The lorry dropped us just before the first broken bridge.  Then we had to leave the road and face mud slush, climbing for hours.  We had picked up various friends—­a courtly old peasant who was very worried to hear that Kragujevatz had fallen, and feared for the invasion of Montenegro; two barefoot girls, who asked Jo all the usual questions, and an American-speaking Serbian man who had trudged from Ipek, the first refugee on that road from Serbia.  He was very mysterious, and contrary to the usual custom, would not tell us about himself nor where he was going.

He was very anxious to stand us drinks, but curiously enough, every one refused.  The professor had started before us, with a Greek priest.  When we passed him he lifted his hands deprecatingly, “Teshko.”

Our hopes of arriving before dark were as usual crushed.  The dusk found us still floundering in the mud on wayside paths.  It began to pour.  The hills above us became white—­a straight line being drawn between snow and rain—­and our guides wanted us to spend the night at an inn two hours before we reached Jabooka.  But it looked very uninviting—­we remembered the cheery hostess of Jabooka, the woman who came from “other parts,” and knew a thing or two about cleanliness.  Every one agreed to go on.  Willett was rather better, so we forged ahead in the downpour and the dark, splashing through puddles and singing everything we knew.  Our Albanian guides chuckled and chanted their own nasal songs in a different key as an accompaniment.

Far away we saw a tiny light—­Jabooka.  We stretched our legs and hurried along, but alas! the inn room was full.  There was the professor, his face shining from warmth and well-being, crowds of men in uniform, some fat travelling civilians:  faces looked up from the floor, from the corners, faces were everywhere, wet boys were steaming in front of the fire, while the hostess and a girl were picking their way as best they could in the tobacco smoke with eggs and rakia.

Full; even the floor! and we were wet through.  The professor had announced that we were staying at the dirty inn away back.  Oh, the old villain!

He came forward, saying in an impressive voice that a major had taken the inn.

“Bother the major,” said Jo.  “Something must be done.”

The professor smiled.  “There is another inn.”

There was nothing for it.  We had to go to the inn across the road, glad enough to have a roof at all.  The rain was tearing down as if the heavens were filled with fire-engines.

But they didn’t want us there.  We beheld a dirty low-ceiled room filled with filthy people and a smell of wet unwashed clothes.

The owner and his wife received us roughly.  “We have no room, we have nothing,” they said.

We stood our ground.  “We must have a roof to-night.”

Outside the road had become a river, our men were nearly dropping with fatigue.