The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere

by M. A. Stobart

When night fell we were still trekking, and from 5 p.m. the roads were atrocious, and in the pitchy darkness it was impossible to see the holes into which one's horse must stumble. We reached our goal at 9 o'clock: sixteen hours in the saddle without being tired was a good beginning. We were directed to our camping site, which was amongst herds of other convoys; but as the ground was swampy, and there was no room for tents, and we had to move off again at five next morning, we didn't unpack the tents, but slept in the cars. One of the chauffeurs had good luck: he fell into a hole six feet deep, invisible in the darkness, and didn't break his neck; he only cut his head.

There wasn't much time for sleep; there were many things to arrange, and I was up again at 3.30 next morning; it was better to make sure that the men were up, and that fires were lighted, for hot coffee, and eggs, in case there should be no time to eat during the day. And our cook, Mrs. Dawn, from that first day to the last, when we reached Medua, was splendid. She loyally complied with my wish that, as meals during the day were uncertain, we must always, however early the start, have hot coffee and porridge before we left. This meant that she must rise an hour earlier than anybody else—except myself and the soldiers—and she and I were always in rivalry as to who was up first.

The road ran along narrow passes, between precipitous rocky mountains; in these were many large caves. Goats were grazing on the hillsides, and I noticed, away up on the sky-line, on the top of a high mountain, a solitary man, herding his flock of goats, which had found a patch of green grass amongst the barren rocks. He belonged to another world. I don't know why, but I have often thought of that man, and wondered if he is still up there upon his hill-top, happily detached from the sordid, worrying, cruel world below.

We heard that day sounds of distant firing, and we were told that our Army had beaten back 2,000 Austrians in the north-east corner. It rained all day, and as we had again been told that we were to push on without halting, we were glad to reach Knasharevatz at 9 p.m. I had sent the dispenser, who talked German, in advance, to find a camping site, but when we reached the town he had disappeared. The streets were in darkness, the rain was merciless, and things were looking rather gloomy, when an officer in a blue cloak rode up with a message from Colonel Terzitch, saying that the latter would like to see me.

The Colonel was quartered in a house in the middle of the town; so I halted the column, and rode on with the officer. When we reached the house, I was conscious for the first time that the rain was pouring off my hat-brim like a water-spout, that my gloves were so sodden I couldn't take them off, and that my general appearance was a little aqueous. I didn't mind, but I hoped that the Colonel and the P.M.O. wouldn't feel sorry. They, however, were as usual, splendidly tactful; they just said enough to let me know that they knew that I knew that they knew what we were all thinking, and then they told me that they had arranged for us all to dine at a restaurant, and that we had better sleep in our cars in the market square; the men and wagons would take up quarters in a street near by. The P.M.O. came downstairs with me, and I hoped he wouldn't come out and see me mount; my coat was heavy with rain, and I had begun to suspect that I might not find it as easy as usual to spring lightly over the saddle, after a second day of sixteen hours continuously in the wet. He came; but he didn't discover.

I rode back to the doctors and the others with the good news of a real dinner ahead of us, and then we ate the real dinner in the restaurant—the Café de Paris—and went to bed on the stretchers, in the cars, in the square, much to the interest of the native population, who were most of them looking at English women for the first time.

We breakfasted early in the café, and at eight the P.M.O. came and told me confidentially that we should be moving on to-day, and that we had better buy food and stores to take with us. In the meantime, we could, he said, go to a little house, with a field adjoining, for the cars, just outside the town, and have a wash and brush up, and await the order to move. The unit much appreciated the washing interval, and when they were installed, and baths and hair brushing and clothes washing were in full swing, I drove back to the town with cookie, and bought meal, sardines, coffee, bread, etc. We were much helped in our purchasing by a Serbian artist friend, Monsieur Bettich, who was with the Headquarters Staff. We met him in the street, and he told us which were the best shops, and came with us and bargained for us. He was a fine artist; I had seen some of his pictures for sale at the Red Cross depôt at Nish, and I had bought two wonderful scenes of soldier life, little thinking that I should ever meet the artist. These pictures are now, alas! in German hands, with many other prized possessions. We talked to each other in German.

We had now only one interpreter, as the man who had been sent to us at the last moment at Kragujevatz, because I did not want to deprive the Stobart Hospital of its tried men, was suffering from phthisis and tuberculosis, and we had to send him back to Kragujevatz from Pirot.

Before we had quite finished our shopping, our artist friend caught sight of the cavalry moving from the town in the direction of Nish, so he suddenly said "Good-bye! The Staff will be off directly. I must go. You'll be going too. Meet again." I returned at once to the unit, and all day we waited, expecting orders, but none came. At four o'clock, the Major in command of the ambulance column, which always immediately preceded us on the road, came and asked if I had received any orders. He said that the Headquarters Staff had already started for Nish, in their carriages, and he couldn't understand why he had not heard anything. I guessed that we'd been forgotten, so I sent one of the cars and the interpreter, to follow the Staff, and to ask for orders. At 6 p.m. the messenger came back, with the reply that we were to move at once towards Nish. The orderly to whom the original message had been entrusted, had either forgotten it or taken it elsewhere. The P.M.O. was glad that I had asked for information.

I sent word to the ambulance column, and they, in the absence of their Major, who was in the town, started off on trek at once; but when the Major returned, he was annoyed at having been forgotten, and he recalled them and said he was going to wait till the official order came. That was his affair; but his wagons were horse-drawn, so I knew he could catch us up.