Captain —— and I walked back to the ambulance together and found that some of the orderlies had got a pig from somewhere and were roasting it with a long pole through it over the camp fire: it smelt jolly good, and as we were very hungry, having had nothing to eat but a piece of bread and cheese, we accepted their invitation to have supper with them with alacrity. As soon as it was cooked we all sat round the big fire in a semicircle, and ate roast pig with our fingers, there being no plates or cutlery available, and Captain —— said he had never tasted anything so good in his life, and wished he could come and join our ambulance altogether.
At some of the other fires dotted about they were roasting some unwary geese which had been foolish enough to stray round our camp. As the inhabitants of the houses had fled leaving them behind we certainly could not call it looting. Looting was very firmly checked; the Serbian is far from being the undisciplined soldier in that respect that some people suppose.
CHAPTER III
A RIDE TO KALABAC AND A BATTLE IN THE
SNOW
It snowed hard in the night and most of the next day and was bitterly cold, blowing a gale, but my wagon was a good bit snugger than the tent. The Colonel and his staff had quarters in a loft over a little café just along the road, and after lunch the Commander of the division, who came with two English officers, took the Kid and me with them in their cars some miles back along the road towards Prilip, where we all walked about and inspected the new positions part of the regiment was to take up. The Kid went back to Bitol in the car with them that evening to fetch some clothes, and I never saw her again, though I believe she did want to come back to us later on.
I used to sit over the camp fires in the evenings with the soldiers, and we used to exchange cigarettes and discuss the war by the hour. I was picking up a few more words of Serbian every day, and they used to take endless trouble to make me understand, though our conversations were very largely made up of signs, but I understood what they meant if I couldn’t always understand what they said. It was heartbreaking the way they used to ask me every evening, “Did I think the English were coming to help them?” and “Would they send cannon?” The Bulgarians had big guns, and we had nothing but some little old cannon about ten years old, which were really only what the comitadjes used to use. If we had had a few big guns we could have held the Baboona Pass practically for any length of time, for it was an almost impregnable position. I used to cheer them up as best I could, and said I was sure that some guns would come, and that even if they did not they must not think that the English had deserted them, as I supposed they had big plans in their head that we knew nothing about, and that though we might have to retreat now everything would come right in the end. It was touching the faith they had in the English, whom they all described as going “slowly but surely.” They were very much excited when they saw the two English officers, as they were sure they had come to say some English troops were coming.
One day, however, one thousand new English rifles did come, and there was great rejoicing thereat.
With the courtesy which always distinguishes the Serbian peasant, they used always to stand up and make room for me, and bring a box for me to sit on in the most comfortable place by the fire, out of the smoke, and I used to spend hours like this with them. Under happier circumstances they would all have been singing their national songs and dancing, but, though there were many fine singers among them, nothing would induce them to sing: they were too broken-hearted at being driven back. One man did start a song one night to please me, but he broke down in the middle and said he knew I would understand why he could not sing.
There was deep snow on the ground, and it was bitterly cold, and the men used to anxiously ask me if I managed to keep warm at night, as they huddled up together, four in one tiny tent, for warmth, and seemed to rather fear that they might find me frozen to death some morning in my wagon, but I was really quite warm enough.
