The cars went on first; they were to wait for us after half an hour's run; but when we came to the first cross road, we discovered that they had taken the wrong turn, so I had to send messengers flying after them, and we waited for them, with the column, by the side of the road, on an open plain. The cars returned, but we could not get back on to the road or regain our position in the line. We were by then surrounded by a solid block of convoys, on the plain beside the road. A glove could not have been dropped clear, amongst that chaos of wagons, horses, oxen, soldiers and refugees.
When the cars arrived I sent for the sergeant; he couldn't be found, so I searched, and found him playing cards with the sergeants of other columns. He said it was hopeless to expect to move to-day; some of the columns had been already waiting here for two days; we had better make up our minds to spend the night here. It was true that the columns around us had outspanned their oxen, and the men were sitting complacently round their ubiquitous fires, though the Bulgarian guns were dinning louder and louder every minute in their ears. It certainly looked hopeless to expect that jumble of wagons, animals and men, ever to disentangle themselves and break away into the serried line of convoys, artillery, transport, and refugees, which were all streaming without a break, along the road beside them. A more complete nightmare it would be difficult to picture. But I told the sergeant that we must get on at once; our oxen must not be outspanned; I didn't care what other columns did; if they chose to be taken by the Bulgars, that was their affair. He said it was impossible to get on to the road; we couldn't move either forward or backward, and between us and the road, and parallel with the road, was a broad deep ditch. There was, he said, nothing to be done but to wait patiently—the fatal doctrine of Kismet, by which he had been all his life impregnated. He was never resourceful, and now despair had paralysed him. But I had no intention of calmly letting the column be captured by the Bulgars, so I examined the ditch near to us, sent for some of the soldiers, told them to bring spades, and then ordered them to level the ditch. This was soon done. I then warned the column to be ready to move at a moment's notice, and, with Vooitch, I stood on the road watching an opportunity to break in. We stopped an officer who was commanding a passing column and asked him to insist on our having a place after his column; as we were a hospital we had, by right, precedence over many others. He responded by immediately stopping the columns behind him, and he gave us a place just behind the carriage in which was riding the General of the Kossovo Division. I heard afterwards that some thousands of the people whom we left behind on the plain, when we crossed that ditch, were captured by the Bulgars.
CHAPTER XXXII
But the congestion occasioned by the retreating of all the various convoys of an army 200,000 strong, with their innumerable oxen and horse wagons, plus the fugitives, with or without wagons, along bad and narrow roads, was now the more dangerous, because four enemies—the Germans, the Austrians, the Bulgars and, henceforth, the Arnauts or Albanians, who made sporadic and murderous raids upon the convoys for the sake of loot—were all close upon our heels. From Barchinatz, in the north of Serbia, to Scutari, near the coast of Albania, the sad cortège was winding its way, like a writhing snake, without beginning and without end, slowly, at oxen's pace, along roads, which sometimes looked impassable, with mud, and holes, and broken bridges.
The poor old Kossovo General had a narrow escape from drowning, or from a bad ducking, soon after we began to follow him. We came to a swollen river, over which there was no bridge; the water came over the steps of the four-seated pony carriage in which he drove, and, as the bottom of the stream was mud and boulders alternately, the carriage nearly overturned many times. I was ready to rescue him, but I expected every minute to be submerged myself. When I had forded safely through, leading a way for the others, I found that the fool of a sergeant had let another column break in, and intercept our rear wagons, which ran the risk of being left behind; so once more I was obliged to plunge into the water and splash up and down, and risk being overturned by angry, desperate drivers, and riders, whilst I insisted on our wagons getting a passage, and showed the drivers the treacherous places to avoid. The General soon got ahead of us, and we never saw him again.
We travelled all through the day and all through the night, with the exception of an outspan during two hours from 11 to 1 p.m., when we had supper by the roadside.
At 5 a.m. (Tuesday, November 23rd) we waited for the cars, which had stayed behind to rest awhile, but they got blocked, and did not reach us till 10 o'clock a.m. The cold during the night had been intense, and I was often obliged to dismount and to walk, in the thick mud, to keep my feet from freezing. Soon after starting again on Tuesday, November 23rd, we came to a wooden bridge, from which some planks had been removed by the column ahead of us, for firewood. An army on the march will commit any crime for firewood, and to a Serbian soldier, firewood seems of more importance than even bread. Before the cars could pass, we had to cut down some trees, which were, fortunately, available, and mend the bridge. It seemed certain that the time would come when the cars must be abandoned. How would the staff and their baggage then be carried? The wagons could carry no more; but I always remembered the old woman, who complained that "she 'ad indeed 'ad many troubles in 'er life, though"—she added, as an afterthought—"most of 'em 'ad never com'd off." We, too, had a few troubles that day which didn't come off. At one deep and bridgeless stream across the road, steep mud banks led to it and from it; the cars made dashes and scrambled through marvellously, but some of the wagons overturned in mid-stream. The drivers then waded into the water, above their knees, to drag up the fallen oxen, shouting "Ide! Ide! Terrai! Terrai!" and beating the poor, panting beasts till they struggled to their feet and scrambled out somehow. When they were out, they couldn't be given time to recover breath, because of the multitudes following behind.
Evening came and no outspan could yet be made, and it was now obvious that a second night must be spent without sleep. Sometimes our column, with others, would be shunted to the side of the road, to make way for artillery transport, which must, of course, have precedence. At twilight, on this evening, at the top of a steep descent, we had been thus halted, but finally, an officer in command at this point of the road, ordered way to be made for us, and we started, in the dark, on a narrow road, which was worse than anything we had yet met, with deep holes and mud up to the axles. I could not believe that the cars could possibly get through, but Mr. Little walked ahead with me, and said it might possibly be done. The cars made the descent safely and, finding that a road which was being reserved for artillery was better than the road which we and all the other columns must follow, we obtained leave for the cars to take that road and to meet us at Dreznik. And thankful I was that this was done, for the road on which we travelled would have been impossible, even for our wonderful cars and chauffeurs.