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 passed 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 reassuringly 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 shore.

“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 unobtainable, 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 pharmacopoeia was a little boracic, some bismuth capsules, Epsom salts, quinine, iodine, and one of the party owned a bottle of some patent unknown stuff, against fever and many other ailments.