The Major thought it was impossible, but the French doctors were as usual delightfully optimistic. They had, with me, confidence in the Serbian état-major, which had formerly done excellently against the Turks, the Bulgars, and the Austrians; and they were not likely to fail us now. They must have some way of escape up their sleeve; the retreat was being conducted in such a dignified fashion, it was clear that the control was in capable hands. But faith was a useful companion.
Then came a sudden influx of severely wounded—96 that day up to 10.30 p.m., and with a bound, up went the spirits of the doctors and the nurses. But it was piteous to see these wounded. We knew that most of them must die, for there was no time for them to rest anywhere; they were evacuated from station to station. After we had treated them they must, according to our instructions, continue, in the ox-wagons which had brought them, to Treshnitza—14 kilometres distant. Two officers were in a pitiful condition—their brains were bulging through their skulls, and they had also been shot in the stomach. They must die in the carts.
At sunset I climbed a small hill with Major A., and on three sides we saw the battle—many battles—raging. White smoke, and black smoke, and flashes of fire, were belching forth, with thunders, and roaring, and occasional silences, which were worse than the noises, for in the silence you could feel the agony of the wounded—the passing of the dead. On the fourth side, and just below us, was a sight which would, a few years ago, have been no less remarkable. By the side of the road, along which were passing at that moment, guns damaged in the action which we had just been watching, the various columns of an army in retreat, and refugees in flight, we saw a small white camp. Moving in and out, quietly, and leisurely, amongst the tents, were some women, who seemed to have no concern with the tumult that was raging all around them. One of them was cooking supper over an open wood fire. She was apparently joking with the Serbian cook-orderly and threatening to hit him on the head with the frying-pan. An ox-wagon stopped in front of—ah! yes!—that was a Red Cross flag. Immediately, a woman in a long white coat, and two women in white aprons, stepped out from the tent nearest the road. The white-coated woman climbed up on the wheel of the wagon, and stooped down to examine a mangled form, which was immediately taken out, placed upon a stretcher, and carried into the tent. And we realised that the picture formed a tiny fragment of the European mosaic of war; it was a scene in the routine of the First Serbian-English Field Hospital.
That evening we ate supper in the open, round the fire, but it was difficult to take our eyes off the absorbing scenes that were being enacted all around us. Occasionally an extra loud and startling outburst of cannon-roar, quite close to us, made us jump; but no one took any further notice, and we went on with our supper. After supper we received a message that we were to hold ourselves in readiness to depart at any moment, and we accordingly packed our hospital tent. But the wounded continued to arrive. For this we were always thankful, and the doctors and nurses now attended them in the open, by the light of hurricane lanterns; our acetylene gas lamp was packed. But then came a further order that we were not to move until the morning, so we put up the hospital tent again, for it was raining, and shelter for the wounded must be provided.
CHAPTER XXV
Between Bagrdan and Jagodina, rain had fallen almost incessantly, and though rain was, the Serbian soldiers always said, the best friend they had, because it checked the progress of the big German guns, it had a depressing influence on the men, and made the roads almost impassable, with deep, gelatinous, marvellous, mud. We had, on this night, put up the tent, and I had just gone to my car for an hour or two of rest, when the dreaded orderly rode up to the car and presented the order to leave at once. It was 1.30 a.m. I sent for Vooitch, who always aroused the soldiers; camp was immediately struck, and I rode round as usual, to see—a little difficult in the darkness—that nothing was left behind, then I sounded the whistle to collect the unit, and as the oxen and horse-wagons and motor-ambulances came into line in single file, I shouted "Napred!" (Forward!) and, followed by the two mounted orderlies, took the lead. Within twenty minutes of receiving the order to move, we were on the march. Rain was, as usual, falling, and the night was so dark, I could scarcely see my horse's head, as our column jolted over ditches, and struck into the road. One of the orderlies, riding a little behind me, held the lantern to throw light upon the road immediately in front, to give us warning of danger from mud-holes, and broken bridges, and we entered Jagodina.
The usual story: abandoned by its inhabitants; houses shuttered and deserted; the whole town in darkness, except that along the walls of the houses, wherever space permitted, camp fires had been lighted, and refugees, women, children and old men, were crouched in groups, sleeping, or sitting in silence, waiting for the dawn. The fires illumined the faces of the fugitives and showed suffering not easy to forget. When the camp fires were left behind, the darkness was complete, and even objects immediately in front were only visible because they showed black against the shining mud. It was a world of shadows, and of dreariness, of wet and cold. And never for a moment had the sounds ceased, of the creaking of wagons, and the squish, squish of oxen-hoofs pressing glutinous mud. Sometimes my horse would stumble, in the dark, over a little flock of sheep that was being driven with a convoy for the purposes of food; or a scared and tiny shrew mouse, absorbed in its own affairs, would dart across the road and escape death by a miracle.
I looked behind me, and saw, only darkness and sorrow, columns, and confusion. Thousands of unoffending people were suffering heartache, separation, desolation; and, as the guns reminded me, thousands of brave men were, a couple of miles away from us, facing at this moment, a murderous death. How could I help asking myself where, in all this hell, is God?