AN ENGLISH WOMAN-SERGEANT IN SERBIA
THE AUTHOR IN KHAKI
Next day we had a whole blessed day’s rest, and the men lay about and rested, and everybody washed their shirts and generally polished themselves up to the best of their ability. Our camp was in a bare and very muddy field about two miles outside Elbasan. In the afternoon Lieut. Jovitch got leave and took me with him to Elbasan to see the sights and show me what an Albanian town is like. It was a filthy little town; the streets paved with big cobble stones and running rivers of mud. The inhabitants were as hostile as they dared to be, and used to refuse to sell us anything. They put the price of bread up to Frs. 16 a loaf, and everything else in proportion, and would not sell us any hay for our horses, although they had plenty. Although the men were not allowed into the town then for fear of trouble, they would never forget it, and promised themselves to get some of their own back whenever they came back that way again. Many of the inhabitants were wearing Austrian overcoats which they had got in exchange for a small piece of bread from the starving Austrian prisoners who passed through there. Some of our men had been given new boots, and, while refusing to sell us anything, the Albanians would try to tempt them by offering a small loaf in exchange for them, and naturally, under the circumstances, they sometimes succeeded.
There was absolutely nothing to see in the town, so we sat for a time in the only Kafana, or hotel, in the place—a dark, dirty little den, with some of the officers whom we met, and drank coffee, and later in the afternoon galloped back as hard as we could to camp through the drenching rain. We found our low-lying field afloat, and the soldiers had moved to a bit of slightly rising ground where it was not quite so bad. It was raining so hard and everything was so wet that on discovering a sort of loft or small room up a ladder fourteen officers and myself piled in there. Here three of us who had camp beds put them up, and the rest slept on the floor. Of course, as a rule camp beds were no use to us, as you cannot get a camp bed into a bivouac tent. We thought we were going to stay there all night, and would have plenty of time to sleep, and sat about and talked, and some of them played cards all night; so we got a nasty jar when at daylight the order came that we were all to move to another camp. We didn’t want any trouble with the natives, but the officers had the men well in hand, and they marched steadily through the town. I rode at the head of our company, while the company Commander dropped back alongside and kept his eye on the men; and we all went through without trouble, marching well. We camped in an olive grove beside the river, and most of us went to sleep. It still poured all that day and all night and all the next night and all the next day.
I rode into Elbasan again, and paid a visit to Commandant Militch and his staff, who had taken up quarters in the town. They had arrived that morning, and the rains had been so heavy since we passed that the river had risen and they had had to ford it up to their waists.
We turned out before dawn next morning, and it was horribly cold and damp; we had been sleeping on the wet ground, there being no hay for the horses to eat, and much less for us to sleep on. We had to cross a beautiful old bridge over the wide Schkumba River, and there was a good deal of delay and waiting about. The river had risen, and the bridge did not reach quite far enough, so the men had to cross a plank at the other end, and it took ages for the whole regiment to get across. Those who were on horseback forded the river, which was not very deep, though very wide, with a very rapid current. The fields at the other side were a swamp, and the men were up to their knees in mud and water.
My company was told off to take up a position by itself on a range of hills, and we went up there in the afternoon by a very bad steep track, through bushes with very big prickly thorns. The hills were covered with bracken, which we cut down to make beds of, and pitched our tents in a little hollow. We were all by ourselves up there, and had a very quiet four days, as we seemed at last to have shaken off the pursuing Bulgarians, and it seemed sometimes as if everyone had forgotten all about us. We were the only company up there, and were a very funny-looking camp, with the men sitting about resting and repairing their clothes, and washing hanging out on all the bushes; in fact, we said ourselves that we looked more like a travelling gipsies’ encampment than the smartest company in the regiment.
SERBIAN SOLDIERS. A COLD CAMP