VII—"I OVERTOOK KING PETER"
Soon after midday I overtook King Peter and his staff. Despite his seventy-six years, he marched on foot with vigor younger men might have envied.
During all the four hours I marched with the royal staff he never once mounted his horse, which a soldier was leading behind him. When we stopped for the night at Bredeti King Peter had a ten hours' march to his credit.
It was at this point I came across the first of Essad Pacha's gendarmes. They had been sent out by that heavy-handed ruler to protect the King and his staff. They were a picturesque lot, many of them barefooted, but there was no doubt about the first class quality of their rifles and revolvers. They wore the Serbian gendarme's uniform—that is, they wore any uniform—of which the Nish government had some months before made them a present of several thousand.
The attitude of the population could not be described as friendly to the Serbians, but at the same time there were no outward signs of hostility. They rarely saluted and showed no desire whatever to offer hospitality. In the case of the royal household and headquarters staff Essad Pacha had requisitioned accommodations, but any one not belonging to one of these units had every chance of faring badly. All they had to depend on were wayside caravanserai.
These huge, barnlike structures consist of nothing but four walls and a roof, the latter generally doubtfully water-tight. Here men and horses were all quartered pell-mell. Everybody annexes as much space as he can get and lights a fire for warmth and cooking. As they have no chimneys, the smoke is left to find its way out through the open doors or the thatched roof. The state of the atmosphere may be imagined.
As my colleague, Paul Dubochet, of the "Petit Parisien," and I had pushed on ahead of the headquarters staff, we had naturally lost the advantage of being billeted by Essad's gendarmes. When we finished the day's march we took our share of floor space, but the atmosphere in an hour generally proved too much for us.
We were therefore compelled to surrender, and, despite the freezing cold and the driving snow, we determined to put up a small tent I received at the time of the destruction of the military stores at Kraguyevatz Arsenal. It was only three feet high and open at the end; hence it was only an indifferent shelter against the blizzard. However, I ordered my man to build an immense fire near the open end, and we went to sleep.
Three hours later we awoke, to find the wretched tent ablaze. We struggled out with difficulty and managed to save most of our belongings, but the tent and the sleeping rugs were gone. There was nothing to do but remain at our camp fire until dawn.