CHAPTER III
A RIDE TO KALABAC AND A BATTLE IN THESNOW
Itsnowed hard in the night and most of the next day and was bitterly cold, blowing a gale, but my wagon was a good bit snugger than the tent. The Colonel and his staff had quarters in a loft over a little café just along the road, and after lunch the Commander of the division, who came with two English officers, took the Kid and me with them in their cars some miles back along the road towards Prilip, where we all walked about and inspected the new positions part of the regimentwas to take up. The Kid went back to Bitol in the car with them that evening to fetch some clothes, and I never saw her again, though I believe she did want to come back to us later on.
I used to sit over the camp fires in the evenings with the soldiers, and we used to exchange cigarettes and discuss the war by the hour. I was picking up a few more words of Serbian every day, and they used to take endless trouble to make me understand, though our conversations were very largely made up of signs, but I understood what they meant if I couldn’t always understand what they said. It was heartbreaking the way they used to ask me every evening, “Did I think the English were coming to help them?” and “Would they send cannon?” The Bulgarianshad big guns, and we had nothing but some little old cannon about ten years old, which were really only what the comitadjes used to use. If we had had a few big guns we could have held the Baboona Pass practically for any length of time, for it was an almost impregnable position. I used to cheer them up as best I could, and said I was sure that some guns would come, and that even if they did not they must not think that the English had deserted them, as I supposed they had big plans in their head that we knew nothing about, and that though we might have to retreat now everything would come right in the end. It was touching the faith they had in the English, whom they all described as going “slowly but surely.” They were very muchexcited when they saw the two English officers, as they were sure they had come to say some English troops were coming.
One day, however, one thousand new English rifles did come, and there was great rejoicing thereat.
With the courtesy which always distinguishes the Serbian peasant, they used always to stand up and make room for me, and bring a box for me to sit on in the most comfortable place by the fire, out of the smoke, and I used to spend hours like this with them. Under happier circumstances they would all have been singing their national songs and dancing, but, though there were many fine singers among them, nothing would induce them to sing: they were too broken-hearted at being driven back. One man did start asong one night to please me, but he broke down in the middle and said he knew I would understand why he could not sing.
There was deep snow on the ground, and it was bitterly cold, and the men used to anxiously ask me if I managed to keep warm at night, as they huddled up together, four in one tiny tent, for warmth, and seemed to rather fear that they might find me frozen to death some morning in my wagon, but I was really quite warm enough.
AN AMBULANCE FIELD KITCHENPage 26
AN AMBULANCE FIELD KITCHEN
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ROASTING THE PIGPage 50
ROASTING THE PIG
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The next day, while we were doing the dressings, a man came in who had walked from Nish, twenty-two days’ tramp. He was a cheery soul, and said he felt very fit, but he looked as thin as a rake. We all crowded round him to hear the news. Hesaid that the town of Nish was evacuated and everyone gone to Krushavatz.
Commandant Militch told me he was sending for his second horse, so that I could ride her. When she arrived she proved to be a very fine white half-Arab, who could gallop like the wind, and I grew very fond of her. She had a passion for sugar, and always expected a bit when she saw me. The Commandant had moved his quarters a few miles farther up the road towards Prilip to a small deserted hahn, or inn, consisting of two small rooms by the roadside. It was close to the village of Topolchar. I had been cautioned not to stray away from the camp by myself, as it was very unsafe; only a few days before Bulgarian comitadjes had swooped down and takenprisoner a Serbian soldier who had gone to fetch some water not a quarter of a mile from his own camp. One bright sunny morning, however, the hills looked so tempting that I went for a stroll and wandered on farther than I intended. I was out of sight of the camp, when suddenly I heard voices behind some trees, though I could not see anybody, and I knew that none of our men were camping near. Discretion conquering curiosity, I beat a dignified retreat at a brisk walk, as I was quite unarmed at the time, and they told me when I got back it was a good thing I did. I took no more constitutionals over the hills while in that neighbourhood, anyhow, for I had no wish to cut off my career with the Army by suddenly disappearing, as noone would know what had become of me.
One day I rode over on Diana, my white mare, to see the Commandant and his staff at the hahn. They all welcomed me most warmly, inviting me to stop to supper, sleep there, and ride out next day with them to the mountain of Kalabac, to visit the positions there. I accepted joyfully. They said I could either sleep there near the stove or have my wagon brought up, if I was not afraid of being too cold. I decided in favour of the wagon, as the hahn was already pretty crowded; so they telephoned for it, and in due course it arrived with my orderly. It was a grey-covered wagon, and I had christened it “My little grey home in the west.” A house on wheels isan ideal arrangement, as if you take it into your head to sleep anywhere else you go off and your house simply follows you. It was planted exactly opposite the door, with a sentry to guard me.
The Commandant, in spite of all his troubles, was full of fun, and even in the darkest and most anxious hours in the tragic weeks that followed kept up everyone’s spirits and thought of everyone’s comfort before his own. After a most hilarious supper I turned in, as we were to make an early start next morning.
Next day the Commandant, his Adjutant and I, with four armed gendarmes, rode off to Kalabac. It was a lovely day, and we had about two hours’ ride across country to the first line of trenches. The Commandant and I used to have arace whenever we got to a good bit of ground. He was a fine rider, and, as the horses were pretty well matched, we used to get up a break-neck speed sometimes, and had some splendid gallops. About a year before in Kragujewatz I was riding with a Serbian soldier who had been sent with a horse for me, and he said: “What did I want to be a nurse for?” and tried to persuade me not to go back to the hospital, but to join the Army then and there, regardless of my poor patients expecting me back.
The first line of trenches that we came to were little shallow trenches dotted about on the hillside, with about a dozen men in each. We sat in one of them and drank coffee, and I thought then that I should be able to tell them at home thatI had been in a real Serbian trench, little thinking at the time that I was going to do it in good earnest later on under different circumstances.
After that we went on up to another position right at the top of Kalabac. It was a tremendous ride, and I could never have believed that horses could have climbed such steep places, or have kept their feet on some of the obstacles we went over, but these horses were trained to it, and could get through or over anything. Just the last bit of the way we all had to dismount, and, leaving the horses with the gendarmes, did the rest on foot. There was no need for trenches there, as it was very rocky, and there was plenty of natural cover. Major B—— and another officer met usnear the top, and he and the Commandant went off to discuss things. It happened to be Captain Pesio’s “Slava” day. This “Slava” day is an institution peculiar only to the Serbians, and which they always keep most faithfully. Every family and every regiment has one. It is the day of their particular patron saint, and is handed down from father to son. It is kept up for three days with as much jollification as circumstances permit, even in wartime. I have been the guest at plenty of other Slava days in Serbia, but I never enjoyed anything so much as I did that one. We sat round the fire on boxes or logs of wood under the shelter of a big overhanging rock, with a most gorgeous panorama of the country stretching for miles round, and had a very festivelunch, and all drank Captain Pesio’s health. In the middle of lunch I had my first sight of the enemy, a Bulgarian patrol in the distance, and orders were promptly given to some of our men to go down and head them off. The men all seemed to be in high spirits up there, in spite of the cold, and some of them were roasting a pig, although I suppose that was a “Slava” luxury for them, not to be had every day.
It was evening by the time we left, and we slipped and slid down the mountain again by moonlight. When we got back to the first trenches which we had visited we made a short halt, and sat in an officer’s little tent and drank tea. He had certainly not been at war for four years without learning how to make himselfcomfortable under adverse circumstances, and had brought it down to a fine art. He had a tiny little tent, one side of which was pitched against a bank, and in the bank there was a hole, with a large fire in it, and a sort of tunnel leading up to the outer air for a chimney. His blanket was spread on some boughs woven together for a bed, and he was as snug and warm as a toast when he did get a chance to sleep in his tent, which was apparently not very often. He was very popular with everyone, and the Commandant spoke particularly of his bravery. We were quite sorry to leave and turn out into the cold night air.
We had a long ride home, ending up with a hard gallop along the last bit of road, and it was late when we got back tothe hahn. There was a big fire going in the iron stove, and we soon thawed out. The Commandant sat down at his table and dictated endless despatches to his Adjutant, while I dosed on his camp bed till about ten, when he finished his work for the time being and we had supper. Every now and then there would be a rap at the door, and an exhausted, half-frozen rider would come in bearing a despatch from one of the outlying positions on the hills.
I was very sorry afterwards that I had not taken my camera with me up to the positions, but I was not sure at the time if they would like me to, though afterwards they told me I might take it anywhere I liked.
There was another small ambulance here in charge of the proper regimentaldoctor, and in the afternoon everyone was ordered to move up into the village, Topolchor, and find rooms there. The soldiers were all delighted at the prospect of getting under a roof of any kind, though I felt quite sorry at leaving my Little Grey Home. The doctor got me a nice big empty room in what was formerly the school. There was a pile of desks and tables filling up one side of it, and a stove, but otherwise no furniture. After my orderly had unpacked my camp bed and lit the stove I had some visitors: three or four old native women, who came up and inspected me and all my belongings closely, and seemed deeply impressed with the extraordinary luxury in which an Englishwoman lived, with a room to herself, a bedanda rubber bath! I hadbeen making futile efforts, by the way, for the last few days to make use of this same bath, in spite of my orderly’s repeated assurances that you couldnothave a bath in wartime, which I found afterwards to be strictly true. I did not succeed even here, owing to the lack of water and anything to carry it in.
The villagers themselves, those who had not already fled in terror, seemed to live in the most abject poverty, huddled together in houses no better than pigsties. The place was infested by enormous mongrel dogs, which used to pursue me in gangs, barking and growling, but they had a wholesome respect for a stone, and never came to close quarters.
Next morning I went for a long ride with the Commandant to inspect somemore of the positions. He had to hold an enormous front with only two regiments, and, as we were outnumbered by the Bulgarians by more than four to one, when the latter could not break through our lines they simply made an encircling movement and walked round them, and, as there were absolutely no reserves, every available man being already in the fighting line, troops had to abandon some other position in order to cut across and bar their route. Thus we were constantly being edged back, and were very many times in great danger of being surrounded. We were fighting a rear-guard action practically all the time for the next six weeks—a mere handful of troops, worn out by weeks of incessant fighting, hungry, sick, and with no big guns to back them up,retreating slowly and in good order before overwhelming forces of an enemy who was fresh, well equipped and with heavy artillery. It was no use throwing men’s lives away by holding on to positions when no purpose could be gained by it, though the Colonel felt it keenly that the finest regiment in the Army should have to abandon position after position, although contesting every inch, without having a chance of going on the offensive. It was heartbreaking work for all concerned, and the way they accomplished it is an everlasting credit to officers and men alike.
My orderly told me he had heard we were going that evening, so he packed up everything, camp bed included, and put it in my wagon. We hung about all the eveningexpecting to get the order to go at any moment, as the horses were always kept ready saddled in the stable, and you simply had to “stand by” and wait until you were told to go, and then be ready to get straight off. Eventually, however, the Commandant came back and said we were not going that night, and we had a quiet supper about ten o’clock and turned in, with a warning to be up early in the morning. As my bed was packed up I rolled myself up in a blanket on the floor, and my orderly did likewise at the other side of the stove and kept the fire up. It was snowing hard and frightfully cold. At daybreak we did move, but not very far, only to the little hahn by the roadside; and there we stood about in the snow and listened to a battle which was apparentlygoing on quite close; although we strained our eyes we could see nothing—there was such a frightful blizzard. A company of reinforcements passed us and floundered off through the deep snow drifts across the fields in the direction of the firing. There was no artillery fire (I suppose they could not haul the guns through the snow), but the crackle of the rifles got nearer and nearer, and at last about midday they were so close that we could hear the wild “Hourrah, Hourrahs” of the Bulgarians as they took our trenches, and as the blizzard had stopped for a bit we could see them coming streaking across the snow towards us, our little handful of men retreating and reforming as they went. The Bulgarians always give the most blood-curdling yells when they charge.The ambulance was already gone, and there were only the Colonel and his staff, myself and the doctor left. The horses were brought out, and the order came to go, but only about three miles to where the big ambulance was camped with whom I had been at first.
There was a river between the hahn and this ambulance, and the road went over a bridge. This bridge was heavily mined and was to be blown up as soon as our men were over, thus cutting off, or anyhow considerably delaying, the Bulgarians, as the river was now a swollen icy torrent. We sat round the fire of the ambulance and dried our feet. Some of the men were soaking to the knees, having no boots, but only opankis, leather sandals fastened on with a strap which windsround the leg up to the knee. Later on some wounded were brought in, given a very hurried dressing, and despatched at once to the base hospital. The majority of them seemed to be hit in the right arm or wrist, but I am afraid perhaps the worst wounded never reached us. One poor fellow who was hit in the abdomen was, I am afraid, done for; he would hardly live till he got to the hospital.
We heard no more firing till late in the afternoon, when all at once it broke out again quite close, and with big guns as well this time. We wondered how on earth they had been able to get them across the river, but the explanation was forthcoming when we heard that the bridge, although it had ten mines in it, had failed to blow up—the mines would notexplode; no one knew why. I floundered through the snow up a little hill with some of the others to see if we could see anything, but we could not see much through the winter twilight except the flashes from the guns momentarily lighting up the snow banks, and hear the noise of the shells as they whistled overhead.
This had been going on for a couple of hours now, and the Greek doctor was getting into a regular funk because they had had no orders to move, though it was all right as we had no wounded in the tent to be carried away, and no one else was worrying about it; but he finally sent a messenger up to the Commandant, as he seemed to think the ambulance had been forgotten. A couple of days afterwards the men told mewith much scorn that that afternoon had been too much for him, and that he did a retreat on his own and never came back to the ambulance again. I was just thinking of looking round for something to eat, as I had had neither breakfast nor lunch, and had been much too busy to think about it, when the order arrived for the ambulance to pack up and move, and the tents came down like lightning. The soldiers were all retreating across the snow, and I never saw such a depressing sight. The grey November twilight, the endless white expanse of snow, lit up every moment by the flashes of the guns, and the long column of men trailing away into the dusk wailing a sort of dismal dirge—I don’t know what it was they were singing—somethingbetween a song and a sob, it sounded like the cry of a Banshee. I have never heard it before or since, but it was a most heartbreaking sound.
My saïs (groom) brought Diana round to me. I asked him if he had been told to do so, and he said “No,” but that I “had better go now.” He shook his head dubiously, murmuring, “Safer to go now,” when I told him I was coming later on with the Commandant and his staff.
War always seems to turn out exactly the opposite to what you imagine is going to happen. Such a great proportion of it consists of “an everlastin’ waiting on an everlastin’ road,” as someone has already written. Bairnsfather hits it off exactly in his picture of the young officer with his new sword: how he pictures himselfusing it, charging at the head of his company, and how he really does use it, toasting bread over the camp fire! I had some wild visions in my head—as I knew the Commandant would wait until the last moment—of a tremendous gallop over the snow, hotly pursued by Bulgarian cavalry. I imagine I must once have seen something like it on a cinematograph. What, however, really did happen was that, having received permission to stop, I sat for four hours in company with seven or eight officers who were waiting for orders, on a hard bench in a freezing cold shed, which in its palmier days might have been a cowhouse. I was ravenously hungry, and sucked a few Horlick’s milk tablets I found in my pocket, but they did not seem so satisfyingas the advertisements would lead one to suppose. However, presently the jolly little captain, whose tent I described on Kalabac, came in, followed by his soldier servant bearing a hot roast chicken wrapped up in a piece of paper! Where in the world he got it I can’t think. We had no knives or forks, but we sat side by side, and each took hold of a leg and pulled till something gave. It tasted delicious! He shared it round with everybody, and I don’t think had much left for himself. Although he came straight from the trenches, where he had been fighting incessantly and had not slept for three nights himself, he was full of spirits and livened us all up, and we little thought that it was the last time we were to see him. I was terribly sorry to hear a fewdays later of the tragic death of my gay little friend.
The firing had ceased, as it usually does at night, and at last, about nine o’clock, the Commandant appeared and the horses were brought out, and instead of the wild cinema gallop I had pictured we had one of the slowest, coldest rides you can imagine. There was a piercing blizzard blowing across the snowy waste, blinding our eyes and filling our ears with snow; our hands were numbed, and our feet so cold and wet we could hardly feel the stirrups. We proceeded in dead silence, no one feeling disposed to talk, and slowly threaded our way through crowds of soldiers tramping along, with bent heads, as silently as phantoms, the sound of their feet muffled by the snow.I pitied the poor fellows from the bottom of my heart—they were so much colder and wearier even than I was myself, and I wondered where the “glory” of war came in. It was exactly like a nightmare, from which one might presently wake up. My dreams of home fires and hot muffins were brought to an abrupt termination by the Commandant suddenly breaking into a trot, when I found my knees were “set fast” with the cold, and I had a very painful five minutes till they loosened up.
After a long time we turned off the road across some snowy fields. I followed close behind the Commandant, who always made a bee line straight ahead through everything; and after our horses had slipped and scrambled through a hedge, a couple of deep ditches and astream we eventually got to the village of Mogilee, I think it was called. The soldiers bivouacked in some farm out-houses, and we were received by some officers in a big loft. They had a huge stove going and supper ready for us. We finished up the long day quite cheerily, even having a bottle of champagne that a comitadje brought as a present to the Commandant. We all slept that night in the loft on the floor, I being given the place of honour on a wide bench near the stove, while the other six or seven selected whichever particular board on the floor took their fancy most, and spread their blankets on it. Turning in was a simple matter, as you only have to take off your boots; and, though the atmosphere got a bit thick, we all slept like tops.
THE TENT I SLEPT IN FOR TWO MONTHSPage 24
THE TENT I SLEPT IN FOR TWO MONTHS
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SERBIAN ARMY TRUDGING ALONGPage 77
SERBIAN ARMY TRUDGING ALONG
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