The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere

by M. A. Stobart

BROKEN BRIDGE AT FRONTIER BETWEEN MONTENEGRO AND ALBANIA
Our route lay across the basaltic rocks

SERBIAN SOLDIER (2nd RESERVE) DURING THE RETREAT

Our P.M.O. seemed this day more than usually sad, chiefly on account of the people. He calculated that at least half a million unoffending peasants must die of starvation. This has proved to be an underestimate. But as we should probably, he said, be remaining that day in Palanka, he asked if I would like to go and exchange greetings with our commander. The latter was as delightful, and cheery as usual, and it was easy to understand one, at least, of the reasons why he made a good commander. I was much interested in all he told me about the general position; some day, when the situation was more favourable, I was, he said, to go with him and watch a battle at close quarters.

Shortly after I had left Headquarters the mounted orderly came up with the white envelope: marching orders, and we moved on immediately. This was inopportune, as Dr. Coxon was in need of boots, and, at the moment, she and I were on the point of breaking into a locked and shuttered boot shop. We were obliged to go without the boots; the doctor's crimeless record was left unsullied, but her feet were left unshod, and this at the time seemed more important.

We arrived at dusk, after much trouble with the cars owing to the mud, and took up quarters near some old stone quarries. The guns were growing noisy again, and it was curiously interesting to watch the fire from shell and shrapnel on the hills close behind Palanka. Wounded came again during the night, and we evacuated fifty in our cars and in wagons supplied by the ambulance column, to Ratcha. The wounds were terrible, and some men were already dead when they arrived. The transport of the wounded was always an anxiety, lest the job should not be completed, and the motors should not have returned, before the next order to move should come, as that would complicate the question of staff transport.

I went to bed at one a.m. and was up again at four. I saw that Major A. was on the move, and I knew that our order must come soon. Just then a captain of infantry arrived, and said that we ought to go at once; he had been given orders to dig trenches on the place of our encampment. I told him that he could dig his trenches, but we could not go until the order came. We made ready for departure, and packed everything except the surgical dressings, and then more wounded came, so they were tended. One man died at dawn, and we buried him. At 6 o'clock the order came to go towards Ratcha, to a place only distant 1½ hours. We encamped in a field by the roadside, and immediately wounded arrived.

The outstanding feature of this camp was the behaviour of the dispenser. I noticed during the morning that he was haranguing in a loud voice, and that all the men were gathered in a circle listening to him and laughing. I went to see what was happening, and I found that he was drunk. When he saw me, he stopped talking and ran away and jumped on an unsaddled horse, saying that he was going to ride to Headquarters. The soldiers and I followed him, and the former held the horse, and I told him to dismount immediately. He refused, and promptly pulled a loaded revolver from his pocket. At that moment a friend, with whom he had been drinking, an under-officer from another column encamped close to us, came up and persuaded him to dismount. He took him off to his camp, and said that he would keep him until he had recovered. I took the revolver, and found that it was loaded with five cartridges, and I sent it with a messenger to the P.M.O. In the evening, when I was in the car preparing for a few hours' sleep, the dispenser suddenly arrived and demanded his revolver, and when I told him that it was in the possession of the P.M.O., he was furious and vowed vengeance. He would smash the cars and destroy everything we had, etc., but I got rid of him. The sergeant and the soldiers were very angry, and volunteered to put extra guards round my car, and no more was heard of him. When a fitting opportunity came he was removed. That was the only case of drunkenness I saw from start to finish of that three months' retreat, and he, the dispenser, was not a Serbian proper: he was an Austrian Serb, and, like most of these semi-Austrians, he was hyper-nervous of falling into Austrian hands.