The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere

by M. A. Stobart

The line behind the station, to the north, had already been cut; bridges, as we could hear from the noise of explosions, were then being blown up; the telegraphic and telephonic apparatus was destroyed, and the station entrance hall, and waiting rooms were littered with the débris of torn official documents, and old telegraphic paper strips.

The last train, filled with wounded whom we had tended during the day, left in the evening, as usual, in silence—no scene. The stationmaster was leaving in the guard's van. He knew that the next train to leave the station would be working under German rule; he knew that for himself exile and ruin stared him in the face; but, as the engine puffed and snorted, and the train began slowly to move, he called to me and to a few remaining officials on the platform, "Sbogom!" (Good-bye!) and nothing else. But could other words have added to the pathos? Was not the history of a gigantic crime against his nation revealed in that one word?

Next day was full of interest. For, though our division was holding its own fairly well, another division, the Drinske, was having a bad time, and all the morning, streams of cavalry from our division passed along the road. They were to cross the Morava river, three-quarters of a mile down the line from Bagrdan, by pontoons, and go to the rescue. Then a rumour reached us that 25,000 Bulgars had been taken prisoners, and that there were now no more Bulgars on the Serbian front, and that the French and English were on their way to help us! Much too good to be true, and I began to suspect that these rumours were floated to keep up the spirits of the soldiers from time to time.

At seven the next morning, came the order to move the column to the other side of Bagrdan. Rain continued all that day, and I was thankful to be able to commandeer three small houses for shelter for hospital and staff in the village. The wagons and oxen outspanned in a field behind the hospital houses. There were many wounded and some dead, and these we buried in graves half filled with water, in the rain.

Major A. and his column appeared again, and told us that they had journeyed by another route, and had been obliged to wade through a river, neck deep, to get here.

As usual, I slept in the car. This was stationed in the one and only street, outside the house belonging to a teacher. He had already sent away his children, and his wife was to leave next day. He said that he should wait till the last moment in case of a miracle. He showed us his honey hives, of which he was very proud. Several had been stolen in the night, and if he left the town he would lose everything.

The firing on the near hill was now terrific, and there seemed very little chance of the miracle, though another rumour, that English guns were on their way, gave us hope.

The teacher's wife left at seven next morning, October 30th. We moved at 8.15. We were told to encamp on the other side of a bridge, near Kriva Alpregan. The bridge was difficult to find, and the whole country was a swamp, but we found the bridge, and as there was no village, we took shelter in a wood. Between the field and the wood, was a deep and broad ditch of mud, which we had to cross continually, but we were glad of the shelter of the trees. We put up a hospital tent between the road and the wood, and a mess tent amongst the trees, and we lit our kitchen and dining-room fires inside the tent, and enjoyed a supper of little chickens spitted on a stick, the only way of roasting which was available. We generally arranged that the field-kitchen should cook for the soldiers once a day, when possible, their much-loved stew, when outside fires were difficult, and we then managed for ourselves.

That field was a sea of liquid mud whilst rain was falling, and it became a gelatinous pulp when it began to dry. I slept in the car on the road, and all night long, in a continuous stream, wagons rumbled past me with guns, with fodder, with all the material for the existence of an army of 200,000 men, and intermixed with these were wagons filled with fugitives.

In the morning I had seen the P.M.O. His news was extremely gloomy. The rumour of Bulgarian defeat was quite untrue, and my friend, though outwardly calm, was suffering anxiety not only about the life of his nation, his heart was also filled with fears as to the safety of his wife and children, who were in Kragujevatz when the town was taken by the Germans. Communication with them was, of course, impossible. Thousands of other officers and men were suffering a similar anxiety. How could I help sharing some of this grievous load of sorrow? I think my ears will never lose the sound of creaking carts, and rumbling wagon wheels, for in the sound, as I lay awake that night, and many other nights, there was mingled with every revolution of the wheels, the anxiety and the misery which were gnawing at the heart of this exiled nation.