Next morning (Monday, October 11th) I was up at four o'clock, and though the men had been told that we were to start at five, I found them all asleep, near the wagons, round their wood fires. No hay had been fetched, and this would mean a serious delay. I saw that the occasion required an exhibition of a little majorly wrath. So I sent for all the men, and, through the interpreter Vooitch, made them understand that a command must be obeyed. When I began speaking, I was not genuinely angry, and I only gave them the external fierce eye and a firm voice; but feelings quickly adapt themselves to contortions of the muscles, and I soon found that I was giving them the real thing, with excellent results. I had not the rifle butt or stick to back me up, but the men understood. But by the time that they had fetched the hay to take with us, for the oxen and horses, and had hauled a stuck wagon out of the mud, we were late. We did not start till 5.30, with the result that the Bakers' Column, which should have been behind us, was ahead of us--a terrible disgrace. But we caught them up, and I made them allow us to pass them, and we were never late again.
We reached Nish at 10 a.m., and found that the town was indeed beflagged in honour of the arrival of the Allies! We guessed that they would not arrive now, and for many weeks to come, those flags of welcome drooped metaphorically in our hearts, reproducing that indescribable feeling of mingled hope, disappointment, and humiliation that we felt as we rode through Nish that day.
We outspanned beside the Red Cross railway station, on a plain which was covered with encamped columns--cavalry, infantry, pioneers, engineers, bakers, etc.--all belonging to the Schumadia Division.
The President of the Red Cross, Doctor Soubotitch, who had visited the Stobart Hospital at Kragujevatz, at once sent a kind message, asking me and our secretary, J. G., to lunch with him and to meet the Commander of our division, Colonel Terzitch, and our P.M.O. The two latter were hurrying to leave by train for the north of Serbia. The secret was now revealed that our division, which was reckoned the best in the Serbian Army, had been ordered to the Danube front to meet the combined German and Austrian attack, which was now inevitable. We went with the President to the station to bid the Colonel and the Major God-speed. Our column was to follow during the day, when its turn for a train should come. Meanwhile, Doctor S. generously, from the Red Cross depôt, filled some blanks in our medical and food stores; he also gave us some extra clothing for the soldiers.