The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere

by M. A. Stobart

This was the first walk that I had taken since my illness. The sun was scorching—at three in the afternoon—and the walk, at snail's pace, on the rough cobbled streets, seemed interminable. But the streets were lined with townsfolk, and I felt it was necessary to look stoical. I thought how it might easily have been myself, instead of poor Ferriss, inside that ugly nailed-down box. But I would have changed places if I could. Then I thought of Ferriss's mother, and of her fiancé; perhaps they were writing to her at this moment, planning all kinds of future happiness; and there she was, lying, just in front of me, in a Serbian coffin, indifferent to it all.

Now that she was dead, she was saluted by passing officers and soldiers. I wondered if she wasn't a little pleased at the posthumous honour, and whether it would always be necessary to reserve honours for women till after they are dead.

I looked at Dr. Dearmer, walking steadily, his candle still alight, ahead of me, and the thought flashed across my mind—how awful if—but she, Mrs. Dearmer, was better now. It was impossible that she should die.

When we arrived at the cathedral, half-a-dozen great brutal bells, hanging by themselves, in a frame in the churchyard, began to flop clumsily, and, as we entered the cathedral gates, they suddenly, all together, higgledy-piggledy, on different notes, broke into a deafening jangle, proclaiming in fiendish discord, "Here's the end of all things; you can't understand life; you can't understand death; there is no time, or rhyme, or reason anywhere; it's just a jumble, and the end is death."

The brass band, with its attempt at tune, persisted bravely for a minute or two, and the disharmony was complete; it reminded me of the bells during that "last night" at Tongres.

Permission to hold an English service in the Serbian Church, had been specially obtained from the Archbishop at Belgrade. Never before in the history of the Church, has the Anglican ritual been performed in the Church of the Greek orthodox faith. I hoped this was significant of a future when political alliances would mean unity, not only in worldly, but in spiritual policy. It testified, however, to a considerable breadth of view on the part of the Serbian Archbishop, and of the local chief priest at Kragujevatz.

At the end of the service the representative of the Crown Prince came up to me and expressed—in French—in graceful phrases the gracious sympathy of his Royal Master. And the procession formed once more, and started for the cemetery. Here a temporary resting-place had been provided; the town had the generous intention of erecting, when the war was ended, a permanent memorial to the British nurses, and doctors who had given their lives for Serbia; and this intention will, I am sure, one day be fulfilled. The final prayers were spoken; all was over; and we returned to camp.

We found Mrs. Dearmer not so well; temperature 105°. But one of the nurses, thinking to cheer me, told me that one of the patients—a consumptive tubercular soldier—had died. This should be a great relief, she said, as now we had had our three deaths (including the baby) and according to superstition we needn't have any more. Besides, Mrs. Dearmer was better again. "Ah, yes; she's all right now," said one of her nurses to me; "she has sneezed three times, and no invalid ever sneezes unless getting better." I mentioned this to Dr. Dearmer, and he reminded me that the child whom Elisha cured had also sneezed.

But on July 9th, after various ups and downs, Mrs. Dearmer grew seriously worse. Oxygen and other available expedients were tried without success. Our doctors, also Major Protitch, myself, and Dr. Inglis (chief of the Scottish Women's Hospital Unit in Kragujevatz), who was throughout most kind and helpful, sat up all that night, outside the double-lined ridge tent; I, tramping backwards and forwards, glad to be occupied, arranging for the continuous supply of oxygen bags from the arsenal, which was kindly supplying us. While there's life, there's hope; and all the next day Mrs. Dearmer was still with us. But when night came, we knew it must be her last. Another long vigil—now without hope. We sat outside her tent, speaking only rarely, and in whispers, when something needed to be done, or fetched. At one time the sky threatened a thunderstorm, but this passed. All Nature was hushed, waiting—with us. She had loved the wind, and several times, as she lay ill, she had told me what a joy it was to her to feel the air blowing through the tent; she couldn't have borne, she said, to have been ill within closed walls. But to-night there was no wind; it, too, was waiting, hushed.