Meantime we returned to the station, to bring out the convoy. The Colonel and Major Popovitch met us on the road and helped us to choose a site for the camp, about half a mile away from, and on a hill above their Headquarters. It was necessary to protect ourselves from aeroplanes by sheltering as much as possible near trees, and we found, on a reaped wheat-field adjoining a vine-field, a gorgeous site which gave us the protection of a hedge and of some trees, with a view to the east over a valley which divided us from Pirot, and the mountains of Bulgaria beyond.
From over these mountains we might at any moment hear the sound of guns telling of the outbreak of hostilities between Bulgaria and Serbia. The Allies had played into the hands of Bulgaria, and, by refusing to let Serbia strike at her own time, had given Bulgaria the advantage of striking at her time, chosen when support from Germany and Austria on the Danube front, would make the position of Serbia hopeless.
The Colonel had hospitably invited us all to lunch with him, but we couldn't burden him to that extent; and the camp work had to be done. Eight of us, therefore--the doctors, two nurses, two chauffeurs, the secretary, and myself--took advantage of the hospitality, and enjoyed an excellent lunch in a cottage which the officers were using as mess-room.
By the evening our first camp was installed, and next day, Monday, October 4th, Major Popovitch and various officers from Pirot came up, while the nurses were busy preparing dressings and cleaning the surgical instruments in the hospital tent, to see the arrangements. They seemed much pleased. The Pirot officers came up in an English car made in Birmingham.
We only had as patients a few sick soldiers, but there was plenty to do otherwise in arranging the men's routine of work and meals. The soldiers always did what they were told, but they needed constant prodding. In the morning early, for instance, I went to see if the horses and oxen were being properly fed, and I found that the hay and oats sent was insufficient; there was not enough to go round. Though the men knew this, they had said and done nothing, but had tethered the horses on barren ground, and left the oxen foodless in the same empty field. They were surprised when I told them that they must take all the animals to a pasture.