Next morning, Tuesday, December 21st, no early trek! Breakfast at the grotesquely late hour of eight o'clock; almost the first time that I had been up later than 4.30 since we left London. I was up in time to write a line to the Consul, for him to receive with his seven o'clock cup of tea, telling him of the increase of his family during the night. We didn't know that though the British Consul lived here, the owner of the house was Major Paget, an old inhabitant of Scutari. The Major came to see us at eight o'clock, and most hospitably said we might stay as long as we were in Scutari, and he told his man, Parkes, to make tea for us and to do all that he could to make us comfortable. Parkes did not need to be told twice. He was an Englishman and glad to see other English people, and he was very kind to us.
At nine o'clock, Major Paget took me to see the British Consul, Mr. F. W. Monaghan, who was also very kind. And all day long, the scene at the door of our little ground-floor-back was like a scene in the last act of a play, in which every sort of unlikely person unexpectedly turns up. We had just indexed Major Paget, and Mr. Monaghan, when the kindly countenance of Sir Charles Des Graz, British Minister, whom I had met at Nish, appeared in the doorway. He asked me to have tea with him, in the afternoon, upstairs; he also was living in the house! After that, we were not surprised when Colonel Phillips, British Military Attaché, also arrived. He had often dined with us at Kragujevatz, and he and I had never agreed upon the subject of Balkan politics.
CHAPTER XLIII
But my main business was to report myself to Colonel Guentchitch, the head of the Army Medical Service, and at eleven o'clock I went to Headquarters. There, to my great pleasure, I found, not only Colonel Guentchitch, and our P.M.O. (Major Popovitch), and Colonel Michaelovitch, and various other old friends, whom it was a joy to see again, but also our beloved Divisional Commandant, Colonel Terzitch. He had, this morning, been promoted to be Minister of War, and I was proud to be amongst the first to congratulate him on an appointment which gave everybody great satisfaction. I am not a military expert, but I cannot help believing that the retreat of our Division, as well as that of the whole Army, had been, from beginning to end, marvellously handled. To retreat, during nearly three months, fighting rearguard actions all the time, under circumstances which could scarcely have been more difficult, and to have saved the Army and its morale, was a great performance.
The new War Minister was, as he always had been, very kind to me, and he said things about the work which we had done which made me very happy. He, and our P.M.O. and Colonel Guentchitch all seemed especially pleased with us, because ours was, they said, the only column which had come in intact, without deserters, after a trek which, from first to last, had totalled a distance of about eight hundred miles. They did not, I was humbly thankful to find, regret the experiment of having given to a woman, the command of a Field Hospital Column with the active Army. I felt happy to think that we had, in an infinitesimal way, been able to give proof of British sympathy with the brave Serbian people, in the cause of freedom and idealism; and I was also glad to think that we had perhaps shown that women need not be excluded from taking a recognised share in national defence, on account of supposed inability to suffer hardships incidental to campaigns.
But credit for any success which may have been achieved, is, of course, mostly due to the loyalty and excellence of the staff who worked under my command. The doctors and the nurses never spared themselves, night or day, during times of stress of work, and adapted themselves admirably to unusual and difficult conditions. If the army had been advancing instead of retreating, they—the doctors and nurses—would have had more patients, but their work was of great value, when, and where, it was much needed. The cook was a marvel of good temper and adaptability. There was no need of a Daylight Saving Bill with her. It was never too late, or too early, for her to prepare food, when there was any to prepare, or to go without it cheerfully, when there was none.
The chauffeurs (five men and one woman) performed miracles with the cars, and showed pluck and endurance such as is not often exacted from ambulance drivers. To have brought those Ford cars over those unique roads, from Barchinatz, in the north of Serbia, to Petch, near the Montenegrin frontier, with only one accident to one car, was a wonderful feat, and their work of evacuating wounded from our own, and from other field hospitals, was of inestimable value.
The interpreter, George, did his best, but for practical purposes he knew no language but his own, and he could only read that in Croat characters.