After trekking for three hours, we heard that there was hay to be bought some way up a mountain on our left. So we halted at a cottage by the roadside, while the men climbed the hill to fetch the hay. Some of the drivers at first wanted to shirk the climb; I did not blame them, though I told them they must go; but one of our Englishmen commented scornfully on the laziness of the Serbian soldier, so I reminded him that yesterday, when he was in trouble with his pony, owing to mud and rain, he had lost his temper for a moment, and I now asked him if he would like his character to be judged by his behaviour at that time of only a slight trouble? The Serbian soldier, in addition to such slight troubles, was suffering from troubles which we British islanders can scarcely imagine. The Englishman had for the moment forgotten all this, and he agreed with me that the behaviour of the Serbian soldiers was, under all the circumstances, marvellous.
The road ran in hairpin curves between huge mountains of grey, bare, rugged rock. You might as well expect milk from stones, as food amongst such mountains. It was a terrible land, and I felt, as I trudged through it, that I should never want to see another mountain. But at dusk (4 p.m.) we reached the military station of Levorcka. Would this also be deserted? I sent gaolbird on to try and find rooms. He found one room and a kitchen in which we could cook food, in the house of an Arnaut woman. When I went into the living room to ask her to let us boil a kettle on her fire, a pretty little girl of eight was fastening the dress of her little sister, six years old. I said something about the children in my best Serbian, and the woman who was, at first, very curt with us, told me that she had no children; these were two lost refugees; an officer had picked them up on the road, and had left them here. The woman was very kind to them, and had grown to love them. She said that it was possible that the mother might come past this way. But the elder girl was already useful, and I wondered if the childless woman would keep a very vigorous look-out for that lost mother?
After much trouble we housed the ponies in cattle stables, and the men slept with them to prevent their being stolen. We had lost two more ponies to-day; left on the road too weak to rise, and it was doubtful whether my horse could go much further. But the men found a fine strong pony on the mountains, when they went for hay, and this was a great help.