We heard no more firing till late in the afternoon, when all at once it broke out again quite close, and with big guns as well this time. We wondered how on earth they had been able to get them across the river, but the explanation was forthcoming when we heard that the bridge, although it had ten mines in it, had failed to blow up—the mines would not explode; no one knew why. I floundered through the snow up a little hill with some of the others to see if we could see anything, but we could not see much through the winter twilight except the flashes from the guns momentarily lighting up the snow banks, and hear the noise of the shells as they whistled overhead.
This had been going on for a couple of hours now, and the Greek doctor was getting into a regular funk because they had had no orders to move, though it was all right as we had no wounded in the tent to be carried away, and no one else was worrying about it; but he finally sent a messenger up to the Commandant, as he seemed to think the ambulance had been forgotten. A couple of days afterwards the men told me with much scorn that that afternoon had been too much for him, and that he did a retreat on his own and never came back to the ambulance again. I was just thinking of looking round for something to eat, as I had had neither breakfast nor lunch, and had been much too busy to think about it, when the order arrived for the ambulance to pack up and move, and the tents came down like lightning. The soldiers were all retreating across the snow, and I never saw such a depressing sight. The grey November twilight, the endless white expanse of snow, lit up every moment by the flashes of the guns, and the long column of men trailing away into the dusk wailing a sort of dismal dirge—I don’t know what it was they were singing—something between a song and a sob, it sounded like the cry of a Banshee. I have never heard it before or since, but it was a most heartbreaking sound.
My saïs (groom) brought Diana round to me. I asked him if he had been told to do so, and he said “No,” but that I “had better go now.” He shook his head dubiously, murmuring, “Safer to go now,” when I told him I was coming later on with the Commandant and his staff.
War always seems to turn out exactly the opposite to what you imagine is going to happen. Such a great proportion of it consists of “an everlastin’ waiting on an everlastin’ road,” as someone has already written. Bairnsfather hits it off exactly in his picture of the young officer with his new sword: how he pictures himself using it, charging at the head of his company, and how he really does use it, toasting bread over the camp fire! I had some wild visions in my head—as I knew the Commandant would wait until the last moment—of a tremendous gallop over the snow, hotly pursued by Bulgarian cavalry. I imagine I must once have seen something like it on a cinematograph. What, however, really did happen was that, having received permission to stop, I sat for four hours in company with seven or eight officers who were waiting for orders, on a hard bench in a freezing cold shed, which in its palmier days might have been a cowhouse. I was ravenously hungry, and sucked a few Horlick’s milk tablets I found in my pocket, but they did not seem so satisfying as the advertisements would lead one to suppose. However, presently the jolly little captain, whose tent I described on Kalabac, came in, followed by his soldier servant bearing a hot roast chicken wrapped up in a piece of paper! Where in the world he got it I can’t think. We had no knives or forks, but we sat side by side, and each took hold of a leg and pulled till something gave. It tasted delicious! He shared it round with everybody, and I don’t think had much left for himself. Although he came straight from the trenches, where he had been fighting incessantly and had not slept for three nights himself, he was full of spirits and livened us all up, and we little thought that it was the last time we were to see him. I was terribly sorry to hear a few days later of the tragic death of my gay little friend.
The firing had ceased, as it usually does at night, and at last, about nine o’clock, the Commandant appeared and the horses were brought out, and instead of the wild cinema gallop I had pictured we had one of the slowest, coldest rides you can imagine. There was a piercing blizzard blowing across the snowy waste, blinding our eyes and filling our ears with snow; our hands were numbed, and our feet so cold and wet we could hardly feel the stirrups. We proceeded in dead silence, no one feeling disposed to talk, and slowly threaded our way through crowds of soldiers tramping along, with bent heads, as silently as phantoms, the sound of their feet muffled by the snow. I pitied the poor fellows from the bottom of my heart—they were so much colder and wearier even than I was myself, and I wondered where the “glory” of war came in. It was exactly like a nightmare, from which one might presently wake up. My dreams of home fires and hot muffins were brought to an abrupt termination by the Commandant suddenly breaking into a trot, when I found my knees were “set fast” with the cold, and I had a very painful five minutes till they loosened up.
After a long time we turned off the road across some snowy fields. I followed close behind the Commandant, who always made a bee line straight ahead through everything; and after our horses had slipped and scrambled through a hedge, a couple of deep ditches and a stream we eventually got to the village of Mogilee, I think it was called. The soldiers bivouacked in some farm out-houses, and we were received by some officers in a big loft. They had a huge stove going and supper ready for us. We finished up the long day quite cheerily, even having a bottle of champagne that a comitadje brought as a present to the Commandant. We all slept that night in the loft on the floor, I being given the place of honour on a wide bench near the stove, while the other six or seven selected whichever particular board on the floor took their fancy most, and spread their blankets on it. Turning in was a simple matter, as you only have to take off your boots; and, though the atmosphere got a bit thick, we all slept like tops.
THE TENT I SLEPT IN FOR TWO MONTHS
