With the Serbs in Macedonia

8o WITH THE SERBS IN MACEDONIA
road-making and mending at once. That
helped, and somehow or other we managed to
keep a respectable number of cars on the road
till at length supplies of ball races and back
springs arrived. And then another trouble
afflicted us.
This time it was front springs. Daily, in
alarming numbers, one, two, three, and four
leaves at a time gave up the ghost. And, as
usual, there were none in the country !
Our
fate was only too obvious. The metal had
become crystallized; no spring could be ex-
pected to survive such conditions of working
for long, and all would assuredly go in the end.
We had no proper forge for welding the broken
leaves. We had not even a workshop lorry then.
G. 1098 had not laid one down ; though we got
one later. Our forge was a small field one, able to
heat only a few inches at a time, and having no
electric drill the metal had to be reheated after
welding for holes to be punched in it. Spring
steel is queer stuff at the best of times, and as
may be imagined such welding was not very
successful. Later, indeed, we contrived, thanks
to the skill and amazing industry of our two
smiths, to make springs out of spring steel
which would stand up for a fortnight or so ;
but just then there was no spring steel in the
country
either I