A good fire was blazing in front of the tents. An Austrian prisoner cut wood for us in exchange for a meal. He came from a large encampment whose fires were blazing near by. Dr. Holmes and a sister emerged through the smoke; they had at last got a cart and horse. With them was an Austrian subject flying for his life. He had lived for years in Serbia, his sympathies and ancestry were Serbian, but if the Austrians got him he would be hanged. We wondered if it was the husband of the frantic woman at Kralievo, but did not ask.
One went early to bed these nights. The men spread out into two card-houses while Jo was hospitably given a real camp-bedstead in a corner of the Stobarts' kitchen, on the floor of which slept their men and also West, whose arm was getting worse.
CHAPTER XIX
NOVI BAZAR
We awoke to find where we were. The little encampment which we had seen to our left on entering the town, was now far on our right. The flat plain—where was the large tent with the red cross painted over it—had been our bed, the tent behind us; to our right was the brown hill topped by the old Turkish blockhouse; and in front a cut maize field with its solid red stubble sloped directly to the river, beyond which lay the village massed on the opposite slope up to a white church. Immediately below us on the river edge were the roofs of the "Stobarts'" refuge and of the Scottish women's hospital. Poplar trees in all the panoply of autumn sprang up from the valley with their tops full of the blackest crows, who cawed discordantly at the dawn. Our fire had gone out, but the Austrian had left enough wood, another was quickly started; but we found that Angelo in making his curries had melted all the solder from the empty biscuit tins and not one would hold water. So there was a hurried transference of biscuits from a whole one.
From where we sat sipping our cocoa, we could see the hurried coming and going of motors in the main square, and groups of bullock waggons and soldiers about the fence of the church. A great street which split the village in two from top to bottom—the old Turkish frontier—was almost empty. The corporal proposed to visit the military commandant in search of hay and bread. So Jan dragged on his wet boots and set off with him down the hill, collecting Jo from the "Stobarts" on the way.
We crossed the rickety wooden bridge, passed between the alfresco encampments—like travelling tinkers—of waggoners and soldiers which lined the roads, up the great frontier street and so into the square. All that now was SERBIA was concentrated in this little village. Private houses had suddenly become ministries; cafés, headquarters; and shops, departmental offices. The square was the central automobile station, and cars under repair or adjustment were in every corner. Beneath the church paling a camp of waggoners had a large bonfire and were cooking a whole sheep on a spit. Austrian prisoners with white, drawn faces were wandering about, staring with half unseeing eyes; a Serbian soldier was chewing a hard biscuit, and a prisoner crept up to him begging for a corner of the bread; the soldier broke off a piece and gave it to him.