The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere

by M. A. Stobart

There was no time for hesitation, and I accepted the more difficult service, glad of the opportunity of giving practical proof of British sympathy with the brave Serbian Army.

Colonel Guentchitch immediately telephoned to Colonel Pops Dragitch, who at once came to the Army Medical Office and gave the details as to the numbers of oxen and wagons, etc., available. He also arranged for me to meet him next morning at the 6th Reserve Hospital, with our doctors, to see the equipment. I was told to hold myself in readiness to leave in two days' time, if necessary. Thus, within a few minutes, all was settled.

Serbian officers act upon the principle "Trust all in all, or not at all." From that first moment in the Army Medical Office, to the last sad moment of surrendering the command at Scutari, complete confidence was shown, and had I been a male fellow-officer, I could not have been treated with greater trustfulness.

I continued that morning in the car to Lapovo, and with Dr. Cockburn discussed arrangements for the future hospital in the building, which was now ready for beds; returned to camp by 4 p.m.; settled which tents and what stores should be taken; at 5 o'clock discussed further arrangements with Colonels Guentchitch and Pops Dragitch and Major Protitch, who all came up to the camp; and finally tackled the most difficult job of the day, when, after supper, with the doctors, the selection of the staff for the flying field hospital, had to be made. Heart-burnings and disappointments were inevitable, for almost everybody from the camp and from the dispensaries wanted to be chosen, and almost everybody thought that they had special claims. Special physical fitness for the work at the front, as well as the requirements of the hospital left behind, had to be taken into consideration. The doctors selected were Drs. Payne and Coxon; nurses—Cockerill, Collins, Giles, Newhall and Kennedy (six more nurses were on the way from England to replace them); chauffeurs—Little, Marshall, Colson, Holmstrom, Jordan, and Miss Sharman; cook—Mrs. Dawn; orderlies—Miss Benjamin and Miss Chapple; interpreters—Vooitch and George; and the secretary was John Greenhalgh.

At 9 the next morning (Saturday, September 25th) Dr. May and Dr. Payne went with me to meet Colonel Dragitch, to see the equipment at the 6th Reserve Hospital, and they were much pleased with the drugs and surgical instruments. A full inventory was to be given us later.

On September 27th, the flying hospital unit was due at the Reserve Hospital for full-dress inspection by Colonel Pops Dragitch and Colonel Guentchitch. Oxen and horse wagons were packed with tents and stores, and the motor ambulances with personal kit, and by 9 a.m. we were on the parade ground. All the other wagons and oxen and horses were already there. We drew up in line, and the Colonels seemed pleased with the arrangements. Colonel Dragitch then called the sixty soldiers who were to serve with us, and when they were drawn up in line he introduced them to their Commandant, and told them that they must yield obedience and be amenable to discipline. And, through the Colonel, I made a little reply speech to the men, and our unit returned to camp.

At 5 that evening Major Popovitch, Principal Medical Officer of the Schumadia Division, came to see me, and to ask me to go with him next day to see the Colonel who was in command of the division, which was now at Aranjelovatz. Accordingly, next morning early, I called for Major Popovitch in the car, and together we drove to the Colonel's headquarters in the picturesque little town of Aranjelovatz, about sixty kilometres distant. On the way we met large convoys of cavalry, artillery with their fodder, etc., all on their way to the Bulgarian front; this was, I now learnt, to be our destination. Up to that moment, however, it was not known officially whether the Bulgarians were mobilising as a measure of precaution, or which side they might eventually join. If they joined the Serbians, our unit might perhaps go on to Constantinople; if they were neutral, we might be sent through Rumania against Austria. The third possibility, that they might fight Serbia, was unfortunately the most likely, and in that case our destination would be in the direction of Sofia.

Colonel Terzitch had visited the Stobart Hospital; I was therefore not a stranger to him; but though my experience of Serbian officers had invariably been of the happiest, Colonel Terzitch had a great military reputation, and I rather feared that at such a critical moment he might be preoccupied, stern, and unsympathetic towards a woman. But I found him one of the most delightfully human men I have ever met in any country. He received me as an old friend, and at once said how happy he was to know that he was to have our unit with him. There was here no grudging acceptance of service, but genuine appreciation of our desire to show practical sympathy. He at once telephoned to ascertain whether the unit could be conveyed by train to the destination now revealed—Pirot, near the Bulgarian frontier—or whether we must proceed by road. It was arranged that a train should be put at our disposal, and that we should leave for the front, and be ready at two hours' notice at any moment that we received word from Colonel Guentchitch. The Commandant invited me to lunch with him and with all the other officers of the staff, and he suggested that meanwhile I might like to see the fountain of mineral water known as Kisala, and the Hydropathic Hotel, now a hospital, which were in the town. Major Popovitch came with me, and he also showed me his house, in which he and his family had lived during the summer. He, with his wife and children, had left it three days ago for Kragujevatz. I had seen the children that morning when they came to the gate of his home, to see him start in the car with me. From the moment, a few days later, when he left for Pirot, he has never seen them again, and can obtain no news of them. He only knows that his two houses and all his property have been destroyed, and that his wife and children are in the hands of an unscrupulous enemy. All the married officers who took part in the retreat are suffering similar torture.

The lunch that day was an interesting function, because most of the thirty officers were also going to the front. I noticed that their uniforms varied in colour, and Colonel Terzitch explained that it was not possible to get enough material of any one pattern, so everybody had to get the nearest match available.

The party included the Colonel's mother, a charming old lady, wearing an old-fashioned Turkish head-dress. I wondered if she would be shocked at the idea of my going with the army, but I gathered that, though Serbian women have not yet been launched into the activities of their sisters in the West, they are sympathetic, and I have no doubt that when the war is over, their lives will be fashioned upon Western rather than—as of old—upon Eastern lines.