The whole regiment moved their tents up on to the hill and got ship-shape, which, of course, we had not attempted to do in the dark last night. All the men hurried up to the top of the hill to have their first look at the sea, most of them never having seen it before, and they seemed never tired of lying gazing at it. The sea looked quite close, but in reality there was a river and a wide swamp between us and it, as I found to my cost one day when I tried to go down there to bathe. It was lovely weather, and that afternoon the band played for the first time, and we all sat about, or paid visits to each other’s tents, and congratulated ourselves that we seemed to be nearing the end of our troubles, though as a matter of fact many poor fellows who had struggled on bravely through Albania succumbed in Durazzo, and thousands more later on in Corfu from the effects of starvation and exposure.
We were about 10 miles from the town of Durazzo, though it did not look anything like so far, and we could see it plainly at the end of the long line of yellow sands jutting out into the sea. There were several wrecks round there, one of them a Greek steamer, which had hit a floating mine. There were a great many of these floating mines about, and the Austrian submarines were also very active, adding immensely to the difficulty of getting food and supplies, which all had to be brought by sea to the troops.
A couple of days after I rode into Durazzo with three of the officers to see the sights of the town. The first sight I did see was a real live English sergeant-major walking down the street. I could hardly believe my eyes, it seemed so long since I had seen an Englishman, and I did not know there were any there. I almost fell on his neck in my excitement, and he seemed equally astonished and pleased to see a fellow countrywoman. He took me up at once to the headquarters of the British Adriatic Mission, and fed me on tea and cakes, while we were waiting for Colonel —— to come in. The same man was also afterwards, strange to say, the first man I met in Salonica, as he was acting as Captain of the tug which came to take us off the French steamer on which we had come from Corfu. Afterwards I had lunch with Colonel —— and his staff. It was the first time for so long that I had sat on a chair and eaten my meals off a table with a table-cloth that I had almost forgotten how to do it. I went back late in the afternoon laden with sundry luxuries they had given me in the way of butter, jam, and a tinned plum pudding, and also two loaves of bread which I had bought in the town, as in those days when we got near a shop we always bought a loaf of bread, in the same way that people at home would buy cake.
I rode back with an artillery officer, who invited me to lunch next day, the other side of Kavaia, and I promised I would come if I could borrow a better horse than the one I was then riding. The road from our camp to Durazzo was in a shocking condition, and it was very hard to ride along it after dark; there were so many dead horses strewn all along it that it was a wonder they did not breed a pestilence.
On my way to my luncheon party next day I met my old friend whose “Slava day” we had celebrated on the top of Mount Kalabac, and stopped there for supper coming back. We had supper by the camp fire with an orchestra of two Tziganes, who sang and played the Serbian airs on their violins. These Tziganes are all very musical and would sooner part with anything than their violin. Some of them play very well, and they can do a very difficult thing—sing a song and play their own accompaniment with chords on the violin at the same time.
The next day, the men having by now had a little time to get rested, there was a big parade and inspection, though we were a somewhat ragged-looking regiment for a full-dress parade.
On the Serbian Christmas Eve there was a great ceremony, which is always kept up. Of course, we only kept it on a small scale, but I was told that in Belgrade in peace time it was a very splendid affair indeed. This was cutting the Christmas oak. All the officers rode out to a wood, where the band played, and there was a sort of service conducted by the priest, and then we came back carrying a small oak tree, and there were refreshments and much drinking of healths.
We kept up Christmas festivities for three days, and the men had extra rations, and all had roast pig, which even the very poorest family in Serbia always has on Christmas Day. In the evening I was invited to dinner with the Colonel of the regiment and his staff; we drank the healths of England and Serbia together, and kept it up till very late. They put a gold coin in their pudding like we put things in our English plum puddings, and I got the slice containing it. They told me it was very lucky, and I always wear it now. On Christmas Eve they roast nuts like we do on Twelfth Night. It is the same date as our Twelfth Night, and I was surprised to find that they had many of these old customs which are now found more in Ireland than in England. Although they did their best to make a bluff at having a happy Christmas it was a very sad and homesick one for them really, not knowing in the least where their families were spending theirs, or if they would ever meet again.
We had fixed ourselves up pretty comfortably by now. By digging out a place about 2 ft. deep, building up the earth into a wall all round and pitching the tent on to the top of that you can turn a small bivouac tent into quite a large and commodious abode, which will contain a camp bed if you have one and a fireplace with an earth chimney for the smoke, and when you have a fire going and four or five of you are sitting in there no one need complain of the cold, even on the coldest evening; and the evenings were still very cold indeed, although the days were hot.
I used to ride into Durazzo fairly often to see my English friends there, who were more than kind and hospitable to me, and used to give me many little luxuries to take back with which to eke out our slender rations, as, no longer having the hard exercise every day to put an edge on our appetites, we seemed rather to have turned against beans. Though a corporal, I always messed with the officers.