The Ipek monastery is a beautiful old place with the walls half buried on one side. The old church, orange outside, is very dark within, but contains many beautiful paintings. Surely here is the home of Post Impressionism and of Futurism. The decorations of the bases of the pillars are quite futuristic even orpeistic.

The pictures are Byzantine. But the Turks have picked out the eyes, as they always do. One enormous painting of a head which filled a semicircle over a door is particularly fine. Most halos are round, but the painter had deemed the ears and beard worthy of extra bulges in this saint's halo, which added to the decorative effect.

Beautiful apple trees were dotted about the big garden through which the wriggly river ran. Ducks, geese and turkeys wandered around, so fat that they were indifferent to the meal that was being served out to them. A boy woke up the mother of a family of young turkeys and pushed her towards the dinner with his foot. She hurried there involuntarily and sat down for a nap with her back to the plate, the picture of outraged dignity.

We got into conversation with a priest, who insisted we should call upon the archbishop. The Metropolitan was a cheery soul, wearing a Montenegrin pork-pie hat very much on one side, and black riding breeches which showed as his long robes fluttered during his many gesticulations.

While with him we lost the impression that we were living in the unreal times of the Rose and the Ring. He was intensely civilized, spoke French excellently, and had many a good story of his life in Constantinople and other places. For the English he had great affection. The last Englishman in Ipek, a king's messenger, had flown to the monastery to escape from the Hotel Europe and its bugs. The next morning he would not get up. The archbishop went to his room to remonstrate.

"No, no," said he; "I spent two nights under a ceiling which rained bugs upon me, and I know a good bed when I've got it."

Coffee and cigarettes came in, of the best, and the rakia was a thing apart from the acrid stuff we were accustomed to.

He admitted its superiority. The plums came from his own estate, and were distilled by the monks. The great difficulty was to prevent him from giving us too much.

We talked of the war, and he related many atrocities, winding up with "Of course, England must win; but what will become of us in the meanwhile?"

That evening we had a visitor. A very large Montenegrin in French fireman's uniform knocked at the door. He said his name was Nikola Pavlovitch. He had been sent by the governor to apologise for the "trouble" Jan had had that morning with the drunken soldier.

"'E in jail now, 'e verry sorry and say if you forgive 'im, mister, 'e never touch rakia, never no more. 'E good chap reely. Got too much rakia this mornin', 'E think about Turks an' get kinder mad some'ow. 'E don't know what 'e done; first thing 'e knows 'e finds 'imself in river."

Nikola Pavlovitch was, though not an officer, the commandant of a contingent of miners from America. The governor had told him also to offer himself as cicerone for the morrow, the cart having been ordered for our trip to Dechani.

We didn't like cicerones and demurred.

"I kin talk for you," he said. But we owned to speaking Serb.

"I know all de country, kin tell you things: bin 'ere twenty years ago."

We saw he wanted to come, and noticed that he had a very likable face, strong features, straight kindly eyes. We realized that he would be a very pleasant companion and arranged to meet at the stable the next day.

And so, at last, we drove in one of the queer little Serb carts we had avoided so anxiously. A few planks nailed together and bound around with an insecure rail, four wheels slipped on to the axles with no pins to hold them, a Turkish driver dangling his legs—such was our chariot. Some hay was produced to improvise a seat; we bought some apples on tick, as the vendor said he had no change for our one shilling note, and off we drove.

Nikola Pavlovitch started yarning almost at once, and we never had a dull moment. He was a comitaj once, in the old days when Turkey owned Macedonia and the Sanjak. He said that nearly all comitaj were men of education and intelligence. When Turkish rule became oppressive, when too many Christian girls were stolen and vanished for ever into harems, the comitaj appeared, farms were raided, minute but fierce battles were fought; but in spite of this continual supervision, occasional and mysterious murders were needed to keep down the excesses of the Turk.

Pavlovitch waved a hand towards the sullen mountains of Albania, which were on our right.

"Dose Swabs don' tink o' nuttin' but killin'. Jess ornary slaughter, Mister Jim. Now dat Jakovitza [a town to the south] dat don't mean nuttin but 'blood' in their talk, 'lots o' blood' dat's what it means. Sure. Dese peoples don' respect nuttin but killin'; an' when you've done in 'bout fifty other fellers you'r reckoned a almighty tough. If you wanted to voyage dere, f'r instance, you'd 'ave ter get a promise o' peace, a 'Besa' they calls it, from one of dese tough fellers, and he makes 'imself responsible to end any feller wat disturbs you; 'e can post a babby along o' you and so long as the kiddie's wid yer nobody'll touch you. Dats so, Mister Jim, you bleeve me. But all de same, dey've fixed it up so's dis killing business ain't perlite wen deres women about, so every feller taks 'is wife along 'o 'im so's not to be ended right away."

Every house by the roadside was a fortress, loopholes only in the ground floor, windows peering from beneath the eaves and turrets with gunslits at the second story; here and there were old Turkish blockhouses, solid and square, showing how the conquerors had feared the conquered.

"One o' dese tough fellers 'e kill more'n hundred fellers. Great chief 'e is. Wen 'e was sixteen 'is fader get condemned ter prison way in Mitrovitza. Dis young tough 'e walk inter court nex' day, in 'e kill de judge and two of de officers and 'scape inter de mountains."

Nick himself when he was a comitaj had twice been caught by the Turks. Once he was shot in thirteen places at once, but was found by some Christian women and eventually recovered; the second time the Turks beat him almost to death with fencing staves, and though they thought him dying put him on an ox cart and sent him to the interior of Turkey.

"I was ravin' mad dat journey," he said. "I don' want ter go ter 'ell if it's like dat."

They put him in hospital and treated him kindly; but once better they threw him into a Turkish gaol. He described how the prison was dark as night, because the poorer prisoners blocked up the windows, stretching their arms through for doles from the passers-by.

"We was all eaten wi' lice," he went on, "an' if de folks 'adn't sent me money an' food I'd a starved to def, sure. 'N den dey bribes de governor 'n a soldier, 'n dey lets me 'scape."

He lay a cripple in Montenegro six months, but in the summer crawled down to the Bocche de Cattaro and on the sweltering shores of the Adriatic built himself a primitive sweat bath. In a few weeks he was better, and in a few months cured. He then went to the mines in America, for he dared not return to Macedonia. He saved L800 and returned with it to his sister's in Serbia, but was so oppressed by the misery about him that he gave away all his money and went back.

"Dere's lots a mineral in dese mountains, you feller. I show you one lump feller got a' Ipek, an' I guess it's silver, sure. Wen de war over you come back an' we'll go over dem places tergedder. Dere's coal too. Lots."

He told us that the wretched skeleton who was driving us had power in Turkish days to commandeer the services of Christian labourers, and to pay them nothing.

We passed by placid fields containing cows, horses, donkeys. The country seemed untouched by war. Those cows could never have drawn heavy carts and lain exhausted and foodless after a heavy day's work. The horses reminded one of the sleek mares owned by old ladies who lived in awe of their coachmen.

For this all belonged to Dechani, and it was beyond the power of the state to touch their riches; nor had they been molested even in the days of Turkish rule.

"You see, monastery 'e pay money to the toughest Albanians—Albanian they give besa—and nobody never do no 'arm to the monasteries. Russia she send much money, she send always her priest to Dechani and the Turks they keep sorter respectful."

Our first sight of Dechani disappointed us a little, the proportions lacked the beauty of the Ipek church; but the big old door marked by the fire the Turks had built against it, decades before, cheered us up a bit.

A pleasant priest with a smooth face and ringlets two feet long greeted us and led us to the little Russian hospital which was fitted into the Abbey, warning us not to bang our heads against the heavy oak beams in the corridors.

The Russians welcomed us heartily, preparing the most wonderful tea, Australian butter, white bread made with flour brought from Russia.

Pavlovitch enjoyed himself immensely. Food was thin in the barracks. But he was very worried about the priest's long ringlets.

"I'd soon cure 'im, a month diggin' de trench!" he murmured.

After tea we examined the church. The interior was one miraculous blue: pictures with blue backgrounds, apostles with blue draperies, blue skies, a wonderful lapis lazuli.

Once the Moslems had overpowered the defenders of the church and had got in, the eyes of some of the saints were picked through the plaster. Legend runs, however, that while they were desecrating the tomb of Tzar Stephan who founded the church, the tomb of the queen, which lay alongside, exploded with a violent report and terror struck the Turks, who fled.

They showed us the queen's tomb, split from top to bottom. The priests naturally claim a miracle; but Pavlovitch said, "I tink dey verry clever, dey done dat wi' gunpowder."

The Tzar Stephan had wished to build the church of gold and precious stones, but a soothsayer said—

"No, my lord, build it of plain stone, for your empire will be robbed from you, and if it be of gold greedy men will tear it to pieces, but if it be of plain stone it will remain a monument for ever."

So he built it of fine marble. The central pillars were forty feet high, and each cut from a single piece, with grotesque carved capitals. The great screen was wonderfully carved and gilded. Wherever one looked was decoration, almost in excess.

Ringlets invited us to tea with the Russian bishop who was in charge. He was a stout, sweet-mannered little man, who shook his head woefully over the war.

Somehow Pavlovitch discovered that he and the bishop were the same age, forty-eight. We contrasted Pavlovitch's spare athletic frame with the well-fed shape of the bishop, and felt instinctively which was the better Christian. Coffee and slatka were brought in. This slatka is always handed to callers in well-regulated Serbian households. It is jam accompanied by many little spoons and glasses of water. Each guest dips out a spoonful, licks the spoon, drinks the water, and places his spoon in the glass. There is also a curious custom with regard to the coffee. If a guest outstays his welcome, a second cup is brought in and ceremoniously placed before him—but, of course, this hint depends upon how it is done.

"It is Friday," remarked Pavlovitch, regretfully. "Odder days we gits mighty good meal." He was very anxious for us to stay the night so that we should fit in a first-class breakfast, but the morrow was the Ipek fair, and we could not miss that.

Night was coming so we hurried off and drove away. The horses went quite fast, as we had made them a present of some barley. We had discovered that since the beginning of the war, when they had been requisitioned by the Montenegrin Government, they had lived on nothing but hay, and the owner, who was driving them, said that they would soon die, and that when they did he would not receive a penny and would be a ruined man. He added pathetically—

"One does not like to see one's beasts die like that, for after all one is fond of them."

We arrived after dark, and ordered supper for three. The inn lady was scandalized.

"But that is a common soldier," she said. "There are many fine folk in the dining-room, arrived to-day. The General—"

So we dined upon the landing.

The next day we got up very early, went down to the dining-room and found it was full of sleeping forms; we had coffee in our room.

We wandered round the market. It was still too early, people were arriving and spreading their wares, men were hanging bright carpets on the white walls. Beggars were everywhere, exhibiting their gains in front of them. If one could understand they seemed to cry like this—

"Ere y'are, the old firm; put your generous money on the real thing. I 'as more misery to the square inch than any other 'as to the square yard."

We found bargaining impossible, as they only spoke Albanian, and we could only get as far as "Sar," how much.

Pavlovitch turned up later and was very helpful. We hurried him to a silver shop which was displaying a round silver boss. He beat them down from sixteen to ten dinars, after which we plunged into a side street filled with women squatted cross-legged behind a collection of everything that an industrious woman who owns sheep can confection.

"I have nothing for thee," said an old woman to Jo, who peered into her basket—Pavlovitch translating.

Jo withdrew a tiny pair of stockings—a marvel of knitting in many coloured patterns.

"What about these?" she said.

"Hast thou children?"

"No; but how much?" said Jo.

The price was four piastres. Jo gave four groschen and the old woman peered anxiously at the money in her palm.

"It is too much," she said.

Pavlovitch explained that somehow four groschen worked out to more than four piastres; but we left her to calculate what fractions of a centime she had gained.

Our old innkeeper looked very truculent when we entered.

"Are you going to lunch here?"

"No; we left word."

"Then you can't stay here."



We pointed out that her meals were bad and very dear. She retaliated by making a fearful noise, and invited us to go and sleep at the Europe; but we remembered the Archbishop's story and stood firm.

"If you don't leave us in peace we will appeal to the Governor."

"Do, do. Go to the Governor," said the old lady, her little girl, a wry-mouthed charwoman and a little boy whom Jo had noticed stealing our cigarettes. The dog joined in and barked vociferously.

We went to the Governor who was near by. "They don't understand innkeeping here, and she is a drunken old slut," he said, and sent for her husband.

We went defiantly again to the Europe for lunch.

Jo had been expressing her wish to Pavlovitch to visit a harem. He came to tell us that it had been arranged, as the chief of the police was a friend of his, and he had asked a rich Moslem to let her visit his wives. The Moslem had graciously assented, saying that he would do it as a great favour to the chief of the police, and that no "European" woman had ever visited an Ipek harem.

We went down the broad street with its brilliant houses, admiring the gaudy colours of the women's trousers. "What a pity," we said, "that such a word as loud was invented in the English language."

Outside a huge doorway were sitting the chief of police and the wealthy Albanian. We were introduced with great ceremony, and the Moslem, losing no time, took Jo through the doorway into a courtyard. At the end was another door guarded by a responsible-looking Albanian. He stood aside, and she entered another court full of trees and a basket-work hut. She passed through the lower story, which was full of grain, and ascended into a beautiful room with a seat built all round it.

It was entirely furnished with carpets. He waved his hand to the seat, called to his wives much as a sportsman summons his dogs, and left.

They came in, three women, simply dressed in chemise and flowered cotton bloomers. Their voices were shaking with excitement, and they were fearfully upset because Jo got up to shake hands with them.

They only spoke Albanian, and a few words of Serb. One had been very beautiful, but her teeth were decayed, another was a healthy-looking young woman, and the third was frankly hideous.

They brought coffee, the chief wife presenting it with her hand across her chest—a polite way of saying—

"I am your slave."

Jo spoke Serb, and they clearly said in Albanian—

"If only we could tell what you are saying."

After which every one sat and beamed, and they kept calling for somebody.

A plump dark-eyed girl came in, the first wife's daughter. She spoke Serb, and interpreted for the wives.

They wanted to know everything, but knew so little that they could grasp nothing.

Where had Jo come from? She tried London, Paris; no use, they had never heard of them—two weeks on the sea—they didn't know what the sea was, nor ships nor boats. They had never left Ipek and only knew the little curly river.

The girl said that "devoikas" did not learn to read and write. That was for the men.

Jo finally explained that she had ridden on horseback from Plevlie. Then they gasped—

"How far you have travelled! What a wonderful life, and does your husband let you speak to other men?"

She asked them what they did.

"Nothing." "Sewing?" "A little," they owned with elegant ease.

The chief wife had recently lost one of her children, but did not seem to know of what it had died.

"I should think a woman doctor would be useful here," said Jo.

They screamed with laughter. "How funny! Why, she would be so thick!" they said, stretching their arms as wide as they could.

They kept inventing pretexts for keeping her, but when she rose to go for the third time they regretfully bade her farewell, the daughter took both her hands and imprinted a smacking kiss.

Outside the healthy-looking wife emerged from the basket hut, where she was evidently preparing some delicacy to bring up, and showed signs of deep disappointment.

The responsible-looking man who let her out also expressed his regrets that she had not stayed longer. In the great street doorway was seated the husband, but no Jan, no Pavlovitch, so Jo sat with him, somewhat embarrassed, eating bits of apple which he peeled for her.

In the afternoon we went to bid farewell to the Archbishop and took Pavlovitch with us. The Archbishop gave Pavlovitch a poor welcome until he heard his name.

"Are you Nikola Pavlovitch, of whom I have heard so much from the Governor? I thought you were only a common soldier. I have met you at last."

We felt we were really consorting with the great.

Jo related her harem experiences, and he told of the attempts of the young Turks in Constantinople to abolish the veil, of how he had assisted at small dinner parties where the ladies had discarded their veils, and of the ferocity with which the priests and leaders had fought and quashed the movement.

One lady had ventured unveiled into the bazaar, and one of the lowest of women had given her a blow on the face. On appealing to a policeman she had received small comfort, as he told her she ought to be ashamed of herself.

As we went home we met women coming home from the fair with unsold carpets. They accosted us and wanted to know why we were writing them in the morning so that they could tell their relatives all about it.

When we reached our bedroom the old innkeeper came in. In dulcet tones she admired our purchases. We were rather stiff.

Suddenly she fell upon Jo's neck saying, "You mustn't be angry with me," and remained there explaining.

When she left, Jo looked gravely at Jan, took a toothcomb, let down her hair, and worked hard for a while.

Next day we went for a long walk. As we were returning a terrific storm burst over us. We had left our mackintoshes in the inn, and were soon wet through. We got back just at supper time, and after, as Jan had no change of clothing, he decided to go to bed in his wet things, heaping blankets and rugs over himself in the hopes of being dry by the morrow.



CHAPTER XII

THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO—II

Jan awoke nearly dry, or in a sort of warm dampness, at 4.30 a.m. Not a soul was about, and we packed by candle. There was a purple dawn, and the towering cliffs behind the minarets glowed a deep cerise for at least ten minutes ere the light reached the town. The streets were still and deserted, but at last an old man with a coffee machine on his back, and a tin waistbelt full of pigeon-holes containing cups, took a seat at a corner. At six he was surrounded by groups of Albanian workmen drinking coffee, and he beckoned us to come and take coffee with him, but we were suspicious of the cleanliness of his crockery. A miserable-looking woman in widow's weeds was loitering about the door of the post office, and with her was a tattered girl surrounded by trunks, suit-cases, and bandboxes, so we guessed they were there to be fellow passengers. A waggon loaded with boxes halted before them, but the widow declined to let her baggage go by it.

At last the post waggon came. It was a small springless openwork cart with a rounded hood on it, so that it could roll when it upset—which was the rule rather than the exception—luggage accommodation was provided only for the "soap and tooth-brush" type of traveller; but the widow insisted upon packing in all her movables, and after that we four squeezed into what room was left. The seat was low, one's chin and knees were in dangerous proximity, and a less ideal position for travelling some thirty-five miles could not be imagined. The widow's portmanteau, all knobs and locks, was arranged to coincide with Jo's spine. The tattered maid was loaded with five packages on her knees which she could not control, so we looked as cheerful as we could and said to ourselves, "Anyway it will do in the book."

At the start Jan was rather grateful for the squash, for the air was chilly; soon the damp, exposed parts of his clothing cooled to freezing point, and it was lucky that they were not more extensive.

As we rolled over the craters and crests of the—what had once been—stone-paved streets, the driver halted, here to buy a large loaf of bread, there to purchase smelly cheese, and finally to pick up a gold-laced officer, whom we took to be the post-guard. The driver, who sat back to back with Jan, grumbled at him because he took up too much room. But Jan replied that it was his own fault for not making the carriage bigger, and that his knees were not telescopic. We received the post of Montenegro, for this was the only road out; it consisted of three letters and a circular, so we judged that Montenegrin censorship was pretty strict.

The road was flat, the surrounding country covered with little scrubby oak bushes, in and out of which ran innumerable black pigs who had long cross pieces bound to their necks to prevent them from pushing through hedges into the few maize fields. As the miles passed Jan slowly began to dry, his temperature went up and his temper became better. The widow, we discovered, was the relict of a Greek doctor who had died of typhus in Plevlie, and she was returning to her native land.

Presently we came to a small inn, a hut like all others, and the driver commanded us to get out. By this time we were accustomed to the sight of nobles kissing market women relatives, and it did not surprise us to see the officer embrace the rather dirty hostess of the inn and kiss all the children; but when he took his place behind the bar and began to serve the coffee!... It was a minute before we realized that he had not been guarding the three letters and the circular, but merely was returning home.

At the Montenegrin frontier, which was some hours on, a soldier asked us for a lift, as though he could not see that we were already bulging at all points with excess luggage; at the Serbian frontier Jan was asked for his passport, and as they did not demand that of the widow, we concluded that they imagined her to be Mrs. Gordon, and Jo and the tattered one, two handmaids.

Immediately over the frontier the road began to be Serbian, but not as Serbian as it became later on, and we reached Rudnik—and lunch—in good condition. Another carriage similar to our own was here, containing a Turkish family. The father, a great stalwart Albanian, and the son a budding priest in cerise socks. The priest was carrying food to his carriage, and we discovered that a woman was within, stowed away at the back like the widow's luggage, and carefully protected by two curtains, so that no eye should behold her. Her sufferings between Rudnik and Mitrovitza can be imagined when you have heard ours.

From Rudnik we walked to ease our cramped limbs, and the road became so bad that the driver went across country to avoid it. Here is the receipt for making a Serbian road.

"The engineer in charge shall send two hundred bullock trains from Here to There. He shall then find out along which path the greater number have travelled (i.e. which has the deepest ruts), after which an Austrian surveyor shall map it and mark it, 'Road to There.' Should the ruts become so deep that the carts are sliding upon their bottoms rather than travelling upon their wheels, an overseer must be sent to throw stones at it. He and ten devils worse than himself shall heave rocks till they think they have hurt it enough, when they may return home, leaving the road ten times worse than before, for the boulders by no means are to fill the ruts, but only to render them more exciting."

Oh, we walked. Indeed, we walked a good deal more than the driver thought complimentary, we got out at every uphill, and put steam on so that we should not be caught on the downhills. By supreme efforts we managed to get in four hours' walking out of the torturous thirteen. Once—when we were a long way ahead—we were stopped by a gendarme.

"Where are your passports?" demanded he.

"In the post-waggon," replied Jan.

"Why did you leave your passports in the post-waggon?"

"Because they were in the pocket of my great-coat."

"Why did you leave your great-coat in the post-waggon?"

"Because it is hot."

"I shall have to arrest you," quoth the gendarme.

But his officer came from an adjoining building and told him not to make a fool of himself, and on we went, taking short cuts, following the telegraph poles, which staggered across country like a file of drunkards.

Eventually the carriage caught us up and the driver insisted that we should get in. He added that he could not lose all day while we walked, and that he would never get to Mitrovitza; it seemed superfluous to point out that we had gone quicker than he, but to avoid argument we clambered in. The driver, in a temper, slashed his horses, and off we went, over ruts and stones full speed ahead. It was like being in a small boat in a smart cross-choppy sea, with little torpedoes exploding beneath the keel at three minute intervals; and this road was marked on the map as a first-class road; the mind staggers at what the second and third-class must be like. These countries are still barbarous at heart, but Europe cries out upon open atrocities, and so they have invented the post-waggon. After all, pain is a thing one can add up, and the sum total of misery produced by the post, travelling daily, must in time exceed that of the Spanish Inquisition. Thus do they gratify their brutal natures.

We bounded along. The brakes did not work, the carriage banged against the horses' hocks, who, in turn, leapt forwards, and our four heads met in a resounding thump in the centre of the waggon; after which Jo insisted that the widow should turn her hatpins to the other side. The widow's luggage cast loose and hit us in cunning places when we were not looking. The cart rocked and heaved, and we expected it to turn over. There were other waggons on the road—heavy, slow ox carts, exporting wool or importing benzine or ammunition, with wheels of any shape bar round—some were even octagonal; and as they filed along they gave forth sounds reminiscent of Montenegrin song, a last wail from the hospitable little country whose borders we were leaving behind us.

The driver promised us a better road further on; but the better road never came, and we hung on waiting for something to break and give us relief. There were hints, it is true, unfinished hints: some day men will be able to travel in comfort from Mitrovitza to Ipek, but the day is not yet. It is strange how the human frame gets used to things, and we grew to believe that our driver not only liked, but joyed in each extra bang and jolt—collected them as it were—for certainly he never avoided anything, though occasionally he wound at the brake, but that was only for show, because he knew that it did not work.

We reached Mitrovitza at dark with bones unbroken, and rattled down a road with vague white Turkish houses upon one side, and a muddy looking stream reflecting dull lights on the other. One last lurid lunge, we leapt across a drain and broke a trace bar, but too late, we had arrived.

The Hotel Bristol was full—why are there so many hotels in Serbia named Bristol?—but we were received by a stupid-looking maid at the Kossovo, and were given a paper to sign, saying who we were. Then down to the restaurant, where we had a beefsteak which was a dream, and back to bed, which was a nightmare, for all night long we bounced and banged and bruised our journey over again, and awoke quite exhausted.

The first impression of a town which is entered by moonlight is usually difficult to recover on the following morning, it is often like the glimpse of a pretty girl caught, say, in a theatre lobby, and the charm may never be rewoven. So it was with Mitrovitza, which in daylight seemed just a dull, ordinary Turkish town. The Prefect was a bear, and sent us on a long unnecessary walk to the station, a mile and a half. Sitting on the road was the dirtiest beggar we had yet seen. As we came towards her she chanted our praises, bowing before us and kissing the dust; but she aroused only feelings of disgust and getting nothing, she turned to curses till we were out of sight. The chief imports at the station seemed to be cannons and maize; the only exports, millstones, which looked like and seemed almost as palatable as Serbian bread. We did our business without trouble, and coming back the beggar praised us once more till we had passed, then hurled even louder curses after us.

We came to a tiny cafe in which were faint tinkling, musical sounds.

Jan: "I wonder what that is?"

Jo: "It sounds queer: shall we explore?"

Jan: "I dunno, perhaps they wouldn't like us."

Jo: "Come along. Let's see anyhow."

And up we went. In a large room was a deep window seat, and in the window the queerest little Turkish dwarf imaginable. The little dwarf was sitting cross-legged, and was playing a plectrum instrument. His head was huge, his back was like a bow, and his plectrum arm bent into an S curve, which curled round his instrument as though it had been bent to fit. He was a born artist, and rapped out little airs and trills which made the heart dance. There were three soldiers at tables, and presently one sprang out on to the floor and began to posture and move his feet, a woman joined him; the little man's music grew wild and more rapid; another man sprang in, another woman joined, and soon all four were stamping and jigging till the floor rocked beneath them. We gave the little man a franc for his efforts, and his broad face nearly split in his endeavour to express a voiceless gratitude.

We were no longer royalty, we were just dull, ordinary everyday folk, and at the station had endless formalities to go through, examinations of passes, etc., during which time all intending passengers were locked in the waiting-room. But at last we were allowed to take seats in the train, and off we went.

We passed through the plain of Kossovo where old Serbian culture was prostrated before the onrush of the Turk, and whence Serbia has drawn all its legends and heroes; possibly the most unromantic looking spot in all Europe, save only Waterloo. Here, far to the left, was Mahmud's tomb:—Mahmud the great victor, stabbed the day before the battle, and dying as he saw his armies victorious. History contains no keener romance. Serge the hero, accompanied by two faithful servants, galloped to the Turkish camp, and commanded an interview with the Moslem general, who thought he was coming to be a traitor. In face of the Divan the hero flung himself from his horse, drew his sword, and stabbed Mahmud where he sat, surrounded by his armies. Before the astounded guards had recovered their surprise, Serge was again upon his great charger and was out of the camp, cutting down any who barred his passage. Mahmud did not die immediately, and his doctors slew a camel and thrust him into the still quivering animal; when the dead beast was cooling, they slew another, and thus the Moslem was kept alive till the Serbian hosts had been overthrown. He and the Serbian Czar were buried on the same field—one dead in victory, one in defeat.

We trundled slowly over the great plain whose decision altered the fate of the world, for who knows what might have grown up under a great Byzantine culture? The farms were solidly built houses with great well-filled yards, surrounded by high and defensible walls. We came into stations where long shambling youths, dressed in badly made European clothes, lounged and ogled the girls in "this style, 14/6" dresses. Signs of culture!

Why should the bowler hat, indiarubber collars, and bad teeth be indissolubly bound to "Education Bills" and "Factory Acts"? Why should the Serbian peasant be forced to give up his beautiful costume for celluloid cuffs, lose his artistic instincts in exchange for a made-up tie? It is the march of civilization, dear people, and must on no account be hindered.

Coming back to Serbia from Montenegro was like slipping from a warm into a cool bath. One is irresistibly reminded that the Lords of Serbia withdrew to Montenegro, leaving the peasantry behind, for every peasant in the black mountains is a noble and carries a noble's dignity; while Karageorge was a pig farmer. There is a warmth in Montenegro—save only Pod.—which is not so evident in its larger brother; a welcome, which is not so easily found in Serbia. The Montenegrin peasant is like a great child, looking at the varied world with thirteenth-century unspoiled eyes; centuries of Turkish oppression has dulled the wit of the Serb, and at the outbreak of the war Teutonic culture was completing the process.

We passed beneath the shadow of Shar Dagh, the highest peak in the peninsula, six thousand feet from the plain, springing straight up to a point for all to admire, a mountain indeed.

We reached Uskub at dusk, found a hotel, and went out to dine. The restaurant was empty, but through a half-open door one could hear the sounds of music. The restaurant walls were—superfluously—decorated with paintings of food which almost took away one's appetite; but one enormous panel of a dressed sucking pig riding in a Lohengrin-like chariot over a purple sea amused us.

In the beer hall a tinkly mandoline orchestra was playing, and a woman without a voice sang a popular song—one thought of the women on the Rieka River—a tired girl dressed in faded tights did a few easy contortions between the tables, and in a bored manner collected her meed of halfpence—we thought of the cheery idiot of Scutari. Was it worth it, we asked each other, this tinsel culture to which we had returned? And not bothering to answer the question went back to our hotel and to bed.



CHAPTER XIII

USKUB

Uskub is a Smell on one side of which is built a prim little French town finished off with conventionally placed poplars in true Latin style; and on the other side lies a disreputable, rambling Turkish village culminating in a cone of rock upon which is the old fortress called the Grad.

The country about Uskub is a great cemetery, and on every hand rise little rounded hills bristling with gravestones like almonds in a tipsy-cake. Strange old streets there are in Uskub. One comes suddenly upon half-buried mosques with grass growing from their dilapidated domes, a refuge only for chickens; some deserted baths, and in the midst of all, its outer walls like a prison and with prison windows, the old caravanserai.

We crept to its gateway and through a crack saw visions of a romantic courtyard. The gate was locked, and we asked a little shoemaker—

"Who has the key?"

"It is now a leather tannery," he answered, and directed us to a shoemaker in another street. This was full of shoemakers, and we chased the key from shop to shop. It was like "Hunt the slipper." At last we ran it to earth in the second waistcoat of a negligent individual in a fez.

How happy the merchant of old must have felt when he entered the courtyard after a long journey! The court was big and square, with a fountain in the centre, the pillars were blue, and the arches red. Tiers upon tiers of little rooms were built around; the expensive ones had windows and the cheap ones none, and the door of each was marked by the smoke of a thousand fires which had been lit within. Underneath were cubby holes for the merchants' goods, and behind it all was a great dark stable for the animals. Once shut up in the caravanserai one was safe from robbers, revolutions, and the outside world. Lying in the doorway, as if cast there by some gigantic ogre in a fit of temper, were two immense marble vases, and two queer carved stone figures. Who made these figures? Mystery—for Turkey does not carve. The old caravanserai no longer gives protection to the harassed traveller, it only cures his boots, for it has fallen from sanctuary to shoemakers, and the leather workers of Uskub cure their hides therein. Hence, despite its beauty, we did not loiter long, for we have ever held a bad smell more powerful than a beautiful view.

Why don't towns look tragic when their bricks reek of tragedy? Why is industrial misery the only form in which the cry of the oppressed is allowed to take visible shape and to make the reputation of Realist artists? In Uskub is concentrated the whole problem of the Balkans and of Macedonia. Her brightly painted streets are filled with Serb, Bulgar, and Turk, each disliking the rule of the other, the Bulgar hating the Serb only worse than the Turk because the Serb is master. To the inquiring mind it is problematic how much of this hate is national, and how much political. Deprive these peasant populations of their jealous, land-grabbing propagandist rulers, and what rancour would remain between them? Intensive civilization, such as has been applied to these states—civilization which has swept one class to the twentieth century, while it leaves the others in its primitive simplicity—seems always to produce the worst results. Nations can only crawl to knowledge and to the possessions of riches, for politics to the simple are like "drinks" to the savage and equally deadly in effect.



Can the problem ever be resolved? Can Serbia with half her manhood wiped out stand against her jealous neighbours? The creation of a lot of small states on republican principles seems a far-fetched idea, and yet it seems the best, especially if the menace of Turkey were removed, for there is little doubt that Turkey, rearmed by the German, might make one more effort to regain her lost territory under conditions vastly different from those which ruled in the Balkan conflict. Macedonia, Albania, and what is now Turkey in Europe, each made self-governing under the shield of the Alliance—why not?—and Serbia as compensation allowed to expand towards the north into territories which are wholly Serb in nationality and in feeling.

We went through the pot market, whose orange earthenware was glowing in the sun, and came upon an old house with such a wonderful ultramarine courtyard that we went in to look. Over the door was written OLD SERB CAFE JANSIE HAN. After sketching there we entered the inn for coffee, and sat at tables made of thick blocks of marble smoothed only at the top. The innkeeper said it was built in the days of the Czar Duchan. If this were true, one would say that never had the interior been whitewashed since then. But there was an air of cosiness about it, and we visited it several times after. Near by was a little church with a wonderful carved screen and a picture of Elijah going to heaven in a chariot drawn by a pink horse, with the charioteer bumping along on a separate cloud, which served as the box. We watched the sun set from one of the tipsy-cake hills, sitting on a gravestone with an old Turkish shepherd, who seemed to derive great comfort from our company.

The mountains around reflected the rosy lights of the sun in great flat masses.

The muezzin sounded from the many minarets, and twilight was on us. Uskub, romantic, dirty, unhealthy Uskub, was soon shrouded in mist; a vision of unusual beauty.

One thought of the awful winter it had passed through, when dead and dying had lain about the streets. Typhus, relapsing fever, and typhoid had gripped the town. Lady Paget's staff, while grappling with the trouble, had paid a heavy toll, as their hospital lay deep on the unhealthy part of the city. For a time the citadel was in the hands of an English unit. Before they were there it was a Serbian hospital, and the staff threw all the dirty, stained dressings over the cliff, down which they rolled to the road. The peasants used to collect these pestiferous morsels and made them into padded quilts. Little wonder that illness spread! In the summer Lady Paget's hospital withdrew to some great barracks on the hill. The paths were made of Turkish tombstones, which were always used in Uskub for road metal.

The hospital staff was saddened by the recent death of Mr. Chichester, who had, like ourselves, just returned from a tour in the western mountains, where he caught paratyphoid and only lived a few days.

One of the doctors had been in Albania, on an inoculating expedition. At Durazzo he had been received by Essad Pacha, who was delighted to have his piano played, and to watch the hammers working inside. Like Helen's babies, "he wanted to see the wheels go wound." The piano and piles of music must have been a memento of the Prince and Princess of Wied and of their unhappy attempts at being Mpret and Mpretess—or is it Mpretitza, or Mpretina? The music was still marked with her name, and was certainly not a present to Essad.

The stamp of the English was on Uskub. Prices were high. One Turk offered us a rubbishy silver thing for fifteen dinars; and Jan laughed, saying that one could see the English had been there. Without blushing the man pointed to a twin article, saying he would let that go for five dinars.

What caused us to feel that we had wandered enough? Was it the awful cinematograph show which led us through an hour and a half of melodrama without our grasping the plot, or was it that the large copper tray we bought filled us with a sense of responsibility?

At this wavering moment Lady Paget held a meeting of her staff. We lunched there, and part of the truth leaked out after the meeting.

The Bulgars really were coming in against us, and in a day or two we were to see things.

That decided the matter. We went to the prefect's office for our pass. Firstly, we were ushered into a room occupied by a man in khaki, whose accent betrayed that he hailed from the States. He was "something sanitary," and belonged to the American commission, so we tried again. This time the porter took us up to a landing, said a few words into a doorway, and left us standing. As he was wandering in our vicinity, Jo tried one of her two talismans: it is the word "PREPOSTEROUS" ejaculated explosively, and is safely calculated to stagger a foreign soul. The other is a well-known dodge. If a person bothers you, look at his boots with a pained expression. He will soon take himself off—boots and all.

The talisman worked, the pass was quickly managed, and we had but to spend our time among the shops again. We resisted the seductions of an old man with fifty knives in his belt, who reminded Jo of a horrible nightmare of her infancy.

In her dream a grandfather with a basket had come peddling. Suddenly his coat, blowing aside, revealed not a body, but a busy sewing-machine in excellent working order. In her agitation, Jo fell out of bed.

We sat consuming beer outside a cafe decked with pink flowered bushes in green boxes. One of the antique dames who cook sausages in the shadow of the cafes brought us a plate each—funny little hard things—and we bought cakes and nougat from perambulating Peter Piemen.

The station platform was like the last scene of a pantomime. Every one we had met on our journeys rushed up and shook us by the hand.

First a Belgian doctor, from Dr. Lilias Hamilton's unit in Podgoritza. He said Mrs. G. was also in the town, and that the others were all coming shortly. Then we met a young staff officer from Uzhitze, who was noted for his bravery. The train came in and we stumbled up to it in the dark. There was a crowd of women about the steps in difficulty with heavy bags. Jan ran forward to help one. She turned round. It was a sister from Dechani. The rest turned round. It was the whole Russian mission from Dechani.

We proceeded along the corridor, and ran into two men. We mutually began to apologize.

"Hello," we said, "how did you get here?" They were two Americans we had met in Salonika.

We got our seats and went out of the train by the other door. As we passed the compartment we saw a familiar face. It was the little French courier.

"Quel pays," he said, bounding up. "Et les Bulgars, quoi?"

"Good Lord," said Jan. "Let's go out and get some fresh air."

The only people lacking to complete the scene were the Sirdar and Dr. Clemow.

A doctor who had just arrived from Salonika asked us to look after four English orderlies who, new to the country, were travelling to the Red Cross mission at Vrntze. With them were two trim, short-skirted, heavy booted, Belgian nurses, who were going to a Serbian field hospital.

The train crawled. At times it was necessary to hold one's breath to see if we were moving at all. It was always possible that the Bulgars had blown up a bridge or so. One could imagine an anxious driver, his eyes fixed on the line in front, looking for Bulgarian comitaj.

The travellers were restless. Our little French courier stood in the corridor looking fiercely at the black night; his back view eloquently expressive of his opinion of the Balkans.

Later on we all slept. A frightful braying sound awoke us.

No, not Bulgars—only the band. Same band, same station, same hour, same awful incompetence.

So the princess had nothing to do with it!

Trainloads bristling with ragged soldiers passed us—open truck-loads of them, carriage tops covered with sleeping men, some were clinging to the steps and to the buffers.

Nish station had lost its sleepy air. Every one was energetically doing everything all wrong. The four orderlies and the two Belgian sisters were minus their passports. Some one had taken them away. These were run to earth in the station-master's office, and as the party had no idea where to go, we suggested they should come with us to the rest-house.

The first person we met there was Dr. Clemow.

"Have you got the Sirdar with you?" we asked.

He answered that he had brought Paul, the young Montenegrin interpreter, with him. The English units in Montenegro had been recalled, and he had come to Nish to try to rescind the order for his unit.

The town was at its gayest. The cloud had not yet dimmed the market. Peasants poured in, knowing nothing of the Bulgars, little thinking that they would be flying, starving, dying, in a few weeks' time. A Chinese vendor of paper gauds had come into the town, and all the pretty girls were wearing his absurdities pinned on to their head kerchiefs. One girl was so fine and bejewelled that we photographed her, to the delight of her lover, who stood aside to let us have a good view.

A man was selling honey in the comb accompanied by his bees, which must have followed him for miles. They testified their displeasure at his selling their honey by stinging him and most of the buyers.

No one seemed to know when the train was leaving. Station-master, porters, all had a different tale. At last we decided to risk seven o'clock in the evening, and the four orderlies and ourselves, copper tray and all, bade farewell to the Belgian sisters, who had cut off their hair, and wandered across to the station. The train arrived two hours late and stood, ready to go out, guarded by tatterdemalions with guns.

"You can't get in yet," said one of them barring our way.

"Why?"

"Ne snam."

The freebooting instinct arose in us; we awaited our opportunity, dodged between two soldiers, and settled ourselves comfortably. Several officials looked in and said nothing; another came and forbade us to stay there, and passed on. An old woman came with a broom and cleaned up. We sat on our feet to get them out of the way, somebody squirted white disinfectant on the floor, and we were left in peace.

The train started at eleven, moved as far as a siding and stayed till four. We found the four Red Cross men had only nine shillings between them. Three had stood all the way from Salonika, as during an unfortunate moment of interest in the view their seats had been appropriated by a fat Serbian officer, his wife and daughter. The fourth, a porter from Folkestone, had settled down on the floor, saying "he wasn't going to concarn himself with no voos."

They had new uniforms, yellow mackintoshes, white kit bags, and beautiful cooking apparatus, which took to pieces and served a thousand purposes.

In the chilly morning we got out at Stalatch, just too late for the Vrntze train. Luckily the station cafe was open.

The four Englishmen ordered beefsteak, but were given long lean tasteless sausages. They asked for tea and were given black Turkish coffee in tiny cups half full of grounds. We asked about the trains, and were told we should catch the one next day. We argued, and extracted the promise of a luggage train, which would soon pass.

Why is it that in Serbia they always, on principle, say, "You can't," after which under pressure they own, "Somehow you can"? In Montenegro they say, "Certainly you can," after which they occasionally find that "Somehow you can't."

At last the luggage train came. We sat on the step dangling our legs and peering down at the country below us.

We were again held up at Krusevatz and bearded the officials. They promised to put on a special carriage for us when the next luggage-train should come in, some time that evening.



Nothing for it but to lunch and to kill time. We watched the mountain batteries pass on their way to the Bulgarian frontier. One or two big cannon trailed by, drawn by oxen. Many horses looked wretched and half-starved.

The Englishmen built a camp fire by the rail-road. Soon tea was brewing; we drank, and chewed walnuts, stared at by crowds of patient Serbian soldiers.

We travelled with the treasurer of the district, a charming man who revelled in stories of a mischievous boyhood spent in a Jesuit establishment. The fathers had stuck to him nobly until he had mixed red paint with the holy water, and one of the fathers, while administering the service, had suddenly beheld his whole congregation marked on the forehead with damnatory crosses like criminals of old time. That ended his school days. He introduced us to an officer, whose business it was to search for spies, a restless man who was always feeling under the seats with his feet. Perhaps it was only cramp! The four Englishmen, cheered at the thought that their long journey was nearing its end, burst into song. The Serbs stood round listening to the melodies that were so different to their own plaintive wailings, and presently asked us to translate. We don't know if the subtleties of "Didn't want to do it," or "The little grey home in the west," were very clear in the translations, as they seemed puzzled.

Arrived at Vrntze, we found no carriages to meet us. The station-master at Krusevatz had promised to telephone, but as usual had not done it. We had to break the news to our Englishmen, who, their songs over, had naturally fallen into tired depression, and had to tell them that a three-kilometre walk was before us, and one man had better stay to look after the baggage. Carriages were telephoned for, but they would be long in coming.

They were! We arrived at the village—no carriages. We agitated. The spy searcher came out of the cafe—to which he and the "Bad Boy's Diary" man had driven—and made people run about. They said the carriages had already gone. We denied it, so they woke up the coachman.

We took the three men to the hospital and went back to sit in the cafe with our new friends and met many old ones. The local chemist cheered and promised us a present of mackintosh cotton to celebrate our return. We had spent Easter morning in his shop eating purple eggs and drinking tea enlivened with brandy, while the choir came in and chanted beautiful Easter songs to us.

An hour rolled by, the cafe closed, our friends disappeared. We went to meet the carriages from the station; at last they arrived, with Mr. Owen half asleep amidst the kitbags.

It was far into the night when we arrived at our hospital burdened with our two bags and the copper tray.

The night nurse, a kitten, and a round woolly puppy welcomed us.



CHAPTER XIV

MAINLY RETROSPECTIVE

Hospital work again. How strange we felt. A sad-faced little Serbian lady, widowed through typhus, was interpreting for the out-patients while Jo was away; but she was alone in the world and did not want to go—so Jo, homesick for her beloved out-patients, had to make the best of it and do other work. The Serbian youth who had been put on the staff as secretary, was dangerously ill with typhoid fever, which he had picked up at Kragujevatz. The typhus barrack was a children's hospital, containing little waifs chosen from the out-patients, and a few women.

In the early days when we had first arrived at Vrntze there were several overfilled Serbian and one Greek hospital. They were only cafes and large villas, unsanitary, stuffy, and overworked. The windows were never open, and through the huge sheets of plate glass could be dimly seen in the thick blue tobacco smoke a higgledy-piggledy crowd of beds. Often two men lay in one bed covered with their dirty great coats, while typhus patients and wounded men slept together. One man lay unconscious for several days in the window, his feet in his dinner-plate. At last he died, his feet still in the dinner. Mr. Berry took on a hydropathic establishment which had been completed just before the first Balkan War. This was used as the central hospital, where the staff lodged, and the most serious surgical cases were nursed. In the basement an operating-room was rigged up, there were bathrooms, disinfecting-rooms, a laundry, and an engine-house, where gimcrack German machinery in fits and starts provided us with electric light and hot water. The village school on the hill opposite was annexed and cleaned by a sculptor, a singer, a painter, and a judge of the Royal Horse Show. This was run as a convalescent home, and was the cause of many a muddy sit down, as it lay on the top of a greasy hill.

Other large buildings were gradually added, sulphured, and cleaned until we had six hospitals, one of which was run for some time in connection with the Red Cross unit.

Typhus had not stricken the village badly, but the old barracks were full of cases which developed several days after each batch of wounded came.

The Red Cross unit took on the typhus barracks. Mr. Berry, seeing that surgery was for the moment a secondary thing, and having received a batch of Austrian prisoners riddled with typhus, built some barracks not far from the school. Glass was unobtainable, so thin muslin was used for the windows.

The first precaution against bad air that Mr. Berry took in preparing his chief surgical ward was to smash all top panes of the windows with a broom, thus earning the name of the Window Breaker. Whenever the wind blew through the draughty corridors and glass rattled down from the sashes, word went round that "Mr. Berry has been at it again."

Our unit and the Red Cross ran a quarantine hospital together. It was originally the state cafe and lay in the park of the watering-place. Near by were the sulphur baths. We ripped out the stuffy little wooden dressing-rooms, to the joy of the bath attendant, who possessed the facsimile of Tolstoi's face, and with the debris we built a large shed outside for the reception of the wounded.

In the early days they came in large batches from other hospitals, pathetic septic cases, their lives ruined for want of proper care. We put their clothes in bags for future disinfecting, and the men, mildly perplexed, were bathed, shaved, and sent to the "clearing-house," as it was called. Those who developed typhus went to the barracks, and the rest were drafted to the various hospitals in the village.

The clothes were first sulphurized to kill the lice, and then, until Dr. Boyle's disinfector appeared, boiled. This was important, as typhus is propagated by infected lice. Even forty-eight hours of sulphur did not destroy the nits. One day the sulphur-room was opened after twenty-four hours. Live lice were discovered congregated round the tops of the bags. Jan put some in a bottle. They immediately fought each other, tooth and nail, rolling and scrambling in a mass just like a rugby-football scrum, and continued the fight for twelve hours at least, thus proving that the scientific writer who says that the louse is a delicate creature and only lives a few hours off the body can know little of the Serbian breed.

The town, when we arrived, was a bouquet of assorted and nasty smells, of which the authorities seemed proud. We cleaned up the streets by running a little artificial river down the gutter. Mr. Berry had the chief of the police sacked and instituted a sort of sanitary vigilance committee. We took over the local but very primitive sewage works—a field into which all the filth of the town was drained.

The slaughter-house was discovered. It was an old wooden shed built over the lower end of the stream which washed the village from end to end, draining successively the typhus barracks, the baths, and all the hospitals. The shed itself was old and worm-eaten. The walls were caked with the blood of years, yet the meat was always hung against them after having been well soused in the filthy water. Mr. Berry decided to build a new one: some of the money was subscribed through Mr. Blease by the Liverpool Liberal Club; the rest Mr. Berry paid himself. At once the state began to quarrel with the commune as to the ownership of the proposed treasure. So the smells disappeared and the town engineer was furious, saying he would "Put all right" when we left.

Luckily one of the chief men in the town had lived in America and knew the value of cleanliness. Mr. Berry was offered an honorary Colonelcy; but he refused, saying he would prefer to be made sanitary officer for the town.



The spring came, bringing with it no fighting. A great offensive was expected, had been ordered, in fact, but we heard later that the army refused to advance. The work was very much lighter. Very few men were entirely helpless. The hospitals, which were still emptying themselves and whose men were coming to us, sent the survival of the fittest. Most of the beds were carried out under the trees after the morning dressings were done, and the men lay gossiping and smoking when they could get tobacco. Outside visitors were rare. The Serbian ladies do not go round the hospitals with cigarettes and sweets, and to find a Serbian woman nursing is an anomaly.

Report says that many flung themselves into it with energy during the first Balkan War, but that four years of it, ending with typhus, had dulled their enthusiasm. It is not fair to blame them. To nurse from morning till night in a putrid Serbian hospital with all windows closed requires more than devotion and complete indifference to life. Three Serbian ladies came to sew pillow cases and sheets every afternoon, and one of them gave up still more time to teach the patients reading and writing.

But the town was full, in the summer, of smartly dressed women, and the village priest never once visited our hospitals. Hearing of the English missions and their work, peasants began to come from the mountains around, and the out-patient department became, under Dr. Helen Boyle, a matter for strenuous mornings.

Many of these poor things had never seen a doctor in their lives. Serbia even in peace-time had not produced many medical men, and those who existed had no time to attend the poor gratis.

The percentage of consumptives was enormous. Every family shuts its windows and doors for the winter and proceeds industriously to spit, and so the disease spreads.

Diphtheria patients rode and walked often for ten hours and waited in the courtyard, and people far gone with typhus staggered along in the blazing spring sun.

One jolly old ragatops with typhus arrived in the afternoon with a violent temperature, and Jo settled him comfortably in the courtyard with his head on a sink until Mrs. Berry should come in to see about taking him into the barracks. He seemed quite happy about himself, but very worried about his blind beggar brother and his two half-blind children, whose sight had been ruined by smallpox.

For the latter nothing could be done.

Another time she kept two boys waiting to see if Mrs. Berry could take them into her typhus barracks. One had scarlet fever, and the other was a young starving clerk in a galloping consumption, thirty-six hours from his home.

Afraid to raise their hopes, and not knowing if there would be room for them, Jo told them that they were to have some very strong medicine that could only be administered two hours after a dose of hot milk and biscuit (the medicine was only bovril). By this time Mrs. Berry arrived and managed to squeeze the boys in.

However, we were told to clear the hospitals, for the wounded were expected.

"What could be done with the scarlet fever boy?" At last an idea came: "The Mortuary," built by the Horse Show Judge with such joy. The mortuary that we had all gone to admire as a work of art.

But the scarlet fever boy did not seem to see it that way, for in the night he escaped, and we have never seen him since.

Diphtheria was so prevalent that the Red Cross on receiving a patient, gathered in the whole family for a few days, inoculated, washed, and gargled it. They also toured the villages around, digging out typhus and other infectious cases, thus stopping the spread of infection. They had a most energetic matron, Miss Caldwell, who had already nursed in Cettinje during the Balkan Wars, and we have already told how she managed the Montenegrins.

Often the patients came in ox-carts. Too ill to be lifted out, they had to be examined and treated in the carts. Dr. Boyle acquired a special nimbleness in jumping in and out of these contrivances armed with stethescope, spoons, bowls, and dressings. We accumulated a congregation of "regulars," who came to be dressed every day—gathered feet, suppurating glands, eczema, etc.

One old mother with a bad leg was bandaged up with boracic ointment and told to come back in two days. She came. Jo undid the bandage. All the old lady's fleas had swarmed to the boracic till it looked like a fly-paper. After which we used Vermigeli.

All wore brightly woven belts, sometimes two or three, each a yard and a half long, tightly wound round their bodies, thus making their waists wider than their hips. One girl was black and blue with the pattern showing on her skin, and many men were suffering from the evils of tight lacing.

The village priest received belts as fees from the peasants when he married them. He sent us a message to say he had some for sale, so we went in a body to his house, were received by his daughter, who looked like a cow-girl, turned over a basketful of belts, and bought largely. After which he put up the price.

Jo went on night duty for the first time.

A queer experience this, starting the day's work at half-past seven in the evening and finishing at seven in the morning—breakfasting when other people are dining; hearing their contented laughter as they go off to bed; and then a queer loneliness and the ugly ticking of a clock. One creeps round the big ward. What a noisy thing breathing is. Some one groans, "Sestra, I cannot sleep." This man has not been ordered morphia. Silence once more broken only by the sound of the breathing, distant howling of dogs from the darkness or the hoot of an owl. The old frostbite man coughs; he coughs again insistently. Both say "Yes" to hot milk. So down to the big kitchen, some mice scatter by, the puppy wakes up and thinks it is time for a game. A woman's voice calls loudly, "Sestra." Taking the milk off, Sestra hurries across the courtyard and along the corridor to the little rooms with the puppy tugging at her skirt. The woman wants water; she has wakened the other women—they want water. When silence again comes back into the ward, one notes instinctively the vivid colouring of the two big blue windows at the far end, the long lines of beds disappearing into the darkness, the dim light of the lantern on the table showing up the cheap clock and a few flowers. The intensity of light upon this clock is only equalled by the intensity of one's thoughts upon the clock. The minute-hand drags on as though it were weary with the day's work. A groan ticks off the quarters and cries for water or milk the half-hours. At last one o'clock. Time for a midnight meal. Eggs and cocoa hurriedly eaten without appetite in the kitchen, but breaking the monotony. Back to the ward again, one of the patients very restless, in great pain. Poor fellow, he has had a long and hard time of it, fifteen months in bed and all due to early neglect.

"Sestra," he says, "sestra," and holds out a handkerchief heavy with coin. "Tell the doctor to take me down to the operating-room and cure me or not let me wake up."

Between four and five there is more movement in the ward. Groans give way to yawns. In the windows the blue is paling to grey. Cocks are crowing now quite close, now faintly, like an echo. Suddenly the world is filled with work, "washings, brushings, combings, cleanings, temperatures, breakfasts, medicines, some beds to make, reports, all fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle, until at last the day-sisters come and relieve, and yawning at the daylight one eats warmed-up dinner while the others are having breakfast."

After a seven weeks' absence one was bound to miss many old friends in the ward. Some had gone home, others were back in the army. Old Number 13, the king of the ward, was still there. He had a dark brown face and white hair, and was furious if any dared to call him a gipsy.

"I am a respectable farmer," he said, "and I own seventeen pigs, a horse, and five sheep, a wife, and two children."

He loved to tell of his wedding. It was done in the correct old Serbian style. He went with his mother and a gun to the chosen one's house, where she was waiting alone, her parents tactfully keeping out of the way. They abducted the lady, who was treated with great honour as a visitor in her future father-in-law's house.

"Father" turned up next morning. Rakia was served, and father divulged ceremoniously how many pigs he could spare to them for keeping his daughter.

Number 13 wanted to know everything: how old was Jo, how much she was paid?

"What, you are not paid?" he said in amazement. "Then the English are wonderful! In Serbia our women would not do that."

Poor little John Willie still left a blank, though he had died long before. His name was not John Willie, but it sounded rather like it, so we just turned it into John Willie. He loved the name, and told his father about it.

They sat all afternoon hand-in-hand, saying at intervals, "Dgonn Oolie," and chuckling.

Jan once had brought back from a spring visit to Kragujevatz some horrible sun hats.

They were the cast-off eccentricities of the fashions of six years ago, and had drifted from the Rue de la Paix to this obscure Serbian shop which was selling them as serious articles of clothing. Jo tried them on, and one of the nurses became so weak with laughter that she tumbled all the way downstairs.

Finding them quite impossible, Jo bequeathed them to the ward, where they were snapped up enthusiastically.

The ugliest was an immense sailor hat, the crown nearly as wide as the brim, but the head hole would have fitted a doll. However, John Willie fancied that hat and was always to be seen, a tiny, round-backed figure, wandering slowly in a long blue dressing-gown, blue woolly boots, and the enormous hat perched on the top of his pathetically drooping head.

One day poor little John Willie became fearfully ill. His parents arrived and sat dumbly gazing at him for two nights, while he panted his poor little life away. His friend the Velika Dete (big child), once a fierce comitaj, was moved away from the "Malo Dete," to make more room, and he sulked, while the Austrian prisoner orderlies ran to and fro with water for his head, milk, all the things that a poor little dying boy might need; and old Number 13 passed to and fro shaking his head, for he had been long in hospital and had seen many people die.

A man with knees bent (he said with scroogling them up all winter in the cold) was put in John Willie's place. The Velika Dete came back, but he would not speak to "Bent Knees" for weeks.

By this time the Austrian prisoners were very well trained and made excellent orderlies in the ward. An ex-Carlton waiter was very dexterous in sidling down the ward: on his five fingers a tray perched high, containing dressing-bowls and pots bristling with forceps, scissors, and various other instruments.

His chief talent lay in peppering frostbitten toes with iodoform powder—a reminiscence of the sugar castor.

Our housemaid was a leather tanner, whom Jo's baby magpie mistook for its parent, as he fed it at intervals every morning. A Czech in typhus cloths spent his days down in the disinfecting, operating and bathrooms. He had been an overseer in a factory and had added to his income by writing love-stories for the papers. A butcher was installed in the kitchens. Once a week he became an artist, killing a sheep according to the best Prague ideals.

All our prisoners, about forty in number, clung to the English hospitals as their only chance of life, for in other places sixty per cent. had died of typhus.

The Serbs, though bearing no animosity, could do little for them. We saw the quarters of some men working on the road. These were show quarters and supposed to be clean. Each room had an outside door. On the floor was room for six men and hay enough to stuff one pillow. They had no rugs, and the Serbs could give them none. The cold in the winter must have been intense.

We had come back to this little world after seven weeks' wandering, and almost immediately Jan had gone off to Kragujevatz with a broken motor.

While he was away Jo got letters from England and Paris, which made her realize that things were rather in a mess, and we should have to go home. We had left England intending to stay in Serbia three months, and had been then nearly nine.



CHAPTER XV

SOME PAGES FROM MR. GORDON'S DIARY

OCTOBER 2ND. Got a wire from Kragujevatz to say that the motor hood is ready and that we must go over to get it fitted. We cleaned and oiled the car, and at two ran it down the hill, but it would not start. Found two sparking plugs cracked and the magneto very weak. When we had fixed it up it was too late. Four a.m. to-morrow morning.

OCTOBER 3RD. Started in the dark, Mr. Berry, Sister Hammond, Sava, I, and a female relation of some minister or other who wanted to go to Kralievo. The motor working badly, as it is impossible to get the proper spare parts. Three young owls were sitting in the middle of the road scared by our headlights; we hit one, the other two flew away. Sava and I stopped and tinkered at the old machine for about an hour, changed all the sparking plugs again, after which she went better. We reached Kralievo without incident, where we cast loose the female relation. From Kralievo passed over the Morava, which was pretty floody and had knocked the road about a bit. The road led right through the Shumadia country, where the first revolts of the Serbian nation against their Turkish oppressors were engendered. We passed the old Serbian churchyard. I never passed by without going in. These queer old tombstones all painted in days when pure decoration had a religious appeal, these tattered red and white and black banners lend such a gay air to death; these swords and pistols and medals carved into the stone seem almost carrying a bombast to heaven. On one side of each tombstone is the name of its owner, preceded by the legend, "Here lies the slave of God." Do slaves love their masters?

When we passed this road in the winter, black funeral flags hung from almost every hut, and even now the rags still flap in the breeze. A Serbian boy, clad in dirty cottons, shouted to us, making gesticulations. We slowed down and stopped.

"Bombe," he cried. "Aeropla-ane. Pet," he held up five fingers, "y jedan je bili slomile. Vidite shrapnel."

He pointed. We saw a quiet, early autumn landscape, the blue sky slightly flecked with thin horizontal streaks of cloud. Any scene less warlike could not have been imagined.

"Vidite tamo," he cried once more.

Straining our eyes one could just see, between the lowest strata of cloud, a series of small white round clouds floating.

"Shrapnel," said Sava, pointing.

"They hit one," said Mr. Berry.

I let in the clutch, we sped on once more. Bang! a tire burst.

Motor driving in Serbia is not a profession, it is an art. We were on another of these first-class Serbian roads. Presently we came to a long downhill.

"That is the place," said Mr. Berry to Sister Hammond, "where we spent the night last winter when the motor stuck in the mud. There, beneath that tree."

We shrugged our way down the hill, and presently came into the gipsy environments of Kragujevatz.

A man stopped us, holding up a hand.

"Bombe," he said.

We got out. In the soft earth at the side of the road was a neat hole, four inches in diameter. Peering down we could see the steel handle of the unburst bomb. We next passed a smashed paling, in the garden behind a crowd were searching for relics. An old woman had been killed, they said. We turned into the main street and plunged into a large crowd. The pavement had been torn up, and people were grubbing in the mud; pieces of charred wood were passed from hand to hand.

"That's a bit of propeller," said one. "No; it's a bit of the frame," said another. A girl proudly held up a large piece of map scorched all round the edges.

"And the men?" we asked.

"Nemachke (Germans)," answered the crowd; "both dead; one here, one over there," pointing to the middle of the road.

We came into the Stobarts' camp, pitched up on the hill behind the Kragujevatz pleasure ground.

"Did you see the aeroplanes?" they cried, running towards us.

"No," we answered; "but we saw the shrapnel."

"One was hit—it was wonderful. They were flying just over here, and a shrapnel burst quite close; and then one saw a thin stream of smoke come from the plane; then a little flicker. It seemed to fall so slowly. Then it burst into flames and came down like a great comet."

"D——n!" we said: "if only that machine had been working right yesterday."

We took our car down to the arsenal, and I left Sava to take it to bits and get it opened out, for there had been a bit of a knock in the crank case. The remains of the smashed aeroplane were piled in the yard, and from the way it had twisted up without breaking one could see from what beautiful metal the machinery was made. Some of the French experts denied that the guns had hit it—giving as their reason that one of its own bombs had exploded. But one of the engineers put his hand into a big hole which was beneath the crank case and drew out a shrapnel ball. I thought that would settle it, but the Frenchmen were not convinced. The shells were bursting fifty metres too low, they said. Fifteen bombs had fallen about the arsenal, and one man, a non-commissioned officer, had been killed.

Met Hardinge and Mawson: they both saw the aeroplane fall, and were not fifty yards from the place where it struck.

Walked back to the Stobarts' camp for lunch. A French aeroplane had come over from Belgrade too late; now it rose slowly in the air and sailed off. Saw the two dead aviators; both had evidently been killed at once, for they were charred, not blistered.

Colonel Phillips, ex-Governor of Scutari, and English military attache, came up with the Italian attache. A bomb had fallen just before the colonel's house and missed his servant by a hair's-breadth. The Italian was in a room opposite the Crown Prince's palace; he thought that the falling machine was going to crash through the roof, but it fell in the street not ten yards away. The camp itself was packing hard, for Mrs. Stobart had just decided to form a "flying field ambulance."

Mr. Berry and I had a tent assigned to us.

October 4th. Awoke to sounds like some one hitting a board with a mallet. Ran outside. One found the aeroplane from the little clouds of shrapnel, for it was flying very high, and was like a speck. Clouds of smoke were rolling from one quarter of the town, and we thought that a big fire was beginning, but it was extinguished. Another aeroplane came later. The guns began long before it could be seen. It dropped two bombs over the powder factory, and two in the town. Mrs. Stobart ordered everybody from the camp; but nobody left except the patients, who were driven a mile out and dumped in a wood. A long procession of townsfolk filed continuously by, running from the danger. The aeroplane dropped two more bombs in the town, and came back flying right over the camp. It was a queer feeling, staring right up at the plane, and wondering if another bomb were not falling silently towards one.

I went down to the arsenal to see about the car; and Mr. Berry and Miss Hammond went off to see the anti-aircraft guns. Mrs. Stobart had asked me to go out on the Rudnik road to see a car which had broken down, and had promised to send a motor to fetch me. Before we could leave, news was brought that another aeroplane had been telephoned. Presently we could hear the guns beginning. Hardinge turned up, and we looked out for the machine. We saw the aeroplane coming straight towards us; everybody rushed for the cellars, but I wanted to stay outside for the last moment. Hardinge was with me. Suddenly I lost sight of the plane. I ran farther out to look for it, and suddenly there was a report, and a great column of smoke just outside the arsenal. There was another behind the rifle shops, and another behind the boiler sheds. Now the aeroplane was overhead. I heard a noise like tearing silk, and lay flat upon the ground shouting to Hardinge—

"Lie flat, d——n you!"

It seemed ages before it burst. Dust and bits flew everywhere; the windows all sprang out into the yard. I looked for Hardinge, but he was unharmed. I had expected to be terrified, but I was feeling so bothered about Hardinge that I had no time to think about myself.

We heard a shrill crying, "Oh—h! oh—h!"

I ran forward, crying to Hardinge, "A man's hurt!" He answered, "Is he?" The dust was so thick I could not see at first, but as it cleared I found a workman lying on back and elbows, his knees drawn up as though he were trussed; his head waved from side to side, and he was uttering spasmodic cries. I said to him, "Where? where?" and he placed a hand to his stomach.

The man had been struck just below the ribs by a large piece of bomb, blood was welling from the wound, so I pushed his shirt into it, and ran back to the office. Mrs. Stobart's car had been brought by a lady and a youth named Boon, who had both taken cover in the cellar; so I dug up the girl, whose name I have forgotten, as I hoped she knew "first aid." Together we ran to the man, leaving Boon to bring the ambulance. "Bandages," we demanded. "Haven't any," answered the few Serbs who had gathered round; "the first aid house has been blown to pieces." We crammed our handkerchiefs into the place, and a cotton-wool arm pad which was brought, and we then took off the man's own puttees and tied him up with them. As we were doing this somebody cried—

"Aeroplanes returning."

Immediately every Serb and Austrian fled. The girl, Hardinge, and I were left alone. It was a false alarm. With the returning crowd came a large man, who was weeping.



"Oh, my poor brother! oh, my poor brother! What have they done to thee? Why should this evil have befallen thee?"

As we finished tying him up, Hardinge said, "Is it any good lying down?"

I answered, "If this poor chap had been lying down he would not have been hurt."

There was no stretcher, so we lifted the wounded man on a blanket into the ambulance, which Boon had now brought. The girl and the brother climbed within. I took the steering wheel. Boon wound up the engine, and swung alongside me. The driving was a difficult problem. Whether to drive fast and get to the hospital, or whether to go slow and spare the wounded man as much pain as was possible? The road was awful: once it had been laid with stone pavement, but many of the stones were missing, and in so bad a condition was it that although several bombs had fallen in the streets, one could not distinguish the bomb craters from the ordinary holes in the road. At last I decided that as it was not a fracture I would go as quickly as I dared. Above the clatter of the machinery I could hear the weeping of the brother and the intermittent cries of the wounded man, "Water, water."

"I think he's going," said the girl through the curtains.

At last we reached the hospital. We laid the man on the ground and the doctors did all they could. But it was useless, the piece of shell had cut in directly beneath the heart. In ten minutes he was dead. I turned to the brother and laying both hands upon his shoulders said—

"Your poor brother was too badly hit. We could not save him."

He stared at me for a moment, not understanding. Then he turned and flung himself down upon the body, weeping more bitterly than before.

I went to the ambulance and took it back to its place.

The aeroplane returning from the arsenal had flung three gratuitous bombs at the camp itself, one had fallen in the Serbian hospital yard, and had killed an Austrian prisoner; one had fallen in the top corner of the camp field, but had not exploded. The third had missed, only by a little, the room in which the two dead German aeroplanists were lying, had plunged into the Stobarts' storeroom, and had burst in the last case of marmalade which they possessed. It was an awful mess. Had it fallen three yards to the left it would have killed the chief cook, who was just on the other side of the wall.

I went back to the arsenal. None of the bombs had struck any important part, almost all had fallen in open places, though one had burst on the roof of the woodshed, only a few yards from the petrol store. Two cans of petrol had been punctured by bits of shell, and Austrian prisoners were hurriedly pumping them out. Almost half the work of the arsenal was done by Austrian prisoners. Another bomb had fallen in the horseshoe store, and inside horseshoes were everywhere, some even sticking in the beams like great staples. I had no idea before that the bombs had such force. Sava said he had been standing in a doorway and a bomb had exploded quite close, a piece had whizzed by his nose and had torn down the name board over his head. When he turned round to go on with the work the aide had fled and never appeared again.

I met Dr. Churchin. He is one of the best Serbs I have yet met, a philosopher. He was looking after the English units in Kragujevatz and I learnt did it excellently, and with a devotion to his duties altogether unusual. He told me that I had been nominated an honorary captain; but I am under the impression that it is an honour I cannot by national law accept.

We went in the afternoon in the car towards Rudnik to examine the one which had broken down. I soon saw that nothing could be done on the spot, and ordered it to continue its "bullocky" progress to the camp. In the evening went off to the Government motor school, where I found my old friend Ristich and Colonel Derrock; both these men are first-class Serbs—jolly, keen and friendly.

October 5th. Our car not being finished, Mr. Berry and Sister Hammond went back to Vrntze in a car lent by Colonel Derrock. I was to stay till all the repairs were completed on ours. There was another scare of aeroplanes, and the whole town emptied itself, families pouring by en route for the country; but the planes did not come. I went down to the arsenal and got on with the repairs. Dr. May lent me her camera and I got some photos. Mrs. Stobart went off with her "flying field force," taking with her nearly all the men and almost all the cars: if the hospital get many serious cases I imagined that they would be dreadfully shorthanded.

In the night the two German aeroplanists were buried without military honours. The Serbs said that they were assassins and deserved nothing. Still, Kragujevatz is an arsenal.

October 6th. Another aeroplane scare; town emptied itself once more. Dr. MacLaren and I rushed off to the anti-aircraft guns, hoping to get some photos; but nothing occurred. Got the Rudnik car running by taking Mr. McBlack's useless car to pieces. In the evening two sisters went to Uskub. One of the sisters went to get her bag, and I took what I thought to be a short cut to help her. I passed between the tents, and was striding along, when—Plop! I found myself swimming in a deep tank of water. The sister heard me fall, and ran back to the camp crying out—

"Help, help! The stranger is drowning in the bath-water sewage tank."

I clambered out, and hastily fled to my tent, where kindly souls brought me an indiarubber bath and hot water. I also got some refugee pyjamas, in which I wandered about for the rest of the evening. My clothes were taken to the kitchen and hung over the big stove.

October 7th. Went to the arsenal in borrowed refugee clothes miles too large. Worried the car till it worked. At lunch clothes dry. Got away by three, Hardinge coming with us. Night came on before we got home. Our car is a beastly nuisance in the dark, the lamps, electric and worked from the magneto, only giving light when going at full speed, which is impossible on these roads. I was just boasting to Harding that I had never run into anything except the owl, when I hit a cow. Figures appeared cursing from the darkness; we cursed back for allowing the animal to stray; other figures appeared cursing on our side. The motor was pushed back, the cow got up and walked off, and on we went. Found Jo on night shift. Got some supper, fixed up a bed for Hardinge, and so self to bed.



CHAPTER XVI

LAST DAYS AT VRNTZE

Up till now Vrntze was undisturbed by the war; the fine ladies were walking the streets much as usual, and were bringing pressure upon Gaschitch, the commandant, to make us close one of our hospitals, so that it might be reopened as a lodging-house. The chemist and Jan had an amusing conversation about the uncle of Nicholas I. It seems he was a great poet.

"Sir," said the chemist, earnestly, "I can assure you that he was one of the greatest poets that ever has lived. Were Serbian a language as universally spoken as is English, he would stand beside Shakespeare in the world's estimation, if not before. The depth of his philosophy, sir, it is astounding and so deep. There are passages in his poetry which I have studied for weeks on end and never yet been able to understand."

The true explanation is that the great poet translated an old work of German philosophy into Serbian, and very likely did not understand all the original himself.

We got more letters urging us to return. Our studios in Paris and all our work of the last eight years seemed in danger of being sold up. So Jan went once more to the Chief. He asked us to stay until at least the first batch of wounded arrived, for none of the others had had experience of the receiving arrangements, and of the disinfecting. We moved our beds and baggage to the school, which Jo was to take over as a convalescent hospital.

By the way, one of our doctors had a queer soothsaying experience. She was told that she was one day going to a foreign country with an S in the name. She would be quite safe in her first job, but that she would be offered a post in a large grey building from which if she accepted she might not escape alive, but in any case would be flying for her life, and that she and all her companions would suffer great hardships and sleep on dirty straw in awful places. She was offered a job at the Farmers' hospital in Belgrade. She refused. It is a great grey building, and we now heard that Belgrade was being violently bombarded and all had to escape. Rumours came of great German attacks on Shabatz and Obrenovatz.

The next day Serbian refugees arrived from Belgrade itself: they said that the town was in flames and that fierce fighting was taking place in the streets. Posheravatz was deserted, and a great battle was raging about its outskirts. There were reports that the King of Bulgaria had abdicated and that the Germans at Chabatz had been defeated, leaving 8000 prisoners in Serbian hands. Neuhat came to Jan in great glee.

"We have captured a German major," he said, "and he says that never was there a soldier like the Serb. He has fought English and French and Russians, but he says our troops are the most wonderful of all."

"Jolly sensible chap," said Jan. "I'd say the same myself if I was a prisoner."

Major Gaschitch told Dr. Berry that if the Serbian army retreated we were to retreat with them. Blease and Jan got hard at work putting rope handles to the packing-cases and labelling them for special purposes. One of our lady doctors was valued in the morning. In the outpatient department a question arose about marriage. A Serb patient said—

"I can marry any time I like. Pah! In Serbia one can get two maidens for twopence, and three widows for a mariasch (1/2d.)."

Everybody was now running about with maps, violently explaining the situation to everybody else, and all explaining differently. Major Gaschitch had fixed Novi Bazar as our probable haven, and Mr. Berry borrowed our map to see if there were a direct road over Gotch mountain, and suggested that Jan might get a horse and ride over to see. Alas, only a fourth-class road was marked, and heaven knows what that may be like: lots of country and choose for yourself probably. A woman was brought in with what she said was a bullet through the breast; it occurred during the celebration of the marriage ceremony, which lasted a week. The girl was brought by her father, the bridegroom having rushed off to the church to pray. The wound looked very like a dagger thrust.

The new slaughter-house was a fine erection. The walls were almost finished and the roof was being assembled. One of the Austrian prisoners had discovered a talent for stone carving, and Miss Dickenson was designing a frieze for the door and on each side. There was a fine ceremony—while we had been away—at the foundation, and Mr. Berry made a speech in Serbian. The disinfector had also arrived and was soon got into working order.