Everybody, though earnest, was in good spirits, and I parted, after lunch, from Colonel Terzitch and Major Popovitch on the understanding that we should next meet at Pirot. Two officers returned with me in the car to Kragujevatz, one of them commissioned to see that benzine for our motor ambulances was requisitioned, and the other to do business with Colonel Guentchitch.
Next morning, September 29th, Colonels Dragitch, Milanovitch and Pankovitch, and Colonel Guentchitch came to the camp to say that we were to start as soon as a train was available. Colonel Guentchitch brought with him medals for the Stobart Unit, and these he kindly distributed, in appreciation of the services performed by all the various members.
During these days arrangements were in process for evacuating the civilian patients from the hospital in order to make room for wounded, for recalling the dispensary units, for staffing and starting the new hospital at Lapovo; also for establishing the winter quarters for the Stobart Hospital, which was to be transferred to the new barracks, on the other side of the main road which ran along the southern border of our encampment.
On Thursday, September 30th, we knew that we might expect marching orders at any moment. At seven that morning we sighted two German aeroplanes coming towards us. All the patients, as usual, were evacuated within five minutes. Five people were killed and ten were wounded by the bombs, in Kragujevatz.
Some of these bombs had fallen near our camp, and Colonel Guentchitch and other officers came up to be assured that all was well. We had a narrow escape the next day. Again, at 7 a.m., German aeroplanes arrived and began dropping bombs on the town; the intention being, presumably, to destroy the arsenal. But this time they thought our camp worthy of attention. This was tiresome, as we received that morning the order to be at the railway station with the convoy, ready to embark at 3 p.m. The motor ambulances, all in line, would have made an easy target, so we distributed them and hid them as best we could. One bomb fell in the camp, but luckily buried itself in a soft place; another exploded in the middle of our stores, and spare tents, in the new barracks, missing three of the unit, who had just been sorting these stores, by less than a minute. Tents were burnt, and marmalade destroyed, and holes made in the walls, but otherwise no harm was done. I didn't hear how many people were killed in the town, but one man who was brought to us injured, died before he could be moved from the stretcher.
As soon as we were rid of one set of aeroplanes another lot arrived, but they had the decency to clear off in time for us to collect our cortège and be ready at two o'clock to start for the station.
The six Ford motor-ambulances were to carry the staff of twenty-one with their personal baggage; our own ox-wagons and one cart, drawn by two horses, took our personal food, stores, and tents; all the rest of the thirty wagons, including water-cart and oxen and horses, were to meet us at the station. We had been given by the director of the arsenal a field-kitchen on wheels, which had been taken last autumn from the Austrians. This went with us and was a valuable asset.
It was an interesting moment, when, at the sound of the whistle, the little company assembled, said good-bye to the remaining unit and jumped into the ambulances, which were numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, for easy identification by their respective crews, and started for the front (on Friday, October 1st).
Good-bye to our beautiful white camp, in which so many scenes had been enacted—of sorrow, and of work, and some of play; and in which hopes for the Serbian future had fluctuated, now on one side, now on the other, of the balance.
What fate would befall us, and those who were left behind, before we met—if ever—again? But those who were left behind would, at least, I trusted, be protected from harm, for they would be under special supervision, and Kragujevatz was the Military Headquarters. Besides, the enemy would never reach Kragujevatz!