We were early on the move on Monday, December 20th, and hoped to reach the military station within an hour or two. The route began with its usual ferocity of mud, and the continuous effort, during hour after hour, of dragging the feet out at every step, was wearisome; leg-pulling that morning became a common form of entertainment, and rain fell in torrents all day.
We reached the military station at Ritzik at 11 o'clock a.m. The office was in an old monastery, and we waited for our turn to be served with bread, in an upper room. There our hosts were two Albanian (Franciscan) monks. The ponies and oxen had to wait in the pelting rain. There was, after all, no bread, but mealies were given instead, both for the men and for ourselves. We were disappointed, but made no comment, and, as we were leaving, the officer in charge whispered to me to say nothing about it, but he gave me quietly two large corn loaves of his own, in addition to the mealies, so we gave the extra mealies to the men.
The weather grew worse all day, and at dusk a heavy thunderstorm, with drenching rain, made shelter desirable. We had fortunately reached a village, and we went up to a house and knocked at the door. The occupants were women (Albanians), and we asked for shelter; this was refused, and we tried two other houses, with the same result. But the first house had a large shed which was only open on two sides, so I insisted on putting the ponies, and men, and ourselves, under the partial shelter during the storm, but it was already crowded with soldiers, and there was not standing room for us all. The women of the house came out, and we pleaded with them, asking them to allow us to go into one of their rooms, but in reply they burst into tears. This turned the tables on us; we could not all cry, and they had thought of it first. So we had to comfort them; a horrid waste of time in the deluging rain. They said that their neighbour's house had been pillaged by soldiers, and they were afraid of our soldiers. Finally, when we dried their eyes with money, they said that they would take in the women, but that all the men must move on at once. We would not, of course, agree to this, and as we were already wet to the skin, we thought we had better get warm by walking, and try and reach the next military station, which was, we were told, only two hours distant.