The Flaming Sword in Serbia and ElsewhereStobart, M. A. (Mabel Annie)
History
The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere
Stobart, M. A. (Mabel Annie)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Our P.M.O. seemed this day more than usually sad, chiefly on
account of the people. He calculated that at least half a million
unoffending peasants must die of starvation. This has proved to be an
underestimate. But as we should probably, he said, be remaining that
day in Palanka, he asked if I would like to go and exchange greetings
with our commander. The latter was as delightful, and cheery as usual,
and it was easy to understand one, at least, of the reasons why he made
a good commander. I was much interested in all he told me about the
general position; some day, when the situation was more favourable, I
was, he said, to go with him and watch a battle at close quarters.
Shortly after I had left Headquarters the mounted orderly came up with
the white envelope: marching orders, and we moved on immediately. This
was inopportune, as Dr. Coxon was in need of boots, and, at the moment,
she and I were on the point of breaking into a locked and shuttered
boot shop. We were obliged to go without the boots; the doctor's
crimeless record was left unsullied, but her feet were left unshod, and
this at the time seemed more important.
We arrived at dusk, after much trouble with the cars owing to the
mud, and took up quarters near some old stone quarries. The guns were
growing noisy again, and it was curiously interesting to watch the fire
from shell and shrapnel on the hills close behind Palanka. Wounded
came again during the night, and we evacuated fifty in our cars and
in wagons supplied by the ambulance column, to Ratcha. The wounds
were terrible, and some men were already dead when they arrived. The
transport of the wounded was always an anxiety, lest the job should not
be completed, and the motors should not have returned, before the next
order to move should come, as that would complicate the question of
staff transport.
I went to bed at one a.m. and was up again at four. I saw that Major A.
was on the move, and I knew that our order must come soon. Just then a
captain of infantry arrived, and said that we ought to go at once; he
had been given orders to dig trenches on the place of our encampment.
I told him that he could dig his trenches, but we could not go until
the order came. We made ready for departure, and packed everything
except the surgical dressings, and then more wounded came, so they
were tended. One man died at dawn, and we buried him. At 6 o'clock the
order came to go towards Ratcha, to a place only distant 1½ hours. We
encamped in a field by the roadside, and immediately wounded arrived.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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