Читать книгу The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere - M. A. Stobart - Страница 9

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The camp was finely situated. We were surrounded on all sides by hills, not ordinary dead hills, these were alive with picturesque villages, half-hidden amongst orchards of plum and apple trees. On the far side of the white, one-storied town of Kragujevatz, the hills to the east, and south, seemed to be in poetic partnership with the clouds, and all day long, with infinite variety, reflected rainbow colours and storm effects—an endless source of joy.

At night, when the tents were lighted by small lanterns, and nothing else was visible but the stars, the camp looked like a fairy city.

The cuckoo had evidently not been present during Babel building, for all day long, and sometimes at night, he cuckooed in broad English—a message from our English spring. But the climax of surprises came when we found ourselves kept awake by the singing of the nightingales. Was this the Serbia of which such grim accounts had reached us?

We were ready to open our hospital either for the wounded, or for typhus patients, and we gave the authorities their choice. Colonel Guentchitch promptly decided that he would rather not start a new typhus centre; he wished us to take wounded. We began with fifty, and these were in a few days increased to one hundred and thirty.

And at once I realised, that the impression which even now largely prevails in Western Europe as to the bellicose character of the Serbian nation, is wrong.

The average Serbian peasant-soldier is not the truculent, fierce, fighting-loving savage so often represented. He does not love fighting, but he loves, with all the enthusiasm of a poetic nature, his family, his home, his hectares of land, and his country. He has fought much in the past, but in defence of these possessions which he prizes. No one can accuse the Serbian soldier of cowardice, yet his dislike of fighting, and his love of home, were so marked, that it was easy to distinguish, by his brisk walk, and cheerful countenance, or by his slow gait, and depressed attitude, whether a drab-dressed soldier, with knapsack, walking along the road, was going Kod kutche (home) or—his ten days' leave at an end—was going once more y commando (to the front).

Our wounded were the most charming patients imaginable, and it was always a joy to go into the wards and have a talk with them. They were alertly intelligent, with a delightful sense of humour, and a total absence of vulgarity or coarseness. They were all so chivalrous, courteous and delicate in their behaviour to the nurses, and to us women generally, and so full of affection and gratitude for the help given to them, that it was difficult to realise that these were not officers, but peasants, with little knowledge of the world outside their own national history.

With this every Serbian peasant is familiar, because it is handed down from generation to generation, in ballads and heroic legends, by the bards or guslars.

Our patients were all wonderfully cheerful and happy, and the convalescents enjoyed their meals in a tent which had been given by the men working on a ranch in British Columbia. Popara (a national dish—a sort of porridge of bread and lard), and eggs, bread, and pekmez (plum jam), and tea or coffee for breakfast; a rich stew of meat and vegetables, or a roast, and pudding or pastry for dinner; and again, meat, and stew, or soup, and pudding for supper. On Fridays, however, the soldiers always refused meat.

Colonel Nicolaivitch (now Serbian Military Attaché in London) told me the other day that, on one of his visits to our Kragujevatz camp, he had been talking in one of the wards, with a man who was sitting up in bed with a bandaged head. He was much enjoying his dinner, and the Colonel said, "I expect you would like to stay in this hospital half a year?" "No," replied the man promptly, "a whole year."

The men are not accustomed to play games, except with cards. A card game called "Jeanne d'Arc" was the favourite. But they loved "Kuglana": this was a game like skittles, played with nine pins and a large wooden ball, which was swung between two tall posts. It was made for us at the arsenal, and gave our convalescents much joy and recreation.

I was a little surprised at the matter-of-fact way in which the men all accepted women doctors, and surgical operations by women. Indeed, they highly approved, because women were, they said, more gentle, and yet as effective as men doctors.

I was also surprised that at first, in April, when the weather was cold, they did not fear the tents and the open-air life. But the ward-tents, being double-lined, were as warm as could be wished at night, or when it rained; and in sunny weather, when the sides were lifted, gave an open-air treatment which was at once appreciated.

Camp hours were:—

Reveillé at 5.30 a.m.

Breakfast at 6 (the sun was very hot in the middle of the day and it was better to get the heaviest part of the work done in the cooler hours).

Lunch at 11.30.

Tea at 4.

Supper at 6.30 (as the town was out of bounds it seemed wise to avoid the possibility of dull evenings by going early to bed).

Lights out at 9.

Much attention was attracted by our novel form of hospital, and all day long, visitors, official and otherwise, flocked to see all the arrangements. These seemed to be highly approved.

The kitchen department was under the supervision of Miss M. Stanley; dispensary under Miss Wolseley; laundry, Miss Johnstone; linen, Mrs. Dearmer. The X-ray Department was managed by Dr. Tate and Mr. Agar. The Secretary was Miss McGlade, and the Hon. Treasurer, John Greenhalgh.

The sanitation was in the hands of Miss B. Kerr, and was a subject of interested and invariably of favourable criticism. And it required some system to cope successfully with open-air sanitation, on a fixed spot, for more than two hundred people. Colonel Hunter, sometimes twice a day, brought visitors to whom he was anxious to show certain features in the scheme of which he specially approved. He told me that we were useful to him as object-lessons, and he cabled home in favourable terms to the War Office, concerning our hospital work, and also, later, concerning the dispensary scheme, with which he was well pleased.

It soon, indeed, came to be considered quite the correct thing for visitors to Kragujevatz to come up and visit the camp, and the only relief from the monotony of showing people round, was the variety of language which had to be employed. Sometimes, simultaneously, a Serbian, who, in addition to his own language, only spoke German, another who only spoke French, another who could only talk Serbian, and perhaps an Englishman who could only talk English—these must all be entertained together. It was like the juggler's feat with balls in the air.

Almost everybody of note in Serbia visited us at one time or another, and our visitors' book, now, alas! in the hands of the Germans, was an interesting record.

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince (Alexander) honoured us with a visit as soon as he learnt that he would be able to converse in French or German. He speaks good English, but has presumably not had the same opportunities of practice in this language. But in the visitors' book, which he took back to the palace for the purpose, he wrote a page and a half, in excellent English, describing his impression of the work of the hospital, and expressing his gratitude for the help given to his brave soldiers.

A fine fellow this Prince: straightforward, unostentatious, full of sympathy and quick intelligence; in every way worthy of a throne. He looked at every detail of the camp with critical interest, then as he walked, in the scorching sun, from the hospital quarters to the tents reserved for the staff, he asked, as he looked around, "Have you no sun-shelters?" We had none, and he immediately turned to a member of his staff, and told him to see that "ladniaks," or arbours, made of young trees, and dead branches, were at once arranged for us.

Accordingly, in a few days, a procession of wagons arrived, carrying a whole forest of young trees for props, and dead branches for roof and sides; and arbours were erected, and much comfort to us all was the result.

On the evening of the Prince's visit, the convalescent soldiers celebrated the event by giving us an impromptu entertainment after supper. Dressed in their light-coloured pyjamas, scarlet bed-jackets, and big mushroom-shaped straw hats, they formed, outside our mess tent, a picturesque group, silhouetted against the white tents which were aglow with fairy lamps, and looked like inflated stars.

The Serbian national instrument is the gusla, a one-stringed banjo, played with a bow; the sound is like the plaintive buzzing of a bumble bee, when, round and round a room, it blindly seeks an exit.

Accompanying himself upon the gusla, one soldier after the other sang, or rather chanted, in mournful monotone, the old poetic legends in which the tragic history of their country has been transmitted from one generation to another; or they sang together, in parts; or they recited stirring tragedies—always tragedies—of which Serbian history is composed.

It is wise to allow plenty of time for a Serbian concert, as no self-respecting guslar cares to deal with less than half-a-dozen centuries of his national history at one sitting. One guslar, at this concert, caused us some embarrassment. He wouldn't leave off "guslaring." We tried every inducement. He paid no heed; and I saw, with despair, that he meant to carry his country safely into freedom from Turkish tyranny, and that meant another 500 years. The moon came and went; but moons might come, and moons might go, he went on for ever. Finally, in desperation, we all clapped vigorously. Good! He stopped, placed his gusla on the ground, and joined heartily in the clapping—but for a moment only. We weren't quick enough, and before we could take away his instrument, he had picked it up and begun again, and we were back again at the year 1389.

Every Serbian peasant is a poet, and one of these soldiers recited a portion of a fine dramatic poem which he had just written and presented to me. The poem began as an epic of Serbian history, past and present, and ended in a pæan of gratitude to the Stobart Hospital.

Tragedy, always dominant in Serbian history, gives a sad dignity to Serbian music, and, in contrast, the songs sung by the unit, as interludes in the Serbian concert, seemed commonplace.

The fitful moon had now set; the soldiers sat on benches placed one behind the other, and in the darkness, their faces were almost invisible. But here and there a lighted cigarette illumined the war-worn face, and showed the result of hardships and suffering. We did not then know that the future was to bring a fate more terrible still.

But no entertainment in Serbia can be reckoned a success, if it does not end in a spontaneous burst of kolo dancing. Two men, with arms linked, will suddenly begin dancing a slow shuffling step. Another man will, as suddenly, produce, as though from the skies, a gusla, or a violin, or a flute, and will start playing, and will play over, and over, and over again, a dozen bars of the same melancholy tune. This has a remarkable effect. Immediately, everybody within sound of the music will, one after the other, join in, in pied piper style, and, linking arms, form a circle round the proud musician.

There are many varieties of steps, both quick and slow, and the dance can be extremely graceful in effect. But whether it is well or badly danced, the kolo is always dignified, with total absence of rowdyism, vulgarity, or sensuousness.

The kolo and the gusla are to Serbia, what the reel and the bagpipes are to Scotland. The kolo, like Serbian music and Serbian literature, reflects the spirit of their tragic history; even when the steps grow quicker with increased excitement, the feet are scarcely lifted from the ground; the movements are never movements of joy; the high kick, the leap, the spring, indicative of a light heart, are always absent.

On this evening, after an hour of the concert, the men suddenly broke into kolo. To their intense delight, Maika (mother), their name for the Directress, boldly joined the circle. "Dobro (well done), Maika! dobro! dobro!" they all shouted in chorus. Nurses, doctors, and orderlies all promptly followed suit, and as a finale to a successful evening, the various national anthems of the Allies were sung, and "lights out" bell rang the "Amen."