On this particular occasion we made an unusually sudden start, and he explained to me afterwards, as we were riding along, that the Bulgarians had made another of their encircling movements, and got round our position, and very nearly cut the road in front of us, and there was considerable probability at one moment that we might have to take to the mountains on foot, to escape being taken prisoners. However, he was able to send some troops round, and they succeeded in getting down in time to cut them off. Being taken prisoner by the wild Bulgarians would have been no joke.
We halted in the afternoon in a field where a company was resting, some of the Third Call. There are three calls, First, Second and Third—the young men, middle-aged and the old fellows, who as a general rule are only used for light work, guarding bridges, railways, etc., but now had to march and do the same as the young men, and it came very hard on them.
The Serbians live hard and seem to age much quicker than our men do, as they call a man of forty or forty-five an old man, and they look it, too. The peasants usually marry very young, about twenty; and as we sat and chatted round the fires several of this Third Call told me their ages and how many sons they had serving in the Army. We camped that night in a house in the village, the usual room up a flight of wooden steps. These houses never seem to have any ground floor. I suppose in these disturbed parts the inhabitants find it safer to live at the top of a ladder.
The next day the snow had all cleared away, and, strange to say, it was like a lovely spring morning. While I was drinking a cup of coffee out on the verandah a young soldier came up and wanted to see the Commandant. He looked fearfully thin and ill, and told me that he and ten others had had nothing to eat for eleven days. I was horror-struck, and asked the Staff Captain if such a thing could be possible, but what he literally meant was that they had been stationed somewhere where they had received no regular rations, and had had to live by their wits or on what the people in the village would give them. Be that as it may, there was no mistaking the fact that he looked very hungry, and I gave him a large piece of bread and cheese which I had in reserve and some cigarettes. He put the piece of bread and cheese in his pocket, and when I asked him why he did not eat it then and there said he was going to take it back and share it with the others! To see real unselfishness one must live through bad times like these with men, when everyone shares whatever he has.
We rode on into a filthy, muddy little village, where we spent the afternoon. I went for a walk up the hill, through a company of soldiers who were resting on the grass, belonging to some other regiment whom I did not know, and coming back I was stopped and closely questioned by an officer. He did not know who I was, and was evidently considerably puzzled. He wanted to know where I had been and why, and seemed to think that I might have been paying a visit to the Bulgarians, who were close on our heels as usual. He looked rather incredulous when I said that I had only been for a walk, and I thought he was going to arrest me on the spot pending further investigations, until I pointed to the brass letter “2” on my shoulders, and said I was with the Second Regiment, and that the Commandant was down in the village. Then he let me pass. The Commandant had taken the regimental numbers off his own epaulettes when I first joined and fastened them on the shoulders of his new recruit, and I was very proud of them. The Commandant was very much amused when I told him about it, and told me not to go and get shot in mistake for a spy.
A COLD HALTING PLACE
THE BLOCK-HOUSE WHERE WE ALL SLEPT