Between Bagrdan and Jagodina, rain had fallen almost incessantly, and though rain was, the Serbian soldiers always said, the best friend they had, because it checked the progress of the big German guns, it had a depressing influence on the men, and made the roads almost impassable, with deep, gelatinous, marvellous, mud. We had, on this night, put up the tent, and I had just gone to my car for an hour or two of rest, when the dreaded orderly rode up to the car and presented the order to leave at once. It was 1.30 a.m. I sent for Vooitch, who always aroused the soldiers; camp was immediately struck, and I rode round as usual, to see—a little difficult in the darkness—that nothing was left behind, then I sounded the whistle to collect the unit, and as the oxen and horse-wagons and motor-ambulances came into line in single file, I shouted "Napred!" (Forward!) and, followed by the two mounted orderlies, took the lead. Within twenty minutes of receiving the order to move, we were on the march. Rain was, as usual, falling, and the night was so dark, I could scarcely see my horse's head, as our column jolted over ditches, and struck into the road. One of the orderlies, riding a little behind me, held the lantern to throw light upon the road immediately in front, to give us warning of danger from mud-holes, and broken bridges, and we entered Jagodina.

The usual story: abandoned by its inhabitants; houses shuttered and deserted; the whole town in darkness, except that along the walls of the houses, wherever space permitted, camp fires had been lighted, and refugees, women, children and old men, were crouched in groups, sleeping, or sitting in silence, waiting for the dawn. The fires illumined the faces of the fugitives and showed suffering not easy to forget. When the camp fires were left behind, the darkness was complete, and even objects immediately in front were only visible because they showed black against the shining mud. It was a world of shadows, and of dreariness, of wet and cold. And never for a moment had the sounds ceased, of the creaking of wagons, and the squish, squish of oxen-hoofs pressing glutinous mud. Sometimes my horse would stumble, in the dark, over a little flock of sheep that was being driven with a convoy for the purposes of food; or a scared and tiny shrew mouse, absorbed in its own affairs, would dart across the road and escape death by a miracle.

I looked behind me, and saw, only darkness and sorrow, columns, and confusion. Thousands of unoffending people were suffering heartache, separation, desolation; and, as the guns reminded me, thousands of brave men were, a couple of miles away from us, facing at this moment, a murderous death. How could I help asking myself where, in all this hell, is God?

And immediately the answer came. As if in purposeful response, the mountains in the east threw off the blackness of the night, and showed rich purple against the lightening sky. Over the mountains rose clouds of gold, and pink, and aerial blue, and as the rays of sunlight shot triumphantly into the sky, white mists, thick and soft, that had lain hidden, became, for a moment of pure joy, bathed in all the rainbow colours; and one daring cloud of brilliant gold spread itself in the shape of a great dragon across the dark sky. Glories and beauties everywhere, if we could only catch the meaning.

But while I was wondering at it all, the glories vanished; the time for understanding had not yet come; the hills became commonplace, the prosaic light of day was with us, and I saw once more the nightmare picture of drab-dressed, mud-stained soldiers, splashing with their sandalled feet, in the sloppy mud; sometimes stumbling, then rising, smothered with mud, without a word; weren't there worse troubles than that? "Hleba!" (Bread!) "None for three days," were the first words I heard.

I don't know whether I liked least trekking by day, or by night. By day nothing of the horrors by which one was surrounded, was left to the imagination, but by night there were added difficulties. For, apart from danger from the enemy, the roads, or tracks, were full of risks and hazards, even when by daylight these were visible in advance; but they were dangerous when one was dependent on the light of a small lantern, to reveal mud-holes, boulders, fallen trees, precipices, or broken bridges.

Also, there was at night the added danger that in the darkness, the column might be intercepted by other greedy columns butting their way through. But the officers of other convoys were always extremely courteous: they frequently helped us to recover a place in the line, and we were fortunate in never losing, even temporarily, any of the column.

Commanders of other columns often urged me to sleep during night treks in the wagons, or, like the staff, in the motor ambulances, but I preferred to be at the head of the column by night as well as by day; partly because it was obviously the only way in which one could be always on the alert, and partly, also, in order that the men should feel that I was not asking them to endure what I would not endure myself, and that I was sharing with them the practical difficulties of the road.

We reached Treshnitza at 9 a.m. Wednesday, November 3rd, after the night's trek. The cars had a troublous time with mud and holes and were, on several occasions, hauled out by the oxen.

The P.M.O. came to see us as soon as we arrived, and he asked us to take some wounded officers next day in the cars to Krushievatz. It was dreadful to look at the map, and see how far south we had now been driven.

We had commandeered the empty village school-house for dispensary and kitchen, and the column was camped in the orchard behind. The P.M.O. laughingly said we had found a better site than they had, though they—Headquarters Staff—were only a couple of hundred yards away.

Next morning early, we sent off the two wounded majors in motors to Krushievatz; we ourselves received the order to leave at 11.30 a.m. for Shanatz, and we met the returning motors on the road.

In the afternoon, as we were trekking steadily, having been told not to halt till we reached Shanatz, I saw by the side of the road, on a grass common, a hay-cart, a woman, and half a dozen soldiers. The woman was evidently in trouble: she was weeping, gesticulating, and shouting through her tears at the soldiers, who were in possession of the hay-cart. I guessed what had happened, so I halted the column and asked the woman to tell me what was the matter. I found, as I had suspected, that the soldiers had bought hay from her—for the sum of three dinars—and when it came to payment, they had discovered that they had no change, only a ten dinar-note, called in Serbian "banka." I told the soldiers if they didn't pay the woman what they owed her, they must leave to her the hay, or I should report them to the commander, and I took their names and regiments. But they swore that they had no change. I didn't believe them, and there was not time to investigate, but I couldn't let the woman be robbed, so I said I would buy the hay and pay for it, and I gave her three dinars. "Now then," I said, "the hay is mine," and I shouted to our men to come and take it off the cart. Our men were delighted; they leaped to the road and ran quickly to the cart. This worked magic, for hay was difficult to procure, and in an instant, the leader of the dinarless soldiers, produced three dinars; they had, he said, got hidden in his pocket; I handed them to the woman, telling her that she could also keep the other three, and I graciously allowed the soldiers to take away the hay.

The evening colours were a recompense for a wet and dreary day; this side of the broad Morava, yellow beech leaves, caught by the red rays of the setting sun; beyond the river, green-grey mountains, and over these a rainbow, which seemed unwilling to touch the bloodstained earth, and dispersed amongst the clouds. Along the road everything was drab and dead, or dying; the ghost-like procession of convoys and of fugitives was not dead, for it was moving; but it was movement without life, for the soul was stunned.

The town of Varvarin, which we reached at 6 p.m., was in darkness; shuttered and deserted; mud and rain, as usual, in possession. We halted in the broad, main street, ambulance wagons all in line, in a foot and a half of mud, for the column to eat some food, for which there had been no time all day. Immediately on arriving, I received a message that a certain artillery major had been waiting for some hours to shake hands with me. He had once visited our camp at Kragujevatz. I remembered him as a vivacious and intelligent officer, and I was proud that, in the midst of his strenuous work of placing batteries in defence of the retreating Army, he had time to think of his English comrade. It seemed that Serbian officers, indeed, in whatever circumstances they found themselves, always did the right thing at the right moment. They were truly chivalrous, not with the chivalry which rushes to open the door to let you out, but with the chivalry which leaves the door open for you to come in.

The congestion of convoys on the other side of the pontoon bridge, leading to Krushievatz, was terrific. A narrow mud lane led to the bridge, and when we arrived at the entrance to the lane, at about 8 p.m., we found that the column ahead of us, were taking things philosophically and had lighted fires in the road, and were cooking food, and warming themselves; the oxen were lying across the road. There was no possibility of getting past them, though Shanatz, as I then discovered, was on the left bank of the (Western) Morava, and we should therefore not cross by the pontoon. But we eventually moved, and we reached Shanatz, a tiny scattered village, at 3 in the morning, to my great relief, for no other convoys had followed us, and, as the night passed, I had begun to be afraid that we had taken a wrong road. On arrival, we roused the Prefect, and he gave us the keys of the school-house, for our hospital, and we requisitioned a couple of rooms for the staff. Wounded were waiting for us. We cleaned the schoolroom; the doctor and the nurses who were on night duty attended to the patients, who were also given hot coffee and food; and the oxen, wagons, and men, settled in the school enclosure. I went to rest in the car at 5 a.m. and was up again at 6.

The Morava, broad and magnificent, flowed by the side of the village, and in the evening, after dark, some of us seized the rare opportunity of a bathe and a wash.