The teacher's wife left at seven next morning, October 30th. We moved at 8.15. We were told to encamp on the other side of a bridge, near Kriva Alpregan. The bridge was difficult to find, and the whole country was a swamp, but we found the bridge, and as there was no village, we took shelter in a wood. Between the field and the wood, was a deep and broad ditch of mud, which we had to cross continually, but we were glad of the shelter of the trees. We put up a hospital tent between the road and the wood, and a mess tent amongst the trees, and we lit our kitchen and dining-room fires inside the tent, and enjoyed a supper of little chickens spitted on a stick, the only way of roasting which was available. We generally arranged that the field-kitchen should cook for the soldiers once a day, when possible, their much-loved stew, when outside fires were difficult, and we then managed for ourselves. That field was a sea of liquid mud whilst rain was falling, and it became a gelatinous pulp when it began to dry. I slept in the car on the road, and all night long, in a continuous stream, wagons rumbled past me with guns, with fodder, with all the material for the existence of an army of 200,000 men, and intermixed with these were wagons filled with fugitives. In the morning I had seen the P.M.O. His news was extremely gloomy. The rumour of Bulgarian defeat was quite untrue, and my friend, though outwardly calm, was suffering anxiety not only about the life of his nation, his heart was also filled with fears as to the safety of his wife and children, who were in Kragujevatz when the town was taken by the Germans. Communication with them was, of course, impossible. Thousands of other officers and men were suffering a similar anxiety. How could I help sharing some of this grievous load of sorrow? I think my ears will never lose the sound of creaking carts, and rumbling wagon wheels, for in the sound, as I lay awake that night, and many other nights, there was mingled with every revolution of the wheels, the anxiety and the misery which were gnawing at the heart of this exiled nation. CHAPTER XXIV On Sunday, October 31st, the order to leave for Voliovtza came at 10.30 a.m. On the road, Major A. and one of the French doctors, who were both riding, joined us, and we pitched our respective camps on either side of the road, just outside Jagodina. While we were pitching our tents, a German aeroplane dropped bombs within a few yards of Major A.'s camp. No harm was done, though in Jagodina many were injured, and six people were killed, including the brother of one of our men, by bombs dropped a few minutes later by this same aeroplane.