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The dreary processions of starving boys shuffled up again; some were crying, some helping others along, one had an English jam tin hanging round his neck. We stopped him, and he told Jan that at Novi Bazar he could get no information of the path which Jan suggested, and added that he advised us to come to Mitrovitza.
From Mitrovitza a part of the Serbian army had retired and fought the Austrians again at Vutchitra, but was beaten and driven across the Sitnitza, on the western bank of which stream it continued fighting until finally it fled into the mountains. The main line of retreat was along the highway from Pristina to Prisrend.
This place he took on November 20, 1915, and with it a small arsenal, in which were fifty large mortars and eight guns, which even the German reports described as of "somewhat ancient pattern." To the eastward the Austrians had taken possession of Sienitza and Novi Varosh, up toward the Montenegrin frontier. Being expelled from Zhochanitza, the Serbians retired to Mitrovitza.
Folk began to say: "The Young Turk is as bad as the Old." I took a long journey up into Kosovo vilayet to districts which had previously been practically closed to travellers for many years, visiting Djakova, Prizren, Prishtina, Mitrovitza, and the plain of Kosovo. Here it seemed obvious that the new regime must fail.
A little farther on a tyre had burst, and they had been forced to come back on the rims. They eagerly welcomed Jan's idea of the Novi Bazar route, feeling sure that if they once got to Mitrovitza it would be long before they got away, and very doubtful if they could get lodging there.
Wen 'e was sixteen 'is fader get condemned ter prison way in Mitrovitza. Dis young tough 'e walk inter court nex' day, in 'e kill de judge and two of de officers and 'scape inter de mountains." Nick himself when he was a comitaj had twice been caught by the Turks.
He added that he could not lose all day while we walked, and that he would never get to Mitrovitza; it seemed superfluous to point out that we had gone quicker than he, but to avoid argument we clambered in. The driver, in a temper, slashed his horses, and off we went, over ruts and stones full speed ahead.
Jan exposed his idea of the route; somebody said that there was some corned beef and rice in a Red Cross train on the siding. Intermittently in the silences one could still hear the sound of the guns. Next morning at breakfast Dr. Holmes came in. He had thought us gone, and so had procured for himself and the sister who was with him, seats in a Government motor which was going to Mitrovitza.
He pressed me to continue my journey to Mitrovitza and to Prizren, where the Russians were, he said, stirring up trouble. But the strict time limit of my holiday made this impossible. The result of the Murzsteg arrangement was, according to him, that Austria and Russia regarded the Peninsula as to be shortly theirs, and were working hard to extend their spheres of influence.
They had scarcely slept for four days, Mitrovitza was already crammed with fugitives, and rooms were not to be found. On the way back the motor was working badly; the mud was awful. Then the petrol ran out. They stopped a big car which was loaded with petrol and ammunition, and asked for some.
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