[Sidenote:  A series of humiliations.]

“Have you heard of this?” he said, handing me the paper, and controlling his voice with an effort, “No man or officer of our army is to cross the ——­ bridge without a special permit from General Headquarters.  It is only the latest in the long series of humiliations we have had to put up with.  Just look at the way we stand.  In Athens our names are posted as traitors who can be shot on sight.  Here it isn’t quite like that, but—­well (he raised his hand above his head and let it fall limply in a gesture of despair), all I can say is that the only officers of the Venizelist army to be envied are those whose names are recorded here (indicating a file at his elbow).  It’s the death-list from day-before-yesterday’s fighting.”

[Sidenote:  Venizelist troops succeed in big attacks.]

Owing to the delay in issuing my pass in Saloniki, I did not arrive at Greek Headquarters until the evening of the day on which the big attack had taken place, and it was day-break of the morning following before I was able to make my way up to the advanced lines.  The Venizelist troops had taken all their objectives, and held them with great courage against such counterattacks as the surprised Bulgars—­who, not expecting an attack from the Greeks, had made the mistake of massing too much of their strength against the British and French attacks to east and west—­were able to organize against them.  They had been busy all night “reversing” the captured trenches in anticipation of a determined attempt on the part of the reinforced enemy to retake them in the morning.

[Sidenote:  Movement carried out without confusion.]

The hilly but well-metaled cartroad, along which by the light of the waning moon I cantered with an officer of the Greek staff, had been thronged all night with the surging current of the battle traffic—­an up-flow of munition convoys and reinforcements, and back-flow of wounded and prisoners—­but I could not help remarking the comparative quiet and absence of confusion with which the complex movement was carried on.

[Sidenote:  The Greeks seem to understand the game of war.]

“Somehow this doesn’t seem quite like the transport of a new army just undergoing its baptism of fire,” I said to my companion.  “I’ve seen things on the roads behind the western front in far worse messes than any of these little jams we’ve passed to-night.  These chaps are as businesslike as though they’d been at the game for years.”

[Sidenote:  Veterans of the Balkan wars.]

“So they have,” was the quiet reply.  “Our army, as recruited so far, is a new one only in name.  The men who attacked yesterday were of the famous S——­ Division, which fought all through the last two Balkan wars and gained no end of praise from all the foreign military attaches for its great mountain work.  It was this Division which scaled the steep range beyond Doiran and drove the Bulgars out of Rupel Pass.”