In the street at Petch, I met our P.M.O., who was on his way to see me. He gave me the cheerful information that henceforth the roads would not be good. With remembrance of the road between Prishtina and Petch, still in my mind, I laughed. The P.M.O. smiled grimly, and said, yes, the roads would be even worse now, and I must at once cut our four-wheeled wagons in half, and make of them two-wheeled carts; I had better see how the Fourth Field Hospital were doing this, and do the same. Then he told me that he and Headquarters were very pleased with us, that we had done well in difficult circumstances, and he referred, with congratulations, to the fact that we had had no deserters, a trouble which had befallen other columns. He was glad, he said, that having come through so much, we were still sticking to the work. His kind words cheered me very much, for having had no previous experience of this kind of work, I didn't know if I had been doing all that was expected of me. We were now, he said, to start to-night, or at daybreak to-morrow, with our two-wheeled carts, for Scutari, near the coast of Albania. The route was to be _via_ Roshai, Berani, Andreavitza, and Podgoritza. Thursday, December 2nd, was a busy day; the first job was to cut the wagons in half; the back portion would be left behind, and we should carry on with the front portion. It was difficult to procure saws, especially as some of the wagons belonged to the drivers, and they were not anxious to cut them up. "Nema" and "ne moshe" ("There is none" and "not possible") lurked ominously amongst the tomb-stones, but fierce-eye prevailed. Then came the sad business of sorting hospital material, for, as half a wagon is only half as large as a whole wagon, half the hospital material must be left behind, (we gave it to a hospital in Petch), also most of the equipment, and the tents, except one bell tent, to which we clung in case of desperate weather at night. We guessed that it might be possible that even the two-wheeled carts would not be able to continue to Scutari, so we set to work to buy ponies, upon which to pack food and kit, in case the carts must be abandoned. Jordan, Colson, and Vooitch cleverly managed to find a dozen ponies, in various stages of decay; these were subsequently our salvation. But they must be rough-shod, or they would be useless in the ice and snow, and there were no blacksmiths left in Petch. Nearly everyone had now gone, and the town was deserted except by the passing soldiers and fugitives. But this difficulty, too, was overcome by the triumvirate. It was also important to procure a store of food. We tried in vain to find tinned foods, and we only had a few Serbian meats left; but we luckily found some of our precious mealie meal, also a little rice and a few beans, and we carried these in sacks, and these three things ultimately saved us from starvation.