Jo and Jan went for a stroll, Uzhitze, especially in the back streets, is like a Dürer etching—that one of the Prodigal Son, for instance, all tiny, peaky-roofed houses. We took a siesta in the afternoon, but Jan was dragged out to talk to our professor, who explained that it was impossible for the Serbian Government to find thirty-two ox-carts at once, so the convoy must make two journeys. He also said that horses would be provided for us, and that we would take two or three days to do the trip, but that the ox-waggons would be at least seven, which was death to our romantic dream of toiling laboriously up almost inaccessible mountains at the head of straining ox-carts, sleeping by the roadside, brigands, and all that.
We went down to the station, unloaded the truck and checked the numbers. A few were missing, but not so many as we had expected.
A regiment of soldiers were called up; at a word of command they pounced upon our packing-cases and hurried them off to a storehouse. The smaller cases were left to go on donkeys, two on either side.
The professor dined with us. He is an Anglophile, and was determined after the war to go to England in order to discover the secret of her greatness. He had a theory that it lay in our educational laws, which he wanted to transplant into Serbia wholesale. Jan thought not, and suggested that it might lie even deeper than that.
Next day was a Prazhnik, or feast day, and the great square was crowded with peasantry in their beautiful hand-woven clothes. There were soldiers straight back from the lines chaffing and flirting with the pretty girls, and presently a group began to dance the "Kola" about a man who played a pipe. It is not difficult to dance the Kola. You join hands till a ring is formed, and then shuffle round and round. If you have aspirations to style you fling your legs about as much as space will allow, and we noticed how much better the men danced than the girls, who were almost all very clumsy.
We were to be called at six, so went to bed early, and in spite of the odours from the yard slept soundly.
We got up in good time, breakfasted, but there was no sign of horses. After waiting two hours a square man was brought up to us by the waiter and introduced as our guide. The professor, who had promised to see us off, was apparently clinging to his bed, for he did not come. Our guide was a taciturn, loose-limbed fellow, but had nice eyes and a charming manner; he helped us on to our horses, and off we went. Jan was rather anxious at the start, for he had done very little riding since childhood; but his horse was quiet, and soon he had persuaded himself that he was a cavalier from birth. Jo was riding astride for the second time in her life.
We took the road to Zlatibor (golden hill). There was a heavy mist, the hills were just outlined in faint washes on the fog, and as we mounted the zig-zag path, higher and higher, the town became small and fairylike beneath us; and a soldiers' camp made a queer chessboard on the green of the valley. Jo's horse cast a shoe almost at the start, but the guide said that it did not matter. We went on and ever up, our horses clambering like goats. The scenery was on the whole very English, and not unlike the Devonshire side of Dartmoor.
Our guide took us a two mile detour to show us his house. Later we reached a tiny village with a queer church. We off-saddled for a moment, and were welcomed by the inhabitants, who gave us Turkish coffee and plum brandy (rakia), while in exchange we made them cigarettes of English tobacco. At sixteen kilometres we reached a larger village, where we decided to lunch. We were astonished by the sudden appearance of a French doctor. He was delighted to see us, more so when he found that we both spoke French, and invited us to coffee. We lunched with our guide at the local inn. We ordered pig; indeed there was nothing else to order.
"How much?" said mine host.
"For three," answered we.
"But how much is that?" replied mine host. "You see, each man eats differently." So we ordered one kilo to go on with.
Half a pig was wrenched from a spit in front of the big fire, carried sizzling outside to the wood block, where the waiter hewed it apart with the axe.
We had discovered peculiarities in our horses. They had conscientious objections to going abreast, and always walked single file; this was owing to the narrowness of the mountain paths. Jo's horse, which somehow looked like Monkey Brand, insisted on taking the second place, and would by no means go third. At last we reached the top of Zlatibor—which gets its name from a peculiar golden cheese which it produces. The view is like that from the Cat and Fiddle in Derbyshire, only bigger in scale, and from thence the ride began to be interminable. It grew darker, we walked down the hills to ease our aching knees, and Jan decided that horse riding was no go.
Finally the guide decided that it was too late to reach Novi Varosh that night, and so the direction was altered. The road grew stony and more stony. A bitter breeze came up with the evening. We came to a green valley, at the end of which was a rocky gorge, down which ran the twistiest stream: it seemed as though it had been designed by a lump of mercury on a wobbling plate. We turned from the gorge on to a hill so rocky that the path was only visible where former horse-hoofs had stained the stones with red earth.
The village consisted of an enormous school, a little church, soldiers encamped round fires in the churchyard, and seven or eight wooden hovels. Our guide stopped at the door of the dirtiest and rapped. A furtive woman's face peered out into the gloom. We climbed painfully from our saddles, for we had been thirteen hours on the road.
"Beds?" said the guide to the woman.
"Good Lord!" thought we.
She shook her head dolefully and said, "Ima," which means "there is." Serbians nod for no. The woman slid out into the night and passed to another building, climbed the stairs to a veranda and disappeared.
It grew colder, the guide was busy unharnessing the horses, so shivering we sought refuge in the dirty house, which was not quite so bad within as we had feared. It was furnished with a long table and two benches only, and was lighted by a small fire which was burning on a huge open hearth, and which gave no heat at all. The woman came back and led us to the other house for supper, which was boiled eggs, and the guide generously shared his own bread with us, as we had none. There was no water to drink, and Jo tried, not very successfully, to quench her thirst with rakia.
There were but two beds, and on inquiry finding that there was no place for the guide, we allotted one bed to him. On our own bed the sheets had evidently not been changed since it was first made, and the pillow which once had been white was a dark ironclad grey. We undid our mackintoshes and spread them over both counterpane and pillow. We lay down clothed as we were, and by the time we had finished our preparations the guide was already snoring.
As soon as the light was turned out the whole room began to tick like ten agitated clocks, and all about us in the darkness began strange noises of life: rats scampered in all directions and were finally hurdling over our heads. We had taken some aspirin to ward off the stiffness of unaccustomed exercise, but we were sore, and the narrowness of the bed forced us to lie on our backs; exhaustion, however, conquered all discomforts, and we slept. Jo awoke in the night and yelped to find that the mackintosh had slipped and that her head was resting on the pillow.
We were up again at 5.30, and Vladimir, the guide, suggested that we should breakfast at Novi Varosh, four hours on; but our stomachs were not of cast iron, and we clamoured for eggs. We got them, left Negbina—that was the name of the village—about seven, and once more adventured on the road.
By eight we had passed the old Serbian frontier: the country was growing more interesting, like the foothills of the Tyrol; on the streams were inefficient-looking old wooden mills, the water rushing madly down a slope and hitting a futile little wheel which turned laboriously.
Novi Varosh, with roofs of weathered wood gleaming purplish amongst the trees, was a wonderful little town, and quite unlike any other we had seen; clean without, and if the energy of its citizens at the village pump is a good sample, clean within also, for Serbia. Here are Turks too: ladies in veil and trousers, and trousered kiddies with clothes of orange, yellow and purple. Twice in the streets we were stopped by authority. Our lunch was well cooked, one can clearly see this has not been Serbia for long, for the Serbs are the worst eaters in the world. Jo gave medical advice to a Serb, and on once more.
On the road were travellers never ending in their variety, and one father was mounted with a pack behind him, and on the top of the pack his little daughter clad in many coloured cottons, clasping him tight round the neck and peering inquisitively from behind his ear.
About three p.m. we reached the Lim. The road climbs to a great height, and the peasants in their gay costumes were reaping, some of the fields so steep that we wondered how they stood upon them; on the opposite cliff was an old robber castle like a Rhine fortress.
The Serbian town of Prepolji introduced itself by six Turks lying by the roadside, then there were three Turkish families, afterwards an assorted dozen of small girls in trousers, finally, an old man doddering along in a turban and a veiled beggar woman, who demanded backsheesh. "Where are the Serbs?" we thought.
The Greek church looked as if it had been new built, so that the Serbs could claim Prepolji as a Christian town, and had a biscuit tin roof not yet rusted.
Our hotel was like that where Mr. Pickwick first met Sam Weller, a large open court with a crazy wooden balcony at the second story, and the bedrooms opening on to the balcony. When we opened our knapsacks to get out washing materials, we found that the heat of the horse had melted all the chocolate in Jan's, and it had run over everything. It was a mess, but chocolate was precious, and every piece had to be rescued. We had only been ten hours in the saddle, but we descended stiffly, and were pounced on by a foolish looking man, with a head to which Jo took immediate offence. This fellow attached himself to us during the whole of our stay, and was an intolerable nuisance; we nicknamed him "glue pot," and only at our moment of departure discovered that he was the mayor who had been trying to do us honour.
The next day was Sunday, and the village full of peasants. Stiff-legged and groaning a little within ourselves we walked about the town making observations: Turkish soldiers, Turkish policemen, Turkish recruits, but all the peasants Serb. The country costume is different from that of the north, the perpendicular stripe on the skirt has here given way to horizontal bands of colour, and some women wear a sort of exaggerated ham frill about the waist. The men's waistcoats were very ornate, and much embroidery was upon their coats.
An English nurse came into the town in the afternoon. She, a Russian girl, and an English orderly had driven from Plevlie, en route to Uzhitze. Half-way along the wheel of their carriage had broken in pieces, so they finished the road on foot. Curiously enough we had travelled from England to Malta with this lady, Sister Rawlins, on the same transport. The Russian girl had been married only the day before to a Montenegrin officer, nephew of the Sirdar Voukotitch, Commander-in-Chief of the North, and she was flying back to Russia to collect her goods and furniture.
Next day as we were sketching in the picturesque main street, from the distance came the sounds of a weird wailing, drawing slowly closer and closer.
"Hurra," thought we—two minds with but a single, etc.,—"a funeral—magnificent. Just the thing to complete the scene."
A string of donkeys came round the corner, on either flank each animal bore a case marked with a large red cross. Amongst the animals were donkey-boys, and it was from their lips came the dismal wailing. Never have we seen so ragged and wretched a crew. The boys were evidently the "unfits," and they looked it, every face showed the wan, pallid shadow of hunger and disease. A few old men in huge fur caps, with rifles on their backs, stumbled along, guarding the precious convoy. "Glue pot" led us all to a large empty building, once a Turkish merchant's store, where the cases were to be housed. The bullock carts with the heavier packages came in in the evening, and we sent the men five litres of plum brandy to put some warmth into their miserable bodies. This moved them once more to singing, but we think the songs sounded a little less dreary.
The Commandant asked for, and got, half a dozen sheets from us as a sort of superior backsheesh, and promised us horses for the morrow.
The next morning dawned dismally. Miss Rawlins and her companions were to go on by post cart, and their conveyance arrived first, only two and a half hours late. It was a sort of tinker's tent on four rickety wheels. There seemed to be barely room for one within the dark interior, but both Miss Rawlins and the little Russian climbed in somehow. Charlie, the orderly, clung on by his eyelids in front, and off they went. We last saw two faces peering back at us beneath the fringe of the tent. They had no luck. Half-way to Uzhitze the cart upset and they were all rolled into the ditch, missing a precipice of sixty feet or so by the merest fraction.
Our own horses arrived later, we mounted, and with cheers from the assembled authorities, we rode off.
The rain came down in a steady drizzle; we discovered that the waterproof cloaks which we had borrowed from Nish were not very weathertight. We climbed right up into the clouds, but still the rain held on. From the floating mist jutted great boulders and huge red cliffs. Our guide put up an umbrella and rode along crouching beneath it. At 1400 metres we reached an inn, where we lunched. A Montenegrin commissioner insisted on paying our bill, and said that we would do the same for him when he came to England. Every one in Serbia or Montenegro is interested in ages. They were astounded at ours. They said that Jo would have been seventeen if she were Serbian; and one rose, shook Jan warmly by the hand and said he must have "navigated" the marriage well.
We rode over the frontier, but we were not yet in the real Montenegro. This is not the black mountain where the last dregs of old Serbian aristocracy defied the Turk, this is still the Sanjak, three years ago Turkish, and with pleasant pasturages spreading on either hand.
At last we came up over Plevlie. To one corner we could see the town creeping in a crescent about the foot of a grey hill, far away on the other side was a little monastery, forlorn and white, like a shivering saint, and between a great valley with four purplish humps in the midst of the corn and maize fields, like great whales bursting through a patchwork quilt.
Our horses were thoroughly cheered up, and we passed through the long streets of the town at a lively trot, a thing Jo was taught as a child to consider bad form.
A semi-transparent little man in a black hat stood on the hotel steps beckoning to us. But we had no use for hotel touts, and waved our sticks saying, "Hospital." He seemed curiously disappointed.
The hospital, many long low buildings, lay buried in a park of trees. The staff lived in a tiny house near by, where we were welcomed by the cook, Mrs. Roworth. She explained that as the house was hardly capable of holding its ten or twelve occupants, a room had been taken for us at the inn, but that we were to meal with them.
"Not that you will like the food," she said, "for it's all tinned, and I have only twenty-five shillings a week to buy milk, bread, and fresh meat."
We wondered why, in such a fertile country, a party of hard-working people should be condemned to eat tinned mackerel and vegetables brought all the way from England?
However, the dinner was excellent—all "disguised," she said, for she had during the few weeks she had been there concentrated on the art of disguising bully beef and worse problems, and had sternly put Dr. Clemow on omelets and beefsteaks, as his digestion had caved in under six months' unadulterated tinned food.
We met old friends, fellow travellers on the way out. In those days they were a wistful little party, wondering how they were going to reach Montenegro, the Adriatic being impossible. At last one of the passes was hurriedly improved for them by a thousand prisoners, and they rode through in the snow. Since then typhus had raged, two of their number had been very ill, and one had died. Their energy had been tremendous, and everywhere in the country they were spoken of as the wonderful English hospital, and even from Chainitza, where there was a Russian hospital, soldiers walked a long day's march in order to be treated by the English.
Dr. Roger's rival was there, the perpetrator of ninety hernia operations a week—or was it more?
All this on tinned food!
Our hotel room proved large and comfortable with a talkative willing Turk in attendance. We slept immensely and were wakened by yet another horrible cock crowing. All Balkan cocks seem to have bronchitis.
Plevlie is a red-tiled nucleus with a fringe of wood-roofed Serb houses planted round it. There are ten mosques, while the only Greek church stands forlorn on the other side of the great hollow two miles away.
The town is not really Montenegrin. It has the cosmopolitan character of all the Sanjak, Turks, Austro-Turks and Serbs—a mixture like that at Marseilles or Port Said.
The shops are Turkish, though their turbaned owners, sitting cross-legged on the floor-counters, can speak only Serb—a thing which puzzled us at the time.
We saw veiled women and semi-veiled children everywhere, thickly latticed windows with curious eyes peeping through, and yards with high wooden palings above to prevent the possible young men on the houses opposite from catching a glimpse of the fair ladies in the gardens.
Plenty of long-legged Montenegrin officers—with flat caps bearing the King's initials, and five rings representing the dynasties of the ruling house—filled the streets, and also the inevitable ragged soldiers with gorgeous bags on their backs.
Some of the women, too, were wearing these caps, but theirs were yet smaller and tipped over their noses, like the pork pie hat of our grandmothers. One closely veiled woman showed the silhouette sticking up through her veil just like a blacking tin.
The Mahommedan is much more fanatic in these parts than his more civilized brother of Salonika or Constantinople. Women of the two religions do not visit. The hatred is partially political, and Jo began to realize that her dream of visiting a harem would not be easy to achieve. We met three women walking down a lonely street. Although their faces were covered with several thicknesses of black chiffon, they modestly placed them against the wall and stood there, three shapeless bundles, until we were out of sight.
Jan's feelings were very much hurt, but he soon got used to being treated like a dangerous dragon.
When we reached our hotel again we found the élite of the town waiting in the bar-room for us. There was a huge jolly Greek priest, all big hat and velvet, the prefect, the schoolmaster, a linguist, and the little black-hatted man whom we had mistaken for a hotel tout.
The priest was president of the Montenegrin Red Cross, the prefect was a former Prime Minister and a Voukotitch. All important men who are not Petroviches are Voukotitches; the first being members of the king's and the second of the queen's family.
The little black-hatted man was secretary of the Red Cross, and was formally attached to us while there as cicerone. He explained to us that they had all been in the hotel expecting us the night before, with a beautiful dinner which had been prepared in our honour.
We apologized and inwardly noted the grateful temperament of the Montenegrin. We were solemnly treated to coffee and brandy, and the jolly priest emptied his cigarette box into Jo's lap. When the first polite ceremoniousness had worn off we asked delicately about the front.
"Did we wish to see the front?"
Certainly, said the prefect, we should have the first horses that should come back to the town, and the little transparent shadow man should accompany us. And our letter to the Sirdar Voukotitch, commander in chief of the north?—He should be told about it on his return that evening from the front.
At sunset the muezzin sounded, cracked voices cried unmelodiously from all the minaret tops. Immediately, as if it were their signal, all the crows arose from the town, hovered around in batches for a moment, chattering, and flew away up the hill to roost in the trees round the hospital till sunrise.
Salonika rings with children's cries, Dawson city with the howlings of dogs, but the towns of the Sanjak have no better music than the croaking of carrion crows.
When Jan awoke it was dark, and he was with difficulty rousing Jo when suddenly a voice howled through the keyhole that the horses were waiting. Jan grabbed his watch—5 a.m.; but the horses had been ordered for six. Hastily chewing dry biscuit, Jan jumped into his clothes and ran down. There was a small squat youth with a flabby Mongolian face hovering between the yard door and the inn, and Jan following him discovered three horses saddled and waiting. He hastily ordered white coffee to be prepared, and ran up again to hurry Jo and to pack. He rushed down again to pay the bill, but found that the Montenegrin Red Cross had charged itself with everything, very generously, so he ran up once more to nag at Jo. The secretary, whom we called "the shadow," had not appeared, so we inquired from the squint-eyed youth, received many "Bogamis" as answer, but nothing definite; so we decided, as it was now past six, that he had changed his mind and had sent this chinee-looking fellow, whom we named "Bogami," in his place.
Jan's horse was like an early "John" drawing of a slender but antiquated siren, all beautiful curves. Jo's would in England long ago have taken the boat to Antwerp; her saddle stood up in a huge hump behind and had a steeple in front, and was covered by what looked like an old bearskin hearthrug in a temper, one stirrup like a fire shovel was yards too long, the other far too short, and were set well at the back.
"What queer horses!" we remarked.
"Bogami," said Bogami; "when there are no horses these are good horses, Bogami."
"Where is the secretary?"
"Bogami nesnam" (don't know).
From Uzhitze we had good horses, from Prepolji moderate, now these; imagination staggered at what we should descend to if we did a fourth lap to Cettinje, for instance, but we climbed up. Jo with her queerly placed stirrups perched forward something like a racing cyclist. Bogami's horse was innocent of garniture, save for a piece of chain bound about its lower jaw, but he slung his great coat over the saw edge of its backbone and leapt on. He must have had a coccyx of cast iron. We had to kick the animals into a walk—there were fifty kilometres to go.
After a while we began to wonder if it would not be quicker to get off and foot it, but we did catch up and eventually pass a Red Cross Turk. We saw a soldier striding ahead. By kicks and shouts we raised a sprint along the level road; we drew even with him, and then began a race; on the uphills we beat him, on the downhills he caught up and passed in front. He was a taciturn fellow, and save that he was going to Fochar we learnt nothing about him. On a long uphill we gained a hundred yards, and by supreme efforts held our gains. He eventually disappeared from view, and we were rejoicing at our speed when we realized that the telegraph wires were no longer with us—one can always find the nearest way by following the telegraph, for governments do not waste wire. Jan looked for them and found them streaming away to the left, and among them, well up on the horizon, our enemy the soldier.
"Look," we cried to Bogami, "isn't that the shortest way? The wires go there."
"Bogami," he replied; "wires can, horses can't, bogami."
There is a fine military road to Chainitza, made by the Austrians, but it remains a white necklace on the hills, almost an ornament to the landscape. No one seemed to use it, while our old Turkish road which snaked and twisted up and down was pitted with the hoofs of countless horses. It is a stony path, and our animals were shod with flat plates instead of horseshoes; they slipped and slithered, and we wondered if in youth they had ever had lessons in skating.
There was a heavy mist, but it began to break up, and through peepholes one caught fleeting glimpses of distant patterning of field and forest, and hints of great hills. The sun showed like a great pale moon on the horizon. There were other travellers on the old Turkish trail, horsemen, Bosnians in great dark claret-coloured turbans, or Montenegrins in their flat khaki caps, peasants in dirty white cotton pyjamas, thumping before them animals with pack-swollen sides, soldiers only recognizable from the peasants by the rifle on their backs, and Turks; most were jolly fellows, and hailed us cheerfully.
From a house by the roadside burst a sheep, followed by five men. They chased the animal down the road whistling to it. We had never heard that whistling was effectual with sheep, and certainly it did not succeed very well in this instance.
Somewhere beyond this house Jan's inside began to cry for food, two biscuits and a cup of café au lait being little upon which to found a long day's riding. He tentatively tried a "compressed luncheon." Its action was satisfactory, but whether it resulted from real nourishment contained in the black-looking glue, or whether it came from a sticking together of the coating of the stomach, we have not yet decided. Jo preferred rather to endure the hunger.
Bogami had quite a charm; for instance, he appreciated our troubles with the beasts we were riding. Jo's horse stumbled a good deal on the downhills; her saddle was very uncomfortable and so narrow that she could never change her position. We came into most magnificent scenery, the beauty of which made a deep impression even upon our empty selves. There were deep green valleys, rising to peaks and hills which faded away ridge behind ridge of blue into the distant Serbian mountains, great pine woods of delicate drooping trees which came down and folded in on every side, and though it was almost September there were strawberries still ripe at the edge of the road, little red luscious blobs amidst the green.
Metalka at one o'clock, and we were on the real Montenegrin frontier. There are two Metalkas, a Montenegrin and an Austrian, and they are divided one from the other by a strip of land some ten yards across which rips the village in two like the track of a little cyclone. Bogami directed us to a shanty labelled "Hotel of Europe." A large woman was blocking the door; we demanded food, she took no notice. Hunger was clamouring within us. We demanded a second time. She waved her hand majestically to her rival in Austria, at whose tables Montenegrin officers were sitting with coffee.
An officer greeted us.
"We had expected you yesterday," he said.
We waved to the horses.
"No horses."
"That is a pity," he murmured. "You see, there was something to eat yesterday!"
In spite of his pessimism we got eggs and wine. Bogami had a large crowd, to whom he lectured, and we sent him out some eggs.
After lunch we pushed on, in conquered territory. To Chainitza they said was one hour and a half, it proved nearer three.
We joined some peasants, and they told us that they were going to the great festival. The old mother halted at a sort of sheep pen by the roadside; when she rejoined us she was wiping her eyes.
"That was my brother," she explained; "he was killed in the war;" for it is the custom to erect memorial stones by the roadside. Many of these are very quaint, sometimes painted with a soldier, or else with the rifle, sword, pistols and medals of the deceased.
Chainitza lies in a backwater, where the deep valley makes a sudden bend. When we came to it the sun was in our eyes, and halfway between the crest and the river the town seemed to float in a bluish mist; two white mosques stood out against the trees, and the roof of one was not one dome, but many like an inverted egg frier, or almost as though it was boiling over.
We were stopped at the entry by a sentry.
"Where are you going?"
"To the Russian Hospital."
He took us in charge and led us, in spite of protestations, to the hotel. A man in a shabby frock-coat received us, and Jo, mistaking him for the innkeeper, clamoured once more for the Russians. The shabby man explained that he was the Prefect, and that this was a State reception. We began to be awed by our own dignity. We explained to him that the Shadow had changed his mind and had sent Bogami instead.
Bogami brought our knapsacks to our room, where he was immobilized by the sight of himself in the looking-glass of the wardrobe; probably he had never seen such a thing before, and he goggled at it. He at last backed slowly from the room.
We rested a while, then descended to find—the Shadow.
He was rather hurt with us, and wanted to know why the —— we had gone off without him. We explained, compared watches, and found that Jan's was an hour too fast. The poor Shadow had been chasing us on a borrowed horse, with our permissions to travel in his pocket, and wildly hoping that he would catch us up before we were arrested as spies.
We had tea with the Russians in a little arbour on the roadside, and chewed sweets which had just arrived from Petrograd, having been three months on the journey, but none the worse for that. Many officers came, amongst them the husband of the little Russian girl we had met at Prepolji. They all seemed to be Voukotitches, and at last the Sirdar himself honoured us. He is a huge man, and yet seemed to take up more room than his size warrants. He has a flat, almost plate-like face, with pallid blue eyes which seemed to focus some way beyond the object of his regard. Were his moustache larger he would be rather like Lord Kitchener, and he was very pleased at the obvious compliment. He poses a little, moves seldom but suddenly, and shoots his remarks as though words of command. He was very kind to us, and was immensely astonished at Jo's Serbian, holding up his hands and saying "Kako" at every one of her speeches. He suggested that poor Bogami should be beaten, but we begged him off. Captain Voukotitch, the husband of a day, was appointed to be our guide for the morrow—because Jo spoke Serbian.
After tea we went up to the bubbly mosque, which was in reality the Greek church. We entered a large gate; on the one side of a yard was the church, and on the other a big two-storied rest-house, where one could lodge while paying devotions or doing pilgrimages. Its long balconies were filled with country folk all come for the festival, and who were feasting and laughing as though the war did not exist. The courtyard was filled with men and women in Bosnian costumes, white and dark red embroideries. Through the open door of the church one could see the silhouettes of the peasants bowing before the Ikons and relics. It was almost dark, and one man began to play a little haunting melody upon a wooden pipe, but though they linked arms and shuffled their feet, the young men did not dance.
At supper the Shadow revealed a quaint sense of humour, and so to bed.
The next morning was lovely, and we started at seven with the youngest Voukotitch and the others. Some officers had lent us their horses, and Voukotitch had proudly produced his English saddle for Jo. On the road the spirit of mischief entered him.
"You can ride all right," he said; "wouldn't you like to go to the nearest machine-gun to the Austrian lines?"
"Rather," said Jo.
"You'll have to do some stiff riding, though. I know the major, and he is bored to death. He'll let us."
"But what about the bullets?" said the Shadow.
In time the major was produced, emerging from a cottage by the roadside, other officers with him, and we had a merry coffee party in an arbour. One told Jo that he was a lawyer. The few Montenegrins who had the misfortune to be educated were not allowed to serve at the front, but he had been lucky enough through influence to be allowed to take a commission. He had not seen much serious fighting, however, as no move had been made for several months.
Then we tackled the hills. "Come along," said the major, cheerfully; and his horse's nose went down and its tail went up, and off it slid downhill. We had seen the Italian officers do such things on the cinematograph, but little thought that we should be in the same position. We supposed it would be all right. Jo's horse became nearly vertical, and she sat back against its tail. Jan followed. Sometimes a sheet of rock was across the path—then we slid; sometimes the sand became very soft—we slid again. Then a muddy bit, and the horse squelched down on his hind quarters.
Here we met a Serbian captain who was in charge of the battery. He was very lonely, and delighted to have a chance to talk, and he talked hard all day, showed us a neat reservoir his men had built, explained to us that beautiful uniforms were coming from Russia soon for the weirdly garbed beings who were guarding the hills, and asked us to lunch behind the trenches under a canopy of boughs.
While lunch was being prepared he took us round his artillery, and into his observation station on the top of a crooked tree. Below us we could see the river Dreina—on the other side of which was Gorazhda, held by the Austrians—and the fortified hills behind.
It seemed impossible that this wide peaceful scene was menacing with a threat of death, yet at intervals one could hear a faint "pop! pop!" as though far-away giants were holding feast and opening great champagne bottles. Away in the hills could be seen an encampment of white tents, which caused a mild excitement, for they had not been there the day before, and we were told that they were quite out of range.
During lunch the youngest Voukotitch tempted the major—who was in splendid mood—suggesting that it was rather tame to go home after having come within mere bowing distance of the Austrians, and that a few stray bullets would not incommode us.
The major saw reason fairly quickly, so we bestrode our horses again and continued our switchback course. At an open space where the Austrians could shoot at us if they wished we had to plunge down the hill quickly, keeping a distance of one hundred yards from each other.
The little Shadow prudently got off his horse and used its body as a shield.
We banged at the door of a cottage, and a young lieutenant came out; somebody said he was nineteen and a hero.
Here we left our horses and began to scramble through brambles along a narrow path, climbing up the back of a little hill on the crest of which were the machine guns. Just before we got to the top we plunged into a tunnel which bored through the hill; at the end was the gun. The hero scrambled in, wriggled the gun about and explained. He invited Jo to shoot. She squashed past him; there was a knob at the back of the gun on which she pressed her thumbs, and she immediately wanted another pair with which to stop her ears. The gun jammed suddenly. The hero pulled the belt about, and Jo set it going once more.
The Austrian machine guns answered back and kept this up, so Jo pressed the knob again and yet again. Then we got into the trenches above. Whenever Jo popped her head over the trenches for a good look there were faint reports from the mountain opposite. One or two bullets whizzed over our heads, and we realized that they were aiming at Jo's big white hat.
Jan climbed down the hill and took snap-shots of Gorazhda; the enemy got a couple of pretty near shots at him.
When the Montenegrins thought this sport was becoming monotonous they remembered the business of the day. A big house in Gorazhda was said to be full of Hungarian officers, and they wanted to get the range of this with one of the big guns. This decision had been made a day or two before with much deliberation. This they thought the State could afford. The precious shell was brought out, and every one fondled it.
Men were called out and huge preparations were made for sighting and taking aim. We scuttled round with field glasses, and finally stood on tiptoe behind branches on a mound by the side of the gun. There were many soldiers fussing in the dug-out, and at last they pulled the string.
"Goodness! Now we've done it," Jo thought, as the mountains sent back the fearful report in decreasing echoes. We seemed to wait an eternity, and then "something white" happened far beyond the village.
The officers looked at each other with long faces. "A bad miss—the expense."
We felt the resources of the Montenegrin Empire were tottering. Awful! Could they afford another?
Finally, with great courage, they decided that it was better to spend two shells on getting a decent aim than to lose one for nothing. The terrific bang went off again, and this time the "something white" happened right on the roof of the house. The Hungarian officers all ran out, and the machine guns below jabbered at them. Nobody was killed as far as we know, but every one was content and delighted.
Sunset was approaching, and we rode away quickly, only stopping once to drag a reluctant old Turk from the mountain side and make him sing to the accompaniment of a one-stringed goosla. He hated to do it as all his best songs were about triumphant Mahommedans crushing Serbs, and of course he couldn't sing those.
He sat grumpily cross-legged on the ground, encircled by our horses, droning a song of two notes, touching the string quickly with the flat lower part of his fingers.
We left him very suddenly because the darkness comes quickly in those hills, so we made for the high-road as hard as we could.
We rode fast to the Colonel's cottage, sat down to the dinner table, which was decked with pale blue napkins, and a fine-looking old Voukotitch, an ex-M.P. in national costume, acted as butler. In spite of his seventy odd years he had joined the army as a common soldier. He refused all invitations to sit with us, for he knew his place. The young husband was his nephew, and they kissed fondly on leave-taking.
We rode back in the moonlight. At one spot on the road was a sawmill, and the huge white pine logs lying all about looked like the fallen columns of some ruined Athenian temple. We tried to enjoy the moment, and to brush aside the awful thought that we must remount Rosinante and Co. next day.
The Shadow was terribly puffed up about his feat. The following morning as we were sketching in the town, an officer approached respectfully.
"His excellency the Sirdar invites you to supper," he said.
We considered a moment, for we had intended to return to Plevlie. The Shadow broke in.
"It is inconvenient to come to supper," he said to our horror. "Tell his excellency that the gentleman and lady will come to lunch if he wishes it."
The Sirdar meekly sent answer that lunch would suit him very well, and we could drive back with him to Plevlie. "Would we come to his house at 12.30?"
The Prefect told us that we ought to go to the lunch at twelve, because the Sirdar's clock was always half an hour fast. We arrived, but the Sirdar evidently had been considering us, he did not appear for the half an hour, so we sat with his staff sipping rakia by the roadside.
The lunch was excellent, but the Sirdar's carriage, like every other carriage in Montenegro, was a weird, ancient, rusty arabesquish affair, tied together with wire. We had two resplendent staff officers, armed to the teeth, who galloped ahead, we had two superior non-coms., also armed to the dentals, galloping behind, while on the box sat a man with gun, pistols, sword, dagger and a bottle of wine and water which we passed round whenever the Sirdar became hoarse. The coachman was as old and as shabby as his carriage, and every five miles or so was forced to descend and tie up yet another mishap with wire—ordinary folks' carriages are only repaired with string.
The Sirdar occupied almost the whole of the back seat, and Jo was squeezed into the crack which was left. Jan was perched on a sort of ledge, facing them. The carriage was narrow, six legs were two too many for the space. Jan's were the superfluous ones. He tried this pose, he tried that, but in spite of his contortions he endured much of the seven hours' journey in acute discomfort and the latter part in torture.
In spite of his throat the Sirdar did nearly all the talking. The country we were passing through were scenes of his battles: with one arm he threw a company over this hill, with a hand, nearly hitting Jan in the eye, he marched an army corps along that valley; he explained how he had been forced to give up the Ministry of War because there was no other efficient commander for the north.
A blue ridge of pine trees appeared on our right hand.
"You see those hills," said the Sirdar: "I'll tell you the story of a reply of mine, a funny reply. I ordered a general last winter to march across those hills. He said that the troops would starve. I looked him in the eye. Then you will eat wolves, I shouted. He went."
If we passed peasants he stopped them. He seemed to have an extraordinary memory for names and faces.
"Never forget a face," he said, "never forget its name. That is the secret of popularity."
He was very anxious that we should go to Cettinje and to Scutari. He kindly promised to see about it, to arrange for our horses and to have our passage telegraphed before us. At Podgoritza he said a government motor-car should wait for us. He advised us to make a detour from the straight road and to see the famous black lake of Jabliak and the Dormitor mountains. We thanked him gratefully. He waved our thanks aside.
"And I will write to my friend the Minister of War. He will arrange that you go to Scutari." He then explained all the reasons why Montenegro should hold Scutari when the war was over.
"It was ours," he said; "we only gave it up to Venice so that she should protect us from the Turk. If we do not hold Scutari, Montenegro can never become a state, so if we cannot keep her we might as well give up Cettinje. After all we are but taking back what was once ours."
He was daily expecting the uniforms from Russia, and asked every soldier on the road for news. At last one said that he had seen them.
"The stuff is rather thin, your excellency, but the boots are splendid."