"You might get it perhaps at the hospital."
Another officer, in a long black staff coat, laughed. He pulled a hard biscuit out of each pocket, looked at them fondly and pushed them back again.
"I've got mine anyway," he said. "Bread is ten shillings a loaf if you can buy it."
Annoyed by the colonel's manner Jo began to mount her high horse and became blunt. He was instantly suave.
He seemed dismayed at our idea (to which we still held) of going to Novi Bazar before Mitrovitza to see if really no route existed there.
"Impossible," said he; "bridges are broken between Rashka and Novi Bazar, and there is no route through the mountains from there."
We remembered that the country had been under Turkish rule there years before, and guessed that probably the Serbs had not yet been able to exploit new and lonely routes. At every side in the streets were faces we knew, the head medical this and the chief military that.
Our personal carts went off in charge of the corporal, who was looking for bread from the Government, for of course all bread shops were shut permanently.
The Scottish sisters had not found a refuge, and messengers kept on coming back saying this place was full and that place had no room.
Colonel G—— became even less likable. It seemed as though there were no organisation of any kind in the town. At last, when dark had well fallen, a man said a room had been cleared for them in the hospital. The motor cars moved slowly off and we told the rest of our carts to follow, as Colonel G——said we might get bread at the same place. We stumbled after them through pitch black streets, so uneven that one did not know if one were in the ditch or on the road itself; one lost all sense of direction and only tried not to lose sight of the flickering lights of the carts. Jo at last climbed into one, and the carts rumbled over a wooden bridge and began to go up a steep hill. We came suddenly to a rambling wooden house and our carts dived into a deep ditch. Jo leapt off just in time to save hers from turning right over. Crowds of wounded Serbians were standing at the foot of a rickety outside staircase. Above was a dressing-station, and a dark smelly room with no beds, which was to be the sisters' home. We could get no bread and so went out once more into the dark. We did not know where our carts had gone, but some one said if we went in "that" direction we should find them. On we went uphill, losing our way in a maize field. In front of us were hundreds of camp fires. At the first we asked if they had seen the English. They shrugged their shoulders in negative. We asked at the next; same result. We had the awful thought that we should have to search every camp fire before we found our people, but luckily almost fell over Mawson, who had been fetching water. We were going in quite the wrong direction and but for this lucky meeting might have wandered for hours.