Читать книгу The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere - M. A. Stobart - Страница 12

Table of Contents

Amongst the Serbian soldiers many primitive notions still prevailed. One day, after one of the big thunder-storms which were frequent during the spring and summer months, I asked the men in one of the wards, what was their idea of the origin of thunder? "God must have something to do in Heaven," replied one man. "We work on earth and He must work above, so He makes thunder and lightning. He mustn't sit up there and do nothing."

"No, no," answered another; "it is not God that makes thunder, it's St. Ilyia; it's he who works the thunder and lightning."

I asked who was St. Ilyia? Didn't I know St. Ilyia? He was a workman, paid by the day, to work on the land. One evening late, as he was on his way home, he met a devil. The devil reminded him that he, the devil, had been best man at his, Ilyia's, wedding. "And I now congratulate you," the devil added mockingly, "that your wife has run away with another man." Ilyia was furious, but said nothing, and walked on. Soon he met another devil. This one reminded him that he had been first witness at his wedding, and he, too, added mockingly, "I congratulate you that your wife has run away with another man." Ilyia was still more furious, but he walked on. Soon he met a third devil. This devil reminded him that he had been godfather to his, Ilyia's, child, and he also added mockingly, "I congratulate you that your wife has run away with another man."

Mad with anger, Ilyia rushed home determined to kill the guilty pair. He went into his bedroom, and saw a man and woman in the bed. He did not stop to look, but he killed them both. They were his father and mother. For a punishment, God made him serve as ferryman, to carry people across the river in his own village. He must give to each passenger a melon seed. One day there came a passenger—a devil—in such a hurry he wouldn't take the seed. "Why won't you take it? But you must," urged Ilyia. "No," replied the devil, "I am in a hurry to spoil a wedding, and I have no time to wait." Immediately, in answer, Ilyia killed the devil, and threw his body into the water. God, however, pardoned Ilyia, and took him to heaven as His servant, but he must work the thunder and lightning. So he kept killing all the devils with his lightning. But one deformed devil always managed to hide away, and one day this poor devil managed to get to God, and asked Him why He allowed all the devils to be killed. It is the devils, he argued, who bring the wars which cause deformities, and the devils who cause all sickness and poverty, and as it is only the sick and the poor who pray to God—why get rid of them?

The argument seemed to appeal to God, for He replied, Very well, He would at any rate not let him, the deformed devil, be killed by Ilyia.

But Ilyia still tries to kill him, and whenever it thunders and lightens, that is Ilyia trying to kill the deformed devil.

There were several points in this story, upon which I should have liked enlightenment; but when I began asking questions, I was told, simply, that it was so, and that it always had been. How, then, could I doubt? And I assured them that I did not doubt.

Then another man said that there had been a thunderstorm last night, because Italy was now going to join in the fighting; the thunder and lightning was a sign that another land was going to shed its blood. I had thought of that myself, and was glad that they voiced my thought. Much more interesting and reasonable to believe in concrete causes.

During the night, whilst the thunder-storms had been immediately overhead, many of the wounded left their beds, and stood and prayed to God not to let them be killed—presumably by Ilyia, as deformed devils.

It was not strange that a relationship between politics and weather in Serbia should be assumed, for violence was the keynote of both. When the sun shone, its heat was fierce, it scorched the body through thick clothes; when rain fell, it poured in waterspouts, as though the skies had burst a dam. The wind blew tornadoes, and with the brutality of a gigantic peg-top, whirled everything within reach, into space, at the rate of eighty miles an hour. Thunder and lightning had the force of up-to-date artillery, and the mud was—Balkan.

One Sunday afternoon, I was standing with our chaplain, outside the tent in which, in two minutes' time, he was to conduct the evening service. We were choosing the hymns, but we were suddenly interrupted by a whirlwind of dust, which nearly blinded us, and before we could close our books, and with a suddenness which is, as a rule, only permitted on the stage, a tornado, rushing at the rate of eighty miles an hour, hurled itself point-blank at our camp, and though everybody immediately rushed to tighten tent ropes, within fifteen seconds, fifteen tents were blown flat upon the ground, and chairs, tables, hairbrushes, garments of all sorts, a menagerie of camp equipment, and personal effects, were flying over the plain, beyond possibility of recovery. There was no church service that evening.

After a day or two of rain, skirts became a folly and indecency. I was at first shy, as a guest in a foreign country, of casting the recognised symbol of feminine respectability. But my work required me to be constantly on the tramp, around the extensive camp, and one day, when my skirt had become soaked, and bedraggled, and I could no longer walk in it, I took it off. I found that with my long boots and a longish tunic coat, over breeches which matched the coat, the effect was respectable, and was approved by the rest of the unit, who soon followed the example on wet days. But it was a little bit of a shock to me when, on that first morning of audacity, a car drove up to the camp, and out stepped the representatives of three nations—viz., Sir Ralph Paget (British Commissioner), Dr. Grouitch (Serbian Foreign Secretary), and Mr. Strong, who was on a mission to report for Mr. Rockefeller on the condition of Serbian hospitals. But they didn't seem as shocked as might have been expected; and I became more than ever confirmed in the belief that even if skirts are retained by women for decorative purposes, they will have to be abandoned by workers. The question of women's work is largely a question of clothes.

But the Serbian soldiers would never sympathise with us in our abhorrence of mud. "No, no, mud was 'Dobro, dobro' (good, good), because mud meant rain for crops; also mud had saved them from the Austrians who, in November last, had not been able to advance their big guns further, on account of the mud. Yes, mud was 'Dobro, dobro.'"

There never was in any language a word so omnipotent, so deep-reaching as this word "Dobro." Of what use to worry with phrase books, grammars and dictionaries; why trouble to learn a difficult language, written in arbitrary characters, when one simple word could open all the gates of understanding! With "Dobro" on the tip of the tongue—every tongue—Serbian and English tongues alike, how could there be "confusion of tongues"? The heritage of Babel could be flouted. Diagnosis by doctors, nursing, treatment, orders, warnings, instructions from and to one and all, within and without the camp; interchange of ideas; even proposals and acceptance or refusal of marriage; all could be understood by means of the blessed word "Dobro" and its negative "Ne-dobro," spoken with appropriate variations of accent.

THE GERMAN ARMY ENTERING BRUSSELS AUGUST, 1914

(Pontoons passing the German Staff in the Boulevard des Jardins Botaniques, in front of the Gare du Nord)

STOBART HOSPITAL AT CHÂTEAU TOURLAVILLE

NEAR CHERBOURG

Showing Recreation Tent given by workers on a Ranch in British Columbia

Is it a wonder that good understanding prevailed between Serbians and English? Misunderstandings arise from words. In Serbia there only was one word—"Dobro"; and I'm longing for the day—"Der Tag"—when we can go back to Serbia and find that all is indeed once more "Dobro, dobro."

When we first arrived in Serbia, we were much interested in the sight of many thousands of Austrian prisoners of war, working in every department of life, and living in apparent freedom. Those who were officers were often employed in hospitals. In Dr. Protitch's hospital, one of the prisoners had been Professor of Mathematics, at the University of Prague. His work now was to count the dirty linen, and he did it very badly. I suppose even the Professor's mathematics couldn't make ninety nightshirts that came back from the wash, equal to one hundred that went out.

We had no commissioned officers in our hospital, but forty Austrian so-called prisoners helped us in the rough work of the camp, as trench diggers, stretcher bearers and ward orderlies, etc. These men were working in a camp hospital controlled by women; they were working for the enemies of their country, yet they were quite unguarded, and slept at night, in tents, like the rest of us. But after the first wonder had evaporated, thoughts of the possible mischief they might do, never entered our minds. It showed the artificiality of war. These men—forty thousand or more—were told that by the rules of the game, they were prisoners, and therefore must keep off Tom Tiddler's ground, and they obeyed the rules with scarcely any supervision.

There were Serbian Austrians, and Austrian Austrians. The latter spoke only German, and were less to be trusted politically than the former, who talked only Serbian. The Serbian Austrians were to all intents Serbians, and dreaded nothing so much as the prospect of being retaken by the Austrians—their former masters.

The main distinction between the two is that of religion, Croats or Serbian Austrians are Catholics, whereas the others belong to the Greek Church. But all alike were excellent workers, and very happy in their work. Both they and we grieved terribly when later, owing to political causes, all our Catholic prisoners were removed from their positions of freedom, and happy work in our hospital, and were sent, under strict escort, to dig tunnels on the railway to Roumania, or to other work in which supervision was feasible.

Amongst these orderlies working for us, was a funny old man called Jan. He had a wife and children somewhere in Serbia, and he developed a chronic habit of coming to ask for leave to go and see them. On one occasion when he came to say good-bye to "Maika" (mother), I noticed that he was hugging two bottles, which were carefully wrapped in paper. I asked him what he was carrying, and he answered proudly, "Medicine for my little ones." "Dear! dear! are they ill?" I asked with some concern; "I am sorry." "Oh! no. They're not ill. I am only taking them the medicine as a treat." He had apparently explained his idea to our dispenser, and she had given him something harmless to satisfy his fatherly instinct of giving joy. A side-light on the scarcity of medicines.

Our hospital received several visits from German and Austrian aeroplanes. Kragujevatz was one of their main objectives, on account of the arsenal and the Crown Prince.

We, and the town authorities were unprepared for the first Taube arrival. The day after Sir Thomas Lipton's visit, I went to bed with typhoid. I had been in bed a week, when one morning, as I lay in my tent awake, looking out at the camp, I heard a sound—familiar from memories of Antwerp. In the air above, a whirring of machinery, then a noise like a chariot of fire cleaving the air, followed by a crash, as though all the glass-houses of the earth were smashed. Typhoid or no typhoid, I jumped out of bed to see what had happened, and to take any measures possible for the safety of the unit, and I saw clouds of smoke and débris rising from the town.

The unit, who were then getting up, rushed from their tents in their pyjamas, and watched with interest whilst three biplanes, two German and one Austrian, dropped bombs in quick succession on the town, evidently in futile effort to destroy the arsenal and the Crown Prince's house.

Suddenly we heard a still louder crash close to us, and we saw that one hundred and fifty yards away, a bomb had fallen just outside our camp, to the east—close to the wireless station. Another whirr through the air, and a second crash, and a bomb fell near the wireless on the other side, a few yards from the last. Some of the shrapnel fell upon our tents, but no harm was done to us. Our four guards, stationed at the four corners of our camp, to keep off undesirable visitors, bravely fired their pop-guns at the machine hawks, but that was all the attention the Taubes received, and they sailed triumphantly away into the blue. I then went back to bed to go on with my typhoid. I ought to have died, but I don't do the things that I ought.

I realised the damage that might be wrought if further Taubes chose to mistake us for a military camp, and hurl their bombs upon our patients, and I immediately organised a scheme for the quick evacuation of the hospital on any future occasion, and sent the new rules to the mess tent and to all the wards. Five people had been killed and eighteen wounded as a result of this first attack.

One woman had been on her way to market at Kragujevatz, but when she heard the bombs, she was frightened, and turned to go home, without fulfilling her purpose. She was on her way back, and was just outside our camp, when the bomb near the wireless station fell, and she was hit. Two of our doctors, and some nurses who had run to look at the big hole made by the bomb, and to pick up relics, found her staggering by the hole—bleeding profusely in one arm. The doctors took her into hospital, and found that she had shrapnel in the lung, as well as a shattered arm. Moral: had she continued her work, and not turned back, she would not have been hit.

A few minutes later another woman was brought to us with a smashed leg. She had with her a tiny baby three months old. It had not been hurt, but it was a miserable specimen. The mother, by some curious freak of Nature, disliked the child, and had neglected it. We hoped the mother's misfortune might be the baby's opportunity of life, and Ginger, the red-haired nurse in whose charge it was given, made for it a cradle out of an old packing case, and devoted herself to the baby heart and soul. (The same nurse, who at Antwerp during the bombardment, had carried her soldier patients on her back, down steep cellar stairs, to a place of safety. Later, when our Kragujevatz hospital was evacuated, and those members of the staff who had not gone with me to the front, were on their way to the coast, she was shot accidently. The bullet entered both lungs; she became dangerously ill, and could not be moved from Mitrovitza; two of our doctors, Iles and Macmillan, Nurse Bainbridge, and the Rev. J. Rogers, stayed to look after her. They were all made prisoners, but all—including Ginger, who recovered by a miracle—returned safely to England in February.)

But even Ginger's devotion could not save the poor mite of a baby who had been too long neglected. It died, and Ginger cried her eyes out. The mother remained indifferent, and talked of nothing but her own leg, and her elder child at home.

We had not long to wait before we had an opportunity of a dress rehearsal of the scheme of evacuating the hospital. I received one morning early, a telephone message saying that enemy aeroplanes were on their way towards us. We waited till we saw them in the distance; then, owing to the admirable way in which instructions were carried out, the hospital was cleared of patients and of staff, within a quarter of an hour of sighting the first aeroplane. Our motor ambulances with stretchers and ox-wagons, and the two carts which had been generously presented to the unit by Messrs. Derry and Toms, and which were always now—when not in use—in readiness, conveyed the wounded soldier patients, also the women and children patients, from the wards to a safe distance along the western road; nurses and orderlies went with them, and brought the patients all back when the aeroplanes departed. Only the doctors and I and a few members of the staff remained to look after the camp. We felt a fine sense of security, knowing that our patients were out of harm's way.

Bombs were as usual dropped upon the town, also upon the new barracks—a building close to the camp which had been given by the authorities to us for a winter hospital. Here we kept some of our newly arrived stores and tents, etc., and these were damaged, and some of the staff had narrow escapes. Another bomb fell in the camp, but buried itself in the soft ground, and did not explode. But, certainly in future, tents should be green or khaki, not white. Our camp must have been an easy target.

We had one or two other similar alarms, but no great harm was done, and no serious harm was done to the town. A few shop windows were broken, and pavements destroyed, and the ground around the arsenal was ploughed up, but the arsenal itself remained uninjured.

The town was not caught napping twice, but after the first surprise visit, it arranged a welcome of anti-aircraft guns. On the first two or three occasions, however, these were ineffective. But one day Kragujevatz had its revenge. A Taube arrived, as other Taubes had arrived, full of confidence and bombs. The guns at once fired at her from all directions, and we watched the woolly clouds puffing behind, in front, and all round the biplane. Suddenly we saw a burst of flame in the middle of the machine; we all shouted with excitement, and we watched the Taube turn upside down, and fall to earth like a torn umbrella. It had fallen at the entrance to the town; and an officer dashed up in his car and asked some of us if we should like to see it at close quarters. By the time we arrived, the townspeople had surrounded the wreckage, but I photographed as much as could be seen. I had the misfortune to see also the two aviators, German and Austrian officers, who were smashed to pulp.