“We have nothing but meat.”

“No potatoes?”

“No.”

We got a sort of Serbian stew, the meat so tough that one had to saw the morsels apart with a knife and bolt them whole.  As we were operating, a soldier leaned up against our table, and stared at our plates with a wistful longing.  Jo caught his eye.  She scraped together all our leavings; what misery we could have relieved, had we had money enough, in Serbia then.

We paid our bill with a ten dinar (franc) note.  The waiter fingered it a moment.

“Haven’t you any money?” he asked.

“That is money.”

“Silver, I mean.”

“No.”

He hesitated a moment.  Then went away, turning the note over in his hands.  After a while he returned and gave us our change.

The day passed in a queer sort of daze of doing things; between one act and another there was no definite sequence.  The town itself was in a sort of suppressed twitter, everybody’s movements seemed exaggerated, the eager ones moved faster, impelled by a sort of fear; the slow ones went slower, their feet dragging in a kind of despondency.  At one time we found ourselves clambering up some steps to the mayor’s office, in search of bread.  By a window on the far side of the room was a man with a pale face, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and light hair:  Churchin.  We ran to him.

“What are you doing here?” he said gloomily.

We explained.

“I don’t think you can get any transport,” he said; “but later I’ll see if I can do anything.”

We thanked him.  “But transport or no transport, we are going.”  Jan showed him the bread order.  He read it and pointed to the Nachanlik.

The Nachanlik read our order, scowled and passed it on to another man, an officer.  The officer read the order, looked us sulkily from head to foot, then he pushed the paper back to us.

“We have only bread for soldiers.”

“But—­we are an English Mission.”

“Only for soldiers here.  We have nothing to do with English Missions.”

Fearing that we had come to the wrong place we retired.

At another time we were climbing up back stairs to what had been the temporary lodgings of the English legation.  But it was empty and deserted; Sir Ralph Paget had not yet come.

There were bread shops, but they were all shut and guarded by soldiers.  Jan saw some bread in a window.  He went into the dirty cafe, which was crowded with soldiers, some sitting on the floor and some on the tables.

“Whose bread?” asked he.

“Ours.”

“Will you sell me a loaf?”

“We won’t sell a crumb.”

We bought some apples from a man with a Roman lever balance, and chewed them as we went along.

At the hospital the “Stobarts” were packing up.  A motor was coming for them in the afternoon.  We heard that Dr. May and the Krag people were at Studenitza, an old monastery, halfway along the road to Rashka.  On the flat fields behind the station were another gang of “Stobarts,” the dispensary from Lapovo.  One Miss H——­ was in trouble, for thieves had pushed their arms beneath the tent flaps in the night and had captured her best boots.