The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 23. A TORCH IS LIT WHICH SHALL NEVER GO OUT AT SIX-FORTY* on Sunday morning, April 6, my Cossack houseman Michael placed my breakfast tray as usual in front of the radio in the sitting room of my house on the Slaviya hill of Belgrade. I came from my bedroom through my little library. In that slanting early light it was like the inside of a jewel case, rich with the antique treasures I loved so much. Outside my windows, level with the ground, the dark-browed Serbian peasants, the men in somber dark, the women in their bright embroidered clothes, passed unhurried but more silently, more grimly than usual, to the early Sunday market. I watched them thoughtfully as I began to pour my tea and turned the short-wave radio knob. Suddenly from the small brown instrument there burst a bellowing, raucous German voice, screaming, shrieking with that hysterical fervor with which the Nazis bemuse their own people but which long since has left the rest of the world contemptuously cold. I steadied on the wave length, and there flowed into my lovely room words which I knew meant that in a matter of minutes my little house with all the age-old beauty it contained would almost certainly be wiped forever from the earth. These were the words as I remember: "Die Bomben fallen und jetzt in diesem Augenblick steht schon ganz Belgrad in Flammen. [The bombs fall and already now this instant all Belgrade is in flames.]" The voice was Ribbentrop's, the words were Hitler's message to [*Correspondents dealing with the Belgrade bombardment give various tunes agreeing neither with each other nor with this. I am confident that this is correct, as my household followed invariable custom. that "master race" reduced by him to a savagery worse than any ever known in the savage old Balkans. It was a lie, as usual. Belgrade was absolutely quiet. I listened: no sound but the jingling of milk carts in the streets and the shuffling of unhurried peasant feet. But it was coming, this raucously heralded doom. At any moment now immeasurable horror would descend on these humble people from the blue morning sky. Should I rush out and cry to them to hide? No use. They would only think it panic, those grim men who, after all, must be expecting it. Yes, we all knew it must come. But it had come a little sooner than we had expected. It was war-the war in which I had already enlisted, and in which my role had been assigned. I ran into my bedroom to pull on my Chetnik uniform. Just as I buckled on my dagger the first bomb fell. My mind seemed to act quite mechanically. First I tipped over the cage of my pet magpie to give it at least a chance of life. Then I filled the bathtub, as I knew the water mains would be smashed at once. (Useless, for the bath was almost immediately filled with collapsed ceiling.) The ominous, dull explosions multiplied-came nearer . . . nearer. . . . The screams of Stukas diving on the town were at first far off, like yells of fiends from the inferno. As they came closer they were like no sound ever heard in all the universe. I had planned what to do. My cellar was deep, but vaulted with bricks which would be sure to shake down on us. Stairs, it appears, usually stand up longest when houses collapse. So when my cook Sultana began to scream, I pushed her under the stairs. I tried to push Michael too, but that little gray-haired Cossack wasn't to be moved from his matter-of-fact calmness: "If God intends that I shall die," he said, "no walls can protect me." (He walked out into the garden to see what there was to see, was knocked over several times and simply got up again!) Now the real fun started. Bomb after bomb exploded all round us, some not more than twenty yards away. The effect was almost inconceivable. It wasn't the noise or even so much the concussion. It was the perfectly appalling wind that was most terrifying. It drove like something solid through the house: every door that was latched simply burst off its hinges, every pane of glass flew into splinters, the curtains stood straight out into the room and fell back in ribbons. Everything that stood loose hit the opposite wall and was smashed. The ceilings fell with hardly a noticeable sound in the earth-shaking uproar. Then, with a weird, smooth sound like the tearing of heavy silk the neighboring houses began to collapse. At every crash I would cry out to my poor Sultana, now reduced to gibbering prayer: "Once you hear it, you're safe, it's over!" She merely sobbed frantically, "If God wills it-if God wills it-if God wills it...." Each time there was a really big explosion we were knocked- crash!-against the wall, and no muscular control could prevent a dizzying blow on the back of the head. The heart stopped, and one had a frantic flash of thought that it might not start again. Soon the cordite fumes, thick, yellow, strangling, rolled in to obliterate' the scene. There came a moment of comparative lull. Sultana, silent, held her breath, and I had time to wonder what had happened to those men and women who just a few minutes ago were tramping so calmly past my windows. Was their near-by market just a deep hole lined with crushed bodies and stalls? How had they reacted? That question was of pressing interest, indeed of immediate vital importance, to me. I believed in these people, this peasant race of Serbs, so little considered or understood by the outside world. I admired them greatly-so much so that I had taken the serious step of throwing in my lot with them and pledging my own life to help them. Had I been wrong? On how they reacted, now that they were getting what they had been asking for, depended the answer. Again the bombs were falling, thick and fast, and on and on. Now far, then near, the Stukas shrieked and stooped like hawks upon our very chimney pots. I ran to a smashed window. There in the street among piles of stones men and women lay still in strange, contorted attitudes. I had a surge of uncontrollable wild fury as these ferocious birds with their ear-splitting noise swooped down to lay their eggs of death, so low I felt I could almost strike the pilots in the face. The thunder of their engines seemed like hellish laughter: "Down, up, and away-what fun! Belgrade an open, undefended city? What's that to us, to us, the splendid Masterfolk? We are the bearers of -all the world's culture, and this is it-ha-hal" . . . The crashing of the bombs faded to dull booms and died away. We had been left alive. I ran out into the street. My house was a corner one, and both streets now were blocked with rubble. The view both ways was weirdly unrecognizable, a nightmare of bulging, slanting ruin. There were two unexploded incendiary bombs imbedded in the pavement just outside my windows. The bodies were already being carried across the piles of masonry by people, many of whom were themselves covered with blood. Michael was calmly helping. The people were silent, absolutely silent and grim. I heard not a single sound. No one ran screaming, shouting for help. A few children stumbled, dazed and dizzy, beside their parents. Very few people even had come out. The town lay stunned, breathless-waiting, in an eerie silence. Hardly had we got the wounded down the street to the near-by hospital, when it came again. This time I saw the swarm of planes high in the sky darting down toward us. I didn't count them. I went back into my house-that seemed the only thing to do. Again we went through what seemed hours but was perhaps only twenty minutes of hellish noise, of struggling for breath- just standing it. This time? No. This time? No. Still alive. Still alive. How was it possible! "Be quiet, Sultana, it must pass, it will pass...." She clung, gasping, to my hand. Now Michael, his short gray hair on end, ambled in and stood looking thoughtfully at the floor as if bored. Every time we reeled and steadied again he looked up at me with his quizzical little smile: "Well, well, that was a close one, that one." A lull, and a policeman stuck his head through a smashed window, calling loudly, "Everybody here leave at once! The house next door is going to fall on this one." We jumped out to look. The four-story wall next door looked pretty steady to me. Nevertheless I ordered the two servants to take what they valued most and make for a cottage they had in a village outside Belgrade. Sultana threw her arms round my neck and kissed me, her tears wet on my cheeks. "Come with us, madam, come-come with us!" Michael also begged me to go. Although my business was to get as quickly as possible to my post on the Montenegrin-Albanian frontier, I decided to remain a little longer. For there was something I felt it was my duty to do. Sultana consulted with her husband, grabbed a few things, kissed him, and ran down the street. I spoke to Michael sharply: "You go tool" He shook his old head: "I remain with you, madam." No use standing to argue with this stubborn fellow. I was pleased, of course, and showed it. Now I had work to do. When you have taken into your care some small fraction of the beauty of past centuries, you are the guardian of it for just your little instant in the long roll of time. If I had deserted my lovely things at this moment I should have been ashamed all the rest of my life. My plans had long been made. My collections were to have gone out of town to be buried in the garden of friends in a cement cellar prepared for them. We knew well from friends in Poland and Czechoslovakia that the Germans, especially the reserve officers, were ruthless looters and thieves, particularly of antiques. If now the house next door was going to fall on mine it would be lucky, because anything I could get into the cellar would almost surely be protected both from the elements and from greedy German eyes. I calculated too that the neighboring wall couldn't fall as far as the library. Boxes and bags stood ready. With flying haste I began to pull down exquisite brocades and mantles, to drag from teak and mother-of-pearl chests fragile silk bedspreads heavy with gold embroidery. Back came those murderous bombers. It's extraordinary how hard it is just to pick things up and put them into a box when the house is staggering and you are wondering how many seconds you are still going to be alive. Again the choking cordite fumes. I was blown off my feet, scrambled up, and threw things in with frantic haste. Lovely icons, wrought candlesticks, swords, guitars, trays, little golden mules, bracelets, snuffboxes, scissors ... At last it was done. The bombers again drew away. A breathing space. Now to get the things into the cellar. I called for Michael. But Michael wasn't there. Could he have deserted me after all? I sat down for the first time since my early tea. The silence round me was uncanny, as if every mouse in the town were holding its breath or was dead. It is best to say here what happened to old Michael the Cossack from the Don. That faithful soul decided that it was his duty to get me out of Belgrade-by fair means if possible, if not, then by foul. He knew that if anything could tempt me to flight it would be a horse. He therefore ran as fast as his legs could go out of town to a friend who still had an ancient nag not taken for the Army. He seized the beast, despite the protesting cries of its owner, and rode post-haste directly into the terrible rain of bombs. The horse was killed under him (I later passed the body), and he was violently thrown. He wandered, shell-shocked, back to his village and his wife. So I had to be my own porter. I dragged the bags and trunks to the top of the cellar stairs, gave them a shove, and let them bump down by themselves. And in the deathly stillness I was startled by the noise they made! Now to find the quickest means of getting down to Montenegro. The railway? Surely that would be destroyed, but I would see. All our plans had been made for Thursday. M.P., a flier, had left for Skoplye, and my chief was not to be back in town until Tuesday. I ran out into the street. At the corner, beside an overturned cart from which milk had flowed in long white streams, lay the mangled body of a beautiful horse. I knew that horse. Tears came to my eyes, for I remembered a little scene I had witnessed so often from my windows in the early mornings of that snowy winter. A particularly handsome peasant boy used to stop his small milk cart at my corner, get down, take off his long sheepskin coat and put it over this very horse. He had no doubt bred it himself, since it was obviously the pride of his heart. Taking the horse's head between his hands, he would quickly look up and down the street to make sure he was not observed. Then, to the evident delight of the horse, he would kiss it quickly on the nose. Now the well-loved animal was just torn meat, and its kindly master's body had been carried away. Looking down the next street, I saw a wonderfully impressive proof of the instability of power. The most imposing building in all Belgrade was the great frowning gendarmerie headquarters. It had always annoyed me, and I had avoided passing it. I don't like architectural terrorization any better than any other kind-to me it always seems a confession of weakness. And now? In one small second those heavy granite walls had been blown about the neighborhood in fragments. All the interior lay wrecked and naked to the eye, and the elevator, halfway up, hung loose, ridiculously helpless. Cars lay overturned and flattened, and blood was everywhere. I heard afterwards that three hundred and sixty policemen waiting there in reserve had been killed by one of the first bombs. It was not more than two hundred yards across the roofs from my house. Hurrying through a narrow choked passage, I came upon a sight I wish I might never have seen, for it will haunt me while I live. The Germans, with their careful maps, had gone especially for the air-raid shelters (very few in this "open" city)-and especially for those meant for school children. Here in a little park one of these had received a direct hit. The hole was enormously deep. Trees uprooted lay tumbled as in the old game of spillikins. And in their branches were parts of human bodies, arms, legs, heads-so small, so small-which other humans, their mothers and fathers, dazedly heavy and fumbling of movement, were slowly trying to collect. Most horror photographs-though none, even in color, could reproduce the gory shambles of this scene-showed weeping, despairing relatives. Here there were none-no tears and no despair. Only stunned movement, pitifully hopeless, slow. Street corners, where small boys had just had time to set up their humble baskets, were now strewn with treasured oranges and flowers. How eagerly, eyes and teeth gleaming with bright smiles, these boys used to bargain! Many of them had been my friends, making a morning's walk gay with the chaff we exchanged. For them no more shivering in the chilly mornings, no more joyous success with the first customer, no more the pennies anxiously garnered for their mothers. Little, merry flames-blown out! I stooped to pick up a narcissus, but received such a shocked look from a passer-by that I dropped it again. Refugees were beginning to move up the street out of the town. Most carried bundles, but few were heavily loaded. The carts and prams piled high with awkward goods that one saw in the pictures of French refugees were noticeably absent. Was it because these people, through long tragic history, were inured to losing their possessions ? The order and absolute silence of the crowd were striking. They weren't even hurrying particularly-they looked just calmly prepared for a long, long march. Children trotted busily, quietly beside their parents, clinging to hands or skirts as if perhaps going to church but with no sign of fright. On the principal shopping street, the "Fifth Avenue" of Belgrade, fine furniture, silk stockings, jewelry, radio apparatus, shoes, china, books, cases of cigarettes lay flung on the sidewalk. In places one's boots literally crunched on candy and costume jewelry. Yet not one person stooped to pick up anything. In the interior of the shops the greedy flames were already licking with their red-white tongues. Soon I had to walk in the middle of the street, the heat too great on each side. Not a soul was doing anything to stop it, no one even turned to look. There was nothing that could be done. The water works had been the first German target: "Burn, Belgrade, burn!" Chetniks stood at the corners with drawn guns to keep order. They were not needed until that night, when the Gypsies moved in and began looting. A number were shot. Chetniks who are strangers to each other never salute or speak, and even those acquainted only acknowledge this with a quick lift of the eyebrow. I now met an acquaintance in the force who stopped just long enough to inform me that our headquarters had ceased to exist. It did not matter: we knew what we had to do. The airfield, of course, would be the first thing completely smashed up. I ran down to the station. The whole neighborhood was just a shambles, the building itself burning fiercely. It would be many a day before a train left from there. I hurried back to my house on the off chance that some friend might have turned up with a car. The next wave of bombers arrived just as I got home. What was my surprise to see, sitting politely on two chairs they had turned right side up, Mrs. C. and her daughter, B., very dear Serbian friends of mine, the elder the wife of a Serbian general at the front, the younger the widow of a well-known novelist. The sight of these fashionably smart ladies sitting in the midst of all the wreckage quite formally, but in their night clothes, each with a white, beady-eyed lapdog in her arms, was too much for me: I burst into shouts of laughter, in which they soon joined. They had been fast asleep when the first bombs fell, had sprung up, seized their dogs and a packet of money, and run down into the cellar of their apartment house. Not long afterwards a policeman came in and yelled: "Get out quickly, the house above you is burning!" Everything they possessed in town was gone. Ever since then they had been dodging here and there under whatever cover they could find but headed towards my house. They were grimly undismayed, not even tired. We sat on my cellar stairs, nibbling sausages and, to the accompaniment of screaming Stukas, discussing ways and means. They had a country place in the direction I must take: we would proceed together. When there came another lull I ran out to settle the transport business, leaving them to rummage round my wrecked bedroom for whatever clothes they could find to wear. First I went to the American Legation. There a press car stood with the newspapermen ready to move off. The car obviously would be filled to extreme capacity. After snapshots had been taken I hurried on to the British Legation, which was entirely deserted. I saw several acquaintances with cars overflowing with humanity. There was no use hunting vaguely through the town. I made up my mind we would walk until we could meet other transportation. I hurried back, passing the Ministry of War, which was burning sullenly, with heavy, billowing black smoke, while army clerks stood helpless round the doors. One of the first three bombs had blasted it. This explained in part the extreme confusion of military orders later. Upon my return to my house I found there my two young "guardians," the German agents, Helmuth and Igon, whom I had expected, indeed hoped, never to see again. But here they were, eager to know what I was going to do and intending, if possible, to stop me from doing it. I told them that I proposed to make for the coast and "try to get out of the country." They were pop-eyed at seeing me in uniform, and the old book excuse, I could see, now had worn pretty thin. They went into an anxious huddle and immediately began making determined efforts to persuade me to remain in Belgrade. "Stay here-we will hide and look after you. The Germans are sure to be here soon, and you will be the only American behind the lines. Only think what wonderful work you could do!" etc. I was not sure to what lengths they would go to prevent my leaving, and it was necessary to find out if they were armed. So I took them down into the cellar and begged them to help me to pile up logs and all sorts of heavy articles on top of my treasures, to protect them in case the house fell. For this they had to take off their coats. After searching those I took occasion, while carrying things, to bump into them from all sides and made sure they had no guns. I myself had an automatic, so I could afford to be amused at their baffled, undecided behavior. My two women friends had clothed themselves bizarrely in odds and ends of my belongings. B. was very petite and graceful, and under my raincoat, which hung in folds almost to the ground, my extra riding boots looked huge. Her mother had found no shoes big enough and had decided to stick to her bedroom slippers. But a bright peasant shawl on her white curls made her look more beautiful than ever. Yanko and three other men friends of mine now arrived to see if I was still alive. They were in a hilarious state, for, having decided that it would be a shame to leave good bottles for bad Germans, they had stowed the contents in the most convenient place. My last remains of fine ten-year-old Zemun wine, of rakiya and mastic, they offered, with great protestations of chivalry, to save from the enemy in the same way. But I thought that in the next few hours we should need what wits we had. So we had one more glass each. Then, amidst funereal lamentations, I poured the rest down the drain. I wonder if there is any other race in the world that has such a nonchalant attitude towards death as the Serbs. Their old saying, "We are accustomed to die," has been so much quoted that one begins to suspect that there is something theatrical, insincere about it; until the test comes. Then one realizes that death is really the least of their worries. "If you are to die, why-too bad, if it is for nothing," is their attitude, "but if it's in a good cause, up, then, up and at 'em-we are lucky ever to have been alive at all." That is the old natural unspoilt Serb. But among those who have been educated abroad a sort of nervous compensation sometimes sets in that produces completely unashamed, contemptible cowards. Fortunately there are very, very few of these, and most of them fled the country in good time. I decided that we would make for my cook's cottage outside Belgrade and there look for a conveyance. The two German agents took turns carrying my sleeping bag. They were completely at a loss except for their obvious determination to cling to me as long as possible. No sooner were we outside my gate than we discovered to our horror that Yanko was proudly bearing an enormous Yugoslav flag on a long pole. I begged him to leave it behind, but he only laughed. At the first large street crossing an officer jumped out of a car and angrily ordered him to get rid of it, pointing to the German planes which were again approaching low down and reminding him that he was endangering not only himself but everyone in his vicinity. This made Yanko angry. Addressing a crowd of refugees that quickly collected around us, he began a grandiloquent harangue: "I am a Serb. My country is Yugoslavia. This is the flag of my country-I am not ashamed of it. Are you, my countrymen, ashamed of it?" Stern barks from the crowd: "No, no!" "I will carry my country's flag wherever and whenever I blankety-blank well please. Wouldn't YOU, my countrymen. do likewise?" Less numerous answers-since the planes were nearer-of, "Yes, yes! " "Yes, I am a Serb, and no blankety-blank-blank German or anyone else [glaring at the officer, who laughed, shrugged his shoulders, sprang into his car, and drove off] is going to scare me out of carrying it. Am I right?" Since everyone had now hastily taken shelter in surrounding ruins, the answer, if there was one, was inaudible in the crashing explosions. He stood there stubbornly, alone, legs apart, the great flag in hand, gazing up undismayed and absolutely helpless at the flying devils in the sky. At that instant he exactly represented the whole spirit and situation of the Serbs. On we went, climbing over wreckage and skirting deep bomb holes, crouching beside fences or trees to let the planes pass by. Near the outskirts of town we saw a dead white horse. It turned out to be the one on which Michael had tried to rescue me. The planes were now flying low, machine-gunning anything that moved-except cows or geese: that would have been wasting future German food. The safest thing to do in a German air raid is to go and lean against a cow! It was amusing to see with what wholehearted terror the two Germans, Helmuth and Igon, threw themselves into dirty corners- always down first, always up last-while Yanko walked peacefully on with his flag. As we emerged into open country this bright bunting became a really serious danger: people were fleeing from us as much as from the Germans. Something had to be done. I had an inspiration. I stumbled and cried out that I had twisted my ankle. Yanko, the dear fellow, greatly concerned, ran up. Limping painfully, I put my arm across his shoulder and, without his being aware of it, slowly wound up the flag. Soon he was walking proudly as ever with what was no more conspicuous than a painted pole. I stayed beside him, needing assistance every time the damned thing got loose again. Now a curious thing happened. A stray horse, a handsome black animal, beautifully saddled and bridled, ran from a side street and stopped right in front of me. My almost uncontrollable instinct was to jump on its back and ride away south to the mountains. My friends, instantly guessing my thought, surrounded me and begged me not to do it: it was an officer's horse, he too had his duties to perform, probably more immediately important than mine, I had no right to steal his mount, etc. And sure enough a soldier was already madly tearing down the street after the animal. I turned my back, bitterly disappointed, and walked on. Often later, in the endless days and nights of prison, I used to think of how differently things might have turned out if I had obeyed my instinct. Perhaps I might now be with General Mihailovich and my Chetniks. We passed through a village almost entirely inhabited by Gypsies, and here the noisy panic was in striking contrast to the silent grimness of the steadily tramping Serbs. Soon we reached Michael's village and his tiny cottage. The two small rooms and the chicken-filled garden were crowded with friends, mostly Russian women and children, and a few old men. And here my dear old Michael, evidently much loved, was king. He was still dizzy and a little vague from the shock of his dashing failure; even so, he did the honors of his home in the royal manner. Everything was put at our disposal: carefully hoarded provisions were brought out, chickens killed. As darkness began to fall, fourteen of us disposed ourselves on the two beds and on the floor. We were without lights, but the house was on a little hillside with a free view over Belgrade. And Belgrade was burning. As night came down the sight was weird and terrible. The great city along the Danube seemed to be one blazing bonfire. Great tongues of flame would burst up suddenly, glare fiercely for a while, and slowly sink away. Sullenly the heavy clouds of smoke rolled upwards, billowing, writhing, twisting away into the sky, reflecting on their black bellies the angry glare that must have been visible for hundreds of miles across the huge river and the limitless flat plain. Germany had lit the great beacon of her "civilizing mission" in the Balkans. Watching the winged fiends of this holocaust. it seemed to me that they had burst up from the infernal regions of ancient myth. Through and above the clouds of fire they darted unceasingly, those messengers from hell, swooping and diving, skimming away and back again. And still with demonic diligence and glee they rained destruction on destruction upon the pitifully supine city. The Serbs had dared to dream of liberty. Now their murdered capital flamed, a dying signal to the liberty-loving peoples of the earth. But none could raise a hand to help. There was grandeur in the great city's loneliness, grandeur in the unchecked flaming of its heart, grandeur even in its utter helplessness. I walked up and down, up and down the little bricked path of the garden, alone in the darkness and silence-dark but for the glare from the burning capital, silent but for the sound of bursting bombs. I was full to the brim and running over with fury. I swore to myself that while there was breath in my body I would fight to save what those monsters of cruelty would leave of a people whose dream they could never understand. Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel