With the Serbs in Macedonia

THE SERBIANS 245
question as a relief. What life had been like up
there during the winter one was afraid to think.
Yet no troops could have been less stale. Daily
there was a steady drain of casualties. A neat
cemetery in the woods behind, among splintered
trees and surrounded by shell-holes, told its
own tale.
A doctor up there had filled in his spare time
by learning English from books. But he had
never spoken a word of it to an Englishman
till we appeared, and then he spoke it quite
well, though occasionally his pronunciation,
learnt from a book, was somewhat startling.
To learn English was a favourite recreation
with the Serbian Army. Hundreds of them
were hard at it, every moment they had to
spare. Another doctor. Major Pontovitch,
used to haunt our camps and the British
hospitals and practise shamelessly upon us and
the doctors and nurses— especially the nurses—
his apology taking the form of ''
I kill you with
mine English.'' Like all his race, his one desire
was to help us, and many were the kindnesses
for which we were indebted to him.
These particular trenches and their bare,
comfortless state were no exception to the rule.
All the Serbian line was like that. They had
very few ambulances close up, beyond those
driven by the girl drivers of the Serbian Relief