The thing we missed most was not being able to have any fires to sit round. One day I came back on a lorry containing a load of wood intended for somewhere else, but I had got past any scruples about commandeering anything where my own company was concerned; so I persuaded the driver to drop a few big logs off on the road at the nearest point to our camp, and we had at least one small fire for some time afterwards, and anybody who liked could come and boil his billy-can and make his tea at that.
The Serbian Relief Fund was short-handed and very busy, and I obtained permission to leave the camp for a few weeks and take up my quarters in town to give them a hand. Several shiploads of stuff had just come in, and everything had to be landed on the quay on lighters and then removed from there at once, as the quay could not be blocked up, to one or other of their two store-houses, which were at opposite ends of the harbour. One of these store-houses had only just been acquired, and, as it was about 6 in. deep in coal dust, it had all to be scrubbed and cleaned out for the arrival of fresh bales, and that was my first job. I got a gang of Serbian soldiers, and we had a strenuous day’s work with the very inefficient tools at our disposal, but we managed by the evening to get everything ship-shape and the floors clean, though we all got rather damp and coal-dusty in the process.
The quay was a most interesting place, though I should have enjoyed the work more if it had not poured steadily all day and every day, as there was no cover anywhere. French, English, and Serbians were all working there together, each trying to be the first to seize upon labour and transport both by water and land for the particular job he was responsible for. There were a number of ships in the harbour waiting to be unloaded, and everyone was working as hard as he could, and things were considerably complicated by the fact that hardly one of them could speak the other’s language. It was quite a usual thing to find an Englishman, who could not speak French, trying to explain to a French official that he wanted a fatigue party of Serbian soldiers to unload a certain lighter, and neither of them being able to explain to the said fatigue party, when they had got them, what it was they wanted them to do.
There was always a company of Serbian soldiers for work on the quay, and a fresh relay of men came on at 6 a.m., at midday, and at 6 p.m., and you had to be there sharp on time if you wanted your men, or else you would find they had all been snapped up by someone else. As I could speak French and enough Serbian to get along very well, most of my work was on the quay, and I was often called in to act as interpreter. As I did not want to get down there at 6 a.m., however, I got a friendly English corporal, who had to be on duty then, to get twice as many men as he wanted himself, and then give me half of them when I came down. I was rather afraid of the English Tommies at first, and thought they would be sure to laugh at a woman corporal, but, on the contrary, there was nothing they would not do to help me, and the French soldiers were just the same.
I was superintending the unloading of some goods from a lighter one day, which all had to be transferred to another lighter, and taken across to the warehouse that evening. We were all very tired and wet, and the men were slacking off, and it didn’t seem, at the rate we were going on, as if we should get through before 9 or 10 o’clock that night. The Serbian sergeant tried to buck them up, but the men were fed up and were just doing about as little as they possibly could. It is worse than useless to bully a Serbian soldier if he doesn’t want to do anything; so, as I wanted to get back to the hotel to dinner, I went on quite another tack. I told them I had been working for them all day since early in the morning, and was tired and hungry, and that if they were going to spend another three hours over the job I should get no dinner. The effect was magical. They all at once got terribly worried on my account, began to work like steam, and in an hour we had the whole thing done, and they were enquiring in a brotherly manner if it was all right, and if I would be in time for dinner now.
All these poor fellows working down on the quay had had their uniforms taken away from them and burnt, and had been provided with a blue corduroy suit for working in. Their old ones, though dirty, were warm, and their new ones were very thin, and in most cases they had hardly any underclothes; so whenever I had a gang of men working under me down at the warehouse I used to fit them out with warm sweaters, etc., of which we had plenty, out of one of the broken bales. I used to make them work hard for a couple of hours, and then sit down for five minutes and have a cigarette, and then go on again for another hard spell. The Serbian sergeants used to be very much amused at my methods, but I always found they answered very well. They were always keen to be on my gang, and everyone said I got more work out of them than anyone else could.
OFFICERS SITTING OUTSIDE MY TENT
