sausages, Yorkshire Relish and underdone beefsteaks.

We had much time for meditation, and pondered over the downfall of
Serbia. Why had the Serbian Government so resolutely refused to make any
territorial concessions to Bulgaria, when it was obvious that the entry
of Bulgaria into the conflict meant the ruin of Serbia? Why had they
permitted the Austrians to build their big gun emplacements on the
Danube without interruption? Why had they not withdrawn to the hills and
then built proper defences with barbed wire entanglements and
labyrinths? for properly entrenched they might have defied the
Austro-German forces for months. Some day, perhaps, these questions may
have to be answered.

One day a party came in. They had passed through Vrntze much later than
we, and we heard that Dr. Berry and an assistant had been seen hurriedly
nailing boards on to the slaughter-house roof. They, too, had come by
the Novi Bazar route. They said that the other routes were deep in snow
and that the sufferings of the army were terrible. That a great portion
had been hemmed in at Prizren, and that the Bulgars had shelled the
passes so that they could not escape. They themselves had escaped the
advancing Austrians by the skin of their teeth owing to good horses.

[Illustration: UNLOADING THE "BENEDETTO," SAN GIOVANNI DI MEDUA.]

The snow came down, driving along the valleys and whitening all the
hills; the cold grew more intense, and the desire for English beefsteaks
became an obsession: one talked of little else--or of Christmas. Food
was becoming scarce. The tinned mackerel was diminishing; some days we
had no bread. We walked once as far as Fabiano's wireless. The men were
living in a shed made of wattle, and the Borra whistled through the
cracks. There was a stove round which we sat while the men gave us tea;
but the warmth it induced in one's face only intensified the feeling of
cold on the back. Outside in the snow was a long-distance telescope, and
peering through one could see the conning tower of the Austrian
submarine, a faint hump on the sea by the southernmost point. As we
returned to the cold hotel we passed the Montenegrin batteries: cannon
too small to be of any use and the gunners of which were all so ill that
they could not handle them.

Two Frenchmen had been in San Giovanni for ten days, and their anxiety
to go was up to fever point. They took it in turns to stand "pour
observer," wrapped up to their noses, in a doorway