With the Serbs in Macedonia

THE SIMPLE LIFE 223
Out of the dark, smelly bivouacs flocked the
sick and the suffering, and one realized with a
pang that the picturesque are often very
unhealthy. And one wondered how these
people could possibly go about their tasks day
after day, week after week, suffering without
remedy
or attention. The beauties of that
forest encampment and the glories of the real
Simple Life were suddenly dimmed. Here were
old women with cataract, and young ones with
cancer— with no surgeon's knife to alleviate
their pain. Here were rheumatism, jaundice,
malaria, phthisis and many other hideous
things scattered among young and old— and
not a drug to relieve them. The poor doctor did
what he could and gave what he had— but for
me the romance was gone from the Rumanian
gipsies for ever. It was all so cruelly unnecessary,
so— ''
but this is a soldier's " account of
what he saw in Macedonia.
On the way back we were overtaken by a
thunderstorm just as we were approaching a
mountain village. Shelter was an obvious
necessity as we were only clad in thin drill, so
we took the first that came to hand, which
happened
to be a Greek school.
It consisted of two rooms, both class-rooms,
and both with beds in them—wooden beds
with neither heads nor feet. What would H.M.