With the Serbs in Macedonia

TRANSPORT TROUBLES 85
weather made the roads even worse than they
were then. We solved the problem by placing
blocks of wood between the front axle and the
frame, and on these " Macedonian springs,'* as
we called them, at a pace of two miles an hour
the derelicts were driven to their new home
without suffering any further damage.
Once we got there, there we stuck, with long
pitiful lines of disabled cars, and our blacksmiths
working night and day trying to manufacture
springs out of unsuitable material and
too small a forge for the job. Fortunately the
1st Royal Serbian Army — the Army that had
been so pleased with us that it issued a Special
Order praising us with a fulsomeness that got
our legs pulled wherever we went—went into
rest, and didn't need us for a while. The other
Ford Companies, however, working for the 2nd
and 3rd Armies were experiencing the same
trouble, and every day we sent all the cars we
could to help to swell their numbers. Once we
dropped to five, for springs went faster than we
could make them, and those we made had a
very short life. There was great rivalry among
the companies in those days as to who could do
best at the spring-making game, and it was
during this period of few cars and many officers
on the road that the classic definition of a
Serbian dump was evolved— a bale of hay