The monks gave us pressing invitations to visit them in their mountain monasteries, and I had every intention of accepting their hospitality the next time I came to the dispensary. But I returned to camp on September 16th, the day following the benediction ceremony, and I never, alas! went again to my beloved Ovcharska. The dispensaries were now all inaugurated, and the scheme, in full working order, was in every way fulfilling our highest hopes. The greatest, in fact the only, difficulty had been the delay in arrival of the dispensary medical equipment; this went wrong at Nish and elsewhere, and we had trouble to secure the necessary scales and serum syringes, etc. But miracles always happened at moments when things looked blackest, and by one means and another obstacles had been overcome. The six new motor ambulances for the use of the six new dispensaries, only arrived on September 17th. They had arrived at Salonica without a note of authorisation for their delivery, and the port officials had refused to deliver them till weeks had been wasted in communication with London. And even on September 17th, the spare parts had not arrived. We had, therefore, been obliged to work the dispensaries, and to keep up communications, with the one camp ambulance that was left. CHAPTER XVII We were now dealing, as seen upon the sketch, with a large area of the Schumadia District, and 20,000 people had already passed through our hands. If the work could only be continued through the winter, substantial results might be expected for the poor suffering peasants. But rumours of a massing of Bulgarian troops on their frontier, and of Germans and Austrians on the Danube front, grew more substantial. If fighting eventuated, all our dispensary work must be stopped, and once more the unfortunate peasants must be left to their fate. But whatever happened, the scheme was an established success, and it was comforting to think that it could be restarted as soon as the war is over.