CHAPTER VI
FIGHTING ON MOUNT CHUKUS
Werode all that morning, and as the Commander of the battalion, Captain Stoyadinovitch, did not speak anything but Serbian, nor did any other of the officers or men, it looked as if I should soon pick it up. The staff had also shifted their quarters at the same time, and while we were riding up a very steep hill where Captain S—— had to go for orders Diana’s saddle slipped round, and by the time some of the soldiers had fixed it again for me I found he had got hisorders and disappeared. I asked some of the soldiers which way he had gone, and they pointed across some fields; so I went after him as fast as Diana could gallop. I met three officers that I knew, also running in the same direction, and all the men seemed to be going the same way too. The officers hesitated about letting me come, and said, “Certainly not on Diana,” who was white and would make an easy mark for the enemy; so I jumped off and threw my reins to a soldier.
“Well, can you run fast?” they said.
“What, away from the Bulgars!” I exclaimed in surprise.
“No, towards them.”
“Yes, of course I can.”
“Well, come on then,” and off we wentfor a regular steeplechase, down one side of a steep hill, splashing and scrambling through a torrent at the bottom of it and up another one equally steep, a sturdy lieutenant leading us over all obstacles, at a pace which left even all of them gasping, and I was thankful that I was wearing riding breeches and not skirts, which would have certainly been a handicap through the bushes. I wondered how fast we could go if occasion should arise that we ever had to run awayfromthe Bulgarians, if we went at that pacetowardsthem. Though no one had breath to tell me where we were going, it was plain enough, as we could hear the firing more clearly every moment. We finally came to anchor in a ruined Albanian hut in the middle of a bare plateau on the top of ahill, where we found the Commander of the battalion there before us, he having ridden another way. The Fourth Company, whom we had already met once that morning, were holding some natural trenches a short way farther on, and we were not allowed to go any farther. The Bulgarians seemed to have got their artillery fairly close, and the shrapnel was bursting pretty thickly all round. We sat under the shelter of the wall and watched it, though, as it was the only building standing up all by itself, it seemed to make a pretty good mark, supposing they discovered we were there, which they did very shortly. An ancient old crone, an Albanian woman, barefooted and in rags, was wandering about among the ruins, and she looked such a poor oldthing that I gave her a few coppers. She called down what I took at the time to be blessings on my head, but which afterwards I had reason to suppose were curses. The shells were beginning to fall pretty thickly in our neighbourhood, and our Battalion Commander finally said it was time to move on. He proved to be right, as three minutes after we left it the wall under which we were sitting was blown to atoms by a shell. My old crone had disappeared in the meantime to a couple of wooden houses on the edge of the wood. We had to cross a piece of open ground, which we did in single file, to reach this wood, and before we got to it we got a whole fusillade of bullets whistling round our ears from the friends and relations of the old lady upon whomI had expended my misplaced sympathy and coppers. These were the sort of tricks the Albanians were constantly playing on us from the windows of houses, whenever they got a chance.
We got down through the wood to where we left our horses, waited for the Fourth Company to join us, which they presently did, and then rode on, halting for a time, not far from where some of our artillery were shelling the enemy down below in the valley. The officer in charge showed me how to fire off one of the guns when he gave the word, and let me take the place of the man who had been doing it as long as we stayed there.
It was dark when we got to our camping ground that night, close to where the Colonel and his staff were settled, so I sentfor my blankets and tent, which I had left with them, and camped with the battalion. After a light supper of bowls of soup we sat in a circle round the camp fire till late, smoking and chatting. The whole battalion was camped there, including the Fourth Company, with whom I had previously spent an evening at their camp in the snow, and I thought it very jolly being with them again. It did not seem quite so jolly, however, the next morning, when we were aroused at 3 a.m. in pitch dark and pouring rain, everything extremely cold and horribly wet, to climb into soaking saddles, without any breakfast, and ride off goodness knows where to take up some new position.
It was so thick that we could literally not see our horses’ ears; I kept as close asI could behind Captain S——, and he called out every now and again to know if I was still there. We jostled our way through crowds of soldiers, all going in the same direction up a steep path turned into a mountain torrent from the rain, with a precipitous rock on the near side, which I was told to keep close to, as there was a precipice on the other. A figure wrapped up in a waterproof cloak loomed up beside me in the darkness and proved to be the Commander of the Fourth Company. He presented me with firstly a pull from his flask of cognac, which was very grateful and comforting, and secondly a pair of warm woollen gloves, which he had in reserve, as my hands were wet and frozen. This young man had a most useful faculty of having a “reserve” ofeverything one could possibly want, which he always produced just at the right moment, when one did want it. He had not done four years’ incessant campaigning without learning everything there was to know about it, and prided himself upon always having a “reserve,” from a tin of sardines or a piece of chocolate when you were hungry and had nothing to eat, to a spare bridle when someone’s broke, as mine did one day, although he seemed to carry no more luggage than anyone else.
We rode like this till after daylight, and then sat on the wet grass under some trees and had a plate of beans; they tasted very good then, but I’ve eaten them so often since that now I simply can’t look a bean in the face. They asked me if I was going to tackle the mountain on footwith them, or if I would rather stay there with the transport. I went with them, of course. Mount Chukus is 1,790 metres high from where we were then, and it certainly was a stiff climb. We left our horses there—I had been riding a rough mountain pony of Captain S——’s—and the whole battalion started up on foot. There was no path most of the way, and in places it was so steep that we had to scramble along and pull ourselves up by the bushes, over the rocks and boulders, and in spite of the cold and wet we were all dripping with perspiration. We of necessity went very slowly, making frequent halts to recover our breath and let the end men catch up, as we did not want to lose any stragglers. It must be remembered that not one of these men buthad at least one old wound received either in this or some previous war, and a great number had five or six, and this climb was calculated to catch anybody in their weak spot.
We arrived at the top about 4 p.m., steady travelling since 3 a.m. that morning, most of which had been uphill and hard-going. One officer with an old wound through his chest, and another bullet still in his side, just dropped on his face when we got to the top, though he had not uttered a word of complaint before.
At the very tip-top we camped amongst some pine trees and put up our tents; it was still raining hard and continued to do so all that night, and everything was soaking—there didn’t seem to be a dry spot anywhere. The little bivouac tentsare made in four pieces, and each man carries one piece, which he wraps round him like a waterproof when he has to march in the rain; and, if it is not convenient to put up tents, rolls himself up in it at night. We made fires, though we were nearly blinded by the smoke from the wet wood; someone produced some bread and cheese and shared it round, and then we all turned in. It was so cold and wet that I crawled out again about 2 a.m., and finished the night by the fire, as did three or four more uneasy souls who were too cold to sleep. My feet were soaking, so I stuck them near the fire and then went to sleep, pulling my coat over my head to keep off the rain, and it was not until some time afterwards that I discovered that I had burnt the soles nearlyoff my boots. I felt hearty sympathy for a soldier I heard one day in Durazzo being reprimanded by an officer for having half his overcoat burnt away—“Do you think you were the only one who was cold? Why didn’tthatman andthatman burn their clothes? they were just as cold,” and I thought guiltily of my own burnt boots.
Later on the next day the sun put in an appearance, as did also the Bulgarians. The other side of the mountain was very steep, and our position dominated a flat wooded sort of plateau below, where the enemy were. One of our sentries, who was posted behind a rock, reported the first sight of them, and I went up to see where they were, with two of the officers. I could not see them plainly at first, but they could evidently see our three headsvery plainly. The companies were quickly posted in their various positions, and I made my way over to the Fourth, which was in the first line; we did not need any trenches, as there were heaps of rocks for cover, and we laid behind them firing by volley. I had only a revolver and no rifle of my own at that time, but one of my comrades was quite satisfied to lend me his and curl himself up and smoke. We all talked in whispers, as if we were stalking rabbits, though I could not see that it mattered much if the Bulgarians did hear us, as they knew exactly where we were, as the bullets that came singing round one’s head directly one stood up proved, but they did not seem awfully good shots. It is a funny thing about rifle fire, that a person’s instinct alwaysseems to be to hunch up his shoulders or turn up his coat collar when he is walking about, as if it were rain, though the bullet you hear whistle past your ears is not the one that is going to hit you. I have seen heaps of men do this who have been through dozens of battles and are not afraid of any mortal thing.
We lay there and fired at them all that day, and I took a lot of photographs which I wanted very much to turn out well; but, alas! during the journey through Albania the films, together with nearly all the others that I took, got wet and spoilt. The firing died down at dark, and we left the firing line and made innumerable camp fires and sat round them. Lieut. Jovitch, the Commander, took me into his company, and I was enrolled onits books, and he seemed to think I might be made a corporal pretty soon if I behaved myself. We were 221 in the Fourth, and were the largest, and, we flattered ourselves, the smartest, company of the smartest regiment, the first to be ready in marching order in the mornings, and the quickest to have our tents properly pitched and our camp fires going at night. Our Company Commander was a hustler, very proud of his men, and they were devoted to him and would do anything for him, and well they might. He was a martinet for discipline, but the comfort of his men was always his first consideration; they came to him for everything, and he would have given anyone the coat off his back if they had wanted it. A good commander makes a good company,and he could make a dead man get up and follow him.
That evening was very different to the previous one. Lieut. Jovitch had a roaring fire of pine logs built in a little hollow, just below what had been our firing line, and he and I and the other two officers of the company sat round it and had our supper of bread and beans, and after that we spread our blankets on spruce boughs round the fire and rolled up in them. It was a most glorious moonlight night, with the ground covered with white hoar frost, and it looked perfectly lovely with all the camp fires twinkling every few yards over the hillside among the pine trees. I lay on my back looking up at the stars, and, when one of them asked me what I was thinking about, I told himthat when I was old and decrepit and done for, and had to stay in a house and not go about any more, I should remember my first night with the Fourth Company on the top of Mount Chukus.
The next morning our blankets were all covered with frost and the air was nippy, but got warmer as the sun got up, and one soon gets used to the cold when one is always out of doors.
We took up our positions again behind the same line of rocks soon after sunrise. In the afternoon the firing got very hot, and the Bulgars got a sort of cross fire on, so that the bullets were also spitting across the plateau where we had our fire last night, and they seemed to be getting up nearer round another ridge. Our cannon were posted somewhere below onour left commanding the road, and we could watch how things were going on between them and the Bulgarian artillery by the puffs of white smoke. We had a few casualties, but not so very many.
We stayed there all day till dark, and it got very cold towards sunset, kneeling or lying on our tummies; sometimes we just sniped as we liked, and sometimes fired by volley as the platoon sergeant gave the order, “Né shanni palli” (“Take aim, fire”). I had luckily always been used to a rifle, so could do it with the others all right.
One drawback to Chukus was that there was very little to eat and no water, or at least hardly any, it having to be fetched in water-bottles from a long distance, or melted down from the snowwhich still hung about there in deep drifts. We used to fill billy-cans with snow and melt it over the fire. The men had long ago finished their ration of bread which they carried in their knapsacks and only had corn cobs, which they roasted over the camp fires; we had also almost run out of cigarettes and tobacco.
About 9 p.m. the order came to retire; coming up the mountain was bad enough, but going down was worse. It was lucky there was a moon. We went down a different side along a path covered with thick slippery mud and very steep, and, as I had no nails in my boots and not much soles, I found it hard to keep my feet. Half-way down we met another battalion, and I was delighted to meet my old friend whose “Slava day” wehad celebrated on the top of Mount Kalabac, and who wanted to know what in the world I was doing here. We found the horses at the bottom, and then the men marched, and I and those of the officers who had horses rode all night through a long defile in the mountains. It was a very narrow track, with a mountain up one side and a precipice on the other which effectually prevented one from giving way to the temptation to go to sleep while riding.
We picked up the rest of the regiment soon after daybreak and halted there. I already knew nearly all the officers, and they all wanted to know what I thought of Chukus. We sat round the fires for some time laughing and joking and then all went on to within a few miles ofElbasan. I thought we were going to camp there, but we still had another five or six miles’ march to the outskirts of Elbasan. Since I had joined this company we had had a day’s fighting, then a twelve-hour march, starting at 3 a.m. with a climb to the top of Chukus thrown in, 36 hours’ pelting rain, two days’ continuous fighting, nothing but a few cobs to eat, and now had been marching since 9 o’clock the night before, yet as we turned at 5 o’clock in the afternoon into the swampy field where we were to camp they had enough spirit left to respond to their company Commander’s appeal, “Now then, men, left, right, left, right; pull yourselves together and remember you are soldiers,” and this was only a sample of what they had been doing for weeks past.