The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 27. FOREVER UNDEFEATED ANOTHER TRAIN came in en route to Sarajevo, my next objective. It was made up of cattle trucks and was filled with ground crews of the Yugoslav Air Force retiring to new bases. In agreeable contrast to the sour Pullman escapists they cordially beckoned to us to join them and quickly piled up duffel bags to make comfortable seats for us. They were Montenegrin Serbs and huge: great shaggy, fierce-looking fellows who reminded one of Newfoundland dogs. They bounced and pushed one another about to make room for us, and each insisted we must share his meager rations. One even produced that unbelievable treasure, a little bag of sticky gumdrops, almost enough to go once around. There was a stove in the middle of the car with wood piled beside it. The big middle doors were open upon a slowly passing panorama of magnificent scenery. As we rose ever higher into the wild, snow-covered mountains, it became very cold. Wood was piled in until the stove glowed red-hot. And round it, coatless, in every attitude of relaxation, the dark-browed giants lay, silent or in quiet talk or song. I tried to find out what they expected of help from the Allies, but they evaded all talk about it. Here, as ever, there was no word of complaint against others. They themselves would fight, they would do their best, and they took it for granted others too were doing their best. I may be wrong, but it seemed to me this was notably different from the criticism and disappointed howls of other countries. One could not help but admire their simple, even generous, really brotherly attitude. I felt very much at home with these tough fellows. The sergeant in command of them sat beside the younger of my pretty girls, and hour after hour they talked of his family and hers, and we had to look at the snapshots of his two charming children. His name was Sergeant Barbovich. Many times we had to jump out and throw ourselves into the snowy fields to avoid the bombs German planes tried to drop on us. Surprisingly there was no machine-gunning, and by noon the attacks had ceased. All day men stood in a row leaning on the iron bars across the wide-open doors. So I could only catch exquisite glimpses of snow peaks soaring above deep rugged canyons, with their wildly tumbling streams, all amusingly framed by widespread military legs. And all the time almost without interruption for sixteen hours these grim yet gentle Serbian giants sang. Each of the Balkan peoples has its special songs. Even each district has a style of its own. All, except the Montenegrin songs which are curiously monotonous, have in common the haunting sweetness of falling minor cadences. They are moving beyond any other music I have ever heard, for they express a history tragic surely beyond any on the earth. For century after endless century in the crushing vassalage and bloodshed of the Balkans no man could hope for man's just stature or for liberty, no woman for security of love and home. They could only dream and sing of how, perhaps, life had been once long ago, or of how in a future Golden Age the ever-present threat of death and degradation might someday pass away. Steadily, for almost sixteen hours, these Montenegrins of the Yugoslav Flying Corps sang their ancient songs, in elaborate "close harmony." They were still singing at eleven o'clock that night when we arrived in the capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo of sinister memory. It was here that the shot was fired that started World War I. Sadly we bade our soldier friends farewell. That wild night was the most miserable of the whole journey. Snow was falling heavily, and it was piercingly cold. We plunged into a dense crowd of refugees. This time they were mostly Serbian women and children with many bundles. They had evidently felt this Moslem ground trembling under them and were going to relatives in what they considered safer regions. In a dark corner before a deserted ticket window I was lucky enough to find a precarious berth on one of those high small tables on which people rest their bags while paying fares. But I did not remain undisturbed for long. Three times that night planes hummed above the low-hung clouds, hunting for the station, and three times the station staff raucously ordered everyone to leave. Once I groped my way under a narrow bridge across the foaming, snow-caked Neretva River. But the third time I refused to move out of the station and, my knees under my chin, dozed fitfully, while below me a tall Albanian slept peacefully throughout the uproar. Dawn-and a desperate hunt for food. I managed to get three cups of coffee from the restaurant. While we were sipping it thankfully, the war, the stark and tangible reality of battles won and lost, moved in upon us. For suddenly complete stillness fell upon the milling crowd. Slowly down the platform there marched, or rather hobbled, a company of soldiers back from the front: a defeated battalion-all that was left of it. Or were they defeated? Every man was wounded. Most of them had rags bound round arms or legs, and some had bloody bandages over one eve. But not one back slumped, not one head hung down. On the contrary many were smiling-bitterly. They marched, slowly but steadily. And before them went their ragged flags. Flags, one hears, are no longer carried into battle by modern armies: in these realistic, rational days they are put for safekeeping somewhere far behind the lines. Not so with the Serbs. Their standards are as alive to them as their commanders. The flags go into battle. And, whatever human life must stay behind forever on the field, the flags must come out again. The flags saved, nothing is quite lost. Certainly these two standards had been in the thick of it: they were torn by shellfire, punctured by bullets and in ribbons. The people on the platform were mostly Serbs. The soldiers were certainly Serbs. I expected cheers, salutes, some kind of demonstration. There was nothing of the sort. The men were offered cigarettes by those who still had them, and everyone nodded calmly, as if this were only what one must expect. And quietly, without either self-pity or bravado, those wounded men marched down the platform to entrain. These people had gone into war well knowing there was hope of nothing but defeat. But their bitter history had inured them to every conceivable loss. They were superior to it-superior both to victory and to defeat. They were absorbed in one thought, just one: the saving of their honor, which is a nation's soul. But if they acted with stoicism these hot-blooded southern people were not without feeling. On the contrary their emotions were so strong as sometimes to overcome their iron reserve. In a dark and dirty washroom where I had gone for much-needed water, I saw, half lying on a table, his head buried in his arms, a colonel of artillery, his broad shoulders heaving in an agony of silent sobs. I stood a moment, transfixed at what this shattering grief portended -then ran to find the woman attendant. Gently, with an ancient patience, the old crone shook her head: "He has just heard that his only son is dead." Again I stood beside him, feeling I must find some word to say. Then it came to me with agonizing certainty: this pain too deep even for a long vista of sonless years. His grief could be not alone for his lost son, but for Serbia, lost-too soon. Six days, only six days of war. If the Serbian Army was already hopelessly going down, it could be only because of treachery, the well organized treachery I had feared. Well-that was the Army. Let what must happen to the Army, we could not be completely beaten, not in a matter of days or months, or even years. There were still our wild Black Mountains, "Planino moja starino," still Montenegro, still our deep, almost virgin forests of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and the Sanjak-as there had been these more than thousand years. And indigenous as the soil, implacably resistant as ever in those long and desperate years, and as unconquerable, there were still my Chetniks. Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel