The town was at its gayest.  The cloud had not yet dimmed the market.  Peasants poured in, knowing nothing of the Bulgars, little thinking that they would be flying, starving, dying, in a few weeks’ time.  A Chinese vendor of paper gauds had come into the town, and all the pretty girls were wearing his absurdities pinned on to their head kerchiefs.  One girl was so fine and bejewelled that we photographed her, to the delight of her lover, who stood aside to let us have a good view.

A man was selling honey in the comb accompanied by his bees, which must have followed him for miles.  They testified their displeasure at his selling their honey by stinging him and most of the buyers.

No one seemed to know when the train was leaving.  Station-master, porters, all had a different tale.  At last we decided to risk seven o’clock in the evening, and the four orderlies and ourselves, copper tray and all, bade farewell to the Belgian sisters, who had cut off their hair, and wandered across to the station.  The train arrived two hours late and stood, ready to go out, guarded by tatterdemalions with guns.

“You can’t get in yet,” said one of them barring our way.

“Why?”

“Ne snam.”

The freebooting instinct arose in us; we awaited our opportunity, dodged between two soldiers, and settled ourselves comfortably.  Several officials looked in and said nothing; another came and forbade us to stay there, and passed on.  An old woman came with a broom and cleaned up.  We sat on our feet to get them out of the way, somebody squirted white disinfectant on the floor, and we were left in peace.

The train started at eleven, moved as far as a siding and stayed till four.  We found the four Red Cross men had only nine shillings between them.  Three had stood all the way from Salonika, as during an unfortunate moment of interest in the view their seats had been appropriated by a fat Serbian officer, his wife and daughter.  The fourth, a porter from Folkestone, had settled down on the floor, saying “he wasn’t going to concarn himself with no voos.”

They had new uniforms, yellow mackintoshes, white kit bags, and beautiful cooking apparatus, which took to pieces and served a thousand purposes.

In the chilly morning we got out at Stalatch, just too late for the Vrntze train.  Luckily the station cafe was open.

The four Englishmen ordered beefsteak, but were given long lean tasteless sausages.  They asked for tea and were given black Turkish coffee in tiny cups half full of grounds.  We asked about the trains, and were told we should catch the one next day.  We argued, and extracted the promise of a luggage train, which would soon pass.

Why is it that in Serbia they always, on principle, say, “You can’t,” after which under pressure they own, “Somehow you can”?  In Montenegro they say, “Certainly you can,” after which they occasionally find that “Somehow you can’t.”