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 risshkew."
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.
