The Luck of Thirteen Part 36

"I don't know anything about you," he said. His manner was ungracious.

"But," we said, "they a.s.sured us that they had telegraphed from Scutari."

The telegraph clerk was brought, and denied that any message had come.

"Anyhow," said the governor, "the motor-boat is for Albanian soldiers only, and has gone twenty minutes ago. I can do nothing for you without authority from Durazzo."

We wandered dismally back through the town and were immediately arrested by the bridge officials because we had not paid the toll rates.

We paid double to get rid of them.

We found an inn. It was the usual sort of building only of stone, and so dirtier than the others. Some travelling show seemed to have left its scenery in lieu of its bill, for bits of painted canvas did duty as part.i.tions.

There was a room with six beds, but one was reserved for an Albanian officer. We took the rest. We loitered about all the afternoon, and in the evening the Albanian officer came in. He was a beaky-faced, unpleasant-looking man, but he procured us some bread, which we sorely lacked. The hotel had little food, so we gave them our rice. By this time fleas had got into it, and seeming to like it had bred in quant.i.ties. Still as we had nothing else it had to be cooked, and we picked out the boiled fleas as well as we were able. The Serbian captain started drinking with the Albanian, and soon both were well over the edge of sobriety.

They came up long after we had turned in, fell over Cutting, who cursed them without stint, and tumbled on to the beds which we had left for them. The Albanian made some remarks about the ladies, which from the tone were insults; but we were unable to chastize him, or we should all have been put into prison.

They snored and coughed all night, and spat about in the dark. Those who were sleeping near cowered beneath the mackintosh sheets and prayed for luck. But in the morning we found that they had been spitting on the wall.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXIV

"ONE MORE RIBBER TO CROSS"

The Mayor of Alessio had said that there were lots of horses, if we had Essad's permission; but the Turkish captain said that there were none, only at San Giovanni were they to be found. It was pelting with rain, but Blease and we decided to walk over to explore for ourselves. Jan first wrote a very stiff letter to the Governor of Scutari about the non-arrival of the telegram, and off we went, having borrowed oilskins and sou'westers. The Serb captain insisted on coming with us.

In half an hour the storm had made the stony road into a series of deep ponds which nearly joined each other, so Jo tucked her now ragged skirt into a bright woven Serbian belt and walked along with the water streaming from coat to boots. It became rather a pleasure to splash through ten-inch deep puddles, knowing that one could not possibly get any wetter, and this joy was intensified by the knowledge that the Serbian captain was being soaked and didn't like it.

San Giovanni consists of a series of huts, each like Burns' birthplace, grouped on the shelving side of a stony cliff. The bay itself is semi-circular, with a long cape jutting out to the south, the extremity of which almost always is floating in the air, owing to the mirage. In the bay were two rusty steamers--one the _Benedetto_, which had been promised to us by the Italian governor--several old wooden sailers, and a lot of smallish fishing smacks very brightly painted and with raised p.o.o.p and prow. A group of Albanians were toiling at sacks which c.u.mbered the little wooden jetty.

We immediately hunted out Captain Fabiano, the Italian commander of the wireless telegraph, and found him in a little house at the northern horn of the bay. He received us gaily. He spoke an excellent French, so that the Serbian captain could not b.u.t.t in and interfere, as was his habit.

Fabiano said that it would take a long time to get a wire to Brindisi, where we had heard were several ships of the English fleet, very bored and craving for something to do; we had hoped to get into communication with them. Then Jan had a brain wave.

"Is not the wind good for Durazzo?" asked he.

"Splendid," said Fabiano, "and no submarines to-day."

"Could we not get a fishing boat?"

"I will send and see."

While we were waiting he told us that he was sheltering the crew of the ship which had been transporting the English mission's kit. The captain of the little transport had set fire to the benzine which his boat was carrying, which act so enraged the submarine captain that he fired three torpedoes into her, and afterwards mounted his conning tower and fired ten full clips from his revolver at the swimming men. Luckily revolver shooting requires much practice. The men had clung to an overturned boat and had all eventually reached sh.o.r.e, after which they had to march a day and a half without boots or food, often fording rivers which came to their waists. Fabiano said that he was going to send them home on the _Benedetto_.

The captain of the port sent back word that we could have a boat immediately--much to Fabiano's surprise. But most of the party were at Alessio. We hurried off to see the captain of the port. Explanations, certainly when the luggage came; and off went Jan with a guide to get pack ponies. Halfway back to Alessio was the stable, but the steeds were not ready, so Jan was ushered up into a top room where was a huge fire, over which an Albanian was stewing a cormorant with all its feathers on.

There were other Albanians and a very old Montenegrin soldier. He admired everything English, even Jan's tobacco which he had bought in Pod.

We got to Alessio and packed everything hurriedly, paid the bill, tipped an old soldier two dinars, and off. As we pa.s.sed over the bridge the clerk came running behind us. We had not paid the bridge fees, he said.

"How much?" asked Jan.

He hesitated.

"Two dinars," said he. He had been talking to the soldier.

Meanwhile Jo and Blease had found refuge in the house of the military commandant. It was a hovel like all the houses, but they were given a huge log fire which was built on the mud floor. Their stockings were soon hanging on a line above the blaze, and their shins were scorching, while they drank wonderful liqueur which was hospitably poured out by the beautiful old host.

Turkish coffee was prepared for them by a soldier in a bursting French fireman's uniform.

The captain's fire was the rendezvous of the village. Amiable and picturesque people came in and talked about the unhealthiness of the place, the relative bravery of nations with a special reference to the courage of Montenegrins, and about the submarine raid and of how the Austrian captain had repeatedly fired his revolver at the sailors of the boat he had sunk while they were swimming in the water. Their eyes were streaming, not with emotion, but because in Montenegro one has no chimneys.

At dusk the rest of us arrived. The port captain said "To-morrow," so we climbed up to the inn, examined the stores, a few tins of tunny, mackerel, and milk, and the thirteen made the best of the bar-room floor for the night, booted and ready in case a transport for the _Benedetto_ should arrive.

In the morning the captain said we could have the boat that night, and in the evening he said we could have it in the morning. His excuse was that the Borra was blowing its hardest, and no sailor could be found to venture out; but Fabiano said that this was not true.

The real reason was the sleek Austrian torpedo lying on the beach, for the Dulcinos are famed on the Adriatic coast because of their timidity.

Time pa.s.sed drearily. The only amus.e.m.e.nt we had was to go and annoy the captain of the port by asking when we could have a boat. The wind was too cold for const.i.tutionals, and we piled on all our clothes and sat on our knapsacks in the bar-room--for there was no fire--and talked wistfully of sausages, Yorkshire Relish and underdone beefsteaks.

We had much time for meditation, and pondered over the downfall of Serbia. Why had the Serbian Government so resolutely refused to make any territorial concessions to Bulgaria, when it was obvious that the entry of Bulgaria into the conflict meant the ruin of Serbia? Why had they permitted the Austrians to build their big gun emplacements on the Danube without interruption? Why had they not withdrawn to the hills and then built proper defences with barbed wire entanglements and labyrinths? for properly entrenched they might have defied the Austro-German forces for months. Some day, perhaps, these questions may have to be answered.

One day a party came in. They had pa.s.sed through Vrntze much later than we, and we heard that Dr. Berry and an a.s.sistant had been seen hurriedly nailing boards on to the slaughter-house roof. They, too, had come by the Novi Bazar route. They said that the other routes were deep in snow and that the sufferings of the army were terrible. That a great portion had been hemmed in at Prizren, and that the Bulgars had sh.e.l.led the pa.s.ses so that they could not escape. They themselves had escaped the advancing Austrians by the skin of their teeth owing to good horses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: UNLOADING THE "BENEDETTO," SAN GIOVANNI DI MEDUA.]

The snow came down, driving along the valleys and whitening all the hills; the cold grew more intense, and the desire for English beefsteaks became an obsession: one talked of little else--or of Christmas. Food was becoming scarce. The tinned mackerel was diminishing; some days we had no bread. We walked once as far as Fabiano's wireless. The men were living in a shed made of wattle, and the Borra whistled through the cracks. There was a stove round which we sat while the men gave us tea; but the warmth it induced in one's face only intensified the feeling of cold on the back. Outside in the snow was a long-distance telescope, and peering through one could see the conning tower of the Austrian submarine, a faint hump on the sea by the southernmost point. As we returned to the cold hotel we pa.s.sed the Montenegrin batteries: cannon too small to be of any use and the gunners of which were all so ill that they could not handle them.

Two Frenchmen had been in San Giovanni for ten days, and their anxiety to go was up to fever point. They took it in turns to stand "pour observer," wrapped up to their noses, in a doorway, watching the _Benedetto_ in case she should give them the slip. We called them Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

One night somebody rushed up to their room. Booted, they jumped out of bed, and ran about overhead. We thirteen scrambled up and intercepted them between the stairs and the door. "Pour observer, steam-funnel,"

they shouted, and disappeared into the night, followed by their valet with two hold-alls. They soon came back, very cold, and announced that steam had been seen issuing from the _Benedetto's_ funnel. They had rushed to it in an open boat, and had learnt that the _Benedetto_ was ordered to be in readiness. She fumed quietly for three days, and then was commandeered by the Serbian Government.

One day we saw a French aeroplane, an old friend of ours. Immediately every one working in the port tore up hill, men jumped off the big boats into little ones and rowed like a cinematograph turned double speed.

The commandant roared rea.s.suringly from his attic window, and an officer tried to beat the men back. Seeing us convulsed with laughter, they turned sheepishly; but the little boats wagged on, people jumping into the water as they neared sh.o.r.e.

"Come and sit round my fire," said the commandant. So we again imbibed coffee and discussed courage. It was explained to us that none of the men in the boats were Montenegrins, and we politely agreed.

Hearing that a Red Cross party was in the village people came and asked for medical aid. We explained that we had no doctors, but they begged us to come and see the invalids.

Doctors and chemists were un.o.btainable, and soldiers were dying every day.

We had no hesitation in tackling the Montenegrin soldiers, for at least we could do no harm, considering that our whole pharmacopia was a little boracic, some bis.m.u.th capsules, Epsom salts, quinine, iodine, and one of the party owned a bottle of some patent unknown stuff, against fever and many other ailments.

We were first taken to the barracks in the evening, scrambling up a stony hill. The building looked like the disreputable ruins of somebody's "Folly." Half the roof was off, and the walls were full of holes. We stumbled up some black steps and entered a huge dark barn with four log fires down the centre of the room.