The Luck of Thirteen Part 25

He took up the pa.s.ses and looked at them. His face lightened.

"This one," he said, turning to another, "is written--Give them bread to the value of three francs. We will give them three francs."

"No you won't," said we; "you'll give us bread. You cannot leave these English sisters to starve."

After some grumbling he said we could inquire at the "first army." We made him write out an order; we also made him give us a clerk to accompany us. He gave us a tattered old man whose toes were sticking from his boots.

We presented both orders at the "first army." It refused at once. We threatened it with the War Office and with the mayor. After some demur it sent us across the town again to the "magazine" office.

At the magazine office we were more wily. We presented our little order for three humble loaves. He first said "Nema," then admitted that there was bread and that we could have it. We then showed the order for the other loaves.

"No, no," he cried, "you cannot have all that bread."

We pointed out that it was not much for a whole mission. He still refused. So Jo got up and made a little speech. It was a nasty little speech, but they deserved it, for we had found that they had bread.

She pointed out that the English Missions had now been working in Serbia for a year, gratis; that no matter if we got no transport we were going to get to England, and that it would not look well in the English papers if we wrote a true account of our experiences, saying that they had allowed the English Missions to starve. The threat of publicity finished him. He grumbling consented to give us ten loaves in addition to our own to last for two days. Not daring to leave them, and to send an orderly for them, we rolled them up in Jo's overcoat and staggered down the road to the hospital.

On the way we met an old Serbian peasant woman. She walked for a while with us, turning her eyes to heaven and crying--

"What times we live in. Only G.o.d can help, only G.o.d."

At the hospital we met Sir Ralph Paget. He told us that the Transport Board had promised him ten ox carts for the morrow. Two large motor lorries had turned up to take the two contingents of the "Stobarts."

They were packing in, and we asked them to take our holdall as far as Rashka, for we were still distrustful of the ox carts. We had begun to get into a habit of not believing in anything till it was actually there.

An Englishman came suddenly in with a face purple with anger and swearing. He was the dispenser from Krag who had been left at Lapovo to bring on the stores.

"What's the matter?" we cried.

"Brought my motor from Lapovo with the hospital stuff," he said furiously. "Left it out there on the road. Came in here to tell you about it; and when I go back the cussed thing isn't there. Found all the stores in a beastly bullock cart. The people said that a Serb officer had come along, turned all our stuff out, and gone off with the motor. *

There was nothing to be done, so we went on packing. An aeroplane was seen in the distance; everybody watched it.

"Taube," said somebody.

The Taube sailed slowly round, surveying the town. It pa.s.sed right overhead. Everybody stared upwards wondering if it were going to "bomb,"

for we were just opposite to the railway station. But it pa.s.sed over and flew away. As it went guns fired at it, and many of the Serbs let off their rifles. We have often wondered where all the bits of the sh.e.l.ls go to, for n.o.body ever seems to be hit by them, even when they are bursting right overhead.

The motor gave several snorts, everybody climbed aboard. The driver let in the clutch, there was a tearing sound from underneath, but the motor did not go. One of the drivers clambered down, and after examination said that it could not go on that day, and they immediately began to take it to pieces. The aeroplane came back twice, sailing to and fro without hindrance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PEASANT WOMEN LEAVING THEIR VILLAGE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SERB FAMILY BY THE ROADSIDE.]

It is impossible to describe properly the feeling in the town: it was like standing in the influence of high-pressure electricity, even in the daytime the soldiers in their rags--but with barbarously coloured rugs and knapsacks--were sleeping in the hedges and gutters. There were vague rumours that Rumania and Greece had finally joined in; many seized upon these statements as being true, and one found little oases of rejoicings amongst the almost universal pessimism. We ourselves doubted the reports. Sir Ralph's ox carts--in an interview with Churchin--dwindled down to a possible two; but Jan got a letter in the evening saying that there were ten country carts for the next morning. Six were for us and four for the "Stobarts," and that we were to take the Indian tents with us.

We went back to the tents early to get a good start next day. Rogerson and Willett were sorting their clothes. Hamilton had decided, as he could not walk, to go back to Vrntze with the Red Cross stores which Paget was sending to the hospital. As we were turning in, Dr. Holmes arrived. He had not got the seat in the motor, but was going next day.

Later two mud-bespattered figures came in. They were West and Mawson.

We questioned them eagerly, and although they were worn out they answered all they could.

The road was pa.s.sable. They had scarcely slept for four days, Mitrovitza was already crammed with fugitives, and rooms were not to be found. On the way back the motor was working badly; the mud was awful. Then the petrol ran out. They stopped a big car which was loaded with petrol and ammunition, and asked for some. They got a little, and as they were going to start the big car suddenly burst into flames: some fool having struck a match to see if the petrol was properly turned off. Great flames roared up into the air, and it was a long time before the car was sufficiently burnt down to pa.s.s it.

West said that it was a most marvellous picture.

A little farther on a tyre had burst, and they had been forced to come back on the rims. They eagerly welcomed Jan's idea of the Novi Bazar route, feeling sure that if they once got to Mitrovitza it would be long before they got away, and very doubtful if they could get lodging there.

Again we could hear the guns in the night, and news had come in that Krag had been occupied and that the German cavalry were making towards Kralievo.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA

The men were up before three-thirty to strike the tents, having slept but little. Breakfast was prepared and waiting at five-thirty in the big hospital bedroom; but the women ate of it alone.

Jo sallied forth to the camp, anxious to know what had happened. She found a testy little company. For two hours they had been struggling in the dark with tents and waiting for the carts and for a policeman, as all the riff-raff of the town was gathering to loot our leavings.

At last the carts were run to earth standing outside the hospital in a line--ten little springless carts in charge of a stupid-looking corporal who had misunderstood his orders. He moreover refused to move, saying he "had his orders."

The indefatigable Churchin was found, and sent him off with a flea in his ear. When he arrived at the camp we found a woman and household luggage in one of the carts. He said it was his wife, and objected to our putting anything into that cart. We told him he would have to lump it, and he got sulky; as each extra package was put on a cart he said that it would break to pieces. Certainly the tents were very heavy, but we had been ordered to take them. When the carts were loaded up to the last degree they moved slowly through the mud and drew up at the hospital. We were sadly overladen. Our party consisted of Mawson, West, Cutting, Rogerson, Willett, Blease, Angelo, Whatmough, Elmer, Owen, and Hilder--the last four being our friends of the railway journey from Nish. We were thirteen. Temporarily with us also were the two little Austro-Serbian boys. The other four carriages were occupied by a doctor and three members of the Stobart unit, two "Scottish Women," their orderly and a Russian medical student who had been a political prisoner.

Leaving the town was a slow business, as it was being evacuated. Our little procession proceeded very slowly. Most of us walked. Jo drove with two of the Stobarts, watching from a seat of vantage the packed ma.s.ses of people who wormed their way in and out between the ox carts.

The road was blocked by some gigantic baking ovens on wheels. Hundreds of boys, big seventeen-year-old boys with guns, and little limping fellows from thirteen to sixteen, wearing bright rugs rolled over their shoulders, were dragging along in single file. Their faces were white, and their noses red, sergeants were beating the backward ones along with a ramrod. One of them said--

"I have eaten nothing for three days--give me bread." We had no bread, but we discovered some Pet.i.t-Beurre biscuits, and left him turning them over and over.

The whole town buzzed: motor cars, surrounded by curses, insinuated their way through the crammed streets; whips were cracking, men were quarrelling but all had their faces turned towards the road to Rashka, which we realized would be as full as at straphanging time in the Tube.

The boys pa.s.sed us, then we pa.s.sed them. They pa.s.sed us again. Hundreds of Austrian prisoners were being hurried along, goodness knows where.

Neat young clerks, suit case in hand, elbowed their way through the crowd. Young staff officers were walking, jostled by beggars. Jo called to an old man who was driving a cart full of modern furniture, his face drawn into wrinkles of misery--

"Where are you going?"

"Ne snam," he answered, staring hopelessly before him.

Wounded men were everywhere, tottering and hobbling along, for none wanted to be taken prisoners. Some had s.h.i.+p's biscuit, which they tried to soften in the dirty ditch water, others were lapping like dogs out of the puddles. Sometimes a motor far ahead stuck in the mud, and we had to wait often half an hour until it could be induced to move. Gipsies pa.s.sed, better mounted and worse clad than other folk, some of them half naked. Many soldiers had walked through their opankies and their feet were bound up with rag. Why in this country of awful mud has the opankie been invented? It is a sole turned up at the edges and held on by a series of straps and plaited ornamentations useless in mud or wet, which penetrates through it in all directions.

We arrived at an open s.p.a.ce and halted for lunch. Water had to be fetched. It trickled from a wooden spout out of the hill and before our cooking pot was filled we were surrounded by thirsty soldiers, who were consigning us to the hottest of places for our slowness. Cutting displayed a hitherto buried talent for building fires. We unpacked the food and soon a gorgeous curry was bubbling in an empty biscuit tin with Angelo, Sir Ralph Paget's chef, at the spoon. A leviathan motor car lurched by containing all that was left of the Stobart unit. Another monster pa.s.sed, piled with Russian nurses and doctors. A face was peeping out at the back, eyes rolled upwards, moustaches bristling. Was it? Yes, it was--"Quel Pays"--but he did not recognize us.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA.]

The baking ovens appeared again, and we felt we had stayed long enough.

Some of our party were very f.a.gged after their various adventures since leaving Nish, so they climbed on to the carriages wherever there was a downhill. The road wound up a narrow stony valley down which was flowing a muddy stream. The trees on our side of the river were still green, on the other bank they were bright orange, blood red and all the tints of a Serbian autumn. The road full of moving people was like another river, flowing only more sluggishly then the Ebar itself. For us in future, the autumn will always hold a sinister aspect. These trees seemed to have put on their gayest robes to mock at the dreary processions. At intervals by the roadside sat an ox dead beat and forsaken by its owner as useless.