With the Serbs in Macedonia

i6o WITH THE SERBS IN MACEDONIA
compressed into a solid mass axle.
against its front
But we had either to get back to camp or
there with neither food nor fire.
spend the night
Standing at times up to our middle and occasionally
having to haul each other out, we dug
the snow away and pushed the vehicles up one
by one, each later van following as much as
possible the previous one's track. Cold, wet,
and exhausted we ultimately reached camp, but
the experience was well worth enduring. Up on
the mountains among the drifts, chilled by the
wind, blinded by the powdery snow and with all
landmarks blotted out, one's frozen brain mused
dully on Arctic exploration, life in the trenches,
and school-book stories of St. Bernard dogs
in the Alps. Fingers became so painful that
one really could have cried like the poor little
urchins one can see going to school in the
London slums on a bitter wintry morning. Yet
the queer thing was that in spite of our all
having become so thoroughly chilled, in spite of
soaking-wet feet and putties and trousers and
greatcoats, not one of the men out in that storm
developed so much as a cold in the head.
It was just as bad next day, but the heavy
lorries of 688 Company made snow-ploughs and
cut a way through after the road had been
declared impassable. For this they got a