put up the price.</p>
+
+<p>Jo went on night duty for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>A queer experience this, starting the day's work at half-past seven in
+the evening and finishing at seven in the morning&mdash;breakfasting when
+other people are dining; hearing their contented laughter as they go off
+to bed; and then a queer loneliness and the ugly ticking of a clock. One
+creeps round the big ward. What a noisy thing breathing is.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page207" name="page207"></a>Pg 207</span> Some one
+groans, "Sestra, I cannot sleep." This man has not been ordered morphia.
+Silence once more broken only by the sound of the breathing, distant
+howling of dogs from the darkness or the hoot of an owl. The old
+frostbite man coughs; he coughs again insistently. Both say "Yes" to hot
+milk. So down to the big kitchen, some mice scatter by, the puppy wakes
+up and thinks it is time for a game. A woman's voice calls loudly,
+"Sestra." Taking the milk off, Sestra hurries across the courtyard and
+along the corridor to the little rooms with the puppy tugging at her
+skirt. The woman wants water; she has wakened the other women&mdash;they want
+water. When silence again comes back into the ward, one notes
+instinctively the vivid colouring of the two big blue windows at the far
+end, the long lines of beds disappearing into the darkness, the dim
+light of the lantern on the table showing up the cheap clock and a few
+flowers. The intensity of light upon this clock is only equalled by the
+intensity of one's thoughts upon the clock. The minute-hand drags on as
+though it were weary with the day's work. A groan ticks off the quarters
+and cries for water or milk the half-hours. At last one o'clock. Time
+for a midnight meal. Eggs and cocoa hurriedly eaten without appetite in
+the kitchen, but breaking the monotony. Back to the ward again, one of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page208" name="page208"></a>Pg 208</span>
+the patients very restless, in great pain. Poor fellow, he has had a
+long and hard time of it, fifteen months in bed and all due to early
+neglect.</p>
+
+<p>"Sestra," he says, "sestra," and holds out a handkerchief heavy with
+coin. "Tell the doctor to take me down to the operating-room and cure me
+or not let me wake up."</p>
+
+<p>Between four and five there is more movement in the ward. Groans give
+way to yawns. In the windows the blue is paling to grey. Cocks are
+crowing now quite close, now faintly, like an echo. Suddenly the world
+is filled with work, "washings, brushings, combings, cleanings,
+temperatures, breakfasts, medicines, some beds to make, reports, all
+fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle, until at last the day-sisters come
+and relieve, and yawning at the daylight one eats warmed-up dinner while
+the others are having breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>After a seven weeks' absence one was bound to miss many old friends in
+the ward. Some had gone home, others were back in the army. Old Number
+13, the king of the ward, was still there. He had a dark brown face and
+white hair, and was furious if any dared to call him a gipsy.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a respectable farmer," he said, "and I own seventeen pigs, a
+horse, and five sheep, a wife, and two children."</p>
+
+<p>He loved to tell of his wedding. It was done<span class="pagenum"><a id="page209" name="page209"></a>Pg 209</span> in the correct old Serbian
+style. He went with his mother and a gun to the chosen one's house,
+where she was waiting alone, her parents tactfully keeping out of the
+way. They abducted the lady, who was treated with great honour as a
+visitor in her future father-in-law's house.</p>
+
+<p>"Father" turned up next morning. Rakia was served, and father divulged
+ceremoniously how many pigs he could spare to them for keeping his
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>Number 13 wanted to know everything: how old was Jo, how much she was
+paid?</p>
+
+<p>"What, you are not paid?" he said in amazement. "Then the English are
+wonderful! In Serbia our women would not do that."</p>
+
+<p>Poor little John Willie still left a blank, though he had died long
+before. His name was not John Willie, but it sounded rather like it, so
+we just turned it into John Willie. He loved the name, and told his
+father about it.</p>
+
+<p>They sat all afternoon hand-in-hand, saying at intervals, "Dgonn Oolie,"
+and chuckling.</p>
+
+<p>Jan once had brought back from a spring visit to Kragujevatz some
+horrible sun hats.</p>
+
+<p>They were the cast-off eccentricities of the fashions of six years ago,
+and had drifted from the Rue de la Paix to this obscure Serbian shop
+which was selling them as serious articles of clothing. Jo<span class="pagenum"><a id="page210" name="page210"></a>Pg 210</span> tried them
+on, and one of the nurses became so weak with laughter that she tumbled
+all the way downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>Finding them quite impossible, Jo bequeathed them to the ward, where
+they were snapped up enthusiastically.</p>
+
+<p>The ugliest was an immense sailor hat, the crown nearly as wide as the
+brim, but the head hole would have fitted a doll. However, John Willie
+fancied that hat and was always to be seen, a tiny, round-backed figure,
+wandering slowly in a long blue dressing-gown, blue woolly boots, and
+the enormous hat perched on the top of his pathetically drooping head.</p>
+
+<p>One day poor little John Willie became fearfully ill. His parents
+arrived and sat dumbly gazing at him for two nights, while he panted his
+poor little life away. His friend the Velika Dete (big child), once a
+fierce comitaj, was moved away from the "Malo Dete," to make more room,
+and he sulked, while the Austrian prisoner orderlies ran to and fro with
+water for his head, milk, all the things that a poor little dying boy
+might need; and old Number 13 passed to and fro shaking his head, for he
+had been long in hospital and had seen many people die.</p>
+
+<p>A man with knees bent (he said with scroogling them up all winter in the
+cold) was put in John<span class="pagenum"><a id="page211" name="page211"></a>Pg 211</span> Willie's place. The Velika Dete came back, but he
+would not speak to "Bent Knees" for weeks.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the Austrian prisoners were very well trained and made
+excellent orderlies in the ward. An ex-Carlton waiter was very dexterous
+in sidling down the ward: on his five fingers a tray perched high,
+containing dressing-bowls and pots bristling with forceps, scissors, and
+various other instruments.</p>
+
+<p>His chief talent lay in peppering frostbitten toes with iodoform
+powder&mdash;a reminiscence of the sugar castor.</p>
+
+<p>Our housemaid was a leather tanner, whom Jo's baby magpie mistook for
+its parent, as he fed it at intervals every morning. A Czech in typhus
+cloths spent his days down in the disinfecting, operating and bathrooms.
+He had been an overseer in a factory and had added to his income by
+writing love-stories for the papers. A butcher was installed in the
+kitchens. Once a week he became an artist, killing a sheep according to
+the best Prague ideals.</p>
+
+<p>All our prisoners, about forty in number, clung to the English hospitals
+as their only chance of life, for in other places sixty per cent. had
+died of typhus.</p>
+
+<p>The Serbs, though bearing no animosity, could do little for them. We saw
+the quarters of some<span class="pagenum"><a id="page212" name="page212"></a>Pg 212</span> men working on the road. These were show quarters
+and supposed to be clean. Each room had an outside door. On the floor
+was room for six men and hay enough to stuff one pillow. They had no
+rugs, and the Serbs could give them none. The cold in the winter must
+have been intense.</p>
+
+<p>We had come back to this little world after seven weeks' wandering, and
+almost immediately Jan had gone off to Kragujevatz with a broken motor.</p>
+
+<p>While he was away Jo got letters from England and Paris, which made her
+realize that things were rather in a mess, and we should have to go
+home. We had left England intending to stay in Serbia three months, and
+had been then nearly nine.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/35.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page213" name="page213"></a>Pg 213</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>SOME PAGES FROM MR. GORDON'S DIARY</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">October 2nd</span>. Got a wire from Kragujevatz to say that the motor
+hood is ready and that we must go over to get it fitted. We cleaned and
+oiled the car, and at two ran it down the hill, but it would not start.
+Found two sparking plugs cracked and the magneto very weak. When we had
+fixed it up it was too late. Four a.m. to-morrow morning.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">October 3rd</span>. Started in the dark, Mr. Berry, Sister Hammond,
+Sava, I, and a female relation of some minister or other who wanted to
+go to Kralievo. The motor working badly, as it is impossible to get the
+proper spare parts. Three young owls were sitting in the middle of the
+road scared by our headlights; we hit one, the other two flew away. Sava
+and I stopped and tinkered at the old machine for about an hour, changed
+all the sparking plugs again, after which she went better. We reached
+Kralievo without incident, where we cast loose the female relation. From
+Kralievo passed over the Morava, which was pretty<span class="pagenum"><a id="page214" name="page214"></a>Pg 214</span> floody and had
+knocked the road about a bit. The road led right through the Shumadia
+country, where the first revolts of the Serbian nation against their
+Turkish oppressors were engendered. We passed the old Serbian
+churchyard. I never passed by without going in. These queer old
+tombstones all painted in days when pure decoration had a religious
+appeal, these tattered red and white and black banners lend such a gay
+air to death; these swords and pistols and medals carved into the stone
+seem almost carrying a bombast to heaven. On one side of each tombstone
+is the name of its owner, preceded by the legend, "Here lies the slave
+of God." Do slaves love their masters?</p>
+
+<p>When we passed this road in the winter, black funeral flags hung from
+almost every hut, and even now the rags still flap in the breeze. A
+Serbian boy, clad in dirty cottons, shouted to us, making
+gesticulations. We slowed down and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Bombe," he cried. "Aeropla-ane. Pet," he held up five fingers, "y jedan
+je bili slomile. Vidite shrapnel."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed. We saw a quiet, early autumn landscape, the blue sky
+slightly flecked with thin horizontal streaks of cloud. Any scene less
+warlike could not have been imagined.</p>
+
+<p>"Vidite tamo," he cried once more.</p>
+
+<p>Straining our eyes one could just see, between<span class="pagenum"><a id="page215" name="page215"></a>Pg 215</span> the lowest strata of
+cloud, a series of small white round clouds floating.</p>
+
+<p>"Shrapnel," said Sava, pointing.</p>
+
+<p>"They hit one," said Mr. Berry.</p>
+
+<p>I let in the clutch, we sped on once more. Bang! a tire burst.</p>
+
+<p>Motor driving in Serbia is not a profession, it is an art. We were on
+another of these first-class Serbian roads. Presently we came to a long
+downhill.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the place," said Mr. Berry to Sister Hammond, "where we spent
+the night last winter when the motor stuck in the mud. There, beneath
+that tree."</p>
+
+<p>We shrugged our way down the hill, and presently came into the gipsy
+environments of Kragujevatz.</p>
+
+<p>A man stopped us, holding up a hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Bombe," he said.</p>
+
+<p>We got out. In the soft earth at the side of the road was a neat hole,
+four inches in diameter. Peering down we could see the steel handle of
+the unburst bomb. We next passed a smashed paling, in the garden behind
+a crowd were searching for relics. An old woman had been killed, they
+said. We turned into the main street and plunged into a large crowd. The
+pavement had been torn up, and people were grubbing in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page216" name="page216"></a>Pg 216</span> mud; pieces
+of charred wood were passed from hand to hand.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a bit of propeller," said one. "No; it's a bit of the frame,"
+said another. A girl proudly held up a large piece of map scorched all
+round the edges.</p>
+
+<p>"And the men?" we asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nemachke (Germans)," answered the crowd; "both dead; one here, one over
+there," pointing to the middle of the road.</p>
+
+<p>We came into the Stobarts' camp, pitched up on the hill behind the
+Kragujevatz pleasure ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see the aeroplanes?" they cried, running towards us.</p>
+
+<p>"No," we answered; "but we saw the shrapnel."</p>
+
+<p>"One was hit&mdash;it was wonderful. They were flying just over here, and a
+shrapnel burst quite close; and then one saw a thin stream of smoke come
+from the plane; then a little flicker. It seemed to fall so slowly. Then
+it burst into flames and came down like a great comet."</p>
+
+<p>"D&mdash;&mdash;n!" we said: "if only that machine had been working right
+yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>We took our car down to the arsenal, and I left Sava to take it to bits
+and get it opened out, for there had been a bit of a knock in the crank
+case. The remains of the smashed aeroplane were piled<span class="pagenum"><a id="page217" name="page217"></a>Pg 217</span> in the yard, and
+from the way it had twisted up without breaking one could see from what
+beautiful metal the machinery was made. Some of the French experts
+denied that the guns had hit it&mdash;giving as their reason that one of its
+own bombs had exploded. But one of the engineers put his hand into a big
+hole which was beneath the crank case and drew out a shrapnel ball. I
+thought that would settle it, but the Frenchmen were not convinced. The
+shells were bursting fifty metres too low, they said. Fifteen bombs had
+fallen about the arsenal, and one man, a non-commissioned officer, had
+been killed.</p>
+
+<p>Met Hardinge and Mawson: they both saw the aeroplane fall, and were not
+fifty yards from the place where it struck.</p>
+
+<p>Walked back to the Stobarts' camp for lunch. A French aeroplane had come
+over from Belgrade too late; now it rose slowly in the air and sailed
+off. Saw the two dead aviators; both had evidently been killed at once,
+for they were charred, not blistered.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Phillips, ex-Governor of Scutari, and English military attach&eacute;,
+came up with the Italian attach&eacute;. A bomb had fallen just before the
+colonel's house and missed his servant by a hair's-breadth. The Italian
+was in a room opposite the Crown Prince's palace; he thought that the
+falling<span class="pagenum"><a id="page218" name="page218"></a>Pg 218</span> machine was going to crash through the roof, but it fell in the
+street not ten yards away. The camp itself was packing hard, for Mrs.
+Stobart had just decided to form a "flying field ambulance."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Berry and I had a tent assigned to us.</p>
+
+<p>October 4th. Awoke to sounds like some one hitting a board with a
+mallet. Ran outside. One found the aeroplane from the little clouds of
+shrapnel, for it was flying very high, and was like a speck. Clouds of
+smoke were rolling from one quarter of the town, and we thought that a
+big fire was beginning, but it was extinguished. Another aeroplane came
+later. The guns began long before it could be seen. It dropped two bombs
+over the powder factory, and two in the town. Mrs. Stobart ordered
+everybody from the camp; but nobody left except the patients, who were
+driven a mile out and dumped in a wood. A long procession of townsfolk
+filed continuously by, running from the danger. The aeroplane dropped
+two more bombs in the town, and came back flying right over the camp. It
+was a queer feeling, staring right up at the plane, and wondering if
+another bomb were not falling silently towards one.</p>
+
+<p>I went down to the arsenal to see about the car; and Mr. Berry and Miss
+Hammond went off to see the anti-aircraft guns. Mrs. Stobart had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page219" name="page219"></a>Pg 219</span> asked
+me to go out on the Rudnik road to see a car which had broken down, and
+had promised to send a motor to fetch me. Before we could leave, news
+was brought that another aeroplane had been telephoned. Presently we
+could hear the guns beginning. Hardinge turned up, and we looked out for
+the machine. We saw the aeroplane coming straight towards us; everybody
+rushed for the cellars, but I wanted to stay outside for the last
+moment. Hardinge was with me. Suddenly I lost sight of the plane. I ran
+farther out to look for it, and suddenly there was a report, and a great
+column of smoke just outside the arsenal. There was another behind the
+rifle shops, and another behind the boiler sheds. Now the aeroplane was
+overhead. I heard a noise like tearing silk, and lay flat upon the
+ground shouting to Hardinge&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Lie flat, d&mdash;&mdash;n you!"</p>
+
+<p>It seemed ages before it burst. Dust and bits flew everywhere; the
+windows all sprang out into the yard. I looked for Hardinge, but he was
+unharmed. I had expected to be terrified, but I was feeling so bothered
+about Hardinge that I had no time to think about myself.</p>
+
+<p>We heard a shrill crying, "Oh&mdash;h! oh&mdash;h!"</p>
+
+<p>I ran forward, crying to Hardinge, "A man's hurt!" He answered, "Is he?"
+The dust was<span class="pagenum"><a id="page220" name="page220"></a>Pg 220</span> so thick I could not see at first, but as it cleared I
+found a workman lying on back and elbows, his knees drawn up as though
+he were trussed; his head waved from side to side, and he was uttering
+spasmodic cries. I said to him, "Where? where?" and he placed a hand to
+his stomach.</p>
+
+<p>The man had been struck just below the ribs by a large piece of bomb,
+blood was welling from the wound, so I pushed his shirt into it, and ran
+back to the office. Mrs. Stobart's car had been brought by a lady and a
+youth named Boon, who had both taken cover in the cellar; so I dug up
+the girl, whose name I have forgotten, as I hoped she knew "first aid."
+Together we ran to the man, leaving Boon to bring the ambulance.
+"Bandages," we demanded. "Haven't any," answered the few Serbs who had
+gathered round; "the first aid house has been blown to pieces." We
+crammed our handkerchiefs into the place, and a cotton-wool arm pad
+which was brought, and we then took off the man's own puttees and tied
+him up with them. As we were doing this somebody cried&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Aeroplanes returning."</p>
+
+<p>Immediately every Serb and Austrian fled. The girl, Hardinge, and I were
+left alone. It was a false alarm. With the returning crowd came a large
+man, who was weeping.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image21" name="image21">
+   <img src="images/36.jpg"
+      alt="BROKEN AEROPLANE IN THE ARSENAL AT KRAG."
+      title="BROKEN AEROPLANE IN THE ARSENAL AT KRAG." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">BROKEN AEROPLANE IN THE ARSENAL AT KRAG.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image22" name="image22">
+   <img src="images/37.jpg"
+      alt="WHERE THE PLANE FELL."
+      title="WHERE THE PLANE FELL." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">WHERE THE "PLANE" FELL.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image23" name="image23">
+   <img src="images/38.jpg"
+      alt="HOUSE NEAR THE ARSENAL DAMAGED BY BOMBS."
+      title="HOUSE NEAR THE ARSENAL DAMAGED BY BOMBS." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">HOUSE NEAR THE ARSENAL DAMAGED BY BOMBS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Oh, my poor brother! oh, my poor brother!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page221" name="page221"></a>Pg 221</span> What have they done to
+thee? Why should this evil have befallen thee?"</p>
+
+<p>As we finished tying him up, Hardinge said, "Is it any good lying down?"</p>
+
+<p>I answered, "If this poor chap had been lying down he would not have
+been hurt."</p>
+
+<p>There was no stretcher, so we lifted the wounded man on a blanket into
+the ambulance, which Boon had now brought. The girl and the brother
+climbed within. I took the steering wheel. Boon wound up the engine, and
+swung alongside me. The driving was a difficult problem. Whether to
+drive fast and get to the hospital, or whether to go slow and spare the
+wounded man as much pain as was possible? The road was awful: once it
+had been laid with stone pavement, but many of the stones were missing,
+and in so bad a condition was it that although several bombs had fallen
+in the streets, one could not distinguish the bomb craters from the
+ordinary holes in the road. At last I decided that as it was not a
+fracture I would go as quickly as I dared. Above the clatter of the
+machinery I could hear the weeping of the brother and the intermittent
+cries of the wounded man, "Water, water."</p>
+
+<p>"I think he's going," said the girl through the curtains.</p>
+
+<p>At last we reached the hospital. We laid the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page222" name="page222"></a>Pg 222</span> man on the ground and the
+doctors did all they could. But it was useless, the piece of shell had
+cut in directly beneath the heart. In ten minutes he was dead. I turned
+to the brother and laying both hands upon his shoulders said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Your poor brother was too badly hit. We could not save him."</p>
+
+<p>He stared at me for a moment, not understanding. Then he turned and
+flung himself down upon the body, weeping more bitterly than before.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the ambulance and took it back to its place.</p>
+
+<p>The aeroplane returning from the arsenal had flung three gratuitous
+bombs at the camp itself, one had fallen in the Serbian hospital yard,
+and had killed an Austrian prisoner; one had fallen in the top corner of
+the camp field, but had not exploded. The third had missed, only by a
+little, the room in which the two dead German aeroplanists were lying,
+had plunged into the Stobarts' storeroom, and had burst in the last case
+of marmalade which they possessed. It was an awful mess. Had it fallen
+three yards to the left it would have killed the chief cook, who was
+just on the other side of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>I went back to the arsenal. None of the bombs<span class="pagenum"><a id="page223" name="page223"></a>Pg 223</span> had struck any important
+part, almost all had fallen in open places, though one had burst on the
+roof of the woodshed, only a few yards from the petrol store. Two cans
+of petrol had been punctured by bits of shell, and Austrian prisoners
+were hurriedly pumping them out. Almost half the work of the arsenal was
+done by Austrian prisoners. Another bomb had fallen in the horseshoe
+store, and inside horseshoes were everywhere, some even sticking in the
+beams like great staples. I had no idea before that the bombs had such
+force. Sava said he had been standing in a doorway and a bomb had
+exploded quite close, a piece had whizzed by his nose and had torn down
+the name board over his head. When he turned round to go on with the
+work the aide had fled and never appeared again.</p>
+
+<p>I met Dr. Churchin. He is one of the best Serbs I have yet met, a
+philosopher. He was looking after the English units in Kragujevatz and I
+learnt did it excellently, and with a devotion to his duties altogether
+unusual. He told me that I had been nominated an honorary captain; but I
+am under the impression that it is an honour I cannot by national law
+accept.</p>
+
+<p>We went in the afternoon in the car towards Rudnik to examine the one
+which had broken down. I soon saw that nothing could be done<span class="pagenum"><a id="page224" name="page224"></a>Pg 224</span> on the
+spot, and ordered it to continue its "bullocky" progress to the camp. In
+the evening went off to the Government motor school, where I found my
+old friend Ristich and Colonel Derrock; both these men are first-class
+Serbs&mdash;jolly, keen and friendly.</p>
+
+<p>October 5th. Our car not being finished, Mr. Berry and Sister Hammond
+went back to Vrntze in a car lent by Colonel Derrock. I was to stay till
+all the repairs were completed on ours. There was another scare of
+aeroplanes, and the whole town emptied itself, families pouring by en
+route for the country; but the planes did not come. I went down to the
+arsenal and got on with the repairs. Dr. May lent me her camera and I
+got some photos. Mrs. Stobart went off with her "flying field force,"
+taking with her nearly all the men and almost all the cars: if the
+hospital get many serious cases I imagined that they would be dreadfully
+shorthanded.</p>
+
+<p>In the night the two German aeroplanists were buried without military
+honours. The Serbs said that they were assassins and deserved nothing.
+Still, Kragujevatz is an arsenal.</p>
+
+<p>October 6th. Another aeroplane scare; town emptied itself once more. Dr.
+MacLaren and I rushed off to the anti-aircraft guns, hoping to get some
+photos; but nothing occurred. Got the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" name="page225"></a>Pg 225</span> Rudnik car running by taking Mr.
+McBlack's useless car to pieces. In the evening two sisters went to
+Uskub. One of the sisters went to get her bag, and I took what I thought
+to be a short cut to help her. I passed between the tents, and was
+striding along, when&mdash;Plop! I found myself swimming in a deep tank of
+water. The sister heard me fall, and ran back to the camp crying out&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Help, help! The stranger is drowning in the bath-water sewage tank."</p>
+
+<p>I clambered out, and hastily fled to my tent, where kindly souls brought
+me an indiarubber bath and hot water. I also got some refugee pyjamas,
+in which I wandered about for the rest of the evening. My clothes were
+taken to the kitchen and hung over the big stove.</p>
+
+<p>October 7th. Went to the arsenal in borrowed refugee clothes miles too
+large. Worried the car till it worked. At lunch clothes dry. Got away by
+three, Hardinge coming with us. Night came on before we got home. Our
+car is a beastly nuisance in the dark, the lamps, electric and worked
+from the magneto, only giving light when going at full speed, which is
+impossible on these roads. I was just boasting to Harding that I had
+never run into anything except the owl, when I hit a cow. Figures
+appeared cursing from the darkness;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name="page226"></a>Pg 226</span> we cursed back for allowing the
+animal to stray; other figures appeared cursing on our side. The motor
+was pushed back, the cow got up and walked off, and on we went. Found Jo
+on night shift. Got some supper, fixed up a bed for Hardinge, and so
+self to bed.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/39.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name="page227"></a>Pg 227</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>LAST DAYS AT VRNTZE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Up till now Vrntze was undisturbed by the war; the fine ladies were
+walking the streets much as usual, and were bringing pressure upon
+Gaschitch, the commandant, to make us close one of our hospitals, so
+that it might be reopened as a lodging-house. The chemist and Jan had an
+amusing conversation about the uncle of Nicholas I. It seems he was a
+great poet.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," said the chemist, earnestly, "I can assure you that he was one of
+the greatest poets that ever has lived. Were Serbian a language as
+universally spoken as is English, he would stand beside Shakespeare in
+the world's estimation, if not before. The depth of his philosophy, sir,
+it is astounding and so deep. There are passages in his poetry which I
+have studied for weeks on end and never yet been able to understand."</p>
+
+<p>The true explanation is that the great poet translated an old work of
+German philosophy into<span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name="page228"></a>Pg 228</span> Serbian, and very likely did not understand all
+the original himself.</p>
+
+<p>We got more letters urging us to return. Our studios in Paris and all
+our work of the last eight years seemed in danger of being sold up. So
+Jan went once more to the Chief. He asked us to stay until at least the
+first batch of wounded arrived, for none of the others had had
+experience of the receiving arrangements, and of the disinfecting. We
+moved our beds and baggage to the school, which Jo was to take over as a
+convalescent hospital.</p>
+
+<p>By the way, one of our doctors had a queer soothsaying experience. She
+was told that she was one day going to a foreign country with an S in
+the name. She would be quite safe in her first job, but that she would
+be offered a post in a large grey building from which if she accepted
+she might not escape alive, but in any case would be flying for her
+life, and that she and all her companions would suffer great hardships
+and sleep on dirty straw in awful places. She was offered a job at the
+Farmers' hospital in Belgrade. She refused. It is a great grey building,
+and we now heard that Belgrade was being violently bombarded and all had
+to escape. Rumours came of great German attacks on Shabatz and
+Obrenovatz.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Serbian refugees arrived from<span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name="page229"></a>Pg 229</span> Belgrade itself: they said
+that the town was in flames and that fierce fighting was taking place in
+the streets. Posheravatz was deserted, and a great battle was raging
+about its outskirts. There were reports that the King of Bulgaria had
+abdicated and that the Germans at Chabatz had been defeated, leaving
+8000 prisoners in Serbian hands. Neuhat came to Jan in great glee.</p>
+
+<p>"We have captured a German major," he said, "and he says that never was
+there a soldier like the Serb. He has fought English and French and
+Russians, but he says our troops are the most wonderful of all."</p>
+
+<p>"Jolly sensible chap," said Jan. "I'd say the same myself if I was a
+prisoner."</p>
+
+<p>Major Gaschitch told Dr. Berry that if the Serbian army retreated we
+were to retreat with them. Blease and Jan got hard at work putting rope
+handles to the packing-cases and labelling them for special purposes.
+One of our lady doctors was valued in the morning. In the outpatient
+department a question arose about marriage. A Serb patient said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I can marry any time I like. Pah! In Serbia one can get two maidens for
+twopence, and three widows for a mariasch (1/2<i>d.</i>)."</p>
+
+<p>Everybody was now running about with maps, violently explaining the
+situation to everybody<span class="pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230"></a>Pg 230</span> else, and all explaining differently. Major
+Gaschitch had fixed Novi Bazar as our probable haven, and Mr. Berry
+borrowed our map to see if there were a direct road over Gotch mountain,
+and suggested that Jan might get a horse and ride over to see. Alas,
+only a fourth-class road was marked, and heaven knows what that may be
+like: lots of country and choose for yourself probably. A woman was
+brought in with what she said was a bullet through the breast; it
+occurred during the celebration of the marriage ceremony, which lasted a
+week. The girl was brought by her father, the bridegroom having rushed
+off to the church to pray. The wound looked very like a dagger thrust.</p>
+
+<p>The new slaughter-house was a fine erection. The walls were almost
+finished and the roof was being assembled. One of the Austrian prisoners
+had discovered a talent for stone carving, and Miss Dickenson was
+designing a frieze for the door and on each side. There was a fine
+ceremony&mdash;while we had been away&mdash;at the foundation, and Mr. Berry made
+a speech in Serbian. The disinfector had also arrived and was soon got
+into working order.</p>
+
+<p>The news got better. The Austrians were now driven out of Belgrade with
+immense slaughter, the whole line of the Danube and of the Save had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page231" name="page231"></a>Pg 231</span>
+been reoccupied by the Serbs. Blease and Jan wondered if it were
+necessary to go on with the rope handles. Our first wounded man arrived
+in the evening, a non-commissioned officer, with a slightly wounded
+thumb. He had arrived by train, asked in the town which was the most
+comfortable hospital, and had walked up. We represented that we weren't
+looking for thumbs, but had to put him up for the night; this meant the
+whole business of washing, shaving, and disinfecting his clothes.</p>
+
+<p>We heard that the French and English had arrived in Nish, 70,000 men,
+and that they had been greeted with the wildest enthusiasm; but against
+that was set the fact that Belgrade after all was not quite clear of
+Austrians, in fact, they still held half the town, but that the "Swobs"
+were not getting on at Chabatz. "Swobs" in Serbian are any of a Germanic
+country, while in Austria it is a term of opprobrium, meaning "German."
+One of our "Czech" orderlies said to Jo, pathetically&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought that I should be called a 'Swob.'"</p>
+
+<p>Next day came a warning that two hundred wounded, serious cases, were to
+be expected, so everything and everybody was in a rush. The bathrooms to
+be cleaned, disinfecting-room and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name="page232"></a>Pg 232</span> bags to be got ready, wards cleared
+as much as was possible.</p>
+
+<p>The wounded did not come, and the next day they did not come. The
+chemist said that all the Austrians had been driven back, but that the
+Bulgars had at last attacked. Mr. Berry thought the news rather serious,
+and told us that Gaschitch had said that we must be prepared to move at
+twenty-four hours' notice; so back we went to the work on the boxes.
+Next day news was brought that the Bulgars had drawn back, and had said
+that the Serbs had attacked them first, that the Powers had declared war
+on Bulgaria, and that the Russians had bombarded Varna.</p>
+
+<p>At last we got news that the wounded were really coming. We hurried into
+our disinfecting garments&mdash;looking like pantaloons,&mdash;and scissors were
+served out to all the assistants. It was dark before the first motor
+load came.</p>
+
+<p>The undressing-room was a large white-stone floored room with four long
+plank beds covered with mackintosh; behind was the bathroom. The first
+wounded man was pushed in through the window on a stretcher, a brown
+crumpled heap of misery, and groaning. We laid him carefully on the bed
+while the doctor searched for the wound. While she was examining him a
+second was handed in. No need to examine this one. Bloody head<span class="pagenum"><a id="page233" name="page233"></a>Pg 233</span> bandage
+and great blue swollen eyelids told plainly where his wound was. We
+stripped the clothes as carefully as was possible from the poor fellows.
+Those who were too bad to go to the bathroom were washed where they lay.
+One orderly with soap and razors shaved every hair from each; and
+several plied clippers on the matted heads. Outside was one electric
+lamp which threw strong lights and darker shadows, making a veritable
+Rembrandt of the scene, lighting up the white clad forms of the
+assistants who were drawing out the stretchers, the big square end of
+the ambulance car, and picking out from the gloom of the garden a rose
+tree which bore one white rose.</p>
+
+<p>The wounded were indescribably dirty, and their clothes in a shocking
+state, all stiff with blood. Jo took charge of the clothes bags, seeing
+that no man's clothes were mixed with any others. The men all seemed
+dazed, each soldier seemed to have the same protest upon his mind. "This
+wasn't the idea at all, I was not to be wounded. Why am I here?" One
+suddenly felt the brutal inanity of modern warfare; one felt that if the
+ones who had started this war could only be forced to spend three months
+in a war hospital, receiving and undressing the fruits of their plots,
+they would have a different view of the glory and honour of battle.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name="page234"></a>Pg 234</span></p>
+
+<p>Each man had sewn in his belt some talisman to protect him from
+danger&mdash;small brass or lead image or medal, bought from the village
+priest.</p>
+
+<p>There was confusion at first, for almost all were new to their tasks;
+the barbers were carrying stretchers when they ought to have been
+barbering; the clippers were scrubbing instead of doing their proper
+work; but, nevertheless, it was marvellously rapid. The motor tore back
+to the station, and by the time it had returned its first load had been
+washed, shaved, arrayed in clean pyjamas, and either lay in bed in the
+ward, or were waiting their turn outside the operating theatre.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Berry was hard at work: there were several cases shot through the
+brain, one through the lungs, one through the heart, and one through the
+spine; this latter was paralysed.</p>
+
+<p>Some wounded came in carriages; it was very difficult to get them on to
+the stretchers without giving them unnecessary pain, because of the
+shape of the "fiacres." At last all were passed through.</p>
+
+<p>Do not think us heartless if we rubbed our hands and said, "Some very
+good cases, what!" for emotional pity can be separated from professional
+pleasure, and if these things had to be we were pleased that the serious
+ones had come to us; had not gone to a Serbian hospital.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" name="page235"></a>Pg 235</span></p>
+
+<p>Next day we sorted clothes. Every uniform had to be taken from its bag,
+tabulated, searched for money or food, and repacked. They were swarming
+with vermin, but we wore mackintosh overalls which are supposed to be
+anathema to the beasties. More operations. One of the men had been hit
+in the cerebellum, and was quite blind. The boy who had been hit in the
+lungs prayed for a cigarette and an apple, he felt sure they would do
+him good. We sorted more clothes. One of the men had a pocket full of
+scissors&mdash;evidently regimental barber; another's pockets were crammed
+with onions; a third had a half-eaten apple, as though the fight had
+surprised him in the middle of his dessert. The cerebellum man wanted
+his purse. We could not find it; after exhaustive inquiry found that the
+lung youth had stolen it. Another patient claimed he had lost thirty-six
+francs; so down we had to go once more, search his package&mdash;the
+smelliest of the lot&mdash;and at last found the money pinned into the lining
+of his coat, also a watch. Jan took them back to him, wound up the watch
+and set it. The grateful owner said that the watch was an ornament, but
+that he could not read it.</p>
+
+<p>The French were never in Nish at all&mdash;all lies; but Austrian aeroplanes
+had bombed it and killed several people. The Bulgarian comitaj cut the
+line at Vranja, but had been badly beaten in a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page236" name="page236"></a>Pg 236</span> battle near Zaichar. The
+flight over Gotch degenerated into a joke, and Jo was commissioned to do
+a caricature of it.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a refugee turned up, the hostess of the rest house in Nish. She
+was very worried about the loss of her fifteen trunks, which she had had
+to leave, and which contained all her family mementoes and miniatures.
+She hoped that the scare would only last a few days. The Bulgars had
+occupied Veles though, which was bad news. Another refugee lady from
+Belgrade came in. More patients. Forty-nine for the "Merkur" hospital.
+Lots of running about, but at last all were bedded.</p>
+
+<p>A Serbian comitaj girl came in in the afternoon, looking for a lady
+doctor. She was a fine upstanding creature with a strong, almost fierce,
+face. There had been six of her, she said, but one had been killed. The
+bombardment of Varna turned out to be a lie, but they said that all the
+Bulgars at Vrnja had been surrounded. Major Gaschitch also said that if
+Serbia could hold out till the 10th, something wonderful was going to
+happen.</p>
+
+<p>Our visitors had rather a hard time. One of them was trotting into the
+little sitting-room of the hospital. She opened the door and started
+back aghast. There was a man within clad in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page237" name="page237"></a>Pg 237</span> nothing but a large pair of
+moustaches. She fled. Mr. Berry having nowhere to examine a stray
+patient had occupied the room at an unlucky moment. More wounded were
+expected, so we got into our war paint, and they arrived five hours
+later than we had expected them. They came in "fiacres," and climbed off
+very easily. We inquired, "Where wounded?" "Belgrade." "When?" "Three
+months ago." Not a serious case amongst them, and we had heard that the
+badly equipped hospitals at Krusevatz were crowded with the most
+frightful cases. We were furious. A lot more wounded came to the "State"
+caf&eacute;. None seriously hurt, and after examination one man had no wound to
+show at all, nor shock, nor anything. He had simply run away. There were
+several hand cases, some blackened with powder, proving that the poor
+devils had shot themselves to get out of it. One man would not have his
+hair cut because he said that he was in mourning for his brother, and
+his hat was decorated with a crown of black lace. At the same time some
+serious cases came to the main hospital; one man seemed to have been
+shot the whole length of his body, the bullet entering at the shoulder
+and emerging behind the hip. A small boy sat scratching. Jo said to him,
+"Why dost thou scratch?" He answered with a shout<span class="pagenum"><a id="page238" name="page238"></a>Pg 238</span> of fatuous content,
+"I have lice, I have lice," and scratched once more.</p>
+
+<p>The disinfector was working overtime, clothes were poured upon us from
+all the other hospitals. Another alarm that wounded were coming, but
+they never came. In their place an English clergyman arrived from Krag.
+News came of the fall of Uskub, and that Lady Paget had been captured
+with all her staff. Next day the wounded came, many more than had been
+expected. Jan got rather strong signs of inflammatory rheumatism
+threatening, so he went to bed for a couple of days with salicylate.</p>
+
+<p>The Serbian authorities were beginning to lose their heads. In the
+morning they said that the "State" was to be made into a hospital for
+officers, and chased all the patients out; in the afternoon they decided
+that it was not, and chased back the patients&mdash;who had been divided
+amongst the other hospitals. Thus they kept us busy and accomplished
+nothing. In the evening another batch of wounded came in.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly all the reports of the previous week were now confessed to be
+lies. A Serbian minister had been dying in the town, and the good
+stories were made up to keep him cheerful. Now he was dead the truth
+leaked out. The Austrians and Germans were advancing on every side, the
+Serbs making<span class="pagenum"><a id="page239" name="page239"></a>Pg 239</span> no resistance since Belgrade. The Bulgars had occupied the
+whole of the line south of Nish. The French and English were advancing
+with extreme difficulty. The Farmers' unit trailed into the town, no
+conveyance having been arranged for them from the station. The Scottish
+women were already here, having come in the night; they had to sleep
+twelve or fifteen in a room. Next day a small contingent of the wounded
+Allies arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Ralph Paget arrived in a whirl. Leaders of units appeared from all
+sides, and a hurried conference was held.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Berry called a meeting at two. He said Paget had announced that the
+game was up; that all members of units should have the option of going
+home, and that he (Paget) was going to Kralievo to see about transports.
+Jan got to work on the map, and decided that the best route out would be
+one to Novi Bazar, and thence by tracks to Berane. There were villages
+marked in the mountains which did not seem so high as those by Ipek,
+also the road, if there were one, would be at least two days shorter.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Ralph came back next day, and knowing that we had but lately
+returned from Montenegro, he asked Jan a lot of questions about the
+road, etc. Sir Ralph's latest decision was that all men of military
+age&mdash;not doctors&mdash;should attempt to cross the mountains into Montenegro.
+He could<span class="pagenum"><a id="page240" name="page240"></a>Pg 240</span> not say if any transport could be provided, or if there would
+be any means of escaping from Montenegro, and in consequence he advised
+no women to move, as they would be better where they were, than in
+facing the risks of the mountains; they would not be in the same danger
+as the orderlies, for whom internment was to be expected. Dr. Holmes
+decided to accompany us, as he said he wasn't going to doctor Germans,
+and he might be useful to the retreating Serbian army. Ellis also said
+that he would come and would bring his car, which would help us at least
+some of the way. Sir Ralph asked Jan to take charge of the party of the
+English Red Cross, and we went back to our rooms to repack, for Jo had
+already arranged things for internment, Mr. Blease decided to come with
+us. Nobody knew what the dangers would be, or where the Austrians and
+Germans were, and many doubted if it were possible to get through. The
+season was getting late, and snow was daily to be expected. Some
+imaginative people enlarged on "the brigands" and "wolves," but we did
+not think that they counted for much. The chief problems were, if we
+could get shelter each night, and could we carry enough food to support
+us in case we could get none, which seemed very possible.</p>
+
+<p>We got an order from Gaschitch for bread from the Serbian authorities.
+We were going off into<span class="pagenum"><a id="page241" name="page241"></a>Pg 241</span> country, the real conditions of which nobody
+knew, and our friends took leave of us, many expecting to see us back in
+a few days. The Austrian prisoners were very sad at our going.</p>
+
+<p>The station was dark and gloomy, the little gimcrack Turkish kiosk&mdash;like
+a bit of the White City&mdash;was filled with Red Cross stoves and beds. Two
+trains came in, but neither was for Kralievo; one was Red Cross and the
+other for Krusevatz. A lot of boys, in uniform, clambered on board and
+shouting out, "Sbogom Vrntze," were borne off into the night. Our
+spirits fell lower and lower. We thought of the friends we were leaving
+behind us, and of what we had before us. The reaction had set in,
+intensified by the gloom and cold of the station.</p>
+
+<p>Hours later the train arrived. The only third-class carriage was filled
+to overflowing, people were standing on the platform and sitting on the
+steps. We tried the trucks. All were crammed so full that the doors
+could not be opened.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better go to-morrow," said the station-master.</p>
+
+<p>"We're not going through that a second time," we said. "Can't we climb
+on to the roof?"</p>
+
+<p>We scrambled up. There were other men there, lying in brown heaps. We
+made some of them move up a little, stowed our blankets and knapsacks,
+and sat amongst them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page242" name="page242"></a>Pg 242</span>"Are you all right?" shouted the station-master.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, then. Lie down when you come to the bridges, or you'll get
+your heads knocked off."</p>
+
+<p>We lay down at once, taking no risks, not knowing when the bridges were
+coming. Luckily the wind was with us, and the night was warm. The engine
+showered sparks into the air, which fell little hot touches on to our
+faces and hands. Later a little rain fell.</p>
+
+<p>Kralievo at three a.m. We did not know the town so Jo stormed the
+telegraph office. The officials tried to shut the door, but she got her
+foot into it.</p>
+
+<p>"When I ask you a polite question you might answer it," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"You can get shelter next door," said one grumpily.</p>
+
+<p>We tried next door. It was crowded, and the heat within was unbearable.
+We saw a door in the opposite wall and opened it&mdash;back into the
+telegraph office. There were people sleeping there already, so without
+asking permission we dumped our baggage and lay down on the floor. The
+officials said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>After a while two French generals (or somethings) came in. They were
+refused as we were, but they took no notice, unpacked their blankets and
+lay<span class="pagenum"><a id="page243" name="page243"></a>Pg 243</span> down under the great central table. With them was a wife, she sat
+miserably on a chair. The room got so stuffy when the door was shut that
+she wished it opened; the draught was so bad when the door was open that
+she immediately wished it shut. Unfortunately she got mixed: the Serbian
+for open is very like the word for shut, and she used them reversed.
+There was much confusion. Just as the officials were getting used to her
+inversions, she corrected herself. More confusion. An English girl came
+in, pushed aside the papers on the big table, and began to brew cocoa on
+a Primus stove which she had brought with her. The officials looked
+helplessly at each other. Jan recognized her as one of the Stobart unit
+from Krag: she had got astray from her band, but was now rejoining them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/40.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page244" name="page244"></a>Pg 244</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>KRALIEVO</h3>
+
+
+<p>We roused ourselves at seven a.m. A damp, chilly fog was hanging low
+over the valley, it penetrated to the skin, and one shuddered. The
+railway was congested, but train arrived after train, open trucks all
+packed with men whose breath rose in steam, and whose clothes were
+sparkling with the dew. We stepped from the station door into a thick
+black "pease puddingy" mud, as though the Thames foreshore had been
+churned up by traffic. Standing knee deep in the mud were weary oxen and
+horses attached to carts of all descriptions, with wheels whose rims,
+swollen by the mire, were sunk almost to the axles. Across the mud,
+surrounded by shaky red brick walls, the District Civil Hospital showed
+pale in the morning, and we made towards it, splashing.</p>
+
+<p>We came to the lodge: an English girl was doing something to a kitchen
+stove. She stared at us.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page245" name="page245"></a>Pg 245</span></p>
+
+<p>"We've just come from Vrnjatchka Banja," we explained.</p>
+
+<p>She took Jo to the hospital, while Blease and Jan dropped their heavy
+luggage and washed in a basin, provided by a Serb servant girl. Jo did
+not return. Jan went to the hospital to look for her.</p>
+
+<p>Crowds of men were at the door, crowds in ragged and filthy uniforms,
+with bandages on arms, or foot, or brow, dirty stained bandages with
+bloodstains upon them. Some of the men were crouching on the ground,
+some were lying against the house, fast asleep. Somehow we got through
+them. The passage was full of men, and men were asleep, festooned on the
+stone stairs. The smell was horrible. Beyond a swinging glass door
+Scottish women were hurrying to and fro bandaging the men as they
+entered, and passing them out on the other side of the building. The
+Serbs waited with the stoicism of the Oriental, their long lean faces
+drawn with hunger, pain and fatigue. Now and again some man turned
+uneasily in his sleep and groaned. A detachment of "Stobarts" had found
+a lodging upstairs, in a bedroom with plank beds; amongst them we found
+some old friends.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving them we went into the village to look for a meal, back through
+the mud. Soldiers, peasants, women, children, horse carts and bullock
+waggons, all were pushing here and there, broken<span class="pagenum"><a id="page246" name="page246"></a>Pg 246</span> down and deserted
+motor cars were standing in the middle of the road. In the great round
+central "Place" confusion was worse, animals, carts, and refugee
+bivouacks being all squashed together on the market place.</p>
+
+<p>White-bearded officers with grey-green uniforms were gesticulating to
+white-bearded civilians outside the Caf&eacute; de Paris. A motor rushed up,
+disgorged three men in Russian uniform and fled. A small fat man vainly
+endeavouring to attract the attention of a staff officer grasped him by
+the arm; the staff officer shook him off angrily. Soldiers lounged
+against the walls and peered in through the dirty windows....</p>
+
+<p>Within, the big dark room was crammed. Opening the door was like turning
+a corner of cliff by the seashore. Almost all, at the tables, were men:
+officers, tradesmen, clerks, talking in eager tense words. We found
+three seats. Nobody had anything to eat or drink. Three men came to the
+table next to us. They exhibited two loaves of bread to the others, and
+had the air of some one who had done something very clever. We were
+famished.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly half the caf&eacute; rose and rushed to a small counter almost hidden
+in the gloom of the far end. Coffee can be got, said some one. Blease,
+who could get out the easier, went to explore. In a short while he
+wandered back saying that he had got a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page247" name="page247"></a>Pg 247</span> waiter. A man came through
+selling apples. We bought some. At last the waiter came.</p>
+
+<p>"Caf&eacute; au lait," said we.</p>
+
+<p>"And bread," we added, as he turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"Nema," he answered, looking back.</p>
+
+<p>"Well eggs, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Nema."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you got?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have nothing but meat."</p>
+
+<p>"No potatoes?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>We got a sort of Serbian stew, the meat so tough that one had to saw the
+morsels apart with a knife and bolt them whole. As we were operating, a
+soldier leaned up against our table, and stared at our plates with a
+wistful longing. Jo caught his eye. She scraped together all our
+leavings; what misery we could have relieved, had we had money enough,
+in Serbia then.</p>
+
+<p>We paid our bill with a ten dinar (franc) note. The waiter fingered it a
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you any money?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That is money."</p>
+
+<p>"Silver, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated a moment. Then went away, turning the note over in his
+hands. After a while he returned and gave us our change.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page248" name="page248"></a>Pg 248</span></p>
+
+<p>The day passed in a queer sort of daze of doing things; between one act
+and another there was no definite sequence. The town itself was in a
+sort of suppressed twitter, everybody's movements seemed exaggerated,
+the eager ones moved faster, impelled by a sort of fear; the slow ones
+went slower, their feet dragging in a kind of despondency. At one time
+we found ourselves clambering up some steps to the mayor's office, in
+search of bread. By a window on the far side of the room was a man with
+a pale face, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and light hair:
+Churchin. We ran to him.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing here?" he said gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>We explained.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you can get any transport," he said; "but later I'll see
+if I can do anything."</p>
+
+<p>We thanked him. "But transport or no transport, we are going." Jan
+showed him the bread order. He read it and pointed to the Nachanlik.</p>
+
+<p>The Nachanlik read our order, scowled and passed it on to another man,
+an officer. The officer read the order, looked us sulkily from head to
+foot, then he pushed the paper back to us.</p>
+
+<p>"We have only bread for soldiers."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;we are an English Mission."</p>
+
+<p>"Only for soldiers here. We have nothing to do with English Missions."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page249" name="page249"></a>Pg 249</span></p>
+
+<p>Fearing that we had come to the wrong place we retired.</p>
+
+<p>At another time we were climbing up back stairs to what had been the
+temporary lodgings of the English legation. But it was empty and
+deserted; Sir Ralph Paget had not yet come.</p>
+
+<p>There were bread shops, but they were all shut and guarded by soldiers.
+Jan saw some bread in a window. He went into the dirty caf&eacute;, which was
+crowded with soldiers, some sitting on the floor and some on the tables.</p>
+
+<p>"Whose bread?" asked he.</p>
+
+<p>"Ours."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you sell me a loaf?"</p>
+
+<p>"We won't sell a crumb."</p>
+
+<p>We bought some apples from a man with a Roman lever balance, and chewed
+them as we went along.</p>
+
+<p>At the hospital the "Stobarts" were packing up. A motor was coming for
+them in the afternoon. We heard that Dr. May and the Krag people were at
+Studenitza, an old monastery, halfway along the road to Rashka. On the
+flat fields behind the station were another gang of "Stobarts," the
+dispensary from Lapovo. One Miss H&mdash;&mdash; was in trouble, for thieves had
+pushed their arms beneath the tent flaps in the night and had captured
+her best boots.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page250" name="page250"></a>Pg 250</span></p>
+
+<p>"There are cases full of boots on the railway," said some one,
+consoling.</p>
+
+<p>"But those are men's boots," said another.</p>
+
+<p>Part of the morning we spent sitting on the banks of the Ebar River and
+watching the bridge, wondering if Ellis would come with his car. Ten
+times we thought we could see it, and each time were deceived.</p>
+
+<p>The French aeroplanes came in. They hovered over the town seeking a flat
+place, finally swooping down on to the marshy plain on which the
+"Stobarts" were encamped. They landed, dashing through the shallow
+puddles and flinging the water in great showers on every side. As each
+landed it wheeled into line and was pegged down. Behind them was a line
+of cannons, the Serbian engineers were hard at work, smashing off their
+sighting apparatus, destroying the breech blocks, and jagging the lining
+with cold chisels. Some of the cannon were Turkish. All the morning,
+through the noise of the town, the shouting of the bullock drivers, the
+pant of the motor cars, and the steady tap, tap of the engineers'
+mallets, came the faint booming of the battle at Mladnovatch, not
+fifteen miles away.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch we went again to the caf&eacute;. Again it was full, and we were
+forced to wait for a table. Just as we sat down a woman with a drawn,
+anxious<span class="pagenum"><a id="page251" name="page251"></a>Pg 251</span> face came up to us, clutched Jo by the arm and said eagerly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true that you are going to Montenegro?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Jo. "If we can get there."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you give me only a little advice, madame? You see we do not know
+what to do. My husband&mdash;he is an old man, and he is an Austro-Serb. If
+the enemy catch him they will hang him."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid he will have to walk," said Jo.</p>
+
+<p>"But he is so old," said the woman, with tears in her eyes; "he is
+fifty."</p>
+
+<p>"We ourselves will have to walk," said Jo. "Make him a knapsack for his
+food. Give him warm clothes. It is his only chance of safety. And," she
+added, "the sooner he gets away the better, for in a little all the food
+on the road will be eaten up, and one will starve."</p>
+
+<p>The woman thanked us. "I will make him go at once," she said, and ran
+out wringing her hands.</p>
+
+<p>A Russian woman with a thin-faced man sat at her table.</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to Montenegro?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>We nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I too am going. I am a good sportswoman. I have walked fifty kilometres
+in one day."</p>
+
+<p>We looked at her well-corseted figure, her rather congested face, and
+had already seen thin high-heeled shoes.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page252" name="page252"></a>Pg 252</span></p>
+
+<p>"I will come with you, yes?"</p>
+
+<p>The little man interrupted. "Why do you say such things, Olga? You know
+that you cannot walk a mile."</p>
+
+<p>We pointed out that we were going to march across the Austrian front,
+and that no one could tell us where the Austrians were exactly; that our
+safety depended to some extent on our speed, and that the failure of one
+to make the pace meant the failure of all. The little man drew her away.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon a miserable fit of depression took us, but we pushed it
+behind us. To the hospital for tea, taking with us a tin of cocoa and
+some condensed milk, which the people lacked. Biscuits and treacle, the
+treacle looted from the railway, where an obliging guard had said that
+he could not give permission to take it, but that he could look the
+other way. We heard the tale of Kragujevatz, of the camp and all the
+buildings filled to overflowing. More aeroplane raids; and of the sudden
+order to evacuate. All the wounded who could crawl were got from their
+beds and turned into the street by the authorities to go: if they could
+not walk, to crawl. A few Serb and Austrian doctors were left to guard
+and watch those too ill to go; with them some Swedish and Dutch sisters,
+and the Netherlands flag flying from the hospitals. Dr. Churchin seemed
+to have been the good genius<span class="pagenum"><a id="page253" name="page253"></a>Pg 253</span> of the Missions, never flagging in his
+efforts for them.</p>
+
+<p>We heard that a Colonel Milhaelovitch was the bread officer. He lived
+somewhere in the back of the big yellow schoolhouse at the end of the
+street. After tea we wandered drearily down to seek him, gained
+permission from a sentry, and clambered up some stone stairs. Jan saw an
+acquaintance from the Nish ministry, asked him a question, and was
+ushered ... straight into the Ministry of War. They seemed in a
+frightful stew about something, an air of disorder reigned everywhere,
+but somebody found time to look at the order.</p>
+
+<p>"Nachanlik," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"We've been there already."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go there again and say we sent you, and that they must give you
+bread."</p>
+
+<p>We were worn out by this. Jo went off to the plank bed which the
+Stobarts had promised to her, while Jan and Blease to the tents, where
+Sir Ralph's men were sheltering.</p>
+
+<p>All the streets were edged with motionless bullock carts, in which men
+were sleeping, and even in the mud between their wheels were the dim
+forms of the weary soldiery. The two splashed across the marsh and found
+the tents.</p>
+
+<p>Rogerson and Willett were there; Willett was seedy. Another Englishman
+named Hamilton,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page254" name="page254"></a>Pg 254</span> who had an umbrella which he had sworn to take back
+with him to England. Also two Austro-Serb boys who had been acting as
+interpreters.</p>
+
+<p>West and Mawson were not there. Rogerson said that Sir Ralph had sent
+them with Mrs. M&mdash;&mdash;to see the road and conditions at Mitrovitza; nobody
+knew when they would be back. We got two beds, but there were no
+mattresses on the springs. Jan rolled up in his Serbian rug, but it was
+loosely woven, and not as warm as he had hoped. Just not warm enough,
+one only dozed. About eleven o'clock, Cutting came in with Owen,
+Watmough, Hilder, and Elmer. They had come from Vrnjatchka Banja with
+Dr. Holmes. Some one had told them that we had deserted them and had
+gone off to Rashka on our own; they were cheered to find us still there.
+After that we lay awake discussing details. None of them had realized
+the difficulties of the road and the probable lack of food, though the
+Red Cross men had brought with them a case of emergency rations. Jan
+exposed his idea of the route; somebody said that there was some corned
+beef and rice in a Red Cross train on the siding.</p>
+
+<p>Intermittently in the silences one could still hear the sound of the
+guns.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning at breakfast Dr. Holmes came in. He had thought us gone,
+and so had procured for<span class="pagenum"><a id="page255" name="page255"></a>Pg 255</span> himself and the sister who was with him, seats
+in a Government motor which was going to Mitrovitza. We all splashed
+across the marshy grass to the siding where the stores were. In the
+empty trucks on the line families were camping, and some had fitted them
+up like little homes. We found the truck, and with efforts dug out
+twelve tins of corned beef, a case of condensed milk, one of treacle,
+and two tins of sugar. We emptied a kitbag and filled it with rice.</p>
+
+<p>The hospital was fuller than ever. The Scottish nurses were toiling as
+quickly as they could, and each man received a couple of hard ship's
+biscuits from a great sack, when his wounds were dressed. He immediately
+wolfed the hard biscuits and lay down; in one minute he was asleep, and
+the hospital grounds were strewn with the sleeping men. From time to
+time sergeants came in, roused the sleepers, formed them into
+detachments, and marched them off.</p>
+
+<p>The Stobarts met us wringing their hands. There was no bread, nor could
+they procure any. Jan took their order, and we promised to see what
+could be done. As we passed the station we saw surging crowds of men,
+from the midst came cries of pain, and sticks were falling in blows.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, what's that?" we cried.</p>
+
+<p>We plunged into the crowd. Some of the men<span class="pagenum"><a id="page256" name="page256"></a>Pg 256</span> and boys were gnawing
+angrily at pieces of biscuit which they held in their hands. The crowd
+surged more violently, the sticks were plied with greater vigour;
+presently the crowd fell back snarling. The ground which they left was
+covered with the crumbs of trampled biscuit, and the soldiers drove the
+crowd yet further back, beating with sticks and cursing. A bread sack
+being unloaded from a waggon had burst, the hungry crowd had pounced ...
+that was all. As we withdrew we saw the fortunate ones still gnawing
+ferociously at the hard morsels which they had captured.</p>
+
+<p>We took our passes to the mayor once more. He received us angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you yesterday," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"The War Office sent us," said Jan, sweetly, "and said that you must
+give us bread."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no bread," said the mayor. "You must go to Colonel
+Milhaelovitch."</p>
+
+<p>We tramped back to the yellow school. There was no sentry, and a queer
+air of forlornness seemed to pervade. We asked a loiterer for the
+colonel's office. He pointed. We climbed yet another stair and found a
+pair of large rooms; they were empty. Town papers were scattered on the
+floor, one table was overturned.</p>
+
+<p>A man lounged in. "Where is the colonel?" we asked.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page257" name="page257"></a>Pg 257</span></p>
+
+<p>"Ne snam bogami," he said, twisting a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, find out," said Jan.</p>
+
+<p>He lounged away and presently returned with another.</p>
+
+<p>"The colonel has evacuated," said the other; "he went naturally with the
+Ministry of War to Rashka last night."</p>
+
+<p>We went back in a fury to the mayor.</p>
+
+<p>"You knew this," we cried angrily to him.</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Where can we get bread?"</p>
+
+<p>He took up the passes and looked at them. His face lightened.</p>
+
+<p>"This one," he said, turning to another, "is written&mdash;Give them bread to
+the value of three francs. We will give them three francs."</p>
+
+<p>"No you won't," said we; "you'll give us bread. You cannot leave these
+English sisters to starve."</p>
+
+<p>After some grumbling he said we could inquire at the "first army." We
+made him write out an order; we also made him give us a clerk to
+accompany us. He gave us a tattered old man whose toes were sticking
+from his boots.</p>
+
+<p>We presented both orders at the "first army." It refused at once. We
+threatened it with the War Office and with the mayor. After some<span class="pagenum"><a id="page258" name="page258"></a>Pg 258</span> demur
+it sent us across the town again to the "magazine" office.</p>
+
+<p>At the magazine office we were more wily. We presented our little order
+for three humble loaves. He first said "Nema," then admitted that there
+was bread and that we could have it. We then showed the order for the
+other loaves.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," he cried, "you cannot have all that bread."</p>
+
+<p>We pointed out that it was not much for a whole mission. He still
+refused. So Jo got up and made a little speech. It was a nasty little
+speech, but they deserved it, for we had found that they had bread.</p>
+
+<p>She pointed out that the English Missions had now been working in Serbia
+for a year, gratis; that no matter if we got no transport we were going
+to get to England, and that it would not look well in the English papers
+if we wrote a true account of our experiences, saying that they had
+allowed the English Missions to starve. The threat of publicity finished
+him. He grumbling consented to give us ten loaves in addition to our own
+to last for two days. Not daring to leave them, and to send an orderly
+for them, we rolled them up in Jo's overcoat and staggered down the road
+to the hospital.</p>
+
+<p>On the way we met an old Serbian peasant woman. She walked for a while
+with us, turning her eyes to heaven and crying&mdash;</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page259" name="page259"></a>Pg 259</span></p>
+
+<p>"What times we live in. Only God can help, only God."</p>
+
+<p>At the hospital we met Sir Ralph Paget. He told us that the Transport
+Board had promised him ten ox carts for the morrow. Two large motor
+lorries had turned up to take the two contingents of the "Stobarts."
+They were packing in, and we asked them to take our holdall as far as
+Rashka, for we were still distrustful of the ox carts. We had begun to
+get into a habit of not believing in anything till it was actually
+there.</p>
+
+<p>An Englishman came suddenly in with a face purple with anger and
+swearing. He was the dispenser from Krag who had been left at Lapovo to
+bring on the stores.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" we cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Brought my motor from Lapovo with the hospital stuff," he said
+furiously. "Left it out there on the road. Came in here to tell you
+about it; and when I go back the cussed thing isn't there. Found all the
+stores in a beastly bullock cart. The people said that a Serb officer
+had come along, turned all our stuff out, and gone off with the motor. *
+* * *."</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing to be done, so we went on packing. An aeroplane was
+seen in the distance; everybody watched it.</p>
+
+<p>"Taube," said somebody.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page260" name="page260"></a>Pg 260</span></p>
+
+<p>The Taube sailed slowly round, surveying the town. It passed right
+overhead. Everybody stared upwards wondering if it were going to "bomb,"
+for we were just opposite to the railway station. But it passed over and
+flew away. As it went guns fired at it, and many of the Serbs let off
+their rifles. We have often wondered where all the bits of the shells go
+to, for nobody ever seems to be hit by them, even when they are bursting
+right overhead.</p>
+
+<p>The motor gave several snorts, everybody climbed aboard. The driver let
+in the clutch, there was a tearing sound from underneath, but the motor
+did not go. One of the drivers clambered down, and after examination
+said that it could not go on that day, and they immediately began to
+take it to pieces. The aeroplane came back twice, sailing to and fro
+without hindrance.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image24" name="image24">
+   <img src="images/41.jpg"
+      alt="PEASANT WOMEN LEAVING THEIR VILLAGE."
+      title="PEASANT WOMEN LEAVING THEIR VILLAGE." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">PEASANT WOMEN LEAVING THEIR VILLAGE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image25" name="image25">
+   <img src="images/42.jpg"
+      alt="SERB FAMILY BY THE ROADSIDE."
+      title="SERB FAMILY BY THE ROADSIDE." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">SERB FAMILY BY THE ROADSIDE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is impossible to describe properly the feeling in the town: it was
+like standing in the influence of high-pressure electricity, even in the
+daytime the soldiers in their rags&mdash;but with barbarously coloured rugs
+and knapsacks&mdash;were sleeping in the hedges and gutters. There were vague
+rumours that Rumania and Greece had finally joined in; many seized upon
+these statements as being true, and one found little oases of rejoicings
+amongst the almost universal pessimism. We ourselves doubted<span class="pagenum"><a id="page261" name="page261"></a>Pg 261</span> the
+reports. Sir Ralph's ox carts&mdash;in an interview with Churchin&mdash;dwindled
+down to a possible two; but Jan got a letter in the evening saying that
+there were ten country carts for the next morning. Six were for us and
+four for the "Stobarts," and that we were to take the Indian tents with
+us.</p>
+
+<p>We went back to the tents early to get a good start next day. Rogerson
+and Willett were sorting their clothes. Hamilton had decided, as he
+could not walk, to go back to Vrntze with the Red Cross stores which
+Paget was sending to the hospital. As we were turning in, Dr. Holmes
+arrived. He had not got the seat in the motor, but was going next day.
+Later two mud-bespattered figures came in. They were West and Mawson.</p>
+
+<p>We questioned them eagerly, and although they were worn out they
+answered all they could.</p>
+
+<p>The road was passable. They had scarcely slept for four days, Mitrovitza
+was already crammed with fugitives, and rooms were not to be found. On
+the way back the motor was working badly; the mud was awful. Then the
+petrol ran out. They stopped a big car which was loaded with petrol and
+ammunition, and asked for some. They got a little, and as they were
+going to start the big car suddenly burst into flames: some fool having
+struck a match to see if the petrol was properly turned off. Great
+flames roared up<span class="pagenum"><a id="page262" name="page262"></a>Pg 262</span> into the air, and it was a long time before the car
+was sufficiently burnt down to pass it.</p>
+
+<p>West said that it was a most marvellous picture.</p>
+
+<p>A little farther on a tyre had burst, and they had been forced to come
+back on the rims. They eagerly welcomed Jan's idea of the Novi Bazar
+route, feeling sure that if they once got to Mitrovitza it would be long
+before they got away, and very doubtful if they could get lodging there.</p>
+
+<p>Again we could hear the guns in the night, and news had come in that
+Krag had been occupied and that the German cavalry were making towards
+Kralievo.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/43.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page263" name="page263"></a>Pg 263</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA</h3>
+
+
+<p>The men were up before three-thirty to strike the tents, having slept
+but little. Breakfast was prepared and waiting at five-thirty in the big
+hospital bedroom; but the women ate of it alone.</p>
+
+<p>Jo sallied forth to the camp, anxious to know what had happened. She
+found a testy little company. For two hours they had been struggling in
+the dark with tents and waiting for the carts and for a policeman, as
+all the riff-raff of the town was gathering to loot our leavings.</p>
+
+<p>At last the carts were run to earth standing outside the hospital in a
+line&mdash;ten little springless carts in charge of a stupid-looking corporal
+who had misunderstood his orders. He moreover refused to move, saying he
+"had his orders."</p>
+
+<p>The indefatigable Churchin was found, and sent him off with a flea in
+his ear. When he arrived at the camp we found a woman and household
+luggage in one of the carts. He said it was his wife, and objected to
+our putting anything into<span class="pagenum"><a id="page264" name="page264"></a>Pg 264</span> that cart. We told him he would have to lump
+it, and he got sulky; as each extra package was put on a cart he said
+that it would break to pieces. Certainly the tents were very heavy, but
+we had been ordered to take them. When the carts were loaded up to the
+last degree they moved slowly through the mud and drew up at the
+hospital. We were sadly overladen. Our party consisted of Mawson, West,
+Cutting, Rogerson, Willett, Blease, Angelo, Whatmough, Elmer, Owen, and
+Hilder&mdash;the last four being our friends of the railway journey from
+Nish. We were thirteen. Temporarily with us also were the two little
+Austro-Serbian boys. The other four carriages were occupied by a doctor
+and three members of the Stobart unit, two "Scottish Women," their
+orderly and a Russian medical student who had been a political prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the town was a slow business, as it was being evacuated. Our
+little procession proceeded very slowly. Most of us walked. Jo drove
+with two of the Stobarts, watching from a seat of vantage the packed
+masses of people who wormed their way in and out between the ox carts.
+The road was blocked by some gigantic baking ovens on wheels. Hundreds
+of boys, big seventeen-year-old boys with guns, and little limping
+fellows from thirteen to sixteen, wearing bright rugs rolled over their
+shoulders, were dragging along in single<span class="pagenum"><a id="page265" name="page265"></a>Pg 265</span> file. Their faces were white,
+and their noses red, sergeants were beating the backward ones along with
+a ramrod. One of them said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have eaten nothing for three days&mdash;give me bread." We had no bread,
+but we discovered some Petit-Beurre biscuits, and left him turning them
+over and over.</p>
+
+<p>The whole town buzzed: motor cars, surrounded by curses, insinuated
+their way through the crammed streets; whips were cracking, men were
+quarrelling but all had their faces turned towards the road to Rashka,
+which we realized would be as full as at straphanging time in the Tube.
+The boys passed us, then we passed them. They passed us again. Hundreds
+of Austrian prisoners were being hurried along, goodness knows where.
+Neat young clerks, suit case in hand, elbowed their way through the
+crowd. Young staff officers were walking, jostled by beggars. Jo called
+to an old man who was driving a cart full of modern furniture, his face
+drawn into wrinkles of misery&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ne snam," he answered, staring hopelessly before him.</p>
+
+<p>Wounded men were everywhere, tottering and hobbling along, for none
+wanted to be taken prisoners. Some had ship's biscuit, which they tried
+to soften in the dirty ditch water, others<span class="pagenum"><a id="page266" name="page266"></a>Pg 266</span> were lapping like dogs out
+of the puddles. Sometimes a motor far ahead stuck in the mud, and we had
+to wait often half an hour until it could be induced to move. Gipsies
+passed, better mounted and worse clad than other folk, some of them half
+naked. Many soldiers had walked through their opankies and their feet
+were bound up with rag. Why in this country of awful mud has the opankie
+been invented? It is a sole turned up at the edges and held on by a
+series of straps and plaited ornamentations useless in mud or wet, which
+penetrates through it in all directions.</p>
+
+<p>We arrived at an open space and halted for lunch. Water had to be
+fetched. It trickled from a wooden spout out of the hill and before our
+cooking pot was filled we were surrounded by thirsty soldiers, who were
+consigning us to the hottest of places for our slowness. Cutting
+displayed a hitherto buried talent for building fires. We unpacked the
+food and soon a gorgeous curry was bubbling in an empty biscuit tin with
+Angelo, Sir Ralph Paget's chef, at the spoon. A leviathan motor car
+lurched by containing all that was left of the Stobart unit. Another
+monster passed, piled with Russian nurses and doctors. A face was
+peeping out at the back, eyes rolled upwards, moustaches bristling. Was
+it? Yes, it was&mdash;"Quel Pays"&mdash;but he did not recognize us.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page267" name="page267"></a>Pg 267</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image26" name="image26">
+   <img src="images/44.jpg"
+      alt="THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA."
+      title="THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The baking ovens appeared again, and we felt we had stayed long enough.
+Some of our party were very fagged after their various adventures since
+leaving Nish, so they climbed on to the carriages wherever there was a
+downhill. The road wound up a narrow stony valley down which was flowing
+a muddy stream. The trees on our side of the river were still green, on
+the other bank they were bright orange, blood red and all the tints of a
+Serbian autumn. The road full of moving people was like another river,
+flowing only more sluggishly then the Ebar itself. For us in future, the
+autumn will always hold a sinister aspect. These trees seemed to have
+put on their gayest robes to mock at the dreary processions. At
+intervals by the roadside sat an ox dead beat and forsaken by its owner
+as useless.</p>
+
+<p>Dusk came, bringing depression; the travellers on the curly road looked
+like mere shades. Coat collars went up and hands were pocketed. Little
+camp fires began to twinkle here and there on the hillsides. We came to
+a large open space where many fires blazed, respectfully encircling a
+French aeroplane section. Opposite was a high peak topped by a Turkish
+castle. There we wished to halt, but the corporal said we must push on,
+as he wished to get food for the horses. After we had passed the castle
+the dusk grew rapidly darker and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page268" name="page268"></a>Pg 268</span> road narrower and more muddy.
+Although camp fires twinkled from every level space, the never ending
+stream of fugitives seemed to grow no less. Darkness only added to the
+tragic mystery of the flight. The bullock carts poured along, the
+soldiers crowded by.</p>
+
+<p>A horse went down, the owner stripped the saddle off, flung it into a
+cart and cursing stumbled on into the darkness. The carts following took
+no notice of the poor horse but drove over it, the wheel lifting as they
+rolled across its body. We shouted to the owner; but he was gone, so we
+turned one or two of the carts off, and made them go round. But we could
+not stay there all night. The horse was too done, and too much injured
+by the cruel passage to move, so Jan reluctantly pulled out his
+"automatic" and, standing clear of its hoofs, put two bullets through
+its brain. It shuddered, lifted two hoofs and beat the air and sank into
+a heap.</p>
+
+<p>On we went progressing for mile after mile in the mire, but never a
+house did we see, nor a spot to camp on. At last the corporal gave up
+the quest for hay, and we were faced with the problem of spending the
+night on a narrow road bounded on one side by cliffs beneath which ran
+the Ebar, and on the other by an almost perpendicular bank. The night
+was black, the mud a foot deep, and a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page269" name="page269"></a>Pg 269</span> stream ran across the road. The
+carriages drew up in single file and we discussed the sleeping problem,
+while Cutting cooked bovril on an ill-behaved Primus stove. Our drivers
+had to sleep on the carts. The women also had carts to sleep in; and the
+Scottish women offered Jo a place in their already well-filled carriage.
+The men were fitted somehow into the rest of the carts, while Jo, Jan,
+and Blease found a ledge below the road, and though it was very
+squelchy, they spread a mackintosh sheet and rolled up on it in their
+rugs.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner were they really settled and sleeping than a voice said,
+"You'll have to get up: an officer says the carriages must move on&mdash;the
+King is coming." It was West. We sat up. Between us and the dim lights
+of the carts the black shadows of the crowds passed without end.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go and talk to them," said Jo; and unrolled herself, struggled and
+fumbled with her boots and floundered into the blackness, where a
+mounted officer was delivering orders. Shouts could be heard, lights
+waved, horses whinnied, splashing their feet in the puddles as they were
+being violently pulled here and there, and our poor little carts were
+moving ahead into obscurity. Jo told him they were a Red Cross
+party&mdash;that the carts were small, and couldn't they stay where they<span class="pagenum"><a id="page270" name="page270"></a>Pg 270</span>
+were? The officer inspected the poor little carts, made his best bow,
+and said, "Yes, they can stay."</p>
+
+<p>But the corporal did not listen to Jo's orders. He belonged to a country
+which rates women and cattle together, and the carts moved relentlessly
+on. With difficulty Jo found the ledge again on which Jan was sitting
+with the rugs, talking to the scenery in a manner which was not pretty.</p>
+
+<p>Blease came up, and the three of us shouldered the things and stumbled
+off to find the vanished carriages, which were half a mile down the
+road. Jan flung his baggage on to somebody and soundly boxed the
+corporal's ears, calling him a "gloop." Instantly the corporal felt that
+"here was a man he could really understand," and from that moment became
+a devoted adherent, studying our slightest whim, and at intervals humbly
+laying walnuts before us.</p>
+
+<p>A man came up to Jan.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that man is drunk," said he; "I said that your carts might
+stand."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" said Jan.</p>
+
+<p>"I was once the conductor of the Crown Prince's orchestra," he said;
+"now I am traffic superintendent. It is difficult. I had a horse, a
+jolly little brown horse, but he gave out and I had to leave him behind
+on the road." There were tears in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page271" name="page271"></a>Pg 271</span> man's voice. "He was a good
+horse, but it was too hard for him. Now I have to walk."</p>
+
+<p>"I shot your horse," said Jan. "They were driving over its body."</p>
+
+<p>"He was a nice horse," said the man again, "a nice horse, and now I have
+to walk. Well, good-bye, you can rest here."</p>
+
+<p>He splashed away in the mud.</p>
+
+<p>Our new sleeping place was worse: the mud was deeper, the road narrower.
+Jo tried to escape the mud and made for the roadside, but the ground
+moved under her and some muttered curses arose. She was walking not on
+grass but on crowds of sleeping boys, and very nearly trod on a face. We
+settled down again on our mackintosh sheet but did not sleep. Some
+soldiers were firing off guns and throwing bombs into the river all
+night. Near us lay Owen, who coughed for a couple of hours, after which
+he gave up the spot as being too wet, and lay in a cart on Whatmough's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>It rained, Jo had the fidgets, and Jan expostulated. The mackintosh was
+too small for us and we got gloriously wet. It is a curious feeling&mdash;the
+rain pattering on one's face when trying to sleep. By the time one
+becomes accustomed to the monotony of the tiny drops&mdash;<i>splash</i> a big
+drop from a tree. Water collects in folds of hat or rug, and suddenly
+cascades down one's neck.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page272" name="page272"></a>Pg 272</span></p>
+
+<p>At four in the morning the corporal crept up submissively to ask if we
+might move on, as the horses were cold and hungry. Only too glad, dark
+as it was, we rolled up our damp bundles and put them in the waggons
+with the sleeping people, who awoke, pink-eyed and puzzled at the sudden
+progress forward of their uncomfortable beds. Whatmough, who was
+convinced that the bombs and gunshots of the night before were spent
+Austrian shells sailing over the hill, said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That's the first time I've ever liked a fellow sleeping on my face."</p>
+
+<p>One of the Stobart nurses, who had used the remains of the hay as a
+pillow, had been awake all night trying to prevent a hungry horse from
+eating her hair along with the hay. With determination she had donned a
+Balaklava helmet and trudged along all day in it, even later when the
+sun came out. Blease, too, started the chillsome dawn in a Balaklava
+wearing shawlwise a rug that had been made of bits of various coloured
+woollen scarfs. Jan used as a protection from the rain Jo's white
+mackintosh apron filleted round his head with a bit of string and
+dangling behind with a profusion of tapes and fasteners.</p>
+
+<p>Under his khaki great-coat and about a foot longer he wore a white
+jaconet hospital coat. Jo had a pair of roomy ski boots into which she
+had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page273" name="page273"></a>Pg 273</span> fitted two pairs of stockings; one had been knitted for her by a
+Serbian girl, and they were so thick and hard that no suspender would
+hold them up, so they stood, concertinawise, over the boots. One of our
+drivers, a witch-faced old man, had a dark red cloak with a peaked hood;
+and West having lost his hat had donned a Serbian soldier's cap, which
+he was taking away as a curiosity. His arm was giving him pain. It was
+very red and inflamed and no one knew what was the matter with it.</p>
+
+<p>We travelled for an hour or so, and then everything on the road came to
+a standstill&mdash;something was in the way. Half an hour passed, nothing was
+done. Several miles of drivers were talking, gesticulating, and
+blaspheming; so Jan took on the job of traffic superintendent, and after
+a time, with a little backing here and twisting there, the problem was
+solved and we moved on. Still no hay stations could be found, and we
+were also hungry, having had no breakfast. We passed a mound covered
+with thousands of Austrian prisoners waking up in the twilight. Another
+hill was black with boys. Still no station. Then we saw some haystacks
+being taken to pieces by various drivers. Our ten coachmen ran to the
+stacks and came back with loads of hay which they packed in the carts.
+In five minutes the haystacks existed no more.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page274" name="page274"></a>Pg 274</span></p>
+
+<p>"Better not leave that good hay for the Swobs," said the corporal, as he
+whipped up the horses. We passed a dressing-station. It was a sort of
+laager of ox carts over which flew the red cross. Wounded soldiers were
+sitting and lying on the grass everywhere, while doctors and nurses were
+hurrying to and fro with bandages and lint.</p>
+
+<p>Water was difficult to find. At last we stopped at the top of a hill in
+a furious wind. The water which we got from a stream looked filthy, but
+we boiled it thoroughly in a biscuit tin, and Angelo again presided over
+a magnificent curry filled with bully beef, while we hit our toes on the
+ground to keep warm. A wounded soldier was brought up by a friend. He
+had not been attended to for days, and we did the best we could for him.</p>
+
+<p>A carriage passed laden with two tiny boxes&mdash;a policeman on either side.
+Although the boxes were small the carriage seemed so heavy that the
+horses could scarcely drag it, and two well-dressed men who were riding
+on the carriage often had to get out and push. We wondered if the boxes
+were filled with gold. The dreary processions of starving boys shuffled
+up again; some were crying, some helping others along, one had an
+English jam tin hanging round his neck. Sir Ralph Paget appeared in a
+motor car, loaded with packages and three<span class="pagenum"><a id="page275" name="page275"></a>Pg 275</span> other people. We stopped him,
+and he told Jan that at Novi Bazar he could get no information of the
+path which Jan suggested, and added that he advised us to come to
+Mitrovitza. The Scottish women were to give up the idea of a
+dressing-station in Novi Bazar and to stop at Rashka. The Serbs had told
+him that there was a good chance of Uskub being retaken, in which case
+we could all go comfortably to Salonika by rail. In the other case,
+there were three roads out of the country from Mitrovitza, which he
+thought better than trusting to one road, if it existed.</p>
+
+<p>Jan told him that the carriages were giving way under the strain of the
+tents, two of the axle struts having broken; and he suggested that if we
+did not jettison the tents, some of the carriages would probably never
+get as far as Rashka. Sir Ralph told him to do what he thought best.</p>
+
+<p>So we pitched the two heavy tops and the long bamboo poles overboard,
+keeping the sides.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what are you doing with our tents?" said one of the Scottish
+nurses.</p>
+
+<p>This was complicated! We understood the tents were Sir Ralph's.</p>
+
+<p>All the men swore they were Sir Ralph's tents, they had seen them at
+Nish. The "Scottish Woman" said she knew the tents well, and they<span class="pagenum"><a id="page276" name="page276"></a>Pg 276</span> had
+cost &pound;50 each. The men from Nish still claimed the tents, and said that
+war was war and they had left thousands of pounds' worth of stores,
+tents, etc., and had been obliged to discard even motor cars.</p>
+
+<p>"And very extravagant it was of you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Jan pointed out that if we did not leave the tents we should very
+shortly have to discard both tents and carts, which would be even more
+extravagant.</p>
+
+<p>She reluctantly cheered up, and we drove away in the sunshine. Before we
+turned the corner we could see an excited mass of soldiers, peasants,
+and boys rushing to the tents with their clasp knives. Perhaps, as
+coverings, they saved many people's lives on the cold nights to come.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image27" name="image27">
+   <img src="images/45.jpg"
+      alt="Retreating Ammunition Train."
+      title="Retreating Ammunition Train." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Retreating Ammunition Train.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>More and more exhausted oxen were to be seen lying by the roadside. A
+huge cart drove over one. We all arose in our seats, horrified&mdash;but the
+old ox was all right, still chewing the cud. Over the cliff lay the
+smashed remains of a cart&mdash;its owners were flaying the dead horse. A
+peasant with bowed head led his cart past us. Drawing it was one ox&mdash;its
+partner was in the cart, lifting its head spasmodically&mdash;finished.
+Quantities of carts passed us filled with furniture, baths, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page277" name="page277"></a>Pg 277</span>
+luggage. A smartly dressed family was picnicking by the roadside,
+sitting on deck-chairs. Colonel P&mdash;&mdash; and Admiral T&mdash;&mdash; slipped by in a
+shabby little red motor. They stopped and told us they were going to
+Rashka. It was good to see English faces again. A familiar figure went
+by. It was the brave young officer from Uzhitze. We gave a lift to a
+footsore lieutenant, who laughed as we trudged in the mud.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, English and sport," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Crowds were congregated round a man who was carrying over his shoulder a
+whole sheep on a spit and chopping bits off for buyers. On a hillside a
+woman was handing out rakia. We thought she was selling it, but were
+told that it was a funeral and she was giving rakia to all who wanted
+it. Starving Austrian prisoners rushed for a glass and were not refused.
+The Crown Prince passed, touching his hat to fifty kilometres of his
+people. This time we were not going to be caught by the darkness, so we
+stopped near a village at half-past three. The sides of the two tents
+made good shelters for us. They were set up, looking like two long
+card-houses, and we used bits of canvas for flooring, very necessary, as
+it was so wet. Our fires were quickly made with superfluous tent pegs,
+and the rice bag was again drawn forth. A groaning soldier with
+bloodstained bandage asked<span class="pagenum"><a id="page278" name="page278"></a>Pg 278</span> us to help him. His arm had not been dressed
+for some time. The doctor with us at first thought he had better not be
+tampered with; but finally agreed to look at his wound, which was
+bleeding violently.</p>
+
+<p>She tore up a towel and bound him up tightly. He said he was going to
+Studenitza, a long day's walk, though he was nearly fainting.</p>
+
+<p>On the hill opposite was a huge encampment of boys. As the darkness grew
+all disappeared but the light of the fires. It looked like an ancient
+battleship with the portholes on fire. We slept, the women fairly
+comfortably, but the men were overcrowded.</p>
+
+<p>Heavy rain came on and poured through the top of the card houses.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I know what the men suffer in the trenches," said a very young
+girl, when she awoke in a pool of water.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess you don't&mdash;they'd call this clover," said a sleepy voice.</p>
+
+<p>Looking our oddest we trudged off in the gloom and wet of next morning,
+leaping across rivulets of water which hurtled down the roads. West's
+arm was worse, Willett was recovering from a bad chill, Mawson had not
+yet got a decent night's rest for a week&mdash;every one longed for a house.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page279" name="page279"></a>Pg 279</span></p>
+
+<p>"Dobra Dan," said a voice. It was the friend of the wounded man we had
+bound up the first day.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your friend?" we asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I lost him," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>We climbed for three hours then waited, blocked. A military motor had
+stuck deeply in the mud and the wheels were buzzing round uselessly, so
+we helped to dig her out. Every one's inside cried for breakfast, and
+when at last we found a swampy plain, Whatmough and Cutting flung
+themselves upon an old tree trunk and cut it up for firewood.</p>
+
+<p>We always had "company" to these picnic meals, hungry soldiers, mere
+ragbags held together by bones, crept around us and learnt for the first
+time the joys of curry and cocoa.</p>
+
+<p>As we came round the corner into sight of the town a large block of
+temporary encampments stretched away beyond the river to our left.
+Beyond them was a flat plain on which was a large tent with a red cross
+painted over it. High behind the town towered a grey hill on which was a
+white Turkish blockhouse, for though where we were driving had always
+been Serbia, Rashka lay just on the boundary. We drove into a narrow
+street, presently coming to a stop where two motor cars blocked the
+way.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page280" name="page280"></a>Pg 280</span></p>
+
+<p>The Commandant from Kragujevatz, who had promised transport to all
+English hospitals, was standing on the road. He seemed very flustered
+and bothered lest we should want him to do something for us. We assured
+him we wanted nothing except bread, for neither we nor our drivers had
+had bread for three days. The colonel shrugged his shoulders and made a
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"You might get it perhaps at the hospital."</p>
+
+<p>Another officer, in a long black staff coat, laughed. He pulled a hard
+biscuit out of each pocket, looked at them fondly and pushed them back
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got mine anyway," he said. "Bread is ten shillings a loaf if you
+can buy it."</p>
+
+<p>Annoyed by the colonel's manner Jo began to mount her high horse and
+became blunt. He was instantly suave.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed dismayed at our idea (to which we still held) of going to Novi
+Bazar before Mitrovitza to see if really no route existed there.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible," said he; "bridges are broken between Rashka and Novi
+Bazar, and there is no route through the mountains from there."</p>
+
+<p>We remembered that the country had been under Turkish rule there years
+before, and guessed that probably the Serbs had not yet been able to
+exploit new and lonely routes. At every side<span class="pagenum"><a id="page281" name="page281"></a>Pg 281</span> in the streets were faces
+we knew, the head medical this and the chief military that.</p>
+
+<p>Our personal carts went off in charge of the corporal, who was looking
+for bread from the Government, for of course all bread shops were shut
+permanently.</p>
+
+<p>The Scottish sisters had not found a refuge, and messengers kept on
+coming back saying this place was full and that place had no room.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel G&mdash;&mdash; became even less likable. It seemed as though there were
+no organisation of any kind in the town. At last, when dark had well
+fallen, a man said a room had been cleared for them in the hospital. The
+motor cars moved slowly off and we told the rest of our carts to follow,
+as Colonel G&mdash;&mdash;said we might get bread at the same place. We stumbled
+after them through pitch black streets, so uneven that one did not know
+if one were in the ditch or on the road itself; one lost all sense of
+direction and only tried not to lose sight of the flickering lights of
+the carts. Jo at last climbed into one, and the carts rumbled over a
+wooden bridge and began to go up a steep hill. We came suddenly to a
+rambling wooden house and our carts dived into a deep ditch. Jo leapt
+off just in time to save hers from turning right over. Crowds of wounded
+Serbians were standing at the foot of a rickety outside staircase. Above
+was a dressing-<span class="pagenum"><a id="page282" name="page282"></a>Pg 282</span>station, and a dark smelly room with no beds, which was
+to be the sisters' home. We could get no bread and so went out once more
+into the dark. We did not know where our carts had gone, but some one
+said if we went in "that" direction we should find them. On we went
+uphill, losing our way in a maize field. In front of us were hundreds of
+camp fires. At the first we asked if they had seen the English. They
+shrugged their shoulders in negative. We asked at the next; same result.
+We had the awful thought that we should have to search every camp fire
+before we found our people, but luckily almost fell over Mawson, who had
+been fetching water. We were going in quite the wrong direction and but
+for this lucky meeting might have wandered for hours.</p>
+
+<p>A good fire was blazing in front of the tents. An Austrian prisoner cut
+wood for us in exchange for a meal. He came from a large encampment
+whose fires were blazing near by. Dr. Holmes and a sister emerged
+through the smoke; they had at last got a cart and horse. With them was
+an Austrian subject flying for his life. He had lived for years in
+Serbia, his sympathies and ancestry were Serbian, but if the Austrians
+got him he would be hanged. We wondered if it was the husband of the
+frantic woman at Kralievo, but did not ask.</p>
+
+<p>One went early to bed these nights. The men<span class="pagenum"><a id="page283" name="page283"></a>Pg 283</span> spread out into two
+card-houses while Jo was hospitably given a real camp-bedstead in a
+corner of the Stobarts' kitchen, on the floor of which slept their men
+and also West, whose arm was getting worse.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/46.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page284" name="page284"></a>Pg 284</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>NOVI BAZAR</h3>
+
+
+<p>We awoke to find where we were. The little encampment which we had seen
+to our left on entering the town, was now far on our right. The flat
+plain&mdash;where was the large tent with the red cross painted over it&mdash;had
+been our bed, the tent behind us; to our right was the brown hill topped
+by the old Turkish blockhouse; and in front a cut maize field with its
+solid red stubble sloped directly to the river, beyond which lay the
+village massed on the opposite slope up to a white church. Immediately
+below us on the river edge were the roofs of the "Stobarts'" refuge and
+of the Scottish women's hospital. Poplar trees in all the panoply of
+autumn sprang up from the valley with their tops full of the blackest
+crows, who cawed discordantly at the dawn. Our fire had gone out, but
+the Austrian had left enough wood, another was quickly started; but we
+found that Angelo in making his curries had melted all the solder from
+the empty biscuit tins and not one would hold<span class="pagenum"><a id="page285" name="page285"></a>Pg 285</span> water. So there was a
+hurried transference of biscuits from a whole one.</p>
+
+<p>From where we sat sipping our cocoa, we could see the hurried coming and
+going of motors in the main square, and groups of bullock waggons and
+soldiers about the fence of the church. A great street which split the
+village in two from top to bottom&mdash;the old Turkish frontier&mdash;was almost
+empty. The corporal proposed to visit the military commandant in search
+of hay and bread. So Jan dragged on his wet boots and set off with him
+down the hill, collecting Jo from the "Stobarts" on the way.</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the rickety wooden bridge, passed between the <i>alfresco</i>
+encampments&mdash;like travelling tinkers&mdash;of waggoners and soldiers which
+lined the roads, up the great frontier street and so into the square.
+All that now was SERBIA was concentrated in this little village. Private
+houses had suddenly become ministries; caf&eacute;s, headquarters; and shops,
+departmental offices. The square was the central automobile station, and
+cars under repair or adjustment were in every corner. Beneath the church
+paling a camp of waggoners had a large bonfire and were cooking a whole
+sheep on a spit. Austrian prisoners with white, drawn faces were
+wandering about, staring with half unseeing eyes; a Serbian soldier was<span class="pagenum"><a id="page286" name="page286"></a>Pg 286</span>
+chewing a hard biscuit, and a prisoner crept up to him begging for a
+corner of the bread; the soldier broke off a piece and gave it to him.</p>
+
+<p>About the gate of the commandant's office were gathered Serbs and
+Austrians all waiting for bread. We pushed our way in. The hay was
+quickly arranged, but the bread was another matter.</p>
+
+<p>"We have no bread," said the commandant.</p>
+
+<p>"But," we objected, "all those men waiting outside. They would not come
+here if you had no bread."</p>
+
+<p>The commandant pulled his moustache.</p>
+
+<p>"We have bread only for soldiers."</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden commotion outside. The door was burst open; two
+soldiers entered dragging with them a man&mdash;a peasant; his eyes were
+staring, his face blanched. We then noticed that he was holding his
+shoulders in a curious manner, and realized that his arms were bound
+with his own belt. The two soldiers pushed him into an inner room, but
+the officials were busy, so he was stood in a corner.</p>
+
+<p>"What has he done?" we asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We have only bread for soldiers," repeated the commandant. Bread was
+evidently the most important.</p>
+
+<p>"We have a Government order."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page287" name="page287"></a>Pg 287</span></p>
+
+<p>He scanned it, pounced upon the three franc phrase and offered us money.
+We pointed out that bread was indicated to the value&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We have no bread for the English," he said at last.</p>
+
+<p>Jo once more made the nasty little speech which we had found so
+effective at Kralievo. It worked like a charm. An enormous sack filled
+with loaves was dragged out and from it he choose three. We mentioned
+the man once more. The commandant shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"He's going to be killed," he said. "Some soldiers looted his yard and
+he shot one."</p>
+
+<p>He then asked the corporal if he would take flour instead of bread. The
+corporal agreed, adding that in that case, of course, they would get a
+bit more.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, you won't," said the commandant.</p>
+
+<p>We sent the corporal back to the camp with the loaves, and with a little
+trouble found the house where Colonel P&mdash;&mdash; and Admiral T&mdash;&mdash;had
+lodgings. It was a gay little cottage, and both were at breakfast. They
+welcomed us and generously offered us their spare eggs, though eggs were
+scarce. The admiral had a large-scale map&mdash;made, of course, by
+Austria&mdash;and we hunted it for our road. Paths were marked quite clearly,
+and houses at most convenient intervals. It<span class="pagenum"><a id="page288" name="page288"></a>Pg 288</span> seemed a far superior path
+to the Ipek pass, both regarding shelter and length.</p>
+
+<p>"But," we said, "Sir Ralph suggests that we go to Mitrovitza, because
+the Serbs say that Uskub will fall in a few days."</p>
+
+<p>"I should get out of the country as soon as you can," said one.</p>
+
+<p>"It is exceedingly unlikely that Uskub can fall," said the other. But
+they promised us as definite information as they were allowed to give if
+we would return for tea, by when the aeroplane reconnaissance should
+have come in.</p>
+
+<p>We went back to the camp with the news.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel G&mdash;&mdash; came up and tried to wipe out the impression which he had
+made the evening before. He repeated that Uskub must certainly fall
+within the week, and that we should be very silly to go off to Novi
+Bazar, which we could never reach because the bridge had been washed
+away.</p>
+
+<p>All the hill behind was crowded with Austrian prisoners. They had
+received one loaf between every three men, and said that it had to last
+three days. They did not know where they were going. Blease went through
+their lines, and at last found an old servant&mdash;a Hungarian. He was a
+stoic.</p>
+
+<p>"One lives till one is dead," said he.</p>
+
+<p>The hospital was doing a brisk trade in wounded:<span class="pagenum"><a id="page289" name="page289"></a>Pg 289</span> sisters and doctors
+both hard at work. The "Stobarts" were resting, and had built a camp
+fire outside the door of their hovel. We got lunch ready, ruining
+recklessly another biscuit tin. While we were eating it a Serb came
+near.</p>
+
+<p>"I am starving," he said.</p>
+
+<p>We gave him some curry and rice. He devoured it.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow," he said, "I go back to commando."</p>
+
+<p>We pointed to his hand, which was bound in dirty linen.</p>
+
+<p>"But?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is better to go back though wounded than be starved to death."</p>
+
+<p>We also held a court of justice. A driver complained that one of the
+Englishmen had given him a pair of boots and that the corporal had taken
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"CORPORAL!!"</p>
+
+<p>He came grinning. We exposed the complaint.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly the man had a pair of boots," said he; "but he has them no
+longer. Now, they are mine, I have taken them."</p>
+
+<p>"But they were given to him."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have taken them. I needed new boots." He exhibited his own, which
+were split.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page290" name="page290"></a>Pg 290</span></p>
+
+<p>We told him that possession by capture was not recognized in our circle,
+and ordered immediate restitution. He agreed gloomily, no doubt feeling
+that the foundations of his world were falling about his ears, and what
+was the use of being a corporal anyway?</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon we sought out the motor authorities, finding our old
+friends Ristich and Derrok in command. They easily promised us transport
+for Sir Ralph Paget's box and henchmen&mdash;no trouble at all they said. Yet
+had we not known them personally we might have waited a month without
+help. One is irresistibly reminded at every turn that the Near East
+means the East near the East and not the East near the West.</p>
+
+<p>We went to the English colonel's, but no news was yet forthcoming, and
+we were, after a jolly tea, invited back at eight.</p>
+
+<p>The camp was in darkness by the time we reached it once more. The fire
+lit up the men sitting about it, and the two inverted V's of the tent
+entrances; very faintly behind could be seen the outline of the line of
+little tented waggons. We had collected an additional member, Miss
+Brindley of the "Stobarts." She was very keen to get home, as her
+parents were anxious, and both her brothers at the front. Jo gave one
+look at her and said "Certainly." She had rushed immediately<span class="pagenum"><a id="page291" name="page291"></a>Pg 291</span> into the
+town and had laid in a stock of beans and lentils, as her contribution
+to the common stock. They were all she could buy.</p>
+
+<p>After supper back to the colonel's, and at last got definite news. It
+was unlikely that Skoplje would fall, and very little use loitering in
+hopes. The colonel advised Jan to get his party out by the best route
+possible, and we took a grateful farewell.</p>
+
+<p>Coming back to the camp Jan had a nasty half-hour. Should we go by
+Mitrovitza, or should we go by Berane? In the first case there was the
+long route, the difficulty of getting lodgings and of transport, the
+risk of falling behind the Serbian General Staff, and of finding the
+country bare, the high passes of Petch and the snow; Willett was only
+just recovering from a bad chill, West's arm had grown much worse, and
+had been operated on in the morning by a doctor with a pair of scissors
+<i>faute de mieux</i>&mdash;a most agonizing process. On the other hand, the
+Berane route was unknown to the authorities, and might have fallen so
+into decay that it was useless; we did not know where the Austro-Germans
+were, and they might be already on the outskirts of Novi Bazar; if any
+of us fell ill we should certainly be captured. It was a toss up.
+Finally he asked the others. They said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What you think best. You know the country."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page292" name="page292"></a>Pg 292</span></p>
+
+<p>We finally decided to go to Novi Bazar and make inquiries. If there were
+no road we could go thence to Mitrovitza, and would only have lost a
+day. If, as the colonel said, the bridge was washed away, we could
+probably ford the river.</p>
+
+<p>Then to bed. One could not sleep really well, for the rugs did not give
+sufficient warmth, and the chill striking up from the ground penetrated
+everything.</p>
+
+<p>Took the road to Novi Bazar next day. Miss Brindley joined us with a
+parcel of blankets and a knapsack and a mackintosh lent by a friend. She
+had lost her boots, or the local cobbler had lost them, but most
+appropriately a motor had arrived and on it was a pair of new soldier's
+boots unclaimed. She took them, cut the feet of a pair of indiarubber
+Wellingtons and pulled them over her stockings, and put a smile on her
+face which never came off in spite of any fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>Hilder and Antonio went off with Sir Ralph's box. The "Stobarts" wished
+us good luck, and away we clattered over the rickety bridge, up through
+the town and out into the Novi Bazar road. The surface was fairly good,
+and the day turned brilliant. We had left the six sisters and their
+luggage behind with their respective units, and so had four extra
+waggons to carry our stuff. We<span class="pagenum"><a id="page293" name="page293"></a>Pg 293</span> rattled along cheerily, only dismounting
+at the occasional patches of mud which we met.</p>
+
+<p>After a while we decided to lunch. We came to a caf&eacute; and halted.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you coffee?" we asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ima."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you give us all coffee?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have no sugar," said the hostess; so we had no coffee.</p>
+
+<p>We got out a tin of biscuits and lunched on those. As we were passing
+them round a soldier stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you selling those for?" he asked, under the impression that we
+were a travelling shop. We gave him some, to his great astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>On we went again. Down below us in a field the corporal spotted a
+hayrick. Like stage villains the coachmen clambered down the hill, each
+with a rope&mdash;spoil from the discarded tents. They attacked the rick and
+soon nothing was left. As they staggered back, each hidden beneath an
+enormous load of hay&mdash;looking themselves like walking ricks&mdash;a Turk in
+black and white clothes ran down from above furiously brandishing a
+three-pronged fork.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing?" he yelled.</p>
+
+<p>The corporal stood stiffly and said&mdash;</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page294" name="page294"></a>Pg 294</span></p>
+
+<p>"It is war. We are the State. It is of no value for you to preach."</p>
+
+<p>The owner went dolefully down the hill, and stood looking at where his
+stack had been.</p>
+
+<p>"We have again prevented those Germans from stealing good hay," said the
+corporal with satisfaction. Each cart looked not unlike a hay wain
+returning from the fields, and we scrambled up on to the top feeling
+like children in the autumn. After we had gone a mile we began to wonder
+why we had given the owner no compensation: evidently the corporal's
+influence was turning us into scoundrels.</p>
+
+<p>At last the broken bridge. Only a shallow stream across which our carts
+splashed joyfully. On the other side was a small church with a beautiful
+blue tower. And soon we were in the outskirts of Novi Bazar, the most
+ordinary town of the Sanjak, combining the dull parts of Plevlie with
+the dull parts of Ipek. There was a stream down the middle of the road,
+in which some of the inhabitants were washing, while one sat on his
+haunches holding up a small looking-glass with one hand and shaving
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>We bustled off to the mayor's office. Found him as usual in a back
+street in a shabby office up shaky wooden stairs. The mayor knew nothing
+of any road to Berane; so baffled, we again found<span class="pagenum"><a id="page295" name="page295"></a>Pg 295</span> the street. We went
+to the shabby Turkish shops of the bazaar and inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said the shopkeepers, "a good path to Berane, and not high.
+No; not so high as that by Ipek."</p>
+
+<p>We returned to the mayor's office. He seemed little inclined to consent,
+and demanded to see our pass. Jo again made her little&mdash;but so
+useful&mdash;speech. The mayor called in an Albanian. After a long
+consultation the mayor said that he had no horses.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we will take our carriage horses," said we.</p>
+
+<p>"There are no roads for carriages," said the mayor.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we will take the horses without the carriages."</p>
+
+<p>The mayor called in two more men: they considered the pass once more.</p>
+
+<p>"You may have the carriages two days more," he decided at last. "Go to
+Tutigne. As far as that the carriages will travel. There are many horses
+there, and you can get pack ponies."</p>
+
+<p>Coming out we ran into Colonel Stajitch of Valievo. The colonel is a
+Serbian gentleman, fine figure, beautiful face, and white hair and
+moustaches. He greeted us, asked us our news. We told him of our
+projected journey. He became thoughtful and after a while said good-bye.
+We<span class="pagenum"><a id="page296" name="page296"></a>Pg 296</span> took our convoy through the town to a field on the outskirts where
+we pitched the camp.</p>
+
+<p>We borrowed the corporal's axe and hewed for some time in a thorn hedge,
+without getting much profit but many prickles, and finally decided to
+take a paling from a Turkish cemetery, for there was no one about.</p>
+
+<p>Soon we had a jolly fire, and Cutting and Whatmough got to work on the
+food. Dr. Holmes turned up. He had arrived the day before and had found
+lodgings in an inn. West's arm was still inflamed and very painful. The
+doctor looked at it and said it needed more incision. West and Miss
+Brindley went off with him.</p>
+
+<p>An old ragamuffin wandered up with a loaf of maize bread. He offered it
+to the corporal for three dinars; but the corporal took it away and gave
+him two. The old man made a great outcry. We demanded the cause. The
+unlawful corporal was again hailed to justice, his corporalship seeming
+more valueless than ever, and to give him a lesson we bought the bread
+for three dinars, for it was worth it.</p>
+
+<p>We suddenly discovered that none of the Red Cross men had papers or
+passes. What was to be done? We were conniving at an almost unlawful
+expedition, and Jan was very doubtful if we could cross the Montenegrin
+frontier. But after a con<span class="pagenum"><a id="page297" name="page297"></a>Pg 297</span>sultation we decided to bluff it into
+Montenegro if necessary, and then telegraph to Cettinje to help us out.</p>
+
+<p>It was now dark and West and Miss Brindley had not come back. So Jan and
+Jo went off to look for them. We searched two caf&eacute;s&mdash;meeting again with
+our old acquaintance the schoolmaster from Nish&mdash;plunged into all sorts
+of odd corners, and at last met Colonel Stajitch in a restaurant. He
+greeted us.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a great favour to ask," he said diffidently. "If I might I
+should like to give to you a little appendix. It is my son. He is
+seventeen, but is very big for his age. If the Austrians catch him I do
+not know what will become of him."</p>
+
+<p>We were introduced to the boy, and at once consented.</p>
+
+<p>"I will decide for certain to-morrow," said the colonel. "Can I meet you
+at seven o'clock?"</p>
+
+<p>We hunted once more for West. Ran him to earth at last in the Hotel de
+Paris. This hotel could perhaps have existed in the Butte de Montmartre,
+but even there it would have been considered a disgrace. We had to pass
+through a long room crammed with sleeping soldiery, stepping across them
+to get to the door opposite. Every window was tight shut, and after one
+horrified gulp we held our breath till we reached the interior<span class="pagenum"><a id="page298" name="page298"></a>Pg 298</span>
+courtyard. Here, too, were sleeping men, and all along the balconies and
+passages were more.</p>
+
+<p>We found Holmes' room. West was there, rather white and just recovering
+from the an&aelig;sthetic. We sat down. Dr. Holmes had thought of coming with
+us, but the authorities had looked suspiciously at his passes, which
+were made out to Mitrovitza, so he decided to go on there. We wished
+that he had come, as a doctor would have been a great comfort had we
+really needed him.</p>
+
+<p>After a rest West was well enough to go back to the camp.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/47.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page299" name="page299"></a>Pg 299</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE UNKNOWN ROAD</h3>
+
+
+<p>As we stood around the camp fire drinking our cocoa a queer ragged old
+Albanian crept up and watched us with a smile. He was the owner of the
+house near by, whose palings we had almost looted. We offered him cocoa,
+which he liked immensely; and asked him about the road to Tutigne. He
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There is a road for carts&mdash;I know it."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you show it us?" said Jo.</p>
+
+<p>He gave a wild yell and ran away, waving a stick.</p>
+
+<p>"What &mdash;&mdash;?!!!! &mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>It was nothing, only the pigs had invaded his cabbage patch. He came
+back later with an enormous apple, which he presented to Jo.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you apples for sale?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head, saying "Ima, ima."</p>
+
+<p>We bought several pounds, arranged with him to guide us later to the
+carriage road, and hurried into the town to buy provisions.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page300" name="page300"></a>Pg 300</span></p>
+
+<p>There we met Colonel Stajitch. "Will you take my boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Delighted. Are his papers in order?"</p>
+
+<p>The mayor hereupon turned up, and the colonel's face grew longer as they
+conversed.</p>
+
+<p>"The mayor cannot give me the necessary permits without Government
+sanction," he said. "I must get it from Rashka by telephone. It will
+take an hour. Can you wait?"</p>
+
+<p>We spent the time shopping. Each shop looked as empty as if it had been
+through a Saturday night's sale. One had elderly raisins, another had a
+few potatoes. We found some onions, bought another cooking pot and
+kitchen necessaries, and packed them in the carts which had arrived in
+the town. Nobody would take paper money unless we bought ten francs'
+worth. After waiting an hour and a half we hunted down the colonel. The
+telephone official told us he had got leave from the Government. At last
+we found him in the mayor's office, bristling with papers and the
+passport.</p>
+
+<p>"I have got you an armed policeman as escort," he said, waving the
+papers, "and the boy has a good horse, twenty pounds in gold, and twenty
+in silver."</p>
+
+<p>We found the boy waiting with the carriages. He wore a strange little
+brown cashmere Norfolk jersey and very superior black riding breeches.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page301" name="page301"></a>Pg 301</span>
+Dressed more romantically he would have made an ideal Prince for an
+Arabian Nights' story. His father accompanied us until our Albanian
+guide announced&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here begins the carriage road."</p>
+
+<p>Their parting must have been a hard thing. The father could not tell how
+his son's expedition would end, and the son was leaving his father to an
+unknown fate. They embraced, smiling cheerily, and the boy rode on ahead
+of us all, blowing his nose and cursing his horse.</p>
+
+<p>In many places the "carriage road" was no road at all. The carts lurched
+and bumped over rivers, boulders, fields, and the inevitable mud.
+Several times we had to jump on our carts as they dragged us over deep
+and rapid rivers. After three hours we stopped at a farm, our mounted
+policeman called out the owners and autocratically ordered two of the
+young men to accompany us as guides and guards.</p>
+
+<p>They came, bearing their guns, white fezzed, white clothed, black
+braided youths with shaven polls and flashing teeth. We began to climb,
+and for hours and hours we toiled upwards. The carriages lumbered
+painfully far behind us, led by their elderly and panting drivers.</p>
+
+<p>"If this is what they call a good and easy road," we thought, "it would
+have been better to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page302" name="page302"></a>Pg 302</span> harness four horses to each cart, and to have left
+five carts behind."</p>
+
+<p>The horses came from the plain of Chabatz, and had probably never seen a
+hill in their lives.</p>
+
+<p>"These horses will die," said the corporal; but he seemed more
+interested in hunting for water for himself than in the struggles of the
+poor beasts.</p>
+
+<p>One of our Albanian guides was overwhelmed with the beauty of Cutting's
+silver-plated revolver.</p>
+
+<p>"How much did you pay for it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty francs," said Cutting, shooting at the scenery.</p>
+
+<p>Jan produced his automatic, but the Albanian scorned it as one would
+turn from a lark to a bird of Paradise. He turned the glittering object
+over lovingly, thought, felt in his pockets, drew out a green and red
+knitted purse, and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I will give you thirty francs."</p>
+
+<p>But Cutting wasn't on the bargain. He pocketed the treasure again, and
+we plodded on.</p>
+
+<p>"How far are we from Tutigne?" we asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Four hours," said a dignified Albanian, who had joined our party.</p>
+
+<p>"No, two hours," said another.</p>
+
+<p>"Three at most," corrected a third.</p>
+
+<p>The first man lifted his hand. "I say four hours, and it is four hours.
+With such horses as these we crawl."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page303" name="page303"></a>Pg 303</span></p>
+
+<p>We reached a desolate tableland at dusk. Here the horses halted for some
+while. With the halt came a sudden desire to stay there for good. It
+seemed as if we should never reach Tutigne. The evening brought with it
+chilly damp breezes, and the footsore company was getting quite
+disheartened.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us camp here," said everybody.</p>
+
+<p>But the policeman had a mailbag to deliver that night, and we had to
+push on. Experienced as we were in Serbian roads, never had we seen such
+mud. Down, down sank our feet, and we could only extract them again
+clinging to the carts with the sound of a violent kiss. We tried to
+escape it by climbing into the thick brushwood, only to find it again,
+stickier and more slippery, while the bushes grasped us with thorny arms
+and athletically switched our faces. A moonless darkness came upon us
+and we had to walk just behind the carriages, peering at the square yard
+of road illuminated by candles in our penny lanterns.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally a voice greeted us. We asked how far Tutigne was.</p>
+
+<p>"About an hour," was the invariable answer all along the line.</p>
+
+<p>But the dignified guide was right. After four hours we reached the main
+street, arriving slowly to the music of incredible clatter as our little
+carts<span class="pagenum"><a id="page304" name="page304"></a>Pg 304</span> leapt and jolted over hundreds of big pointed stones laid
+carefully side by side&mdash;Tutigne's concession to Macadam.</p>
+
+<p>There were faint lights in some of the little wooden houses. Others
+stood dark and unfriendly. We stopped. Curses filled the air. An ox-cart
+was lying right across the road. After shouting himself hoarse the
+policeman woke up an old man in a house near by&mdash;the owner. He
+rheumatically grumbled in his doorway; so the gendarme called our
+Albanians, and in two twos they had turned the cart upside down in a
+ditch, saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It serves you right."</p>
+
+<p>Voices sounded in the darkness. The carriages lurched on. Presently they
+left the road and turned on to grass, they seemed to be leaving the
+village behind. We did not know where they were going, and were so tired
+that we did not care, if only they would get somewhere and stop, which
+at last they did. We jumped off into a squelch of water.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, this won't do!"</p>
+
+<p>We searched the whole field for a dry spot, but though it was a
+hillside, it was a swamp. We chose the least marshy place and built a
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the mayor?" we asked of the strange faces dimly to be seen in
+the light of our fire.</p>
+
+<p>They pointed to two cottage window lights.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page305" name="page305"></a>Pg 305</span> We went towards them, at
+last realizing our proximity by stumbling into a dung-heap and knocking
+against a pig-stye. There was a narrow stairway, and above it a big
+landing. A man followed and knocked at a door for us.</p>
+
+<p>The mayor appeared&mdash;a little man&mdash;square in face, hair, beard and
+figure.</p>
+
+<p>We explained ourselves and showed our letter. He looked grave at our
+demand for horses; said we would talk it over on the morrow, and
+sympathized about the swampy field.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to sleep here on the floor?" he said, showing us a
+clean-looking office. "We regret we have no beds."</p>
+
+<p>We were delighted. His wife, who had gone to bed, appeared in a striped
+petticoat and a second one worn as a shawl.</p>
+
+<p>"The tables shall be moved and the stove lit," she said. "It will be
+ready in a few minutes."</p>
+
+<p>We picked our way back to the fire, avoiding the dung-heap and pig-stye,
+whereby we nearly fell into a cesspool. Cocoa was brewing, one
+card-house had been erected as a shelter for some of our things. The
+drivers were crouched round their own fire cooking something. It was
+difficult to find our bundles in the carts as one only recognized them
+by the drivers. We climbed in feeling about by the light of a match. Jo
+found a foot in one.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page306" name="page306"></a>Pg 306</span></p>
+
+<p>"How can we find things with people lying on them?" she said to the
+foot.</p>
+
+<p>It remained immobile; she pulled it&mdash;no response. She tugged it. A face
+lifted itself at the far end of the cart. It was the corporal's wife
+lying on her own possessions, very tired and rather cross. Jo patted her
+remorsefully and decamped.</p>
+
+<p>We must have looked like a regiment of gnomes bearing forbidden treasure
+as we hobbled through the darkness, laden with our bundles of blankets.
+The light in the office nearly blinded us, and the heat from the stove
+struck us like a violent blow. The mayor, his wife, two hurriedly
+dressed children and several other people received us. There was an
+awkward silence. Jo murmured in the background&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is manners here to go up, shake hands, and say one's name."</p>
+
+<p>Very uncomfortably everybody did so, one by one. Another silence. We
+racked our brains&mdash;the weather&mdash;our journey&mdash;the war. One had nothing
+sensible to say about anything. Jo asked the children's age. The
+information was supplied. Silence. We filled the gap by smiling. At last
+the mayor's wife said we must be worn out, and they all left us.</p>
+
+<p>The mayor crept back. "Don't talk about the military situation," he
+said; "if these Turks knew<span class="pagenum"><a id="page307" name="page307"></a>Pg 307</span> it they might kill us all." Then he shut the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>We flew to a window and opened it, changed our stockings, hung wet boots
+and socks over the stove, ate bully beef, and rolled up, pillowing our
+heads on our little sacks&mdash;thirteen sleepy people.</p>
+
+<p>The mayor's wife opened the door an inch and peeped at us as we lay,
+looking, indeed, more like a jumble sale than anything. Mawson wore a
+Burglar cap tied under his chin, and a collection of khaki mufflers,
+looking equipped for a Channel crossing. Miss Brindley's head was tied
+up in a bandana handkerchief; Jo's in a purple oilsilk hood; others
+shared mackintosh sheets and blankets; West pulled his Serbian cap right
+down to his mouth. Jan put on the white mackintosh dressing-coat, over
+that his greatcoat, then he spread out a red, green, yellow and black
+striped Serbian rug, rolled up in it with many contortions, and pushed
+his feet into a tent bag. Blease in a Balaklava, showing nose like an
+Arctic explorer, got into a black oilskin, one corner of which had been
+repaired with a large yellow patch, he then rolled up in oddments
+collected from the company, as his own overcoat had been stolen, and
+bound it all together by tying the many coloured knitted rug around him,
+after putting the lamp out inadvertently with his head.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page308" name="page308"></a>Pg 308</span></p>
+
+<p>In the morning we interviewed the mayor. He read and reread the letter
+from the Novi Bazar mayor, took an interest in the social supremacy of
+Stajitch's father, who was a man of birth, but said he had no horses.</p>
+
+<p>Jo appealed to his better feelings. He scratched his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, truly one must try to help the English," he said, but looked very
+glum.</p>
+
+<p>"I will have the neighbouring hamlets searched for horses."</p>
+
+<p>We thanked him and wandered into the village caf&eacute;. An old man with black
+sprouting eye-brows &agrave; la Nick Winter, was sitting there. He had walked
+for five days, eating only apples.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good food too," he said. "Here is my luggage."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to a knotted handkerchief containing a tiny loaf of bread
+which he had just acquired. His goal was a monastery in Montenegro,
+where he said they would house and feed him for the winter in exchange
+for a little work.</p>
+
+<p>At 11.30 three horses were brought. Three more were promised, so we
+reluctantly decided to start the next day. There was nothing to do.</p>
+
+<p>Our carriages went. We gave the corporal a card-house to take back to
+Rashka with little faith that he would not try to stick to it. He had
+not<span class="pagenum"><a id="page309" name="page309"></a>Pg 309</span> returned the boots to their owner, so we took them from him and
+gave them to their rightful owner, and handed over to the corporal a
+spare pair of our own boots to keep him honest.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn Stajitch, who had been sleeping in style upon a friend's table,
+came to say we had six horses, but a professor had turned up in the
+night and was coming with us. He had been so exhausted with the walk
+that his policeman had carried him most of the way. Not pleased, we went
+to inspect him. He was small, corpulent, and was sitting with clasped
+woolly gloves, goloshed feet, and a diffident smile.</p>
+
+<p>He explained to us that he was delicate, and as he was no walker it
+would be necessary for him to ride one horse. So we packed our food,
+sacks, blankets, mackintoshes and the card-house as best we could on the
+remaining five horses.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had we left the village, and all signs of road or bridle path,
+with a new policeman and two or three ragged Albanians, than one of the
+horses broke loose and began to dance&mdash;first the tango, then the waltz.
+The pack, which was but insecurely attached, stood the tango, but with
+the waltz a bag of potatoes swung loose at the end of a rope, its
+gyroscopic action swinging the horse quicker and quicker until it was
+spinning on one toe. Then the girths broke, saddle and all came<span class="pagenum"><a id="page310" name="page310"></a>Pg 310</span> to the
+ground. The brute looked round as if saying "That's that," and cantered
+off, followed slowly by the professor on horseback. We called. He
+appeared to take no notice. At last he turned round saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The horse will not."</p>
+
+<p>Jo leapt in the air kicking.</p>
+
+<p>"Do that with your heels," she said.</p>
+
+<p>But we had to send the policeman to help him. He rode hour by hour,
+hitting his beast with a bent umbrella, and lifting two fat hands to
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"Teshko" (It is hard), he whined.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ni</i> je teshko" (It is not hard), said Miss Brindley, cheerfully
+trudging along.</p>
+
+<p>We wanted to stop at the top of a hill for lunch.</p>
+
+<p>"Horrible," he said. "Here the brigands will shoot us from the bushes,"
+and pushed ahead, being held on by the grinning policeman.</p>
+
+<p>We pulled out some biscuits and margarine, and drank water from our
+bottles, cigarettes went round, and we charged ahead. In front was the
+professor falling off his horse and being put on again.</p>
+
+<p>We were very anxious about the frontier. Most of our party were
+travelling without official permits, as they had known nothing about
+such things; but we hoped that being English Red Cross<span class="pagenum"><a id="page311" name="page311"></a>Pg 311</span> and having
+passports there would not be much trouble. We arrived at a little
+village, three or four wooden houses. Three pompous old men came to meet
+us, and we took coffee together outside the inn. They were very
+surprised to hear we were English, and said that no English had ever
+passed that way before.</p>
+
+<p>At the frontier, an hour further on, a man and his wife came down from a
+little house on the hill and stopped us. They examined the papers of the
+two Serbs, but left us alone, to our huge relief. We breathed again.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after, however, Whatmough rushed up to Jan and Jo, who were talking
+to a ragged woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Do come and talk. An officer has arrested West and Mawson."</p>
+
+<p>We ran ahead to find a perplexed mounted officer surrounded by our
+party. He had come upon West and Mawson walking on ahead and took them
+to be Bulgarian comitaj.</p>
+
+<p>"No, that's not an English uniform," he said, and searched them for
+firearms. When the others came he wavered. Miss Brindley did not look
+like a comitaj; and by the time we arrived he began to talk about the
+military situation in the Balkans, and rode off with the politest of
+farewells.</p>
+
+<p>If there isn't a telegraph wire to guide, don't take short cuts. Jan,
+Stajitch, and Jo tried to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page312" name="page312"></a>Pg 312</span> race the darkness by cutting straight down a
+ravine. We lost the horses, lost every one else, and we came out again
+on to a hill crest. No one was to be seen. After a while the professor
+rode by, led by his policeman, who had been almost suffocated by
+laughter all day.</p>
+
+<p>"Teshko, teshko," moaned the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"Ni je teshko," we said. "But where are the horses?"</p>
+
+<p>He waved a hand vaguely behind him. Rogerson, Whatmough, and Owen came
+up. It was getting dark and a mist was rising. So we left the three at
+the corner to mark where it was and went back. For a long time we
+stumbled in the darkness, shouting, but no horses could we find. At last
+we decided to turn back, wondering if they too had lost their way and
+decided to camp out. There were shouts in the valley beyond. A light
+flashed and some one fired off a revolver. There was a candle end in
+Jan's bag, and by its dim light we found a road. It went downwards, so
+we thought it might be the right one. Suddenly it turned in the wrong
+direction, but as there were hoof marks on it we decided to follow it as
+it must lead somewhere&mdash;we could not search the whole countryside with a
+candle. Just as we were in despair the road seemed to shake itself and
+twisted back again. We heard more shouting and saw a light, and at<span class="pagenum"><a id="page313" name="page313"></a>Pg 313</span> last
+found Miss Brindley and Mawson, who were waiting for us.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been to the village," they said.</p>
+
+<p>We asked them about the horses. They said they were all there!!!!</p>
+
+<p>That professor again!</p>
+
+<p>Some one heard trickling water, and with a cry of joy we put our mouths
+under the jet of water which spouted from a little trough which jutted
+from the hill. Nothing could be seen of the village when we arrived, but
+it seemed very long and very stony. An old peasant with a candle led us
+for what seemed miles between high palisades of wood until we reached
+the inn.</p>
+
+<p>There was a big room with a stove in the middle and many Montenegrins in
+uniform were sitting about. Some of our party were already asleep, worn
+out on the benches. We opened a tin of beef, got some bread and kaimack
+and woke up the others for their evening meal. While we were eating a
+Montenegrin staff officer said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Your commandant, the professor&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" said we.</p>
+
+<p>"Your commandant, the professor, has said you will rest here to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>We told him the professor was no commandant of ours, and that we
+certainly would not rest there to-morrow.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page314" name="page314"></a>Pg 314</span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the staff officer, "he has certainly ordered horses for the
+day after from the captain."</p>
+
+<p>We were too tired to rectify matters at once, and our meal finished, we
+rolled up on the dirty floor.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/48.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page315" name="page315"></a>Pg 315</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FLEA-PIT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Those comfortable folks who have never slept out of a bed do not know
+how annoying a blanket may be, if there is nothing into which to tuck
+its folds. Wrap yourself up in one, lie flat and motionless on the
+floor, and we guarantee that in an hour the blanket has unrolled itself
+and is making frantic efforts to escape. Every night on the road
+resolved into a half-dazed attempt to hold on to the elusive wrap. Sleep
+came in as a second consideration, and when we say we awoke on any
+particular morning, it really means that we got up, though several of us
+in the intervals of blanket catching did get in a snore or two.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we got up, then, in good time next day, hoping to rectify the
+professor's interference, and stumbling along with Stajitch, we reached
+the high-roofed "D&uuml;rer" dwelling where resided the commandant of the
+village. In the kitchen we found two women with bare feet, two children
+and a man half undressed. He brought in the captain, also<span class="pagenum"><a id="page316" name="page316"></a>Pg 316</span> in neglig&eacute;e.
+Now, mark, we were in Montenegro. We exposed our grievance to the
+captain and roundly denounced the professor as an interfering old
+beggar. The captain first gave us coffee, second hurried us to his
+office, third called in three henchmen and issued rapid orders.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, certainly. You shall have all the horses you need. Just only
+wait one little quarter of an hour. I will give you four policemen to go
+with you."</p>
+
+<p>We protested that four was too many.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," he said, "you had better have four."</p>
+
+<p>We went back joyfully to the hotel. Cutting or one of the others had
+been exploring and had gotten twenty eggs. The hotel people consented to
+cook them. While we were outside looking at the mosques and wondering
+when the horses were coming, the professor walked into the bar-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said he, "eggs."</p>
+
+<p>"They belong to the English," said the hostess.</p>
+
+<p>"Good," said the professor, and swallowed four.</p>
+
+<p>Just then we returned.</p>
+
+<p>"But there are only sixteen eggs," said we.</p>
+
+<p>"The professor has eaten the others," said the woman, pointing.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page317" name="page317"></a>Pg 317</span></p>
+
+<p>In a minute the professor wished that he had not. Jan took the
+opportunity of saying a few things which had been boiling within him. He
+accused the wretched man of interference in assuming control of the
+expedition; he said that he was a mere hanger-on, and a useless and
+selfish one at that.</p>
+
+<p>The professor wilted. He made a thousand apologies, and finally ran off
+wringing his fat hands, found with great difficulty four more eggs and
+cast them into the boiling water.</p>
+
+<p>"There," he said, "you can have your four eggs."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not the eggs," answered Jan, "it's you."</p>
+
+<p>Jo was roaring with laughter. Some of the morning she had been in a
+woman's house listening to one of the policeman's tales of the
+professor, and soon the whole village was rocking with amusement at
+"Teshko."</p>
+
+<p>At last the horses arrived&mdash;six miserable-looking beasts, but this time
+all had shoes. One was commandeered by the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"He is the greatest philosopher in all Serbia," whispered an official to
+Jan.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I guessed there must be some reason," said Jan.</p>
+
+<p>We had a send-off, all the village came to see<span class="pagenum"><a id="page318" name="page318"></a>Pg 318</span> us go away. The day was
+a repetition of our previous experiences. A long tramp in the mud. At
+the top of the highest pass we had yet reached was an old wooden
+blockhouse.</p>
+
+<p>We came upon it unexpectedly, rounding a corner. Montenegrin soldiers
+were cooking at a wood fire; but we were surprised to find all round the
+square log cabin deep rifle pits, the best we had yet seen in Serbia.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, what are those for?" said Jan.</p>
+
+<p>"This is an old Turkish post," said the sergeant. "It has been kept up.
+We don't know why."</p>
+
+<p>We walked off meditating. Montenegrins do not squander soldiers without
+reason; and then one's mind went back to the four armed guards who were
+accompanying us.</p>
+
+<p>We discovered the truth later, let us tell the story here.</p>
+
+<p>Berane, to which we were descending, was once a populous growing Turkish
+town. After the Balkan war it fell into Montenegrin territories. The
+Montenegrins chased out all the Turkish landowners, who fled to these
+mountains, where they formed bands of brigands and caused no little
+consternation and trouble to the authorities, who could not catch them.
+The authorities passed a little Act,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page319" name="page319"></a>Pg 319</span> reinstating the landowners in
+their territories; but when an attempt was made to put the Act into
+force, it was found that the authorities themselves were in possession
+of the lands. What was to be done? The blockhouse was the solution.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped at a primitive caf&eacute; and lunched. Jo gave the children some
+chocolate. They did not know what it was. She smeared some on to the
+baby's lips, and after that it sucked hard. Soon the little girl licked
+hers; but the boy, more suspicious, would not eat, holding the lump till
+it melted into a sticky mass in his fingers. The scenery was very
+beautiful. There was a faint rain which greyed everything, and the near
+birches had lost all their leaves and the twigs made a reddish fog
+through which could be seen the slopes of the opposite hillsides. The
+professor began to be worried about the rain.</p>
+
+<p>"If this should turn to snow," said he, "we would be snowed up. And I am
+sure I don't know what I should do if I were snowed up."</p>
+
+<p>We hoped to reach our halting place, which was called Vrbitza, before
+dark; but it was further away than our informant had said. Once more we
+found ourselves floundering about in the mud of the village path after
+dusk. We reached houses which we could not see; walked over slippery
+poles<span class="pagenum"><a id="page320" name="page320"></a>Pg 320</span> set over heaven knows what middens. Clambered up creaky steps
+into the usual sort of dirty wooden room&mdash;and there, his stockings off,
+warming his toes at the blaze of the wood fire, was "Eyebrows."</p>
+
+<p>We were immediately attracted by three paintings on the wall. They were
+decorative designs, very beautiful. We asked the proprietor who had done
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"I did," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you sell them?" we asked.</p>
+
+<p>He giggled like a girl. "Ah, who would buy them?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"We will."</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't let you have them for less than sixpence," he said. "You see
+the papers cost a penny each."</p>
+
+<p>Whatmough coveted one, so he had his choice, we took the other two.</p>
+
+<p>The policeman came to tell us that rooms had been prepared in two clean
+houses. We scrambled out into the dark again, stumbled along in the mud,
+and at last found an open square of light, through which we came into a
+room.</p>
+
+<p>There was a red rug over half the floor, and a brasier on three legs
+filled with charcoal standing in the centre. One or two of our men had
+already found the place and were lying on the rug. In<span class="pagenum"><a id="page321" name="page321"></a>Pg 321</span> one corner was a
+large baking oven like a beehive, half in one and half in the room next
+door. A wide shelf ran from the beehive almost to the open door. There
+were two small windows, each about the size of this book wide open. Jan
+and Jo sniffed. Where had they smelt that odour before?</p>
+
+<p>An old woman in Albanian costume crept up to Jo and caught her by the
+skirt.</p>
+
+<p>"See," she said, dragging her into the next room, "here is a fine bed.
+The ladies will sleep with me this night."</p>
+
+<p>Jo looked at the old lady's greasy hair and filthy raiment.</p>
+
+<p>"We always sleep with our own people," she said firmly.</p>
+
+<p>The old lady protested. All the while our men were packing the baggage
+beneath the shelf. It was a tight fit, but at last it was got in.</p>
+
+<p>The professor entered once more on the scene.</p>
+
+<p>"This house will do very well for the common people," he said, "but the
+Herr Commandant" (meaning Jan) "and the two ladies will come over to
+sleep with me."</p>
+
+<p>"No, we won't," said Jan, Jo and Miss Brindley in one voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what will you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will give you two policemen, or all four if<span class="pagenum"><a id="page322" name="page322"></a>Pg 322</span> you like. We will pack
+in here somehow. You can take the other house all to yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"That will not do," said the professor. "If you are all determined to
+sleep here, I too, will come here. You will need somebody to protect
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Jo's back went up.</p>
+
+<p>"If you are afraid to sleep in the other house," she said, "you can
+sleep here with us. But if you are coming here to protect us, we don't
+require <i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"But you do not understand," said the professor kindly, as if to a
+child: "there is danger. You will need me to protect you."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least," answered Jo. "If you will say that you are afraid,
+we will offer you our shelter. Otherwise you can have all four policemen
+at the other house."</p>
+
+<p>The professor was afraid to say that he was afraid, so after stating
+that we were curious people, he went off with the guards.</p>
+
+<p>With great difficulty we packed in. Cutting and Whatmough were forced to
+climb on to the shelf and the brazier was pushed out of the room. One by
+one we rolled up in our rugs, made pillows out of a pair of boots or a
+cocoa tin, cursed each other for taking up so much space, and at last
+all were jammed together like sardines. It was like the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page323" name="page323"></a>Pg 323</span> family in the
+drawing: If father says turn, we all turn.</p>
+
+<p>We did not rest well. Thirteen people in a room which would comfortably
+hold three was a little too close packing. There was a lot of grumbling
+coming from one corner, and after a while a light was struck.</p>
+
+<p>"Good lord," said somebody, "my pillow's crawling!"</p>
+
+<p>Bugs were cascading down the walls. Stajitch jumped to his feet, and
+began stamping hard. "Rivers of them," he yelled.</p>
+
+<p>Cutting and Whatmough were groaning about the heat, so we opened the
+door. Immediately all the dogs of the village, half wolves, hurled
+themselves at the lighted space. Stajitch slammed it just in time; had
+they burst in, lying down as we were, we should have been unable to
+protect ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>A dark face peered in between the baking oven and the wall, a swarthy
+Albanian face. It looked at us and then silently withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter," said somebody at last, "we've got to stick it."</p>
+
+<p>We roused up neither rested nor refreshed. The room seen in the dim
+light of the morning seemed even more revolting than it had been the
+night before. We demanded the bill, it was brought&mdash;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page324" name="page324"></a>Pg 324</span>five francs for
+apples which we had bought. And for the room? Nothing. We gave our host
+three francs extra, and he bowed, putting his hands to his bosom and
+kissed our palms.</p>
+
+<p>There was a good stiff clay soil waiting for our tiring feet, and by the
+time we reached Berane, there was no thought of going further. Almost
+every one was exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the shores of the river. The bridge had been washed away, but
+the inhabitants had made a boat like a sort of huge wooden shoe which
+they dragged to and fro with ropes. We clambered in and were hauled
+over. Our baggage had not yet arrived, so Jan and Stajitch ordered lunch
+for the others and went down to see about it. Just as they were landed
+on the opposite bank the rope broke. So all the Montenegrins and
+Albanians who were working the ferry went off to a midday meal, leaving
+the two with the pangs of hunger growling within, sitting on the bank.</p>
+
+<p>After two hours' waiting the rope was repaired, and they got back to
+lunch famishing. We then arranged sleeping places and locked up all the
+baggage in an empty shop. Our room was one of those ordinary Montenegrin
+bedrooms plastered with pictures. Amongst them was a postcard, and on it
+was printed large in English in blue crystalline letters, "Never
+Again."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page325" name="page325"></a>Pg 325</span></p>
+
+<p>Whence did it come, this enigmatic postcard, and what did it mean? It
+seemed almost a solemn warning; yet in a hotel bedroom. What did the
+hostess think it meant?</p>
+
+<p>"Never Again."</p>
+
+<p>Some of the men came in cheering, having found Turkish delight in one of
+the shops. We were sadly needing sugar, as our last tin had been stolen
+along with lots of other things. So we indulged in "Turkish" not wisely.</p>
+
+<p>The professor got up to his old games again. Again he had told the
+commandant that he was leading the British, and that we would rest the
+next day, and again Jan had to pick him off his perch.</p>
+
+<p>Some got a bed that night, the others had to sleep "in rows," half under
+the beds and half projecting out. The people on the beds said it was a
+funny sight.</p>
+
+<p>When we unpacked at night we found who had been robbing us. The
+policemen. We had missed many more things, but found that the amount
+varied in direct ratio to the number of police who guarded us. All our
+spare boots were now gone, Blease's overcoat, and also Miss Brindley's.
+Jo had lost her only other coat and skirt, and one or two mackintoshes
+were missing. Now we knew why the police wore long-skirted<span class="pagenum"><a id="page326" name="page326"></a>Pg 326</span> coats; but
+what a disappointment the one must have had who lifted Jo's coat and
+skirt.</p>
+
+<p>Got off again in good time the next morning. Cutting and three others
+stayed behind to look after the police. Lucky they did, because one of
+the horses wore out, and the police would have left it on the road, pack
+and all. As it was we left the horse grazing, but the baggage was
+transferred.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a decentish level road made from Andrievitza half way to
+Berane, and women were working hard on the extension in the hopes of
+getting it finished for the Serbs; but that they could never do, for
+there were but few of them. Further on many of the bridges were
+unfinished, and in one or two places a landslide had carried away the
+road itself, leaving a deep clinging mud in its place, but we were
+getting used to mud.</p>
+
+<p>We met "Eyebrows" once more, just at the entrance to the village; but he
+was going on to Pod, so had finally got a day ahead of us. Found rooms
+in our old resting place.</p>
+
+<p>The professor was threatening to accompany us to Italy&mdash;he was like the
+old man of the sea. We got a telegram from the English Minister, saying
+that he did not think we could ever get to Italy from Scutari. We
+preferred to trust to our luck which so far had been wonderful,
+especially in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page327" name="page327"></a>Pg 327</span> matter of weather. In the evening the captain sent to
+say that twenty horses would await us the next day. A motor car would
+have been sent, he added, but almost all the bridges were washed away
+and they could get no nearer than Li&eacute;va Ri&eacute;ka.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/49.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page328" name="page328"></a>Pg 328</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>ANDRIEVITZA TO POD</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page329" name="page329"></a>Pg 329</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;Willett, sitting in
+front with the driver, was shrunk like a concertina inside his great
+coat.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page330" name="page330"></a>Pg 330</span></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a straight line being drawn between snow
+and rain&mdash;and our guides wanted us to spend the night at an inn two
+hours before we reached Jabooka. But it looked very uninviting&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page331" name="page331"></a>Pg 331</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Far away we saw a tiny light&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>He came forward, saying in an impressive voice that a major had taken
+the inn.</p>
+
+<p>"Bother the major," said Jo. "Something must be done."</p>
+
+<p>The professor smiled. "There <i>is</i> another inn."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But they didn't want us there. We beheld<span class="pagenum"><a id="page332" name="page332"></a>Pg 332</span> a dirty low-ceiled room filled
+with filthy people and a smell of wet unwashed clothes.</p>
+
+<p>The owner and his wife received us roughly. "We have no room, we have
+nothing," they said.</p>
+
+<p>We stood our ground. "We <i>must</i> have a roof to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Outside the road had become a river, our men were nearly dropping with
+fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't come here," said the innkeeper, looking at us with great
+distrust.</p>
+
+<p>The major, whom Jo had "bothered," came in. "You must take these
+people," he said, and asked various searching questions about the rooms.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Food?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nema Nishta," was the response.</p>
+
+<p>"Can we boil water?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Where can we boil it?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page333" name="page333"></a>Pg 333</span></p>
+
+<p>"Nowhere."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is a fire in the kitchen," we said, pointing to a hooded
+fireplace where a few sticks were burning.</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't they boil water?" said a kindly looking man.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose they can," said the old woman, who became almost
+pleasant over the kitchen fire&mdash;telling Jo she was sixty and only a
+stara Baba (old granny).</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The half-open door was full of peering faces, so somewhat encouraged we
+gave them a selection of rounds.</p>
+
+<p>We left next morning early in a heavy downpour, after being exorbitantly
+charged, glad to leave Jabooka for ever.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page334" name="page334"></a>Pg 334</span> stood in the water, remarking, "I'm wet and I'll get no
+wetter," and helped people across. Again after dark we arrived at Li&eacute;va
+Ri&eacute;ka, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"A devoika (girl), free, travelling from a country so far away that it
+would take three months in an oxcart to get there."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how wonderful!"</p>
+
+<p>They gave us a tiny room and two benches&mdash;much too small for the whole
+company; so some slept outside on the balcony.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page335" name="page335"></a>Pg 335</span> to gossip with us, said there was nothing to choose.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Pod once more, sleepy, inhospitable Pod.</p>
+
+<p>We bargained for rooms at our old inn&mdash;mixed beds and floors. The owner
+was asking more than<span class="pagenum"><a id="page336" name="page336"></a>Pg 336</span> ever; he shrugged his shoulders and raised his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"The war&mdash;increasing prices."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to find Turkish delight," said the others, as they
+disappeared down a side street, revelling in the idea of a rest.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page337" name="page337"></a>Pg 337</span> 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 Li&eacute;va Ri&eacute;ka we had picked up lice.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Next day outside the world was white and silent, the snow covering the
+little city and its intrigues with a thick whitewash.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page338" name="page338"></a>Pg 338</span> us everywhere, generally upside-down in the snow, clutching
+our skirts with her teeth.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page339" name="page339"></a>Pg 339</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Jan and Jo simultaneously began to wish they had not eaten sardines at
+Ri&eacute;ka. The attack was very violent, and next day Jo stayed in bed,
+refusing the page boy's efforts to tempt her with lunch.</p>
+
+<p>"See," he said, bearing in a third dish, "English, your i <i>rissh</i>kew."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;Whatmough had acted as nurse.</p>
+
+<p>The professor had been trying to pump Stajitch as to our future plans,
+as he was again alone and rudderless. Stajitch said&mdash;</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page340" name="page340"></a>Pg 340</span></p>
+
+<p>"Mr. and Mrs. Gordon alone know, and they are in Cettinje."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that's not kind to keep a fellow countryman in the dark," said the
+professor.</p>
+
+<p>Stajitch assured him he knew nothing; but the professor walked away,
+murmuring that the English were undermining a good Serb boy's character.</p>
+
+<p>And that was the last of the professor.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/50.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page341" name="page341"></a>Pg 341</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>INTO ALBANIA</h3>
+
+
+<p>We caught the mayor in the morning. He was in his shirt-sleeves and he
+said that the auto had been arranged for. It came and we packed in. On
+the back perched a boy who outsmelt any Serb we had ever found. It
+seemed impossible that a human could so smell and yet live. Suddenly the
+boy drew a packet from his pocket and the smell became intolerable. He
+unwrapped a piece of cheese and, gasping for breath, we watched it
+disappear. When it had gone we breathed more freely, but the odour still
+clung to the youth, and we were not sorry when the auto pulled up at the
+village of Plavnitza on the edge of the lake. A man, who said that he
+had been sent to help us, dragged us to the telephone office. He worried
+the instrument for a while and announced that the boat would be here in
+two hours. It would have come earlier, but somehow they couldn't make
+steam get up. We expected it to come in four, and so went off to get
+something to eat.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page342" name="page342"></a>Pg 342</span></p>
+
+<p>The lake was very high, coming right up to the road. All the low fields
+were covered with water as far as one could see. The girl at the inn was
+shuddering and shivering with malaria, and we gave her some quinine. At
+last the steamer came.</p>
+
+<p>We had to pack into one of those cockhat boats, as the quay was
+separated from the village by half a mile of water. When we got to the
+steamer, the captain leaned over the side and shouted&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Where are the mattresses?"</p>
+
+<p>"What mattresses?" said the harbour-master.</p>
+
+<p>"When are you going to start?" demanded we, clambering on board.</p>
+
+<p>"When I get the mattresses," said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"But what mattresses?" replied the harbour-master.</p>
+
+<p>"I was sent to get mattresses," said the captain, "and here I wait till
+they come."</p>
+
+<p>This was a nuisance, nobody had said anything about the mattresses.</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't go till to-morrow anyhow," said the skipper.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we'd all better go back to Podgoritza and come again
+to-morrow," said the man in charge.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't move from here," said Jo, firmly. "If he won't go we'll sit on
+this boat&mdash;which was<span class="pagenum"><a id="page343" name="page343"></a>Pg 343</span> sent for us&mdash;and sing songs all night so that he
+shan't sleep."</p>
+
+<p>The captain refused to move without the mattresses and we refused to go
+back, so a violent argument ensued. We remained adamant. At last in
+despair the harbour master said that he would go and telephone. Night
+was coming on, the deck was chilly, so Jan went to explore. The quay was
+half under water, but by jumping from stone to stone one could get
+about, and Jan discovered an entrance into the stone storehouse. The
+door was boarded up, but he forced his way in, discovering a huge empty
+interior banked up well above the water. At one end was a platform made
+of boards on tubs. An ideal bed. He called the company and they arranged
+themselves on the planks, though some were dismayed at the prospect of
+getting no supper. The boards were loose and as each took his place they
+bobbed up and down. Miss Brindley said that it seemed like sleeping on
+the keyboard of a piano. We did not expect to see anything before
+morning of the harbour-master or of Stajitch who had gone with him; but
+just as we were settled and beginning to snore and the rats were running
+about, Stajitch poked his head through the window and said that the boat
+was going immediately. We reluctantly got up, for we were really rather
+cosy, packed again<span class="pagenum"><a id="page344" name="page344"></a>Pg 344</span> and hopped in the moonlight from stone to stone till
+we got to the ship&mdash;which was the same old Turkish gunboat on which we
+had travelled once before. The thing was then explained&mdash;a telegraphic
+mistake. The captain had been ordered to fetch the strangers: but
+strangers and mattresses are only one letter different, "n" or "m," this
+letter had been transposed.</p>
+
+<p>Luckily it was a beautiful moonlight night. The lake was wonderfully
+romantic. A fat Serbian captain, who seemed to know Stajitch, made a
+request. He said that he had been cut off from his division, which was
+at Monastir, and that he was going to try and rejoin them. He ask us if
+he could join our party, as it would come cheaper at the hotels and he
+could get transport.</p>
+
+<p>It was pretty cold on the lake, but we wrapped ourselves in our blankets
+and said the view was lovely. Hunger was also gnawing within us, so we
+were glad when at last the rumbling old engines halted and the steamer
+gave three hoots. We waited anxiously, and at last a large rowboat came
+sideways against the steamer. Four carriages were waiting in the bazaar.
+A very polite Montenegrin doctor welcomed us at the hotel and we got
+some much desired food.</p>
+
+<p>Bed was beginning to be a mere commonplace<span class="pagenum"><a id="page345" name="page345"></a>Pg 345</span> now, but we enjoyed it for
+all that, and slept well into the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Scutari wore its usual air of "the ballet" when we arose. The ladies
+dressed all in their best clothes, and with great flowing veils and wide
+skirted coats were hobbling to church. The shopkeepers, with their long
+black and white legs and coloured shirts, were lounging about the low
+counters of their shops, smoking and drinking coffee brought them (on
+little swinging trays) by boys.</p>
+
+<p>The British consul had taken up his quarters at the "Maison Piget." The
+house was gated, as are all Albanian houses, but this gate was like an
+old feudal portal. The doors were wonderfully carved and were opened by
+our old friend the Wolf. We had thought him to be a servant of Suma's,
+but it appeared that he belonged to the British Empire.</p>
+
+<p>The house was crammed full of arms: a little cannon threatened us on the
+stairway, swords, claymores, creeses, falchions, scimitars, glaives,
+dirks, and yatagans were nailed on all the walls, and there were muskets
+of every sort and size, heavy arquebuses from the north and gas-pipe
+guns and Arab horsemen firelocks with polished stocks like the handle of
+a corkscrew, all inlaid with gold, silver, and mother-of-pearl.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page346" name="page346"></a>Pg 346</span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the consul, gazing reflectively, "he had a taste for
+weapons. And also for old cookery books."</p>
+
+<p>The consul said that he thought that there was a boat at San Giovanni.
+We cheered, for our luck seemed to be holding, and while he went off to
+the Italian consul we went to the governor to beg for transport. Neither
+consul nor governor was in, but we caught the Italian consul in the
+afternoon. He admitted that there was a boat, but warned us that it was
+no nosegay. He said that two Frenchmen who had thought of taking it had
+sent him back a telegram which had quite unnerved him.</p>
+
+<p>"Et je n'ai jamais dit qu'elle &eacute;tait une Transatlantique," he said,
+waving his arms.</p>
+
+<p>He said that the archbishop had told him that a party of English had
+come into the town last night, "en haillons," but that he had not
+believed it possible. However, he had seen two of us in the street that
+morning, and had realized that it was true.</p>
+
+<p>We said that any boat would do. He warned us of the danger of
+submarines.</p>
+
+<p>At the consul's house we found the captain of the Miridites awaiting us.
+He was a heavy-looking man with European clothes and a fez. After the
+ceremonious coffee he made a set speech, saying<span class="pagenum"><a id="page347" name="page347"></a>Pg 347</span> that he was paying his
+duties to the great British Empire, and that England was their only
+hope. The consul sat rather wishing that he wouldn't, and that his
+servant had said that he was not at home. In common with most of the
+Christian rulers of Albania this gentleman seemed to have spent most of
+his time in exile.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the hotel Jan found that Jo had been purchasing, and he
+dragged her and Miss Brindley off to see the archbishop. The cathedral
+still carries the scars of the first bombardment. The archbishop, a
+large flat man, gave us each a hand as though he expected us to kiss it;
+he had a huge archiepispocal ring and a lot of imperiosity. He seemed
+more political than bishopy, though most of the Churchmen are; and there
+is the tale of one who said, "I would rather people went to drill than
+to church." There were a lot of wealthy looking Albanians sitting round
+and being respectable. The archbishop spoke no French nor German, only
+Italian. But Jan, with the help of a lot of old musical terms, and an
+imperfectly forgotten Spanish, managed to convey to him some
+intelligible compliments and sentences. We got out at last, and his
+eminence accompanied us to the top of the stairs and gave us the
+difficult problem of bowing backwards as we went down. This visit was
+necessary, as we might have had to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page348" name="page348"></a>Pg 348</span> get a "Besa" from him if we meant to
+go through to Durazzo.</p>
+
+<p>The Serbian captain who had been on the Turkish gunboat met us in the
+street. He dragged us into a caf&eacute; and began to order beer by the
+half-dozen. He presented Jo with a small Turkish gold coin, which was
+valued at five shillings, as a bribe to allow him to join our party. As
+he already had permission it seemed superfluous.</p>
+
+<p>Some of our party were still pretty seedy. Two had gone to a shop in
+search of castor oil. A very old and withered chemist, who spoke bad
+French, invited them in and asked for an account of their adventures,
+interrupting them with explosions of "Ah poves, poves, poves, poves."
+"Ah, poves, poves, poves, poves," between every incident and also at the
+final request for the medicine. He showed them to the door and suddenly
+burst into unexpected English.</p>
+
+<p>"Good naite, vairey good. I am your poppa."</p>
+
+<p>In the hotel caf&eacute; we found two French aeroplanists, for four had arrived
+that day, sailing down over the city, to the great terror of the
+inhabitants. They seemed to be afflicted with the same idea as "Quel
+Pays."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, monsieur et dame," said they, "quel pays."</p>
+
+<p>We asked them how things were.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page349" name="page349"></a>Pg 349</span></p>
+
+<p>"We have just come from Prizren. The Serbs are in a dreadful condition.
+All the roads are covered with starving and dying people. The troops are
+eating dead horses and roots. There have been violent snow blizzards all
+over the mountains. We saw some of your people, too, doctors and nurses,
+they were going off to Ipek, 'dans une condition d&eacute;plorable.' We came
+across the mountains; one of us is lost. Awful country, nowhere to land
+if anything went wrong and one of our machines has not arrived. God
+knows what has happened to them. The rest of us are all coming along on
+foot. We burnt fifty motor cars yesterday, monsieur, that made a blaze."</p>
+
+<p>We asked them what sort of a time they had had in Serbia; but much of
+their answer is unpublishable.</p>
+
+<p>"Each time we ascended every Serbian regiment fired at us. Once we came
+down over a battalion and the whole lot fired volleys, and when we
+landed and stood in front of our machine holding up our hands," they
+pantomimed, "they continued to fire at us. Then they came and took us
+prisoners, and were going to shoot us, although one of us had a military
+medal. A schoolmaster recognised us as French and rescued us. Our
+machine was broken; but we could get no transport and had to walk thirty
+kilometres back to our base without food.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page350" name="page350"></a>Pg 350</span></p>
+
+<p>"Another time we were chasing an Austrian, the Serbian batteries fired
+at us, monsieur, not at the enemy. Our officers had to send from the
+aerodrome to tell them to stop."</p>
+
+<p>As we were going to bed the Montenegrin doctor came in.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sent by the governor, monsieur," said he. "We do not consider it
+safe, this boat idea. Austrian submarines are everywhere, and the
+governor would feel it as a personal responsibility if you were drowned.
+We will provide carriages to Alessio and thence arrange horses&mdash;only one
+day and a half on to Durazzo. Thence Essad Pasha will give you his motor
+boat and you can easily get to Valona."</p>
+
+<p>Our men groaned at the thought of more journeying. They were all
+thoroughly fed up with the road, though personally we rather liked the
+idea. We had heard that Durazzo was very interesting, and would have
+liked to have met Essad, though we did not know just how his politics
+were trending. We decided to see the Italian consul once more.</p>
+
+<p>Next day we hunted up the mayor, Mahram Beg, a Turk, for he also could
+give us a "Besa" if necessary. He was at last discovered, a little
+crumpled looking man in an office. We were not allowed to interview him
+in private, but a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page351" name="page351"></a>Pg 351</span> Montenegrin was there and all conversation had to
+pass by him like through an imperfect telephone. We gave the mayor a
+greeting from Colonel P&mdash;&mdash;and little else. A very disappointing
+interview.</p>
+
+<p>Jan went off to see the governor, who received him kindly. He said that
+he would arrange everything, but that it was difficult for him with the
+Italian consul, as the Powers did not recognize the Montenegrin
+occupation.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, monsieur, here I am the law, and yet the law does not
+recognize me."</p>
+
+<p>The Italian assured us that the Montenegrins were wrong, and that of
+course the boat would be escorted, and the danger reduced to its least
+possible amount. Just after we had left him we heard two things which
+made us jump.</p>
+
+<p>A body of English officers had landed at Medua, and ninety English
+refugees from Serbia were <i>en route</i> for Scutari. Could we not catch the
+transport and at the same time leave room for the others? Suma came in,
+and we consulted him. He was doubtful if the horses could be got at
+Alessio for us.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, it is Albania and not Montenegro," he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>We accordingly hunted up the doctor. He promised us horses for the
+morrow. The carriages had all gone to fetch the English officers. We
+asked<span class="pagenum"><a id="page352" name="page352"></a>Pg 352</span> him about Alessio, and he assured us that the telephone message
+had been received saying that they were waiting. We asked him several
+times until he grew angry and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do you doubt my honour, then?"</p>
+
+<p>Before we went to bed the hotel proprietor came to us.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you pay or the Government?" asked he; and seemed very relieved when
+we told him that we paid. The Montenegrins are neither loved nor trusted
+here.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning the horses came, but very late. In the crowd watching
+our departure was an old Albanian without a moustache. That was a
+strange sight; we looked harder. It was a woman. She must have been one
+of those who had sworn eternal virginity, and so achieve all a man's
+privileges, even eating with them instead of getting the scraps left
+over from the meal. But the punishment of death awaited her if she
+failed her vow. Here was one, chuckling and grinning at some of us in
+our attempts to mount the weird saddles and weirder steeds which had
+been provided. The Serb captain had a carriage, and another carriage
+took all our baggage, which had now sadly dwindled owing to the
+continued depredations of the police. We straggled out of the town and
+through the crowded bazaar, for it was a Saturday.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page353" name="page353"></a>Pg 353</span> Passed the Venetian
+fort and the river from which stuck the funnel of the steamer so
+mysteriously sunk one night. We had heard that the Turkish gun flat
+which had transported us had burst her boilers, so now the Montenegrins
+had no steamers left.</p>
+
+<p>The road was level and better than many we had come over, though once or
+twice the carriages were hopelessly mired, and had to be pushed across.
+West's horse had ideas about side streets, and bolted down each as he
+came to it.</p>
+
+<p>We met the Adriatic Commission. Mr. Lamb and Mr. George Paget, returning
+after so long an absence, were in the first carriage. We recognized Mr.
+Paget at once, for though either of them might have liked old arms, only
+one would have collected old cookery books. The rest of the commission
+came along later. They stopped us. We expected questions about the
+Serbs; but no. They said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Can one buy underclothing in Scutari?"</p>
+
+<p>Their baggage transport had been sunk by an Austrian submarine and they
+had only what they were wearing. We wished each other luck and went on.
+There was no hope of arriving at Alessio that night, we had started too
+late. As evening was falling, we came to an Albanian inn and decided to
+put up.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page354" name="page354"></a>Pg 354</span></p>
+
+<p>There was a stable full of manure on the ground floor, through which one
+had to pass, and in the dark one was continually slipping into the
+midden or running one's head unexpectedly into horses' hindquarters. Up
+a rickety stair were two rooms. The floor rocked as we walked over it,
+and every moment we expected to go through and be precipitated into the
+manure below. The walls and floor were so loosely made that the wind
+blew through in all directions, and we called it the "castle in the
+air." We supped on chickens which we had brought from Scutari, and
+Whatmough and Elmer made a fire in the yard and got us cocoa. By this
+time we were all getting fed up with romantic surroundings, and wanted
+something more solid. The swarthy countenances about the bonfire, the
+queer costumes in the flickering fire, left us unmoved.</p>
+
+<p>Sleep was impossible. The wind caught one in every corner, threatening
+lumbago. Stajitch fled and camped outside in one of the carriages,
+despite the rain.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image28" name="image28">
+   <img src="images/51.jpg"
+      alt="Albanian Mule Drivers Camping."
+      title="Albanian Mule Drivers Camping." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Albanian Mule Drivers Camping.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>We started as early as possible&mdash;dawn. Whatmough, Cutting, Jo and Jan
+lost the road, but were eventually rescued by a policeman. About eleven
+one of the carriages broke down, and we had to repair it with tree and
+wire. Here the houses were again like fortresses, and everybody<span class="pagenum"><a id="page355" name="page355"></a>Pg 355</span>
+stared at us as though we came from the moon.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the bank opposite Alessio&mdash;a small Turkish-looking village
+divided between a mud-bank and a hillside. We were about to turn over
+the bridge when news was brought that a motor-boat belonging to Essad
+was in San Giovanni harbour. We sent a policeman galloping on to stop
+it, and followed as fast as our meagre horses would allow. We also heard
+that a submarine had been in the port the day before and had tried to
+torpedo the ships lying there&mdash;but had missed.</p>
+
+<p>We cantered on, pressing along a stony road which was almost level with
+the salt marshes on either side. San Giovanni appeared after about an
+hour and a half. We rode down on to the beach. The motor-boat was
+getting up anchor. We yelled to the skipper, but he understood no Serb;
+so we translated through a Turk who was lounging about. The skipper said
+that he could not embark us there as it was Montenegrin territory, but
+that if we would go back to Alessio he would wait for us at the mouth of
+the river and take us down that very night. This seemed too good to be
+true and we hurried back, passing an Austrian torpedo which had run up
+on the brown sand&mdash;a present from yesterday's raid. We turned the others
+and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page356" name="page356"></a>Pg 356</span> cantered ahead to get a boat; reached the bridge once more and
+crossed into Albania. Officials ran from all sides to stop us, but we
+ignored them, dismounted, and ran to the side of the river where boats
+were loading, overloading with passengers. The boatmen refused to take
+us if we had no passes from the governor.</p>
+
+<p>We hunted the governor's office up the hillside, panting in our haste.
+We burst in upon him. He was a dirty man in an unclean shirt and unkempt
+trousers.</p>
+
+<p>"We want to go by the motor-boat," we explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" he asked, picking his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"We are the English about whom the governor of Scutari has telegraphed."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know anything about you," he said. His manner was ungracious.</p>
+
+<p>"But," we said, "they assured us that they had telegraphed from
+Scutari."</p>
+
+<p>The telegraph clerk was brought, and denied that any message had come.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow," said the governor, "the motor-boat is for Albanian soldiers
+only, and has gone twenty minutes ago. I can do nothing for you without
+authority from Durazzo."</p>
+
+<p>We wandered dismally back through the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page357" name="page357"></a>Pg 357</span> town and were immediately
+arrested by the bridge officials because we had not paid the toll rates.
+We paid double to get rid of them.</p>
+
+<p>We found an inn. It was the usual sort of building only of stone, and so
+dirtier than the others. Some travelling show seemed to have left its
+scenery in lieu of its bill, for bits of painted canvas did duty as
+partitions.</p>
+
+<p>There was a room with six beds, but one was reserved for an Albanian
+officer. We took the rest. We loitered about all the afternoon, and in
+the evening the Albanian officer came in. He was a beaky-faced,
+unpleasant-looking man, but he procured us some bread, which we sorely
+lacked. The hotel had little food, so we gave them our rice. By this
+time fleas had got into it, and seeming to like it had bred in
+quantities. Still as we had nothing else it had to be cooked, and we
+picked out the boiled fleas as well as we were able. The Serbian captain
+started drinking with the Albanian, and soon both were well over the
+edge of sobriety.</p>
+
+<p>They came up long after we had turned in, fell over Cutting, who cursed
+them without stint, and tumbled on to the beds which we had left for
+them. The Albanian made some remarks about the ladies, which from the
+tone were insults; but we were unable to chastize him, or we should all
+have been put into prison.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page358" name="page358"></a>Pg 358</span></p>
+
+<p>They snored and coughed all night, and spat about in the dark. Those who
+were sleeping near cowered beneath the mackintosh sheets and prayed for
+luck. But in the morning we found that they had been spitting on the
+wall.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/52.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page359" name="page359"></a>Pg 359</span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>"ONE MORE RIBBER TO CROSS"</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Mayor of Alessio had said that there were lots of horses, if we had
+Essad's permission; but the Turkish captain said that there were none,
+only at San Giovanni were they to be found. It was pelting with rain,
+but Blease and we decided to walk over to explore for ourselves. Jan
+first wrote a very stiff letter to the Governor of Scutari about the
+non-arrival of the telegram, and off we went, having borrowed oilskins
+and sou'westers. The Serb captain insisted on coming with us.</p>
+
+<p>In half an hour the storm had made the stony road into a series of deep
+ponds which nearly joined each other, so Jo tucked her now ragged skirt
+into a bright woven Serbian belt and walked along with the water
+streaming from coat to boots. It became rather a pleasure to splash
+through ten-inch deep puddles, knowing that one could not possibly get
+any wetter, and this joy was intensified by the knowledge that the
+Serbian captain was being soaked and didn't like it.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page360" name="page360"></a>Pg 360</span></p>
+
+<p>San Giovanni consists of a series of huts, each like Burns' birthplace,
+grouped on the shelving side of a stony cliff. The bay itself is
+semi-circular, with a long cape jutting out to the south, the extremity
+of which almost always is floating in the air, owing to the mirage. In
+the bay were two rusty steamers&mdash;one the <i>Benedetto</i>, which had been
+promised to us by the Italian governor&mdash;several old wooden sailers, and
+a lot of smallish fishing smacks very brightly painted and with raised
+poop and prow. A group of Albanians were toiling at sacks which cumbered
+the little wooden jetty.</p>
+
+<p>We immediately hunted out Captain Fabiano, the Italian commander of the
+wireless telegraph, and found him in a little house at the northern horn
+of the bay. He received us gaily. He spoke an excellent French, so that
+the Serbian captain could not butt in and interfere, as was his habit.
+Fabiano said that it would take a long time to get a wire to Brindisi,
+where we had heard were several ships of the English fleet, very bored
+and craving for something to do; we had hoped to get into communication
+with them. Then Jan had a brain wave.</p>
+
+<p>"Is not the wind good for Durazzo?" asked he.</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid," said Fabiano, "and no submarines to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Could we not get a fishing boat?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page361" name="page361"></a>Pg 361</span></p>
+
+<p>"I will send and see."</p>
+
+<p>While we were waiting he told us that he was sheltering the crew of the
+ship which had been transporting the English mission's kit. The captain
+of the little transport had set fire to the benzine which his boat was
+carrying, which act so enraged the submarine captain that he fired three
+torpedoes into her, and afterwards mounted his conning tower and fired
+ten full clips from his revolver at the swimming men. Luckily revolver
+shooting requires much practice. The men had clung to an overturned boat
+and had all eventually reached shore, after which they had to march a
+day and a half without boots or food, often fording rivers which came to
+their waists. Fabiano said that he was going to send them home on the
+<i>Benedetto</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The captain of the port sent back word that we could have a boat
+immediately&mdash;much to Fabiano's surprise. But most of the party were at
+Alessio. We hurried off to see the captain of the port. Explanations,
+certainly when the luggage came; and off went Jan with a guide to get
+pack ponies. Halfway back to Alessio was the stable, but the steeds were
+not ready, so Jan was ushered up into a top room where was a huge fire,
+over which an Albanian was stewing a cormorant with all its feathers on.
+There were other Albanians and a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page362" name="page362"></a>Pg 362</span> very old Montenegrin soldier. He
+admired everything English, even Jan's tobacco which he had bought in
+Pod.</p>
+
+<p>We got to Alessio and packed everything hurriedly, paid the bill, tipped
+an old soldier two dinars, and off. As we passed over the bridge the
+clerk came running behind us. We had not paid the bridge fees, he said.</p>
+
+<p>"How much?" asked Jan.</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Two dinars," said he. He had been talking to the soldier.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Jo and Blease had found refuge in the house of the military
+commandant. It was a hovel like all the houses, but they were given a
+huge log fire which was built on the mud floor. Their stockings were
+soon hanging on a line above the blaze, and their shins were scorching,
+while they drank wonderful liqueur which was hospitably poured out by
+the beautiful old host.</p>
+
+<p>Turkish coffee was prepared for them by a soldier in a bursting French
+fireman's uniform.</p>
+
+<p>The captain's fire was the rendezvous of the village. Amiable and
+picturesque people came in and talked about the unhealthiness of the
+place, the relative bravery of nations with a special reference to the
+courage of Montenegrins, and about the submarine raid and of how the
+Austrian captain<span class="pagenum"><a id="page363" name="page363"></a>Pg 363</span> had repeatedly fired his revolver at the sailors of
+the boat he had sunk while they were swimming in the water. Their eyes
+were streaming, not with emotion, but because in Montenegro one has no
+chimneys.</p>
+
+<p>At dusk the rest of us arrived. The port captain said "To-morrow," so we
+climbed up to the inn, examined the stores, a few tins of tunny,
+mackerel, and milk, and the thirteen made the best of the bar-room floor
+for the night, booted and ready in case a transport for the <i>Benedetto</i>
+should arrive.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the captain said we could have the boat that night, and
+in the evening he said we could have it in the morning. His excuse was
+that the Borra was blowing its hardest, and no sailor could be found to
+venture out; but Fabiano said that this was not true.</p>
+
+<p>The real reason was the sleek Austrian torpedo lying on the beach, for
+the Dulcinos are famed on the Adriatic coast because of their timidity.</p>
+
+<p>Time passed drearily. The only amusement we had was to go and annoy the
+captain of the port by asking when we could have a boat. The wind was
+too cold for constitutionals, and we piled on all our clothes and sat on
+our knapsacks in the bar-room&mdash;for there was no fire&mdash;and talked
+wistfully of sausages, Yorkshire Relish and underdone beefsteaks.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page364" name="page364"></a>Pg 364</span></p>
+
+<p>We had much time for meditation, and pondered over the downfall of
+Serbia. Why had the Serbian Government so resolutely refused to make any
+territorial concessions to Bulgaria, when it was obvious that the entry
+of Bulgaria into the conflict meant the ruin of Serbia? Why had they
+permitted the Austrians to build their big gun emplacements on the
+Danube without interruption? Why had they not withdrawn to the hills and
+then built proper defences with barbed wire entanglements and
+labyrinths? for properly entrenched they might have defied the
+Austro-German forces for months. Some day, perhaps, these questions may
+have to be answered.</p>
+
+<p>One day a party came in. They had passed through Vrntze much later than
+we, and we heard that Dr. Berry and an assistant had been seen hurriedly
+nailing boards on to the slaughter-house roof. They, too, had come by
+the Novi Bazar route. They said that the other routes were deep in snow
+and that the sufferings of the army were terrible. That a great portion
+had been hemmed in at Prizren, and that the Bulgars had shelled the
+passes so that they could not escape. They themselves had escaped the
+advancing Austrians by the skin of their teeth owing to good horses.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image29" name="image29">
+   <img src="images/53.jpg"
+      alt="UNLOADING THE BENEDETTO, SAN GIOVANNI DI MEDUA."
+      title="UNLOADING THE BENEDETTO, SAN GIOVANNI DI MEDUA." /></a><br />
+   <span class="caption">UNLOADING THE "BENEDETTO," SAN GIOVANNI DI MEDUA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The snow came down, driving along the valleys <span class="pagenum"><a id="page365" name="page365"></a>Pg 365</span> and whitening all the
+hills; the cold grew more intense, and the desire for English beefsteaks
+became an obsession: one talked of little else&mdash;or of Christmas. Food
+was becoming scarce. The tinned mackerel was diminishing; some days we
+had no bread. We walked once as far as Fabiano's wireless. The men were
+living in a shed made of wattle, and the Borra whistled through the
+cracks. There was a stove round which we sat while the men gave us tea;
+but the warmth it induced in one's face only intensified the feeling of
+cold on the back. Outside in the snow was a long-distance telescope, and
+peering through one could see the conning tower of the Austrian
+submarine, a faint hump on the sea by the southernmost point. As we
+returned to the cold hotel we passed the Montenegrin batteries: cannon
+too small to be of any use and the gunners of which were all so ill that
+they could not handle them.</p>
+
+<p>Two Frenchmen had been in San Giovanni for ten days, and their anxiety
+to go was up to fever point. They took it in turns to stand "pour
+observer," wrapped up to their noses, in a doorway, watching the
+<i>Benedetto</i> in case she should give them the slip. We called them
+Tweedledum and Tweedledee.</p>
+
+<p>One night somebody rushed up to their room. Booted, they jumped out of
+bed, and ran about<span class="pagenum"><a id="page366" name="page366"></a>Pg 366</span> overhead. We thirteen scrambled up and intercepted
+them between the stairs and the door. "Pour observer, steam-funnel,"
+they shouted, and disappeared into the night, followed by their valet
+with two hold-alls. They soon came back, very cold, and announced that
+steam had been seen issuing from the <i>Benedetto's</i> funnel. They had
+rushed to it in an open boat, and had learnt that the <i>Benedetto</i> was
+ordered to be in readiness. She fumed quietly for three days, and then
+was commandeered by the Serbian Government.</p>
+
+<p>One day we saw a French aeroplane, an old friend of ours. Immediately
+every one working in the port tore up hill, men jumped off the big boats
+into little ones and rowed like a cinematograph turned double speed.</p>
+
+<p>The commandant roared reassuringly from his attic window, and an officer
+tried to beat the men back. Seeing us convulsed with laughter, they
+turned sheepishly; but the little boats wagged on, people jumping into
+the water as they neared shore.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and sit round my fire," said the commandant. So we again imbibed
+coffee and discussed courage. It was explained to us that none of the
+men in the boats were Montenegrins, and we politely agreed.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing that a Red Cross party was in the village people came and asked
+for medical aid. We<span class="pagenum"><a id="page367" name="page367"></a>Pg 367</span> explained that we had no doctors, but they begged
+us to come and see the invalids.</p>
+
+<p>Doctors and chemists were unobtainable, and soldiers were dying every
+day.</p>
+
+<p>We had no hesitation in tackling the Montenegrin soldiers, for at least
+we could do no harm, considering that our whole pharmacop&#339;ia was a
+little boracic, some bismuth capsules, Epsom salts, quinine, iodine, and
+one of the party owned a bottle of some patent unknown stuff, against
+fever and many other ailments.</p>
+
+<p>We were first taken to the barracks in the evening, scrambling up a
+stony hill. The building looked like the disreputable ruins of
+somebody's "Folly." Half the roof was off, and the walls were full of
+holes. We stumbled up some black steps and entered a huge dark barn with
+four log fires down the centre of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Round these were huddled crowds of men. They pulled some rough planks
+out of a hole in the wall to let in the sunset light, and the icy Borra
+rushed in, playing with the smoke and setting the men to coughing. Here
+and there on the ground were long mounds, covered completely with rough
+hand-woven rugs. These were the invalids, who moaned as the rugs were
+pulled off their faces. A great many had malaria; others had, as far as
+we could see, very bad pleurisy; and one old Albanian<span class="pagenum"><a id="page368" name="page368"></a>Pg 368</span> with rattling
+breath was huddled up in a far corner, too miserable to speak.</p>
+
+<p>Whatmough sent for a dribble of camphorated oil he had stored in his
+knapsack, "to cheer them up," said he, and rubbed everybody who had pain
+and a cough.</p>
+
+<p>"Give them hot drinks," said Jo, in a large way. "Milk or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Milk! There is no milk in Medua," said the sergeant.</p>
+
+<p>"No tinned milk&mdash;eggs to be bought?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, no meat; we have not even enough bread, and that is all we
+get."</p>
+
+<p>Very depressed, we sent them the remains of our Bovril and some tins of
+milk from the tiny hotel store, and bought the last three eggs in the
+place.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you send for more?" we asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The hens are five hours away," said the proprietor, and didn't see why
+he should send for eggs even if we paid heavily for them. He had
+malaria&mdash;and nothing mattered.</p>
+
+<p>We saw our patients daily, and the ones who weren't going to die got a
+little better, so this made our reputation. People poured in from the
+hills around, and we were much embarrassed. Our white-lipped waiter
+confided to each member of the party that he had a lump on his knee.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page369" name="page369"></a>Pg 369</span></p>
+
+<p>Every one became very busy and put off looking at it. We discussed it.</p>
+
+<p>What could a lump on the knee be which did not make a busy waiter limp?
+And what on earth could we do for him when he wouldn't rest, and we were
+reduced to boracic powder and bismuth capsules? We gave him a tube of
+quinine, though, for his next attack of malaria.</p>
+
+<p>The longer we rested in San Giovanni the more hopeless seemed the chance
+of getting away from it. The Serbian Government was close on our heels,
+and once they caught us up, there would be little left for us. That
+evening we were sitting with the Frenchmen, it was Monday. They, too,
+were depressed, and at last Tweedledum said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We shall never reach Paris, we shall be here for ever and ever."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Jan, rashly, "I think we ought to be home in a week."</p>
+
+<p>Dum put on the superior French air, which is aggravating even in a nice
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"Vous croyez?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet on it," said Jan.</p>
+
+<p>"A dinner," answered Dum.</p>
+
+<p>"Good," said Jan.</p>
+
+<p>This lent a new interest to life.</p>
+
+<p>The very next day the Frenchmen told us that the Serb Government had
+arrived at Scutari; the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page370" name="page370"></a>Pg 370</span> Montenegrin Governor had telegraphed to
+commandeer and keep back the <i>Benedetto</i>. We had been forgotten, and the
+French boat was to leave at dawn under escort.</p>
+
+<p>She had been strictly forbidden by her owners to take passengers, but
+the Frenchmen had arranged through their minister to go by that boat if
+she left the first.</p>
+
+<p>Telegraphic communication with the English minister at Cettinje was
+practically impossible; the only thing was to appeal to the captain.
+First we rushed up the hill, and interviewed Captain Fabiano, who had
+already made various efforts to get us off. He promised to try and
+influence the French captain.</p>
+
+<p>Then we flung ourselves into a boat and made for the little steamer.
+People were looking at something with opera glasses, and our boatmen
+took fright and wanted to row straight for land. Jan cursed them so
+much, however, that they began to fear us more than imaginary submarines
+or aeroplanes, and brought us alongside the vessel.</p>
+
+<p>The captain was ashore, taking a walk; the crew very sympathetically
+made contradictory suggestions as to his whereabouts.</p>
+
+<p>At last we caught him. He was nice, but had strict orders, he said, to
+take no one.</p>
+
+<p>"But, monsieur," we said, "if we were<span class="pagenum"><a id="page371" name="page371"></a>Pg 371</span> swimming in the sea, or cast off
+on a desert island, you would rescue us."</p>
+
+<p>He admitted it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what is the difference? Here we cannot get away; the food is
+growing less and less."</p>
+
+<p>He objected that he had no boats, and no life-saving apparatus.</p>
+
+<p>"That is nothing. We must get away from here. We will give you a paper
+saying that it is on our own responsibility. In this country one cannot
+telegraph, the telegrams never arrive. You know the Balkans."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, oui, c'est un pays o&ugrave; le Bon Dieu n'a pas pass&eacute;, ou au moins il a
+peut-&ecirc;tre pass&eacute; en aeroplane."</p>
+
+<p>At last he agreed to take us if we could get a letter from Fabiano, and
+so take the responsibility from his shoulders. This we got. Fabiano said
+"Au revoir, bon voyage" for the fifth time, and at dawn we got a call,
+and quitted the bar-room floor for ever. Fabiano wished us "bon voyage"
+for the sixth time in the chilly dawn, and we embarked.</p>
+
+<p>The mate, a little round man, greeted us, and in the moments when they
+were not rushing about with ropes and chains the cook explained the
+Austrian submarine attack.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, monsieur et dame," said he, "they<span class="pagenum"><a id="page372" name="page372"></a>Pg 372</span> came in over there. The
+<i>Benedetto</i> was lying outside of that sandbank, and that is the torpedo
+which is lying on the beach. The one aimed at us came straight, one
+could see the whorls of the water coming straight at us, but it just
+tipped the sandbank and dived underneath our keel. It stuck in the mud
+then, and the water boiled over it for a long while."</p>
+
+<p>The mate cut one of the anchors because they were afraid of fouling the
+sunken torpedo, and we steamed slowly out from the shelter of the
+sandbank.</p>
+
+<p>No escort was visible, and soon the sailors began to look anxious. They
+scanned the horizon anxiously. At last one cried, "There she is." Far
+away against the western dawn could be seen a thin needle mark of smoke.
+In half an hour we were quite close, an Italian destroyer was convoying
+a small steamer. The destroyer swung round under our stern, while the
+steamer, its funnels set back, raced for San Giovanni looking like a
+frightened puppy tearing towards home. The grey warship surged past us,
+and out towards the horizon once more, our captain shouting to them that
+he could get to Brindisi by midnight. Far away on the sky-line could be
+seen the three funnels of a cruiser.</p>
+
+<p>We breakfasted on tinned mackerel, an unlucky<span class="pagenum"><a id="page373" name="page373"></a>Pg 373</span> dish. The <i>Harmonie</i>,
+empty of cargo, was like an eggshell in the water. She bounced and
+rolled and bounded from wave to wave, half of the time her screw out of
+the water. The breakfast did not nourish many. Far on the horizon could
+be seen the destroyer and the cruiser sweeping in gigantic circles.</p>
+
+<p>Half a kilometre away a periscope suddenly appeared, then the submarine
+dived, rose once more, showing the rounded conning tower, dived, rose
+again, like a porpoise at play.</p>
+
+<p>"See," cried the sailors, "how well are we guarded. Outermost the
+cruiser, then the destroyer, and innermost the submarine." The cruiser
+and destroyer took big sweeps once more and steamed off behind us
+towards Cattaro.</p>
+
+<p>Our boat rolled its way from dawn to dusk. We sought refuge in the coal
+hole, some lay down in the little officers' cabin. After dark the sea
+grew more rough, and splashing over the deck drove even the most ill to
+find shelter. Whatmough staggered to the companion, tripped over
+something, and fell the length of the stair accompanied by a hard object
+which hit him and made hissing sounds like a bicycle pump. He was too
+seasick to investigate, but next morning found the ship's tortoise lying
+on its back and feebly waving its feet and head.</p>
+
+<p>Then the engines slowly ceased, and there was<span class="pagenum"><a id="page374" name="page374"></a>Pg 374</span> silence. What had
+happened? The steamer gave four timid hoots. The people in the cabin lay
+in the darkness wondering if they had broken down, for it was not nearly
+midnight. At last the mate came in.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you're all in the dark," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Some one asked, "When shall we get to Brindisi?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're there," said the mate.</p>
+
+<p>The steamer rocked on the sea, waiting for an escort through the mine
+field, lights were sparkling in the distance, and now and then
+flashlights cut the dark blue of the sky. Great black ships surged by in
+the gloom, ships with insistent queries as to who we were and whence we
+came.</p>
+
+<p>At last an escort came: we were berthed and lay about waiting for the
+dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Long after day came the doctor, who passed us, and we stepped ashore
+saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God we are back in Europe once again."</p>
+
+<p>Two days later San Giovanni was bombarded by an Austrian cruiser, and
+all the shipping was sunk, <i>Benedetto</i> and all.</p>
+
+<p>We were heartily welcomed in Brindisi by the English colony, and at the
+consul's office learned that the submarine was an Austrian, and that the
+cruiser had made the sweep to chase it away. Jo, Miss Brindley, and Jan
+went to Rome, where they<span class="pagenum"><a id="page375" name="page375"></a>Pg 375</span> ere feasted by more English, while at
+Milan&mdash;where the rest of the party spent the night&mdash;a whole theatre
+stood and cheered them when they came in.</p>
+
+<p>Jan won his bet by four minutes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <img src="images/54.jpg"
+      alt="Decorative"
+      title="Decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page376" name="page376"></a>Pg 376</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+   <a id="image30" name="image30">
+   <img src="images/55.jpg"
+      alt="Route Map of the Authors' Wanderings"
+      title="Route Map of the Authors' Wanderings" /></a>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page377" name="page377"></a>Pg 377</span></p>
+<h2>INDEX</h2>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li>Albania, <a href='#page109'>109</a>, <a href='#page154'>154</a>, <a href='#page185'>185</a></li>
+
+<li>Alessio, <a href='#page351'>351</a>, <a href='#page355'>355</a>-<a href='#page359'>359</a>, <a href='#page362'>362</a></li>
+
+<li>Andrievitza, <a href='#page126'>126</a>, <a href='#page128'>128</a>, <a href='#page133'>133</a>, <a href='#page326'>326</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Belgrade, <a href='#page228'>228</a>, <a href='#page229'>229</a></li>
+
+<li>Berane, <a href='#page114'>114</a>, <a href='#page291'>291</a>, <a href='#page294'>294</a>, <a href='#page295'>295</a>, <a href='#page326'>326</a></li>
+
+<li>Brindisi, <a href='#page360'>360</a>, <a href='#page374'>374</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Cattaro, <a href='#page94'>94</a>, <a href='#page156'>156</a></li>
+
+<li>Cettinje, <a href='#page48'>48</a>, <a href='#page64'>64</a>, <a href='#page78'>78</a>, <a href='#page85'>85</a>, <a href='#page91'>91</a>, <a href='#page92'>92</a>, <a href='#page96'>96</a>, <a href='#page121'>121</a>, <a href='#page123'>123</a>, <a href='#page139'>139</a>, <a href='#page205'>205</a>, <a href='#page297'>297</a>, <a href='#page336'>336</a>, <a href='#page337'>337</a></li>
+
+<li>Chabatz, <a href='#page229'>229</a></li>
+
+<li>Chainitza, <a href='#page42'>42</a>, <a href='#page49'>49</a>, <a href='#page52'>52</a>, <a href='#page53'>53</a>, <a href='#page66'>66</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Danilograd, <a href='#page87'>87</a></li>
+
+<li>Dechani, <a href='#page147'>147</a>, <a href='#page152'>152</a>, <a href='#page157'>157</a>, <a href='#page158'>158</a>, <a href='#page190'>190</a></li>
+
+<li>Dormitor Mountains, <a href='#page64'>64</a>, <a href='#page74'>74</a>, <a href='#page75'>75</a></li>
+
+<li>Dreina, <a href='#page57'>57</a></li>
+
+<li>Durazzo, <a href='#page350'>350</a>, <a href='#page356'>356</a>, <a href='#page360'>360</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Ebar River, <a href='#page250'>250</a>, <a href='#page267'>267</a>, <a href='#page268'>268</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Gorazhda, <a href='#page57'>57</a>, <a href='#page59'>59</a></li>
+
+<li>Gotch, <a href='#page236'>236</a></li>
+
+<li>Gussigne, <a href='#page122'>122</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Ipek, <a href='#page114'>114</a>, <a href='#page122'>122</a>, <a href='#page124'>124</a>, <a href='#page132'>132</a>, <a href='#page134'>134</a>, <a href='#page143'>143</a>, <a href='#page144'>144</a>, <a href='#page145'>145</a>, <a href='#page154'>154</a>, <a href='#page175'>175</a>, <a href='#page294'>294</a>, <a href='#page330'>330</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Jabliak, <a href='#page64'>64</a>, <a href='#page70'>70</a>, <a href='#page74'>74</a></li>
+
+<li>Jabooka, <a href='#page129'>129</a>, <a href='#page131'>131</a>, <a href='#page330'>330</a>, <a href='#page331'>331</a></li>
+
+<li>Jakovitza, <a href='#page114'>114</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Kolashin, <a href='#page132'>132</a></li>
+
+<li>Kossovo, <a href='#page176'>176</a>, <a href='#page178'>178</a></li>
+
+<li>Krag, Kragujevatz, <a href='#page198'>198</a>, <a href='#page209'>209</a>, <a href='#page212'>212</a>, <a href='#page213'>213</a>, <a href='#page223'>223</a>, <a href='#page224'>224</a>, <a href='#page238'>238</a>, <a href='#page243'>243</a>, <a href='#page252'>252</a>, <a href='#page262'>262</a>, <a href='#page280'>280</a>, <a href='#page330'>330</a></li>
+
+<li>Kralievo, <a href='#page213'>213</a>, <a href='#page241'>241</a>, <a href='#page242'>242</a>, <a href='#page262'>262</a>, <a href='#page282'>282</a></li>
+
+<li>Krusevatz, <a href='#page7'>7</a>, <a href='#page24'>24</a>, <a href='#page25'>25</a>, <a href='#page194'>194</a>, <a href='#page196'>196</a>, <a href='#page237'>237</a>, <a href='#page241'>241</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Lapovo, <a href='#page259'>259</a></li>
+
+<li>Li&eacute;va Ri&eacute;ka, <a href='#page134'>134</a>, <a href='#page327'>327</a>, <a href='#page334'>334</a></li>
+
+<li>Lim River, <a href='#page36'>36</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Macedonia, <a href='#page154'>154</a>, <a href='#page184'>184</a>, <a href='#page185'>185</a></li>
+
+<li>Metalka, <a href='#page51'>51</a></li>
+
+<li>Mitrovitza, <a href='#page155'>155</a>, <a href='#page175'>175</a>, <a href='#page176'>176</a>, <a href='#page255'>255</a>, <a href='#page261'>261</a>, <a href='#page262'>262</a>, <a href='#page275'>275</a>, <a href='#page280'>280</a>, <a href='#page288'>288</a>, <a href='#page291'>291</a>, <a href='#page292'>292</a>, <a href='#page298'>298</a></li>
+
+<li>Morava, <a href='#page1'>1</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Negbina, <a href='#page35'>35</a></li>
+
+<li>Nickshitch, <a href='#page66'>66</a>, <a href='#page80'>80</a>, <a href='#page83'>83</a></li>
+
+<li>Nish, <a href='#page10'>10</a>-<a href='#page14'>14</a>, <a href='#page20'>20</a>, <a href='#page21'>21</a>, <a href='#page40'>40</a>, <a href='#page190'>190</a>, <a href='#page235'>235</a>, <a href='#page236'>236</a>, <a href='#page275'>275</a>, <a href='#page279'>279</a></li>
+
+<li>Novi Bazar, <a href='#page68'>68</a>, <a href='#page230'>230</a>, <a href='#page239'>239</a>, <a href='#page262'>262</a>, <a href='#page275'>275</a>, <a href='#page280'>280</a>, <a href='#page284'>284</a>, <a href='#page288'>288</a>, <a href='#page292'>292</a>, <a href='#page294'>294</a></li>
+
+<li>Novi Varosh, <a href='#page33'>33</a>, <a href='#page35'>35</a>, <a href='#page36'>36</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Obrenovatz, <a href='#page228'>228</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Plavnitza, <a href='#page107'>107</a>, <a href='#page116'>116</a>, <a href='#page341'>341</a></li>
+
+<li>Plevlie, <a href='#page38'>38</a>, <a href='#page41'>41</a>, <a href='#page43'>43</a>, <a href='#page62'>62</a>, <a href='#page72'>72</a>, <a href='#page77'>77</a>, <a href='#page80'>80</a>, <a href='#page114'>114</a>, <a href='#page165'>165</a>, <a href='#page171'>171</a>, <a href='#page294'>294</a></li>
+
+<li>Plav, <a href='#page122'>122</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="page378" name="page378"></a>Pg 378</span></li>
+
+<li>Pod, Podgoritza, <a href='#page64'>64</a>, <a href='#page85'>85</a>, <a href='#page88'>88</a>, <a href='#page89'>89</a>, <a href='#page90'>90</a>, <a href='#page101'>101</a>, <a href='#page124'>124</a>, <a href='#page125'>125</a>, <a href='#page127'>127</a>, <a href='#page189'>189</a>, <a href='#page326'>326</a>, <a href='#page328'>328</a>, <a href='#page335'>335</a>, <a href='#page339'>339</a></li>
+
+<li>Posheravatz, <a href='#page229'>229</a></li>
+
+<li>Prepolji, <a href='#page36'>36</a>, <a href='#page37'>37</a>, <a href='#page54'>54</a></li>
+
+<li>Prizren, <a href='#page349'>349</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Rashka, <a href='#page257'>257</a>, <a href='#page259'>259</a>, <a href='#page265'>265</a>, <a href='#page275'>275</a>, <a href='#page279'>279</a>, <a href='#page300'>300</a>, <a href='#page308'>308</a></li>
+
+<li>Rieka, <a href='#page99'>99</a>, <a href='#page124'>124</a></li>
+
+<li>Rudnik, <a href='#page172'>172</a>, <a href='#page223'>223</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Salonika, <a href='#page15'>15</a>-<a href='#page17'>17</a>, <a href='#page20'>20</a>, <a href='#page44'>44</a>, <a href='#page46'>46</a>, <a href='#page190'>190</a>, <a href='#page193'>193</a></li>
+
+<li>San Giovanni di Medua, <a href='#page346'>346</a>, <a href='#page351'>351</a>, <a href='#page355'>355</a>, <a href='#page360'>360</a></li>
+
+<li>Sanjak, <a href='#page87'>87</a>, <a href='#page96'>96</a>, <a href='#page114'>114</a>, <a href='#page154'>154</a>, <a href='#page294'>294</a></li>
+
+<li>Soutari, <a href='#page76'>76</a>, <a href='#page84'>84</a>, <a href='#page92'>92</a>, <a href='#page94'>94</a>, <a href='#page97'>97</a>, <a href='#page101'>101</a>, <a href='#page105'>105</a>, <a href='#page107'>107</a>, <a href='#page108'>108</a>, <a href='#page110'>110</a>, <a href='#page112'>112</a>, <a href='#page113'>113</a>, <a href='#page114'>114</a>, <a href='#page122'>122</a>, <a href='#page147'>147</a>, <a href='#page217'>217</a>, <a href='#page275'>275</a>, <a href='#page326'>326</a>, <a href='#page344'>344</a></li>
+
+<li>Shavnik, <a href='#page76'>76</a>, <a href='#page84'>84</a></li>
+
+<li>Shar Dagh, <a href='#page180'>180</a></li>
+
+<li>Sofia, <a href='#page64'>64</a></li>
+
+<li>Studenitza, <a href='#page249'>249</a>, <a href='#page278'>278</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Tara, <a href='#page68'>68</a></li>
+
+<li>Tarabosch, <a href='#page103'>103</a></li>
+
+<li>Trsternick, <a href='#page25'>25</a></li>
+
+<li>Tutigne, <a href='#page295'>295</a>, <a href='#page299'>299</a>, <a href='#page303'>303</a>, <a href='#page304'>304</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Uskub, <a href='#page14'>14</a>, <a href='#page18'>18</a>, <a href='#page180'>180</a>, <a href='#page182'>182</a>, <a href='#page183'>183</a>, <a href='#page184'>184</a>, <a href='#page186'>186</a>, <a href='#page225'>225</a>, <a href='#page238'>238</a>, <a href='#page275'>275</a>, <a href='#page288'>288</a>, <a href='#page291'>291</a></li>
+
+<li>Uzhitze, <a href='#page1'>1</a>, <a href='#page3'>3</a>, <a href='#page27'>27</a>, <a href='#page28'>28</a>, <a href='#page38'>38</a>, <a href='#page40'>40</a>, <a href='#page48'>48</a>, <a href='#page277'>277</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Valievo, <a href='#page295'>295</a></li>
+
+<li>Vela, <a href='#page236'>236</a></li>
+
+<li>Velika, <a href='#page137'>137</a></li>
+
+<li>Virbazar, <a href='#page117'>117</a></li>
+
+<li>Voinik Mountains, <a href='#page75'>75</a></li>
+
+<li>Vranje, <a href='#page235'>235</a>, <a href='#page236'>236</a></li>
+
+<li>Vrbitza, <a href='#page319'>319</a></li>
+
+<li>Vrnjatchka Banja, Vrntze, <a href='#page2'>2</a>, <a href='#page18'>18</a>, <a href='#page26'>26</a>, <a href='#page27'>27</a>, <a href='#page190'>190</a>, <a href='#page194'>194</a>, <a href='#page196'>196</a>, <a href='#page198'>198</a>, <a href='#page227'>227</a>, <a href='#page245'>245</a>, <a href='#page261'>261</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>Zaichar, <a href='#page13'>13</a>, <a href='#page236'>236</a></li>
+
+<li>Zlatibor, <a href='#page31'>31</a>, <a href='#page33'>33</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<h4>THE END</h4>
+
+<h5>PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.</h5>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Luck of Thirteen, by Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
+
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,9711 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Luck of Thirteen, by Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Luck of Thirteen
+       Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia
+
+Author: Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
+
+Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17291]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of
+public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: JO AT THE MACHINE GUN.]
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN
+
+WANDERINGS AND FLIGHT THROUGH MONTENEGRO AND SERBIA
+
+BY
+
+MR. AND MRS. JAN GORDON
+
+
+WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND A MAP
+TAIL PIECES BY CORA J. GORDON
+COLOUR PLATES BY JAN GORDON
+
+
+NEW YORK
+E.P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
+681 FIFTH AVENUE
+1916
+
+
+PRINTED BY
+WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED
+LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                            PAGE
+
+        INTRODUCTION                                  1
+
+    II. NISH AND SALONIKA                            10
+
+   III. OFF TO MONTENEGRO                            20
+
+    IV. ACROSS THE FRONTIER                          31
+
+     V. THE MONTENEGRIN FRONT ON THE DRINA           47
+
+    VI. NORTHERN MONTENEGRO                          66
+
+   VII. TO CETTINJE                                  85
+
+  VIII. THE LAKE OF SCUTARI                          99
+
+    IX. SCUTARI                                     105
+
+     X. THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO                   122
+
+    XI. IPEK, DECHANI AND A HAREM                   145
+
+   XII. THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO--II               169
+
+  XIII. USKUB                                       182
+
+   XIV. MAINLY RETROSPECTIVE                        198
+
+    XV. SOME PAGES FROM MR. GORDON'S DIARY          213
+
+   XVI. LAST DAYS AT VRNTZE                         227
+
+  XVII. KRALIEVO                                    244
+
+ XVIII. THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA                        263
+
+   XIX. NOVI BAZAR                                  284
+
+    XX. THE UNKNOWN ROAD                            299
+
+   XXI. THE FLEA-PIT                                315
+
+  XXII. ANDRIEVITZA TO POD                          328
+
+ XXIII. INTO ALBANIA                                341
+
+  XXIV. "ONE MORE RIBBER TO CROSS"                  359
+
+        INDEX                                       377
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+               COLOURED PLATES
+
+                                                  FACING PAGE
+
+Jo at the Machine Gun                          _Frontispiece_
+
+The Ipek Pass in Winter                                   140
+
+Retreating Ammunition Train                               276
+
+Albanian Mule-drivers Camping                             354
+
+
+               HALF-TONE PLATES
+
+Out-patients                                                4
+
+Shoeing Bullocks                                            4
+
+Peasant Women in Gala Costume, Nish                        20
+
+Serb Convalescents at Uzhitze                              28
+
+Serb and Montenegrin Officers on the Drina                 58
+
+A Concealed Gun Emplacement on the Drina                   58
+
+Peasant Women of the Mountains                             76
+
+A Village of North Montenegro                              76
+
+Jo and Mr. Suma in the Scutari Bazaar                     110
+
+Christian Women hiding from the Photographer              112
+
+Scutari--Bazaar and Old Venetian Fortress                 112
+
+Disembarkation of a Turkish Bride                         114
+
+Governor Petrovitch and his Daughter in their State Barge 114
+
+In the Bazaar of Ipek                                     162
+
+Street Coffee Seller in Ipek                              162
+
+A Wine Market in Uskub                                    184
+
+Big Gun passing through Krusevatz                         194
+
+In-patients                                               202
+
+Broken Aeroplane in the Arsenal at Krag                   220
+
+Where the "Plane" fell                                    220
+
+House near the Arsenal damaged by Bombs                   220
+
+Peasant Women leaving their Village                       260
+
+Serb Family by the Roadside                               260
+
+The Flight of Serbia                                      266
+
+Unloading the _Benedetto_, San Giovanni di Medua          364
+
+Route Map of the Authors' Wanderings         _At end of text_
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+It is curious to follow anything right back to its inception, and to
+discover from what extraordinary causes results are due. It is strange,
+for instance, to find that the luck of the thirteen began right back at
+the time when Jan, motoring back from Uzhitze down the valley of the
+Morava, coming fastish round a corner, plumped right up to the axle in a
+slough of clinging wet sandy mud. The car almost shrugged its shoulders
+as it settled down, and would have said, if cars could speak, "Well,
+what are you going to do about that, eh?" It was about the 264th mud
+hole in which Jan's motor had stuck, and we sat down to wait for the
+inevitable bullocks. But it was a Sunday and bullocks were few; the wait
+became tedious, and in the intervals of thought which alternated with
+the intervals of exasperation, Jan realized that he needed a holiday.
+
+To be explicit. Jan was acting as engineer to Dr. Berry's Serbian
+Mission from the Royal Free Hospital:--Jan Gordon, and Jo is his wife,
+Cora Josephine Gordon, artist, and V.A.D.
+
+We had a six months of work behind us. We had seen the typhus, and had
+dodged the dreaded louse who carries the infection, we had seen the
+typhus dwindle and die with the onrush of summer. We had helped to clean
+and prepare six hospitals at Vrntze or Vrnjatchka Banja--whichever you
+prefer. We had helped Mr. Berry, the great surgeon, to ventilate his
+hospitals by smashing the windows--one had been a child again for a
+moment. Jo had learned Serbian and was assisting Dr. Helen Boyle, the
+Brighton mind specialist, to run a large and flourishing out-patient
+department to which tuberculosis and diphtheria--two scourges of
+Serbia--came in their shoals. We had endeavoured to ward off typhoid by
+initiating a sort of sanitary vigilance committee, having first sacked
+the chief of police: we had laid drains, which the chief Serbian
+engineer said he would pull up as soon as we had gone away. We had
+helped in the plans of a very necessary slaughter-house, which Mr. Berry
+was going to present to the town. There was an excuse for Jan's desire.
+The English papers had been howling about the typhus months after the
+disease had been chased out by English, French, and American doctors,
+who had disinfected the country till it reeked of formalin and sulphur;
+shoals of devoted Englishwomen were still pouring over, generously ready
+to risk their lives in a danger which no longer existed. Our own unit,
+which had dwindled to a comfortable--almost a family--number, with Mr.
+Berry as father, had been suddenly enlarged by an addition of ten. These
+ten complicated things, they all naturally wanted work, and we had
+cornered all the jobs.
+
+So, after the fatigues of February, March, and April, and the heat of
+June, Jan quite decided on that Uzhitze mud patch that a holiday would
+do little harm to himself, and good to everybody else. Then, however,
+came the problem of Jo. Jo is a socialistic sort of a person with
+conservative instincts. She has the feminine ability to get her wheels
+on a rail and run comfortably along till Jan appears like a big railway
+accident and throws the scenery about; but once the resolution
+accomplished she pursues the idea with a determination and ferocity
+which leaves Jan far in the background.
+
+Jo had her out-patient department. Every morning, wet or fine, crowds of
+picturesque peasants would gather about the little side door of our
+hospital, women in blazing coloured hand-woven skirts, like Joseph's
+coat, children in unimaginable rags, but with the inevitable belt
+tightly bound about their little stomachs, men covered with tuberculous
+sores and so forth, on some days as many as a hundred. Jo, having
+finished breakfast, had then to assume a commanding air, and to stamp
+down the steps into the crowd, sort out the probable diphtheria
+cases--this by long practice,--forbid anybody to approach them under
+pain of instant disease, get the others into a vague theatre queue,
+which they never kept, and then run back into the office to assist the
+doctor and to translate. All this, repeated daily, was highly
+interesting of course, and so when Jan suggested the tour she "didn't
+want to do it."
+
+But authority was on Jan's side. Jo had had a mild accident: a
+diphtheria patient fled to avoid being doctored, they often did, and Jo
+had chased after her; she tripped, fell, drove her teeth through her
+lower lip, and for a moment was stunned. When they caught the patient
+they found that it was the wrong person--but that is beside the subject.
+Dr. Boyle thought that Jo had had a mild concussion and threw her weight
+at Jan's side. Dr. Berry was quite agreeable, and gave us a commission
+to go to Salonika to start with and find a disinfector which had gone
+astray. Another interpreter was found, so Jo took leave of her
+out-patients.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In Serbia it was necessary to get permission to move. Jan went to the
+major for the papers. There were crowds of people on the major's
+steps, and Jan learned that all the peasants and loafers had been
+called in to certify, so that nobody should avoid their military
+service. Later we parted, taking two knapsacks. Dr. Boyle and Miss
+Dickenson were very generous, giving us large supplies of chocolate,
+Brand's essence, and corned beef for our travels, and we had two boxes
+of "compressed luncheons," black horrible-looking gluey tabloids which
+claim to be soup, fish, meat, vegetables and pudding in one swallow.
+
+[Illustration: OUT-PATIENTS.]
+
+[Illustration: SHOEING BULLOCKS.]
+
+The Austrian prisoners bade us a sad farewell, but many friends
+accompanied us to the station, and the rotund major and his rounder wife
+did us the like honour. Our major was a queer mixture: he was jolly
+because he was fat, and he was stern because he had a beaky nose, and in
+any interview one had first to ascertain whether the stomach or the nose
+held the upper hand, so to speak. With the wife one was always sure--she
+had a snub nose. On this occasion the major furiously boxed the Austrian
+prisoner coachman's ears, telling us that he was the best he had ever
+had. The unfortunate driver was a picture of rueful pleasure. The two
+plump dears stood waving four plump hands till we had rumbled round the
+corner of the landscape.
+
+In the train to Nish it was intensely hot. We had sixteen or seventeen
+fellow-passengers in our third-class wooden-seated carriage--all the
+firsts had been removed, because they could not be disinfected--and the
+windows, with the exception of two, had been screwed tightly down. Every
+time we stood up to look at the landscape somebody slipped into our
+seat, and we were continually sitting down into unexpected laps.
+Expostulations, apologies, and so on. Somebody had gnawed a piece from
+one of the wheels, and we lurched through the scenery with a banging
+metallic clangour which made conversation difficult, in spite of which
+Jo astonished the natives by her colloquial and fluent Serbian. We had
+an enormous director of a sanitary department and a plump wife,
+evidently risen, but fat people rise in Serbia automatically like
+balloons. We had three meagre old gentlemen, one unshaven for a week,
+one whiskered since twenty years with Piccadilly weepers like a stage
+butler; some ultra fashionable girls and men; and a dear old dumb woman
+wearing three belts, who had been a former outpatient; and several
+sticky families of children.
+
+The old gentlemen took a huge interest in Jo. They drew her out in
+Serbian, and at every sentence turned each to the other and elevated
+their hands, ejaculating "kako!" (how!) in varying terms of admiration
+and flattery.
+
+The American has not yet ousted the Turk from Serbia, and the bite from
+our wheel banged off the revolutions of our sedate passing. Trsternik's
+church--modern but good taste--gleamed like a jewel in the sun against
+the dark hills. On either hand were maize fields with stalks as tall as
+a man, their feathery tops veiling the intense green of the herbage with
+a film, russet like cobwebs spun in the setting sun. There were plum
+orchards--for the manufacture of plum brandy--so thick with fruit that
+there was more purple than green in the branches, and between the trunks
+showed square white ruddy-roofed hovels with great squat tile-decked
+chimneys. Some of the houses were painted with decorations of bright
+colours, vases of flowers or soldiers, and on one was a detachment of
+crudely drawn horsemen, dark on the white walls, meant to represent the
+heroes of old Serbian poetry.
+
+To Krusevatz the valley broadened, and the sinking sun tinted the
+widening maize-tops till the fields were great squares of gold. We had
+no lights in the train, and presently dusk closed down, seeming to shut
+each up within his or her own mind. The hills grew very dark and
+distant, and on the faint rising mist the trees seemed to stand about
+with their hands in their pockets like vegetable Charlie Chaplins.
+
+A junction, and a rush for tables at the little out-of-door restaurant.
+In the country from which we have just come all seemed peace, but here
+in truth was war. Passing shadowy in the faint lights were soldiers;
+soldiers crouched in heaps in the dark corners of the station; yet more
+soldiers and soldiers again huddled in great square box trucks or open
+waggons waiting patiently for the train which was four or five hours
+late. There were women with them, wives or sisters or daughters, with
+great heavy knapsacks and stolid unexpressive faces.
+
+While we were dreaming of this romance of war, and of the coming romance
+of our own tour, a little man dumped himself at our table, explained
+that he had a pain in his kidneys, and started an interminable story
+about his wife and a dog. He was Jan's devoted admirer, and declared
+that Jan had performed a successful operation upon him, though Jan is no
+surgeon, and had never set eyes upon the man before.
+
+Georgevitch rescued us. Georgevitch was fat, tall, young and genial, and
+was military storekeeper at Vrntze. He was an ideal storekeeper and
+looked the part, but he had been a comitaj. He had roamed the country
+with belts full of bombs and holsters full of pistols, he and 189
+others, with two loaves of bread per man and then "Ever Forwards." Of
+the 189 others only 22 were left, and one was a patient at our hospital
+where we called him the "Velika Dete" or "big child," because of his
+sensibility. With Georgevitch was a dark woman with keen sparkling eyes.
+Alone, this woman had run the typhus barracks in Vrntze until the
+arrival of the English missions. She was a Montenegrin; no Serbian woman
+could be found courageous enough to undertake the task. After struggling
+all the winter, she was taken ill about a fortnight after the arrival of
+the English. The Red Cross Mission took care of her and she recovered.
+
+We left our bore still talking about his wife and the dog, and fled to
+their table, where we chatted till our train arrived. We found a
+coupe--a carriage with only one long seat--the exigencies of which
+compelled Jan to be all night with Jo's boots on his face, and we so
+slept as well as we were able.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+NISH AND SALONIKA
+
+
+To our dismay a rare thing happened--our train was punctual, and we
+arrived in Nish at four o'clock. It was cold and misty. The station was
+desolate and the town asleep. Around us in the courtyard ragged soldiers
+were lying with their heads pillowed on brightly striped bags. A nice
+old woman who had asked Jo how old she was, what relation Jan was to
+her, whether they had children, and where she had learnt Serbian,
+suddenly lost all her interest in us and hurried off with voluble
+friends whose enormous plaits around their flat red caps betokened the
+respectable middle-class women.
+
+Piccadilly weepers vanished and a depressed little quartet was left on
+the platform--our two selves, a lean schoolmaster, and an egg-shaped man
+who never spoke a word. We found a clerk sitting in an office. He said
+we could not leave our bags in his room, but as we made him own that we
+could not put them anywhere else he looked the other way while we
+dropped them in the corner.
+
+In the faint mist of the early morning the great overgrown village of
+one-storied houses seemed like a real town buried up to its attics in
+fog. We found a cafe which was shut, and sat waiting on green chairs
+outside. Around us old men were talking of the news in the papers. They
+said that Bulgaria was making territorial demands, and as the Balkan
+governments covet land above all things they felt pessimistic as to
+whether Serbia would concede anything, and said, shaking their heads,
+"It will be another Belgium."
+
+We celebrated the opening of the cafe by ordering five Turkish coffees
+each, and the schoolmaster and we alternately stood treat. Jo loaded up
+with aspirin to deaden a toothache which was worrying her.
+
+We spent a cynical morning in interviews with people who were supposed
+to know about missing luggage. Both they and we were aware that the
+first hospital which got a wandering packing-case froze on to it, and if
+inconvenient people came to hunt for their property the dismayed and
+guilty ones hurriedly painted the case, saying to each other, "After all
+it's in a good cause, and it's better than if it were stolen."
+
+Then we went to see the powers who can say "no" to those who want to do
+pleasant things, and were handed an amendment to a plea for a tour round
+Serbia, including the front, which we had sent to them and which had
+been pigeon-holed for a month.
+
+"But we don't want to see a lot of monasteries," said Jan, as he gazed
+at a little circle drawn round the over-visited part of Serbia. The
+powers were adamant and seemed to think they had done very well for us.
+We went away sadly, for monasteries had not been the idea at all.
+
+Half an hour later we were pursuing an entirely different object. We had
+discovered that Sir Ralph Paget was housing about L1000 worth of stores
+destined for Dr. Clemow's hospital--which was in Montenegro--and which
+needed an escort. He was somewhat puzzled at our altruistic anxiety to
+take them off his hands, but was much relieved at the thought that he
+could get rid of them.
+
+We hurried to the station, rescued our knapsacks under the nose of a new
+official who looked very much surprised, and boarded the English rest
+house near by. English people were sitting in deck chairs outside the
+papier-mache house which stood surrounded by a couple of tents and a
+wooden kitchen in a field. Austrian prisoners were preparing lunch, and
+we were introduced to Seemitch the dog.
+
+Though young, Seemitch was fat and exhibited signs of a much-varied
+ancestry. The original Seemitch, an important Serb with long gold
+teeth, was very indignant that a dog, and such a dog, should be called
+after him, so Sir Ralph arranged that of the two other puppies one
+should be called after him and the other after Mr. Hardinge his
+secretary. Thus the man Seemitch's dignity was restored.
+
+At the station, to our great joy, we met two American doctors from
+Zaichar. One we had mourned for dead and were astonished to see him,
+shadow-like, stiff-kneed, and sitting uncomfortably on a chair in the
+middle of the platform. Months before he had pricked himself with a
+needle while operating on a gangrenous case, and had since lain
+unconscious with blood-poisoning.
+
+While we were cheering over his recovery, a little Frenchman slipped
+into our reserved compartment, which was only a coupe, and had seized
+the window seat. Jan found him lubricating his mouth, already full of
+dinner, with wine from a bottle. As he showed no signs of seeing reason
+from the male, Jo tried feminine indignation. "That seat is mine," she
+snapped to his back-tilted head.
+
+"Good. I exact nothing," he said, wiping his moustache upwards. She
+suggested that if any exacting was to be done she possessed the
+exclusive rights.
+
+"Quel pays," he answered. Jo thought he was casting aspersions on
+England and on her as the nearest representative, and the air became
+distinctly peppery. The Frenchman hurriedly explained that he was
+alluding to Serbia, so they buried the hatchet and became acquaintances.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Uskub, or Skoplje, and one hour to wait. All about the great plains the
+mountains were just growing ruddy with the dawn, and we gulped boiling
+coffee at the station restaurant.
+
+One of the American doctors seemed restless. Some one had told him it
+was advisable to keep an eye on the luggage. They began to shunt the
+train, and soon he was stumbling about the sidings in a resolute attempt
+not to lose sight of the luggage van. We sympathetically wished him good
+luck and walked past into the Turkish quarter, adopted by two dogs which
+followed us all the way. We had a hurried glimpse of queer-shaped,
+many-coloured houses, trousered women, and a general Turkishness.
+
+We returned to find our American friend furious, full of the superior
+methods of luggage registration in the States.
+
+We had beer with him at the frontier, delicious cool stuff with a
+mollifying influence. He told us he held the record for one month's
+hernia operations in Serbia. We were later to meet his rival, a Canadian
+doctor, in Montenegro.
+
+Locked in the train, we awaited the medical examination, and sat
+feeling self-consciously healthy. At last the Greek doctor opened the
+door, glanced at a knapsack, and vanished. We were certified healthy.
+
+It was a beautiful dark blue night when we arrived at Salonika. Crowds
+of people were dining at little tables which filled the streets off the
+quay, in spite of the awful smells which came up from the harbour.
+
+It is impossible to sleep late in Salonika. Soon after dawn children
+possess the town--bootblacks, paper-sellers, perambulating drapers'
+shops; all children crying their wares noisily. The only commodity that
+the children don't peddle is undertaken by mules laden with glass
+fronted cases hanging on each side and which are filled with meat.
+
+We breakfasted in the street, revelling in the early morning and shooing
+away the children, who never gave us a moment's grace. In self-defence
+we had our boots blacked, for the ambulating bootblack molests no longer
+the owner of a well-polished pair of boots. It is queer to walk about in
+a town where one-third of the population is only pecuniarily interested
+in the momentary appearance of feet and never look at a face, like the
+man with the muckrake with eyes glued on life as it is led two inches
+from the ground.
+
+When we had finished searching for disinfectors and dentists we
+wandered up the hill through the romantic streets. Jan sketched busily,
+but toothache had rather sapped Jo's industry, and she generally found
+some large stone to sit on, whence to contemplate.
+
+An old woman's face, peering round the doorway, discovered her sitting
+on the doorstep, a Greek dustman gazing stupidly at her.
+
+In two minutes they were talking hard. The old woman was a Bulgarian,
+but they were able to understand each other. What Jo told the old woman
+was translated to the dustman, and when Jan came up they were introduced
+each to the other, the dustman with his broom bowing to the ground like
+some old-time court usher.
+
+Once a Greek woman offered a chair to Jo. She was much embarrassed, as
+the only Greek words she had picked up were "How much?" and "Yet
+another;" and as both seemed unsuitable she tried to put her gratitude
+into the width of her smile.
+
+We scrambled on ever afterwards through streets which were more like
+cliff climbs than roads. The sun grew red till all Salonika lay at our
+feet a maze of magenta shadow. We sat down in an old Turkish cemetery,
+where we could watch the old wall sliding down to plains of gold, where,
+falling into ruins, it lent its degraded stones for the construction of
+Turkish hovels.
+
+A kitten with paralysed hind legs crawled up to us and accepted a little
+rubbing. When dusk came we moved on, marvelling at the inexhaustible
+picturesqueness of Salonika.
+
+As we clambered down the breakneck paths, the priests were illuminating
+the minarets with hundreds of twinkling lights.
+
+The next day was the Feast. Mahommedans were everywhere. By the women's
+trousers, which twinkled beneath the shrouding veils, one could see that
+they were gorgeously dressed. Befezzed men were lounging and smoking in
+all the cafe's.
+
+In the evening once more we wandered up through the old Turkish quarter.
+We heard a curious noise like a hymn played by bagpipes, rhythmically
+accompanied in syncopation by a very flabby drum. Round the corner came
+four jolly niggers blowing pipes, and the drummer behind them. Very slim
+young men with bright sashes and light trousers were twisting,
+posturing, and dancing joyfully. One of them threw to Jo the most
+graceful kiss she had ever seen.
+
+We left Salonika in the morning, having been wakened by new sounds.
+Thousands of marching feet, songs. This was puzzling.
+
+In the train a young Greek told us that his nation had mobilized against
+the Bulgars, but that it was not very serious. He said that there had
+been very friendly feeling in Greece for England, but that we had done
+our best to kill it.
+
+"You see, monsieur," he explained, "your offer to give away our land. It
+is not yours to give. You say that does not matter, but that colonies,
+great colonies in Africa will replace the small part of land that we may
+surrender. Kavalla is more valuable to Grecian hearts than all Africa,
+for how could we desert our Grecian brothers and place them beneath the
+rule of the Turk or Bulgar?"
+
+On the train were more American doctors. One had just arrived, and was
+still full of enthusiasm for scenery and sanitation. Also there was
+Princess ---- surrounded by packing cases. Some months earlier she had
+visited our hospitals in Vrntze and she had asked if one of our V.A.D.'s
+could be sent to her as housemaid. Seeing her in the station, Jo
+involuntarily ran over in her mind, was she "sober, honest and
+obliging?"
+
+The American doctors and we picnicked together. We ate bully beef and a
+huge water melon. The heat was awful. The velvet seats seemed to invade
+one's body and come through at the other side. One of the doctors sat on
+the step of the train, and Jo found him nodding and smiling as he
+dreamt. She rescued him before he fell off.
+
+After twelve hours they left us. Uskub once more and an hour to wait. We
+sat behind trees in boxes on the platform and ate omelet with a nice
+old Jew and his ten-year-old daughter, who already spoke five languages.
+
+Then to sleep. We found our half coupe contained a second seat which
+could be pulled down, so we each had a bed. At four in the morning we
+were awakened by the most awful imitation of a German band.
+
+What had happened? We looked out. It was barely dawn, and a wretched
+little orchestra was grouped at the edge of the tiny station. Every
+instrument was cracked and was tuned one-sixteenth tone different from
+its companions. What it lacked in musical ability it made up in energy.
+
+Why, oh, _why_ at that hour, we never found out. Perhaps it was in
+honour of the Princess, poor lady!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+OFF TO MONTENEGRO
+
+
+Back to Nish in the rain, and Jo was wearing a cotton frock. There may
+be more dismal towns than this Nish, but I have yet to see them, and
+this, although the great squares were packed with gaily coloured
+peasants--some feast, we imagined--carts full of melons, melons on the
+ground, melons framing the faces of the greedy--cerise green-rind moons
+projecting from either cheek. The Montenegrin consul was not at home, so
+off we went to the Foreign Office to give a letter to Mr. Grouitch, who
+sent us to the Sanitary Department of the War Office (henceforth known
+as S.D.W.O.). S.D.W.O. wouldn't move without a letter from "Sir Paget."
+We got the letter from "Sir Paget" and back to the S.D.W.O., to find it
+shut in our faces, and to learn that it did not reopen till four.
+
+Then came the matter of Jo's tooth. This abscess had been nagging all
+the time, it had vigorously tried to get between Jo and the scenery. We
+had sought dentists in Salonika, rejecting one because his hall was too
+dirty, a second because she (yes, a she) was practising on her father's
+certificates, the third, a little Spaniard, had red-hot pokered the
+gums thereof and only annoyed it. But we had heard there was a Russian
+dentist in Nish, a very good one. The Russian dentist turned out to be a
+girl, and tiny--she spoke no Serb, but Jo managed, by means of the
+second cousinship of the language, to make out what she said in Russian.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANT WOMEN IN GALA COSTUME--NISH.]
+
+"The tooth must come out," squeaked the small dentist.
+
+"Can't you save it?" prayed Jo; "it's the best one I've got, and the one
+to which I send all the Serbian meat."
+
+"It must come out," squeaked the Russ.
+
+"Can't you save it?" prayed Jo.
+
+"It must come out," reiterated the Russ.
+
+"You're very small," said Jo, doubtfully.
+
+This annoyed the dentist. She pushed unwilling Jo into a chair, produced
+a pair of pincers, and, oh, woe! she wrenched to the north, she wrenched
+to the south, she wrenched to the east, and there was the tooth, nearly
+as big as the dentist herself.
+
+"I never can eat Serbian meat again," murmured Jo as she mopped her
+mouth.
+
+After tea we returned to the S.D.W.O., and by means of our letter and
+our Englishness we got in front of all the unfortunate people who had
+been waiting for hours, and received our passes, etc., immediately.
+
+Sir Ralph Paget's storekeeper wouldn't work on Sunday, so we had also
+to rest, and we celebrated by staying in bed late and going for a walk
+in the afternoon with an Englishman who was _en route_ for Sofia. We
+came to a little village where every house was surrounded by high walls
+made of wattle. The women soon crowded round, imagining Mr. B---- a
+doctor. Jo pretended to translate, and gave advice for a girl with
+consumption, and an old woman whose hand was stiff from typhus, and we
+had to give the money for the latter's unguent. For the consumptive she
+said, "Open the windows, rest, and don't spit"; but that isn't a
+peasant's idea of doctoring: they want medicine or magic, one or the
+other, which doesn't matter.
+
+The train started "after eight" on Monday evening. The English boys at
+the Rest house were very good to us, adding to our small stock of
+necessities a "Tommy's treasure," two mackintosh capes, and some oxo
+cubes. One youth said, "You won't want to travel a second time on a
+Serbian luggage train"; then ruefully, "I've done it! The shunting,
+phew!"
+
+A Serbian railway station is a public meeting-place; along the platform,
+but railed off from the train, is a restaurant which is one of the
+favourite cafes of the town. It is such fun to the still childish
+Serbian mind to sit sipping beer or wine and watch the trains run about,
+and hear the whistles. We had our supper amongst the gay crowd, and
+then pushed out into the darkened goods station to find our travelling
+bedroom, for we were to sleep in the waggons--beds and mattresses having
+been provided--and we had borrowed blankets from the Rest house.
+
+We found our truck and climbed in. There were certainly beds enough, for
+there were thirty light iron folding bedsteads piled up at one end. We
+chose two, and, not satisfied with the stacking of the others, Jan
+repiled them, with an eye on what our friend had said about Serbian
+shunting. Even then Jo was not happy about them.
+
+We sat on our beds, reading or staring out of our open door at the
+twinkle of the station lights, the moving flares of the engines, and the
+fountains of sparks which rushed from their chimneys; listening to the
+chains of bumps which denoted a shunting train. We heard another chain
+of bumps, which rattled rapidly towards us and suddenly--a most awful
+CRASH. The candle went out, and we were flung from bed on to the floor.
+Our truck hurtled down the line at about thirty miles an hour, and
+suddenly struck some solid object. Another wild crash, and the whole
+twenty-eight beds flung themselves upon the place where we had been, and
+smashed our couches to the ground.
+
+We have read stories of the Spanish Inquisition about rooms which grow
+smaller, and at last crush the unfortunate victim to a jelly: we can
+now appreciate the feeling of the unfortunate victim aforesaid. There
+were piles of packing-cases at either end of the van, and for the next
+hour, as we were hurtled up and down by the Serbian engine-driver, at
+each crash these packing-cases crept nearer and nearer. The beds had
+fallen across the door, so it was impossible to escape. When the lower
+cases had reached the beds they halted, but the upper ones still crept
+on towards us. In the short, wild intervals of peace Jan tried to push
+the cases back and restore momentary stability. In addition to
+diminishing room, we were flung about with every crash, landing on the
+corner of a packing-case, on the edge of an iron bedstead, and with each
+crash the light went out. We will give not one jot of advantage to your
+prisoner in the Spanish Inquisition, save that we escaped whereas he did
+not.
+
+The engine-driver tired of the sport just in time to save our limbs, if
+not lives, and he dragged the train out of the station into the dark.
+
+At Krusevatch we halted for the next day. After a discussion with the
+station-master, who asked us to come down first at six p.m., then at
+four, then at one, and lastly in two hours, at nine a.m. we strolled up
+towards the town. There was an old beggar on the road, and he was
+cuddling a "goosla," or Serbian one-stringed fiddle, which sounds not
+unlike a hive of bees in summer-time, and is played not with the tips of
+the fingers, as a violin, but with the fat part of the first phalanx. As
+soon as he heard our footsteps he began to howl, and to saw at his
+miserable instrument; and as soon as he had received our contribution he
+stopped suddenly. We were worth no more effort; but we admired his
+frankness.
+
+Krusevatz market-place is like the setting of a Serbian opera. The
+houses are the kind of houses that occupy the back scenery of opera, and
+in the middle is an abominable statue commemorating something, which is
+just in the bad taste which would mar an opera setting. There was an old
+man wandering about with two knapsacks, one on his back and one on his
+chest, and from the orifice of each peered out innumerable ducks' heads.
+We returned to the station at nine, but were told that nothing could be
+done till one. So we went up to the churchyard, spread our mackintoshes,
+and got a much-needed sleep. The church is very old, but isn't much to
+look at, and we, being no archaeologists, would sooner look at that of
+Trsternick, though it is modern.
+
+We returned to the station to unload our trucks, for at this point the
+broad-gauge line ceases, and there is but a narrow-gauge into the
+mountains. A band of Austrian prisoners were detailed to help us, and
+they at once recognized us, and knew that we came from Vrntze. They were
+in a wretched condition: their clothes were torn, they said that they
+had no change of underclothes, and were swarming with vermin, nor could
+they be cleaned, for they worked even on Sundays, and had no time to
+wash their clothes. They begged us for soap, and asked us to send them a
+change of raiment from Vrntze. We explained sadly that we were not going
+back just yet, but we could oblige them with the soap, for a case had
+been broken open, and the waggon was strewn with bars. We also gave some
+to the engine-driver, as a bribe to shunt us gently.
+
+We imagined that the soap had burst because of the shunting, but in our
+second truck discovered that this same shunting had been strangely
+selective. It had, for instance, opened a case of brandy, it had burst a
+box of tinned tongue, and even opened some of the tins which were strewn
+in the truck. And yet the truck had been sealed, both doors. Several
+cases of biscuits, too, had been abstracted, and all this must have
+happened under the very noses of the Englishmen who had supervised the
+loading. Some of the prisoners said that they were starving, so we
+distributed our spare crusts amongst them, and they ate them greedily
+enough.
+
+In the fields by the railway were queer pallid green plants which
+puzzled us. They were like tall cabbages, and shone with a curious
+ghostly intensity in the gloaming.
+
+We dangled our feet over the side of our waggon watching the flitting
+scenery. At one point we passed a train in which were other English
+people, who stared amazed at us and waved their hands as we disappeared.
+Dusk was down when we passed Vrntze, and we reached the gorges of Ovchar
+in the dark. We thundered through tunnels and out over hanging
+precipices, the river beneath us a faint band of greyish light in the
+blackness of the mountains.
+
+Uzhitze in the morning at 4.30; it was cold and wet. Jan wanted to hurry
+off to the hotel, but Jo sensibly refused, and we settled down till a
+decent hour.
+
+The hotel was a huge room with a smaller yard; on the one side of the
+yard were the kitchens, etc., and on the other a string of bedrooms. We
+then crossed the big square to the Nachanlik's (or mayor's) office.
+
+Outside the mayor's office we found an old friend. He had been a patient
+in our hospital, and gangrene, following typhus, had so poisoned his
+legs that both were amputated. He had been discharged the day before,
+and had travelled up from Vrntze, some eight hours, in an open truck.
+The Serbian authorities had brought him from the station and had propped
+him on a wooden bench outside the mayor's office, where he had remained
+all night, and where we found him. He was a charming fellow, though very
+silent. Once when Jo had remarked upon this silence he had answered,
+"When a man has no longer any legs it is fitting that he should be
+silent."
+
+He was waiting for his father, who lived twelve hours away in the
+mountains. The old man came with a donkey, and there was a most
+affecting meeting between the old father and his poor mutilated son.
+Tears flowed freely on either side, for Serbs are still simple enough to
+be unashamed of emotion. The donkey had an ordinary saddle, on to which
+our friend was hoisted. He balanced tentatively for a moment, then shook
+his head. A pack-saddle was substituted.
+
+"It is hard," he said, "young enough, and yet like a useless bale of
+goods."
+
+Twenty hours he had endured, and yet had twelve to go--thirty-two hours
+for a man without legs. This will show of what some Serbs are made.
+
+Within the office we found a professor whom we had met before, and who
+was acting as assistant mayor. We took him to the station and estimated
+that thirty-two waggons would deal with our stuff.
+
+[Illustration: SERB CONVALESCENTS AT UZHITZE.]
+
+Jo and Jan went for a stroll, Uzhitze, especially in the back
+streets, is like a Duerer etching--that one of the Prodigal Son, for
+instance, all tiny, peaky-roofed houses. We took a siesta in the
+afternoon, but Jan was dragged out to talk to our professor, who
+explained that it was impossible for the Serbian Government to find
+thirty-two ox-carts at once, so the convoy must make two journeys. He
+also said that horses would be provided for us, and that we would take
+two or three days to do the trip, but that the ox-waggons would be at
+least seven, which was death to our romantic dream of toiling
+laboriously up almost inaccessible mountains at the head of straining
+ox-carts, sleeping by the roadside, brigands, and all that.
+
+We went down to the station, unloaded the truck and checked the numbers.
+A few were missing, but not so many as we had expected.
+
+A regiment of soldiers were called up; at a word of command they pounced
+upon our packing-cases and hurried them off to a storehouse. The smaller
+cases were left to go on donkeys, two on either side.
+
+The professor dined with us. He is an Anglophile, and was determined
+after the war to go to England in order to discover the secret of her
+greatness. He had a theory that it lay in our educational laws, which he
+wanted to transplant into Serbia wholesale. Jan thought not, and
+suggested that it might lie even deeper than that.
+
+Next day was a Prazhnik, or feast day, and the great square was crowded
+with peasantry in their beautiful hand-woven clothes. There were
+soldiers straight back from the lines chaffing and flirting with the
+pretty girls, and presently a group began to dance the "Kola" about a
+man who played a pipe. It is not difficult to dance the Kola. You join
+hands till a ring is formed, and then shuffle round and round. If you
+have aspirations to style you fling your legs about as much as space
+will allow, and we noticed how much better the men danced than the
+girls, who were almost all very clumsy.
+
+We were to be called at six, so went to bed early, and in spite of the
+odours from the yard slept soundly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ACROSS THE FRONTIER
+
+
+We got up in good time, breakfasted, but there was no sign of horses.
+After waiting two hours a square man was brought up to us by the waiter
+and introduced as our guide. The professor, who had promised to see us
+off, was apparently clinging to his bed, for he did not come. Our guide
+was a taciturn, loose-limbed fellow, but had nice eyes and a charming
+manner; he helped us on to our horses, and off we went. Jan was rather
+anxious at the start, for he had done very little riding since
+childhood; but his horse was quiet, and soon he had persuaded himself
+that he was a cavalier from birth. Jo was riding astride for the second
+time in her life.
+
+We took the road to Zlatibor (golden hill). There was a heavy mist, the
+hills were just outlined in faint washes on the fog, and as we mounted
+the zig-zag path, higher and higher, the town became small and fairylike
+beneath us; and a soldiers' camp made a queer chessboard on the green of
+the valley. Jo's horse cast a shoe almost at the start, but the guide
+said that it did not matter. We went on and ever up, our horses
+clambering like goats. The scenery was on the whole very English, and
+not unlike the Devonshire side of Dartmoor.
+
+Our guide took us a two mile detour to show us his house. Later we
+reached a tiny village with a queer church. We off-saddled for a moment,
+and were welcomed by the inhabitants, who gave us Turkish coffee and
+plum brandy (rakia), while in exchange we made them cigarettes of
+English tobacco. At sixteen kilometres we reached a larger village,
+where we decided to lunch. We were astonished by the sudden appearance
+of a French doctor. He was delighted to see us, more so when he found
+that we both spoke French, and invited us to coffee. We lunched with our
+guide at the local inn. We ordered pig; indeed there was nothing else to
+order.
+
+"How much?" said mine host.
+
+"For three," answered we.
+
+"But how much is that?" replied mine host. "You see, each man eats
+differently." So we ordered one kilo to go on with.
+
+Half a pig was wrenched from a spit in front of the big fire, carried
+sizzling outside to the wood block, where the waiter hewed it apart with
+the axe.
+
+We had discovered peculiarities in our horses. They had conscientious
+objections to going abreast, and always walked single file; this was
+owing to the narrowness of the mountain paths. Jo's horse, which somehow
+looked like Monkey Brand, insisted on taking the second place, and would
+by no means go third. At last we reached the top of Zlatibor--which gets
+its name from a peculiar golden cheese which it produces. The view is
+like that from the Cat and Fiddle in Derbyshire, only bigger in scale,
+and from thence the ride began to be interminable. It grew darker, we
+walked down the hills to ease our aching knees, and Jan decided that
+horse riding was no go.
+
+Finally the guide decided that it was too late to reach Novi Varosh that
+night, and so the direction was altered. The road grew stony and more
+stony. A bitter breeze came up with the evening. We came to a green
+valley, at the end of which was a rocky gorge, down which ran the
+twistiest stream: it seemed as though it had been designed by a lump of
+mercury on a wobbling plate. We turned from the gorge on to a hill so
+rocky that the path was only visible where former horse-hoofs had
+stained the stones with red earth.
+
+The village consisted of an enormous school, a little church, soldiers
+encamped round fires in the churchyard, and seven or eight wooden
+hovels. Our guide stopped at the door of the dirtiest and rapped. A
+furtive woman's face peered out into the gloom. We climbed painfully
+from our saddles, for we had been thirteen hours on the road.
+
+"Beds?" said the guide to the woman.
+
+"Good Lord!" thought we.
+
+She shook her head dolefully and said, "Ima," which means "there is."
+Serbians nod for no. The woman slid out into the night and passed to
+another building, climbed the stairs to a veranda and disappeared.
+
+It grew colder, the guide was busy unharnessing the horses, so shivering
+we sought refuge in the dirty house, which was not quite so bad within
+as we had feared. It was furnished with a long table and two benches
+only, and was lighted by a small fire which was burning on a huge open
+hearth, and which gave no heat at all. The woman came back and led us to
+the other house for supper, which was boiled eggs, and the guide
+generously shared his own bread with us, as we had none. There was no
+water to drink, and Jo tried, not very successfully, to quench her
+thirst with rakia.
+
+There were but two beds, and on inquiry finding that there was no place
+for the guide, we allotted one bed to him. On our own bed the sheets had
+evidently not been changed since it was first made, and the pillow which
+once had been white was a dark ironclad grey. We undid our mackintoshes
+and spread them over both counterpane and pillow. We lay down clothed as
+we were, and by the time we had finished our preparations the guide was
+already snoring.
+
+As soon as the light was turned out the whole room began to tick like
+ten agitated clocks, and all about us in the darkness began strange
+noises of life: rats scampered in all directions and were finally
+hurdling over our heads. We had taken some aspirin to ward off the
+stiffness of unaccustomed exercise, but we were sore, and the narrowness
+of the bed forced us to lie on our backs; exhaustion, however, conquered
+all discomforts, and we slept. Jo awoke in the night and yelped to find
+that the mackintosh had slipped and that her head was resting on the
+pillow.
+
+We were up again at 5.30, and Vladimir, the guide, suggested that we
+should breakfast at Novi Varosh, four hours on; but our stomachs were
+not of cast iron, and we clamoured for eggs. We got them, left
+Negbina--that was the name of the village--about seven, and once more
+adventured on the road.
+
+By eight we had passed the old Serbian frontier: the country was growing
+more interesting, like the foothills of the Tyrol; on the streams were
+inefficient-looking old wooden mills, the water rushing madly down a
+slope and hitting a futile little wheel which turned laboriously.
+
+Novi Varosh, with roofs of weathered wood gleaming purplish amongst the
+trees, was a wonderful little town, and quite unlike any other we had
+seen; clean without, and if the energy of its citizens at the village
+pump is a good sample, clean within also, for Serbia. Here are Turks
+too: ladies in veil and trousers, and trousered kiddies with clothes of
+orange, yellow and purple. Twice in the streets we were stopped by
+authority. Our lunch was well cooked, one can clearly see this has not
+been Serbia for long, for the Serbs are the worst eaters in the world.
+Jo gave medical advice to a Serb, and on once more.
+
+On the road were travellers never ending in their variety, and one
+father was mounted with a pack behind him, and on the top of the pack
+his little daughter clad in many coloured cottons, clasping him tight
+round the neck and peering inquisitively from behind his ear.
+
+About three p.m. we reached the Lim. The road climbs to a great height,
+and the peasants in their gay costumes were reaping, some of the fields
+so steep that we wondered how they stood upon them; on the opposite
+cliff was an old robber castle like a Rhine fortress.
+
+The Serbian town of Prepolji introduced itself by six Turks lying by
+the roadside, then there were three Turkish families, afterwards an
+assorted dozen of small girls in trousers, finally, an old man doddering
+along in a turban and a veiled beggar woman, who demanded backsheesh.
+"Where are the Serbs?" we thought.
+
+The Greek church looked as if it had been new built, so that the Serbs
+could claim Prepolji as a Christian town, and had a biscuit tin roof not
+yet rusted.
+
+Our hotel was like that where Mr. Pickwick first met Sam Weller, a large
+open court with a crazy wooden balcony at the second story, and the
+bedrooms opening on to the balcony. When we opened our knapsacks to get
+out washing materials, we found that the heat of the horse had melted
+all the chocolate in Jan's, and it had run over everything. It was a
+mess, but chocolate was precious, and every piece had to be rescued. We
+had only been ten hours in the saddle, but we descended stiffly, and
+were pounced on by a foolish looking man, with a head to which Jo took
+immediate offence. This fellow attached himself to us during the whole
+of our stay, and was an intolerable nuisance; we nicknamed him "glue
+pot," and only at our moment of departure discovered that he was the
+mayor who had been trying to do us honour.
+
+The next day was Sunday, and the village full of peasants. Stiff-legged
+and groaning a little within ourselves we walked about the town making
+observations: Turkish soldiers, Turkish policemen, Turkish recruits, but
+all the peasants Serb. The country costume is different from that of the
+north, the perpendicular stripe on the skirt has here given way to
+horizontal bands of colour, and some women wear a sort of exaggerated
+ham frill about the waist. The men's waistcoats were very ornate, and
+much embroidery was upon their coats.
+
+An English nurse came into the town in the afternoon. She, a Russian
+girl, and an English orderly had driven from Plevlie, en route to
+Uzhitze. Half-way along the wheel of their carriage had broken in
+pieces, so they finished the road on foot. Curiously enough we had
+travelled from England to Malta with this lady, Sister Rawlins, on the
+same transport. The Russian girl had been married only the day before to
+a Montenegrin officer, nephew of the Sirdar Voukotitch,
+Commander-in-Chief of the North, and she was flying back to Russia to
+collect her goods and furniture.
+
+Next day as we were sketching in the picturesque main street, from the
+distance came the sounds of a weird wailing, drawing slowly closer and
+closer.
+
+"Hurra," thought we--two minds with but a single, etc.,--"a
+funeral--magnificent. Just the thing to complete the scene."
+
+A string of donkeys came round the corner, on either flank each animal
+bore a case marked with a large red cross. Amongst the animals were
+donkey-boys, and it was from their lips came the dismal wailing. Never
+have we seen so ragged and wretched a crew. The boys were evidently the
+"unfits," and they looked it, every face showed the wan, pallid shadow
+of hunger and disease. A few old men in huge fur caps, with rifles on
+their backs, stumbled along, guarding the precious convoy. "Glue pot"
+led us all to a large empty building, once a Turkish merchant's store,
+where the cases were to be housed. The bullock carts with the heavier
+packages came in in the evening, and we sent the men five litres of plum
+brandy to put some warmth into their miserable bodies. This moved them
+once more to singing, but we think the songs sounded a little less
+dreary.
+
+The Commandant asked for, and got, half a dozen sheets from us as a sort
+of superior backsheesh, and promised us horses for the morrow.
+
+The next morning dawned dismally. Miss Rawlins and her companions were
+to go on by post cart, and their conveyance arrived first, only two and
+a half hours late. It was a sort of tinker's tent on four rickety
+wheels. There seemed to be barely room for one within the dark interior,
+but both Miss Rawlins and the little Russian climbed in somehow.
+Charlie, the orderly, clung on by his eyelids in front, and off they
+went. We last saw two faces peering back at us beneath the fringe of the
+tent. They had no luck. Half-way to Uzhitze the cart upset and they were
+all rolled into the ditch, missing a precipice of sixty feet or so by
+the merest fraction.
+
+Our own horses arrived later, we mounted, and with cheers from the
+assembled authorities, we rode off.
+
+The rain came down in a steady drizzle; we discovered that the
+waterproof cloaks which we had borrowed from Nish were not very
+weathertight. We climbed right up into the clouds, but still the rain
+held on. From the floating mist jutted great boulders and huge red
+cliffs. Our guide put up an umbrella and rode along crouching beneath
+it. At 1400 metres we reached an inn, where we lunched. A Montenegrin
+commissioner insisted on paying our bill, and said that we would do the
+same for him when he came to England. Every one in Serbia or Montenegro
+is interested in ages. They were astounded at ours. They said that Jo
+would have been seventeen if she were Serbian; and one rose, shook Jan
+warmly by the hand and said he must have "navigated" the marriage well.
+
+We rode over the frontier, but we were not yet in the real Montenegro.
+This is not the black mountain where the last dregs of old Serbian
+aristocracy defied the Turk, this is still the Sanjak, three years ago
+Turkish, and with pleasant pasturages spreading on either hand.
+
+At last we came up over Plevlie. To one corner we could see the town
+creeping in a crescent about the foot of a grey hill, far away on the
+other side was a little monastery, forlorn and white, like a shivering
+saint, and between a great valley with four purplish humps in the midst
+of the corn and maize fields, like great whales bursting through a
+patchwork quilt.
+
+Our horses were thoroughly cheered up, and we passed through the long
+streets of the town at a lively trot, a thing Jo was taught as a child
+to consider bad form.
+
+A semi-transparent little man in a black hat stood on the hotel steps
+beckoning to us. But we had no use for hotel touts, and waved our sticks
+saying, "Hospital." He seemed curiously disappointed.
+
+The hospital, many long low buildings, lay buried in a park of trees.
+The staff lived in a tiny house near by, where we were welcomed by the
+cook, Mrs. Roworth. She explained that as the house was hardly capable
+of holding its ten or twelve occupants, a room had been taken for us at
+the inn, but that we were to meal with them.
+
+"Not that you will like the food," she said, "for it's all tinned, and I
+have only twenty-five shillings a week to buy milk, bread, and fresh
+meat."
+
+We wondered why, in such a fertile country, a party of hard-working
+people should be condemned to eat tinned mackerel and vegetables brought
+all the way from England?
+
+However, the dinner was excellent--all "disguised," she said, for she
+had during the few weeks she had been there concentrated on the art of
+disguising bully beef and worse problems, and had sternly put Dr. Clemow
+on omelets and beefsteaks, as his digestion had caved in under six
+months' unadulterated tinned food.
+
+We met old friends, fellow travellers on the way out. In those days they
+were a wistful little party, wondering how they were going to reach
+Montenegro, the Adriatic being impossible. At last one of the passes was
+hurriedly improved for them by a thousand prisoners, and they rode
+through in the snow. Since then typhus had raged, two of their number
+had been very ill, and one had died. Their energy had been tremendous,
+and everywhere in the country they were spoken of as the wonderful
+English hospital, and even from Chainitza, where there was a Russian
+hospital, soldiers walked a long day's march in order to be treated by
+the English.
+
+Dr. Roger's rival was there, the perpetrator of ninety hernia operations
+a week--or was it more?
+
+All this on tinned food!
+
+Our hotel room proved large and comfortable with a talkative willing
+Turk in attendance. We slept immensely and were wakened by yet another
+horrible cock crowing. All Balkan cocks seem to have bronchitis.
+
+Plevlie is a red-tiled nucleus with a fringe of wood-roofed Serb houses
+planted round it. There are ten mosques, while the only Greek church
+stands forlorn on the other side of the great hollow two miles away.
+
+The town is not really Montenegrin. It has the cosmopolitan character of
+all the Sanjak, Turks, Austro-Turks and Serbs--a mixture like that at
+Marseilles or Port Said.
+
+The shops are Turkish, though their turbaned owners, sitting
+cross-legged on the floor-counters, can speak only Serb--a thing which
+puzzled us at the time.
+
+We saw veiled women and semi-veiled children everywhere, thickly
+latticed windows with curious eyes peeping through, and yards with high
+wooden palings above to prevent the possible young men on the houses
+opposite from catching a glimpse of the fair ladies in the gardens.
+
+Plenty of long-legged Montenegrin officers--with flat caps bearing the
+King's initials, and five rings representing the dynasties of the ruling
+house--filled the streets, and also the inevitable ragged soldiers with
+gorgeous bags on their backs.
+
+Some of the women, too, were wearing these caps, but theirs were yet
+smaller and tipped over their noses, like the pork pie hat of our
+grandmothers. One closely veiled woman showed the silhouette sticking up
+through her veil just like a blacking tin.
+
+The Mahommedan is much more fanatic in these parts than his more
+civilized brother of Salonika or Constantinople. Women of the two
+religions do not visit. The hatred is partially political, and Jo began
+to realize that her dream of visiting a harem would not be easy to
+achieve. We met three women walking down a lonely street. Although their
+faces were covered with several thicknesses of black chiffon, they
+modestly placed them against the wall and stood there, three shapeless
+bundles, until we were out of sight.
+
+Jan's feelings were very much hurt, but he soon got used to being
+treated like a dangerous dragon.
+
+When we reached our hotel again we found the elite of the town waiting
+in the bar-room for us. There was a huge jolly Greek priest, all big hat
+and velvet, the prefect, the schoolmaster, a linguist, and the little
+black-hatted man whom we had mistaken for a hotel tout.
+
+The priest was president of the Montenegrin Red Cross, the prefect was a
+former Prime Minister and a Voukotitch. All important men who are not
+Petroviches are Voukotitches; the first being members of the king's and
+the second of the queen's family.
+
+The little black-hatted man was secretary of the Red Cross, and was
+formally attached to us while there as cicerone. He explained to us that
+they had all been in the hotel expecting us the night before, with a
+beautiful dinner which had been prepared in our honour.
+
+We apologized and inwardly noted the grateful temperament of the
+Montenegrin. We were solemnly treated to coffee and brandy, and the
+jolly priest emptied his cigarette box into Jo's lap. When the first
+polite ceremoniousness had worn off we asked delicately about the front.
+
+"Did we wish to see the front?"
+
+Certainly, said the prefect, we should have the first horses that should
+come back to the town, and the little transparent shadow man should
+accompany us. And our letter to the Sirdar Voukotitch, commander in
+chief of the north?--He should be told about it on his return that
+evening from the front.
+
+At sunset the muezzin sounded, cracked voices cried unmelodiously from
+all the minaret tops. Immediately, as if it were their signal, all the
+crows arose from the town, hovered around in batches for a moment,
+chattering, and flew away up the hill to roost in the trees round the
+hospital till sunrise.
+
+Salonika rings with children's cries, Dawson city with the howlings of
+dogs, but the towns of the Sanjak have no better music than the croaking
+of carrion crows.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MONTENEGRIN FRONT ON THE DRINA
+
+
+When Jan awoke it was dark, and he was with difficulty rousing Jo when
+suddenly a voice howled through the keyhole that the horses were
+waiting. Jan grabbed his watch--5 a.m.; but the horses had been ordered
+for six. Hastily chewing dry biscuit, Jan jumped into his clothes and
+ran down. There was a small squat youth with a flabby Mongolian face
+hovering between the yard door and the inn, and Jan following him
+discovered three horses saddled and waiting. He hastily ordered white
+coffee to be prepared, and ran up again to hurry Jo and to pack. He
+rushed down again to pay the bill, but found that the Montenegrin Red
+Cross had charged itself with everything, very generously, so he ran up
+once more to nag at Jo. The secretary, whom we called "the shadow," had
+not appeared, so we inquired from the squint-eyed youth, received many
+"Bogamis" as answer, but nothing definite; so we decided, as it was now
+past six, that he had changed his mind and had sent this chinee-looking
+fellow, whom we named "Bogami," in his place.
+
+Jan's horse was like an early "John" drawing of a slender but antiquated
+siren, all beautiful curves. Jo's would in England long ago have taken
+the boat to Antwerp; her saddle stood up in a huge hump behind and had a
+steeple in front, and was covered by what looked like an old bearskin
+hearthrug in a temper, one stirrup like a fire shovel was yards too
+long, the other far too short, and were set well at the back.
+
+"What queer horses!" we remarked.
+
+"Bogami," said Bogami; "when there are no horses these are good horses,
+Bogami."
+
+"Where is the secretary?"
+
+"Bogami nesnam" (don't know).
+
+From Uzhitze we had good horses, from Prepolji moderate, now these;
+imagination staggered at what we should descend to if we did a fourth
+lap to Cettinje, for instance, but we climbed up. Jo with her queerly
+placed stirrups perched forward something like a racing cyclist.
+Bogami's horse was innocent of garniture, save for a piece of chain
+bound about its lower jaw, but he slung his great coat over the saw edge
+of its backbone and leapt on. He must have had a coccyx of cast iron. We
+had to kick the animals into a walk--there were fifty kilometres to go.
+
+After a while we began to wonder if it would not be quicker to get off
+and foot it, but we did catch up and eventually pass a Red Cross Turk.
+We saw a soldier striding ahead. By kicks and shouts we raised a sprint
+along the level road; we drew even with him, and then began a race; on
+the uphills we beat him, on the downhills he caught up and passed in
+front. He was a taciturn fellow, and save that he was going to Fochar we
+learnt nothing about him. On a long uphill we gained a hundred yards,
+and by supreme efforts held our gains. He eventually disappeared from
+view, and we were rejoicing at our speed when we realized that the
+telegraph wires were no longer with us--one can always find the nearest
+way by following the telegraph, for governments do not waste wire. Jan
+looked for them and found them streaming away to the left, and among
+them, well up on the horizon, our enemy the soldier.
+
+"Look," we cried to Bogami, "isn't that the shortest way? The wires go
+there."
+
+"Bogami," he replied; "wires can, horses can't, bogami."
+
+There is a fine military road to Chainitza, made by the Austrians, but
+it remains a white necklace on the hills, almost an ornament to the
+landscape. No one seemed to use it, while our old Turkish road which
+snaked and twisted up and down was pitted with the hoofs of countless
+horses. It is a stony path, and our animals were shod with flat plates
+instead of horseshoes; they slipped and slithered, and we wondered if in
+youth they had ever had lessons in skating.
+
+There was a heavy mist, but it began to break up, and through peepholes
+one caught fleeting glimpses of distant patterning of field and forest,
+and hints of great hills. The sun showed like a great pale moon on the
+horizon. There were other travellers on the old Turkish trail, horsemen,
+Bosnians in great dark claret-coloured turbans, or Montenegrins in their
+flat khaki caps, peasants in dirty white cotton pyjamas, thumping before
+them animals with pack-swollen sides, soldiers only recognizable from
+the peasants by the rifle on their backs, and Turks; most were jolly
+fellows, and hailed us cheerfully.
+
+From a house by the roadside burst a sheep, followed by five men. They
+chased the animal down the road whistling to it. We had never heard that
+whistling was effectual with sheep, and certainly it did not succeed
+very well in this instance.
+
+Somewhere beyond this house Jan's inside began to cry for food, two
+biscuits and a cup of _cafe au lait_ being little upon which to found a
+long day's riding. He tentatively tried a "compressed luncheon." Its
+action was satisfactory, but whether it resulted from real nourishment
+contained in the black-looking glue, or whether it came from a sticking
+together of the coating of the stomach, we have not yet decided. Jo
+preferred rather to endure the hunger.
+
+Bogami had quite a charm; for instance, he appreciated our troubles with
+the beasts we were riding. Jo's horse stumbled a good deal on the
+downhills; her saddle was very uncomfortable and so narrow that she
+could never change her position. We came into most magnificent scenery,
+the beauty of which made a deep impression even upon our empty selves.
+There were deep green valleys, rising to peaks and hills which faded
+away ridge behind ridge of blue into the distant Serbian mountains,
+great pine woods of delicate drooping trees which came down and folded
+in on every side, and though it was almost September there were
+strawberries still ripe at the edge of the road, little red luscious
+blobs amidst the green.
+
+Metalka at one o'clock, and we were on the real Montenegrin frontier.
+There are two Metalkas, a Montenegrin and an Austrian, and they are
+divided one from the other by a strip of land some ten yards across
+which rips the village in two like the track of a little cyclone. Bogami
+directed us to a shanty labelled "Hotel of Europe." A large woman was
+blocking the door; we demanded food, she took no notice. Hunger was
+clamouring within us. We demanded a second time. She waved her hand
+majestically to her rival in Austria, at whose tables Montenegrin
+officers were sitting with coffee.
+
+An officer greeted us.
+
+"We had expected you yesterday," he said.
+
+We waved to the horses.
+
+"No horses."
+
+"That is a pity," he murmured. "You see, there was something to eat
+yesterday!"
+
+In spite of his pessimism we got eggs and wine. Bogami had a large
+crowd, to whom he lectured, and we sent him out some eggs.
+
+After lunch we pushed on, in conquered territory. To Chainitza they said
+was one hour and a half, it proved nearer three.
+
+We joined some peasants, and they told us that they were going to the
+great festival. The old mother halted at a sort of sheep pen by the
+roadside; when she rejoined us she was wiping her eyes.
+
+"That was my brother," she explained; "he was killed in the war;" for it
+is the custom to erect memorial stones by the roadside. Many of these
+are very quaint, sometimes painted with a soldier, or else with the
+rifle, sword, pistols and medals of the deceased.
+
+Chainitza lies in a backwater, where the deep valley makes a sudden
+bend. When we came to it the sun was in our eyes, and halfway between
+the crest and the river the town seemed to float in a bluish mist; two
+white mosques stood out against the trees, and the roof of one was not
+one dome, but many like an inverted egg frier, or almost as though it
+was boiling over.
+
+We were stopped at the entry by a sentry.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To the Russian Hospital."
+
+He took us in charge and led us, in spite of protestations, to the
+hotel. A man in a shabby frock-coat received us, and Jo, mistaking him
+for the innkeeper, clamoured once more for the Russians. The shabby man
+explained that he was the Prefect, and that this was a State reception.
+We began to be awed by our own dignity. We explained to him that the
+Shadow had changed his mind and had sent Bogami instead.
+
+Bogami brought our knapsacks to our room, where he was immobilized by
+the sight of himself in the looking-glass of the wardrobe; probably he
+had never seen such a thing before, and he goggled at it. He at last
+backed slowly from the room.
+
+We rested a while, then descended to find--the Shadow.
+
+He was rather hurt with us, and wanted to know why the ---- we had gone
+off without him. We explained, compared watches, and found that Jan's
+was an hour too fast. The poor Shadow had been chasing us on a borrowed
+horse, with our permissions to travel in his pocket, and wildly hoping
+that he would catch us up before we were arrested as spies.
+
+We had tea with the Russians in a little arbour on the roadside, and
+chewed sweets which had just arrived from Petrograd, having been three
+months on the journey, but none the worse for that. Many officers came,
+amongst them the husband of the little Russian girl we had met at
+Prepolji. They all seemed to be Voukotitches, and at last the Sirdar
+himself honoured us. He is a huge man, and yet seemed to take up more
+room than his size warrants. He has a flat, almost plate-like face, with
+pallid blue eyes which seemed to focus some way beyond the object of his
+regard. Were his moustache larger he would be rather like Lord
+Kitchener, and he was very pleased at the obvious compliment. He poses a
+little, moves seldom but suddenly, and shoots his remarks as though
+words of command. He was very kind to us, and was immensely astonished
+at Jo's Serbian, holding up his hands and saying "Kako" at every one of
+her speeches. He suggested that poor Bogami should be beaten, but we
+begged him off. Captain Voukotitch, the husband of a day, was appointed
+to be our guide for the morrow--because Jo spoke Serbian.
+
+After tea we went up to the bubbly mosque, which was in reality the
+Greek church. We entered a large gate; on the one side of a yard was the
+church, and on the other a big two-storied rest-house, where one could
+lodge while paying devotions or doing pilgrimages. Its long balconies
+were filled with country folk all come for the festival, and who were
+feasting and laughing as though the war did not exist. The courtyard was
+filled with men and women in Bosnian costumes, white and dark red
+embroideries. Through the open door of the church one could see the
+silhouettes of the peasants bowing before the Ikons and relics. It was
+almost dark, and one man began to play a little haunting melody upon a
+wooden pipe, but though they linked arms and shuffled their feet, the
+young men did not dance.
+
+At supper the Shadow revealed a quaint sense of humour, and so to bed.
+
+The next morning was lovely, and we started at seven with the youngest
+Voukotitch and the others. Some officers had lent us their horses, and
+Voukotitch had proudly produced his English saddle for Jo. On the road
+the spirit of mischief entered him.
+
+"You can ride all right," he said; "wouldn't you like to go to the
+nearest machine-gun to the Austrian lines?"
+
+"Rather," said Jo.
+
+"You'll have to do some stiff riding, though. I know the major, and he
+is bored to death. He'll let us."
+
+"But what about the bullets?" said the Shadow.
+
+In time the major was produced, emerging from a cottage by the roadside,
+other officers with him, and we had a merry coffee party in an arbour.
+One told Jo that he was a lawyer. The few Montenegrins who had the
+misfortune to be educated were not allowed to serve at the front, but he
+had been lucky enough through influence to be allowed to take a
+commission. He had not seen much serious fighting, however, as no move
+had been made for several months.
+
+Then we tackled the hills. "Come along," said the major, cheerfully; and
+his horse's nose went down and its tail went up, and off it slid
+downhill. We had seen the Italian officers do such things on the
+cinematograph, but little thought that we should be in the same
+position. We supposed it would be all right. Jo's horse became nearly
+vertical, and she sat back against its tail. Jan followed. Sometimes a
+sheet of rock was across the path--then we slid; sometimes the sand
+became very soft--we slid again. Then a muddy bit, and the horse
+squelched down on his hind quarters.
+
+Here we met a Serbian captain who was in charge of the battery. He was
+very lonely, and delighted to have a chance to talk, and he talked hard
+all day, showed us a neat reservoir his men had built, explained to us
+that beautiful uniforms were coming from Russia soon for the weirdly
+garbed beings who were guarding the hills, and asked us to lunch behind
+the trenches under a canopy of boughs.
+
+While lunch was being prepared he took us round his artillery, and into
+his observation station on the top of a crooked tree. Below us we could
+see the river Dreina--on the other side of which was Gorazhda, held by
+the Austrians--and the fortified hills behind.
+
+It seemed impossible that this wide peaceful scene was menacing with a
+threat of death, yet at intervals one could hear a faint "pop! pop!" as
+though far-away giants were holding feast and opening great champagne
+bottles. Away in the hills could be seen an encampment of white tents,
+which caused a mild excitement, for they had not been there the day
+before, and we were told that they were quite out of range.
+
+During lunch the youngest Voukotitch tempted the major--who was in
+splendid mood--suggesting that it was rather tame to go home after
+having come within mere bowing distance of the Austrians, and that a few
+stray bullets would not incommode us.
+
+The major saw reason fairly quickly, so we bestrode our horses again and
+continued our switchback course. At an open space where the Austrians
+could shoot at us if they wished we had to plunge down the hill quickly,
+keeping a distance of one hundred yards from each other.
+
+The little Shadow prudently got off his horse and used its body as a
+shield.
+
+We banged at the door of a cottage, and a young lieutenant came out;
+somebody said he was nineteen and a hero.
+
+[Illustration: SERB AND MONTENEGRIN OFFICERS ON THE DRINA.]
+
+
+[Illustration: A CONCEALED GUN EMPLACEMENT ON THE DRINA.]
+
+Here we left our horses and began to scramble through brambles along a
+narrow path, climbing up the back of a little hill on the crest of which
+were the machine guns. Just before we got to the top we plunged into a
+tunnel which bored through the hill; at the end was the gun. The hero
+scrambled in, wriggled the gun about and explained. He invited Jo to
+shoot. She squashed past him; there was a knob at the back of the gun
+on which she pressed her thumbs, and she immediately wanted another pair
+with which to stop her ears. The gun jammed suddenly. The hero pulled
+the belt about, and Jo set it going once more.
+
+The Austrian machine guns answered back and kept this up, so Jo pressed
+the knob again and yet again. Then we got into the trenches above.
+Whenever Jo popped her head over the trenches for a good look there were
+faint reports from the mountain opposite. One or two bullets whizzed
+over our heads, and we realized that they were aiming at Jo's big white
+hat.
+
+Jan climbed down the hill and took snap-shots of Gorazhda; the enemy got
+a couple of pretty near shots at him.
+
+When the Montenegrins thought this sport was becoming monotonous they
+remembered the business of the day. A big house in Gorazhda was said to
+be full of Hungarian officers, and they wanted to get the range of this
+with one of the big guns. This decision had been made a day or two
+before with much deliberation. This they thought the State could afford.
+The precious shell was brought out, and every one fondled it.
+
+Men were called out and huge preparations were made for sighting and
+taking aim. We scuttled round with field glasses, and finally stood on
+tiptoe behind branches on a mound by the side of the gun. There were
+many soldiers fussing in the dug-out, and at last they pulled the
+string.
+
+"Goodness! Now we've done it," Jo thought, as the mountains sent back
+the fearful report in decreasing echoes. We seemed to wait an eternity,
+and then "something white" happened far beyond the village.
+
+The officers looked at each other with long faces. "A bad miss--the
+expense."
+
+We felt the resources of the Montenegrin Empire were tottering. Awful!
+Could they afford another?
+
+Finally, with great courage, they decided that it was better to spend
+two shells on getting a decent aim than to lose one for nothing. The
+terrific bang went off again, and this time the "something white"
+happened right on the roof of the house. The Hungarian officers all ran
+out, and the machine guns below jabbered at them. Nobody was killed as
+far as we know, but every one was content and delighted.
+
+Sunset was approaching, and we rode away quickly, only stopping once to
+drag a reluctant old Turk from the mountain side and make him sing to
+the accompaniment of a one-stringed goosla. He hated to do it as all
+his best songs were about triumphant Mahommedans crushing Serbs, and of
+course he couldn't sing those.
+
+He sat grumpily cross-legged on the ground, encircled by our horses,
+droning a song of two notes, touching the string quickly with the flat
+lower part of his fingers.
+
+We left him very suddenly because the darkness comes quickly in those
+hills, so we made for the high-road as hard as we could.
+
+We rode fast to the Colonel's cottage, sat down to the dinner table,
+which was decked with pale blue napkins, and a fine-looking old
+Voukotitch, an ex-M.P. in national costume, acted as butler. In spite of
+his seventy odd years he had joined the army as a common soldier. He
+refused all invitations to sit with us, for he knew his place. The young
+husband was his nephew, and they kissed fondly on leave-taking.
+
+We rode back in the moonlight. At one spot on the road was a sawmill,
+and the huge white pine logs lying all about looked like the fallen
+columns of some ruined Athenian temple. We tried to enjoy the moment,
+and to brush aside the awful thought that we must remount Rosinante and
+Co. next day.
+
+The Shadow was terribly puffed up about his feat. The following morning
+as we were sketching in the town, an officer approached respectfully.
+
+"His excellency the Sirdar invites you to supper," he said.
+
+We considered a moment, for we had intended to return to Plevlie. The
+Shadow broke in.
+
+"It is inconvenient to come to supper," he said to our horror. "Tell his
+excellency that the gentleman and lady will come to lunch if he wishes
+it."
+
+The Sirdar meekly sent answer that lunch would suit him very well, and
+we could drive back with him to Plevlie. "Would we come to his house at
+12.30?"
+
+The Prefect told us that we ought to go to the lunch at twelve, because
+the Sirdar's clock was always half an hour fast. We arrived, but the
+Sirdar evidently had been considering us, he did not appear for the half
+an hour, so we sat with his staff sipping rakia by the roadside.
+
+The lunch was excellent, but the Sirdar's carriage, like every other
+carriage in Montenegro, was a weird, ancient, rusty arabesquish affair,
+tied together with wire. We had two resplendent staff officers, armed to
+the teeth, who galloped ahead, we had two superior non-coms., also armed
+to the dentals, galloping behind, while on the box sat a man with gun,
+pistols, sword, dagger and a bottle of wine and water which we passed
+round whenever the Sirdar became hoarse. The coachman was as old and as
+shabby as his carriage, and every five miles or so was forced to descend
+and tie up yet another mishap with wire--ordinary folks' carriages are
+only repaired with string.
+
+The Sirdar occupied almost the whole of the back seat, and Jo was
+squeezed into the crack which was left. Jan was perched on a sort of
+ledge, facing them. The carriage was narrow, six legs were two too many
+for the space. Jan's were the superfluous ones. He tried this pose, he
+tried that, but in spite of his contortions he endured much of the seven
+hours' journey in acute discomfort and the latter part in torture.
+
+In spite of his throat the Sirdar did nearly all the talking. The
+country we were passing through were scenes of his battles: with one arm
+he threw a company over this hill, with a hand, nearly hitting Jan in
+the eye, he marched an army corps along that valley; he explained how he
+had been forced to give up the Ministry of War because there was no
+other efficient commander for the north.
+
+A blue ridge of pine trees appeared on our right hand.
+
+"You see those hills," said the Sirdar: "I'll tell you the story of a
+reply of mine, a funny reply. I ordered a general last winter to march
+across those hills. He said that the troops would starve. I looked him
+in the eye. Then you will eat wolves, I shouted. He went."
+
+If we passed peasants he stopped them. He seemed to have an
+extraordinary memory for names and faces.
+
+"Never forget a face," he said, "never forget its name. That is the
+secret of popularity."
+
+He was very anxious that we should go to Cettinje and to Scutari. He
+kindly promised to see about it, to arrange for our horses and to have
+our passage telegraphed before us. At Podgoritza he said a government
+motor-car should wait for us. He advised us to make a detour from the
+straight road and to see the famous black lake of Jabliak and the
+Dormitor mountains. We thanked him gratefully. He waved our thanks
+aside.
+
+"And I will write to my friend the Minister of War. He will arrange that
+you go to Scutari." He then explained all the reasons why Montenegro
+should hold Scutari when the war was over.
+
+"It was ours," he said; "we only gave it up to Venice so that she should
+protect us from the Turk. If we do not hold Scutari, Montenegro can
+never become a state, so if we cannot keep her we might as well give up
+Cettinje. After all we are but taking back what was once ours."
+
+He was daily expecting the uniforms from Russia, and asked every soldier
+on the road for news. At last one said that he had seen them.
+
+"The stuff is rather thin, your excellency, but the boots are splendid."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+NORTHERN MONTENEGRO
+
+
+We were accosted by a clean-limbed, joyous youth, who bore on his cap
+the outstretched winged badge of the police. He said--
+
+"Mister Sirdar, he tell me take you alon' o' Nickshitch."
+
+Sure enough the next morning there he was, with three horses, which if
+not the identical animals of our Chainitza trip were sisters or brothers
+to them. It was a wretched day, gusty, and the rain sweeping round the
+corners of the old streets. Early as was the hour, the wretched
+prisoners were peering through the lattice windows of their prison,
+which evidently once had been the harem of some wealthy Turk; where
+beauties had once lain on voluptuous couches, wretched criminals now
+crouched half-starved, racked with disease, and as we passed held out
+skinny arms. All Montenegrin saddles are bound on with string, even
+those of the highest in the land; indeed, one cannot imagine how the
+people did before string was invented, and ours began to slip before we
+were well clear of the town. Necessary adjustments were made, and on
+once more.
+
+Our guide was well armed--he carried two murderous-looking pistols, and
+a long rifle slung over his back. He was in high spirits and showed us
+that the proper way to ride Montenegrin horses was to drop the reins on
+to the animal's neck, kick it in the stomach with both feet, elevating
+your arms and uttering the most unearthly yells. Thus terrified, the
+unfortunate wreck would canter a few yards, and our cicerone would turn
+in his saddle and grin back at us, who were humanely contented with the
+solemn jog-trot of our aged steeds along the well-worn horse-track--for
+there was no road.
+
+We crawled along, wretched in the downpour, the scenery completely
+hidden by the clouds; but towards midday, as we climbed ever higher and
+higher, we plunged into pine forests where the rain began to thin to
+mist, veiling the trees with layers of drifting fog. Out of the forests
+we came--the rain having ceased--into a strange-looking landscape, whose
+japanesiness is equalled possibly only by Japan itself. There were the
+queer rounded hills, the gnarled and twisted little pines and dim
+fir-clad slopes cutting the sky with sharp grey silhouettes.
+
+Here we stopped to eat. We opened a tin of meat and made rough
+sandwiches with the coarse brown or black bread which is the staple food
+of Serbian nations. When we were satisfied there was meat left in the
+tin. Two wretched, ragged children came on the road singing some
+half-Eastern chant, and we hailed them. They refused the food with
+dignity, and marched on offended.
+
+We came to the Grand Canyon of Colorado--we beg its pardon--of
+Montenegro, The Tara. Great cliffs towered high on either side, great
+grey, rugged cliffs topped with pine and scrub oak. Down, down, down to
+the river, an hour, and we crossed the bridge out of Novi Bazar into
+Montenegro--thirty years free from the Turk. We halted at a little
+coffee stall made of boughs. Jan wanted to get a photo, but the women
+were so shy that Jo had to push them out into the open.
+
+On the way up the other cliff our guide became communicative. He had
+been in America, in the mining camps, and spoke fair American.
+
+"In ole days, dese was de borders," he said; "'ere de Serb, 'n dere de
+Turk. Natchurally dey 'ate each oder. Dey waz two fellers 'ad fair cold
+feet, one 'ere, one over dere, Turk 'n our chapy. Every day dey come
+down to de ribber 'n dey plug't de odder chap wid dere ole pistols what
+filled at de nose. But dey neber hit nuttin. One day de Serb 'e got mad
+and avade in de ribber, but 'e did'n 'it de Turk. Nex' day dey hot'
+avade in 'arf way across. Dey miss again. De tird day dey avades in rite
+ter de middle, 'n each shoots up de odder dead. Yessir, 'n dere bodies
+float down ter 'ere."
+
+He looked up and pointed.
+
+"Dey was a gooman up dere," he said.
+
+"A gooman?"
+
+"Yes, a man wat 'ad a gooman all to 'isself."
+
+"!!!!"
+
+"Dey was an ole town all made o' stones," our guide explained, "where
+dis man made 'is gooman. You know wat a gooman is?--kill all de fellers
+what pass 'n do wat you likes."
+
+We understood suddenly that "Government" was indicated.
+
+"Dat's wat I say," he answered, "gooman--'e was killed by a Montenegrin
+chap wat throwed 'im orf de cliffs, 'n a Turk gets all 'is land. Dat's
+'ow dey was done dose days. Dere ain't much 'o de ole town lef now."
+
+"We 'ad to chase de Turk outer 'ere," he went on; "lots 'o fighting, but
+we 'ad luck. You see, dey 'ad two lines, 'an we got de first line before
+'e was ready, 'n wiped 'im out, so de secon' line did'n know if it was
+'im retreatin' or us advancin', and we was into 'em before dey 'ad made
+up dere minds. Yessir."
+
+The ascent was terribly laborious. Our animals were sweating, though
+they were carrying nothing but the knapsacks.
+
+"Ye see dat flat stone?" said the guide. "Dat's were de gooman feller
+'ide 'is gold. Dey was tree Italians chaps 'ere 'n dey turn ober dat
+stone ter roll it downill. 'N underneat was all dat feller's gold. Dat
+madum larf, I tell yer."
+
+We climbed higher and yet higher; we thought we would never reach the
+crest. The sweat poured from us, and we were drenched.
+
+On the top there were but few stones of the old castle, and we rode over
+the ruins. We passed into a queer pallid country, pale grey houses, pale
+yellow or pale green fields, grey sky and stones, a violently rolling
+plain where our guide lost his way, and we became increasingly aware of
+the discomfort of our saddles, and prayed for the journey to end.
+
+We refound the route, and asked a peasant, "How far to Jabliak?"
+
+"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
+
+We cheered.
+
+At the end of twenty minutes we asked once more.
+
+"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
+
+At the end of twenty minutes more we asked again, our spirits were
+falling.
+
+"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
+
+"* * *!"
+
+We then asked a peasant and his wife. The woman considered for a moment.
+
+"About an hour," she said.
+
+Her husband turned and swore at her.
+
+"Bogami, don't believe her, gentlemen," he cried, "it's only a quarter
+of an hour."
+
+We left them quarrelling.
+
+It grew dark, and we grew miserable. Jabliak seemed like a dream, and we
+like poor wandering Jews, cursed ever to roam on detestable saddles in
+this queer pallid country.
+
+At last a peasant said it was five minutes off, and then it really was a
+quarter of an hour distant.
+
+We came down from the hills to find the whole aristocracy--one
+captain--not to say all their populace, out on the green to do us
+honour. They had been informed by telegraph of our august decision to
+sleep in their wooden village. When we got off our horses our knees were
+so cramped that we could scarcely stand, and we hobbled after the
+captain into a bitterly cold room without furniture. Various
+Montenegrins came and looked at us, and an old veterinary surgeon, also
+_en route_, but in the opposite direction, conversed in bad German. The
+old vet. was a Roumanian, and the only animal doctor in all Montenegro.
+
+To their great surprise we demanded something to eat.
+
+"Supper is at nine," they said severely.
+
+"But we have had nothing since ten this morning," we protested.
+
+"But supper will be ready at nine," they said again.
+
+After a lot of trouble we got some scrambled eggs, but nothing would
+persuade our guide, whose name, by the way, was "Mike," to have
+anything. It almost seemed improper to eat at the wrong hours, even if
+one was hungry.
+
+After supper we sat growing colder and colder. At last, in desperation,
+we asked if there were no place in the village which had a fire.
+
+"Oh yes, there is a fire in the other cafe," and thither we were
+conducted.
+
+We were in a jolly wooden room, with a blazing stove and a most welcome
+fugginess. The hostess brought us rakia, coffee and walnuts, and did her
+utmost to make us comfortable. Montenegrins crowded in, and discussed
+the probable end of the war. There was little enthusiasm shown, most of
+the talk was of the hardships, and a little grumbling that the farms
+were going to pieces because of the lack of men.
+
+Before leaving Plevlie, Dr. Clemow had presented Jan with a box of Red
+Cross cigars, and he handed one to the captain. The official received it
+gratefully.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "Cigars, eh! One does not often see those nowadays."
+
+The cigar was a Trichinopoli. Jan said nothing, but watched. The captain
+lit the cigar manfully, and for some minutes puffed, looking the
+apotheosis of aristocracy. Presently his puffing ceased, he looked
+thoughtful, and then saying that he had forgotten an important paper
+which he had not signed, he fled. We found the cigars most useful
+afterwards, as a sort of spiritual disinfector, infallible against
+bores.
+
+Into the cracks of the ceiling were stuck white and yellow flowers,
+thyme and other plants, till the roof looked like an inverted
+flower-bed. We had noticed this custom before, and asked Mike if it had
+any significance.
+
+"Oh yes," he answered, "all dose tings, dey stuck up dere 'gainst de
+fleas 'n bugs."
+
+This was translated into Serbian, and the woman boxed his ears.
+
+We supped on meat--three courses--meat, meat, meat, and so tough that
+our teeth bounced off, and we were compelled to bolt the morsels whole.
+One course tired us out, weary as we already were with our journey, but
+Mike, making up for his former abstinence, wolfed all his own share and
+what remained over from ours.
+
+The night was so cold that we went to bed in our clothes, and even then
+could not sleep for hours.
+
+We woke with difficulty to a glorious day, and found that what we had
+thought yesterday to be a plain was in truth a great plateau surrounded
+by towering grey mountains on which were gulfs and gullies filled with
+eternal snow. Jabliak is a queer village, fifty or sixty weathered
+wooden houses--with the high-peaked roof of Northern Serbia--flung down
+into this wilderness, where the grass and crops fight for existence with
+the pushing stones, and where the summer is so short that the captain's
+plum tree--the only one--will not ripen save in exceptional years. Never
+a wheel comes to Jabliak, and so it is a village without streets.
+Everything which passes here is horse-or woman-borne, and for hay they
+use long narrow sledges which slide over the stones and slippery grass
+as though it were snow.
+
+"Urrgh," said a man, "you should see this in winter. Snow ten and twelve
+feet deep, and only just the roofs and the tops of the telegraph-poles
+emerging."
+
+The village escorted us to see the famous Black Lake below the peaks of
+Dormitor.
+
+The lake is beautiful enough, but too big for mystery, too small to be
+impressive. One had imagined it twinkling like the wicked pupil of a
+witch's eye, with cornea of white stones and eye-lashes of pine trees,
+and we desecrated even its stillness by shooting at wild duck with a
+rifle.
+
+Jan had been describing to the villagers how well Jo rode; they now
+think he is a liar. Her horse took an unexpected jump at a small
+obstacle; the huge hump at the back of the saddle rose suddenly, threw
+her forward, and before she had realized anything, she was hanging
+almost upside down about the horse's neck, helpless because of the
+enormous steeple in front. This horse, as though quite used to similar
+occurrences, stood quietly contemplative, till Mike had restored her to
+a perpendicular.
+
+Then on again. At times the tracks grew very muddy, and the horses
+side-slipped a good deal. At the top of a pass we halted to get coffee
+from a leafy hut. Before us were the mountains of Voynik, a blue ridge
+with shadowy, strange crevasses and cliffs; behind us Dormitor was still
+visible, a faint stain on the sky, as though that great canopy had been
+dragging edges in the dew.
+
+Four women clambered up towards us. When they had reached the top they
+flung down their enormous knapsacks and sat down. They were a cheery,
+pretty set, and we asked them where they were going.
+
+"To the front," they said.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Those are for our husbands and brothers," answered they, patting the
+huge coloured knapsacks.
+
+"How far have you to walk?" we asked.
+
+"Four more days."
+
+"And how far have you walked?"
+
+"Four days."
+
+No complaining, no repining, just a statement of fact, these women were
+cheerfully tramping eight days with bundles weighing from 45 to 50
+pounds upon their backs, to take a few luxuries, or necessities, to
+their fighting kin.
+
+We bade them a jolly farewell, wished them luck, and started downhill.
+
+The track became so steep that we had to descend from our horses and
+walk, and so we came to Shavnik.
+
+Shavnik is not of wood; it is stone, and as we came into its little
+square--with the white river-bed on one side--we realized that no
+welcome attended us. To our indignant dismay the inn was full, and no
+telegram from the "State" had arrived.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANT WOMEN OF THE MOUNTAINS.]
+
+[Illustration: A VILLAGE OF NORTH MONTENEGRO.]
+
+We learned that in Montenegro are two kinds of travellers--royalties
+and nobodies. Royalties are done for, nobodies do the best they can. We
+found a not overclean room over a shop--there was nothing better--we had
+already experienced worse: so we ordered supper, and went off to the
+telegraph station, to make sure that we arrived as "Royalty" at the next
+stop.
+
+A man suddenly burst into the office, crying, "Sirdar! Sirdar!"
+
+Jo and Jan made their way through the darkness to the inn, squeezed
+between sweating horses to the door. We were admitted.
+
+The Sirdar received us kindly, but was dreadfully tired, and looked
+years older than he had two days before. He had ridden some 150
+kilometres in sixteen hours, had left Chainitza at two o'clock in the
+morning, and had been in the saddle ever since. He is a famous horseman,
+but is no longer young. Almost all his escort had succumbed to the
+speed, and he was full of the story of his orderly's horse which had
+done 300 kilometres in four days, and was the only animal which had come
+through with him, he having changed mounts at Plevlie. We left him and
+went straight to bed.
+
+Just as we were comfortably dozing off, a man burst into the room and
+demanded "Mike," and said something about a horse. Jan dressed hurriedly
+and clattered downstairs. It was pitch dark. He ran to the stable, felt
+his way in, and struck a match. There were two horses, one was lying on
+its side, evidently foundered and dying but Jan felt that they would not
+have disturbed him for that. By matchlight again he found that his own
+horses had been turned out by the Sirdar's orderly, and that one was
+missing. Mike was not to be found, but the missing horse was discovered
+by a small boy in the dry river-bed apparently in search of water. Jan
+retired to his bedroom to find that in his absence two more strangers
+had burst in, to Jo's indignation. He pushed them out and locked the
+door.
+
+When we awoke the Sirdar had already retaken his whirlwind
+course--evidently grave news called him to Cettinje--leaving the
+orderly's gallant horse dead behind him.
+
+"He kills many horses," said a peasant, shaking his head; "he rides
+fast--always."
+
+We crossed the dry bed of the river and prepared for the hill in front
+of us. Suddenly Mike's horse plunged into a bog. The poor beast sprawled
+in the treacherous green up to its stomach, and, thinking its last hour
+had come, groaned loudly. Mike threw himself from the saddle, and with
+great effort at last extracted his horse, which emerged trembling and
+dripping with slime. Mike grinned ruefully.
+
+"I orter remembered," he admitted. "Sirdar, 'e get in dere one day
+'imself."
+
+This day's riding was the worst we had yet experienced. Our horses were
+fagged, the road abominable, great stones everywhere on the degenerated
+Turkish roads.
+
+The Turkish road is a narrowish path of flat paving-stones laid directly
+upon mother earth: but that is the first stage. In the second stage the
+paving-stones have begun to turn and lie like slates on a roof; in the
+third they have turned completely on edge, like a row of dominoes, and
+the horses, stepping delicately between the obstacles, pound the exposed
+earth to deep trenches of semi-liquid mud. In the fourth stage the
+stones have entirely disappeared, leaving only the trenches which the
+horses have formed, so that the path is like a sheet of violently
+corrugated iron. Most of the tracks are now between the third and fourth
+stages of degeneration. One never knows how far the horse will plunge
+his legs into the trenches, for sometimes they are very shallow, and
+sometimes the leg is engulfed to the shoulder.
+
+Jan's horse slipped over one domino, went up to the shoulder into a
+trench, and off came the rider. Luckily he fell upon a heap of stones,
+and not into the mud, but he decided for all that to walk for a bit.
+
+Every now and then one came across traces of the construction of a great
+road--white new stone embankments that started out of nothing, and went
+to nowhere, and Mike confessed that he had lost the path once more--
+
+"When I come out of dat confounded mod!"
+
+After a hustle across country we found the road, and wished that we had
+not, for it was a Turkish track in its most belligerent form.
+
+At last we reached the top and rested awhile. Mike showed us his
+revolver.
+
+"He good revolver," he said. "De las' man I shoot he killin' a vooman. I
+come. He run away. I tell 'im to stop, but he no stop, so I shoot 'im
+leg. 'E try to 'it me wi' a gon."
+
+The man got fourteen years.
+
+We pushed on again, and on the road picked up an overcoat, which later
+we were able to restore to its owner, a Turk, who was going to
+Nickshitch to buy sugar and salt for Plevlie.
+
+Bits of the big white road appeared and reappeared with insistence. We
+asked who was responsible for its inception.
+
+"Sirdar," said Mike; "he good boy. Much work."
+
+The country was now like brown velvet spread over heaps of gigantic
+potatoes.
+
+Our horses grew slower and slower, and the inn which we were seeking
+seemed ever further and further away. We passed many peasants, and had
+evidently entered the land of Venus, for each one was more beautiful
+than the neighbour. Since Jabliak we had not seen an ugly man or woman,
+and the dignity of their carriage was exceeded only by the nobleness of
+their features. Ugly women must be valuable in these parts, and probably
+marry early; humans ever prize the rare above the beautiful.
+
+Mike spoke to many of the girls, asking them their names and of their
+homes. One had his own name--which we forget--and he said that she must
+be his cousin, and that if she would wait where she was he would come
+back later and give her a lift.
+
+At last we came to the wooden inn.
+
+The better-class inns have dining-room and kitchen separate, the
+second-class both are one, but in each case the fire is made on a heap
+of earth piled in the centre of the floor; there is no chimney, and the
+smoke fills the room with a blue haze, smarting in the eyes; it drifts
+up to the roof, where hams are hung, and finds its way out through the
+cracks in the wooden roofing slats. This inn was second-class, and along
+one wall was a deep trough, in which were four huge lumps of a white
+substance which puzzled us. First we thought it was snow, but that
+seemed impossible; then we thought it was salt--but why?
+
+It was snow, there being no water fit to drink, so the snow was stored
+in the winter in huge underground cellars.
+
+We got coffee and kaimak--a sort of cross between sour milk and cream
+cheese--and as a great honour the lady of the house, a villainously
+dirty-looking woman, brought us two eggs. Jan's was bad, but he put it
+aside, saying nothing, for it is impossible to explain to these people
+what is a "bad" egg--all are alike to them.
+
+We took an affectionate leave of Mike, for here we degenerated to a
+carriage, which was waiting us, and he rode off, dragging our tired
+horses behind him.
+
+As we were getting into the carriage the dirty woman ran up and, before
+Jo could ward it off, planted a loving kiss on either cheek.
+
+We flung our weary limbs upon the rusty cushions. Our driver was a
+cheery fellow, who only answered "quite" to everything we said. We drove
+through miles of country so stony that all the world had turned grey as
+though it had remembered how old it was. The road twisted and curled
+about the mountains like the flourish of Corporal Trim's stick: below
+one could see the road, only half a mile off as the crow flies, but a
+good five miles by the curves. We were blocked by a great hay-cart. Our
+driver shouted and cursed without effect, so he climbed down from the
+box, and, running round the hay, slashed the driver of it with his whip.
+We expected a free fight, but nothing occurred. When the hay had
+modestly drawn aside, we found "only a girl." Poor thing! she looked
+rueful enough.
+
+The road was the best we had seen in all the Balkans, white and
+well-surfaced like an English country highway, and at last we clattered
+into Nickshitch, the most important town of Northern Montenegro. It was
+like a fair-sized Cornish village, with little stone houses and
+stone-walled gardens filled with sunflowers.
+
+A charming old major came to the inn to do us the honour we had
+telegraphed for, and together we strolled about the streets. There is a
+pretty Greek church at one end on a formal mound, and behind the town
+runs a sheer fin of rock topped by an old castle where once had lived
+another man who "was a gooman all to hisself;" now it is a monastery,
+and one of the most picturesque in Montenegro.
+
+We dined upon beautiful trout fresh from the river, and large green
+figs. Undressing, Jan found a louse in his shirt--that came from the
+dirty bedroom at Shavnik evidently. He went to bed, but his troubles
+were not yet over; there was another foreign presence, a presence which
+raised large and itching lumps. He hunted without success for some time,
+but at last caught and exterminated an enormous bug. After which there
+was peace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TO CETTINJE
+
+
+The rain poured all night. At five o'clock they called us, telling us
+_not_ to wake up as the motor would come later. At six they knocked
+again, saying--
+
+"Get up quickly; the carriage is at the door."
+
+No explanations.
+
+We hurried so much that we left our best soap and our mascot, a
+beautiful little wooden chicken, behind for ever. The major was waiting
+in the bar room.
+
+We were sorry to say good-bye, he was lonely, and we liked him; but we
+lost no time, as we were seven hours from Podgoritza and goodness knows
+how far from Cettinje.
+
+The carriage and coachman were the same as yesterday's, but his
+expression was so lugubrious in the downpouring rain that he looked
+another man.
+
+Just outside the village he picked up a friend and put her in the
+carriage. She was a velvet-coated old lady with a flat white face and
+two bright birdlike brown eyes which she never took off us.
+Conversation was impossible, as she had only one tooth, round which her
+speech whistled unintelligibly, and she hiccuped loudly once in every
+half-hour. We were most uncomfortable. The hood was up, and a piece of
+tarpaulin was stretched from it across to the coachman's seat, blocking
+out the view except for the little we could see through a tiny triangle.
+
+What with three humans, our bags, the old lady's bundle, and an enormous
+sponge cake, we were very cramped, and whenever we tried to move a
+stiffened knee her bright eye was on it, and she made some suitable
+remark to which we always had to answer with "Ne rasumem," "I don't
+understand," the while beaming at her to show we appreciated her efforts
+to put us at our ease.
+
+The mist and rain entirely obscured the view. Now and then a tree showed
+as a thumb-mark on the grey. We little knew that we were passing through
+some of the most marvellous scenery in Europe.
+
+The carriage settled down with a bump. Something wrong with the harness;
+string was produced, and it was made usable for the next half-hour.
+Carriages in Montenegro must have been designed in the days when
+builders thought more of voluptuous curves than of breaking strains, for
+we have never been in one of them without many halts, during which the
+coachman endeavoured to tie the carriage together with string or wire to
+prevent it from coming in two.
+
+We stopped at wayside inns and politely treated the old lady to coffee
+at a penny a cup to make up for our inappreciation of her conversational
+powers.
+
+Women passed carrying the usual enormous bundles. Sometimes they were
+accompanied by husbands or brothers, who strolled along entirely
+unladen.
+
+Jo busily sketched everybody she saw.
+
+Passers-by demanded, "What is she doing?" and the onlookers answered--
+
+"She is writing us;" for everything that is done with pencil on paper is
+to them writing.
+
+One pretty young woman shook her fist, laughing--
+
+"If I could write, I would write _you_," she said.
+
+We were no longer in the Sanjak. Turkish influence had vanished, and we
+longed to see the famous Black Mountains of old Montenegro.
+
+At Danilograd we marvelled at the enormous expensive bridge which seemed
+to lead to nothing but a couple of tiny villages. We missed the
+picturesque Turkish houses, built indeed only for to-day like their
+roads, but full of unexpected corners and mysterious balconies. The
+Montenegrin houses were small and simple, four walls and a roof, like
+the drawing of a three-year-old child. The only thing lacking was the
+curly smoke coming from the chimney. Broad streets lined with these
+houses were unexhilarating in effect, and would have been more
+depressing except for the bright colours with which they were painted.
+
+When the horses were replete after their midday meal we loaded up,
+adding to our numbers a taciturn man who sat on the box. We rolled on to
+Podgoritza, arriving at two o'clock in a steady downpour.
+
+Podgoritza seemed unaware of our arrival. The streets were empty, and
+the Prefect's offices were tenanted only by the porter, a Turk, who
+remarked that the Prefect was taking his siesta, and seemed to think
+that was the end of it.
+
+This was awful, after being Highnesses for a week, to be treated just
+like ordinary people, and perhaps to lose all chance of reaching
+Cettinje that night.
+
+"Produce the Prefect," said Jo, stamping her foot, but the Turk only
+smiled and suggested a visit to the adjutant's office. Back to the
+carriage we went and drove to a place like a luggage depot. No adjutant,
+nothing but giggling boys. Our coachman became restive and said his
+horses were tired of the rain, so we deposited the old lady,
+substituted a man in American clothes who seemed sympathetic, and drove
+back to the Prefect's office with him. There we found a sleepy
+lieutenant who ordered coffee, while our American-speaking friend
+explained to him that we were very Great People, and that something
+ought immediately to be done for us. So the officer promised to get the
+Prefect as soon as possible, and we went to the hotel to drink more
+coffee with our baggy-trousered friend, who told us that he was one of a
+huge contingent of Montenegrins who had travelled from America to fight
+for the little country. "Say, who are your pals?" said a nasal voice,
+and the owner, a pleasant-looking man in a broad-shouldered mackintosh,
+took a seat at our table. He was also a Montenegrin, and had been mining
+in America for some years. More coffees were ordered. We confided to the
+new American Montenegrin that we did not like Podgoritza, and he tried
+to find excuses--the hour, the bad weather. The hotel-keeper came up and
+intimated in awestruck tones that the Prefect had just looked in with
+some friends.
+
+Our appearance did not seem to impress the Prefect in the least, and
+small wonder. He owned to having received a telegram about us, but there
+was no motor-car available for that day, and he departed.
+
+"The Prefect is only more unpleasant than Podgoritza," said Jo to the
+American in the mackintosh; but he deduced dyspepsia.
+
+The Prefect, having been to his office and having seen the lieutenant,
+came back in five minutes, rather more suave in manner, and announced
+impressively that he was going to give us his own carriage.
+
+But the rain, the giggling boys, the smiling Turk, and the sudden drop
+from royalty to insignificance had been rankling in Jo's mind. She sat
+back haughtily and remarked--
+
+"But the Sirdar promised us a motor-car."
+
+"I will go and see if it is possible," said the Prefect, and he dashed
+out into the rain. He returned full of apologies. All the motors were
+out, but he would send his carriage round immediately. "A delightful
+carriage," he added.
+
+It arrived--a landau such as one would find at Waddingsgate-super-Mare,
+so free from scars that every Montenegrin turned to look at it.
+
+The hotel-keepers, our American friends, and the Prefect and his captain
+stood pointing out its beauties, and we left them standing in the rain.
+
+"I shall always put on side in this country," said Jo as she bit a large
+mouthful of cheese.
+
+We pounded along, and the day slowly grew darker. We passed an
+encampment, where the firelight thrown up on to the trees made a weird
+and jolly sight.
+
+The hours passed by slowly. Suddenly (our coachman was probably dozing)
+we ran into something. It was a carriage, a square grey thing. Our
+coachman howled to it, and it started slowly forward up the steep hill.
+A bright light streamed from the windows and cut a radiant path in the
+foggy rains. Some one threw away a cigar-end. The wet road shining in
+the glare of our pink candles, and the lightning flashing intermittently
+so that the mountain-tops sprang out to disappear again in the darkness;
+we felt as if we were living in the introduction of a mystery story from
+the _Strand Magazine_.
+
+At last in the misty rain we saw the aura of the lights of Cettinje. At
+last we wound slowly into wet streets, passed our mysterious companion
+without being able to see who was in it, and so to the hotel. Since the
+morning we had driven fourteen hours, and we were glad beyond measure to
+stretch and to find really comfortable beds.
+
+The next day we got up early. There was much to do. We were to see the
+War Minister about Scutari, to present a letter of introduction to the
+English minister, and to inspect the town.
+
+Nature has half filled a big crater with silt, and the Montenegrins
+have half covered it with Cettinje.
+
+It is a polychromatic village of little square houses, cheerfully
+dreary, and one does not see its uses except to be out of the way. The
+only building with any architectural beauty is the monastery where the
+old bishops reigned, and which must have many a queer tale to tell.
+
+Asking for the Count de Salis, the English minister, we were directed to
+the diplomatic street, a collection of tiny houses grouped respectfully
+in front of the Palace, which itself was no larger than a Park Lane
+house laid edgeways, and with the paint peeling from its walls.
+
+Over the front door of each little house a sort of barber's pole stuck
+outwards, striped with the national colours of the minister living
+within.
+
+We noticed with pride and relief that the Count de Salis' pole was
+painted a reticent white. The sympathetic old lady who opened the door
+directed us to the Legation. There we found him inspecting the damages
+wreaked by the storm of overnight. The Legation was big and cold, and as
+the handsome fireplaces sent out by the British Board of Works were for
+anthracite only (and Montenegro produces only wood), the English
+minister preferred his warm cottage to the unheated Palace.
+
+He wished us luck in our quest for Scutari, and asked us to tea. We
+then hurried to an awful building where the governing of Montenegro was
+done--a concrete erection, presented to Montenegro by the British
+Government, and an exact imitation of one of our workhouses. Here we
+found the Minister of War, a gorgeously dressed little man with a
+pleasant grandfatherly gleam in his eye. He only spoke Serbian, but with
+him was an unshaven young man whose chest was covered with gold
+danglers, who immediately began to air his quite passable French. We
+explained what we had been doing and what we wanted to do. The War
+Minister had not heard of US from the Sirdar, who had been resting after
+his terrific ride, but said that they were to see each other that day.
+The little man beamed upon us, and said they always wished to do
+anything for the English, but he must first see the Sirdar.
+
+"By the bye," he said, "I forgot to introduce you. This is Prince Peter,
+commander of the forces on the Adriatic coast." The young man arose and
+clicked his heels. We too got up. He shook hands with us solemnly, and
+Jo, unused to addressing Royalty, said, "Dobra Dan" (Good day).
+
+Then we all sat down again, a further rendezvous was arranged for the
+evening, and we left, carrying away the impression that the War Minister
+and we had bowed thirty times to each other before we got out of the
+door.
+
+Out in the streets, as we were sketching, we saw a large smile under a
+Staff officer's cap bearing down upon us. It was the Sirdar, quite
+rested and looking twenty years younger. He was going to the War
+Minister's, and promised to arrange at once for our visit to Scutari. He
+looked at our cryptic drawings of road scavengers, threw up his hands
+and ejaculating "Kako"--strode out of our lives.
+
+Tea in the little house with the discreet white pole was a great
+pleasure. Such tea we had not drunk since leaving England--butter, jam
+made by the old housekeeper, who pointed this out to us when she brought
+in a relay of hot water.
+
+She was the daughter of a man who had been exiled from his village
+because he had taken a prominent part in a blood feud, and the old
+Gospodar had told him he would be healthier elsewhere. So they had
+emigrated as far as Serbia, where she had learnt to read and write.
+
+A lady of good family but bad character suddenly decided to leave
+Montenegro, and fled to the shores of Cattaro, carrying with her a large
+number of State secrets. The Court was aghast. What was to be done?
+
+A villain was needed. The father was decided upon, and with the help of
+the lady's brothers she was kidnapped, carried back to Montenegro, and
+disappeared for ever. For which noble work he was permitted to return to
+his village.
+
+The old lady had a supreme contempt for the Montenegrins who had not
+"travelled," but she looked upon the growing pomp of the Court with
+suspicion.
+
+"Ah," she said, "those were fine days when the king was only the
+Gospodar, and there were none of these gold embroidered uniforms about,
+and the Queen and I used to slide down the Palace banisters together."
+
+In those days the Royal family inhabited the top story only, while the
+ground floor was filled with wood for the winter. Just round the corner
+was the old pink palace, now used as a riding school. It had been the
+first place in Montenegro to possess a billiard-table. So,
+billiard-tables being rarer and more curious than kings--the palace had
+been called the BILLIADO.
+
+The Queen, whatever agility she may have possessed once when navigating
+banisters, is now a sedate and domestic person, and doesn't hold with
+bluestockings, notwithstanding the "Higher Education" of some of her
+daughters.
+
+The story goes that once when the King was away she inaugurated one of
+those thorough-paced spring cleanings dear to most women's hearts;
+ordered the dining-room furniture into the street, and superintended the
+beating of it. Women hold a poor position in Montenegro, but one of
+character can carry all before her. A well-known English nurse was
+managing a hospital in Cettinje during the first Balkan War. One of her
+patients, though well connected as peasants often are in Montenegro, was
+a drunken old reprobate, and she told the authorities he must go. They
+demurred--his relations must not be offended. She insisted. They did
+nothing. One morning they found him, bed and all, in the middle of the
+street opposite the King's palace.
+
+The authorities swallowed their lesson.
+
+In the evening we walked over the stony hills with our host, and first
+had a glimpse of the real character of the country which had for so long
+kept the Turks at bay. One realized how much the people owed to the land
+for their boasted independence. Barren rock and scrub oak, no army could
+live here in sufficient numbers to subdue even a semi-warlike nation.
+Cettinje has been burned many a time by the Moslem, but starvation
+eventually drove him back to the fatter plains of the Sanjak, leaving a
+profitless victory behind him. Napoleon and Moscow over again.
+
+More miners from America passed with their showy machine-woven clothes,
+accompanied by their wives, who had evidently stayed behind in the old
+country. Otherwise they would have picked up new-fangled ideas about the
+rights of women, and would certainly have refused to shoulder the
+enormous American suit cases while their men ambled carelessly in front.
+
+The next day we had a further interview with the War Minister, who
+introduced to us a man in corduroys, the only really round-faced person
+we had met in Montenegro. Part of his name was "Ob," so as we forgot the
+rest of it we called him Dr. Ob. He was the minister of drains, and such
+things. As nothing had been previously explained to him about us, he
+covered his mystification by hailing us jovially, after which he
+misconstrued everything we said.
+
+He became very excited when we said we had brought 14,000 kilos of
+stores into Montenegro.
+
+"But we have not got it yet," he ejaculated. We explained that it was
+for the English hospital, and he subsided, very disappointed.
+
+Scutari was talked over again, and Dr. Ob promised to come and tell us
+that evening if Cettinje could supply a motor for the next morning.
+
+More bows and smiles, and we left wondering. Montenegrins always promise
+even when they have no intention of performance--something like the
+stage Irishman,--and we were surprised when Dr. Ob met us in the evening
+and said that the motor was arranged for next morning at eight.
+
+We tea'd with the count once more. In the next house lived a gorgeous
+old gentleman, and we heard that he had been War Minister for forty odd
+years. After thirty years or so of office it was considered that he
+could better uphold the dignity of his position were he able to sign his
+name. So he had to learn.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE LAKE OF SCUTARI
+
+
+Dr. Ob, dressed in thick corduroys and an enormous pith helmet, arrived
+punctually with the motor, a Montenegrin Government motor. He had two
+companions, a girl simply dressed with coat and skirt which did not
+match, and cotton gloves whose burst finger ends were not darned, a Miss
+Petrovitch, and an officer. The coachwork--if one may dignify it by such
+a phrase--which was made from packing cases, had a thousand creaks and
+one abominable squeak, which made conversation impossible. The scenery
+was all grey rock and little scrubby trees; the road was magnificent and
+wound and twisted about the mountain side like a whip lash. Driving down
+these curves was no amateur's game, and we saw immediately that our
+chauffeur knew his job. We came over a ridge, and in the far distance,
+gleaming like the sun itself, a corner of the Lake of Scutari showed
+between two hill crests.
+
+We ran into a fertile valley, passed through Rieka--where was the first
+Slavonic printing-press--and up into the barren mountains once more.
+The peasants seem very industrious, every little pocket of earth is here
+carefully cultivated and banked almost in Arab fashion. The houses, too,
+were better, and rather Italian with painted balconies, but are built of
+porous stone and are damp in winter. The Rieka river ran along the road
+for some way, very green and covered with water-lily pods.
+
+We passed a standing carriage, in which was a large man in Montenegrin
+clothes, and a little further on passed a man in a grey suit walking.
+Dr. Ob gesticulated wildly, and pulled up the motor to gather in a
+Frenchman--somebody in the French legation who was going to Scutari for
+a week end. He turned suddenly to Jan.
+
+"Ce n'est pas une vie, monsieur," were the first words he uttered. He
+admired Miss Petrovitch very much, and told us in an undertone that she
+was a daughter of the governor of Scutari, niece of the King of
+Montenegro, and one of "les familles le plus chic."
+
+We descended steeply to the Port, ten variously coloured houses and
+twenty-five variously clothed people. Miss Petrovitch, to our amazement,
+embraced a rather dirty old peasant, the doctor disappeared to find us
+luncheon, the Frenchman to wash, and we strolled about.
+
+A voice hailed us, and turning round, we found our mackintoshed American
+of Pod. We took him to the inn and stood him a drink. Dr. Ob came in and
+we introduced; but Dr. Ob was snifty and the American shy. His home was
+near by and he wished us to visit him, but there was no time.
+
+We lunched in a bedroom plastered with pictures. Montenegrins seem to be
+ashamed of walls, and they adore royalty. In every room one finds
+portraits of the King of Montenegro, the queen, the princes, the King of
+Italy, his queen, the Tzar of Russia, the grand dukes and duchesses, the
+King of Serbia and his princes, and to cap all a sort of comprehensive
+tableau of all the male crowned heads of Europe--including
+Turkey--balanced by another commemorating all the queens of
+Europe--excluding Turkey--the spaces left between these august people
+are filled with family portraits, framed samplers, picture postcards or
+a German print showing the seven ages of man over a sort of step-ladder.
+
+After lunch, loaded with grapes which Miss Petrovitch's peasant friend
+brought us, we trooped down to the steamer, which had been an old
+Turkish gun monitor and had been captured when the Montenegrins took
+Scutari.
+
+The boat was crowded, and the Frenchman took refuge in the captain's
+cabin, which was crammed with red pepper pods, and went to sleep. Jo
+began sketching at once. There were two full-blooded niggers aboard with
+us: they were descendants of the Ethiopian slaves of the harems; but the
+race is dying out, for the climate does not suit them. We steamed out
+into the lake, down the "kingly" canal, a shallow ditch in the mud.
+Magnificent mountains rush down on every side to the water, in which
+stunted willow trees with myriad roots--like mangroves--find an
+amphibious existence. We passed through their groves, hooting as though
+we were leaving Liverpool, and out into the eau-de-nil waters of the
+open lake.
+
+In three hours we reached Plavnitza, a quay on the mud, where more
+passengers were waiting for our already crowded craft. There were
+officers, peasants, Turks, and soldiers clad in French firemen's
+uniforms. These uniforms, by the way, caused a lot of ill-feeling in
+Montenegro. The French sent them out in a spirit of pure economical
+charity, and had the Frenchmen not been, on the average, small, and the
+Montenegrin, contrariwise, large, perhaps the gift would have been
+received with a better grace; but the sight of these enormous men
+bursting in all places from their all too tight regimentals, was
+ludicrous, and the soldiers felt it keenly.
+
+Two women came aboard, attached to officers, and wearing long light
+blue coats, the ceremonious dress of all classes; one carried a wooden
+cradle strapped on her back, the woman with no cradle had in her arms a
+baby of some ten or eleven months, which she fed alternately on grapes
+and pomegranate seeds. With each was a large family including a beastly
+little boy who spat all over the decks, and one of the fathers, a stern
+gold-laced officer, carried a dogwhip with which to rule his offspring.
+
+After a while we caught sight of Tarabosch, the famous mountain, and
+then the silhouette of the old Venetian fortress. From the water
+projected the funnels of yet another Turkish ship which had been sunk in
+the Balkan war, and we steamed into the amphibious trees on the mudflats
+of Scutari.
+
+A boat with chairs in it came for us and we disembarked. The boat was
+rather like one of those that children make from paper, called cocked
+hats, only rather elongated, and the rowers pushed at the oars which
+hung from twisted osier loops. Governor Petrovitch met us on the quay.
+He was a fine-featured old man dressed in all the barbaric splendour of
+a full national costume, pale green long-skirted coat, red gold
+embroidered waistcoat, and baggy dark blue knee breeches with a huge
+amount of waste material in the seat. He kissed his daughter and greeted
+us genially. We clambered into the usual dilapidated cab with the usual
+dilapidated horses, and off to the hotel.
+
+The women on the roadside were clad in picturesque ever-varying
+costumes. There were narrow carts with high Indian-like wheels studded
+with large nails; there were Albanians in costumes of black and white,
+everything we had hoped or expected.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+SCUTARI
+
+
+After a wash we went into the streets. It was the Orient, just as
+Eastern as Colombo or Port Said. The little fruit and jewellers' shops
+with square lanterns, the tailors sitting cross-legged in their windows,
+the strange medley of costumes--even the long lean dogs looked as if
+they had been kicked from the doors of a thousand mosques.
+
+We left the shops for further explorations. Scutari has always been
+described as such a beautiful town. The adjective does not seem
+picturesque: yes, quaint, strange decidedly. One's second impression
+after the shops is this:--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Miles and miles of walls with great doors. The main streets branch out
+into thousands of impasses each ending in a locked door. There are
+hardly any connecting streets, for somebody's walled garden is between.
+The Mahommedans hide in seclusion on one side of the town, while their
+hated enemies the Christians live on the other. Each house, Turk or
+Christian, has the same air of defiant privacy, the only difference
+being that the Turk's windows are blocked with painted lattice. The
+Mahommedan women's faces are covered with several thicknesses of
+chiffon, generally black, while the Christian peasant women walk about
+with an eye and a half peering from the shrouding folds of a cotton head
+shawl which they hold tightly under their noses.
+
+With difficulty we found the English consul's house, as the Albanians
+speak no Serb and Montenegrins were not to be found at every street
+corner. At last we found it appropriately enough in the Rue du Consulat
+d'Angleterre. A gorgeous old butler resembling a wolf ushered us from
+the blank walled street into a beautiful square garden filled with
+flowering shrubs and creepers. Not to be outdone by the colours of the
+flowers, the butler was clad in a red waistcoat, embroidered with gold,
+a green cloth coat, blue baggy trousers, and a red fez with a tassel
+nearly a yard long, while a connoisseur's mouth would have watered at
+the sight of his antique silver watch-chain with its exquisitely worked
+hanging blobs.
+
+The interior of the house gave an impression of vast roominess. Wide
+stairs, a huge upper landing like a reception-room, a panelled
+drawing-room large enough to lose one's self in, ornamented by primitive
+frescoes on the walls above the panels.
+
+The English consul was an old Albanian gentleman with delightful
+manners. For a long time he had been suffering from an illness which had
+started from a wound in the head, received during the siege of Scutari.
+After the inevitable coffee and cigarettes his son wandered out with us
+and showed us the interesting parts of the town. Out of a big doorway
+came two women in gorgeous clothes. They had been paying a morning call,
+and bade farewell to their hostess. Doubtless they were mother and
+daughter.
+
+One was faded and beautiful; the younger was of the plump cream and
+roses variety with modestly downcast eyes. Both wore enormous white lace
+Mary Queen of Scots' veils, great baggy trousers made of stiff shiny
+black stuff, which was gathered into hard gold embroidered pipes which
+encased the ankles and upwards. These pipes were so stiff that they had
+to walk with straight knees and feet far apart. Their full cavalier
+coats were thickly covered with many kilometres of black braid sewn on
+in curly patterns, and the girl wore at least a hundred golden coins
+hung in semicircles on her chest.
+
+They left the third woman at the door and walked back a few steps down
+the road, then turned, and laying hand on breast, bowed ceremoniously,
+first the mother, then the daughter, who never lifted her eyes; another
+twenty steps and again the same performance; still once more, after
+which they slowly waddled round the corner. Suma told us they wore the
+costume of the _haute bourgeoisie_, and probably the girl had been taken
+to see her future mother-in-law.
+
+The next vision that met our eyes was the doctor in his best clothes,
+frock-coat, white spats, gloves, and a minute pork-pie cap perched on
+the top of his spherical countenance.
+
+"In Scutari it is necessary that I should be _en tenue_," was his
+explanation.
+
+Suma parted with us, promising to take us to the bazaar the next day,
+and we spent the afternoon sketching and avoiding a dumb idiot who tried
+to amuse us by standing on his head in front of whatever object we chose
+to sketch, and at intervals thrust into our hands a letter which he
+thought was a money producing talisman. It said in English, "Kick this
+chap if he bothers you."
+
+There are other traces of the English soldiery here. Little children
+with outstretched hands flock round, saying in coaxing tones "Garn," or
+"Git away you," under the impression that they are saying "please."
+
+At a street corner we saw a professional beggar, a shattered man of
+drooping misery, his rags vieing with the colour of the road. Jo began
+to sketch, but he promptly sat up, twirled his long moustaches, and from
+a worm became a lion. One may be a beggar in Albania, but as long as one
+has moustaches one is at least a man.
+
+The bazaar next day filled our wildest dreams. Queerly clad peasants of
+all tribes came down from the mountains bearing rugs, rubbish, white
+cloths, cheese, honey, poultry, pigs, and they sat on the ground behind
+their wares in the blazing heat, while all the rest of Northern Albania
+came to purchase. The little shops set out their pottery, silver-ware
+and brightly striped veils. Jo lifted up a woman's leather belt covered
+with silver, thinking how nice it would look on a modern skirt; but she
+dropped it with a crash, for the leather was a quarter of an inch thick,
+and the silver equally weighty.
+
+Veiled women bargained and chaffered with the rest, some dressed in
+white with black chiffon covering their faces, and others still more
+bizarre, wore flowered chiffon, one large flower perhaps covering the
+area of one cheek and nose.
+
+More fanatic in religion than their men, they objected to being
+sketched, crouching to the ground and covering themselves completely
+with draperies, so we had to desist.
+
+There can be no arguments about beauty in these lands. It goes by
+"volume."
+
+Put the ladies on the scales, and in case of a tie, measure them round
+the hips.
+
+Vendors pressed gold-embroidered zouaves, antique arms and filigree
+silver-ware upon us; but we ever looked elsewhere, and Jo suddenly
+pounced on a handkerchief, or rather a conglomeration of bits sewn
+together, each being a remnant of brilliant coloured patterned stuff.
+
+"But that has no value," said Suma, smiling.
+
+"Never mind, I shall wear it as a hat," said Jo; and Suma, somewhat
+perplexed, lowered his dignity and bargained for it.
+
+We next saw a brilliantly striped rug hanging on the wall behind an old
+woman, red, green, yellow, black and white, just what we wanted. She
+consented to take thirteen silver cronen for it, but no Montenegrin
+paper. She explained she was poor. She had brought up the sheep, spun
+and dyed the wool, and had woven the beautiful thing, and now she wanted
+silver because outside Scutari, in which the Montenegrins forced
+acceptance of their notes by corporal punishment, paper was worth
+nothing. To get the silver we went into a general store and sold a
+sovereign.
+
+[Illustration: JO AND MR. SUMA IN THE SCUTARI BAZAAR.]
+
+While we were waiting for the money-changer, two Miridite women came in.
+They had short hair dyed black, white coarse linen chemises with
+large sleeves, embroidered zouaves, white skirts with front and back
+aprons lavishly embroidered, striped trousers, and stockings knitted on
+great diagonal patterns.
+
+One of them told Suma that their village was in possession of Essad
+Pacha, that all their husbands had fled, and were still fighting in the
+hills.
+
+Suma, for a joke, asked her what she thought of Jo. Passing her eyes
+over Jo's uninflated frame, she hesitated, but was urged to speak the
+truth.
+
+"I think she is forty," she remarked; and then somehow Jo was not quite
+pleased.
+
+The midday heat being overwhelming we took a cab and drove back along
+two kilometres of dusty road. A veiled woman stopped the coachman,
+asking him to give her tired little girl a lift. Jehu refused, through
+awe of us; but we insisted on taking her, and begged the woman to come
+in too. Jo held out her hands, but the woman shrank back horrified,
+though obviously worn out with the heat.
+
+"That is a pity," laughed Suma. "I hoped she would do it. It would have
+been a new experience for me."
+
+Jo confided to him her burning desire to enter a harem, but as he had no
+Mahommedan friends he thought the possibility remote.
+
+Two more bourgeois women passed. Jan photographed them, but not before
+they hid their faces with umbrellas. Even the Christian men are
+intensely jealous, and their women have some Turkish ideals. We spent
+the afternoon sketching outside a barber's shop, coffee being brought to
+us on a hanging tray with a little fire on it to keep the coffee warm.
+Opposite was a shop which combined the trades of blacksmith and
+fishmonger. It seemed the strangest mixture.
+
+We dined with the Frenchman. He was a queer fellow, seeming only
+interested in economies, his digestion and his old age; and he discussed
+the possible places where an old man might live in comfort. Egypt, he
+dismissed: too hot, and an old man does not want to travel. The Greek
+islands had earthquakes. Corfu, he had heard, was depressing; while in
+the Canaries there was sometimes a wind and one might catch cold. We
+suggested "heaven," and he looked hurt. He had been in Scutari in
+December. He told us that after dark it was impossible to walk down the
+great main street, which divides Christian from Turk, without carrying a
+lighted lantern to signal that you were not on nefarious intent, or you
+might be shot.
+
+[Illustration: CHRISTIAN WOMEN HIDING FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHER.]
+
+[Illustration: SCUTARI--BAZAAR AND OLD VENETIAN FORTRESS.]
+
+Mr. Suma came along the next day in good time and gave Jan a letter for
+the Count de Salis. We bade him a most cordial farewell, assuring him
+prophetically that we should revisit Scutari--little did we dream in
+what circumstances,--and he said we would then see the "Maison Pigit," a
+show castle which he had, in vain, urged us to visit. Paget was an
+Englishman who seems to have spent ten or twelve years dreaming away
+life in Scutari, and collecting ancient weapons. With the outbreak of
+the South African war he disappeared. He was then heard of fighting for
+the Turk against the Italian, and later for the Turk against the Balkan
+alliance. He has never returned.
+
+With Dr. Ob we drove to the quay, on the road passing an old woman
+staggering along beneath the weight of a complete iron and brass
+bedstead.
+
+As we got out of our carriage we noticed a rabble of Turks hurrying
+towards us. In its midst was a brougham with windows tight shut and
+veiled, from which we guessed that some light of the harem was to be a
+fellow passenger. The carriage halted, and whatever was within was
+hustled from the farthest door and in the midst of the dense mob of men
+hurried down the quay. The side of the steamer was crowded with craft,
+so we passed beneath the stern to embark on the far side, to find that
+the Turkish lady and her escort had passed beneath the bows for a
+similar purpose. We caused a flutter, the beauty was hastily lifted on
+board like a bale of goods, and we caught a glimpse of magnificent pink
+brocaded trousers and jewelled shoes beneath her red orange covering.
+Two women--one a Christian--followed, and when she was seated, bent over
+her as a sort of screen to hide even her clothes from the gaze of the
+naughty infidel.
+
+Governor Petrovitch came down to the quay to bid us good-bye. With him
+came his daughter, who was returning with us. She had nothing
+interesting to say about Scutari. The Frenchman had brought with him a
+cook whom he had engaged to look after his digestion.
+
+We found comfortable seats on a long box with a bale as a back rest, and
+the governor sent two chairs for the ladies. As we steamed away we
+pondered on the problem of Scutari.
+
+There are in all, say, 300,000 Serbs, a high estimate, in all
+Montenegro. The population of the Sanjak and its cities, Plevlie, Ipek,
+Berane, and Jakovitza, are of course largely Mussulman or Albanian, and
+already the balance of people in the little mountain kingdom is
+wavering. If Montenegro adds to herself Scutari, a town in which the
+Serb population is practically "nil," the scales swing over heavily
+against the ruling classes, and either one will see Montenegro absorb
+Scutari, to be in turn absorbed by Scutari itself; or we shall see
+the crimes of Austro-Hungary repeated upon a smaller scale, and
+Montenegro will be some day condemned before a tribunal of Europe for
+continued injustice to the people entrusted to her. The Albanians loathe
+the Serb even more than they hate the Turk, and at present, in spite of
+the fact that they are on their best manners, the Montenegrin police and
+soldiery have the appearance of a debt collector in the house of one who
+has backed a friend's bill.
+
+[Illustration: DISEMBARKATION OF A TURKISH BRIDE.]
+
+[Illustration: GOVERNOR PETROVITCH AND HIS DAUGHTER IN THEIR STATE
+BARGE.]
+
+An Albanian noble said to Jan, "We are quiet now: the Powers have no
+time to waste upon us, and we are not going to revolt and let ourselves
+be murdered without redress. But, if after the war things are not
+righted, monsieur, there will be a revolution every day."
+
+We saw a pelican, and of course some one had to try and kill it; but
+luckily the criminal was an average shot only. The pelican flew off
+flapping its broad white wings. The Frenchman told us that the Turkish
+lady round the corner is a gipsy bride to be. A light dawned upon us.
+The bed, these boxes we were sitting upon: she was taking her furniture
+with her. Jan peered round at her. She was sitting on a low stool, and
+the two screens were standing at duty. They had chosen the most secluded
+spot in the boat, which was next to the boilers. The day itself was very
+hot, and the atmosphere within the poor bride's thick coverings must
+have been awful, though when nobody was looking she was allowed to raise
+for a second the many thicknesses of black chiffon which shrouded her
+face, and to gasp a few chestfulls of fresh air.
+
+Dr. Ob suddenly produced a large sheep's head which he dissected with
+medical knowledge. He gouged out an eye which he offered to Jo; upon her
+refusing the succulent morsel he gave a sigh of relief and wolfed it
+himself. One of the men on board had a fiddle, and played us across the
+lake. Some one said, "Give us the Merry Widow."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Come on," said his tempter, "there's no one here. Give it us." At last,
+looking at Miss Petrovitch and us, the musician timidly started the
+music, for the "Merry Widow" is "straffed" in Montenegro as one of the
+characters is a caricature of Prince Danilo, hence everybody plays it
+with gusto in private.
+
+We came again to Plavnitza. A huge crowd of Turks were waiting for us;
+one wild befezzed ruffian had a concertina and was capering to his own
+strains.
+
+We were suddenly disturbed, the box was wrested away, the bundles also,
+the bed was carried off, also a tin dish too small for a bath, too big
+for a basin, and a tin watering pot--the bride's trousseau. The bride
+was seized by two men, her brothers we were told, and carried up the
+stairs to a waiting brougham, the trousseau was piled upon a bullock
+cart, and shouting and singing and dancing the _cortege_ moved out of
+sight.
+
+At Virbazar the steamer could not come to the quay, so the authorities
+ran a five-inch rounded tree trunk from the boat to the mud. Many dared
+the perilous crossing, and one nearly fell into the water. Dr. Ob was
+furious, and at last a plank was substituted. Then we found that the
+only way off the mud was by clambering round a corner of wall on some
+shaky stepping stones. Dr. Ob fumed, his little round face grew rounder,
+his moustache went up and down, he threatened everybody with instant
+execution, like the Red Queen in "Alice." Then he found that no motor
+was awaiting us. He rushed to the telephone while we had a belated
+lunch. No motors; one was out taking the Serbian officers for a
+joy-ride; Prince Peter had taken the other to Antivari. Montenegro
+seemed to have no more. We soothed ourselves with "American" grapes.
+This grape tastes not unlike strawberries and cream, but not having the
+same sentimental associations, does not come off quite as well. We heard
+a motor coming. Dr. Ob ran out to intercept it. It was crammed. Then
+the telephone boy brought a message that Prince Peter's motor would not
+return till to-morrow.
+
+Miss Petrovitch wrung her hands.
+
+"We cannot stay here the night," she said.
+
+"Are the bugs awful?" we asked.
+
+"It's not the bugs, it's those dreadful women," she answered. "We shall
+all be murdered in our beds."
+
+Now the women appeared to us most inoffensive.
+
+Dr. Ob was purple with rage. He stamped his foot.
+
+"But I am a minister," he kept repeating crescendo, till he shouted to
+the villagers, "But I am a minister."
+
+It is impossible to take Montenegro seriously. Situations occur at every
+corner which remind one irresistibly of "the Rose and the Ring," and we
+wondered what would happen next. There were other belated passengers who
+had hoped for conveyance, and the Frenchman's carriage had not turned
+up. Dr. Ob at last decided to commandeer a cocked hat boat rowed by four
+women with which to navigate the river to Rieka, and thence by carriage
+to Cettinje if carriages came. It was six p.m., we might reach Rieka by
+ten.
+
+We rowed out through the half-sunken trees. At the end of a spit of land
+was a man gnawing a piece of raw beef. We shouted to him to ask what he
+was doing; and he answered that he was curing his malaria. The two women
+in the bow were very pretty, one was a mere child.
+
+There were wisps of sunset cloud in the sky, and soon night came quite
+down.
+
+As it grew dark all sense of motion disappeared. The boat shrugged
+uneasily with the movement of the oars, the rowlocks made of loops of
+twisted osier creaked, but one could not perceive that one was going
+forwards. The hills lost their solidity, becoming mere holes in the grey
+blue of the sky, a bright planet made a light smudge on the ruffled
+water in which the stars could not reflect. As we crept forwards into
+the river and the mountains closed in, the water became more calm, and
+the stars came out one by one beneath us, while in the ripple of our
+wake the image of the planet ran up continuously in strings of little
+golden balls like a juggling trick.
+
+The Frenchman turned his head and made a noise like the rowlocks. "Il
+faut chanter quand meme," he explained, "pour encourager les autres." Jo
+then started "Frere Jacques." Jan and Dr. Ob took it up till the
+Frenchman burst in with an entirely different time and key. Then one of
+the oar girls began a queer little melody on four notes only, and all
+the four women joined, one end of the boat answering the other. They
+sang through their noses, and high up in the falsetto. By shutting one's
+eyes one could imagine a great ox waggon drawn uphill by four bullocks
+and one of the wheels ungreased. Yet it was not unpleasing, this queer
+shrill, recurrent rhythm, the monotonous creak and splash of the oars,
+the mystery of feeling one's way in the blue gloom, through reed and
+water-lily beds, up this cliff-bound river, and far away the faint
+twitter--also recurrent and monotonous--of some nightjar....
+
+The night grew bitterly cold on the water. One of our passengers, a
+little Russian dressmaker, had malaria and shivered with ague. Jo gave
+her her cloak. The Frenchman's cook was unsuitably dressed, for she had
+on but a thin chiffon blouse. We ourselves had summer clothes, and we
+were all mightily glad to see the glare of Rieka in the sky.
+
+Our luck be praised, there were two old carriages with older horses, and
+another for the Frenchman. We supped moderately at a restaurant kept by
+an Austrian, and still shivering scrambled into the carriages. We had no
+lights, but the road was visible by the stars.
+
+We went up and up, up the same road down which we had come three days
+before. Below one could see strange planes of different darknesses, but
+not any shape, and soon one was too aware of physical discomfort to
+notice the night. Besides, one had had enough of night. Miss Petrovitch
+told the boy to hurry up the horses; he beat them; she then rebuked him
+for beating them. After a while the boy grew tired of her contradictory
+orders, and lying down on the box fell fast asleep. The poor old horses
+plodded along. To right and left were immense precipices, but nobody
+seemed to care.
+
+We reached Cettinje about two a.m., found the hotel open, and a room
+ready for us, and in spite of our frozen limbs were soon asleep.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO
+
+
+We went next day to see the doctor, who was late, so we strolled out to
+the market. They were selling grapes and figs, fresh walnuts, and lots
+of little dried fish, strung on to rings of willow, from the lake of
+Scutari. The scene, with the men in their costumes of red and blue, the
+women all respectably dressed in long embroidered coats of pale blue or
+white, and the village idiot, a man prancing about dressed in nothing
+but a woman's overall, was very gay. We caught the doctor later. He was
+talking with a Mrs. G----, an Englishwoman, from the hospital at
+Podgoritza: she was trying to hustle him as one hustles the butcher who
+has belated the meat. The doctor had let up his efforts since his orgy
+of respectability in Scutari, and his beard and whiskers were enjoying a
+half-inch holiday from the razor. With him was a Slav-Hungarian, who
+recommended us to go home by Gussigne, Plav and Ipek, the best scenery
+in all Montenegro he said; he himself had just returned from Scutari,
+whence he had advanced with a Montenegrin army halfway across Albania.
+At each village the natives had fled, burying their corn and driving off
+their cattle, leaving the villages deserted, and the army, starving, had
+at last been forced to retire. Dr. Ob promised us a motor by four, but
+added that they had no oil and very little benzine. Then growing more
+confidential, he took us by the buttonholes and asked us to use our best
+influence with the Count de Salis, and request him to tell the Admiralty
+to allow petrol to be brought up from Salonika, where the British had
+laid an embargo upon it. He promised pathetically that _all_ the petrol
+would be brought up overland.
+
+Intensely amused by the doctor's idea of our importance, we solemnly
+delivered his message to the Count.
+
+We went to the Serbian Minister, a charming man with a freebooter's
+face, for our passports, and then back to Dr. Ob. The motor was going
+off at 6.30 he said. We cheered internally, for we were getting tired of
+Cettinje, which reminded us of a watchmaker's wife with her best silk
+dress on. On our way downstairs we called in to thank the Minister of
+War for our jolly trip; and he wished us "Bon voyage."
+
+We got en route almost up to time, with us was Mrs. G----, who was also
+going back as far as Podgoritza. She was storekeeper and accountant for
+the Wounded Allies, and ever had a hard and troublesome task between
+what she needed and what she could get from the Sanitary Department. She
+took the front seat with Jo, and inside Jan found a French sailor of the
+wireless telegraphy, who had had typhoid fever, but was now going back
+to work. As we rattled down the curves and along the edge of the
+darkening chasms of the mountain side, he summed up with the brevity of
+a "rapin."
+
+"Dans la journee ici, vous savez, il y'a de quoi faire des cliches."
+
+We stopped at Rieka for water, and then on once more. In the glare of
+our headlights, little clumps of soldiers, with donkeys loaded with the
+new uniforms, loomed suddenly out of the darkness. Once a donkey took
+fright and bolted back, and the soldier in charge yelled and pointed his
+rifle at us. If we had moved he would have shot without compunction.
+Later the men had bivouacked, and all along the rest of the road we
+passed little fires of fresh brushwood, the sparks pouring up like
+fountains into the night, round which the soldiers and drivers were
+sitting and singing their weird songs.
+
+At Podgoritza we found Dr. Lilias Hamilton at supper with her staff. She
+has had rather a hard time. The hospital was intended for Ipek, but for
+some reason, although there were wounded in the town, the Montenegrins
+decided to move it to Podgoritza, where there were none. After a
+difficult journey across the mountains they settled down, but could
+never get sufficient transport from the Government to bring their stores
+over, except in small quantities. They started to work, but as there
+were few soldiers to treat, Dr. Lilias, being a lady, interested herself
+in the Turkish female population, a thing which the Montenegrins thought
+a criminal waste of time, and tried to stop.
+
+We got a bedroom in the hotel, and tired out, tried to sleep; but the
+occupants of the cafe began a set of howling songs, very unmusical, and
+kept us awake till past twelve. We have never heard this kind of singing
+anywhere else.
+
+Next day we crossed the river and explored the quaint and beautiful
+streets of the Turkish quarter. The people are equally offensive on both
+sides of the town; however, Podgoritza seems to be the White-chapel of
+Montenegro--and we finally had to take refuge in the sheds of the French
+wireless telegraphy. The commandant at the motor depot again treated us
+rudely, but the Prefect was nice, this time. He promised us a carriage
+on the morrow if no motor were forthcoming.
+
+After supper the people began the awful howling songs; also there was a
+wild orchestra which had one clarinet for melody and about ten deep
+bass trumpets for accompaniment.
+
+Next morning no carriage came, so off to the Prefect. He promised one
+"odmah," which being translated is "at once," but means really within
+"eight or nine hours." We waited. Nine a.m. passed. Ten a.m. went by. A
+small boy sneaked up and tried to sell some contraband tobacco; but Jan
+had just bought "State." An angry Turkish gentleman came and said that
+his horses had been requisitioned to take us to Andrievitza, and that we
+weren't going to get them till one o'clock, because he was using them.
+We returned to the Prefect, not to complain--oh no--but to ask him to
+telegraph to Andrievitza that we were coming. He was naturally surprised
+to see us again, and explanations followed. A very humbled and much
+better tempered Turk came to the cafe to say that the horses would be
+with us "odmah."
+
+A drizzle had been falling all the morning; at last the carriage came.
+Our driver was a wretched half-starved, high-cheeked Moslem in rags,
+whose trousers were only made draught proof by his sitting on the holes.
+He tried to squeeze another passenger upon us; but we were wiser, and
+were just not able to understand what he was saying. Our Turk's method
+of driving was to tie the reins to the carriage rail, flourishing a whip
+and shouting with vigour; every ten minutes he glanced uneasily
+backwards to see that nothing had broken loose or come away.
+
+The valley we entered had been very deep, but at some period had been
+half filled by a deposit of sand and pebble which had hardened into a
+crumbling rock. We were driving over the gravelly shelf, above our head
+rose walls of limestone, and deep below was the river which had eaten
+the softer agglomerate into a hundred fantastic caverns. All along the
+road we passed groups of tramping volunteers fresh from America with
+store clothes and suitcases; the sensible were also festooned with
+boots. It was pretty cold sitting in the carriage, and it grew colder as
+we mounted.
+
+At last we halted to rest the horses at a cafe. The influence of "Pod"
+was heavy still. A group of grumpy people were sitting around a fire
+built in the middle of the floor; they did not greet us--which is
+unusual in Montenegro--but continued the favourite Serb recreation of
+spitting. In the centre of them was an old man on a chair, also
+expectorating, and by his side one older and scraggier, his waistcoat
+covered with snuff and medals, palpitated in a state of senile decay,
+holding in a withered hand a palmfull of snuff which he had forgotten to
+inhale. There were a lot of women saying nothing and spitting. A sour,
+hard-faced woman admitted that there was coffee.
+
+Jo, trying to cheer things up a bit, said brightly--
+
+"Is it far to Andrievitza?"
+
+A woman mumbled, "Far, bogami."
+
+Jo again: "It is cold on the road."
+
+A long silence, broken with the sound of spitting, followed. At last a
+woman in the darkest corner murmured--
+
+"Cold, bogami."
+
+It was like the opening of a Maeterlinckian play, but we gave it up,
+sipped our coffee, and when we had finished, fled outside into the cold
+which, after all, was warmer than these people's welcome. Outside we met
+a young man who spoke German, and as he wanted to show off, he stopped
+to converse. We were joined by an older man who claimed to be his
+father. The father was really a jolly old boy. He said his son was a
+puny weakling, but as for himself he never had had a doctor in his life.
+So Jan tried his mettle with a cigar. An officer, a filthy old peasant
+in the remains of a battered uniform, joined the group, but he was not
+charming; however, Jan offered him a cigarette. The old yokel rushed on
+his fate. He said--
+
+"Cigarettes are all very well; but I would rather have one of those you
+gave to the other fellow."
+
+The road wound on and up in the usual way, rain came down at intervals,
+and it grew colder and colder. At last we extracted all our spare
+clothes from the knapsack and put them on. We reached the top of the
+pass and began to rattle down the descent on the further side, and we
+kept our spirits up, in the growing gloom, by singing choruses: "The old
+Swanee river" and "Uncle Ned."
+
+We pulled up at dusk at a dismal hovel, on piles, with rickety wooden
+stairs leading to a dimly lighted balcony over which fell deep wooden
+eaves.
+
+"Is this Jabooka?" we asked, for we had been told to alight at Jabooka.
+
+"No," said the driver; "we cannot reach Jabooka to-night. But here are
+fine beds, fine, fine, fine!"
+
+We climbed in. The rooms were whitewashed and looked all right, but
+there was a funny smell. We shall know what it means a second time.
+There was a crowd of American Montenegrin volunteers in the kitchen. One
+gay fellow was in a bright green dressing-gown like overcoat: he said
+that his wife--a hard-featured woman who looked as if nobody loved
+her--had brought his saddle horse. We got some hard-boiled eggs and
+maize bread. Maize bread is always a little gritty, for it has in its
+substance no binding material, but when it is well cooked and has plenty
+of crust is quite eatable. French cooking is far away, however, and the
+bread is usually a sort of soggy, half-baked flabby paste, most
+unpalatable and most indigestible. Here was the worst bread we yet had
+found.
+
+They took us down a dark passage, in which huge lumps of raw meat
+hanging from the walls struck one's hand with a chill, flabby caress as
+one passed. In our room, four benches were arranged into a pair of
+widish couches; mattresses were given us and coarse hand-woven rugs. We
+were then left. But we could not sleep; somehow lice were in one's mind,
+and at last Jan awoke and lit the tiny oil lamp. He immediately slew a
+bug; then another; then a whopper; then one escaped; then Jo got one. In
+desperation we got up, smeared ourselves with paraffin, and lay down
+again in a dismal distressed doze till morning.
+
+Our driver was a dilatory dog: we had said that we would leave at five
+a.m., and at six he was washing his teeth in the little stream which
+acted as the village sewer. As we were waiting our green-coated friend
+got away on his saddle horse, with his wife walking at its tail; the
+other Americans climbed into a great three-horse waggon, dragged their
+suit-cases after them, and off they went. We left nearer seven than six.
+The air was chilly, and though there were bits of blue in the sky, the
+hills were floating in mist, and there was a sharp shower. There were
+more groups of Americans trudging along, and also a fair number of
+peasants, the women, as usual, dignified and beautiful. Very hungry we
+at last came to Jabooka. A jolly woman--we were getting away from
+"Pod"--welcomed us and dragged us into the kitchen. She asked Jo many
+questions, one being, "What relation is he to you, that man with whom
+you travel?" The fire on the floor was nearly out, but she rained sticks
+on to it, blew up the great central log, which is the backbone, into a
+blaze, and soon the smoke was pouring into our eyes and filtering up
+amongst the hams in the roof. We were drinking a splendid cafe au lait
+when an old woman peered in at the door.
+
+"Very beautiful Jabooka," she said.
+
+We agreed heartily.
+
+"Not dear either," she said.
+
+We expressed surprise.
+
+"You can buy cheap," she went on.
+
+We regretted that we did not wish to.
+
+"But you must eat to live," she protested.
+
+We intimated that this was of the nature of a truism, but failed to see
+the connection.
+
+"But look at them," she expostulated, holding out a large basket of
+apples; and we suddenly remembered that "Jabooka" means also apples, and
+realized that she was not a land agent.
+
+Then on once more. In the deep valleys were large modern sawmills, but
+the houses were ever poor, and the windows grew smaller and smaller and
+were without glass. At the junction of the Kolashin road, from the
+north, we picked up a jolly Montenegrin with a big dog. He was a driver
+by profession, and he hurried our lethargic progress a little. Then the
+front spring broke. It was mended with wire and a piece of tree; when we
+started again the reins snapped.
+
+We halted once more at a cafe filled with Americans; some had only left
+their native land six months agone, yet to the peasant they were all
+"Americans." Some of them seemed very dissatisfied with the reception
+which they had received, and we don't wonder. "In Ipek I coulden get my
+room," said one, "tho' I 'ad wired for 't, 'cause one o' them 'airy
+popes [Greek priests] 'ad come wid 'is fambly. I 'ad to sleep like a
+'og, you fellers, jess like a 'og." We had been under the impression
+that burning patriotism had called all these men back to their country,
+but one sturdy fellow disabused us.
+
+"No, you fellers," he said, "there weren't no work for us in 'Murrica.
+Mos' o' the places 'ad closed down ter a shift or two at the mos' per
+wik. And fer fellers wats used to livin' purty well there weren't enough
+ter pay board alone. We gotter come or we'd a starved." Of course this
+was not true of many.
+
+On again, rain and sun alternating, but still we were cold, feet
+especially.
+
+These mountains, these continual groups of slouching, slouch-hatted
+"Americans," these little weathered log cabins, falling streams, and
+pine trees reminded one of some tale of Bret Harte, and one found one's
+self expecting the sudden appearance of Broncho Billy or Jack Hamlin
+mounted upon a fiery mustang. But we cleared the top of the pass without
+meeting either, and started on our last long downhill to Andrievitza.
+Cheered by the rapidity of our motion the two ruffians on the box
+started a howling Podgoritzian kind of melody, exceedingly discordant.
+The driver, careless that one of our springs was but wired tree, and
+that wheels in Montenegro are easily decomposed, flogged his horses
+unmercifully, rattling along the extreme edge of one hundred foot
+precipices. We stopped at a cafe for the driver to get coffee; rattled
+on again, stopped to inquire the price of hay; more rattle; stopped for
+the driver to say, "How de doo" to a pal; more rattle; stopped to ask a
+man if his dog has had puppies yet.... But we protested.
+
+Andrievitza was the prettiest village we had yet seen in Montenegro,
+and was full of more "Americans." In the street a small boy urged us to
+go to "Radoikovitches," but we went to the hotel. The hotel was full,
+because a Pasha from Scutari had arrived with his three wives, and all
+their families. So we permitted the little yellow-haired urchin to lead
+us to "Radoikovitches." A woman received us, without gusto, till she
+learned that Jo was Jan's wife, when she cheered up. A charming old
+officer stood rakia all round in our honour. The mayor came in to greet
+us, and we felt that at last Pod had been pushed behind for ever.
+
+The mayor was a pleasant fellow, speaking French, and he confided in us
+that he was suffering from a "maladie d'estomac." When we thought we had
+sympathized enough, we asked him how far it was, and could we have
+horses to go to Petch. He answered that it was two days, or rather one
+and a half, and that the horses would await us at twelve on the
+following day. We went to bed early to make up for last night, but Jan,
+having felt rather tickly all day, hunted the corners of his shirt and
+found--dare we mention it--a louse, souvenir de Lieva Rieka.
+
+As we were breakfasting next day our driver, who had been most
+unpleasant the whole time, sidled up and asked Jan to sign a paper.
+While Jan was doing so the driver burst into a volley of explanations.
+We thought that he was asking for a tip, but made out that he had lost
+(or gambled) the ten kronen which his employer had given to him for
+expenses. We had intended to give him no tip, for on the yesterday he
+had refused to carry our bags, but this made us waver. We asked Mr. Rad,
+etc., what we should do.
+
+"Sign his paper," he answered gruffly, "and kick him out; he's only a
+dirty Turk anyhow."
+
+The mayor sent our horses round early; but we stuck to our decision to
+start in the afternoon, and ordered lunch at twelve. There was a huge
+crowd gathered in front of the inn, and we saw that the Pasha and his
+harem were off. One wife wore a blue furniture cover over her, one a
+green, and one a brown, so that he might know them apart from the
+outside, for they all had heavy black veils before their faces. The
+Pasha himself seemed rather a decent fellow, and had much of the air of
+a curate conducting a school feast. Four children were thrust into two
+baskets which were slung on each side of one small horse, and various
+furniture, including a small bath (or large basin), was strapped on to
+others, and the Pasha followed by his wives set off walking, the Pasha
+occasionally throwing a graceful remark behind him.
+
+The mayor lunched with us, and for a man who has, as he says, anaemia of
+the stomach, chronic dysentery, and inflammation of the intestines, he
+ate most freely, and if such is his daily habit, he deserved all he had
+got.
+
+Our guide was the most picturesque we have yet had. He was an Albanian
+with a shaven poll save for a tuft by which the angels will one day lift
+him to heaven, small white cap like a saucer, over which was wound a
+twisted dirty white scarf, short white coat heavily embroidered with
+black braid, tight trousers, also heavily embroidered, but the waistband
+only pulled up to where the buttock begins to slide away--we wondered
+continuously why they never fell off--and the long space between coat
+and trousers filled with tightly wound red and orange belt. He called
+himself Ramases, or some such name. Our saddles were pretty good, the
+stirrups like shovels, the horses the best (barring at the Front) we had
+had since Prepolji.
+
+We rode over a creaky bridge, Jan's horse refusing, so he went through
+the river, and out into the new road which is being made to Ipek. Men
+and women, almost all in Albanian costumes, were scraping, digging,
+drilling and blasting; some of the women wore a costume we had not yet
+seen, very short cotton skirt above the knees, and long, embroidered
+leggings. We passed this high-road "in posse" and, the little horses
+stepping along, presently caught up a trail of donkeys, the proprietor
+of which, a friend of Ramases, had a face like a post-impressionist
+sculpture.
+
+We passed the donkeys and came to the usual sort of cafe, rough log hut,
+fire on floor--but one of the women therein gave Jo her only
+apple--decidedly we were away from Pod.
+
+On again along river valleys. Jan's saddle had a knob in the seat that
+began to insinuate. On every hill were cut maize patches, the red
+stubble in the sunset looking like fields of blood.
+
+In the dusk we came to Velika, a wooden witchlike village, where we were
+to stay the night, and where, as we had expected, the Pasha, ten minutes
+ahead of us, had commandeered all the accommodation. The captain,
+however, was very good, and gave us a policeman to find lodgings for us.
+By this time it was dark. He led us into a pitch black lane where the
+mud came over our boots, then we clambered up a loose earth cliff and
+stood looking into a room whose only light was from a small fire, as
+usual on the floor. Over the fire was a large pot, and a meagre-faced
+woman was stirring the brew. Behind her a small baby in a red and white
+striped blanket was pushed up to its armpits through a hole on four
+legs, where it hung. In a dark corner a small boy was worrying a black
+cat.
+
+"Can you give these English a bed?" demanded the policeman.
+
+The woman shook her head sadly. "Mozhe," she said, which means "It is
+possible."
+
+After supper, Bovril and cheese omelette, we went out to seek the cafe.
+We trudged back through the mud and stumbled into a house full of
+lattice work, like a Chinese store. Startled we tried another. This time
+we came into a stable, but there was a ladder leading upwards, and at
+the top a lighted room, so we decided to explore. We climbed up and came
+into a large loft in which six long legged, heavily bearded Albanians
+were squatting about a fire; a gipsy woman with wild tousled hair and
+hanging breasts was in the corner of the hearth, and was telling some
+long monotonous tale. An Albanian, who spoke Serb, told us to come in
+and have coffee. It was like the illustration of some tale from the
+Arabian Nights. After a while we climbed out again into the night, and
+went home. Ramases hung about shyly, and the woman explained that he had
+nowhere to sleep; so we arranged that she should house him also.
+
+Even as we poked our noses out of the door there was a promise of a fine
+day. Below us we could see the Pasha up and superintending the packing
+of his family and furniture. We celebrated by opening our last tin of
+jam, which we had carried carefully all the way, waiting for an
+occasion. We left the remains of the jam for the small family, and as we
+were mounting we saw their faces smeared and streaked with "First
+Quality Damson." We started the climb almost at once. The early morning
+smoke filtering through the slats made an outer cone, of faint blue,
+above the black roof of every hut and cottage; here and there were
+traces of roadmaking, groups of Albanian workmen on stretches of
+levelled earth which our trail crossed at irregular intervals. Presently
+we entered the clouds, and were wrapped about with a thin mist faintly
+smelling of smoke. After a while we climbed above them, and looking down
+could see the clouds mottling all the landscape, and through holes
+little patches of sunlit field or wood peering through like the eyes of
+a Turkish woman through her yashmak.
+
+Our horses panted and sweated up the long and arduous slope for two
+mortal hours, up and ever up; but all things come to an end, and at last
+we reached the top. We sat down to rest our weary animals and, lo! by us
+passed long strings of mules and ponies bearing the very benzine about
+which so much fuss had been made in Cettinje. Alas for our reputations
+as miracle workers! Had this blessed stuff only come a week later we
+should even have passed in Montenegro as first cousins of the king at
+least; but this was a little too prompt.
+
+There was landscape enough here for any budding Turners, but we two had
+still eight hours to go and not money enough to loiter. On the higher
+peaks of the mountains there was already a fresh powdering of snow; in
+the valleys the clouds had almost cleared away, leaving a thin film of
+moisture which made shadows of pure ultramarine beneath the trees. Your
+modern commercial grinder cannot sell you this colour, it needs some of
+that pure jewel powder which old Swan kept in a bottle for use on his
+masterpiece, but found never a subject noble enough. Some of that stuff
+prepared from the receipt of old Cennino Cennini which ends "this is a
+work, fine and delicate, suitable for the hands of young maidens, but
+beware of old women." Pure Lapis Lazuli.
+
+[Illustration: THE IPEK PASS IN WINTER.]
+
+But it became difficult even for us to admire landscape, for breakfast
+had disappeared within us, and lunch seemed far away, so once more
+recourse to the "compressed luncheon." There are three stages in the
+taste of the "Tabloid." Stage one, when it smacks of glue; stage two,
+when it has a flavour of inferior beef tea, say 11.30 a.m.; stage three,
+when it resembles nothing but the gravy of the most delicious beef
+steak. That is about 2.30, and your lunch some hours in retard. We
+had reached stage three, and even Jo succumbed to the charms of the
+"Tab."
+
+Famished we came to a cafe.
+
+"Eggs?" we gasped to the host.
+
+"Nema" (haven't got any), he replied.
+
+"Milk?"
+
+"Nema."
+
+"Cheese?" crescendo.
+
+"Nema."
+
+"Bread?" fortissimo.
+
+"Nema."
+
+Despairing we swallowed three more luncheon tablets each and whined for
+tea. Ramases, who seemed to get along on tea alone, promised us a
+well-stocked cafe in an hour and a half.
+
+The second cafe was purely Albanian. We climbed up some rickety stairs
+into a room which had--strange to relate--a fireplace. About the room
+was a sleeping dais where three or four black and white ruffians were
+couched. There was a little window with a deep seat into which we
+squeezed and loudly demanded eggs, bread and cheese. An old woman all
+rags and tatters came in and squeezed up alongside, where she crouched,
+spinning a long wool thread and staring up into Jo's face. Several cats
+were lounging about the room, but one came close and began to squirm as
+though she were "setting" a mouse. Suddenly she pounced, seized the old
+woman's food bag from her feet, swept it on to the floor, and
+disappeared with it beneath the dais, where all the rest of the cats
+followed. The old woman, who had been plying distaff and spindle the
+while, let out a yell of fury and half disappeared beneath the platform.
+We all roared with laughter, while beneath us the cats spat and the old
+woman cursed, beating about with the handle of her distaff till she had
+rescued her dinner. She backed out with the bag, sat down again and
+started spinning once more as though nothing had happened.
+
+Beyond this cafe the track became very stony and rough. We passed a
+typical couple. The man was carrying a light bag full of bottles, while
+the women had on her back a huge wooden chest, in which things rattled
+and bumped as she stumped along.
+
+Jo looked at her with pity. "That's heavy," she said.
+
+The woman stared stupidly and answered nothing; but the man smiled and
+said--
+
+"Yes, heavy. Bogami."
+
+We passed more caravans of that all too soon benzine. Cliffs began to
+tower up on every side, and precipices to fall away beneath our feet to
+a greenish roaring torrent; great springs spouted from the rocks and
+dashed down upon the stones below in shredded foam: one was pink in
+colour. Here once a general and his lady were riding, and the lady's
+horse slipped. The general grasped her but lost his own balance, and
+both fell into the river and were killed. The track wound up and down,
+often very slippery underfoot, and the horses, shod with the usual flat
+plates of iron, were slithering and sliding on the edge of the
+precipices. At last we got off and walked. It was an immense relief: our
+saddles were intensely hard, stirrups unequal lengths, and with knots
+which rubbed unmercifully on the shins. We passed a man who was
+evidently an Englishman, and he stared at us as we passed, but neither
+stopped. The gorge grew deeper, the stream more rapid. The cliffs
+towered higher, black and grey in huge perpendicular stripes. We heard
+sounds of thunder or of blasting which reverberated in the canyon; it
+was oppressive and gloomy, and one shuddered to think what it would be
+like if an earthquake occurred. The cliffs ceased abruptly in a huge
+grass slope on which crowds of people were working on the new road; we
+crossed the river over a wooden bridge.
+
+We came down into Ipek suddenly, past the old orange towered monastery,
+which lies, its outer walls half buried, keeping the landslides at bay.
+Ramases, who had suddenly put on another air, flung his leg over the
+saddle--he had previously been sitting sideways--and twisted his
+moustache skywards. Jo wished to canter on, but he sternly forbade her,
+flipping her horse on the nose and driving it back when she tried to
+pass; for it would have damned his manly dignity for ever had a woman
+preceded him.
+
+Our first view of Ipek was of a forest of minarets shooting up from the
+orchards, not a house was to be seen. Ramases tried to make us lodge in
+a vague looking building. We asked him if that were the best hotel. He
+answered nonchalantly, "Nesnam" (don't know); so we hunted for
+ourselves, discovering in the main square a blue house labelled "Hotel
+Skodar" in large letters.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IPEK, DECHANI AND A HAREM
+
+
+
+We entered the courtyard of the inn. Tiny as it was all Ipek seemed to
+be plucking poultry in it. An urbane old woman came forward, evidently
+the owner. She had short arms, and her hair grey at the roots was
+stained with henna, which matched her eyes. A dog fancier once told us
+never to buy a dog with light-coloured eyes if we wanted a trustful
+loving nature, so we wondered if it applied to humans.
+
+She showed us a tiny dungeon-like room entirely filled up by two beds.
+We were not impressed; but she assured us that we should have a large
+beautiful room the next day for the same price. So we engaged it and
+strolled out into the evening.
+
+Buffaloes were sitting in couples round the big square. They chewed the
+cud with an air of incomparable wisdom so remote from the look of
+reproachful misery that is generally worn by an ox. Goats came in from
+the hills with their hair clipped in layers, which gave them the
+appearance of ladies in five-decker skirts; and children were playing a
+queer game. They jumped loosely round in circles with bent knees, making
+a whooping-cough noise followed by a splutter. We saw it often
+afterwards, and decided that it must be the equivalent to our "Ring o'
+Roses."
+
+Work was over for the day, the sun set behind the hills which ringed us
+round, and we went to kill time in a cafe.
+
+While we were exchanging coffees with an "American," who was showing us
+the excellences of his wooden leg which he had made himself, a
+breathless man ran in.
+
+He had been searching the town for us. The governor had ordered him to
+put us up, as his had the notoriety of being a clean house. Having taken
+a room already with the amiable old lady we feared to disappoint her, so
+we decided not to move. The man piteously hoped that we were not
+offended; and we explained at length.
+
+When we reached the hotel again our old hostess bustled up, more sugary
+than ever.
+
+"We have just thought of a little rearrangement," she said.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Well, do you understand, the inn is very full to-night, so we thought
+it best that you should both take the one bed and I and my daughter
+will take the other."
+
+"Oh," said we, "in that case we had better move altogether, we have
+anoth--"
+
+"Indeed, no no," said the old lady, horrified. "Stay, stay. There sit
+down. It is good, keep your beds." She patted us and left us.
+
+We had an uninspired dinner. Greasy soup, tough boiled meat which had
+produced the soup, minced boiled meat in pepper pods, and two pears
+which turned out to be bad. The company, composed of officers and
+nondescripts, pleased us no better than the dinner, so we decided to eat
+elsewhere on the morrow.
+
+The governor's secretary came in to arrange for an interview with his
+chief--yet another Petrovitch and brother to the governor of Scutari. By
+this time we had each imbibed a dozen Turkish coffees during the day,
+but we slept for all that from nine until nine in the morning.
+
+Marko Petrovitch, whom we saw early, was the best and last Petrovitch we
+met in Montenegro. Like all the Petrovitches he wore national costume.
+He was handsome, shy, and kindly, said we must go to Dechani the most
+famous of Balkan monasteries, and promised us a cart for the journey.
+
+After leaving the governor we plunged into melodrama.
+
+Hearing a noise we discovered crowds of weeping women and children round
+the steps of a shop. A young man in French fireman's uniform seemed to
+be very active, and an old trousered woman passively rolled down the
+steps after receiving a box on the ears.
+
+We thought it was a policeman arresting an elderly thief; but Jo, seeing
+blood on the lady's face, told him he was a "bad man." He lurched,
+staring at her stupidly. His companions, more firemen, came forward
+grinning sheepishly, and we recommended them to lead him away out of
+mischief. But the next minute a balloon-trousered child rushed up to us
+and tugged at Jan's coat.
+
+"Quick, the devil man is doing more bad things."
+
+We ran down the road beyond the village and saw him in the distance
+dancing on an old Turk's bare feet with hobnailed boots, alternating
+this amusement with cuffs on the face. We sprinted along, and seeing a
+convenient little river wriggling along by the roadside, Jan caught him
+by the neck and the seat of his trousers, swung him round, and pitched
+him in. The man sat for a moment, bewildered, in the water, and then
+climbed out uttering dreadful oaths; but as he came up Jan knocked him
+into the water again.
+
+Men in firemen's uniforms appeared from all sides, shouting--
+
+"What are you doing? You mustn't. Who are you?"
+
+"We know the governor," said Jo. The men were making gestures of
+deference when the reprobate rushed from the river, aiming a whirling
+blow at Jan which missed.
+
+The men hurled themselves on him, but he grabbed Jan's coat to which he
+clung, howling in unexpected English--
+
+"Shake 'ands wi' y' ennemi." Suddenly everybody spoke English, and we
+wondered into what sort of a fairy tale had we fallen.
+
+It was lunch time so we did not stay for explanations, but hurried back
+to the town with the weeping old Turk, gave him our small change, which
+seemed to cure the pains in his feet, and hunted for the other hotel.
+
+It was tucked away in a romantic back street. The bar room was tiny, but
+it was very pleasant to sit round little tables under shady trees in the
+courtyard.
+
+"What have you for lunch?" we asked a solid-looking waiter boy.
+
+"Nema Ruchak, bogami." We have no lunch. We looked at all the other
+people absorbing meat and soup.
+
+"Give us what you have."
+
+"We have nothing, bogami."
+
+"Have you soup?"
+
+"Yes, bogami."
+
+"And cheese?"
+
+"Ima, ima, bogami."
+
+"That will do for us."
+
+He thereupon brought macaroni soup, boiled meat, roast meat, fried
+potatoes, cheese, grapes, and coffee.
+
+We never found out why in Montenegro they should make it a point of
+honour to say they have nothing. It resembles the Chinese habit of
+alluding to a "loathsome" wife and a "disgusting" daughter.
+
+After lunch we visited our own hotel and found mine hostess waiting for
+us with her short arms akimbo. She wanted the "beautiful large bedroom"
+to which we had moved in the morning, finding it the same size as the
+one below, but rather lighter. Its former occupant had arrived, and we
+were to go back to the dungeon.
+
+"That is not good," said Jo, and we flatly refused to go downstairs.
+
+"If we leave this room we go altogether."
+
+She again patted us and begged us to consider the matter closed. We
+could stick to the room.
+
+Certainly that dog fancier was right.
+
+There was a very old monastery which we had passed as we rode into
+Ipek.
+
+Although we are more interested in the people of the present than in
+ruins of the past, these old Serbian monuments leave so strange a memory
+of a civilization suddenly cut off at its zenith that they have an
+emotional appeal far apart from that of archaeology. These little oases
+of culture preserved amongst a wilderness of Turk tempt the traveller
+with a romance which is now vanishing from Roman and Greek ruins.
+
+The Ipek monastery is a beautiful old place with the walls half buried
+on one side. The old church, orange outside, is very dark within, but
+contains many beautiful paintings. Surely here is the home of Post
+Impressionism and of Futurism. The decorations of the bases of the
+pillars are quite futuristic even orpeistic.
+
+The pictures are Byzantine. But the Turks have picked out the eyes, as
+they always do. One enormous painting of a head which filled a
+semicircle over a door is particularly fine. Most halos are round, but
+the painter had deemed the ears and beard worthy of extra bulges in this
+saint's halo, which added to the decorative effect.
+
+Beautiful apple trees were dotted about the big garden through which the
+wriggly river ran. Ducks, geese and turkeys wandered around, so fat that
+they were indifferent to the meal that was being served out to them. A
+boy woke up the mother of a family of young turkeys and pushed her
+towards the dinner with his foot. She hurried there involuntarily and
+sat down for a nap with her back to the plate, the picture of outraged
+dignity.
+
+We got into conversation with a priest, who insisted we should call upon
+the archbishop. The Metropolitan was a cheery soul, wearing a
+Montenegrin pork-pie hat very much on one side, and black riding
+breeches which showed as his long robes fluttered during his many
+gesticulations.
+
+While with him we lost the impression that we were living in the unreal
+times of the Rose and the Ring. He was intensely civilized, spoke French
+excellently, and had many a good story of his life in Constantinople and
+other places. For the English he had great affection. The last
+Englishman in Ipek, a king's messenger, had flown to the monastery to
+escape from the Hotel Europe and its bugs. The next morning he would not
+get up. The archbishop went to his room to remonstrate.
+
+"No, no," said he; "I spent two nights under a ceiling which rained bugs
+upon me, and I know a good bed when I've got it."
+
+Coffee and cigarettes came in, of the best, and the rakia was a thing
+apart from the acrid stuff we were accustomed to.
+
+He admitted its superiority. The plums came from his own estate, and
+were distilled by the monks. The great difficulty was to prevent him
+from giving us too much.
+
+We talked of the war, and he related many atrocities, winding up with
+"Of course, England must win; but what will become of us in the
+meanwhile?"
+
+That evening we had a visitor. A very large Montenegrin in French
+fireman's uniform knocked at the door. He said his name was Nikola
+Pavlovitch. He had been sent by the governor to apologise for the
+"trouble" Jan had had that morning with the drunken soldier.
+
+"'E in jail now, 'e verry sorry and say if you forgive 'im, mister, 'e
+never touch rakia, never no more. 'E good chap reely. Got too much rakia
+this mornin', 'E think about Turks an' get kinder mad some'ow. 'E don't
+know what 'e done; first thing 'e knows 'e finds 'imself in river."
+
+Nikola Pavlovitch was, though not an officer, the commandant of a
+contingent of miners from America. The governor had told him also to
+offer himself as cicerone for the morrow, the cart having been ordered
+for our trip to Dechani.
+
+We didn't like cicerones and demurred.
+
+"I kin talk for you," he said. But we owned to speaking Serb.
+
+"I know all de country, kin tell you things: bin 'ere twenty years
+ago."
+
+We saw he wanted to come, and noticed that he had a very likable face,
+strong features, straight kindly eyes. We realized that he would be a
+very pleasant companion and arranged to meet at the stable the next day.
+
+And so, at last, we drove in one of the queer little Serb carts we had
+avoided so anxiously. A few planks nailed together and bound around with
+an insecure rail, four wheels slipped on to the axles with no pins to
+hold them, a Turkish driver dangling his legs--such was our chariot.
+Some hay was produced to improvise a seat; we bought some apples on
+tick, as the vendor said he had no change for our one shilling note, and
+off we drove.
+
+Nikola Pavlovitch started yarning almost at once, and we never had a
+dull moment. He was a comitaj once, in the old days when Turkey owned
+Macedonia and the Sanjak. He said that nearly all comitaj were men of
+education and intelligence. When Turkish rule became oppressive, when
+too many Christian girls were stolen and vanished for ever into harems,
+the comitaj appeared, farms were raided, minute but fierce battles were
+fought; but in spite of this continual supervision, occasional and
+mysterious murders were needed to keep down the excesses of the Turk.
+
+Pavlovitch waved a hand towards the sullen mountains of Albania, which
+were on our right.
+
+"Dose Swabs don' tink o' nuttin' but killin'. Jess ornary slaughter,
+Mister Jim. Now dat Jakovitza [a town to the south] dat don't mean
+nuttin but 'blood' in their talk, 'lots o' blood' dat's what it means.
+Sure. Dese peoples don' respect nuttin but killin'; an' when you've done
+in 'bout fifty other fellers you'r reckoned a almighty tough. If you
+wanted to voyage dere, f'r instance, you'd 'ave ter get a promise o'
+peace, a 'Besa' they calls it, from one of dese tough fellers, and he
+makes 'imself responsible to end any feller wat disturbs you; 'e can
+post a babby along o' you and so long as the kiddie's wid yer nobody'll
+touch you. Dats so, Mister Jim, you bleeve me. But all de same, dey've
+fixed it up so's dis killing business ain't perlite wen deres women
+about, so every feller taks 'is wife along 'o 'im so's not to be ended
+right away."
+
+Every house by the roadside was a fortress, loopholes only in the ground
+floor, windows peering from beneath the eaves and turrets with gunslits
+at the second story; here and there were old Turkish blockhouses, solid
+and square, showing how the conquerors had feared the conquered.
+
+"One o' dese tough fellers 'e kill more'n hundred fellers. Great chief
+'e is. Wen 'e was sixteen 'is fader get condemned ter prison way in
+Mitrovitza. Dis young tough 'e walk inter court nex' day, in 'e kill de
+judge and two of de officers and 'scape inter de mountains."
+
+Nick himself when he was a comitaj had twice been caught by the Turks.
+Once he was shot in thirteen places at once, but was found by some
+Christian women and eventually recovered; the second time the Turks beat
+him almost to death with fencing staves, and though they thought him
+dying put him on an ox cart and sent him to the interior of Turkey.
+
+"I was ravin' mad dat journey," he said. "I don' want ter go ter 'ell if
+it's like dat."
+
+They put him in hospital and treated him kindly; but once better they
+threw him into a Turkish gaol. He described how the prison was dark as
+night, because the poorer prisoners blocked up the windows, stretching
+their arms through for doles from the passers-by.
+
+"We was all eaten wi' lice," he went on, "an' if de folks 'adn't sent me
+money an' food I'd a starved to def, sure. 'N den dey bribes de governor
+'n a soldier, 'n dey lets me 'scape."
+
+He lay a cripple in Montenegro six months, but in the summer crawled
+down to the Bocche de Cattaro and on the sweltering shores of the
+Adriatic built himself a primitive sweat bath. In a few weeks he was
+better, and in a few months cured. He then went to the mines in America,
+for he dared not return to Macedonia. He saved L800 and returned with
+it to his sister's in Serbia, but was so oppressed by the misery about
+him that he gave away all his money and went back.
+
+"Dere's lots a mineral in dese mountains, you feller. I show you one
+lump feller got a' Ipek, an' I guess it's silver, sure. Wen de war over
+you come back an' we'll go over dem places tergedder. Dere's coal too.
+Lots."
+
+He told us that the wretched skeleton who was driving us had power in
+Turkish days to commandeer the services of Christian labourers, and to
+pay them nothing.
+
+We passed by placid fields containing cows, horses, donkeys. The country
+seemed untouched by war. Those cows could never have drawn heavy carts
+and lain exhausted and foodless after a heavy day's work. The horses
+reminded one of the sleek mares owned by old ladies who lived in awe of
+their coachmen.
+
+For this all belonged to Dechani, and it was beyond the power of the
+state to touch their riches; nor had they been molested even in the days
+of Turkish rule.
+
+"You see, monastery 'e pay money to the toughest Albanians--Albanian
+they give besa--and nobody never do no 'arm to the monasteries. Russia
+she send much money, she send always her priest to Dechani and the
+Turks they keep sorter respectful."
+
+Our first sight of Dechani disappointed us a little, the proportions
+lacked the beauty of the Ipek church; but the big old door marked by the
+fire the Turks had built against it, decades before, cheered us up a
+bit.
+
+A pleasant priest with a smooth face and ringlets two feet long greeted
+us and led us to the little Russian hospital which was fitted into the
+Abbey, warning us not to bang our heads against the heavy oak beams in
+the corridors.
+
+The Russians welcomed us heartily, preparing the most wonderful tea,
+Australian butter, white bread made with flour brought from Russia.
+
+Pavlovitch enjoyed himself immensely. Food was thin in the barracks. But
+he was very worried about the priest's long ringlets.
+
+"I'd soon cure 'im, a month diggin' de trench!" he murmured.
+
+After tea we examined the church. The interior was one miraculous blue:
+pictures with blue backgrounds, apostles with blue draperies, blue
+skies, a wonderful lapis lazuli.
+
+Once the Moslems had overpowered the defenders of the church and had got
+in, the eyes of some of the saints were picked through the plaster.
+Legend runs, however, that while they were desecrating the tomb of Tzar
+Stephan who founded the church, the tomb of the queen, which lay
+alongside, exploded with a violent report and terror struck the Turks,
+who fled.
+
+They showed us the queen's tomb, split from top to bottom. The priests
+naturally claim a miracle; but Pavlovitch said, "I tink dey verry
+clever, dey done dat wi' gunpowder."
+
+The Tzar Stephan had wished to build the church of gold and precious
+stones, but a soothsayer said--
+
+"No, my lord, build it of plain stone, for your empire will be robbed
+from you, and if it be of gold greedy men will tear it to pieces, but if
+it be of plain stone it will remain a monument for ever."
+
+So he built it of fine marble. The central pillars were forty feet high,
+and each cut from a single piece, with grotesque carved capitals. The
+great screen was wonderfully carved and gilded. Wherever one looked was
+decoration, almost in excess.
+
+Ringlets invited us to tea with the Russian bishop who was in charge. He
+was a stout, sweet-mannered little man, who shook his head woefully over
+the war.
+
+Somehow Pavlovitch discovered that he and the bishop were the same age,
+forty-eight. We contrasted Pavlovitch's spare athletic frame with the
+well-fed shape of the bishop, and felt instinctively which was the
+better Christian. Coffee and slatka were brought in. This slatka is
+always handed to callers in well-regulated Serbian households. It is jam
+accompanied by many little spoons and glasses of water. Each guest dips
+out a spoonful, licks the spoon, drinks the water, and places his spoon
+in the glass. There is also a curious custom with regard to the coffee.
+If a guest outstays his welcome, a second cup is brought in and
+ceremoniously placed before him--but, of course, this hint depends upon
+how it is done.
+
+"It is Friday," remarked Pavlovitch, regretfully. "Odder days we gits
+mighty good meal." He was very anxious for us to stay the night so that
+we should fit in a first-class breakfast, but the morrow was the Ipek
+fair, and we could not miss that.
+
+Night was coming so we hurried off and drove away. The horses went quite
+fast, as we had made them a present of some barley. We had discovered
+that since the beginning of the war, when they had been requisitioned by
+the Montenegrin Government, they had lived on nothing but hay, and the
+owner, who was driving them, said that they would soon die, and that
+when they did he would not receive a penny and would be a ruined man. He
+added pathetically--
+
+"One does not like to see one's beasts die like that, for after all one
+is fond of them."
+
+We arrived after dark, and ordered supper for three. The inn lady was
+scandalized.
+
+"But that is a common soldier," she said. "There are many fine folk in
+the dining-room, arrived to-day. The General--"
+
+So we dined upon the landing.
+
+The next day we got up very early, went down to the dining-room and
+found it was full of sleeping forms; we had coffee in our room.
+
+We wandered round the market. It was still too early, people were
+arriving and spreading their wares, men were hanging bright carpets on
+the white walls. Beggars were everywhere, exhibiting their gains in
+front of them. If one could understand they seemed to cry like this--
+
+"Ere y'are, the old firm; put your generous money on the real thing. I
+'as more misery to the square inch than any other 'as to the square
+yard."
+
+We found bargaining impossible, as they only spoke Albanian, and we
+could only get as far as "Sar," how much.
+
+Pavlovitch turned up later and was very helpful. We hurried him to a
+silver shop which was displaying a round silver boss. He beat them down
+from sixteen to ten dinars, after which we plunged into a side street
+filled with women squatted cross-legged behind a collection of
+everything that an industrious woman who owns sheep can confection.
+
+"I have nothing for thee," said an old woman to Jo, who peered into her
+basket--Pavlovitch translating.
+
+Jo withdrew a tiny pair of stockings--a marvel of knitting in many
+coloured patterns.
+
+"What about these?" she said.
+
+"Hast thou children?"
+
+"No; but how much?" said Jo.
+
+The price was four piastres. Jo gave four groschen and the old woman
+peered anxiously at the money in her palm.
+
+"It is too much," she said.
+
+Pavlovitch explained that somehow four groschen worked out to more than
+four piastres; but we left her to calculate what fractions of a centime
+she had gained.
+
+Our old innkeeper looked very truculent when we entered.
+
+"Are you going to lunch here?"
+
+"No; we left word."
+
+"Then you can't stay here."
+
+[Illustration: IN THE BAZAAR OF IPEK.]
+
+[Illustration: STREET COFFEE SELLER IN IPEK.]
+
+We pointed out that her meals were bad and very dear. She retaliated by
+making a fearful noise, and invited us to go and sleep at the Europe;
+but we remembered the Archbishop's story and stood firm.
+
+"If you don't leave us in peace we will appeal to the Governor."
+
+"Do, do. Go to the Governor," said the old lady, her little girl, a
+wry-mouthed charwoman and a little boy whom Jo had noticed stealing our
+cigarettes. The dog joined in and barked vociferously.
+
+We went to the Governor who was near by. "They don't understand
+innkeeping here, and she is a drunken old slut," he said, and sent for
+her husband.
+
+We went defiantly again to the Europe for lunch.
+
+Jo had been expressing her wish to Pavlovitch to visit a harem. He came
+to tell us that it had been arranged, as the chief of the police was a
+friend of his, and he had asked a rich Moslem to let her visit his
+wives. The Moslem had graciously assented, saying that he would do it as
+a great favour to the chief of the police, and that no "European" woman
+had ever visited an Ipek harem.
+
+We went down the broad street with its brilliant houses, admiring the
+gaudy colours of the women's trousers. "What a pity," we said, "that
+such a word as _loud_ was invented in the English language."
+
+Outside a huge doorway were sitting the chief of police and the wealthy
+Albanian. We were introduced with great ceremony, and the Moslem, losing
+no time, took Jo through the doorway into a courtyard. At the end was
+another door guarded by a responsible-looking Albanian. He stood aside,
+and she entered another court full of trees and a basket-work hut. She
+passed through the lower story, which was full of grain, and ascended
+into a beautiful room with a seat built all round it.
+
+It was entirely furnished with carpets. He waved his hand to the seat,
+called to his wives much as a sportsman summons his dogs, and left.
+
+They came in, three women, simply dressed in chemise and flowered cotton
+bloomers. Their voices were shaking with excitement, and they were
+fearfully upset because Jo got up to shake hands with them.
+
+They only spoke Albanian, and a few words of Serb. One had been very
+beautiful, but her teeth were decayed, another was a healthy-looking
+young woman, and the third was frankly hideous.
+
+They brought coffee, the chief wife presenting it with her hand across
+her chest--a polite way of saying--
+
+"I am your slave."
+
+Jo spoke Serb, and they clearly said in Albanian--
+
+"If only we could tell what you are saying."
+
+After which every one sat and beamed, and they kept calling for
+somebody.
+
+A plump dark-eyed girl came in, the first wife's daughter. She spoke
+Serb, and interpreted for the wives.
+
+They wanted to know everything, but knew so little that they could grasp
+nothing.
+
+Where had Jo come from? She tried London, Paris; no use, they had never
+heard of them--two weeks on the sea--they didn't know what the sea was,
+nor ships nor boats. They had never left Ipek and only knew the little
+curly river.
+
+The girl said that "devoikas" did not learn to read and write. That was
+for the men.
+
+Jo finally explained that she had ridden on horseback from Plevlie. Then
+they gasped--
+
+"How far you have travelled! What a wonderful life, and does your
+husband let you speak to other men?"
+
+She asked them what they did.
+
+"Nothing." "Sewing?" "A little," they owned with elegant ease.
+
+The chief wife had recently lost one of her children, but did not seem
+to know of what it had died.
+
+"I should think a woman doctor would be useful here," said Jo.
+
+They screamed with laughter. "How funny! Why, she would be _so_ thick!"
+they said, stretching their arms as wide as they could.
+
+They kept inventing pretexts for keeping her, but when she rose to go
+for the third time they regretfully bade her farewell, the daughter took
+both her hands and imprinted a smacking kiss.
+
+Outside the healthy-looking wife emerged from the basket hut, where she
+was evidently preparing some delicacy to bring up, and showed signs of
+deep disappointment.
+
+The responsible-looking man who let her out also expressed his regrets
+that she had not stayed longer. In the great street doorway was seated
+the husband, but no Jan, no Pavlovitch, so Jo sat with him, somewhat
+embarrassed, eating bits of apple which he peeled for her.
+
+In the afternoon we went to bid farewell to the Archbishop and took
+Pavlovitch with us. The Archbishop gave Pavlovitch a poor welcome until
+he heard his name.
+
+"Are _you_ Nikola Pavlovitch, of whom I have heard so much from the
+Governor? I thought you were only a common soldier. I have met you at
+last."
+
+We felt we were really consorting with the great.
+
+Jo related her harem experiences, and he told of the attempts of the
+young Turks in Constantinople to abolish the veil, of how he had
+assisted at small dinner parties where the ladies had discarded their
+veils, and of the ferocity with which the priests and leaders had fought
+and quashed the movement.
+
+One lady had ventured unveiled into the bazaar, and one of the lowest of
+women had given her a blow on the face. On appealing to a policeman she
+had received small comfort, as he told her she ought to be ashamed of
+herself.
+
+As we went home we met women coming home from the fair with unsold
+carpets. They accosted us and wanted to know why we were writing them in
+the morning so that they could tell their relatives all about it.
+
+When we reached our bedroom the old innkeeper came in. In dulcet tones
+she admired our purchases. We were rather stiff.
+
+Suddenly she fell upon Jo's neck saying, "You mustn't be angry with me,"
+and remained there explaining.
+
+When she left, Jo looked gravely at Jan, took a toothcomb, let down her
+hair, and worked hard for a while.
+
+Next day we went for a long walk. As we were returning a terrific storm
+burst over us. We had left our mackintoshes in the inn, and were soon
+wet through. We got back just at supper time, and after, as Jan had no
+change of clothing, he decided to go to bed in his wet things, heaping
+blankets and rugs over himself in the hopes of being dry by the morrow.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO--II
+
+
+Jan awoke nearly dry, or in a sort of warm dampness, at 4.30 a.m. Not a
+soul was about, and we packed by candle. There was a purple dawn, and
+the towering cliffs behind the minarets glowed a deep cerise for at
+least ten minutes ere the light reached the town. The streets were still
+and deserted, but at last an old man with a coffee machine on his back,
+and a tin waistbelt full of pigeon-holes containing cups, took a seat at
+a corner. At six he was surrounded by groups of Albanian workmen
+drinking coffee, and he beckoned us to come and take coffee with him,
+but we were suspicious of the cleanliness of his crockery. A
+miserable-looking woman in widow's weeds was loitering about the door of
+the post office, and with her was a tattered girl surrounded by trunks,
+suit-cases, and bandboxes, so we guessed they were there to be fellow
+passengers. A waggon loaded with boxes halted before them, but the widow
+declined to let _her_ baggage go by it.
+
+At last the post waggon came. It was a small springless openwork cart
+with a rounded hood on it, so that it could roll when it upset--which
+was the rule rather than the exception--luggage accommodation was
+provided only for the "soap and tooth-brush" type of traveller; but the
+widow insisted upon packing in all her movables, and after that we four
+squeezed into what room was left. The seat was low, one's chin and knees
+were in dangerous proximity, and a less ideal position for travelling
+some thirty-five miles could not be imagined. The widow's portmanteau,
+all knobs and locks, was arranged to coincide with Jo's spine. The
+tattered maid was loaded with five packages on her knees which she could
+not control, so we looked as cheerful as we could and said to ourselves,
+"Anyway it will do in the book."
+
+At the start Jan was rather grateful for the squash, for the air was
+chilly; soon the damp, exposed parts of his clothing cooled to freezing
+point, and it was lucky that they were not more extensive.
+
+As we rolled over the craters and crests of the--what had once
+been--stone-paved streets, the driver halted, here to buy a large loaf
+of bread, there to purchase smelly cheese, and finally to pick up a
+gold-laced officer, whom we took to be the post-guard. The driver, who
+sat back to back with Jan, grumbled at him because he took up too much
+room. But Jan replied that it was his own fault for not making the
+carriage bigger, and that his knees were not telescopic. We received the
+post of Montenegro, for this was the only road out; it consisted of
+three letters and a circular, so we judged that Montenegrin censorship
+was pretty strict.
+
+The road was flat, the surrounding country covered with little scrubby
+oak bushes, in and out of which ran innumerable black pigs who had long
+cross pieces bound to their necks to prevent them from pushing through
+hedges into the few maize fields. As the miles passed Jan slowly began
+to dry, his temperature went up and his temper became better. The widow,
+we discovered, was the relict of a Greek doctor who had died of typhus
+in Plevlie, and she was returning to her native land.
+
+Presently we came to a small inn, a hut like all others, and the driver
+commanded us to get out. By this time we were accustomed to the sight of
+nobles kissing market women relatives, and it did not surprise us to see
+the officer embrace the rather dirty hostess of the inn and kiss all the
+children; but when he took his place behind the bar and began to serve
+the coffee!... It was a minute before we realized that he had not been
+guarding the three letters and the circular, but merely was returning
+home.
+
+At the Montenegrin frontier, which was some hours on, a soldier asked us
+for a lift, as though he could not see that we were already bulging at
+all points with excess luggage; at the Serbian frontier Jan was asked
+for his passport, and as they did not demand that of the widow, we
+concluded that they imagined her to be Mrs. Gordon, and Jo and the
+tattered one, two handmaids.
+
+Immediately over the frontier the road began to be Serbian, but not as
+Serbian as it became later on, and we reached Rudnik--and lunch--in good
+condition. Another carriage similar to our own was here, containing a
+Turkish family. The father, a great stalwart Albanian, and the son a
+budding priest in cerise socks. The priest was carrying food to his
+carriage, and we discovered that a woman was within, stowed away at the
+back like the widow's luggage, and carefully protected by two curtains,
+so that no eye should behold her. Her sufferings between Rudnik and
+Mitrovitza can be imagined when you have heard ours.
+
+From Rudnik we walked to ease our cramped limbs, and the road became so
+bad that the driver went across country to avoid it. Here is the receipt
+for making a Serbian road.
+
+"The engineer in charge shall send two hundred bullock trains from Here
+to There. He shall then find out along which path the greater number
+have travelled (_i.e._ which has the deepest ruts), after which an
+Austrian surveyor shall map it and mark it, 'Road to There.' Should the
+ruts become so deep that the carts are sliding upon their bottoms rather
+than travelling upon their wheels, an overseer must be sent to throw
+stones at it. He and ten devils worse than himself shall heave rocks
+till they think they have hurt it enough, when they may return home,
+leaving the road ten times worse than before, for the boulders by no
+means are to fill the ruts, but only to render them more exciting."
+
+Oh, we walked. Indeed, we walked a good deal more than the driver
+thought complimentary, we got out at every uphill, and put steam on so
+that we should not be caught on the downhills. By supreme efforts we
+managed to get in four hours' walking out of the torturous thirteen.
+Once--when we were a long way ahead--we were stopped by a gendarme.
+
+"Where are your passports?" demanded he.
+
+"In the post-waggon," replied Jan.
+
+"Why did you leave your passports in the post-waggon?"
+
+"Because they were in the pocket of my great-coat."
+
+"Why did you leave your great-coat in the post-waggon?"
+
+"Because it is hot."
+
+"I shall have to arrest you," quoth the gendarme.
+
+But his officer came from an adjoining building and told him not to make
+a fool of himself, and on we went, taking short cuts, following the
+telegraph poles, which staggered across country like a file of
+drunkards.
+
+Eventually the carriage caught us up and the driver insisted that we
+should get in. He added that he could not lose all day while we walked,
+and that he would never get to Mitrovitza; it seemed superfluous to
+point out that we had gone quicker than he, but to avoid argument we
+clambered in. The driver, in a temper, slashed his horses, and off we
+went, over ruts and stones full speed ahead. It was like being in a
+small boat in a smart cross-choppy sea, with little torpedoes exploding
+beneath the keel at three minute intervals; and this road was marked on
+the map as a first-class road; the mind staggers at what the second and
+third-class must be like. These countries are still barbarous at heart,
+but Europe cries out upon open atrocities, and so they have invented the
+post-waggon. After all, pain is a thing one can add up, and the sum
+total of misery produced by the post, travelling daily, must in time
+exceed that of the Spanish Inquisition. Thus do they gratify their
+brutal natures.
+
+We bounded along. The brakes did not work, the carriage banged against
+the horses' hocks, who, in turn, leapt forwards, and our four heads met
+in a resounding thump in the centre of the waggon; after which Jo
+insisted that the widow should turn her hatpins to the other side. The
+widow's luggage cast loose and hit us in cunning places when we were not
+looking. The cart rocked and heaved, and we expected it to turn over.
+There were other waggons on the road--heavy, slow ox carts, exporting
+wool or importing benzine or ammunition, with wheels of any shape bar
+round--some were even octagonal; and as they filed along they gave forth
+sounds reminiscent of Montenegrin song, a last wail from the hospitable
+little country whose borders we were leaving behind us.
+
+The driver promised us a better road further on; but the better road
+never came, and we hung on waiting for something to break and give us
+relief. There were hints, it is true, unfinished hints: some day men
+will be able to travel in comfort from Mitrovitza to Ipek, but the day
+is not yet. It is strange how the human frame gets used to things, and
+we grew to believe that our driver not only liked, but joyed in each
+extra bang and jolt--collected them as it were--for certainly he never
+avoided anything, though occasionally he wound at the brake, but that
+was only for show, because he knew that it did not work.
+
+We reached Mitrovitza at dark with bones unbroken, and rattled down a
+road with vague white Turkish houses upon one side, and a muddy looking
+stream reflecting dull lights on the other. One last lurid lunge, we
+leapt across a drain and broke a trace bar, but too late, we had
+arrived.
+
+The Hotel Bristol was full--why are there so many hotels in Serbia named
+Bristol?--but we were received by a stupid-looking maid at the Kossovo,
+and were given a paper to sign, saying who we were. Then down to the
+restaurant, where we had a beefsteak which was a dream, and back to bed,
+which was a nightmare, for all night long we bounced and banged and
+bruised our journey over again, and awoke quite exhausted.
+
+The first impression of a town which is entered by moonlight is usually
+difficult to recover on the following morning, it is often like the
+glimpse of a pretty girl caught, say, in a theatre lobby, and the charm
+may never be rewoven. So it was with Mitrovitza, which in daylight
+seemed just a dull, ordinary Turkish town. The Prefect was a bear, and
+sent us on a long unnecessary walk to the station, a mile and a half.
+Sitting on the road was the dirtiest beggar we had yet seen. As we came
+towards her she chanted our praises, bowing before us and kissing the
+dust; but she aroused only feelings of disgust and getting nothing, she
+turned to curses till we were out of sight. The chief imports at the
+station seemed to be cannons and maize; the only exports, millstones,
+which looked like and seemed almost as palatable as Serbian bread. We
+did our business without trouble, and coming back the beggar praised us
+once more till we had passed, then hurled even louder curses after us.
+
+We came to a tiny cafe in which were faint tinkling, musical sounds.
+
+Jan: "I wonder what that is?"
+
+Jo: "It sounds queer: shall we explore?"
+
+Jan: "I dunno, perhaps they wouldn't like us."
+
+Jo: "Come along. Let's see anyhow."
+
+And up we went. In a large room was a deep window seat, and in the
+window the queerest little Turkish dwarf imaginable. The little dwarf
+was sitting cross-legged, and was playing a plectrum instrument. His
+head was huge, his back was like a bow, and his plectrum arm bent into
+an S curve, which curled round his instrument as though it had been bent
+to fit. He was a born artist, and rapped out little airs and trills
+which made the heart dance. There were three soldiers at tables, and
+presently one sprang out on to the floor and began to posture and move
+his feet, a woman joined him; the little man's music grew wild and more
+rapid; another man sprang in, another woman joined, and soon all four
+were stamping and jigging till the floor rocked beneath them. We gave
+the little man a franc for his efforts, and his broad face nearly split
+in his endeavour to express a voiceless gratitude.
+
+We were no longer royalty, we were just dull, ordinary everyday folk,
+and at the station had endless formalities to go through, examinations
+of passes, etc., during which time all intending passengers were locked
+in the waiting-room. But at last we were allowed to take seats in the
+train, and off we went.
+
+We passed through the plain of Kossovo where old Serbian culture was
+prostrated before the onrush of the Turk, and whence Serbia has drawn
+all its legends and heroes; possibly the most unromantic looking spot in
+all Europe, save only Waterloo. Here, far to the left, was Mahmud's
+tomb:--Mahmud the great victor, stabbed the day before the battle, and
+dying as he saw his armies victorious. History contains no keener
+romance. Serge the hero, accompanied by two faithful servants, galloped
+to the Turkish camp, and commanded an interview with the Moslem
+general, who thought he was coming to be a traitor. In face of the
+Divan the hero flung himself from his horse, drew his sword, and stabbed
+Mahmud where he sat, surrounded by his armies. Before the astounded
+guards had recovered their surprise, Serge was again upon his great
+charger and was out of the camp, cutting down any who barred his
+passage. Mahmud did not die immediately, and his doctors slew a camel
+and thrust him into the still quivering animal; when the dead beast was
+cooling, they slew another, and thus the Moslem was kept alive till the
+Serbian hosts had been overthrown. He and the Serbian Czar were buried
+on the same field--one dead in victory, one in defeat.
+
+We trundled slowly over the great plain whose decision altered the fate
+of the world, for who knows what might have grown up under a great
+Byzantine culture? The farms were solidly built houses with great
+well-filled yards, surrounded by high and defensible walls. We came into
+stations where long shambling youths, dressed in badly made European
+clothes, lounged and ogled the girls in "this style, 14/6" dresses.
+Signs of culture!
+
+Why should the bowler hat, indiarubber collars, and bad teeth be
+indissolubly bound to "Education Bills" and "Factory Acts"? Why should
+the Serbian peasant be forced to give up his beautiful costume for
+celluloid cuffs, lose his artistic instincts in exchange for a made-up
+tie? It is the march of civilization, dear people, and must on no
+account be hindered.
+
+Coming back to Serbia from Montenegro was like slipping from a warm into
+a cool bath. One is irresistibly reminded that the Lords of Serbia
+withdrew to Montenegro, leaving the peasantry behind, for every peasant
+in the black mountains is a noble and carries a noble's dignity; while
+Karageorge was a pig farmer. There is a warmth in Montenegro--save only
+Pod.--which is not so evident in its larger brother; a welcome, which is
+not so easily found in Serbia. The Montenegrin peasant is like a great
+child, looking at the varied world with thirteenth-century unspoiled
+eyes; centuries of Turkish oppression has dulled the wit of the Serb,
+and at the outbreak of the war Teutonic culture was completing the
+process.
+
+We passed beneath the shadow of Shar Dagh, the highest peak in the
+peninsula, six thousand feet from the plain, springing straight up to a
+point for all to admire, a mountain indeed.
+
+We reached Uskub at dusk, found a hotel, and went out to dine. The
+restaurant was empty, but through a half-open door one could hear the
+sounds of music. The restaurant walls were--superfluously--decorated
+with paintings of food which almost took away one's appetite; but one
+enormous panel of a dressed sucking pig riding in a Lohengrin-like
+chariot over a purple sea amused us.
+
+In the beer hall a tinkly mandoline orchestra was playing, and a woman
+without a voice sang a popular song--one thought of the women on the
+Rieka River--a tired girl dressed in faded tights did a few easy
+contortions between the tables, and in a bored manner collected her meed
+of halfpence--we thought of the cheery idiot of Scutari. Was it worth
+it, we asked each other, this tinsel culture to which we had returned?
+And not bothering to answer the question went back to our hotel and to
+bed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+USKUB
+
+
+Uskub is a Smell on one side of which is built a prim little French town
+finished off with conventionally placed poplars in true Latin style; and
+on the other side lies a disreputable, rambling Turkish village
+culminating in a cone of rock upon which is the old fortress called the
+Grad.
+
+The country about Uskub is a great cemetery, and on every hand rise
+little rounded hills bristling with gravestones like almonds in a
+tipsy-cake. Strange old streets there are in Uskub. One comes suddenly
+upon half-buried mosques with grass growing from their dilapidated
+domes, a refuge only for chickens; some deserted baths, and in the midst
+of all, its outer walls like a prison and with prison windows, the old
+caravanserai.
+
+We crept to its gateway and through a crack saw visions of a romantic
+courtyard. The gate was locked, and we asked a little shoemaker--
+
+"Who has the key?"
+
+"It is now a leather tannery," he answered, and directed us to a
+shoemaker in another street. This was full of shoemakers, and we chased
+the key from shop to shop. It was like "Hunt the slipper." At last we
+ran it to earth in the second waistcoat of a negligent individual in a
+fez.
+
+How happy the merchant of old must have felt when he entered the
+courtyard after a long journey! The court was big and square, with a
+fountain in the centre, the pillars were blue, and the arches red. Tiers
+upon tiers of little rooms were built around; the expensive ones had
+windows and the cheap ones none, and the door of each was marked by the
+smoke of a thousand fires which had been lit within. Underneath were
+cubby holes for the merchants' goods, and behind it all was a great dark
+stable for the animals. Once shut up in the caravanserai one was safe
+from robbers, revolutions, and the outside world. Lying in the doorway,
+as if cast there by some gigantic ogre in a fit of temper, were two
+immense marble vases, and two queer carved stone figures. Who made these
+figures? Mystery--for Turkey does not carve. The old caravanserai no
+longer gives protection to the harassed traveller, it only cures his
+boots, for it has fallen from sanctuary to shoemakers, and the leather
+workers of Uskub cure their hides therein. Hence, despite its beauty, we
+did not loiter long, for we have ever held a bad smell more powerful
+than a beautiful view.
+
+Why don't towns look tragic when their bricks reek of tragedy? Why is
+industrial misery the only form in which the cry of the oppressed is
+allowed to take visible shape and to make the reputation of Realist
+artists? In Uskub is concentrated the whole problem of the Balkans and
+of Macedonia. Her brightly painted streets are filled with Serb, Bulgar,
+and Turk, each disliking the rule of the other, the Bulgar hating the
+Serb only worse than the Turk because the Serb is master. To the
+inquiring mind it is problematic how much of this hate is national, and
+how much political. Deprive these peasant populations of their jealous,
+land-grabbing propagandist rulers, and what rancour would remain between
+them? Intensive civilization, such as has been applied to these
+states--civilization which has swept one class to the twentieth century,
+while it leaves the others in its primitive simplicity--seems always to
+produce the worst results. Nations can only crawl to knowledge and to
+the possessions of riches, for politics to the simple are like "drinks"
+to the savage and equally deadly in effect.
+
+[Illustration: A WINE MARKET IN USKUB.]
+
+Can the problem ever be resolved? Can Serbia with half her manhood wiped
+out stand against her jealous neighbours? The creation of a lot of
+small states on republican principles seems a far-fetched idea, and yet
+it seems the best, especially if the menace of Turkey were removed, for
+there is little doubt that Turkey, rearmed by the German, might make one
+more effort to regain her lost territory under conditions vastly
+different from those which ruled in the Balkan conflict. Macedonia,
+Albania, and what is now Turkey in Europe, each made self-governing
+under the shield of the Alliance--why not?--and Serbia as compensation
+allowed to expand towards the north into territories which are wholly
+Serb in nationality and in feeling.
+
+We went through the pot market, whose orange earthenware was glowing in
+the sun, and came upon an old house with such a wonderful ultramarine
+courtyard that we went in to look. Over the door was written OLD
+SERB CAFE JANSIE HAN. After sketching there we entered the inn for
+coffee, and sat at tables made of thick blocks of marble smoothed only
+at the top. The innkeeper said it was built in the days of the Czar
+Duchan. If this were true, one would say that never had the interior
+been whitewashed since then. But there was an air of cosiness about it,
+and we visited it several times after. Near by was a little church with
+a wonderful carved screen and a picture of Elijah going to heaven in a
+chariot drawn by a pink horse, with the charioteer bumping along on a
+separate cloud, which served as the box. We watched the sun set from one
+of the tipsy-cake hills, sitting on a gravestone with an old Turkish
+shepherd, who seemed to derive great comfort from our company.
+
+The mountains around reflected the rosy lights of the sun in great flat
+masses.
+
+The muezzin sounded from the many minarets, and twilight was on us.
+Uskub, romantic, dirty, unhealthy Uskub, was soon shrouded in mist; a
+vision of unusual beauty.
+
+One thought of the awful winter it had passed through, when dead and
+dying had lain about the streets. Typhus, relapsing fever, and typhoid
+had gripped the town. Lady Paget's staff, while grappling with the
+trouble, had paid a heavy toll, as their hospital lay deep on the
+unhealthy part of the city. For a time the citadel was in the hands of
+an English unit. Before they were there it was a Serbian hospital, and
+the staff threw all the dirty, stained dressings over the cliff, down
+which they rolled to the road. The peasants used to collect these
+pestiferous morsels and made them into padded quilts. Little wonder that
+illness spread! In the summer Lady Paget's hospital withdrew to some
+great barracks on the hill. The paths were made of Turkish tombstones,
+which were always used in Uskub for road metal.
+
+The hospital staff was saddened by the recent death of Mr. Chichester,
+who had, like ourselves, just returned from a tour in the western
+mountains, where he caught paratyphoid and only lived a few days.
+
+One of the doctors had been in Albania, on an inoculating expedition. At
+Durazzo he had been received by Essad Pacha, who was delighted to have
+his piano played, and to watch the hammers working inside. Like Helen's
+babies, "he wanted to see the wheels go wound." The piano and piles of
+music must have been a memento of the Prince and Princess of Wied and of
+their unhappy attempts at being Mpret and Mpretess--or is it Mpretitza,
+or Mpretina? The music was still marked with her name, and was certainly
+not a present to Essad.
+
+The stamp of the English was on Uskub. Prices were high. One Turk
+offered us a rubbishy silver thing for fifteen dinars; and Jan laughed,
+saying that one could see the English had been there. Without blushing
+the man pointed to a twin article, saying he would let that go for five
+dinars.
+
+What caused us to feel that we had wandered enough? Was it the awful
+cinematograph show which led us through an hour and a half of melodrama
+without our grasping the plot, or was it that the large copper tray we
+bought filled us with a sense of responsibility?
+
+At this wavering moment Lady Paget held a meeting of her staff. We
+lunched there, and part of the truth leaked out after the meeting.
+
+The Bulgars really were coming in against us, and in a day or two we
+were to see things.
+
+That decided the matter. We went to the prefect's office for our pass.
+Firstly, we were ushered into a room occupied by a man in khaki, whose
+accent betrayed that he hailed from the States. He was "something
+sanitary," and belonged to the American commission, so we tried again.
+This time the porter took us up to a landing, said a few words into a
+doorway, and left us standing. As he was wandering in our vicinity, Jo
+tried one of her two talismans: it is the word "PREPOSTEROUS"
+ejaculated explosively, and is safely calculated to stagger a foreign
+soul. The other is a well-known dodge. If a person bothers you, look at
+his boots with a pained expression. He will soon take himself off--boots
+and all.
+
+The talisman worked, the pass was quickly managed, and we had but to
+spend our time among the shops again. We resisted the seductions of an
+old man with fifty knives in his belt, who reminded Jo of a horrible
+nightmare of her infancy.
+
+In her dream a grandfather with a basket had come peddling. Suddenly his
+coat, blowing aside, revealed not a body, but a busy sewing-machine in
+excellent working order. In her agitation, Jo fell out of bed.
+
+We sat consuming beer outside a cafe decked with pink flowered bushes in
+green boxes. One of the antique dames who cook sausages in the shadow of
+the cafes brought us a plate each--funny little hard things--and we
+bought cakes and nougat from perambulating Peter Piemen.
+
+The station platform was like the last scene of a pantomime. Every one
+we had met on our journeys rushed up and shook us by the hand.
+
+First a Belgian doctor, from Dr. Lilias Hamilton's unit in Podgoritza.
+He said Mrs. G. was also in the town, and that the others were all
+coming shortly. Then we met a young staff officer from Uzhitze, who was
+noted for his bravery. The train came in and we stumbled up to it in the
+dark. There was a crowd of women about the steps in difficulty with
+heavy bags. Jan ran forward to help one. She turned round. It was a
+sister from Dechani. The rest turned round. It was the whole Russian
+mission from Dechani.
+
+We proceeded along the corridor, and ran into two men. We mutually began
+to apologize.
+
+"Hello," we said, "how did you get here?" They were two Americans we had
+met in Salonika.
+
+We got our seats and went out of the train by the other door. As we
+passed the compartment we saw a familiar face. It was the little French
+courier.
+
+"Quel pays," he said, bounding up. "Et les Bulgars, quoi?"
+
+"Good Lord," said Jan. "Let's go out and get some fresh air."
+
+The only people lacking to complete the scene were the Sirdar and Dr.
+Clemow.
+
+A doctor who had just arrived from Salonika asked us to look after four
+English orderlies who, new to the country, were travelling to the Red
+Cross mission at Vrntze. With them were two trim, short-skirted, heavy
+booted, Belgian nurses, who were going to a Serbian field hospital.
+
+The train crawled. At times it was necessary to hold one's breath to see
+if we were moving at all. It was always possible that the Bulgars had
+blown up a bridge or so. One could imagine an anxious driver, his eyes
+fixed on the line in front, looking for Bulgarian comitaj.
+
+The travellers were restless. Our little French courier stood in the
+corridor looking fiercely at the black night; his back view eloquently
+expressive of his opinion of the Balkans.
+
+Later on we all slept. A frightful braying sound awoke us.
+
+No, not Bulgars--only the band. Same band, same station, same hour, same
+awful incompetence.
+
+So the princess had nothing to do with it!
+
+Trainloads bristling with ragged soldiers passed us--open truck-loads of
+them, carriage tops covered with sleeping men, some were clinging to the
+steps and to the buffers.
+
+Nish station had lost its sleepy air. Every one was energetically doing
+everything all wrong. The four orderlies and the two Belgian sisters
+were minus their passports. Some one had taken them away. These were run
+to earth in the station-master's office, and as the party had no idea
+where to go, we suggested they should come with us to the rest-house.
+
+The first person we met there was Dr. Clemow.
+
+"Have you got the Sirdar with you?" we asked.
+
+He answered that he had brought Paul, the young Montenegrin interpreter,
+with him. The English units in Montenegro had been recalled, and he had
+come to Nish to try to rescind the order for his unit.
+
+The town was at its gayest. The cloud had not yet dimmed the market.
+Peasants poured in, knowing nothing of the Bulgars, little thinking that
+they would be flying, starving, dying, in a few weeks' time. A Chinese
+vendor of paper gauds had come into the town, and all the pretty girls
+were wearing his absurdities pinned on to their head kerchiefs. One girl
+was so fine and bejewelled that we photographed her, to the delight of
+her lover, who stood aside to let us have a good view.
+
+A man was selling honey in the comb accompanied by his bees, which must
+have followed him for miles. They testified their displeasure at his
+selling their honey by stinging him and most of the buyers.
+
+No one seemed to know when the train was leaving. Station-master,
+porters, all had a different tale. At last we decided to risk seven
+o'clock in the evening, and the four orderlies and ourselves, copper
+tray and all, bade farewell to the Belgian sisters, who had cut off
+their hair, and wandered across to the station. The train arrived two
+hours late and stood, ready to go out, guarded by tatterdemalions with
+guns.
+
+"You can't get in yet," said one of them barring our way.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Ne snam."
+
+The freebooting instinct arose in us; we awaited our opportunity, dodged
+between two soldiers, and settled ourselves comfortably. Several
+officials looked in and said nothing; another came and forbade us to
+stay there, and passed on. An old woman came with a broom and cleaned
+up. We sat on our feet to get them out of the way, somebody squirted
+white disinfectant on the floor, and we were left in peace.
+
+The train started at eleven, moved as far as a siding and stayed till
+four. We found the four Red Cross men had only nine shillings between
+them. Three had stood all the way from Salonika, as during an
+unfortunate moment of interest in the view their seats had been
+appropriated by a fat Serbian officer, his wife and daughter. The
+fourth, a porter from Folkestone, had settled down on the floor, saying
+"he wasn't going to concarn himself with no voos."
+
+They had new uniforms, yellow mackintoshes, white kit bags, and
+beautiful cooking apparatus, which took to pieces and served a thousand
+purposes.
+
+In the chilly morning we got out at Stalatch, just too late for the
+Vrntze train. Luckily the station cafe was open.
+
+The four Englishmen ordered beefsteak, but were given long lean
+tasteless sausages. They asked for tea and were given black Turkish
+coffee in tiny cups half full of grounds. We asked about the trains, and
+were told we should catch the one next day. We argued, and extracted the
+promise of a luggage train, which would soon pass.
+
+Why is it that in Serbia they always, on principle, say, "You can't,"
+after which under pressure they own, "Somehow you can"? In Montenegro
+they say, "Certainly you can," after which they occasionally find that
+"Somehow you can't."
+
+At last the luggage train came. We sat on the step dangling our legs and
+peering down at the country below us.
+
+We were again held up at Krusevatz and bearded the officials. They
+promised to put on a special carriage for us when the next luggage-train
+should come in, some time that evening.
+
+[Illustration: BIG GUN PASSING THROUGH KRUSEVATZ.]
+
+Nothing for it but to lunch and to kill time. We watched the mountain
+batteries pass on their way to the Bulgarian frontier. One or two big
+cannon trailed by, drawn by oxen. Many horses looked wretched and
+half-starved.
+
+The Englishmen built a camp fire by the rail-road. Soon tea was brewing;
+we drank, and chewed walnuts, stared at by crowds of patient Serbian
+soldiers.
+
+We travelled with the treasurer of the district, a charming man who
+revelled in stories of a mischievous boyhood spent in a Jesuit
+establishment. The fathers had stuck to him nobly until he had mixed red
+paint with the holy water, and one of the fathers, while administering
+the service, had suddenly beheld his whole congregation marked on the
+forehead with damnatory crosses like criminals of old time. That ended
+his school days. He introduced us to an officer, whose business it was
+to search for spies, a restless man who was always feeling under the
+seats with his feet. Perhaps it was only cramp! The four Englishmen,
+cheered at the thought that their long journey was nearing its end,
+burst into song. The Serbs stood round listening to the melodies that
+were so different to their own plaintive wailings, and presently asked
+us to translate. We don't know if the subtleties of "Didn't want to do
+it," or "The little grey home in the west," were very clear in the
+translations, as they seemed puzzled.
+
+Arrived at Vrntze, we found no carriages to meet us. The station-master
+at Krusevatz had promised to telephone, but as usual had not done it. We
+had to break the news to our Englishmen, who, their songs over, had
+naturally fallen into tired depression, and had to tell them that a
+three-kilometre walk was before us, and one man had better stay to look
+after the baggage. Carriages were telephoned for, but they would be long
+in coming.
+
+They were! We arrived at the village--no carriages. We agitated. The spy
+searcher came out of the cafe--to which he and the "Bad Boy's Diary" man
+had driven--and made people run about. They said the carriages had
+already gone. We denied it, so they woke up the coachman.
+
+We took the three men to the hospital and went back to sit in the cafe
+with our new friends and met many old ones. The local chemist cheered
+and promised us a present of mackintosh cotton to celebrate our return.
+We had spent Easter morning in his shop eating purple eggs and drinking
+tea enlivened with brandy, while the choir came in and chanted beautiful
+Easter songs to us.
+
+An hour rolled by, the cafe closed, our friends disappeared. We went to
+meet the carriages from the station; at last they arrived, with Mr. Owen
+half asleep amidst the kitbags.
+
+It was far into the night when we arrived at our hospital burdened with
+our two bags and the copper tray.
+
+The night nurse, a kitten, and a round woolly puppy welcomed us.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MAINLY RETROSPECTIVE
+
+
+Hospital work again. How strange we felt. A sad-faced little Serbian
+lady, widowed through typhus, was interpreting for the out-patients
+while Jo was away; but she was alone in the world and did not want to
+go--so Jo, homesick for her beloved out-patients, had to make the best
+of it and do other work. The Serbian youth who had been put on the staff
+as secretary, was dangerously ill with typhoid fever, which he had
+picked up at Kragujevatz. The typhus barrack was a children's hospital,
+containing little waifs chosen from the out-patients, and a few women.
+
+In the early days when we had first arrived at Vrntze there were several
+overfilled Serbian and one Greek hospital. They were only cafes and
+large villas, unsanitary, stuffy, and overworked. The windows were never
+open, and through the huge sheets of plate glass could be dimly seen in
+the thick blue tobacco smoke a higgledy-piggledy crowd of beds. Often
+two men lay in one bed covered with their dirty great coats, while
+typhus patients and wounded men slept together. One man lay unconscious
+for several days in the window, his feet in his dinner-plate. At last he
+died, his feet still in the dinner. Mr. Berry took on a hydropathic
+establishment which had been completed just before the first Balkan War.
+This was used as the central hospital, where the staff lodged, and the
+most serious surgical cases were nursed. In the basement an
+operating-room was rigged up, there were bathrooms, disinfecting-rooms,
+a laundry, and an engine-house, where gimcrack German machinery in fits
+and starts provided us with electric light and hot water. The village
+school on the hill opposite was annexed and cleaned by a sculptor, a
+singer, a painter, and a judge of the Royal Horse Show. This was run as
+a convalescent home, and was the cause of many a muddy sit down, as it
+lay on the top of a greasy hill.
+
+Other large buildings were gradually added, sulphured, and cleaned until
+we had six hospitals, one of which was run for some time in connection
+with the Red Cross unit.
+
+Typhus had not stricken the village badly, but the old barracks were
+full of cases which developed several days after each batch of wounded
+came.
+
+The Red Cross unit took on the typhus barracks. Mr. Berry, seeing that
+surgery was for the moment a secondary thing, and having received a
+batch of Austrian prisoners riddled with typhus, built some barracks not
+far from the school. Glass was unobtainable, so thin muslin was used for
+the windows.
+
+The first precaution against bad air that Mr. Berry took in preparing
+his chief surgical ward was to smash all top panes of the windows with a
+broom, thus earning the name of the Window Breaker. Whenever the wind
+blew through the draughty corridors and glass rattled down from the
+sashes, word went round that "Mr. Berry has been at it again."
+
+Our unit and the Red Cross ran a quarantine hospital together. It was
+originally the state cafe and lay in the park of the watering-place.
+Near by were the sulphur baths. We ripped out the stuffy little wooden
+dressing-rooms, to the joy of the bath attendant, who possessed the
+facsimile of Tolstoi's face, and with the _debris_ we built a large shed
+outside for the reception of the wounded.
+
+In the early days they came in large batches from other hospitals,
+pathetic septic cases, their lives ruined for want of proper care. We
+put their clothes in bags for future disinfecting, and the men, mildly
+perplexed, were bathed, shaved, and sent to the "clearing-house," as it
+was called. Those who developed typhus went to the barracks, and the
+rest were drafted to the various hospitals in the village.
+
+The clothes were first sulphurized to kill the lice, and then, until Dr.
+Boyle's disinfector appeared, boiled. This was important, as typhus is
+propagated by infected lice. Even forty-eight hours of sulphur did not
+destroy the nits. One day the sulphur-room was opened after twenty-four
+hours. Live lice were discovered congregated round the tops of the bags.
+Jan put some in a bottle. They immediately fought each other, tooth and
+nail, rolling and scrambling in a mass just like a rugby-football scrum,
+and continued the fight for twelve hours at least, thus proving that the
+scientific writer who says that the louse is a delicate creature and
+only lives a few hours off the body can know little of the Serbian
+breed.
+
+The town, when we arrived, was a bouquet of assorted and nasty smells,
+of which the authorities seemed proud. We cleaned up the streets by
+running a little artificial river down the gutter. Mr. Berry had the
+chief of the police sacked and instituted a sort of sanitary vigilance
+committee. We took over the local but very primitive sewage works--a
+field into which all the filth of the town was drained.
+
+The slaughter-house was discovered. It was an old wooden shed built
+over the lower end of the stream which washed the village from end to
+end, draining successively the typhus barracks, the baths, and all the
+hospitals. The shed itself was old and worm-eaten. The walls were caked
+with the blood of years, yet the meat was always hung against them after
+having been well soused in the filthy water. Mr. Berry decided to build
+a new one: some of the money was subscribed through Mr. Blease by the
+Liverpool Liberal Club; the rest Mr. Berry paid himself. At once the
+state began to quarrel with the commune as to the ownership of the
+proposed treasure. So the smells disappeared and the town engineer was
+furious, saying he would "Put all right" when we left.
+
+Luckily one of the chief men in the town had lived in America and knew
+the value of cleanliness. Mr. Berry was offered an honorary Colonelcy;
+but he refused, saying he would prefer to be made sanitary officer for
+the town.
+
+[Illustration: IN-PATIENTS.]
+
+The spring came, bringing with it no fighting. A great offensive was
+expected, had been ordered, in fact, but we heard later that the army
+refused to advance. The work was very much lighter. Very few men were
+entirely helpless. The hospitals, which were still emptying themselves
+and whose men were coming to us, sent the survival of the fittest. Most
+of the beds were carried out under the trees after the morning
+dressings were done, and the men lay gossiping and smoking when they
+could get tobacco. Outside visitors were rare. The Serbian ladies do not
+go round the hospitals with cigarettes and sweets, and to find a Serbian
+woman nursing is an anomaly.
+
+Report says that many flung themselves into it with energy during the
+first Balkan War, but that four years of it, ending with typhus, had
+dulled their enthusiasm. It is not fair to blame them. To nurse from
+morning till night in a putrid Serbian hospital with all windows closed
+requires more than devotion and complete indifference to life. Three
+Serbian ladies came to sew pillow cases and sheets every afternoon, and
+one of them gave up still more time to teach the patients reading and
+writing.
+
+But the town was full, in the summer, of smartly dressed women, and the
+village priest never once visited our hospitals. Hearing of the English
+missions and their work, peasants began to come from the mountains
+around, and the out-patient department became, under Dr. Helen Boyle, a
+matter for strenuous mornings.
+
+Many of these poor things had never seen a doctor in their lives. Serbia
+even in peace-time had not produced many medical men, and those who
+existed had no time to attend the poor gratis.
+
+The percentage of consumptives was enormous. Every family shuts its
+windows and doors for the winter and proceeds industriously to spit, and
+so the disease spreads.
+
+Diphtheria patients rode and walked often for ten hours and waited in
+the courtyard, and people far gone with typhus staggered along in the
+blazing spring sun.
+
+One jolly old ragatops with typhus arrived in the afternoon with a
+violent temperature, and Jo settled him comfortably in the courtyard
+with his head on a sink until Mrs. Berry should come in to see about
+taking him into the barracks. He seemed quite happy about himself, but
+very worried about his blind beggar brother and his two half-blind
+children, whose sight had been ruined by smallpox.
+
+For the latter nothing could be done.
+
+Another time she kept two boys waiting to see if Mrs. Berry could take
+them into her typhus barracks. One had scarlet fever, and the other was
+a young starving clerk in a galloping consumption, thirty-six hours from
+his home.
+
+Afraid to raise their hopes, and not knowing if there would be room for
+them, Jo told them that they were to have some very strong medicine that
+could only be administered two hours after a dose of hot milk and
+biscuit (the medicine was only bovril). By this time Mrs. Berry arrived
+and managed to squeeze the boys in.
+
+However, we were told to clear the hospitals, for the wounded were
+expected.
+
+"What could be done with the scarlet fever boy?" At last an idea came:
+"The Mortuary," built by the Horse Show Judge with such joy. The
+mortuary that we had all gone to admire as a work of art.
+
+But the scarlet fever boy did not seem to see it that way, for in the
+night he escaped, and we have never seen him since.
+
+Diphtheria was so prevalent that the Red Cross on receiving a patient,
+gathered in the whole family for a few days, inoculated, washed, and
+gargled it. They also toured the villages around, digging out typhus and
+other infectious cases, thus stopping the spread of infection. They had
+a most energetic matron, Miss Caldwell, who had already nursed in
+Cettinje during the Balkan Wars, and we have already told how she
+managed the Montenegrins.
+
+Often the patients came in ox-carts. Too ill to be lifted out, they had
+to be examined and treated in the carts. Dr. Boyle acquired a special
+nimbleness in jumping in and out of these contrivances armed with
+stethescope, spoons, bowls, and dressings. We accumulated a congregation
+of "regulars," who came to be dressed every day--gathered feet,
+suppurating glands, eczema, etc.
+
+One old mother with a bad leg was bandaged up with boracic ointment and
+told to come back in two days. She came. Jo undid the bandage. All the
+old lady's fleas had swarmed to the boracic till it looked like a
+fly-paper. After which we used Vermigeli.
+
+All wore brightly woven belts, sometimes two or three, each a yard and a
+half long, tightly wound round their bodies, thus making their waists
+wider than their hips. One girl was black and blue with the pattern
+showing on her skin, and many men were suffering from the evils of tight
+lacing.
+
+The village priest received belts as fees from the peasants when he
+married them. He sent us a message to say he had some for sale, so we
+went in a body to his house, were received by his daughter, who looked
+like a cow-girl, turned over a basketful of belts, and bought largely.
+After which he put up the price.
+
+Jo went on night duty for the first time.
+
+A queer experience this, starting the day's work at half-past seven in
+the evening and finishing at seven in the morning--breakfasting when
+other people are dining; hearing their contented laughter as they go off
+to bed; and then a queer loneliness and the ugly ticking of a clock. One
+creeps round the big ward. What a noisy thing breathing is. Some one
+groans, "Sestra, I cannot sleep." This man has not been ordered morphia.
+Silence once more broken only by the sound of the breathing, distant
+howling of dogs from the darkness or the hoot of an owl. The old
+frostbite man coughs; he coughs again insistently. Both say "Yes" to hot
+milk. So down to the big kitchen, some mice scatter by, the puppy wakes
+up and thinks it is time for a game. A woman's voice calls loudly,
+"Sestra." Taking the milk off, Sestra hurries across the courtyard and
+along the corridor to the little rooms with the puppy tugging at her
+skirt. The woman wants water; she has wakened the other women--they want
+water. When silence again comes back into the ward, one notes
+instinctively the vivid colouring of the two big blue windows at the far
+end, the long lines of beds disappearing into the darkness, the dim
+light of the lantern on the table showing up the cheap clock and a few
+flowers. The intensity of light upon this clock is only equalled by the
+intensity of one's thoughts upon the clock. The minute-hand drags on as
+though it were weary with the day's work. A groan ticks off the quarters
+and cries for water or milk the half-hours. At last one o'clock. Time
+for a midnight meal. Eggs and cocoa hurriedly eaten without appetite in
+the kitchen, but breaking the monotony. Back to the ward again, one of
+the patients very restless, in great pain. Poor fellow, he has had a
+long and hard time of it, fifteen months in bed and all due to early
+neglect.
+
+"Sestra," he says, "sestra," and holds out a handkerchief heavy with
+coin. "Tell the doctor to take me down to the operating-room and cure me
+or not let me wake up."
+
+Between four and five there is more movement in the ward. Groans give
+way to yawns. In the windows the blue is paling to grey. Cocks are
+crowing now quite close, now faintly, like an echo. Suddenly the world
+is filled with work, "washings, brushings, combings, cleanings,
+temperatures, breakfasts, medicines, some beds to make, reports, all
+fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle, until at last the day-sisters come
+and relieve, and yawning at the daylight one eats warmed-up dinner while
+the others are having breakfast."
+
+After a seven weeks' absence one was bound to miss many old friends in
+the ward. Some had gone home, others were back in the army. Old Number
+13, the king of the ward, was still there. He had a dark brown face and
+white hair, and was furious if any dared to call him a gipsy.
+
+"I am a respectable farmer," he said, "and I own seventeen pigs, a
+horse, and five sheep, a wife, and two children."
+
+He loved to tell of his wedding. It was done in the correct old Serbian
+style. He went with his mother and a gun to the chosen one's house,
+where she was waiting alone, her parents tactfully keeping out of the
+way. They abducted the lady, who was treated with great honour as a
+visitor in her future father-in-law's house.
+
+"Father" turned up next morning. Rakia was served, and father divulged
+ceremoniously how many pigs he could spare to them for keeping his
+daughter.
+
+Number 13 wanted to know everything: how old was Jo, how much she was
+paid?
+
+"What, you are not paid?" he said in amazement. "Then the English are
+wonderful! In Serbia our women would not do that."
+
+Poor little John Willie still left a blank, though he had died long
+before. His name was not John Willie, but it sounded rather like it, so
+we just turned it into John Willie. He loved the name, and told his
+father about it.
+
+They sat all afternoon hand-in-hand, saying at intervals, "Dgonn Oolie,"
+and chuckling.
+
+Jan once had brought back from a spring visit to Kragujevatz some
+horrible sun hats.
+
+They were the cast-off eccentricities of the fashions of six years ago,
+and had drifted from the Rue de la Paix to this obscure Serbian shop
+which was selling them as serious articles of clothing. Jo tried them
+on, and one of the nurses became so weak with laughter that she tumbled
+all the way downstairs.
+
+Finding them quite impossible, Jo bequeathed them to the ward, where
+they were snapped up enthusiastically.
+
+The ugliest was an immense sailor hat, the crown nearly as wide as the
+brim, but the head hole would have fitted a doll. However, John Willie
+fancied that hat and was always to be seen, a tiny, round-backed figure,
+wandering slowly in a long blue dressing-gown, blue woolly boots, and
+the enormous hat perched on the top of his pathetically drooping head.
+
+One day poor little John Willie became fearfully ill. His parents
+arrived and sat dumbly gazing at him for two nights, while he panted his
+poor little life away. His friend the Velika Dete (big child), once a
+fierce comitaj, was moved away from the "Malo Dete," to make more room,
+and he sulked, while the Austrian prisoner orderlies ran to and fro with
+water for his head, milk, all the things that a poor little dying boy
+might need; and old Number 13 passed to and fro shaking his head, for he
+had been long in hospital and had seen many people die.
+
+A man with knees bent (he said with scroogling them up all winter in the
+cold) was put in John Willie's place. The Velika Dete came back, but he
+would not speak to "Bent Knees" for weeks.
+
+By this time the Austrian prisoners were very well trained and made
+excellent orderlies in the ward. An ex-Carlton waiter was very dexterous
+in sidling down the ward: on his five fingers a tray perched high,
+containing dressing-bowls and pots bristling with forceps, scissors, and
+various other instruments.
+
+His chief talent lay in peppering frostbitten toes with iodoform
+powder--a reminiscence of the sugar castor.
+
+Our housemaid was a leather tanner, whom Jo's baby magpie mistook for
+its parent, as he fed it at intervals every morning. A Czech in typhus
+cloths spent his days down in the disinfecting, operating and bathrooms.
+He had been an overseer in a factory and had added to his income by
+writing love-stories for the papers. A butcher was installed in the
+kitchens. Once a week he became an artist, killing a sheep according to
+the best Prague ideals.
+
+All our prisoners, about forty in number, clung to the English hospitals
+as their only chance of life, for in other places sixty per cent. had
+died of typhus.
+
+The Serbs, though bearing no animosity, could do little for them. We saw
+the quarters of some men working on the road. These were show quarters
+and supposed to be clean. Each room had an outside door. On the floor
+was room for six men and hay enough to stuff one pillow. They had no
+rugs, and the Serbs could give them none. The cold in the winter must
+have been intense.
+
+We had come back to this little world after seven weeks' wandering, and
+almost immediately Jan had gone off to Kragujevatz with a broken motor.
+
+While he was away Jo got letters from England and Paris, which made her
+realize that things were rather in a mess, and we should have to go
+home. We had left England intending to stay in Serbia three months, and
+had been then nearly nine.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+SOME PAGES FROM MR. GORDON'S DIARY
+
+
+OCTOBER 2ND. Got a wire from Kragujevatz to say that the motor
+hood is ready and that we must go over to get it fitted. We cleaned and
+oiled the car, and at two ran it down the hill, but it would not start.
+Found two sparking plugs cracked and the magneto very weak. When we had
+fixed it up it was too late. Four a.m. to-morrow morning.
+
+OCTOBER 3RD. Started in the dark, Mr. Berry, Sister Hammond,
+Sava, I, and a female relation of some minister or other who wanted to
+go to Kralievo. The motor working badly, as it is impossible to get the
+proper spare parts. Three young owls were sitting in the middle of the
+road scared by our headlights; we hit one, the other two flew away. Sava
+and I stopped and tinkered at the old machine for about an hour, changed
+all the sparking plugs again, after which she went better. We reached
+Kralievo without incident, where we cast loose the female relation. From
+Kralievo passed over the Morava, which was pretty floody and had
+knocked the road about a bit. The road led right through the Shumadia
+country, where the first revolts of the Serbian nation against their
+Turkish oppressors were engendered. We passed the old Serbian
+churchyard. I never passed by without going in. These queer old
+tombstones all painted in days when pure decoration had a religious
+appeal, these tattered red and white and black banners lend such a gay
+air to death; these swords and pistols and medals carved into the stone
+seem almost carrying a bombast to heaven. On one side of each tombstone
+is the name of its owner, preceded by the legend, "Here lies the slave
+of God." Do slaves love their masters?
+
+When we passed this road in the winter, black funeral flags hung from
+almost every hut, and even now the rags still flap in the breeze. A
+Serbian boy, clad in dirty cottons, shouted to us, making
+gesticulations. We slowed down and stopped.
+
+"Bombe," he cried. "Aeropla-ane. Pet," he held up five fingers, "y jedan
+je bili slomile. Vidite shrapnel."
+
+He pointed. We saw a quiet, early autumn landscape, the blue sky
+slightly flecked with thin horizontal streaks of cloud. Any scene less
+warlike could not have been imagined.
+
+"Vidite tamo," he cried once more.
+
+Straining our eyes one could just see, between the lowest strata of
+cloud, a series of small white round clouds floating.
+
+"Shrapnel," said Sava, pointing.
+
+"They hit one," said Mr. Berry.
+
+I let in the clutch, we sped on once more. Bang! a tire burst.
+
+Motor driving in Serbia is not a profession, it is an art. We were on
+another of these first-class Serbian roads. Presently we came to a long
+downhill.
+
+"That is the place," said Mr. Berry to Sister Hammond, "where we spent
+the night last winter when the motor stuck in the mud. There, beneath
+that tree."
+
+We shrugged our way down the hill, and presently came into the gipsy
+environments of Kragujevatz.
+
+A man stopped us, holding up a hand.
+
+"Bombe," he said.
+
+We got out. In the soft earth at the side of the road was a neat hole,
+four inches in diameter. Peering down we could see the steel handle of
+the unburst bomb. We next passed a smashed paling, in the garden behind
+a crowd were searching for relics. An old woman had been killed, they
+said. We turned into the main street and plunged into a large crowd. The
+pavement had been torn up, and people were grubbing in the mud; pieces
+of charred wood were passed from hand to hand.
+
+"That's a bit of propeller," said one. "No; it's a bit of the frame,"
+said another. A girl proudly held up a large piece of map scorched all
+round the edges.
+
+"And the men?" we asked.
+
+"Nemachke (Germans)," answered the crowd; "both dead; one here, one over
+there," pointing to the middle of the road.
+
+We came into the Stobarts' camp, pitched up on the hill behind the
+Kragujevatz pleasure ground.
+
+"Did you see the aeroplanes?" they cried, running towards us.
+
+"No," we answered; "but we saw the shrapnel."
+
+"One was hit--it was wonderful. They were flying just over here, and a
+shrapnel burst quite close; and then one saw a thin stream of smoke come
+from the plane; then a little flicker. It seemed to fall so slowly. Then
+it burst into flames and came down like a great comet."
+
+"D----n!" we said: "if only that machine had been working right
+yesterday."
+
+We took our car down to the arsenal, and I left Sava to take it to bits
+and get it opened out, for there had been a bit of a knock in the crank
+case. The remains of the smashed aeroplane were piled in the yard, and
+from the way it had twisted up without breaking one could see from what
+beautiful metal the machinery was made. Some of the French experts
+denied that the guns had hit it--giving as their reason that one of its
+own bombs had exploded. But one of the engineers put his hand into a big
+hole which was beneath the crank case and drew out a shrapnel ball. I
+thought that would settle it, but the Frenchmen were not convinced. The
+shells were bursting fifty metres too low, they said. Fifteen bombs had
+fallen about the arsenal, and one man, a non-commissioned officer, had
+been killed.
+
+Met Hardinge and Mawson: they both saw the aeroplane fall, and were not
+fifty yards from the place where it struck.
+
+Walked back to the Stobarts' camp for lunch. A French aeroplane had come
+over from Belgrade too late; now it rose slowly in the air and sailed
+off. Saw the two dead aviators; both had evidently been killed at once,
+for they were charred, not blistered.
+
+Colonel Phillips, ex-Governor of Scutari, and English military attache,
+came up with the Italian attache. A bomb had fallen just before the
+colonel's house and missed his servant by a hair's-breadth. The Italian
+was in a room opposite the Crown Prince's palace; he thought that the
+falling machine was going to crash through the roof, but it fell in the
+street not ten yards away. The camp itself was packing hard, for Mrs.
+Stobart had just decided to form a "flying field ambulance."
+
+Mr. Berry and I had a tent assigned to us.
+
+October 4th. Awoke to sounds like some one hitting a board with a
+mallet. Ran outside. One found the aeroplane from the little clouds of
+shrapnel, for it was flying very high, and was like a speck. Clouds of
+smoke were rolling from one quarter of the town, and we thought that a
+big fire was beginning, but it was extinguished. Another aeroplane came
+later. The guns began long before it could be seen. It dropped two bombs
+over the powder factory, and two in the town. Mrs. Stobart ordered
+everybody from the camp; but nobody left except the patients, who were
+driven a mile out and dumped in a wood. A long procession of townsfolk
+filed continuously by, running from the danger. The aeroplane dropped
+two more bombs in the town, and came back flying right over the camp. It
+was a queer feeling, staring right up at the plane, and wondering if
+another bomb were not falling silently towards one.
+
+I went down to the arsenal to see about the car; and Mr. Berry and Miss
+Hammond went off to see the anti-aircraft guns. Mrs. Stobart had asked
+me to go out on the Rudnik road to see a car which had broken down, and
+had promised to send a motor to fetch me. Before we could leave, news
+was brought that another aeroplane had been telephoned. Presently we
+could hear the guns beginning. Hardinge turned up, and we looked out for
+the machine. We saw the aeroplane coming straight towards us; everybody
+rushed for the cellars, but I wanted to stay outside for the last
+moment. Hardinge was with me. Suddenly I lost sight of the plane. I ran
+farther out to look for it, and suddenly there was a report, and a great
+column of smoke just outside the arsenal. There was another behind the
+rifle shops, and another behind the boiler sheds. Now the aeroplane was
+overhead. I heard a noise like tearing silk, and lay flat upon the
+ground shouting to Hardinge--
+
+"Lie flat, d----n you!"
+
+It seemed ages before it burst. Dust and bits flew everywhere; the
+windows all sprang out into the yard. I looked for Hardinge, but he was
+unharmed. I had expected to be terrified, but I was feeling so bothered
+about Hardinge that I had no time to think about myself.
+
+We heard a shrill crying, "Oh--h! oh--h!"
+
+I ran forward, crying to Hardinge, "A man's hurt!" He answered, "Is he?"
+The dust was so thick I could not see at first, but as it cleared I
+found a workman lying on back and elbows, his knees drawn up as though
+he were trussed; his head waved from side to side, and he was uttering
+spasmodic cries. I said to him, "Where? where?" and he placed a hand to
+his stomach.
+
+The man had been struck just below the ribs by a large piece of bomb,
+blood was welling from the wound, so I pushed his shirt into it, and ran
+back to the office. Mrs. Stobart's car had been brought by a lady and a
+youth named Boon, who had both taken cover in the cellar; so I dug up
+the girl, whose name I have forgotten, as I hoped she knew "first aid."
+Together we ran to the man, leaving Boon to bring the ambulance.
+"Bandages," we demanded. "Haven't any," answered the few Serbs who had
+gathered round; "the first aid house has been blown to pieces." We
+crammed our handkerchiefs into the place, and a cotton-wool arm pad
+which was brought, and we then took off the man's own puttees and tied
+him up with them. As we were doing this somebody cried--
+
+"Aeroplanes returning."
+
+Immediately every Serb and Austrian fled. The girl, Hardinge, and I were
+left alone. It was a false alarm. With the returning crowd came a large
+man, who was weeping.
+
+[Illustration: BROKEN AEROPLANE IN THE ARSENAL AT KRAG.]
+
+[Illustration: WHERE THE "PLANE" FELL.]
+
+[Illustration: HOUSE NEAR THE ARSENAL DAMAGED BY BOMBS.]
+
+"Oh, my poor brother! oh, my poor brother! What have they done to
+thee? Why should this evil have befallen thee?"
+
+As we finished tying him up, Hardinge said, "Is it any good lying down?"
+
+I answered, "If this poor chap had been lying down he would not have
+been hurt."
+
+There was no stretcher, so we lifted the wounded man on a blanket into
+the ambulance, which Boon had now brought. The girl and the brother
+climbed within. I took the steering wheel. Boon wound up the engine, and
+swung alongside me. The driving was a difficult problem. Whether to
+drive fast and get to the hospital, or whether to go slow and spare the
+wounded man as much pain as was possible? The road was awful: once it
+had been laid with stone pavement, but many of the stones were missing,
+and in so bad a condition was it that although several bombs had fallen
+in the streets, one could not distinguish the bomb craters from the
+ordinary holes in the road. At last I decided that as it was not a
+fracture I would go as quickly as I dared. Above the clatter of the
+machinery I could hear the weeping of the brother and the intermittent
+cries of the wounded man, "Water, water."
+
+"I think he's going," said the girl through the curtains.
+
+At last we reached the hospital. We laid the man on the ground and the
+doctors did all they could. But it was useless, the piece of shell had
+cut in directly beneath the heart. In ten minutes he was dead. I turned
+to the brother and laying both hands upon his shoulders said--
+
+"Your poor brother was too badly hit. We could not save him."
+
+He stared at me for a moment, not understanding. Then he turned and
+flung himself down upon the body, weeping more bitterly than before.
+
+I went to the ambulance and took it back to its place.
+
+The aeroplane returning from the arsenal had flung three gratuitous
+bombs at the camp itself, one had fallen in the Serbian hospital yard,
+and had killed an Austrian prisoner; one had fallen in the top corner of
+the camp field, but had not exploded. The third had missed, only by a
+little, the room in which the two dead German aeroplanists were lying,
+had plunged into the Stobarts' storeroom, and had burst in the last case
+of marmalade which they possessed. It was an awful mess. Had it fallen
+three yards to the left it would have killed the chief cook, who was
+just on the other side of the wall.
+
+I went back to the arsenal. None of the bombs had struck any important
+part, almost all had fallen in open places, though one had burst on the
+roof of the woodshed, only a few yards from the petrol store. Two cans
+of petrol had been punctured by bits of shell, and Austrian prisoners
+were hurriedly pumping them out. Almost half the work of the arsenal was
+done by Austrian prisoners. Another bomb had fallen in the horseshoe
+store, and inside horseshoes were everywhere, some even sticking in the
+beams like great staples. I had no idea before that the bombs had such
+force. Sava said he had been standing in a doorway and a bomb had
+exploded quite close, a piece had whizzed by his nose and had torn down
+the name board over his head. When he turned round to go on with the
+work the aide had fled and never appeared again.
+
+I met Dr. Churchin. He is one of the best Serbs I have yet met, a
+philosopher. He was looking after the English units in Kragujevatz and I
+learnt did it excellently, and with a devotion to his duties altogether
+unusual. He told me that I had been nominated an honorary captain; but I
+am under the impression that it is an honour I cannot by national law
+accept.
+
+We went in the afternoon in the car towards Rudnik to examine the one
+which had broken down. I soon saw that nothing could be done on the
+spot, and ordered it to continue its "bullocky" progress to the camp. In
+the evening went off to the Government motor school, where I found my
+old friend Ristich and Colonel Derrock; both these men are first-class
+Serbs--jolly, keen and friendly.
+
+October 5th. Our car not being finished, Mr. Berry and Sister Hammond
+went back to Vrntze in a car lent by Colonel Derrock. I was to stay till
+all the repairs were completed on ours. There was another scare of
+aeroplanes, and the whole town emptied itself, families pouring by en
+route for the country; but the planes did not come. I went down to the
+arsenal and got on with the repairs. Dr. May lent me her camera and I
+got some photos. Mrs. Stobart went off with her "flying field force,"
+taking with her nearly all the men and almost all the cars: if the
+hospital get many serious cases I imagined that they would be dreadfully
+shorthanded.
+
+In the night the two German aeroplanists were buried without military
+honours. The Serbs said that they were assassins and deserved nothing.
+Still, Kragujevatz is an arsenal.
+
+October 6th. Another aeroplane scare; town emptied itself once more. Dr.
+MacLaren and I rushed off to the anti-aircraft guns, hoping to get some
+photos; but nothing occurred. Got the Rudnik car running by taking Mr.
+McBlack's useless car to pieces. In the evening two sisters went to
+Uskub. One of the sisters went to get her bag, and I took what I thought
+to be a short cut to help her. I passed between the tents, and was
+striding along, when--Plop! I found myself swimming in a deep tank of
+water. The sister heard me fall, and ran back to the camp crying out--
+
+"Help, help! The stranger is drowning in the bath-water sewage tank."
+
+I clambered out, and hastily fled to my tent, where kindly souls brought
+me an indiarubber bath and hot water. I also got some refugee pyjamas,
+in which I wandered about for the rest of the evening. My clothes were
+taken to the kitchen and hung over the big stove.
+
+October 7th. Went to the arsenal in borrowed refugee clothes miles too
+large. Worried the car till it worked. At lunch clothes dry. Got away by
+three, Hardinge coming with us. Night came on before we got home. Our
+car is a beastly nuisance in the dark, the lamps, electric and worked
+from the magneto, only giving light when going at full speed, which is
+impossible on these roads. I was just boasting to Harding that I had
+never run into anything except the owl, when I hit a cow. Figures
+appeared cursing from the darkness; we cursed back for allowing the
+animal to stray; other figures appeared cursing on our side. The motor
+was pushed back, the cow got up and walked off, and on we went. Found Jo
+on night shift. Got some supper, fixed up a bed for Hardinge, and so
+self to bed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LAST DAYS AT VRNTZE
+
+
+Up till now Vrntze was undisturbed by the war; the fine ladies were
+walking the streets much as usual, and were bringing pressure upon
+Gaschitch, the commandant, to make us close one of our hospitals, so
+that it might be reopened as a lodging-house. The chemist and Jan had an
+amusing conversation about the uncle of Nicholas I. It seems he was a
+great poet.
+
+"Sir," said the chemist, earnestly, "I can assure you that he was one of
+the greatest poets that ever has lived. Were Serbian a language as
+universally spoken as is English, he would stand beside Shakespeare in
+the world's estimation, if not before. The depth of his philosophy, sir,
+it is astounding and so deep. There are passages in his poetry which I
+have studied for weeks on end and never yet been able to understand."
+
+The true explanation is that the great poet translated an old work of
+German philosophy into Serbian, and very likely did not understand all
+the original himself.
+
+We got more letters urging us to return. Our studios in Paris and all
+our work of the last eight years seemed in danger of being sold up. So
+Jan went once more to the Chief. He asked us to stay until at least the
+first batch of wounded arrived, for none of the others had had
+experience of the receiving arrangements, and of the disinfecting. We
+moved our beds and baggage to the school, which Jo was to take over as a
+convalescent hospital.
+
+By the way, one of our doctors had a queer soothsaying experience. She
+was told that she was one day going to a foreign country with an S in
+the name. She would be quite safe in her first job, but that she would
+be offered a post in a large grey building from which if she accepted
+she might not escape alive, but in any case would be flying for her
+life, and that she and all her companions would suffer great hardships
+and sleep on dirty straw in awful places. She was offered a job at the
+Farmers' hospital in Belgrade. She refused. It is a great grey building,
+and we now heard that Belgrade was being violently bombarded and all had
+to escape. Rumours came of great German attacks on Shabatz and
+Obrenovatz.
+
+The next day Serbian refugees arrived from Belgrade itself: they said
+that the town was in flames and that fierce fighting was taking place in
+the streets. Posheravatz was deserted, and a great battle was raging
+about its outskirts. There were reports that the King of Bulgaria had
+abdicated and that the Germans at Chabatz had been defeated, leaving
+8000 prisoners in Serbian hands. Neuhat came to Jan in great glee.
+
+"We have captured a German major," he said, "and he says that never was
+there a soldier like the Serb. He has fought English and French and
+Russians, but he says our troops are the most wonderful of all."
+
+"Jolly sensible chap," said Jan. "I'd say the same myself if I was a
+prisoner."
+
+Major Gaschitch told Dr. Berry that if the Serbian army retreated we
+were to retreat with them. Blease and Jan got hard at work putting rope
+handles to the packing-cases and labelling them for special purposes.
+One of our lady doctors was valued in the morning. In the outpatient
+department a question arose about marriage. A Serb patient said--
+
+"I can marry any time I like. Pah! In Serbia one can get two maidens for
+twopence, and three widows for a mariasch (1/2_d._)."
+
+Everybody was now running about with maps, violently explaining the
+situation to everybody else, and all explaining differently. Major
+Gaschitch had fixed Novi Bazar as our probable haven, and Mr. Berry
+borrowed our map to see if there were a direct road over Gotch mountain,
+and suggested that Jan might get a horse and ride over to see. Alas,
+only a fourth-class road was marked, and heaven knows what that may be
+like: lots of country and choose for yourself probably. A woman was
+brought in with what she said was a bullet through the breast; it
+occurred during the celebration of the marriage ceremony, which lasted a
+week. The girl was brought by her father, the bridegroom having rushed
+off to the church to pray. The wound looked very like a dagger thrust.
+
+The new slaughter-house was a fine erection. The walls were almost
+finished and the roof was being assembled. One of the Austrian prisoners
+had discovered a talent for stone carving, and Miss Dickenson was
+designing a frieze for the door and on each side. There was a fine
+ceremony--while we had been away--at the foundation, and Mr. Berry made
+a speech in Serbian. The disinfector had also arrived and was soon got
+into working order.
+
+The news got better. The Austrians were now driven out of Belgrade with
+immense slaughter, the whole line of the Danube and of the Save had
+been reoccupied by the Serbs. Blease and Jan wondered if it were
+necessary to go on with the rope handles. Our first wounded man arrived
+in the evening, a non-commissioned officer, with a slightly wounded
+thumb. He had arrived by train, asked in the town which was the most
+comfortable hospital, and had walked up. We represented that we weren't
+looking for thumbs, but had to put him up for the night; this meant the
+whole business of washing, shaving, and disinfecting his clothes.
+
+We heard that the French and English had arrived in Nish, 70,000 men,
+and that they had been greeted with the wildest enthusiasm; but against
+that was set the fact that Belgrade after all was not quite clear of
+Austrians, in fact, they still held half the town, but that the "Swobs"
+were not getting on at Chabatz. "Swobs" in Serbian are any of a Germanic
+country, while in Austria it is a term of opprobrium, meaning "German."
+One of our "Czech" orderlies said to Jo, pathetically--
+
+"I never thought that I should be called a 'Swob.'"
+
+Next day came a warning that two hundred wounded, serious cases, were to
+be expected, so everything and everybody was in a rush. The bathrooms to
+be cleaned, disinfecting-room and bags to be got ready, wards cleared
+as much as was possible.
+
+The wounded did not come, and the next day they did not come. The
+chemist said that all the Austrians had been driven back, but that the
+Bulgars had at last attacked. Mr. Berry thought the news rather serious,
+and told us that Gaschitch had said that we must be prepared to move at
+twenty-four hours' notice; so back we went to the work on the boxes.
+Next day news was brought that the Bulgars had drawn back, and had said
+that the Serbs had attacked them first, that the Powers had declared war
+on Bulgaria, and that the Russians had bombarded Varna.
+
+At last we got news that the wounded were really coming. We hurried into
+our disinfecting garments--looking like pantaloons,--and scissors were
+served out to all the assistants. It was dark before the first motor
+load came.
+
+The undressing-room was a large white-stone floored room with four long
+plank beds covered with mackintosh; behind was the bathroom. The first
+wounded man was pushed in through the window on a stretcher, a brown
+crumpled heap of misery, and groaning. We laid him carefully on the bed
+while the doctor searched for the wound. While she was examining him a
+second was handed in. No need to examine this one. Bloody head bandage
+and great blue swollen eyelids told plainly where his wound was. We
+stripped the clothes as carefully as was possible from the poor fellows.
+Those who were too bad to go to the bathroom were washed where they lay.
+One orderly with soap and razors shaved every hair from each; and
+several plied clippers on the matted heads. Outside was one electric
+lamp which threw strong lights and darker shadows, making a veritable
+Rembrandt of the scene, lighting up the white clad forms of the
+assistants who were drawing out the stretchers, the big square end of
+the ambulance car, and picking out from the gloom of the garden a rose
+tree which bore one white rose.
+
+The wounded were indescribably dirty, and their clothes in a shocking
+state, all stiff with blood. Jo took charge of the clothes bags, seeing
+that no man's clothes were mixed with any others. The men all seemed
+dazed, each soldier seemed to have the same protest upon his mind. "This
+wasn't the idea at all, I was not to be wounded. Why am I here?" One
+suddenly felt the brutal inanity of modern warfare; one felt that if the
+ones who had started this war could only be forced to spend three months
+in a war hospital, receiving and undressing the fruits of their plots,
+they would have a different view of the glory and honour of battle.
+
+Each man had sewn in his belt some talisman to protect him from
+danger--small brass or lead image or medal, bought from the village
+priest.
+
+There was confusion at first, for almost all were new to their tasks;
+the barbers were carrying stretchers when they ought to have been
+barbering; the clippers were scrubbing instead of doing their proper
+work; but, nevertheless, it was marvellously rapid. The motor tore back
+to the station, and by the time it had returned its first load had been
+washed, shaved, arrayed in clean pyjamas, and either lay in bed in the
+ward, or were waiting their turn outside the operating theatre.
+
+Mr. Berry was hard at work: there were several cases shot through the
+brain, one through the lungs, one through the heart, and one through the
+spine; this latter was paralysed.
+
+Some wounded came in carriages; it was very difficult to get them on to
+the stretchers without giving them unnecessary pain, because of the
+shape of the "fiacres." At last all were passed through.
+
+Do not think us heartless if we rubbed our hands and said, "Some very
+good cases, what!" for emotional pity can be separated from professional
+pleasure, and if these things had to be we were pleased that the serious
+ones had come to us; had not gone to a Serbian hospital.
+
+Next day we sorted clothes. Every uniform had to be taken from its bag,
+tabulated, searched for money or food, and repacked. They were swarming
+with vermin, but we wore mackintosh overalls which are supposed to be
+anathema to the beasties. More operations. One of the men had been hit
+in the cerebellum, and was quite blind. The boy who had been hit in the
+lungs prayed for a cigarette and an apple, he felt sure they would do
+him good. We sorted more clothes. One of the men had a pocket full of
+scissors--evidently regimental barber; another's pockets were crammed
+with onions; a third had a half-eaten apple, as though the fight had
+surprised him in the middle of his dessert. The cerebellum man wanted
+his purse. We could not find it; after exhaustive inquiry found that the
+lung youth had stolen it. Another patient claimed he had lost thirty-six
+francs; so down we had to go once more, search his package--the
+smelliest of the lot--and at last found the money pinned into the lining
+of his coat, also a watch. Jan took them back to him, wound up the watch
+and set it. The grateful owner said that the watch was an ornament, but
+that he could not read it.
+
+The French were never in Nish at all--all lies; but Austrian aeroplanes
+had bombed it and killed several people. The Bulgarian comitaj cut the
+line at Vranja, but had been badly beaten in a battle near Zaichar. The
+flight over Gotch degenerated into a joke, and Jo was commissioned to do
+a caricature of it.
+
+Suddenly a refugee turned up, the hostess of the rest house in Nish. She
+was very worried about the loss of her fifteen trunks, which she had had
+to leave, and which contained all her family mementoes and miniatures.
+She hoped that the scare would only last a few days. The Bulgars had
+occupied Veles though, which was bad news. Another refugee lady from
+Belgrade came in. More patients. Forty-nine for the "Merkur" hospital.
+Lots of running about, but at last all were bedded.
+
+A Serbian comitaj girl came in in the afternoon, looking for a lady
+doctor. She was a fine upstanding creature with a strong, almost fierce,
+face. There had been six of her, she said, but one had been killed. The
+bombardment of Varna turned out to be a lie, but they said that all the
+Bulgars at Vrnja had been surrounded. Major Gaschitch also said that if
+Serbia could hold out till the 10th, something wonderful was going to
+happen.
+
+Our visitors had rather a hard time. One of them was trotting into the
+little sitting-room of the hospital. She opened the door and started
+back aghast. There was a man within clad in nothing but a large pair of
+moustaches. She fled. Mr. Berry having nowhere to examine a stray
+patient had occupied the room at an unlucky moment. More wounded were
+expected, so we got into our war paint, and they arrived five hours
+later than we had expected them. They came in "fiacres," and climbed off
+very easily. We inquired, "Where wounded?" "Belgrade." "When?" "Three
+months ago." Not a serious case amongst them, and we had heard that the
+badly equipped hospitals at Krusevatz were crowded with the most
+frightful cases. We were furious. A lot more wounded came to the "State"
+cafe. None seriously hurt, and after examination one man had no wound to
+show at all, nor shock, nor anything. He had simply run away. There were
+several hand cases, some blackened with powder, proving that the poor
+devils had shot themselves to get out of it. One man would not have his
+hair cut because he said that he was in mourning for his brother, and
+his hat was decorated with a crown of black lace. At the same time some
+serious cases came to the main hospital; one man seemed to have been
+shot the whole length of his body, the bullet entering at the shoulder
+and emerging behind the hip. A small boy sat scratching. Jo said to him,
+"Why dost thou scratch?" He answered with a shout of fatuous content,
+"I have lice, I have lice," and scratched once more.
+
+The disinfector was working overtime, clothes were poured upon us from
+all the other hospitals. Another alarm that wounded were coming, but
+they never came. In their place an English clergyman arrived from Krag.
+News came of the fall of Uskub, and that Lady Paget had been captured
+with all her staff. Next day the wounded came, many more than had been
+expected. Jan got rather strong signs of inflammatory rheumatism
+threatening, so he went to bed for a couple of days with salicylate.
+
+The Serbian authorities were beginning to lose their heads. In the
+morning they said that the "State" was to be made into a hospital for
+officers, and chased all the patients out; in the afternoon they decided
+that it was not, and chased back the patients--who had been divided
+amongst the other hospitals. Thus they kept us busy and accomplished
+nothing. In the evening another batch of wounded came in.
+
+Nearly all the reports of the previous week were now confessed to be
+lies. A Serbian minister had been dying in the town, and the good
+stories were made up to keep him cheerful. Now he was dead the truth
+leaked out. The Austrians and Germans were advancing on every side, the
+Serbs making no resistance since Belgrade. The Bulgars had occupied the
+whole of the line south of Nish. The French and English were advancing
+with extreme difficulty. The Farmers' unit trailed into the town, no
+conveyance having been arranged for them from the station. The Scottish
+women were already here, having come in the night; they had to sleep
+twelve or fifteen in a room. Next day a small contingent of the wounded
+Allies arrived.
+
+Sir Ralph Paget arrived in a whirl. Leaders of units appeared from all
+sides, and a hurried conference was held.
+
+Mr. Berry called a meeting at two. He said Paget had announced that the
+game was up; that all members of units should have the option of going
+home, and that he (Paget) was going to Kralievo to see about transports.
+Jan got to work on the map, and decided that the best route out would be
+one to Novi Bazar, and thence by tracks to Berane. There were villages
+marked in the mountains which did not seem so high as those by Ipek,
+also the road, if there were one, would be at least two days shorter.
+
+Sir Ralph came back next day, and knowing that we had but lately
+returned from Montenegro, he asked Jan a lot of questions about the
+road, etc. Sir Ralph's latest decision was that all men of military
+age--not doctors--should attempt to cross the mountains into Montenegro.
+He could not say if any transport could be provided, or if there would
+be any means of escaping from Montenegro, and in consequence he advised
+no women to move, as they would be better where they were, than in
+facing the risks of the mountains; they would not be in the same danger
+as the orderlies, for whom internment was to be expected. Dr. Holmes
+decided to accompany us, as he said he wasn't going to doctor Germans,
+and he might be useful to the retreating Serbian army. Ellis also said
+that he would come and would bring his car, which would help us at least
+some of the way. Sir Ralph asked Jan to take charge of the party of the
+English Red Cross, and we went back to our rooms to repack, for Jo had
+already arranged things for internment, Mr. Blease decided to come with
+us. Nobody knew what the dangers would be, or where the Austrians and
+Germans were, and many doubted if it were possible to get through. The
+season was getting late, and snow was daily to be expected. Some
+imaginative people enlarged on "the brigands" and "wolves," but we did
+not think that they counted for much. The chief problems were, if we
+could get shelter each night, and could we carry enough food to support
+us in case we could get none, which seemed very possible.
+
+We got an order from Gaschitch for bread from the Serbian authorities.
+We were going off into country, the real conditions of which nobody
+knew, and our friends took leave of us, many expecting to see us back in
+a few days. The Austrian prisoners were very sad at our going.
+
+The station was dark and gloomy, the little gimcrack Turkish kiosk--like
+a bit of the White City--was filled with Red Cross stoves and beds. Two
+trains came in, but neither was for Kralievo; one was Red Cross and the
+other for Krusevatz. A lot of boys, in uniform, clambered on board and
+shouting out, "Sbogom Vrntze," were borne off into the night. Our
+spirits fell lower and lower. We thought of the friends we were leaving
+behind us, and of what we had before us. The reaction had set in,
+intensified by the gloom and cold of the station.
+
+Hours later the train arrived. The only third-class carriage was filled
+to overflowing, people were standing on the platform and sitting on the
+steps. We tried the trucks. All were crammed so full that the doors
+could not be opened.
+
+"You'd better go to-morrow," said the station-master.
+
+"We're not going through that a second time," we said. "Can't we climb
+on to the roof?"
+
+We scrambled up. There were other men there, lying in brown heaps. We
+made some of them move up a little, stowed our blankets and knapsacks,
+and sat amongst them.
+
+"Are you all right?" shouted the station-master.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Good-bye, then. Lie down when you come to the bridges, or you'll get
+your heads knocked off."
+
+We lay down at once, taking no risks, not knowing when the bridges were
+coming. Luckily the wind was with us, and the night was warm. The engine
+showered sparks into the air, which fell little hot touches on to our
+faces and hands. Later a little rain fell.
+
+Kralievo at three a.m. We did not know the town so Jo stormed the
+telegraph office. The officials tried to shut the door, but she got her
+foot into it.
+
+"When I ask you a polite question you might answer it," she said.
+
+"You can get shelter next door," said one grumpily.
+
+We tried next door. It was crowded, and the heat within was unbearable.
+We saw a door in the opposite wall and opened it--back into the
+telegraph office. There were people sleeping there already, so without
+asking permission we dumped our baggage and lay down on the floor. The
+officials said nothing.
+
+After a while two French generals (or somethings) came in. They were
+refused as we were, but they took no notice, unpacked their blankets and
+lay down under the great central table. With them was a wife, she sat
+miserably on a chair. The room got so stuffy when the door was shut that
+she wished it opened; the draught was so bad when the door was open that
+she immediately wished it shut. Unfortunately she got mixed: the Serbian
+for open is very like the word for shut, and she used them reversed.
+There was much confusion. Just as the officials were getting used to her
+inversions, she corrected herself. More confusion. An English girl came
+in, pushed aside the papers on the big table, and began to brew cocoa on
+a Primus stove which she had brought with her. The officials looked
+helplessly at each other. Jan recognized her as one of the Stobart unit
+from Krag: she had got astray from her band, but was now rejoining them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+KRALIEVO
+
+
+We roused ourselves at seven a.m. A damp, chilly fog was hanging low
+over the valley, it penetrated to the skin, and one shuddered. The
+railway was congested, but train arrived after train, open trucks all
+packed with men whose breath rose in steam, and whose clothes were
+sparkling with the dew. We stepped from the station door into a thick
+black "pease puddingy" mud, as though the Thames foreshore had been
+churned up by traffic. Standing knee deep in the mud were weary oxen and
+horses attached to carts of all descriptions, with wheels whose rims,
+swollen by the mire, were sunk almost to the axles. Across the mud,
+surrounded by shaky red brick walls, the District Civil Hospital showed
+pale in the morning, and we made towards it, splashing.
+
+We came to the lodge: an English girl was doing something to a kitchen
+stove. She stared at us.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"We've just come from Vrnjatchka Banja," we explained.
+
+She took Jo to the hospital, while Blease and Jan dropped their heavy
+luggage and washed in a basin, provided by a Serb servant girl. Jo did
+not return. Jan went to the hospital to look for her.
+
+Crowds of men were at the door, crowds in ragged and filthy uniforms,
+with bandages on arms, or foot, or brow, dirty stained bandages with
+bloodstains upon them. Some of the men were crouching on the ground,
+some were lying against the house, fast asleep. Somehow we got through
+them. The passage was full of men, and men were asleep, festooned on the
+stone stairs. The smell was horrible. Beyond a swinging glass door
+Scottish women were hurrying to and fro bandaging the men as they
+entered, and passing them out on the other side of the building. The
+Serbs waited with the stoicism of the Oriental, their long lean faces
+drawn with hunger, pain and fatigue. Now and again some man turned
+uneasily in his sleep and groaned. A detachment of "Stobarts" had found
+a lodging upstairs, in a bedroom with plank beds; amongst them we found
+some old friends.
+
+Leaving them we went into the village to look for a meal, back through
+the mud. Soldiers, peasants, women, children, horse carts and bullock
+waggons, all were pushing here and there, broken down and deserted
+motor cars were standing in the middle of the road. In the great round
+central "Place" confusion was worse, animals, carts, and refugee
+bivouacks being all squashed together on the market place.
+
+White-bearded officers with grey-green uniforms were gesticulating to
+white-bearded civilians outside the Cafe de Paris. A motor rushed up,
+disgorged three men in Russian uniform and fled. A small fat man vainly
+endeavouring to attract the attention of a staff officer grasped him by
+the arm; the staff officer shook him off angrily. Soldiers lounged
+against the walls and peered in through the dirty windows....
+
+Within, the big dark room was crammed. Opening the door was like turning
+a corner of cliff by the seashore. Almost all, at the tables, were men:
+officers, tradesmen, clerks, talking in eager tense words. We found
+three seats. Nobody had anything to eat or drink. Three men came to the
+table next to us. They exhibited two loaves of bread to the others, and
+had the air of some one who had done something very clever. We were
+famished.
+
+Suddenly half the cafe rose and rushed to a small counter almost hidden
+in the gloom of the far end. Coffee can be got, said some one. Blease,
+who could get out the easier, went to explore. In a short while he
+wandered back saying that he had got a waiter. A man came through
+selling apples. We bought some. At last the waiter came.
+
+"Cafe au lait," said we.
+
+"And bread," we added, as he turned away.
+
+"Nema," he answered, looking back.
+
+"Well eggs, then."
+
+"Nema."
+
+"What have you got?"
+
+"We have nothing but meat."
+
+"No potatoes?"
+
+"No."
+
+We got a sort of Serbian stew, the meat so tough that one had to saw the
+morsels apart with a knife and bolt them whole. As we were operating, a
+soldier leaned up against our table, and stared at our plates with a
+wistful longing. Jo caught his eye. She scraped together all our
+leavings; what misery we could have relieved, had we had money enough,
+in Serbia then.
+
+We paid our bill with a ten dinar (franc) note. The waiter fingered it a
+moment.
+
+"Haven't you any money?" he asked.
+
+"That is money."
+
+"Silver, I mean."
+
+"No."
+
+He hesitated a moment. Then went away, turning the note over in his
+hands. After a while he returned and gave us our change.
+
+The day passed in a queer sort of daze of doing things; between one act
+and another there was no definite sequence. The town itself was in a
+sort of suppressed twitter, everybody's movements seemed exaggerated,
+the eager ones moved faster, impelled by a sort of fear; the slow ones
+went slower, their feet dragging in a kind of despondency. At one time
+we found ourselves clambering up some steps to the mayor's office, in
+search of bread. By a window on the far side of the room was a man with
+a pale face, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and light hair:
+Churchin. We ran to him.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he said gloomily.
+
+We explained.
+
+"I don't think you can get any transport," he said; "but later I'll see
+if I can do anything."
+
+We thanked him. "But transport or no transport, we are going." Jan
+showed him the bread order. He read it and pointed to the Nachanlik.
+
+The Nachanlik read our order, scowled and passed it on to another man,
+an officer. The officer read the order, looked us sulkily from head to
+foot, then he pushed the paper back to us.
+
+"We have only bread for soldiers."
+
+"But--we are an English Mission."
+
+"Only for soldiers here. We have nothing to do with English Missions."
+
+Fearing that we had come to the wrong place we retired.
+
+At another time we were climbing up back stairs to what had been the
+temporary lodgings of the English legation. But it was empty and
+deserted; Sir Ralph Paget had not yet come.
+
+There were bread shops, but they were all shut and guarded by soldiers.
+Jan saw some bread in a window. He went into the dirty cafe, which was
+crowded with soldiers, some sitting on the floor and some on the tables.
+
+"Whose bread?" asked he.
+
+"Ours."
+
+"Will you sell me a loaf?"
+
+"We won't sell a crumb."
+
+We bought some apples from a man with a Roman lever balance, and chewed
+them as we went along.
+
+At the hospital the "Stobarts" were packing up. A motor was coming for
+them in the afternoon. We heard that Dr. May and the Krag people were at
+Studenitza, an old monastery, halfway along the road to Rashka. On the
+flat fields behind the station were another gang of "Stobarts," the
+dispensary from Lapovo. One Miss H---- was in trouble, for thieves had
+pushed their arms beneath the tent flaps in the night and had captured
+her best boots.
+
+"There are cases full of boots on the railway," said some one,
+consoling.
+
+"But those are men's boots," said another.
+
+Part of the morning we spent sitting on the banks of the Ebar River and
+watching the bridge, wondering if Ellis would come with his car. Ten
+times we thought we could see it, and each time were deceived.
+
+The French aeroplanes came in. They hovered over the town seeking a flat
+place, finally swooping down on to the marshy plain on which the
+"Stobarts" were encamped. They landed, dashing through the shallow
+puddles and flinging the water in great showers on every side. As each
+landed it wheeled into line and was pegged down. Behind them was a line
+of cannons, the Serbian engineers were hard at work, smashing off their
+sighting apparatus, destroying the breech blocks, and jagging the lining
+with cold chisels. Some of the cannon were Turkish. All the morning,
+through the noise of the town, the shouting of the bullock drivers, the
+pant of the motor cars, and the steady tap, tap of the engineers'
+mallets, came the faint booming of the battle at Mladnovatch, not
+fifteen miles away.
+
+After lunch we went again to the cafe. Again it was full, and we were
+forced to wait for a table. Just as we sat down a woman with a drawn,
+anxious face came up to us, clutched Jo by the arm and said eagerly--
+
+"Is it true that you are going to Montenegro?"
+
+"Yes," answered Jo. "If we can get there."
+
+"Could you give me only a little advice, madame? You see we do not know
+what to do. My husband--he is an old man, and he is an Austro-Serb. If
+the enemy catch him they will hang him."
+
+"I'm afraid he will have to walk," said Jo.
+
+"But he is so old," said the woman, with tears in her eyes; "he is
+fifty."
+
+"We ourselves will have to walk," said Jo. "Make him a knapsack for his
+food. Give him warm clothes. It is his only chance of safety. And," she
+added, "the sooner he gets away the better, for in a little all the food
+on the road will be eaten up, and one will starve."
+
+The woman thanked us. "I will make him go at once," she said, and ran
+out wringing her hands.
+
+A Russian woman with a thin-faced man sat at her table.
+
+"You are going to Montenegro?" she said.
+
+We nodded.
+
+"I too am going. I am a good sportswoman. I have walked fifty kilometres
+in one day."
+
+We looked at her well-corseted figure, her rather congested face, and
+had already seen thin high-heeled shoes.
+
+"I will come with you, yes?"
+
+The little man interrupted. "Why do you say such things, Olga? You know
+that you cannot walk a mile."
+
+We pointed out that we were going to march across the Austrian front,
+and that no one could tell us where the Austrians were exactly; that our
+safety depended to some extent on our speed, and that the failure of one
+to make the pace meant the failure of all. The little man drew her away.
+
+In the afternoon a miserable fit of depression took us, but we pushed it
+behind us. To the hospital for tea, taking with us a tin of cocoa and
+some condensed milk, which the people lacked. Biscuits and treacle, the
+treacle looted from the railway, where an obliging guard had said that
+he could not give permission to take it, but that he could look the
+other way. We heard the tale of Kragujevatz, of the camp and all the
+buildings filled to overflowing. More aeroplane raids; and of the sudden
+order to evacuate. All the wounded who could crawl were got from their
+beds and turned into the street by the authorities to go: if they could
+not walk, to crawl. A few Serb and Austrian doctors were left to guard
+and watch those too ill to go; with them some Swedish and Dutch sisters,
+and the Netherlands flag flying from the hospitals. Dr. Churchin seemed
+to have been the good genius of the Missions, never flagging in his
+efforts for them.
+
+We heard that a Colonel Milhaelovitch was the bread officer. He lived
+somewhere in the back of the big yellow schoolhouse at the end of the
+street. After tea we wandered drearily down to seek him, gained
+permission from a sentry, and clambered up some stone stairs. Jan saw an
+acquaintance from the Nish ministry, asked him a question, and was
+ushered ... straight into the Ministry of War. They seemed in a
+frightful stew about something, an air of disorder reigned everywhere,
+but somebody found time to look at the order.
+
+"Nachanlik," said he.
+
+"We've been there already."
+
+"Well, go there again and say we sent you, and that they must give you
+bread."
+
+We were worn out by this. Jo went off to the plank bed which the
+Stobarts had promised to her, while Jan and Blease to the tents, where
+Sir Ralph's men were sheltering.
+
+All the streets were edged with motionless bullock carts, in which men
+were sleeping, and even in the mud between their wheels were the dim
+forms of the weary soldiery. The two splashed across the marsh and found
+the tents.
+
+Rogerson and Willett were there; Willett was seedy. Another Englishman
+named Hamilton, who had an umbrella which he had sworn to take back
+with him to England. Also two Austro-Serb boys who had been acting as
+interpreters.
+
+West and Mawson were not there. Rogerson said that Sir Ralph had sent
+them with Mrs. M----to see the road and conditions at Mitrovitza; nobody
+knew when they would be back. We got two beds, but there were no
+mattresses on the springs. Jan rolled up in his Serbian rug, but it was
+loosely woven, and not as warm as he had hoped. Just not warm enough,
+one only dozed. About eleven o'clock, Cutting came in with Owen,
+Watmough, Hilder, and Elmer. They had come from Vrnjatchka Banja with
+Dr. Holmes. Some one had told them that we had deserted them and had
+gone off to Rashka on our own; they were cheered to find us still there.
+After that we lay awake discussing details. None of them had realized
+the difficulties of the road and the probable lack of food, though the
+Red Cross men had brought with them a case of emergency rations. Jan
+exposed his idea of the route; somebody said that there was some corned
+beef and rice in a Red Cross train on the siding.
+
+Intermittently in the silences one could still hear the sound of the
+guns.
+
+Next morning at breakfast Dr. Holmes came in. He had thought us gone,
+and so had procured for himself and the sister who was with him, seats
+in a Government motor which was going to Mitrovitza. We all splashed
+across the marshy grass to the siding where the stores were. In the
+empty trucks on the line families were camping, and some had fitted them
+up like little homes. We found the truck, and with efforts dug out
+twelve tins of corned beef, a case of condensed milk, one of treacle,
+and two tins of sugar. We emptied a kitbag and filled it with rice.
+
+The hospital was fuller than ever. The Scottish nurses were toiling as
+quickly as they could, and each man received a couple of hard ship's
+biscuits from a great sack, when his wounds were dressed. He immediately
+wolfed the hard biscuits and lay down; in one minute he was asleep, and
+the hospital grounds were strewn with the sleeping men. From time to
+time sergeants came in, roused the sleepers, formed them into
+detachments, and marched them off.
+
+The Stobarts met us wringing their hands. There was no bread, nor could
+they procure any. Jan took their order, and we promised to see what
+could be done. As we passed the station we saw surging crowds of men,
+from the midst came cries of pain, and sticks were falling in blows.
+
+"Good Lord, what's that?" we cried.
+
+We plunged into the crowd. Some of the men and boys were gnawing
+angrily at pieces of biscuit which they held in their hands. The crowd
+surged more violently, the sticks were plied with greater vigour;
+presently the crowd fell back snarling. The ground which they left was
+covered with the crumbs of trampled biscuit, and the soldiers drove the
+crowd yet further back, beating with sticks and cursing. A bread sack
+being unloaded from a waggon had burst, the hungry crowd had pounced ...
+that was all. As we withdrew we saw the fortunate ones still gnawing
+ferociously at the hard morsels which they had captured.
+
+We took our passes to the mayor once more. He received us angrily.
+
+"I told you yesterday," he said.
+
+"The War Office sent us," said Jan, sweetly, "and said that you must
+give us bread."
+
+"I have no bread," said the mayor. "You must go to Colonel
+Milhaelovitch."
+
+We tramped back to the yellow school. There was no sentry, and a queer
+air of forlornness seemed to pervade. We asked a loiterer for the
+colonel's office. He pointed. We climbed yet another stair and found a
+pair of large rooms; they were empty. Town papers were scattered on the
+floor, one table was overturned.
+
+A man lounged in. "Where is the colonel?" we asked.
+
+"Ne snam bogami," he said, twisting a cigarette.
+
+"Well, find out," said Jan.
+
+He lounged away and presently returned with another.
+
+"The colonel has evacuated," said the other; "he went naturally with the
+Ministry of War to Rashka last night."
+
+We went back in a fury to the mayor.
+
+"You knew this," we cried angrily to him.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Where can we get bread?"
+
+He took up the passes and looked at them. His face lightened.
+
+"This one," he said, turning to another, "is written--Give them bread to
+the value of three francs. We will give them three francs."
+
+"No you won't," said we; "you'll give us bread. You cannot leave these
+English sisters to starve."
+
+After some grumbling he said we could inquire at the "first army." We
+made him write out an order; we also made him give us a clerk to
+accompany us. He gave us a tattered old man whose toes were sticking
+from his boots.
+
+We presented both orders at the "first army." It refused at once. We
+threatened it with the War Office and with the mayor. After some demur
+it sent us across the town again to the "magazine" office.
+
+At the magazine office we were more wily. We presented our little order
+for three humble loaves. He first said "Nema," then admitted that there
+was bread and that we could have it. We then showed the order for the
+other loaves.
+
+"No, no," he cried, "you cannot have all that bread."
+
+We pointed out that it was not much for a whole mission. He still
+refused. So Jo got up and made a little speech. It was a nasty little
+speech, but they deserved it, for we had found that they had bread.
+
+She pointed out that the English Missions had now been working in Serbia
+for a year, gratis; that no matter if we got no transport we were going
+to get to England, and that it would not look well in the English papers
+if we wrote a true account of our experiences, saying that they had
+allowed the English Missions to starve. The threat of publicity finished
+him. He grumbling consented to give us ten loaves in addition to our own
+to last for two days. Not daring to leave them, and to send an orderly
+for them, we rolled them up in Jo's overcoat and staggered down the road
+to the hospital.
+
+On the way we met an old Serbian peasant woman. She walked for a while
+with us, turning her eyes to heaven and crying--
+
+"What times we live in. Only God can help, only God."
+
+At the hospital we met Sir Ralph Paget. He told us that the Transport
+Board had promised him ten ox carts for the morrow. Two large motor
+lorries had turned up to take the two contingents of the "Stobarts."
+They were packing in, and we asked them to take our holdall as far as
+Rashka, for we were still distrustful of the ox carts. We had begun to
+get into a habit of not believing in anything till it was actually
+there.
+
+An Englishman came suddenly in with a face purple with anger and
+swearing. He was the dispenser from Krag who had been left at Lapovo to
+bring on the stores.
+
+"What's the matter?" we cried.
+
+"Brought my motor from Lapovo with the hospital stuff," he said
+furiously. "Left it out there on the road. Came in here to tell you
+about it; and when I go back the cussed thing isn't there. Found all the
+stores in a beastly bullock cart. The people said that a Serb officer
+had come along, turned all our stuff out, and gone off with the motor. *
+* * *."
+
+There was nothing to be done, so we went on packing. An aeroplane was
+seen in the distance; everybody watched it.
+
+"Taube," said somebody.
+
+The Taube sailed slowly round, surveying the town. It passed right
+overhead. Everybody stared upwards wondering if it were going to "bomb,"
+for we were just opposite to the railway station. But it passed over and
+flew away. As it went guns fired at it, and many of the Serbs let off
+their rifles. We have often wondered where all the bits of the shells go
+to, for nobody ever seems to be hit by them, even when they are bursting
+right overhead.
+
+The motor gave several snorts, everybody climbed aboard. The driver let
+in the clutch, there was a tearing sound from underneath, but the motor
+did not go. One of the drivers clambered down, and after examination
+said that it could not go on that day, and they immediately began to
+take it to pieces. The aeroplane came back twice, sailing to and fro
+without hindrance.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANT WOMEN LEAVING THEIR VILLAGE.]
+
+[Illustration: SERB FAMILY BY THE ROADSIDE.]
+
+It is impossible to describe properly the feeling in the town: it was
+like standing in the influence of high-pressure electricity, even in the
+daytime the soldiers in their rags--but with barbarously coloured rugs
+and knapsacks--were sleeping in the hedges and gutters. There were vague
+rumours that Rumania and Greece had finally joined in; many seized upon
+these statements as being true, and one found little oases of rejoicings
+amongst the almost universal pessimism. We ourselves doubted the
+reports. Sir Ralph's ox carts--in an interview with Churchin--dwindled
+down to a possible two; but Jan got a letter in the evening saying that
+there were ten country carts for the next morning. Six were for us and
+four for the "Stobarts," and that we were to take the Indian tents with
+us.
+
+We went back to the tents early to get a good start next day. Rogerson
+and Willett were sorting their clothes. Hamilton had decided, as he
+could not walk, to go back to Vrntze with the Red Cross stores which
+Paget was sending to the hospital. As we were turning in, Dr. Holmes
+arrived. He had not got the seat in the motor, but was going next day.
+Later two mud-bespattered figures came in. They were West and Mawson.
+
+We questioned them eagerly, and although they were worn out they
+answered all they could.
+
+The road was passable. They had scarcely slept for four days, Mitrovitza
+was already crammed with fugitives, and rooms were not to be found. On
+the way back the motor was working badly; the mud was awful. Then the
+petrol ran out. They stopped a big car which was loaded with petrol and
+ammunition, and asked for some. They got a little, and as they were
+going to start the big car suddenly burst into flames: some fool having
+struck a match to see if the petrol was properly turned off. Great
+flames roared up into the air, and it was a long time before the car
+was sufficiently burnt down to pass it.
+
+West said that it was a most marvellous picture.
+
+A little farther on a tyre had burst, and they had been forced to come
+back on the rims. They eagerly welcomed Jan's idea of the Novi Bazar
+route, feeling sure that if they once got to Mitrovitza it would be long
+before they got away, and very doubtful if they could get lodging there.
+
+Again we could hear the guns in the night, and news had come in that
+Krag had been occupied and that the German cavalry were making towards
+Kralievo.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA
+
+
+The men were up before three-thirty to strike the tents, having slept
+but little. Breakfast was prepared and waiting at five-thirty in the big
+hospital bedroom; but the women ate of it alone.
+
+Jo sallied forth to the camp, anxious to know what had happened. She
+found a testy little company. For two hours they had been struggling in
+the dark with tents and waiting for the carts and for a policeman, as
+all the riff-raff of the town was gathering to loot our leavings.
+
+At last the carts were run to earth standing outside the hospital in a
+line--ten little springless carts in charge of a stupid-looking corporal
+who had misunderstood his orders. He moreover refused to move, saying he
+"had his orders."
+
+The indefatigable Churchin was found, and sent him off with a flea in
+his ear. When he arrived at the camp we found a woman and household
+luggage in one of the carts. He said it was his wife, and objected to
+our putting anything into that cart. We told him he would have to lump
+it, and he got sulky; as each extra package was put on a cart he said
+that it would break to pieces. Certainly the tents were very heavy, but
+we had been ordered to take them. When the carts were loaded up to the
+last degree they moved slowly through the mud and drew up at the
+hospital. We were sadly overladen. Our party consisted of Mawson, West,
+Cutting, Rogerson, Willett, Blease, Angelo, Whatmough, Elmer, Owen, and
+Hilder--the last four being our friends of the railway journey from
+Nish. We were thirteen. Temporarily with us also were the two little
+Austro-Serbian boys. The other four carriages were occupied by a doctor
+and three members of the Stobart unit, two "Scottish Women," their
+orderly and a Russian medical student who had been a political prisoner.
+
+Leaving the town was a slow business, as it was being evacuated. Our
+little procession proceeded very slowly. Most of us walked. Jo drove
+with two of the Stobarts, watching from a seat of vantage the packed
+masses of people who wormed their way in and out between the ox carts.
+The road was blocked by some gigantic baking ovens on wheels. Hundreds
+of boys, big seventeen-year-old boys with guns, and little limping
+fellows from thirteen to sixteen, wearing bright rugs rolled over their
+shoulders, were dragging along in single file. Their faces were white,
+and their noses red, sergeants were beating the backward ones along with
+a ramrod. One of them said--
+
+"I have eaten nothing for three days--give me bread." We had no bread,
+but we discovered some Petit-Beurre biscuits, and left him turning them
+over and over.
+
+The whole town buzzed: motor cars, surrounded by curses, insinuated
+their way through the crammed streets; whips were cracking, men were
+quarrelling but all had their faces turned towards the road to Rashka,
+which we realized would be as full as at straphanging time in the Tube.
+The boys passed us, then we passed them. They passed us again. Hundreds
+of Austrian prisoners were being hurried along, goodness knows where.
+Neat young clerks, suit case in hand, elbowed their way through the
+crowd. Young staff officers were walking, jostled by beggars. Jo called
+to an old man who was driving a cart full of modern furniture, his face
+drawn into wrinkles of misery--
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Ne snam," he answered, staring hopelessly before him.
+
+Wounded men were everywhere, tottering and hobbling along, for none
+wanted to be taken prisoners. Some had ship's biscuit, which they tried
+to soften in the dirty ditch water, others were lapping like dogs out
+of the puddles. Sometimes a motor far ahead stuck in the mud, and we had
+to wait often half an hour until it could be induced to move. Gipsies
+passed, better mounted and worse clad than other folk, some of them half
+naked. Many soldiers had walked through their opankies and their feet
+were bound up with rag. Why in this country of awful mud has the opankie
+been invented? It is a sole turned up at the edges and held on by a
+series of straps and plaited ornamentations useless in mud or wet, which
+penetrates through it in all directions.
+
+We arrived at an open space and halted for lunch. Water had to be
+fetched. It trickled from a wooden spout out of the hill and before our
+cooking pot was filled we were surrounded by thirsty soldiers, who were
+consigning us to the hottest of places for our slowness. Cutting
+displayed a hitherto buried talent for building fires. We unpacked the
+food and soon a gorgeous curry was bubbling in an empty biscuit tin with
+Angelo, Sir Ralph Paget's chef, at the spoon. A leviathan motor car
+lurched by containing all that was left of the Stobart unit. Another
+monster passed, piled with Russian nurses and doctors. A face was
+peeping out at the back, eyes rolled upwards, moustaches bristling. Was
+it? Yes, it was--"Quel Pays"--but he did not recognize us.
+
+[Illustration: THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA.]
+
+The baking ovens appeared again, and we felt we had stayed long enough.
+Some of our party were very fagged after their various adventures since
+leaving Nish, so they climbed on to the carriages wherever there was a
+downhill. The road wound up a narrow stony valley down which was flowing
+a muddy stream. The trees on our side of the river were still green, on
+the other bank they were bright orange, blood red and all the tints of a
+Serbian autumn. The road full of moving people was like another river,
+flowing only more sluggishly then the Ebar itself. For us in future, the
+autumn will always hold a sinister aspect. These trees seemed to have
+put on their gayest robes to mock at the dreary processions. At
+intervals by the roadside sat an ox dead beat and forsaken by its owner
+as useless.
+
+Dusk came, bringing depression; the travellers on the curly road looked
+like mere shades. Coat collars went up and hands were pocketed. Little
+camp fires began to twinkle here and there on the hillsides. We came to
+a large open space where many fires blazed, respectfully encircling a
+French aeroplane section. Opposite was a high peak topped by a Turkish
+castle. There we wished to halt, but the corporal said we must push on,
+as he wished to get food for the horses. After we had passed the castle
+the dusk grew rapidly darker and the road narrower and more muddy.
+Although camp fires twinkled from every level space, the never ending
+stream of fugitives seemed to grow no less. Darkness only added to the
+tragic mystery of the flight. The bullock carts poured along, the
+soldiers crowded by.
+
+A horse went down, the owner stripped the saddle off, flung it into a
+cart and cursing stumbled on into the darkness. The carts following took
+no notice of the poor horse but drove over it, the wheel lifting as they
+rolled across its body. We shouted to the owner; but he was gone, so we
+turned one or two of the carts off, and made them go round. But we could
+not stay there all night. The horse was too done, and too much injured
+by the cruel passage to move, so Jan reluctantly pulled out his
+"automatic" and, standing clear of its hoofs, put two bullets through
+its brain. It shuddered, lifted two hoofs and beat the air and sank into
+a heap.
+
+On we went progressing for mile after mile in the mire, but never a
+house did we see, nor a spot to camp on. At last the corporal gave up
+the quest for hay, and we were faced with the problem of spending the
+night on a narrow road bounded on one side by cliffs beneath which ran
+the Ebar, and on the other by an almost perpendicular bank. The night
+was black, the mud a foot deep, and a stream ran across the road. The
+carriages drew up in single file and we discussed the sleeping problem,
+while Cutting cooked bovril on an ill-behaved Primus stove. Our drivers
+had to sleep on the carts. The women also had carts to sleep in; and the
+Scottish women offered Jo a place in their already well-filled carriage.
+The men were fitted somehow into the rest of the carts, while Jo, Jan,
+and Blease found a ledge below the road, and though it was very
+squelchy, they spread a mackintosh sheet and rolled up on it in their
+rugs.
+
+No sooner were they really settled and sleeping than a voice said,
+"You'll have to get up: an officer says the carriages must move on--the
+King is coming." It was West. We sat up. Between us and the dim lights
+of the carts the black shadows of the crowds passed without end.
+
+"I'll go and talk to them," said Jo; and unrolled herself, struggled and
+fumbled with her boots and floundered into the blackness, where a
+mounted officer was delivering orders. Shouts could be heard, lights
+waved, horses whinnied, splashing their feet in the puddles as they were
+being violently pulled here and there, and our poor little carts were
+moving ahead into obscurity. Jo told him they were a Red Cross
+party--that the carts were small, and couldn't they stay where they
+were? The officer inspected the poor little carts, made his best bow,
+and said, "Yes, they can stay."
+
+But the corporal did not listen to Jo's orders. He belonged to a country
+which rates women and cattle together, and the carts moved relentlessly
+on. With difficulty Jo found the ledge again on which Jan was sitting
+with the rugs, talking to the scenery in a manner which was not pretty.
+
+Blease came up, and the three of us shouldered the things and stumbled
+off to find the vanished carriages, which were half a mile down the
+road. Jan flung his baggage on to somebody and soundly boxed the
+corporal's ears, calling him a "gloop." Instantly the corporal felt that
+"here was a man he could really understand," and from that moment became
+a devoted adherent, studying our slightest whim, and at intervals humbly
+laying walnuts before us.
+
+A man came up to Jan.
+
+"I believe that man is drunk," said he; "I said that your carts might
+stand."
+
+"Who are you?" said Jan.
+
+"I was once the conductor of the Crown Prince's orchestra," he said;
+"now I am traffic superintendent. It is difficult. I had a horse, a
+jolly little brown horse, but he gave out and I had to leave him behind
+on the road." There were tears in the man's voice. "He was a good
+horse, but it was too hard for him. Now I have to walk."
+
+"I shot your horse," said Jan. "They were driving over its body."
+
+"He was a nice horse," said the man again, "a nice horse, and now I have
+to walk. Well, good-bye, you can rest here."
+
+He splashed away in the mud.
+
+Our new sleeping place was worse: the mud was deeper, the road narrower.
+Jo tried to escape the mud and made for the roadside, but the ground
+moved under her and some muttered curses arose. She was walking not on
+grass but on crowds of sleeping boys, and very nearly trod on a face. We
+settled down again on our mackintosh sheet but did not sleep. Some
+soldiers were firing off guns and throwing bombs into the river all
+night. Near us lay Owen, who coughed for a couple of hours, after which
+he gave up the spot as being too wet, and lay in a cart on Whatmough's
+face.
+
+It rained, Jo had the fidgets, and Jan expostulated. The mackintosh was
+too small for us and we got gloriously wet. It is a curious feeling--the
+rain pattering on one's face when trying to sleep. By the time one
+becomes accustomed to the monotony of the tiny drops--_splash_ a big
+drop from a tree. Water collects in folds of hat or rug, and suddenly
+cascades down one's neck.
+
+At four in the morning the corporal crept up submissively to ask if we
+might move on, as the horses were cold and hungry. Only too glad, dark
+as it was, we rolled up our damp bundles and put them in the waggons
+with the sleeping people, who awoke, pink-eyed and puzzled at the sudden
+progress forward of their uncomfortable beds. Whatmough, who was
+convinced that the bombs and gunshots of the night before were spent
+Austrian shells sailing over the hill, said--
+
+"That's the first time I've ever liked a fellow sleeping on my face."
+
+One of the Stobart nurses, who had used the remains of the hay as a
+pillow, had been awake all night trying to prevent a hungry horse from
+eating her hair along with the hay. With determination she had donned a
+Balaklava helmet and trudged along all day in it, even later when the
+sun came out. Blease, too, started the chillsome dawn in a Balaklava
+wearing shawlwise a rug that had been made of bits of various coloured
+woollen scarfs. Jan used as a protection from the rain Jo's white
+mackintosh apron filleted round his head with a bit of string and
+dangling behind with a profusion of tapes and fasteners.
+
+Under his khaki great-coat and about a foot longer he wore a white
+jaconet hospital coat. Jo had a pair of roomy ski boots into which she
+had fitted two pairs of stockings; one had been knitted for her by a
+Serbian girl, and they were so thick and hard that no suspender would
+hold them up, so they stood, concertinawise, over the boots. One of our
+drivers, a witch-faced old man, had a dark red cloak with a peaked hood;
+and West having lost his hat had donned a Serbian soldier's cap, which
+he was taking away as a curiosity. His arm was giving him pain. It was
+very red and inflamed and no one knew what was the matter with it.
+
+We travelled for an hour or so, and then everything on the road came to
+a standstill--something was in the way. Half an hour passed, nothing was
+done. Several miles of drivers were talking, gesticulating, and
+blaspheming; so Jan took on the job of traffic superintendent, and after
+a time, with a little backing here and twisting there, the problem was
+solved and we moved on. Still no hay stations could be found, and we
+were also hungry, having had no breakfast. We passed a mound covered
+with thousands of Austrian prisoners waking up in the twilight. Another
+hill was black with boys. Still no station. Then we saw some haystacks
+being taken to pieces by various drivers. Our ten coachmen ran to the
+stacks and came back with loads of hay which they packed in the carts.
+In five minutes the haystacks existed no more.
+
+"Better not leave that good hay for the Swobs," said the corporal, as he
+whipped up the horses. We passed a dressing-station. It was a sort of
+laager of ox carts over which flew the red cross. Wounded soldiers were
+sitting and lying on the grass everywhere, while doctors and nurses were
+hurrying to and fro with bandages and lint.
+
+Water was difficult to find. At last we stopped at the top of a hill in
+a furious wind. The water which we got from a stream looked filthy, but
+we boiled it thoroughly in a biscuit tin, and Angelo again presided over
+a magnificent curry filled with bully beef, while we hit our toes on the
+ground to keep warm. A wounded soldier was brought up by a friend. He
+had not been attended to for days, and we did the best we could for him.
+
+A carriage passed laden with two tiny boxes--a policeman on either side.
+Although the boxes were small the carriage seemed so heavy that the
+horses could scarcely drag it, and two well-dressed men who were riding
+on the carriage often had to get out and push. We wondered if the boxes
+were filled with gold. The dreary processions of starving boys shuffled
+up again; some were crying, some helping others along, one had an
+English jam tin hanging round his neck. Sir Ralph Paget appeared in a
+motor car, loaded with packages and three other people. We stopped him,
+and he told Jan that at Novi Bazar he could get no information of the
+path which Jan suggested, and added that he advised us to come to
+Mitrovitza. The Scottish women were to give up the idea of a
+dressing-station in Novi Bazar and to stop at Rashka. The Serbs had told
+him that there was a good chance of Uskub being retaken, in which case
+we could all go comfortably to Salonika by rail. In the other case,
+there were three roads out of the country from Mitrovitza, which he
+thought better than trusting to one road, if it existed.
+
+Jan told him that the carriages were giving way under the strain of the
+tents, two of the axle struts having broken; and he suggested that if we
+did not jettison the tents, some of the carriages would probably never
+get as far as Rashka. Sir Ralph told him to do what he thought best.
+
+So we pitched the two heavy tops and the long bamboo poles overboard,
+keeping the sides.
+
+"Oh, what are you doing with our tents?" said one of the Scottish
+nurses.
+
+This was complicated! We understood the tents were Sir Ralph's.
+
+All the men swore they were Sir Ralph's tents, they had seen them at
+Nish. The "Scottish Woman" said she knew the tents well, and they had
+cost L50 each. The men from Nish still claimed the tents, and said that
+war was war and they had left thousands of pounds' worth of stores,
+tents, etc., and had been obliged to discard even motor cars.
+
+"And very extravagant it was of you," she said.
+
+Jan pointed out that if we did not leave the tents we should very
+shortly have to discard both tents and carts, which would be even more
+extravagant.
+
+She reluctantly cheered up, and we drove away in the sunshine. Before we
+turned the corner we could see an excited mass of soldiers, peasants,
+and boys rushing to the tents with their clasp knives. Perhaps, as
+coverings, they saved many people's lives on the cold nights to come.
+
+[Illustration: RETREATING AMMUNITION TRAIN.]
+
+More and more exhausted oxen were to be seen lying by the roadside. A
+huge cart drove over one. We all arose in our seats, horrified--but the
+old ox was all right, still chewing the cud. Over the cliff lay the
+smashed remains of a cart--its owners were flaying the dead horse. A
+peasant with bowed head led his cart past us. Drawing it was one ox--its
+partner was in the cart, lifting its head spasmodically--finished.
+Quantities of carts passed us filled with furniture, baths, and
+luggage. A smartly dressed family was picnicking by the roadside,
+sitting on deck-chairs. Colonel P---- and Admiral T---- slipped by in a
+shabby little red motor. They stopped and told us they were going to
+Rashka. It was good to see English faces again. A familiar figure went
+by. It was the brave young officer from Uzhitze. We gave a lift to a
+footsore lieutenant, who laughed as we trudged in the mud.
+
+"Ah, English and sport," he said.
+
+Crowds were congregated round a man who was carrying over his shoulder a
+whole sheep on a spit and chopping bits off for buyers. On a hillside a
+woman was handing out rakia. We thought she was selling it, but were
+told that it was a funeral and she was giving rakia to all who wanted
+it. Starving Austrian prisoners rushed for a glass and were not refused.
+The Crown Prince passed, touching his hat to fifty kilometres of his
+people. This time we were not going to be caught by the darkness, so we
+stopped near a village at half-past three. The sides of the two tents
+made good shelters for us. They were set up, looking like two long
+card-houses, and we used bits of canvas for flooring, very necessary, as
+it was so wet. Our fires were quickly made with superfluous tent pegs,
+and the rice bag was again drawn forth. A groaning soldier with
+bloodstained bandage asked us to help him. His arm had not been dressed
+for some time. The doctor with us at first thought he had better not be
+tampered with; but finally agreed to look at his wound, which was
+bleeding violently.
+
+She tore up a towel and bound him up tightly. He said he was going to
+Studenitza, a long day's walk, though he was nearly fainting.
+
+On the hill opposite was a huge encampment of boys. As the darkness grew
+all disappeared but the light of the fires. It looked like an ancient
+battleship with the portholes on fire. We slept, the women fairly
+comfortably, but the men were overcrowded.
+
+Heavy rain came on and poured through the top of the card houses.
+
+"Now I know what the men suffer in the trenches," said a very young
+girl, when she awoke in a pool of water.
+
+"Guess you don't--they'd call this clover," said a sleepy voice.
+
+Looking our oddest we trudged off in the gloom and wet of next morning,
+leaping across rivulets of water which hurtled down the roads. West's
+arm was worse, Willett was recovering from a bad chill, Mawson had not
+yet got a decent night's rest for a week--every one longed for a house.
+
+"Dobra Dan," said a voice. It was the friend of the wounded man we had
+bound up the first day.
+
+"Where is your friend?" we asked.
+
+"I lost him," he answered.
+
+We climbed for three hours then waited, blocked. A military motor had
+stuck deeply in the mud and the wheels were buzzing round uselessly, so
+we helped to dig her out. Every one's inside cried for breakfast, and
+when at last we found a swampy plain, Whatmough and Cutting flung
+themselves upon an old tree trunk and cut it up for firewood.
+
+We always had "company" to these picnic meals, hungry soldiers, mere
+ragbags held together by bones, crept around us and learnt for the first
+time the joys of curry and cocoa.
+
+As we came round the corner into sight of the town a large block of
+temporary encampments stretched away beyond the river to our left.
+Beyond them was a flat plain on which was a large tent with a red cross
+painted over it. High behind the town towered a grey hill on which was a
+white Turkish blockhouse, for though where we were driving had always
+been Serbia, Rashka lay just on the boundary. We drove into a narrow
+street, presently coming to a stop where two motor cars blocked the
+way.
+
+The Commandant from Kragujevatz, who had promised transport to all
+English hospitals, was standing on the road. He seemed very flustered
+and bothered lest we should want him to do something for us. We assured
+him we wanted nothing except bread, for neither we nor our drivers had
+had bread for three days. The colonel shrugged his shoulders and made a
+face.
+
+"You might get it perhaps at the hospital."
+
+Another officer, in a long black staff coat, laughed. He pulled a hard
+biscuit out of each pocket, looked at them fondly and pushed them back
+again.
+
+"I've got mine anyway," he said. "Bread is ten shillings a loaf if you
+can buy it."
+
+Annoyed by the colonel's manner Jo began to mount her high horse and
+became blunt. He was instantly suave.
+
+He seemed dismayed at our idea (to which we still held) of going to Novi
+Bazar before Mitrovitza to see if really no route existed there.
+
+"Impossible," said he; "bridges are broken between Rashka and Novi
+Bazar, and there is no route through the mountains from there."
+
+We remembered that the country had been under Turkish rule there years
+before, and guessed that probably the Serbs had not yet been able to
+exploit new and lonely routes. At every side in the streets were faces
+we knew, the head medical this and the chief military that.
+
+Our personal carts went off in charge of the corporal, who was looking
+for bread from the Government, for of course all bread shops were shut
+permanently.
+
+The Scottish sisters had not found a refuge, and messengers kept on
+coming back saying this place was full and that place had no room.
+
+Colonel G---- became even less likable. It seemed as though there were
+no organisation of any kind in the town. At last, when dark had well
+fallen, a man said a room had been cleared for them in the hospital. The
+motor cars moved slowly off and we told the rest of our carts to follow,
+as Colonel G----said we might get bread at the same place. We stumbled
+after them through pitch black streets, so uneven that one did not know
+if one were in the ditch or on the road itself; one lost all sense of
+direction and only tried not to lose sight of the flickering lights of
+the carts. Jo at last climbed into one, and the carts rumbled over a
+wooden bridge and began to go up a steep hill. We came suddenly to a
+rambling wooden house and our carts dived into a deep ditch. Jo leapt
+off just in time to save hers from turning right over. Crowds of wounded
+Serbians were standing at the foot of a rickety outside staircase. Above
+was a dressing-station, and a dark smelly room with no beds, which was
+to be the sisters' home. We could get no bread and so went out once more
+into the dark. We did not know where our carts had gone, but some one
+said if we went in "that" direction we should find them. On we went
+uphill, losing our way in a maize field. In front of us were hundreds of
+camp fires. At the first we asked if they had seen the English. They
+shrugged their shoulders in negative. We asked at the next; same result.
+We had the awful thought that we should have to search every camp fire
+before we found our people, but luckily almost fell over Mawson, who had
+been fetching water. We were going in quite the wrong direction and but
+for this lucky meeting might have wandered for hours.
+
+A good fire was blazing in front of the tents. An Austrian prisoner cut
+wood for us in exchange for a meal. He came from a large encampment
+whose fires were blazing near by. Dr. Holmes and a sister emerged
+through the smoke; they had at last got a cart and horse. With them was
+an Austrian subject flying for his life. He had lived for years in
+Serbia, his sympathies and ancestry were Serbian, but if the Austrians
+got him he would be hanged. We wondered if it was the husband of the
+frantic woman at Kralievo, but did not ask.
+
+One went early to bed these nights. The men spread out into two
+card-houses while Jo was hospitably given a real camp-bedstead in a
+corner of the Stobarts' kitchen, on the floor of which slept their men
+and also West, whose arm was getting worse.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+NOVI BAZAR
+
+
+We awoke to find where we were. The little encampment which we had seen
+to our left on entering the town, was now far on our right. The flat
+plain--where was the large tent with the red cross painted over it--had
+been our bed, the tent behind us; to our right was the brown hill topped
+by the old Turkish blockhouse; and in front a cut maize field with its
+solid red stubble sloped directly to the river, beyond which lay the
+village massed on the opposite slope up to a white church. Immediately
+below us on the river edge were the roofs of the "Stobarts'" refuge and
+of the Scottish women's hospital. Poplar trees in all the panoply of
+autumn sprang up from the valley with their tops full of the blackest
+crows, who cawed discordantly at the dawn. Our fire had gone out, but
+the Austrian had left enough wood, another was quickly started; but we
+found that Angelo in making his curries had melted all the solder from
+the empty biscuit tins and not one would hold water. So there was a
+hurried transference of biscuits from a whole one.
+
+From where we sat sipping our cocoa, we could see the hurried coming and
+going of motors in the main square, and groups of bullock waggons and
+soldiers about the fence of the church. A great street which split the
+village in two from top to bottom--the old Turkish frontier--was almost
+empty. The corporal proposed to visit the military commandant in search
+of hay and bread. So Jan dragged on his wet boots and set off with him
+down the hill, collecting Jo from the "Stobarts" on the way.
+
+We crossed the rickety wooden bridge, passed between the _alfresco_
+encampments--like travelling tinkers--of waggoners and soldiers which
+lined the roads, up the great frontier street and so into the square.
+All that now was SERBIA was concentrated in this little village. Private
+houses had suddenly become ministries; cafes, headquarters; and shops,
+departmental offices. The square was the central automobile station, and
+cars under repair or adjustment were in every corner. Beneath the church
+paling a camp of waggoners had a large bonfire and were cooking a whole
+sheep on a spit. Austrian prisoners with white, drawn faces were
+wandering about, staring with half unseeing eyes; a Serbian soldier was
+chewing a hard biscuit, and a prisoner crept up to him begging for a
+corner of the bread; the soldier broke off a piece and gave it to him.
+
+About the gate of the commandant's office were gathered Serbs and
+Austrians all waiting for bread. We pushed our way in. The hay was
+quickly arranged, but the bread was another matter.
+
+"We have no bread," said the commandant.
+
+"But," we objected, "all those men waiting outside. They would not come
+here if you had no bread."
+
+The commandant pulled his moustache.
+
+"We have bread only for soldiers."
+
+There was a sudden commotion outside. The door was burst open; two
+soldiers entered dragging with them a man--a peasant; his eyes were
+staring, his face blanched. We then noticed that he was holding his
+shoulders in a curious manner, and realized that his arms were bound
+with his own belt. The two soldiers pushed him into an inner room, but
+the officials were busy, so he was stood in a corner.
+
+"What has he done?" we asked.
+
+"We have only bread for soldiers," repeated the commandant. Bread was
+evidently the most important.
+
+"We have a Government order."
+
+He scanned it, pounced upon the three franc phrase and offered us money.
+We pointed out that bread was indicated to the value--
+
+"We have no bread for the English," he said at last.
+
+Jo once more made the nasty little speech which we had found so
+effective at Kralievo. It worked like a charm. An enormous sack filled
+with loaves was dragged out and from it he choose three. We mentioned
+the man once more. The commandant shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"He's going to be killed," he said. "Some soldiers looted his yard and
+he shot one."
+
+He then asked the corporal if he would take flour instead of bread. The
+corporal agreed, adding that in that case, of course, they would get a
+bit more.
+
+"Of course, you won't," said the commandant.
+
+We sent the corporal back to the camp with the loaves, and with a little
+trouble found the house where Colonel P---- and Admiral T----had
+lodgings. It was a gay little cottage, and both were at breakfast. They
+welcomed us and generously offered us their spare eggs, though eggs were
+scarce. The admiral had a large-scale map--made, of course, by
+Austria--and we hunted it for our road. Paths were marked quite clearly,
+and houses at most convenient intervals. It seemed a far superior path
+to the Ipek pass, both regarding shelter and length.
+
+"But," we said, "Sir Ralph suggests that we go to Mitrovitza, because
+the Serbs say that Uskub will fall in a few days."
+
+"I should get out of the country as soon as you can," said one.
+
+"It is exceedingly unlikely that Uskub can fall," said the other. But
+they promised us as definite information as they were allowed to give if
+we would return for tea, by when the aeroplane reconnaissance should
+have come in.
+
+We went back to the camp with the news.
+
+Colonel G---- came up and tried to wipe out the impression which he had
+made the evening before. He repeated that Uskub must certainly fall
+within the week, and that we should be very silly to go off to Novi
+Bazar, which we could never reach because the bridge had been washed
+away.
+
+All the hill behind was crowded with Austrian prisoners. They had
+received one loaf between every three men, and said that it had to last
+three days. They did not know where they were going. Blease went through
+their lines, and at last found an old servant--a Hungarian. He was a
+stoic.
+
+"One lives till one is dead," said he.
+
+The hospital was doing a brisk trade in wounded: sisters and doctors
+both hard at work. The "Stobarts" were resting, and had built a camp
+fire outside the door of their hovel. We got lunch ready, ruining
+recklessly another biscuit tin. While we were eating it a Serb came
+near.
+
+"I am starving," he said.
+
+We gave him some curry and rice. He devoured it.
+
+"To-morrow," he said, "I go back to commando."
+
+We pointed to his hand, which was bound in dirty linen.
+
+"But?"
+
+"It is better to go back though wounded than be starved to death."
+
+We also held a court of justice. A driver complained that one of the
+Englishmen had given him a pair of boots and that the corporal had taken
+them.
+
+"CORPORAL!!"
+
+He came grinning. We exposed the complaint.
+
+"Certainly the man had a pair of boots," said he; "but he has them no
+longer. Now, they are mine, I have taken them."
+
+"But they were given to him."
+
+"But I have taken them. I needed new boots." He exhibited his own, which
+were split.
+
+We told him that possession by capture was not recognized in our circle,
+and ordered immediate restitution. He agreed gloomily, no doubt feeling
+that the foundations of his world were falling about his ears, and what
+was the use of being a corporal anyway?
+
+In the afternoon we sought out the motor authorities, finding our old
+friends Ristich and Derrok in command. They easily promised us transport
+for Sir Ralph Paget's box and henchmen--no trouble at all they said. Yet
+had we not known them personally we might have waited a month without
+help. One is irresistibly reminded at every turn that the Near East
+means the East near the East and not the East near the West.
+
+We went to the English colonel's, but no news was yet forthcoming, and
+we were, after a jolly tea, invited back at eight.
+
+The camp was in darkness by the time we reached it once more. The fire
+lit up the men sitting about it, and the two inverted V's of the tent
+entrances; very faintly behind could be seen the outline of the line of
+little tented waggons. We had collected an additional member, Miss
+Brindley of the "Stobarts." She was very keen to get home, as her
+parents were anxious, and both her brothers at the front. Jo gave one
+look at her and said "Certainly." She had rushed immediately into the
+town and had laid in a stock of beans and lentils, as her contribution
+to the common stock. They were all she could buy.
+
+After supper back to the colonel's, and at last got definite news. It
+was unlikely that Skoplje would fall, and very little use loitering in
+hopes. The colonel advised Jan to get his party out by the best route
+possible, and we took a grateful farewell.
+
+Coming back to the camp Jan had a nasty half-hour. Should we go by
+Mitrovitza, or should we go by Berane? In the first case there was the
+long route, the difficulty of getting lodgings and of transport, the
+risk of falling behind the Serbian General Staff, and of finding the
+country bare, the high passes of Petch and the snow; Willett was only
+just recovering from a bad chill, West's arm had grown much worse, and
+had been operated on in the morning by a doctor with a pair of scissors
+_faute de mieux_--a most agonizing process. On the other hand, the
+Berane route was unknown to the authorities, and might have fallen so
+into decay that it was useless; we did not know where the Austro-Germans
+were, and they might be already on the outskirts of Novi Bazar; if any
+of us fell ill we should certainly be captured. It was a toss up.
+Finally he asked the others. They said--
+
+"What you think best. You know the country."
+
+We finally decided to go to Novi Bazar and make inquiries. If there were
+no road we could go thence to Mitrovitza, and would only have lost a
+day. If, as the colonel said, the bridge was washed away, we could
+probably ford the river.
+
+Then to bed. One could not sleep really well, for the rugs did not give
+sufficient warmth, and the chill striking up from the ground penetrated
+everything.
+
+Took the road to Novi Bazar next day. Miss Brindley joined us with a
+parcel of blankets and a knapsack and a mackintosh lent by a friend. She
+had lost her boots, or the local cobbler had lost them, but most
+appropriately a motor had arrived and on it was a pair of new soldier's
+boots unclaimed. She took them, cut the feet of a pair of indiarubber
+Wellingtons and pulled them over her stockings, and put a smile on her
+face which never came off in spite of any fatigue.
+
+Hilder and Antonio went off with Sir Ralph's box. The "Stobarts" wished
+us good luck, and away we clattered over the rickety bridge, up through
+the town and out into the Novi Bazar road. The surface was fairly good,
+and the day turned brilliant. We had left the six sisters and their
+luggage behind with their respective units, and so had four extra
+waggons to carry our stuff. We rattled along cheerily, only dismounting
+at the occasional patches of mud which we met.
+
+After a while we decided to lunch. We came to a cafe and halted.
+
+"Have you coffee?" we asked.
+
+"Ima."
+
+"Will you give us all coffee?"
+
+"We have no sugar," said the hostess; so we had no coffee.
+
+We got out a tin of biscuits and lunched on those. As we were passing
+them round a soldier stopped.
+
+"What are you selling those for?" he asked, under the impression that we
+were a travelling shop. We gave him some, to his great astonishment.
+
+On we went again. Down below us in a field the corporal spotted a
+hayrick. Like stage villains the coachmen clambered down the hill, each
+with a rope--spoil from the discarded tents. They attacked the rick and
+soon nothing was left. As they staggered back, each hidden beneath an
+enormous load of hay--looking themselves like walking ricks--a Turk in
+black and white clothes ran down from above furiously brandishing a
+three-pronged fork.
+
+"What are you doing?" he yelled.
+
+The corporal stood stiffly and said--
+
+"It is war. We are the State. It is of no value for you to preach."
+
+The owner went dolefully down the hill, and stood looking at where his
+stack had been.
+
+"We have again prevented those Germans from stealing good hay," said the
+corporal with satisfaction. Each cart looked not unlike a hay wain
+returning from the fields, and we scrambled up on to the top feeling
+like children in the autumn. After we had gone a mile we began to wonder
+why we had given the owner no compensation: evidently the corporal's
+influence was turning us into scoundrels.
+
+At last the broken bridge. Only a shallow stream across which our carts
+splashed joyfully. On the other side was a small church with a beautiful
+blue tower. And soon we were in the outskirts of Novi Bazar, the most
+ordinary town of the Sanjak, combining the dull parts of Plevlie with
+the dull parts of Ipek. There was a stream down the middle of the road,
+in which some of the inhabitants were washing, while one sat on his
+haunches holding up a small looking-glass with one hand and shaving
+himself.
+
+We bustled off to the mayor's office. Found him as usual in a back
+street in a shabby office up shaky wooden stairs. The mayor knew nothing
+of any road to Berane; so baffled, we again found the street. We went
+to the shabby Turkish shops of the bazaar and inquired.
+
+"Certainly," said the shopkeepers, "a good path to Berane, and not high.
+No; not so high as that by Ipek."
+
+We returned to the mayor's office. He seemed little inclined to consent,
+and demanded to see our pass. Jo again made her little--but so
+useful--speech. The mayor called in an Albanian. After a long
+consultation the mayor said that he had no horses.
+
+"Then we will take our carriage horses," said we.
+
+"There are no roads for carriages," said the mayor.
+
+"Then we will take the horses without the carriages."
+
+The mayor called in two more men: they considered the pass once more.
+
+"You may have the carriages two days more," he decided at last. "Go to
+Tutigne. As far as that the carriages will travel. There are many horses
+there, and you can get pack ponies."
+
+Coming out we ran into Colonel Stajitch of Valievo. The colonel is a
+Serbian gentleman, fine figure, beautiful face, and white hair and
+moustaches. He greeted us, asked us our news. We told him of our
+projected journey. He became thoughtful and after a while said good-bye.
+We took our convoy through the town to a field on the outskirts where
+we pitched the camp.
+
+We borrowed the corporal's axe and hewed for some time in a thorn hedge,
+without getting much profit but many prickles, and finally decided to
+take a paling from a Turkish cemetery, for there was no one about.
+
+Soon we had a jolly fire, and Cutting and Whatmough got to work on the
+food. Dr. Holmes turned up. He had arrived the day before and had found
+lodgings in an inn. West's arm was still inflamed and very painful. The
+doctor looked at it and said it needed more incision. West and Miss
+Brindley went off with him.
+
+An old ragamuffin wandered up with a loaf of maize bread. He offered it
+to the corporal for three dinars; but the corporal took it away and gave
+him two. The old man made a great outcry. We demanded the cause. The
+unlawful corporal was again hailed to justice, his corporalship seeming
+more valueless than ever, and to give him a lesson we bought the bread
+for three dinars, for it was worth it.
+
+We suddenly discovered that none of the Red Cross men had papers or
+passes. What was to be done? We were conniving at an almost unlawful
+expedition, and Jan was very doubtful if we could cross the Montenegrin
+frontier. But after a consultation we decided to bluff it into
+Montenegro if necessary, and then telegraph to Cettinje to help us out.
+
+It was now dark and West and Miss Brindley had not come back. So Jan and
+Jo went off to look for them. We searched two cafes--meeting again with
+our old acquaintance the schoolmaster from Nish--plunged into all sorts
+of odd corners, and at last met Colonel Stajitch in a restaurant. He
+greeted us.
+
+"I have a great favour to ask," he said diffidently. "If I might I
+should like to give to you a little appendix. It is my son. He is
+seventeen, but is very big for his age. If the Austrians catch him I do
+not know what will become of him."
+
+We were introduced to the boy, and at once consented.
+
+"I will decide for certain to-morrow," said the colonel. "Can I meet you
+at seven o'clock?"
+
+We hunted once more for West. Ran him to earth at last in the Hotel de
+Paris. This hotel could perhaps have existed in the Butte de Montmartre,
+but even there it would have been considered a disgrace. We had to pass
+through a long room crammed with sleeping soldiery, stepping across them
+to get to the door opposite. Every window was tight shut, and after one
+horrified gulp we held our breath till we reached the interior
+courtyard. Here, too, were sleeping men, and all along the balconies and
+passages were more.
+
+We found Holmes' room. West was there, rather white and just recovering
+from the anaesthetic. We sat down. Dr. Holmes had thought of coming with
+us, but the authorities had looked suspiciously at his passes, which
+were made out to Mitrovitza, so he decided to go on there. We wished
+that he had come, as a doctor would have been a great comfort had we
+really needed him.
+
+After a rest West was well enough to go back to the camp.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE UNKNOWN ROAD
+
+
+As we stood around the camp fire drinking our cocoa a queer ragged old
+Albanian crept up and watched us with a smile. He was the owner of the
+house near by, whose palings we had almost looted. We offered him cocoa,
+which he liked immensely; and asked him about the road to Tutigne. He
+said--
+
+"There is a road for carts--I know it."
+
+"Will you show it us?" said Jo.
+
+He gave a wild yell and ran away, waving a stick.
+
+"What ----?!!!! ----"
+
+It was nothing, only the pigs had invaded his cabbage patch. He came
+back later with an enormous apple, which he presented to Jo.
+
+"Have you apples for sale?"
+
+He shook his head, saying "Ima, ima."
+
+We bought several pounds, arranged with him to guide us later to the
+carriage road, and hurried into the town to buy provisions.
+
+There we met Colonel Stajitch. "Will you take my boy?"
+
+"Delighted. Are his papers in order?"
+
+The mayor hereupon turned up, and the colonel's face grew longer as they
+conversed.
+
+"The mayor cannot give me the necessary permits without Government
+sanction," he said. "I must get it from Rashka by telephone. It will
+take an hour. Can you wait?"
+
+We spent the time shopping. Each shop looked as empty as if it had been
+through a Saturday night's sale. One had elderly raisins, another had a
+few potatoes. We found some onions, bought another cooking pot and
+kitchen necessaries, and packed them in the carts which had arrived in
+the town. Nobody would take paper money unless we bought ten francs'
+worth. After waiting an hour and a half we hunted down the colonel. The
+telephone official told us he had got leave from the Government. At last
+we found him in the mayor's office, bristling with papers and the
+passport.
+
+"I have got you an armed policeman as escort," he said, waving the
+papers, "and the boy has a good horse, twenty pounds in gold, and twenty
+in silver."
+
+We found the boy waiting with the carriages. He wore a strange little
+brown cashmere Norfolk jersey and very superior black riding breeches.
+Dressed more romantically he would have made an ideal Prince for an
+Arabian Nights' story. His father accompanied us until our Albanian
+guide announced--
+
+"Here begins the carriage road."
+
+Their parting must have been a hard thing. The father could not tell how
+his son's expedition would end, and the son was leaving his father to an
+unknown fate. They embraced, smiling cheerily, and the boy rode on ahead
+of us all, blowing his nose and cursing his horse.
+
+In many places the "carriage road" was no road at all. The carts lurched
+and bumped over rivers, boulders, fields, and the inevitable mud.
+Several times we had to jump on our carts as they dragged us over deep
+and rapid rivers. After three hours we stopped at a farm, our mounted
+policeman called out the owners and autocratically ordered two of the
+young men to accompany us as guides and guards.
+
+They came, bearing their guns, white fezzed, white clothed, black
+braided youths with shaven polls and flashing teeth. We began to climb,
+and for hours and hours we toiled upwards. The carriages lumbered
+painfully far behind us, led by their elderly and panting drivers.
+
+"If this is what they call a good and easy road," we thought, "it would
+have been better to harness four horses to each cart, and to have left
+five carts behind."
+
+The horses came from the plain of Chabatz, and had probably never seen a
+hill in their lives.
+
+"These horses will die," said the corporal; but he seemed more
+interested in hunting for water for himself than in the struggles of the
+poor beasts.
+
+One of our Albanian guides was overwhelmed with the beauty of Cutting's
+silver-plated revolver.
+
+"How much did you pay for it?"
+
+"Thirty francs," said Cutting, shooting at the scenery.
+
+Jan produced his automatic, but the Albanian scorned it as one would
+turn from a lark to a bird of Paradise. He turned the glittering object
+over lovingly, thought, felt in his pockets, drew out a green and red
+knitted purse, and shook his head.
+
+"I will give you thirty francs."
+
+But Cutting wasn't on the bargain. He pocketed the treasure again, and
+we plodded on.
+
+"How far are we from Tutigne?" we asked.
+
+"Four hours," said a dignified Albanian, who had joined our party.
+
+"No, two hours," said another.
+
+"Three at most," corrected a third.
+
+The first man lifted his hand. "I say four hours, and it is four hours.
+With such horses as these we crawl."
+
+We reached a desolate tableland at dusk. Here the horses halted for some
+while. With the halt came a sudden desire to stay there for good. It
+seemed as if we should never reach Tutigne. The evening brought with it
+chilly damp breezes, and the footsore company was getting quite
+disheartened.
+
+"Let us camp here," said everybody.
+
+But the policeman had a mailbag to deliver that night, and we had to
+push on. Experienced as we were in Serbian roads, never had we seen such
+mud. Down, down sank our feet, and we could only extract them again
+clinging to the carts with the sound of a violent kiss. We tried to
+escape it by climbing into the thick brushwood, only to find it again,
+stickier and more slippery, while the bushes grasped us with thorny arms
+and athletically switched our faces. A moonless darkness came upon us
+and we had to walk just behind the carriages, peering at the square yard
+of road illuminated by candles in our penny lanterns.
+
+Occasionally a voice greeted us. We asked how far Tutigne was.
+
+"About an hour," was the invariable answer all along the line.
+
+But the dignified guide was right. After four hours we reached the main
+street, arriving slowly to the music of incredible clatter as our little
+carts leapt and jolted over hundreds of big pointed stones laid
+carefully side by side--Tutigne's concession to Macadam.
+
+There were faint lights in some of the little wooden houses. Others
+stood dark and unfriendly. We stopped. Curses filled the air. An ox-cart
+was lying right across the road. After shouting himself hoarse the
+policeman woke up an old man in a house near by--the owner. He
+rheumatically grumbled in his doorway; so the gendarme called our
+Albanians, and in two twos they had turned the cart upside down in a
+ditch, saying--
+
+"It serves you right."
+
+Voices sounded in the darkness. The carriages lurched on. Presently they
+left the road and turned on to grass, they seemed to be leaving the
+village behind. We did not know where they were going, and were so tired
+that we did not care, if only they would get somewhere and stop, which
+at last they did. We jumped off into a squelch of water.
+
+"Good heavens, this won't do!"
+
+We searched the whole field for a dry spot, but though it was a
+hillside, it was a swamp. We chose the least marshy place and built a
+fire.
+
+"Where is the mayor?" we asked of the strange faces dimly to be seen in
+the light of our fire.
+
+They pointed to two cottage window lights. We went towards them, at
+last realizing our proximity by stumbling into a dung-heap and knocking
+against a pig-stye. There was a narrow stairway, and above it a big
+landing. A man followed and knocked at a door for us.
+
+The mayor appeared--a little man--square in face, hair, beard and
+figure.
+
+We explained ourselves and showed our letter. He looked grave at our
+demand for horses; said we would talk it over on the morrow, and
+sympathized about the swampy field.
+
+"Would you like to sleep here on the floor?" he said, showing us a
+clean-looking office. "We regret we have no beds."
+
+We were delighted. His wife, who had gone to bed, appeared in a striped
+petticoat and a second one worn as a shawl.
+
+"The tables shall be moved and the stove lit," she said. "It will be
+ready in a few minutes."
+
+We picked our way back to the fire, avoiding the dung-heap and pig-stye,
+whereby we nearly fell into a cesspool. Cocoa was brewing, one
+card-house had been erected as a shelter for some of our things. The
+drivers were crouched round their own fire cooking something. It was
+difficult to find our bundles in the carts as one only recognized them
+by the drivers. We climbed in feeling about by the light of a match. Jo
+found a foot in one.
+
+"How can we find things with people lying on them?" she said to the
+foot.
+
+It remained immobile; she pulled it--no response. She tugged it. A face
+lifted itself at the far end of the cart. It was the corporal's wife
+lying on her own possessions, very tired and rather cross. Jo patted her
+remorsefully and decamped.
+
+We must have looked like a regiment of gnomes bearing forbidden treasure
+as we hobbled through the darkness, laden with our bundles of blankets.
+The light in the office nearly blinded us, and the heat from the stove
+struck us like a violent blow. The mayor, his wife, two hurriedly
+dressed children and several other people received us. There was an
+awkward silence. Jo murmured in the background--
+
+"It is manners here to go up, shake hands, and say one's name."
+
+Very uncomfortably everybody did so, one by one. Another silence. We
+racked our brains--the weather--our journey--the war. One had nothing
+sensible to say about anything. Jo asked the children's age. The
+information was supplied. Silence. We filled the gap by smiling. At last
+the mayor's wife said we must be worn out, and they all left us.
+
+The mayor crept back. "Don't talk about the military situation," he
+said; "if these Turks knew it they might kill us all." Then he shut the
+door.
+
+We flew to a window and opened it, changed our stockings, hung wet boots
+and socks over the stove, ate bully beef, and rolled up, pillowing our
+heads on our little sacks--thirteen sleepy people.
+
+The mayor's wife opened the door an inch and peeped at us as we lay,
+looking, indeed, more like a jumble sale than anything. Mawson wore a
+Burglar cap tied under his chin, and a collection of khaki mufflers,
+looking equipped for a Channel crossing. Miss Brindley's head was tied
+up in a bandana handkerchief; Jo's in a purple oilsilk hood; others
+shared mackintosh sheets and blankets; West pulled his Serbian cap right
+down to his mouth. Jan put on the white mackintosh dressing-coat, over
+that his greatcoat, then he spread out a red, green, yellow and black
+striped Serbian rug, rolled up in it with many contortions, and pushed
+his feet into a tent bag. Blease in a Balaklava, showing nose like an
+Arctic explorer, got into a black oilskin, one corner of which had been
+repaired with a large yellow patch, he then rolled up in oddments
+collected from the company, as his own overcoat had been stolen, and
+bound it all together by tying the many coloured knitted rug around him,
+after putting the lamp out inadvertently with his head.
+
+In the morning we interviewed the mayor. He read and reread the letter
+from the Novi Bazar mayor, took an interest in the social supremacy of
+Stajitch's father, who was a man of birth, but said he had no horses.
+
+Jo appealed to his better feelings. He scratched his head.
+
+"Yes, truly one must try to help the English," he said, but looked very
+glum.
+
+"I will have the neighbouring hamlets searched for horses."
+
+We thanked him and wandered into the village cafe. An old man with black
+sprouting eye-brows a la Nick Winter, was sitting there. He had walked
+for five days, eating only apples.
+
+"Very good food too," he said. "Here is my luggage."
+
+He pointed to a knotted handkerchief containing a tiny loaf of bread
+which he had just acquired. His goal was a monastery in Montenegro,
+where he said they would house and feed him for the winter in exchange
+for a little work.
+
+At 11.30 three horses were brought. Three more were promised, so we
+reluctantly decided to start the next day. There was nothing to do.
+
+Our carriages went. We gave the corporal a card-house to take back to
+Rashka with little faith that he would not try to stick to it. He had
+not returned the boots to their owner, so we took them from him and
+gave them to their rightful owner, and handed over to the corporal a
+spare pair of our own boots to keep him honest.
+
+At dawn Stajitch, who had been sleeping in style upon a friend's table,
+came to say we had six horses, but a professor had turned up in the
+night and was coming with us. He had been so exhausted with the walk
+that his policeman had carried him most of the way. Not pleased, we went
+to inspect him. He was small, corpulent, and was sitting with clasped
+woolly gloves, goloshed feet, and a diffident smile.
+
+He explained to us that he was delicate, and as he was no walker it
+would be necessary for him to ride one horse. So we packed our food,
+sacks, blankets, mackintoshes and the card-house as best we could on the
+remaining five horses.
+
+No sooner had we left the village, and all signs of road or bridle path,
+with a new policeman and two or three ragged Albanians, than one of the
+horses broke loose and began to dance--first the tango, then the waltz.
+The pack, which was but insecurely attached, stood the tango, but with
+the waltz a bag of potatoes swung loose at the end of a rope, its
+gyroscopic action swinging the horse quicker and quicker until it was
+spinning on one toe. Then the girths broke, saddle and all came to the
+ground. The brute looked round as if saying "That's that," and cantered
+off, followed slowly by the professor on horseback. We called. He
+appeared to take no notice. At last he turned round saying--
+
+"The horse will not."
+
+Jo leapt in the air kicking.
+
+"Do that with your heels," she said.
+
+But we had to send the policeman to help him. He rode hour by hour,
+hitting his beast with a bent umbrella, and lifting two fat hands to
+heaven.
+
+"Teshko" (It is hard), he whined.
+
+"_Ni_ je teshko" (It is not hard), said Miss Brindley, cheerfully
+trudging along.
+
+We wanted to stop at the top of a hill for lunch.
+
+"Horrible," he said. "Here the brigands will shoot us from the bushes,"
+and pushed ahead, being held on by the grinning policeman.
+
+We pulled out some biscuits and margarine, and drank water from our
+bottles, cigarettes went round, and we charged ahead. In front was the
+professor falling off his horse and being put on again.
+
+We were very anxious about the frontier. Most of our party were
+travelling without official permits, as they had known nothing about
+such things; but we hoped that being English Red Cross and having
+passports there would not be much trouble. We arrived at a little
+village, three or four wooden houses. Three pompous old men came to meet
+us, and we took coffee together outside the inn. They were very
+surprised to hear we were English, and said that no English had ever
+passed that way before.
+
+At the frontier, an hour further on, a man and his wife came down from a
+little house on the hill and stopped us. They examined the papers of the
+two Serbs, but left us alone, to our huge relief. We breathed again.
+
+Soon after, however, Whatmough rushed up to Jan and Jo, who were talking
+to a ragged woman.
+
+"Do come and talk. An officer has arrested West and Mawson."
+
+We ran ahead to find a perplexed mounted officer surrounded by our
+party. He had come upon West and Mawson walking on ahead and took them
+to be Bulgarian comitaj.
+
+"No, that's not an English uniform," he said, and searched them for
+firearms. When the others came he wavered. Miss Brindley did not look
+like a comitaj; and by the time we arrived he began to talk about the
+military situation in the Balkans, and rode off with the politest of
+farewells.
+
+If there isn't a telegraph wire to guide, don't take short cuts. Jan,
+Stajitch, and Jo tried to race the darkness by cutting straight down a
+ravine. We lost the horses, lost every one else, and we came out again
+on to a hill crest. No one was to be seen. After a while the professor
+rode by, led by his policeman, who had been almost suffocated by
+laughter all day.
+
+"Teshko, teshko," moaned the professor.
+
+"Ni je teshko," we said. "But where are the horses?"
+
+He waved a hand vaguely behind him. Rogerson, Whatmough, and Owen came
+up. It was getting dark and a mist was rising. So we left the three at
+the corner to mark where it was and went back. For a long time we
+stumbled in the darkness, shouting, but no horses could we find. At last
+we decided to turn back, wondering if they too had lost their way and
+decided to camp out. There were shouts in the valley beyond. A light
+flashed and some one fired off a revolver. There was a candle end in
+Jan's bag, and by its dim light we found a road. It went downwards, so
+we thought it might be the right one. Suddenly it turned in the wrong
+direction, but as there were hoof marks on it we decided to follow it as
+it must lead somewhere--we could not search the whole countryside with a
+candle. Just as we were in despair the road seemed to shake itself and
+twisted back again. We heard more shouting and saw a light, and at last
+found Miss Brindley and Mawson, who were waiting for us.
+
+"We have been to the village," they said.
+
+We asked them about the horses. They said they were all there!!!!
+
+That professor again!
+
+Some one heard trickling water, and with a cry of joy we put our mouths
+under the jet of water which spouted from a little trough which jutted
+from the hill. Nothing could be seen of the village when we arrived, but
+it seemed very long and very stony. An old peasant with a candle led us
+for what seemed miles between high palisades of wood until we reached
+the inn.
+
+There was a big room with a stove in the middle and many Montenegrins in
+uniform were sitting about. Some of our party were already asleep, worn
+out on the benches. We opened a tin of beef, got some bread and kaimack
+and woke up the others for their evening meal. While we were eating a
+Montenegrin staff officer said--
+
+"Your commandant, the professor--"
+
+"What?" said we.
+
+"Your commandant, the professor, has said you will rest here to-morrow."
+
+We told him the professor was no commandant of ours, and that we
+certainly would not rest there to-morrow.
+
+"Well," said the staff officer, "he has certainly ordered horses for the
+day after from the captain."
+
+We were too tired to rectify matters at once, and our meal finished, we
+rolled up on the dirty floor.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE FLEA-PIT
+
+
+Those comfortable folks who have never slept out of a bed do not know
+how annoying a blanket may be, if there is nothing into which to tuck
+its folds. Wrap yourself up in one, lie flat and motionless on the
+floor, and we guarantee that in an hour the blanket has unrolled itself
+and is making frantic efforts to escape. Every night on the road
+resolved into a half-dazed attempt to hold on to the elusive wrap. Sleep
+came in as a second consideration, and when we say we awoke on any
+particular morning, it really means that we got up, though several of us
+in the intervals of blanket catching did get in a snore or two.
+
+Well, we got up, then, in good time next day, hoping to rectify the
+professor's interference, and stumbling along with Stajitch, we reached
+the high-roofed "Duerer" dwelling where resided the commandant of the
+village. In the kitchen we found two women with bare feet, two children
+and a man half undressed. He brought in the captain, also in negligee.
+Now, mark, we were in Montenegro. We exposed our grievance to the
+captain and roundly denounced the professor as an interfering old
+beggar. The captain first gave us coffee, second hurried us to his
+office, third called in three henchmen and issued rapid orders.
+
+"Certainly, certainly. You shall have all the horses you need. Just only
+wait one little quarter of an hour. I will give you four policemen to go
+with you."
+
+We protested that four was too many.
+
+"No, no," he said, "you had better have four."
+
+We went back joyfully to the hotel. Cutting or one of the others had
+been exploring and had gotten twenty eggs. The hotel people consented to
+cook them. While we were outside looking at the mosques and wondering
+when the horses were coming, the professor walked into the bar-room.
+
+"Ah," said he, "eggs."
+
+"They belong to the English," said the hostess.
+
+"Good," said the professor, and swallowed four.
+
+Just then we returned.
+
+"But there are only sixteen eggs," said we.
+
+"The professor has eaten the others," said the woman, pointing.
+
+In a minute the professor wished that he had not. Jan took the
+opportunity of saying a few things which had been boiling within him. He
+accused the wretched man of interference in assuming control of the
+expedition; he said that he was a mere hanger-on, and a useless and
+selfish one at that.
+
+The professor wilted. He made a thousand apologies, and finally ran off
+wringing his fat hands, found with great difficulty four more eggs and
+cast them into the boiling water.
+
+"There," he said, "you can have your four eggs."
+
+"It's not the eggs," answered Jan, "it's you."
+
+Jo was roaring with laughter. Some of the morning she had been in a
+woman's house listening to one of the policeman's tales of the
+professor, and soon the whole village was rocking with amusement at
+"Teshko."
+
+At last the horses arrived--six miserable-looking beasts, but this time
+all had shoes. One was commandeered by the professor.
+
+"He is the greatest philosopher in all Serbia," whispered an official to
+Jan.
+
+"Ah, I guessed there must be some reason," said Jan.
+
+We had a send-off, all the village came to see us go away. The day was
+a repetition of our previous experiences. A long tramp in the mud. At
+the top of the highest pass we had yet reached was an old wooden
+blockhouse.
+
+We came upon it unexpectedly, rounding a corner. Montenegrin soldiers
+were cooking at a wood fire; but we were surprised to find all round the
+square log cabin deep rifle pits, the best we had yet seen in Serbia.
+
+"Good Lord, what are those for?" said Jan.
+
+"This is an old Turkish post," said the sergeant. "It has been kept up.
+We don't know why."
+
+We walked off meditating. Montenegrins do not squander soldiers without
+reason; and then one's mind went back to the four armed guards who were
+accompanying us.
+
+We discovered the truth later, let us tell the story here.
+
+Berane, to which we were descending, was once a populous growing Turkish
+town. After the Balkan war it fell into Montenegrin territories. The
+Montenegrins chased out all the Turkish landowners, who fled to these
+mountains, where they formed bands of brigands and caused no little
+consternation and trouble to the authorities, who could not catch them.
+The authorities passed a little Act, reinstating the landowners in
+their territories; but when an attempt was made to put the Act into
+force, it was found that the authorities themselves were in possession
+of the lands. What was to be done? The blockhouse was the solution.
+
+We stopped at a primitive cafe and lunched. Jo gave the children some
+chocolate. They did not know what it was. She smeared some on to the
+baby's lips, and after that it sucked hard. Soon the little girl licked
+hers; but the boy, more suspicious, would not eat, holding the lump till
+it melted into a sticky mass in his fingers. The scenery was very
+beautiful. There was a faint rain which greyed everything, and the near
+birches had lost all their leaves and the twigs made a reddish fog
+through which could be seen the slopes of the opposite hillsides. The
+professor began to be worried about the rain.
+
+"If this should turn to snow," said he, "we would be snowed up. And I am
+sure I don't know what I should do if I were snowed up."
+
+We hoped to reach our halting place, which was called Vrbitza, before
+dark; but it was further away than our informant had said. Once more we
+found ourselves floundering about in the mud of the village path after
+dusk. We reached houses which we could not see; walked over slippery
+poles set over heaven knows what middens. Clambered up creaky steps
+into the usual sort of dirty wooden room--and there, his stockings off,
+warming his toes at the blaze of the wood fire, was "Eyebrows."
+
+We were immediately attracted by three paintings on the wall. They were
+decorative designs, very beautiful. We asked the proprietor who had done
+them.
+
+"I did," he said.
+
+"Will you sell them?" we asked.
+
+He giggled like a girl. "Ah, who would buy them?" he said.
+
+"We will."
+
+"I couldn't let you have them for less than sixpence," he said. "You see
+the papers cost a penny each."
+
+Whatmough coveted one, so he had his choice, we took the other two.
+
+The policeman came to tell us that rooms had been prepared in two clean
+houses. We scrambled out into the dark again, stumbled along in the mud,
+and at last found an open square of light, through which we came into a
+room.
+
+There was a red rug over half the floor, and a brasier on three legs
+filled with charcoal standing in the centre. One or two of our men had
+already found the place and were lying on the rug. In one corner was a
+large baking oven like a beehive, half in one and half in the room next
+door. A wide shelf ran from the beehive almost to the open door. There
+were two small windows, each about the size of this book wide open. Jan
+and Jo sniffed. Where had they smelt that odour before?
+
+An old woman in Albanian costume crept up to Jo and caught her by the
+skirt.
+
+"See," she said, dragging her into the next room, "here is a fine bed.
+The ladies will sleep with me this night."
+
+Jo looked at the old lady's greasy hair and filthy raiment.
+
+"We always sleep with our own people," she said firmly.
+
+The old lady protested. All the while our men were packing the baggage
+beneath the shelf. It was a tight fit, but at last it was got in.
+
+The professor entered once more on the scene.
+
+"This house will do very well for the common people," he said, "but the
+Herr Commandant" (meaning Jan) "and the two ladies will come over to
+sleep with me."
+
+"No, we won't," said Jan, Jo and Miss Brindley in one voice.
+
+"Then what will you do?"
+
+"We will give you two policemen, or all four if you like. We will pack
+in here somehow. You can take the other house all to yourself."
+
+"That will not do," said the professor. "If you are all determined to
+sleep here, I too, will come here. You will need somebody to protect
+you."
+
+Jo's back went up.
+
+"If you are afraid to sleep in the other house," she said, "you can
+sleep here with us. But if you are coming here to protect us, we don't
+require _you_."
+
+"But you do not understand," said the professor kindly, as if to a
+child: "there is danger. You will need me to protect you."
+
+"Not in the least," answered Jo. "If you will say that you are afraid,
+we will offer you our shelter. Otherwise you can have all four policemen
+at the other house."
+
+The professor was afraid to say that he was afraid, so after stating
+that we were curious people, he went off with the guards.
+
+With great difficulty we packed in. Cutting and Whatmough were forced to
+climb on to the shelf and the brazier was pushed out of the room. One by
+one we rolled up in our rugs, made pillows out of a pair of boots or a
+cocoa tin, cursed each other for taking up so much space, and at last
+all were jammed together like sardines. It was like the family in the
+drawing: If father says turn, we all turn.
+
+We did not rest well. Thirteen people in a room which would comfortably
+hold three was a little too close packing. There was a lot of grumbling
+coming from one corner, and after a while a light was struck.
+
+"Good lord," said somebody, "my pillow's crawling!"
+
+Bugs were cascading down the walls. Stajitch jumped to his feet, and
+began stamping hard. "Rivers of them," he yelled.
+
+Cutting and Whatmough were groaning about the heat, so we opened the
+door. Immediately all the dogs of the village, half wolves, hurled
+themselves at the lighted space. Stajitch slammed it just in time; had
+they burst in, lying down as we were, we should have been unable to
+protect ourselves.
+
+A dark face peered in between the baking oven and the wall, a swarthy
+Albanian face. It looked at us and then silently withdrew.
+
+"It doesn't matter," said somebody at last, "we've got to stick it."
+
+We roused up neither rested nor refreshed. The room seen in the dim
+light of the morning seemed even more revolting than it had been the
+night before. We demanded the bill, it was brought--five francs for
+apples which we had bought. And for the room? Nothing. We gave our host
+three francs extra, and he bowed, putting his hands to his bosom and
+kissed our palms.
+
+There was a good stiff clay soil waiting for our tiring feet, and by the
+time we reached Berane, there was no thought of going further. Almost
+every one was exhausted.
+
+We reached the shores of the river. The bridge had been washed away, but
+the inhabitants had made a boat like a sort of huge wooden shoe which
+they dragged to and fro with ropes. We clambered in and were hauled
+over. Our baggage had not yet arrived, so Jan and Stajitch ordered lunch
+for the others and went down to see about it. Just as they were landed
+on the opposite bank the rope broke. So all the Montenegrins and
+Albanians who were working the ferry went off to a midday meal, leaving
+the two with the pangs of hunger growling within, sitting on the bank.
+
+After two hours' waiting the rope was repaired, and they got back to
+lunch famishing. We then arranged sleeping places and locked up all the
+baggage in an empty shop. Our room was one of those ordinary Montenegrin
+bedrooms plastered with pictures. Amongst them was a postcard, and on it
+was printed large in English in blue crystalline letters, "Never
+Again."
+
+Whence did it come, this enigmatic postcard, and what did it mean? It
+seemed almost a solemn warning; yet in a hotel bedroom. What did the
+hostess think it meant?
+
+"Never Again."
+
+Some of the men came in cheering, having found Turkish delight in one of
+the shops. We were sadly needing sugar, as our last tin had been stolen
+along with lots of other things. So we indulged in "Turkish" not wisely.
+
+The professor got up to his old games again. Again he had told the
+commandant that he was leading the British, and that we would rest the
+next day, and again Jan had to pick him off his perch.
+
+Some got a bed that night, the others had to sleep "in rows," half under
+the beds and half projecting out. The people on the beds said it was a
+funny sight.
+
+When we unpacked at night we found who had been robbing us. The
+policemen. We had missed many more things, but found that the amount
+varied in direct ratio to the number of police who guarded us. All our
+spare boots were now gone, Blease's overcoat, and also Miss Brindley's.
+Jo had lost her only other coat and skirt, and one or two mackintoshes
+were missing. Now we knew why the police wore long-skirted coats; but
+what a disappointment the one must have had who lifted Jo's coat and
+skirt.
+
+Got off again in good time the next morning. Cutting and three others
+stayed behind to look after the police. Lucky they did, because one of
+the horses wore out, and the police would have left it on the road, pack
+and all. As it was we left the horse grazing, but the baggage was
+transferred.
+
+There had been a decentish level road made from Andrievitza half way to
+Berane, and women were working hard on the extension in the hopes of
+getting it finished for the Serbs; but that they could never do, for
+there were but few of them. Further on many of the bridges were
+unfinished, and in one or two places a landslide had carried away the
+road itself, leaving a deep clinging mud in its place, but we were
+getting used to mud.
+
+We met "Eyebrows" once more, just at the entrance to the village; but he
+was going on to Pod, so had finally got a day ahead of us. Found rooms
+in our old resting place.
+
+The professor was threatening to accompany us to Italy--he was like the
+old man of the sea. We got a telegram from the English Minister, saying
+that he did not think we could ever get to Italy from Scutari. We
+preferred to trust to our luck which so far had been wonderful,
+especially in the matter of weather. In the evening the captain sent to
+say that twenty horses would await us the next day. A motor car would
+have been sent, he added, but almost all the bridges were washed away
+and they could get no nearer than Lieva Rieka.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+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 Lieva
+Rieka, 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 Lieva Rieka 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
+Rieka. 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]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+INTO ALBANIA
+
+
+We caught the mayor in the morning. He was in his shirt-sleeves and he
+said that the auto had been arranged for. It came and we packed in. On
+the back perched a boy who outsmelt any Serb we had ever found. It
+seemed impossible that a human could so smell and yet live. Suddenly the
+boy drew a packet from his pocket and the smell became intolerable. He
+unwrapped a piece of cheese and, gasping for breath, we watched it
+disappear. When it had gone we breathed more freely, but the odour still
+clung to the youth, and we were not sorry when the auto pulled up at the
+village of Plavnitza on the edge of the lake. A man, who said that he
+had been sent to help us, dragged us to the telephone office. He worried
+the instrument for a while and announced that the boat would be here in
+two hours. It would have come earlier, but somehow they couldn't make
+steam get up. We expected it to come in four, and so went off to get
+something to eat.
+
+The lake was very high, coming right up to the road. All the low fields
+were covered with water as far as one could see. The girl at the inn was
+shuddering and shivering with malaria, and we gave her some quinine. At
+last the steamer came.
+
+We had to pack into one of those cockhat boats, as the quay was
+separated from the village by half a mile of water. When we got to the
+steamer, the captain leaned over the side and shouted--
+
+"Where are the mattresses?"
+
+"What mattresses?" said the harbour-master.
+
+"When are you going to start?" demanded we, clambering on board.
+
+"When I get the mattresses," said the captain.
+
+"But what mattresses?" replied the harbour-master.
+
+"I was sent to get mattresses," said the captain, "and here I wait till
+they come."
+
+This was a nuisance, nobody had said anything about the mattresses.
+
+"I shan't go till to-morrow anyhow," said the skipper.
+
+"I think we'd all better go back to Podgoritza and come again
+to-morrow," said the man in charge.
+
+"We don't move from here," said Jo, firmly. "If he won't go we'll sit on
+this boat--which was sent for us--and sing songs all night so that he
+shan't sleep."
+
+The captain refused to move without the mattresses and we refused to go
+back, so a violent argument ensued. We remained adamant. At last in
+despair the harbour master said that he would go and telephone. Night
+was coming on, the deck was chilly, so Jan went to explore. The quay was
+half under water, but by jumping from stone to stone one could get
+about, and Jan discovered an entrance into the stone storehouse. The
+door was boarded up, but he forced his way in, discovering a huge empty
+interior banked up well above the water. At one end was a platform made
+of boards on tubs. An ideal bed. He called the company and they arranged
+themselves on the planks, though some were dismayed at the prospect of
+getting no supper. The boards were loose and as each took his place they
+bobbed up and down. Miss Brindley said that it seemed like sleeping on
+the keyboard of a piano. We did not expect to see anything before
+morning of the harbour-master or of Stajitch who had gone with him; but
+just as we were settled and beginning to snore and the rats were running
+about, Stajitch poked his head through the window and said that the boat
+was going immediately. We reluctantly got up, for we were really rather
+cosy, packed again and hopped in the moonlight from stone to stone till
+we got to the ship--which was the same old Turkish gunboat on which we
+had travelled once before. The thing was then explained--a telegraphic
+mistake. The captain had been ordered to fetch the strangers: but
+strangers and mattresses are only one letter different, "n" or "m," this
+letter had been transposed.
+
+Luckily it was a beautiful moonlight night. The lake was wonderfully
+romantic. A fat Serbian captain, who seemed to know Stajitch, made a
+request. He said that he had been cut off from his division, which was
+at Monastir, and that he was going to try and rejoin them. He ask us if
+he could join our party, as it would come cheaper at the hotels and he
+could get transport.
+
+It was pretty cold on the lake, but we wrapped ourselves in our blankets
+and said the view was lovely. Hunger was also gnawing within us, so we
+were glad when at last the rumbling old engines halted and the steamer
+gave three hoots. We waited anxiously, and at last a large rowboat came
+sideways against the steamer. Four carriages were waiting in the bazaar.
+A very polite Montenegrin doctor welcomed us at the hotel and we got
+some much desired food.
+
+Bed was beginning to be a mere commonplace now, but we enjoyed it for
+all that, and slept well into the morning.
+
+Scutari wore its usual air of "the ballet" when we arose. The ladies
+dressed all in their best clothes, and with great flowing veils and wide
+skirted coats were hobbling to church. The shopkeepers, with their long
+black and white legs and coloured shirts, were lounging about the low
+counters of their shops, smoking and drinking coffee brought them (on
+little swinging trays) by boys.
+
+The British consul had taken up his quarters at the "Maison Piget." The
+house was gated, as are all Albanian houses, but this gate was like an
+old feudal portal. The doors were wonderfully carved and were opened by
+our old friend the Wolf. We had thought him to be a servant of Suma's,
+but it appeared that he belonged to the British Empire.
+
+The house was crammed full of arms: a little cannon threatened us on the
+stairway, swords, claymores, creeses, falchions, scimitars, glaives,
+dirks, and yatagans were nailed on all the walls, and there were muskets
+of every sort and size, heavy arquebuses from the north and gas-pipe
+guns and Arab horsemen firelocks with polished stocks like the handle of
+a corkscrew, all inlaid with gold, silver, and mother-of-pearl.
+
+"Yes," said the consul, gazing reflectively, "he had a taste for
+weapons. And also for old cookery books."
+
+The consul said that he thought that there was a boat at San Giovanni.
+We cheered, for our luck seemed to be holding, and while he went off to
+the Italian consul we went to the governor to beg for transport. Neither
+consul nor governor was in, but we caught the Italian consul in the
+afternoon. He admitted that there was a boat, but warned us that it was
+no nosegay. He said that two Frenchmen who had thought of taking it had
+sent him back a telegram which had quite unnerved him.
+
+"Et je n'ai jamais dit qu'elle etait une Transatlantique," he said,
+waving his arms.
+
+He said that the archbishop had told him that a party of English had
+come into the town last night, "en haillons," but that he had not
+believed it possible. However, he had seen two of us in the street that
+morning, and had realized that it was true.
+
+We said that any boat would do. He warned us of the danger of
+submarines.
+
+At the consul's house we found the captain of the Miridites awaiting us.
+He was a heavy-looking man with European clothes and a fez. After the
+ceremonious coffee he made a set speech, saying that he was paying his
+duties to the great British Empire, and that England was their only
+hope. The consul sat rather wishing that he wouldn't, and that his
+servant had said that he was not at home. In common with most of the
+Christian rulers of Albania this gentleman seemed to have spent most of
+his time in exile.
+
+Returning to the hotel Jan found that Jo had been purchasing, and he
+dragged her and Miss Brindley off to see the archbishop. The cathedral
+still carries the scars of the first bombardment. The archbishop, a
+large flat man, gave us each a hand as though he expected us to kiss it;
+he had a huge archiepispocal ring and a lot of imperiosity. He seemed
+more political than bishopy, though most of the Churchmen are; and there
+is the tale of one who said, "I would rather people went to drill than
+to church." There were a lot of wealthy looking Albanians sitting round
+and being respectable. The archbishop spoke no French nor German, only
+Italian. But Jan, with the help of a lot of old musical terms, and an
+imperfectly forgotten Spanish, managed to convey to him some
+intelligible compliments and sentences. We got out at last, and his
+eminence accompanied us to the top of the stairs and gave us the
+difficult problem of bowing backwards as we went down. This visit was
+necessary, as we might have had to get a "Besa" from him if we meant to
+go through to Durazzo.
+
+The Serbian captain who had been on the Turkish gunboat met us in the
+street. He dragged us into a cafe and began to order beer by the
+half-dozen. He presented Jo with a small Turkish gold coin, which was
+valued at five shillings, as a bribe to allow him to join our party. As
+he already had permission it seemed superfluous.
+
+Some of our party were still pretty seedy. Two had gone to a shop in
+search of castor oil. A very old and withered chemist, who spoke bad
+French, invited them in and asked for an account of their adventures,
+interrupting them with explosions of "Ah poves, poves, poves, poves."
+"Ah, poves, poves, poves, poves," between every incident and also at the
+final request for the medicine. He showed them to the door and suddenly
+burst into unexpected English.
+
+"Good naite, vairey good. I am your poppa."
+
+In the hotel cafe we found two French aeroplanists, for four had arrived
+that day, sailing down over the city, to the great terror of the
+inhabitants. They seemed to be afflicted with the same idea as "Quel
+Pays."
+
+"Ah, monsieur et dame," said they, "quel pays."
+
+We asked them how things were.
+
+"We have just come from Prizren. The Serbs are in a dreadful condition.
+All the roads are covered with starving and dying people. The troops are
+eating dead horses and roots. There have been violent snow blizzards all
+over the mountains. We saw some of your people, too, doctors and nurses,
+they were going off to Ipek, 'dans une condition deplorable.' We came
+across the mountains; one of us is lost. Awful country, nowhere to land
+if anything went wrong and one of our machines has not arrived. God
+knows what has happened to them. The rest of us are all coming along on
+foot. We burnt fifty motor cars yesterday, monsieur, that made a blaze."
+
+We asked them what sort of a time they had had in Serbia; but much of
+their answer is unpublishable.
+
+"Each time we ascended every Serbian regiment fired at us. Once we came
+down over a battalion and the whole lot fired volleys, and when we
+landed and stood in front of our machine holding up our hands," they
+pantomimed, "they continued to fire at us. Then they came and took us
+prisoners, and were going to shoot us, although one of us had a military
+medal. A schoolmaster recognised us as French and rescued us. Our
+machine was broken; but we could get no transport and had to walk thirty
+kilometres back to our base without food.
+
+"Another time we were chasing an Austrian, the Serbian batteries fired
+at us, monsieur, not at the enemy. Our officers had to send from the
+aerodrome to tell them to stop."
+
+As we were going to bed the Montenegrin doctor came in.
+
+"I am sent by the governor, monsieur," said he. "We do not consider it
+safe, this boat idea. Austrian submarines are everywhere, and the
+governor would feel it as a personal responsibility if you were drowned.
+We will provide carriages to Alessio and thence arrange horses--only one
+day and a half on to Durazzo. Thence Essad Pasha will give you his motor
+boat and you can easily get to Valona."
+
+Our men groaned at the thought of more journeying. They were all
+thoroughly fed up with the road, though personally we rather liked the
+idea. We had heard that Durazzo was very interesting, and would have
+liked to have met Essad, though we did not know just how his politics
+were trending. We decided to see the Italian consul once more.
+
+Next day we hunted up the mayor, Mahram Beg, a Turk, for he also could
+give us a "Besa" if necessary. He was at last discovered, a little
+crumpled looking man in an office. We were not allowed to interview him
+in private, but a Montenegrin was there and all conversation had to
+pass by him like through an imperfect telephone. We gave the mayor a
+greeting from Colonel P----and little else. A very disappointing
+interview.
+
+Jan went off to see the governor, who received him kindly. He said that
+he would arrange everything, but that it was difficult for him with the
+Italian consul, as the Powers did not recognize the Montenegrin
+occupation.
+
+"You see, monsieur, here I am the law, and yet the law does not
+recognize me."
+
+The Italian assured us that the Montenegrins were wrong, and that of
+course the boat would be escorted, and the danger reduced to its least
+possible amount. Just after we had left him we heard two things which
+made us jump.
+
+A body of English officers had landed at Medua, and ninety English
+refugees from Serbia were _en route_ for Scutari. Could we not catch the
+transport and at the same time leave room for the others? Suma came in,
+and we consulted him. He was doubtful if the horses could be got at
+Alessio for us.
+
+"You see, it is Albania and not Montenegro," he repeated.
+
+We accordingly hunted up the doctor. He promised us horses for the
+morrow. The carriages had all gone to fetch the English officers. We
+asked him about Alessio, and he assured us that the telephone message
+had been received saying that they were waiting. We asked him several
+times until he grew angry and said--
+
+"Do you doubt my honour, then?"
+
+Before we went to bed the hotel proprietor came to us.
+
+"Do you pay or the Government?" asked he; and seemed very relieved when
+we told him that we paid. The Montenegrins are neither loved nor trusted
+here.
+
+The next morning the horses came, but very late. In the crowd watching
+our departure was an old Albanian without a moustache. That was a
+strange sight; we looked harder. It was a woman. She must have been one
+of those who had sworn eternal virginity, and so achieve all a man's
+privileges, even eating with them instead of getting the scraps left
+over from the meal. But the punishment of death awaited her if she
+failed her vow. Here was one, chuckling and grinning at some of us in
+our attempts to mount the weird saddles and weirder steeds which had
+been provided. The Serb captain had a carriage, and another carriage
+took all our baggage, which had now sadly dwindled owing to the
+continued depredations of the police. We straggled out of the town and
+through the crowded bazaar, for it was a Saturday. Passed the Venetian
+fort and the river from which stuck the funnel of the steamer so
+mysteriously sunk one night. We had heard that the Turkish gun flat
+which had transported us had burst her boilers, so now the Montenegrins
+had no steamers left.
+
+The road was level and better than many we had come over, though once or
+twice the carriages were hopelessly mired, and had to be pushed across.
+West's horse had ideas about side streets, and bolted down each as he
+came to it.
+
+We met the Adriatic Commission. Mr. Lamb and Mr. George Paget, returning
+after so long an absence, were in the first carriage. We recognized Mr.
+Paget at once, for though either of them might have liked old arms, only
+one would have collected old cookery books. The rest of the commission
+came along later. They stopped us. We expected questions about the
+Serbs; but no. They said--
+
+"Can one buy underclothing in Scutari?"
+
+Their baggage transport had been sunk by an Austrian submarine and they
+had only what they were wearing. We wished each other luck and went on.
+There was no hope of arriving at Alessio that night, we had started too
+late. As evening was falling, we came to an Albanian inn and decided to
+put up.
+
+There was a stable full of manure on the ground floor, through which one
+had to pass, and in the dark one was continually slipping into the
+midden or running one's head unexpectedly into horses' hindquarters. Up
+a rickety stair were two rooms. The floor rocked as we walked over it,
+and every moment we expected to go through and be precipitated into the
+manure below. The walls and floor were so loosely made that the wind
+blew through in all directions, and we called it the "castle in the
+air." We supped on chickens which we had brought from Scutari, and
+Whatmough and Elmer made a fire in the yard and got us cocoa. By this
+time we were all getting fed up with romantic surroundings, and wanted
+something more solid. The swarthy countenances about the bonfire, the
+queer costumes in the flickering fire, left us unmoved.
+
+Sleep was impossible. The wind caught one in every corner, threatening
+lumbago. Stajitch fled and camped outside in one of the carriages,
+despite the rain.
+
+[Illustration: ALBANIAN MULE DRIVERS CAMPING.]
+
+We started as early as possible--dawn. Whatmough, Cutting, Jo and Jan
+lost the road, but were eventually rescued by a policeman. About eleven
+one of the carriages broke down, and we had to repair it with tree and
+wire. Here the houses were again like fortresses, and everybody
+stared at us as though we came from the moon.
+
+We reached the bank opposite Alessio--a small Turkish-looking village
+divided between a mud-bank and a hillside. We were about to turn over
+the bridge when news was brought that a motor-boat belonging to Essad
+was in San Giovanni harbour. We sent a policeman galloping on to stop
+it, and followed as fast as our meagre horses would allow. We also heard
+that a submarine had been in the port the day before and had tried to
+torpedo the ships lying there--but had missed.
+
+We cantered on, pressing along a stony road which was almost level with
+the salt marshes on either side. San Giovanni appeared after about an
+hour and a half. We rode down on to the beach. The motor-boat was
+getting up anchor. We yelled to the skipper, but he understood no Serb;
+so we translated through a Turk who was lounging about. The skipper said
+that he could not embark us there as it was Montenegrin territory, but
+that if we would go back to Alessio he would wait for us at the mouth of
+the river and take us down that very night. This seemed too good to be
+true and we hurried back, passing an Austrian torpedo which had run up
+on the brown sand--a present from yesterday's raid. We turned the others
+and cantered ahead to get a boat; reached the bridge once more and
+crossed into Albania. Officials ran from all sides to stop us, but we
+ignored them, dismounted, and ran to the side of the river where boats
+were loading, overloading with passengers. The boatmen refused to take
+us if we had no passes from the governor.
+
+We hunted the governor's office up the hillside, panting in our haste.
+We burst in upon him. He was a dirty man in an unclean shirt and unkempt
+trousers.
+
+"We want to go by the motor-boat," we explained.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked, picking his teeth.
+
+"We are the English about whom the governor of Scutari has telegraphed."
+
+"I don't know anything about you," he said. His manner was ungracious.
+
+"But," we said, "they assured us that they had telegraphed from
+Scutari."
+
+The telegraph clerk was brought, and denied that any message had come.
+
+"Anyhow," said the governor, "the motor-boat is for Albanian soldiers
+only, and has gone twenty minutes ago. I can do nothing for you without
+authority from Durazzo."
+
+We wandered dismally back through the town and were immediately
+arrested by the bridge officials because we had not paid the toll rates.
+We paid double to get rid of them.
+
+We found an inn. It was the usual sort of building only of stone, and so
+dirtier than the others. Some travelling show seemed to have left its
+scenery in lieu of its bill, for bits of painted canvas did duty as
+partitions.
+
+There was a room with six beds, but one was reserved for an Albanian
+officer. We took the rest. We loitered about all the afternoon, and in
+the evening the Albanian officer came in. He was a beaky-faced,
+unpleasant-looking man, but he procured us some bread, which we sorely
+lacked. The hotel had little food, so we gave them our rice. By this
+time fleas had got into it, and seeming to like it had bred in
+quantities. Still as we had nothing else it had to be cooked, and we
+picked out the boiled fleas as well as we were able. The Serbian captain
+started drinking with the Albanian, and soon both were well over the
+edge of sobriety.
+
+They came up long after we had turned in, fell over Cutting, who cursed
+them without stint, and tumbled on to the beds which we had left for
+them. The Albanian made some remarks about the ladies, which from the
+tone were insults; but we were unable to chastize him, or we should all
+have been put into prison.
+
+They snored and coughed all night, and spat about in the dark. Those who
+were sleeping near cowered beneath the mackintosh sheets and prayed for
+luck. But in the morning we found that they had been spitting on the
+wall.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+"ONE MORE RIBBER TO CROSS"
+
+
+The Mayor of Alessio had said that there were lots of horses, if we had
+Essad's permission; but the Turkish captain said that there were none,
+only at San Giovanni were they to be found. It was pelting with rain,
+but Blease and we decided to walk over to explore for ourselves. Jan
+first wrote a very stiff letter to the Governor of Scutari about the
+non-arrival of the telegram, and off we went, having borrowed oilskins
+and sou'westers. The Serb captain insisted on coming with us.
+
+In half an hour the storm had made the stony road into a series of deep
+ponds which nearly joined each other, so Jo tucked her now ragged skirt
+into a bright woven Serbian belt and walked along with the water
+streaming from coat to boots. It became rather a pleasure to splash
+through ten-inch deep puddles, knowing that one could not possibly get
+any wetter, and this joy was intensified by the knowledge that the
+Serbian captain was being soaked and didn't like it.
+
+San Giovanni consists of a series of huts, each like Burns' birthplace,
+grouped on the shelving side of a stony cliff. The bay itself is
+semi-circular, with a long cape jutting out to the south, the extremity
+of which almost always is floating in the air, owing to the mirage. In
+the bay were two rusty steamers--one the _Benedetto_, which had been
+promised to us by the Italian governor--several old wooden sailers, and
+a lot of smallish fishing smacks very brightly painted and with raised
+poop and prow. A group of Albanians were toiling at sacks which cumbered
+the little wooden jetty.
+
+We immediately hunted out Captain Fabiano, the Italian commander of the
+wireless telegraph, and found him in a little house at the northern horn
+of the bay. He received us gaily. He spoke an excellent French, so that
+the Serbian captain could not butt in and interfere, as was his habit.
+Fabiano said that it would take a long time to get a wire to Brindisi,
+where we had heard were several ships of the English fleet, very bored
+and craving for something to do; we had hoped to get into communication
+with them. Then Jan had a brain wave.
+
+"Is not the wind good for Durazzo?" asked he.
+
+"Splendid," said Fabiano, "and no submarines to-day."
+
+"Could we not get a fishing boat?"
+
+"I will send and see."
+
+While we were waiting he told us that he was sheltering the crew of the
+ship which had been transporting the English mission's kit. The captain
+of the little transport had set fire to the benzine which his boat was
+carrying, which act so enraged the submarine captain that he fired three
+torpedoes into her, and afterwards mounted his conning tower and fired
+ten full clips from his revolver at the swimming men. Luckily revolver
+shooting requires much practice. The men had clung to an overturned boat
+and had all eventually reached shore, after which they had to march a
+day and a half without boots or food, often fording rivers which came to
+their waists. Fabiano said that he was going to send them home on the
+_Benedetto_.
+
+The captain of the port sent back word that we could have a boat
+immediately--much to Fabiano's surprise. But most of the party were at
+Alessio. We hurried off to see the captain of the port. Explanations,
+certainly when the luggage came; and off went Jan with a guide to get
+pack ponies. Halfway back to Alessio was the stable, but the steeds were
+not ready, so Jan was ushered up into a top room where was a huge fire,
+over which an Albanian was stewing a cormorant with all its feathers on.
+There were other Albanians and a very old Montenegrin soldier. He
+admired everything English, even Jan's tobacco which he had bought in
+Pod.
+
+We got to Alessio and packed everything hurriedly, paid the bill, tipped
+an old soldier two dinars, and off. As we passed over the bridge the
+clerk came running behind us. We had not paid the bridge fees, he said.
+
+"How much?" asked Jan.
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"Two dinars," said he. He had been talking to the soldier.
+
+Meanwhile Jo and Blease had found refuge in the house of the military
+commandant. It was a hovel like all the houses, but they were given a
+huge log fire which was built on the mud floor. Their stockings were
+soon hanging on a line above the blaze, and their shins were scorching,
+while they drank wonderful liqueur which was hospitably poured out by
+the beautiful old host.
+
+Turkish coffee was prepared for them by a soldier in a bursting French
+fireman's uniform.
+
+The captain's fire was the rendezvous of the village. Amiable and
+picturesque people came in and talked about the unhealthiness of the
+place, the relative bravery of nations with a special reference to the
+courage of Montenegrins, and about the submarine raid and of how the
+Austrian captain had repeatedly fired his revolver at the sailors of
+the boat he had sunk while they were swimming in the water. Their eyes
+were streaming, not with emotion, but because in Montenegro one has no
+chimneys.
+
+At dusk the rest of us arrived. The port captain said "To-morrow," so we
+climbed up to the inn, examined the stores, a few tins of tunny,
+mackerel, and milk, and the thirteen made the best of the bar-room floor
+for the night, booted and ready in case a transport for the _Benedetto_
+should arrive.
+
+In the morning the captain said we could have the boat that night, and
+in the evening he said we could have it in the morning. His excuse was
+that the Borra was blowing its hardest, and no sailor could be found to
+venture out; but Fabiano said that this was not true.
+
+The real reason was the sleek Austrian torpedo lying on the beach, for
+the Dulcinos are famed on the Adriatic coast because of their timidity.
+
+Time passed drearily. The only amusement we had was to go and annoy the
+captain of the port by asking when we could have a boat. The wind was
+too cold for constitutionals, and we piled on all our clothes and sat on
+our knapsacks in the bar-room--for there was no fire--and talked
+wistfully of sausages, Yorkshire Relish and underdone beefsteaks.
+
+We had much time for meditation, and pondered over the downfall of
+Serbia. Why had the Serbian Government so resolutely refused to make any
+territorial concessions to Bulgaria, when it was obvious that the entry
+of Bulgaria into the conflict meant the ruin of Serbia? Why had they
+permitted the Austrians to build their big gun emplacements on the
+Danube without interruption? Why had they not withdrawn to the hills and
+then built proper defences with barbed wire entanglements and
+labyrinths? for properly entrenched they might have defied the
+Austro-German forces for months. Some day, perhaps, these questions may
+have to be answered.
+
+One day a party came in. They had passed through Vrntze much later than
+we, and we heard that Dr. Berry and an assistant had been seen hurriedly
+nailing boards on to the slaughter-house roof. They, too, had come by
+the Novi Bazar route. They said that the other routes were deep in snow
+and that the sufferings of the army were terrible. That a great portion
+had been hemmed in at Prizren, and that the Bulgars had shelled the
+passes so that they could not escape. They themselves had escaped the
+advancing Austrians by the skin of their teeth owing to good horses.
+
+[Illustration: UNLOADING THE "BENEDETTO," SAN GIOVANNI DI MEDUA.]
+
+The snow came down, driving along the valleys and whitening all the
+hills; the cold grew more intense, and the desire for English beefsteaks
+became an obsession: one talked of little else--or of Christmas. Food
+was becoming scarce. The tinned mackerel was diminishing; some days we
+had no bread. We walked once as far as Fabiano's wireless. The men were
+living in a shed made of wattle, and the Borra whistled through the
+cracks. There was a stove round which we sat while the men gave us tea;
+but the warmth it induced in one's face only intensified the feeling of
+cold on the back. Outside in the snow was a long-distance telescope, and
+peering through one could see the conning tower of the Austrian
+submarine, a faint hump on the sea by the southernmost point. As we
+returned to the cold hotel we passed the Montenegrin batteries: cannon
+too small to be of any use and the gunners of which were all so ill that
+they could not handle them.
+
+Two Frenchmen had been in San Giovanni for ten days, and their anxiety
+to go was up to fever point. They took it in turns to stand "pour
+observer," wrapped up to their noses, in a doorway, watching the
+_Benedetto_ in case she should give them the slip. We called them
+Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
+
+One night somebody rushed up to their room. Booted, they jumped out of
+bed, and ran about overhead. We thirteen scrambled up and intercepted
+them between the stairs and the door. "Pour observer, steam-funnel,"
+they shouted, and disappeared into the night, followed by their valet
+with two hold-alls. They soon came back, very cold, and announced that
+steam had been seen issuing from the _Benedetto's_ funnel. They had
+rushed to it in an open boat, and had learnt that the _Benedetto_ was
+ordered to be in readiness. She fumed quietly for three days, and then
+was commandeered by the Serbian Government.
+
+One day we saw a French aeroplane, an old friend of ours. Immediately
+every one working in the port tore up hill, men jumped off the big boats
+into little ones and rowed like a cinematograph turned double speed.
+
+The commandant roared reassuringly from his attic window, and an officer
+tried to beat the men back. Seeing us convulsed with laughter, they
+turned sheepishly; but the little boats wagged on, people jumping into
+the water as they neared shore.
+
+"Come and sit round my fire," said the commandant. So we again imbibed
+coffee and discussed courage. It was explained to us that none of the
+men in the boats were Montenegrins, and we politely agreed.
+
+Hearing that a Red Cross party was in the village people came and asked
+for medical aid. We explained that we had no doctors, but they begged
+us to come and see the invalids.
+
+Doctors and chemists were unobtainable, and soldiers were dying every
+day.
+
+We had no hesitation in tackling the Montenegrin soldiers, for at least
+we could do no harm, considering that our whole pharmacopoeia was a
+little boracic, some bismuth capsules, Epsom salts, quinine, iodine, and
+one of the party owned a bottle of some patent unknown stuff, against
+fever and many other ailments.
+
+We were first taken to the barracks in the evening, scrambling up a
+stony hill. The building looked like the disreputable ruins of
+somebody's "Folly." Half the roof was off, and the walls were full of
+holes. We stumbled up some black steps and entered a huge dark barn with
+four log fires down the centre of the room.
+
+Round these were huddled crowds of men. They pulled some rough planks
+out of a hole in the wall to let in the sunset light, and the icy Borra
+rushed in, playing with the smoke and setting the men to coughing. Here
+and there on the ground were long mounds, covered completely with rough
+hand-woven rugs. These were the invalids, who moaned as the rugs were
+pulled off their faces. A great many had malaria; others had, as far as
+we could see, very bad pleurisy; and one old Albanian with rattling
+breath was huddled up in a far corner, too miserable to speak.
+
+Whatmough sent for a dribble of camphorated oil he had stored in his
+knapsack, "to cheer them up," said he, and rubbed everybody who had pain
+and a cough.
+
+"Give them hot drinks," said Jo, in a large way. "Milk or--"
+
+"Milk! There is no milk in Medua," said the sergeant.
+
+"No tinned milk--eggs to be bought?"
+
+"Nothing, no meat; we have not even enough bread, and that is all we
+get."
+
+Very depressed, we sent them the remains of our Bovril and some tins of
+milk from the tiny hotel store, and bought the last three eggs in the
+place.
+
+"Can't you send for more?" we asked.
+
+"The hens are five hours away," said the proprietor, and didn't see why
+he should send for eggs even if we paid heavily for them. He had
+malaria--and nothing mattered.
+
+We saw our patients daily, and the ones who weren't going to die got a
+little better, so this made our reputation. People poured in from the
+hills around, and we were much embarrassed. Our white-lipped waiter
+confided to each member of the party that he had a lump on his knee.
+
+Every one became very busy and put off looking at it. We discussed it.
+
+What could a lump on the knee be which did not make a busy waiter limp?
+And what on earth could we do for him when he wouldn't rest, and we were
+reduced to boracic powder and bismuth capsules? We gave him a tube of
+quinine, though, for his next attack of malaria.
+
+The longer we rested in San Giovanni the more hopeless seemed the chance
+of getting away from it. The Serbian Government was close on our heels,
+and once they caught us up, there would be little left for us. That
+evening we were sitting with the Frenchmen, it was Monday. They, too,
+were depressed, and at last Tweedledum said--
+
+"We shall never reach Paris, we shall be here for ever and ever."
+
+"Oh," said Jan, rashly, "I think we ought to be home in a week."
+
+Dum put on the superior French air, which is aggravating even in a nice
+man.
+
+"Vous croyez?" he said.
+
+"I'll bet on it," said Jan.
+
+"A dinner," answered Dum.
+
+"Good," said Jan.
+
+This lent a new interest to life.
+
+The very next day the Frenchmen told us that the Serb Government had
+arrived at Scutari; the Montenegrin Governor had telegraphed to
+commandeer and keep back the _Benedetto_. We had been forgotten, and the
+French boat was to leave at dawn under escort.
+
+She had been strictly forbidden by her owners to take passengers, but
+the Frenchmen had arranged through their minister to go by that boat if
+she left the first.
+
+Telegraphic communication with the English minister at Cettinje was
+practically impossible; the only thing was to appeal to the captain.
+First we rushed up the hill, and interviewed Captain Fabiano, who had
+already made various efforts to get us off. He promised to try and
+influence the French captain.
+
+Then we flung ourselves into a boat and made for the little steamer.
+People were looking at something with opera glasses, and our boatmen
+took fright and wanted to row straight for land. Jan cursed them so
+much, however, that they began to fear us more than imaginary submarines
+or aeroplanes, and brought us alongside the vessel.
+
+The captain was ashore, taking a walk; the crew very sympathetically
+made contradictory suggestions as to his whereabouts.
+
+At last we caught him. He was nice, but had strict orders, he said, to
+take no one.
+
+"But, monsieur," we said, "if we were swimming in the sea, or cast off
+on a desert island, you would rescue us."
+
+He admitted it.
+
+"Well, what is the difference? Here we cannot get away; the food is
+growing less and less."
+
+He objected that he had no boats, and no life-saving apparatus.
+
+"That is nothing. We must get away from here. We will give you a paper
+saying that it is on our own responsibility. In this country one cannot
+telegraph, the telegrams never arrive. You know the Balkans."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Oui, oui, c'est un pays ou le Bon Dieu n'a pas passe, ou au moins il a
+peut-etre passe en aeroplane."
+
+At last he agreed to take us if we could get a letter from Fabiano, and
+so take the responsibility from his shoulders. This we got. Fabiano said
+"Au revoir, bon voyage" for the fifth time, and at dawn we got a call,
+and quitted the bar-room floor for ever. Fabiano wished us "bon voyage"
+for the sixth time in the chilly dawn, and we embarked.
+
+The mate, a little round man, greeted us, and in the moments when they
+were not rushing about with ropes and chains the cook explained the
+Austrian submarine attack.
+
+"You see, monsieur et dame," said he, "they came in over there. The
+_Benedetto_ was lying outside of that sandbank, and that is the torpedo
+which is lying on the beach. The one aimed at us came straight, one
+could see the whorls of the water coming straight at us, but it just
+tipped the sandbank and dived underneath our keel. It stuck in the mud
+then, and the water boiled over it for a long while."
+
+The mate cut one of the anchors because they were afraid of fouling the
+sunken torpedo, and we steamed slowly out from the shelter of the
+sandbank.
+
+No escort was visible, and soon the sailors began to look anxious. They
+scanned the horizon anxiously. At last one cried, "There she is." Far
+away against the western dawn could be seen a thin needle mark of smoke.
+In half an hour we were quite close, an Italian destroyer was convoying
+a small steamer. The destroyer swung round under our stern, while the
+steamer, its funnels set back, raced for San Giovanni looking like a
+frightened puppy tearing towards home. The grey warship surged past us,
+and out towards the horizon once more, our captain shouting to them that
+he could get to Brindisi by midnight. Far away on the sky-line could be
+seen the three funnels of a cruiser.
+
+We breakfasted on tinned mackerel, an unlucky dish. The _Harmonie_,
+empty of cargo, was like an eggshell in the water. She bounced and
+rolled and bounded from wave to wave, half of the time her screw out of
+the water. The breakfast did not nourish many. Far on the horizon could
+be seen the destroyer and the cruiser sweeping in gigantic circles.
+
+Half a kilometre away a periscope suddenly appeared, then the submarine
+dived, rose once more, showing the rounded conning tower, dived, rose
+again, like a porpoise at play.
+
+"See," cried the sailors, "how well are we guarded. Outermost the
+cruiser, then the destroyer, and innermost the submarine." The cruiser
+and destroyer took big sweeps once more and steamed off behind us
+towards Cattaro.
+
+Our boat rolled its way from dawn to dusk. We sought refuge in the coal
+hole, some lay down in the little officers' cabin. After dark the sea
+grew more rough, and splashing over the deck drove even the most ill to
+find shelter. Whatmough staggered to the companion, tripped over
+something, and fell the length of the stair accompanied by a hard object
+which hit him and made hissing sounds like a bicycle pump. He was too
+seasick to investigate, but next morning found the ship's tortoise lying
+on its back and feebly waving its feet and head.
+
+Then the engines slowly ceased, and there was silence. What had
+happened? The steamer gave four timid hoots. The people in the cabin lay
+in the darkness wondering if they had broken down, for it was not nearly
+midnight. At last the mate came in.
+
+"Why, you're all in the dark," he said.
+
+Some one asked, "When shall we get to Brindisi?"
+
+"We're there," said the mate.
+
+The steamer rocked on the sea, waiting for an escort through the mine
+field, lights were sparkling in the distance, and now and then
+flashlights cut the dark blue of the sky. Great black ships surged by in
+the gloom, ships with insistent queries as to who we were and whence we
+came.
+
+At last an escort came: we were berthed and lay about waiting for the
+dawn.
+
+Long after day came the doctor, who passed us, and we stepped ashore
+saying--
+
+"Thank God we are back in Europe once again."
+
+Two days later San Giovanni was bombarded by an Austrian cruiser, and
+all the shipping was sunk, _Benedetto_ and all.
+
+We were heartily welcomed in Brindisi by the English colony, and at the
+consul's office learned that the submarine was an Austrian, and that the
+cruiser had made the sweep to chase it away. Jo, Miss Brindley, and Jan
+went to Rome, where they ere feasted by more English, while at
+Milan--where the rest of the party spent the night--a whole theatre
+stood and cheered them when they came in.
+
+Jan won his bet by four minutes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: Route Map of the Authors' Wanderings]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Albania, 109, 154, 185
+
+Alessio, 351, 355-359, 362
+
+Andrievitza, 126, 128, 133, 326
+
+
+Belgrade, 228, 229
+
+Berane, 114, 291, 294, 295, 326
+
+Brindisi, 360, 374
+
+
+Cattaro, 94, 156
+
+Cettinje, 48, 64, 78, 85, 91, 92, 96, 121, 123, 139, 205, 297, 336, 337
+
+Chabatz, 229
+
+Chainitza, 42, 49, 52, 53, 66
+
+
+Danilograd, 87
+
+Dechani, 147, 152, 157, 158, 190
+
+Dormitor Mountains, 64, 74, 75
+
+Dreina, 57
+
+Durazzo, 350, 356, 360
+
+
+Ebar River, 250, 267, 268
+
+
+Gorazhda, 57, 59
+
+Gotch, 236
+
+Gussigne, 122
+
+
+Ipek, 114, 122, 124, 132, 134, 143, 144, 145, 154, 175, 294, 330
+
+
+Jabliak, 64, 70, 74
+
+Jabooka, 129, 131, 330, 331
+
+Jakovitza, 114
+
+
+Kolashin, 132
+
+Kossovo, 176, 178
+
+Krag, Kragujevatz, 198, 209, 212, 213, 223, 224, 238, 243, 252, 262,
+                   280, 330
+
+Kralievo, 213, 241, 242, 262, 282
+
+Krusevatz, 7, 24, 25, 194, 196, 237, 241
+
+
+Lapovo, 259
+
+Lieva Rieka, 134, 327, 334
+
+Lim River, 36
+
+
+Macedonia, 154, 184, 185
+
+Metalka, 51
+
+Mitrovitza, 155, 175, 176, 255, 261, 262, 275, 280, 288, 291, 292, 298
+
+Morava, 1
+
+
+Negbina, 35
+
+Nickshitch, 66, 80, 83
+
+Nish, 10-14, 20, 21, 40, 190, 235, 236, 275, 279
+
+Novi Bazar, 68, 230, 239, 262, 275, 280, 284, 288, 292, 294
+
+Novi Varosh, 33, 35, 36
+
+
+Obrenovatz, 228
+
+
+Plavnitza, 107, 116, 341
+
+Plevlie, 38, 41, 43, 62, 72, 77, 80, 114, 165, 171, 294
+
+Plav, 122
+
+Pod, Podgoritza, 64, 85, 88, 89, 90, 101, 124, 125, 127, 189, 326, 328,
+                 335, 339
+
+Posheravatz, 229
+
+Prepolji, 36, 37, 54
+
+Prizren, 349
+
+
+Rashka, 257, 259, 265, 275, 279, 300, 308
+
+Rieka, 99, 124
+
+Rudnik, 172, 223
+
+
+Salonika, 15-17, 20, 44, 46, 190, 193
+
+San Giovanni di Medua, 346, 351, 355, 360
+
+Sanjak, 87, 96, 114, 154, 294
+
+Soutari, 76, 84, 92, 94, 97, 101, 105, 107, 108, 110, 112, 113, 114,
+         122, 147, 217, 275, 326, 344
+
+Shavnik, 76, 84
+
+Shar Dagh, 180
+
+Sofia, 64
+
+Studenitza, 249, 278
+
+
+Tara, 68
+
+Tarabosch, 103
+
+Trsternick, 25
+
+Tutigne, 295, 299, 303, 304
+
+
+Uskub, 14, 18, 180, 182, 183, 184, 186, 225, 238, 275, 288, 291
+
+Uzhitze, 1, 3, 27, 28, 38, 40, 48, 277
+
+
+Valievo, 295
+
+Vela, 236
+
+Velika, 137
+
+Virbazar, 117
+
+Voinik Mountains, 75
+
+Vranje, 235, 236
+
+Vrbitza, 319
+
+Vrnjatchka Banja, Vrntze, 2, 18, 26, 27, 190, 194, 196, 198, 227,
+                          245, 261
+
+
+Zaichar, 13, 236
+
+Zlatibor, 31, 33
+
+
+THE END
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Luck of Thirteen, by Jan Gordon
+Cora J. Gordon
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