True Stories of the Great War, Volume 3 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
History
True Stories of the Great War, Volume 3 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
I had been behind the battle lines, and I wanted to tell my countrymen
just how the Serbs were fighting.
"I would like nothing better," I said, "but, of course, it is
impossible."
The Prince smiled. "Madam," he replied, "nothing that you may wish is
impossible."
I thought at first that it was merely his innate politeness, but with
the least possible delay Prince Alexander delivered me into the care of
Col. Sondermayer, chief of the medical service of the Serbian army.
"She is to go wherever she wishes to," was the command delivered to the
Colonel.
And so we started out in a somewhat rattly automobile and went upward
into the mountains, passing a continuous stream of soldiers--French
going to Kisova and Serbians to Dobrpolje. Ammunition trains and
convoys of wounded rumbled over the roads day and night. They were the
back currents, the eddies of the war we were traversing.
As we passed a stone post at the side of the wheel-rutted road one of
the officers said: "We are now in Serbia. This soil has been wrested
from the conqueror."
I cried, "Stoy!" which is to say "Stop."
The chauffeur brought the car to a standstill and I jumped out. The men
followed me and we knelt and kissed the soil we all loved. I do not
think their emotion could have been stronger than my own.
Shortly after this Major Todorovitch pointed into the sky and said,
"See the aeroplanes. They are our scouts."
I looked in the direction he indicated, but all I could see was a
series of puffs of white. It was shrapnel from the Bulgarian guns
bursting so close to the Serbian planes that the round puffs of smoke
were drawn out into streaks by the suction of the fast flying machines.
Occasionally we could see the sun flash on the wings of the aeroplanes
just as you can sometimes see the approach of a canoe by the flash of
the sunlight on the paddles before you can really distinguish the craft
itself.
At Vrbeni I met Gen. Vassitch, the "_voivode mishitch_"
(commander-in-chief) of all the Serbian forces. Col. Sondermayer
explained that I wished to go to the front.
"How far forward do you wish to go?" asked the General.
"As far as your officers can go," I replied.
The General shrugged his shoulders as though to say, "There is no place
for these women in war," then seeming suddenly to realize that I was in
earnest, he bowed and said, "Madam, you should have been one of us--one
of our Serbian soldiers."
Calling his aide-de-camp, Major Todorovitch, he directed him to obey
my orders and take me wherever I wished to go, so we again got into
the rattly automobile and began to climb still further up into the
mountains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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