We should have had to wait for hours, perhaps all night, before our turn came to get into the main line of entrance to the wood, therefore, as the further climb up the mountain, must be avoided if possible, an alternative route into the wood must be found. "Vooitch! come here." "Yes, madame." "How deep is that snow? Try it with your stick." "Two feet, madame." "Oh! That's all right. Tell the others to follow at once." And we plunged down the snow slope, on a track of our own, and forced an entrance of our own into the wood.
But the wood was as bad as anything we had yet met—steep, slippery, with rocks, and stones, tree trunks across the track, and low branches overhead hitting you in the face. It was enough to make even a woman swear, and no woman would have been human if she had not said, just now and then, a quiet "damn." The wood was interminable, and it seemed as if we should never reach the end, and touch the valley bottom, but we must get out of it before night. Besides, we could not stop; we were in the narrow line of columns. To my surprise, just before dusk, the sergeant, who always stayed with the oxen party, as there was less work to do, came up and asked if he should lead my horse for a while. It was nice of him, and, in order not to discourage him, I gave him the reins and walked ahead, selecting, as usual, the route to be followed by the others. Soon we came to a point from which the descent, for a couple of hundred yards, was sheer, and slippery with snow and ice, to the end of the track and of the valley, and the temporary end, as we believed, of trouble. For though no road was visible, and the hill rose abruptly on the other side of a small river-bed, now dry, we heard that the river-bed ended in a road, a little further on to the left. The sergeant, during his brief spell of work, was troubled by the constant slipping of the saddle, and this with other difficulties at the end of an exhausting day, was too much for his temper. When he saw this steep descent in front of us, he stopped; on our right there was a precipice. "Come along, Narednik" (sergeant), "only another two hundred yards, and our troubles are over for the day." But he refused to move, and he was holding up the rest of our column, and all the thousands who were pressing on our heels. He said the ponies couldn't do it. "But they must; they can't fly. Look! Only that tiny distance. Quick! We can't spend the rest of our lives here, and remember the Arnauts; give me the pony." I took the reins. To my horror, the man gave the pony a shove, and it fell on the edge of the precipice. I dragged at the reins, and saved the pony from falling over. I have never felt so angry, and "Damn!" saved me from bursting. I needed no interpreter. I swore, the one word I knew, and was not ashamed. I repeated it in loud tones all the way down the hill, and it took me and the pony safely to the bottom. If I had not been so angry, I couldn't have done so well. The sergeant was afterwards penitent, but I never let him lead the pony again.
It was now dark, and we must wait for stragglers who had got cut off in the wood. I stood on a rock, blowing the whistle continuously. But it was more dangerous waiting than moving. I heard a shout from one of our men, and I jumped aside, as two oxen and a horse, rolled down the hill on to the spot where I had stood. I sent some of the party a few yards up the river gully, to light a fire and make tea, whilst Vooitch and I waited for those who had been cut off. Then, when these had collected, we went on another two or three miles up the river-bed of mud and rocks, which opened into a narrow road of mud, with a thick wood on either side. With thousands of others, we bivouacked for the night, at eleven o'clock, sleeping on the ground, round a fire, amongst the trees, near the road. The snow was deep, and the ground sloping. I left my overcoat for a minute in the place where I had been sitting at supper, and when I came back, I found that it had rolled into the fire, and was making a cheerful blaze, but we fished it out, and, though full of holes, it was still wearable.
RESCUING FALLEN PACK PONY IN BRIDGELESS RIVER NEAR JABUKA
ALBANIAN MOUNTAIN TRACK OF ROCKS AND MUD HOLES
Dead Horse in foreground