The Luck of Thirteen Part 34

We persuaded the driver to lunch with us, and packed ourselves and our dingy packages on to the wet floor. The motor buzzed up and downhill, incessantly twisting and turning: what we could see of the view from the back waved to and fro like Alpine scenery seen in the cinematograph.

Stajitch became violently seasick with the fumes of benzine, which arose from two big tanks we were taking along, and lay with his head lolling miserably out of the back of the car.

Pod once more, sleepy, inhospitable Pod.

We bargained for rooms at our old inn--mixed beds and floors. The owner was asking more than ever; he shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands.

"The war--increasing prices."

So we took what we could, put Stajitch to bed, saw the prefect, our old friend from Chainitza, who promised us a carriage for Cettinje in the morning.

Miss Brindley, joyfully ready to see Cettinje and anything else that might turn up, joined Jo and Jan in the old shandrydan carriage which lumbered along for seven hours to Cettinje.

"We are going to find Turkish delight," said the others, as they disappeared down a side street, revelling in the idea of a rest.

Cettinje was inches deep in water. We a.s.sured the Count de Salis that much as we needed money to continue the journey, we needed baths more.

This was a weighty matter and needed much thinking out, petroleum being very scarce. The huge empty Legation kitchen stove was lit and upon it were placed all the kettles, saucepans, and empty tins in the place; the picturesque old baggy-breeched porter, his wife, and little boy stoking hard, and asking lots of questions. One by one we were ushered into a room, not the bathroom but a room containing the sort of comfortable bath which makes the least water go the longest way, and also a beautiful hot stove. This solemn rite occupied a whole afternoon. We had not taken our clothes off for sixteen days and had been in the dirtiest of places. A change of underclothing was effected. None too soon! for at Lieva Rieka we had picked up lice.

We compared notes on this part afterwards. "Happy hunting?" we inquired like Mowgli's friends. It was good to sit by the big kitchen stove holding bits of dripping clothing to the blaze; the downfall at Cettinje the evening before having completely drenched our damp things again.

Next day outside the world was white and silent, the snow covering the little city and its intrigues with a thick whitewash.

The minister was the kindest of hosts and could not do enough for us during our stay. Cettinje had not changed much. The hotel-keeper showed an intense and violent anxiety to leave Montenegro. Never had his native Switzerland seemed so alluring and never was it so unattainable. The chemist, who owned a little one-windowed shop, was engaged to the king's niece, quite a lift in the world for her, as she was marrying a man of education.

Penwiper, the dog, was still in sole possession of the street, and again went mad with joy at the sound of English women's voices, and accompanied us everywhere, generally upside-down in the snow, clutching our skirts with her teeth.

Jan was in and out of the Transport Office door while Miss Brindley and Jo were being followed around the streets by a jeering crowd of children, who seemed to think that Miss Brindley's india-rubber boot-top leggings and Jo's corrugated stockings and safety-pinned-up skirt out of place. We bought some bags from a woman we afterwards heard was suspected of being an Austrian spy.

Poor old Prenk Bib Doda was in our hotel. He was Prince of the Miridites. As a boy he had been kidnapped by the Turks and haled off to Constantinople. Grown to a middle-aged man in captivity, he was restored to his tribes during the Young Turk Revolution, only to be abducted by the Montenegrins, and to be kept practically a prisoner in Cettinje. We don't know if he disliked it, possibly not, for his walk in life seems to be that of a professional hostage, if one may say so. His ideals of comfort were certainly nearer to the cabarets in Berlin, than to the wild orgies of his own subjects. In fact he was civilized.

A pa.s.sage across the Adriatic seemed problematic. The Transport Minister hoped we might catch a ship that had tried to leave Scutari three times, but had always been thrown on the beach by storms. The great difficulty was crossing the lake of Scutari. One steamer had been mysteriously sunk and another damaged. He promised to arrange a motor for us directly he should be able to put his hand on a boat to take us across the lake.

Jan and Jo simultaneously began to wish they had not eaten sardines at Rieka. The attack was very violent, and next day Jo stayed in bed, refusing the page boy's efforts to tempt her with lunch.

"See," he said, bearing in a third dish, "English, your i _rissh_kew."

Jo pretended to be pleased, and made Jan eat the Irish stew after his lunch, so that the page boy's feelings should not be hurt.

Suddenly word came from the Transport Minister that a carriage was coming for us. We were to go to Pod, and pick up the others. So Jo stopped tying herself into knots and had to get up and go. We arrived at Pod to find everybody ill. Two days' sedentary life and Turkish delight were responsible for this. We suggested castor oil. One had just missed pleurisy--Whatmough had acted as nurse.

The professor had been trying to pump Stajitch as to our future plans, as he was again alone and rudderless. Stajitch said--

"Mr. and Mrs. Gordon alone know, and they are in Cettinje."

"Now that's not kind to keep a fellow countryman in the dark," said the professor.

Stajitch a.s.sured him he knew nothing; but the professor walked away, murmuring that the English were undermining a good Serb boy's character.

And that was the last of the professor.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXIII

INTO ALBANIA

We caught the mayor in the morning. He was in his shirt-sleeves and he said that the auto had been arranged for. It came and we packed in. On the back perched a boy who outsmelt any Serb we had ever found. It seemed impossible that a human could so smell and yet live. Suddenly the boy drew a packet from his pocket and the smell became intolerable. He unwrapped a piece of cheese and, gasping for breath, we watched it disappear. When it had gone we breathed more freely, but the odour still clung to the youth, and we were not sorry when the auto pulled up at the village of Plavnitza on the edge of the lake. A man, who said that he had been sent to help us, dragged us to the telephone office. He worried the instrument for a while and announced that the boat would be here in two hours. It would have come earlier, but somehow they couldn't make steam get up. We expected it to come in four, and so went off to get something to eat.

The lake was very high, coming right up to the road. All the low fields were covered with water as far as one could see. The girl at the inn was shuddering and shivering with malaria, and we gave her some quinine. At last the steamer came.

We had to pack into one of those c.o.c.khat boats, as the quay was separated from the village by half a mile of water. When we got to the steamer, the captain leaned over the side and shouted--

"Where are the mattresses?"

"What mattresses?" said the harbour-master.

"When are you going to start?" demanded we, clambering on board.

"When I get the mattresses," said the captain.

"But what mattresses?" replied the harbour-master.

"I was sent to get mattresses," said the captain, "and here I wait till they come."

This was a nuisance, n.o.body had said anything about the mattresses.

"I shan't go till to-morrow anyhow," said the skipper.

"I think we'd all better go back to Podgoritza and come again to-morrow," said the man in charge.

"We don't move from here," said Jo, firmly. "If he won't go we'll sit on this boat--which was sent for us--and sing songs all night so that he shan't sleep."

The captain refused to move without the mattresses and we refused to go back, so a violent argument ensued. We remained adamant. At last in despair the harbour master said that he would go and telephone. Night was coming on, the deck was chilly, so Jan went to explore. The quay was half under water, but by jumping from stone to stone one could get about, and Jan discovered an entrance into the stone storehouse. The door was boarded up, but he forced his way in, discovering a huge empty interior banked up well above the water. At one end was a platform made of boards on tubs. An ideal bed. He called the company and they arranged themselves on the planks, though some were dismayed at the prospect of getting no supper. The boards were loose and as each took his place they bobbed up and down. Miss Brindley said that it seemed like sleeping on the keyboard of a piano. We did not expect to see anything before morning of the harbour-master or of Stajitch who had gone with him; but just as we were settled and beginning to snore and the rats were running about, Stajitch poked his head through the window and said that the boat was going immediately. We reluctantly got up, for we were really rather cosy, packed again and hopped in the moonlight from stone to stone till we got to the ship--which was the same old Turkish gunboat on which we had travelled once before. The thing was then explained--a telegraphic mistake. The captain had been ordered to fetch the strangers: but strangers and mattresses are only one letter different, "n" or "m," this letter had been transposed.

Luckily it was a beautiful moonlight night. The lake was wonderfully romantic. A fat Serbian captain, who seemed to know Stajitch, made a request. He said that he had been cut off from his division, which was at Monastir, and that he was going to try and rejoin them. He ask us if he could join our party, as it would come cheaper at the hotels and he could get transport.

It was pretty cold on the lake, but we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and said the view was lovely. Hunger was also gnawing within us, so we were glad when at last the rumbling old engines halted and the steamer gave three hoots. We waited anxiously, and at last a large rowboat came sideways against the steamer. Four carriages were waiting in the bazaar.

A very polite Montenegrin doctor welcomed us at the hotel and we got some much desired food.

Bed was beginning to be a mere commonplace now, but we enjoyed it for all that, and slept well into the morning.

Scutari wore its usual air of "the ballet" when we arose. The ladies dressed all in their best clothes, and with great flowing veils and wide skirted coats were hobbling to church. The shopkeepers, with their long black and white legs and coloured shirts, were lounging about the low counters of their shops, smoking and drinking coffee brought them (on little swinging trays) by boys.

The British consul had taken up his quarters at the "Maison Piget." The house was gated, as are all Albanian houses, but this gate was like an old feudal portal. The doors were wonderfully carved and were opened by our old friend the Wolf. We had thought him to be a servant of Suma's, but it appeared that he belonged to the British Empire.