The cars were allowed to go short distances ahead and await us at intervals, but in view of the possibility of capture by enemies, at either end of the gorge, it was not desirable that they should be beyond easy reach of the rest of the column. The guns were making their usual din, resounding noisily against the mountain sides, as we entered the gorge, but the valley seemed less full of forebodings than yesterday, and we reached Blatzi at the astonishingly early hour of eleven p.m. I left the column outside the town, and went on with Vooitch to find shelter. But the town was choked with troops, and every house, though deserted by its own inhabitants, was full of soldiers. Eventually we found a side lane for the encampment, and by one o'clock we were all asleep. At six the next morning, some officers vacated two rooms in a house near, and we took possession, for kitchen and hospital. Wounded arrived, and we had to evacuate them to Kurshumlya, about twenty kilometres distant. Major A. and the French doctors were bivouacked at the other end of the town, and came to see us at tea-time--the former much depressed, the latter still full of optimism. A cousin of our Artillery Major, so like him that he might have been a twin brother, presented himself, and from talks with him and with other officers, I gathered that the situation was extremely black. The numbers of the infantry were rapidly diminishing; 1,000 had been left, dead and wounded, on the field near Bagrdan. It had been impossible to move the wounded; the Germans had fired on the ambulance parties. Officers were now reduced in numbers by one third. The absorbing consideration still was, "should we meet the French and English before the Bulgars caught us up?" Skoplye was already in Bulgarian hands, and now I heard for the first time that, if there was no hope of being joined by the Allies, the Army must retreat across the Montenegrin mountains, to the coast of Albania. But conversation still ended always with the hope that the Allies would come. CHAPTER XXIX We left Blatzi at 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, November 11th, for Tulari, half-way to Kurshumlya. The road was less bad, and shortly after passing the Nish turning, we were temporarily cheered by an officer who, as he rode past, told us that he had heard that the Allies had taken Nish; but, of course, it was not true. We arrived at Tulari, at 1.30, in pelting rain and sleet. The fields were all under water, and we were lucky to secure rooms in two of the few small houses of which the village was composed. We were kept busy with wounded and evacuations and burials. Major A.'s column arrived a little later, and one of the French doctors had supper with us. He told us that the other doctor was mislaid: he had ridden in advance, and had evidently lost the convoy. He turned up, in a starved condition, two days later.