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.
