At 6 a.m. (on Thursday the 25th) we halted, again blocked. Some officers on the other side of the road were drinking coffee. I could manage to keep awake whilst moving, but during a halt it was too difficult; the officers saw me trying to keep awake, and dozing every few minutes on my horse, and one of them, who was Commander of the Staff of the Schumadia Division, second reserve (our division was first line), came across and made friends. He asked how we managed always to get a place in the line; he had noticed, he said, that we were generally to the front, and he then asked if I would allow him to join our column; he only now had eight horse wagons and carriages left, and he would not, he said, incommode us. I was, of course, glad, and he rode with us to Dreznik, which we reached at 4 p.m. on Thursday, November 25th. We had left Prishtina at seven on the morning of Monday, the 22nd, and had thus travelled continuously, with only occasional short halts, during three days and nights, but though I had been 81 hours without sleep or rest, I was quite fresh and untired, and the only inconvenience I had felt was from occasional fits of sleepiness when nothing important had to be done.
We were disappointed to find that the cars had not arrived, but we discovered that the road which they had been told to take did not come to Dreznik; we should, however, we were assured, find them at Petch (Ypek). The continued lack of rugs and baggage seemed of little consequence, for there never was time or opportunity for playing with such relics of past civilisation.
But at Dreznik we had a lovely dry camping ground, near a farmhouse, and we slept in a tent, on beds, for the first time and the last for many weeks. The night was cold but dry, and we had a real supper round the camp fire. Our kindly Captain (a barrister in the reserve) bivouacked in the field next to us, and joined us for supper, and we arranged to start together at daybreak the next morning. We knew that there would be difficulty in getting into the line, as myriads of wagons were already blocking our road of entrance. I hoped that Captain W. would do the fierce-eye business, and secure a place in the line, but he thought melting-eye business would be more effective, and he asked me to make the arrangements. So I rode on to see the lie of the land, as we were encamped away from the main road (I had sent Vooitch with the motors and the staff, and I was, meantime, without interpreter, as G. was useless). It was sometimes a little difficult to carry on in a language which one only understood imperfectly, but everything in Nature and this world is in a language which one doesn't understand, and we have to carry on. A big munition column of 200 wagons was the next in order of progression; I found the officer in charge, who, as usual, could talk German and French, and I asked him to let us follow immediately after him, and he cheerfully agreed. This was great luck, as oxen and horse wagons--all struggling and fighting for places--were clustered like bees before swarming-time, at every angle of the entrance to the narrow road of flight, and Captain W. was mightily pleased at the quick success. A snow blizzard began whilst we were waiting, and continued all through the day.