, watching the
_Benedetto_ in case she should give them the slip. We called them
Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

One night somebody rushed up to their room. Booted, they jumped out of
bed, and ran about overhead. We thirteen scrambled up and intercepted
them between the stairs and the door. "Pour observer, steam-funnel,"
they shouted, and disappeared into the night, followed by their valet
with two hold-alls. They soon came back, very cold, and announced that
steam had been seen issuing from the _Benedetto's_ funnel. They had
rushed to it in an open boat, and had learnt that the _Benedetto_ was
ordered to be in readiness. She fumed quietly for three days, and then
was commandeered by the Serbian Government.

One day we saw a French aeroplane, an old friend of ours. Immediately
every one working in the port tore up hill, men jumped off the big boats
into little ones and rowed like a cinematograph turned double speed.

The commandant roared reassuringly from his attic window, and an officer
tried to beat the men back. Seeing us convulsed with laughter, they
turned sheepishly; but the little boats wagged on, people jumping into
the water as they neared shore.

"Come and sit round my fire," said the commandant. So we again imbibed
coffee and discussed courage. It was explained to us that none of the
men in the boats were Montenegrins, and we politely agreed.

Hearing that a Red Cross party was in the village people came and asked
for medical aid. We explained that we had no doctors, but they begged
us to come and see the invalids.

Doctors and chemists were unobtainable, and soldiers were dying every
day.

We had no hesitation in tackling the Montenegrin soldiers, for at least
we could do no harm, considering that our whole pharmacopoeia was a
little boracic, some bismuth capsules, Epsom salts, quinine, iodine, and
one of the party owned a bottle of some patent unknown stuff, against
fever and many other ailments.

We were first taken to the barracks in the evening, scrambling up a
stony hill. The building looked like the disreputable ruins of
somebody's "Folly." Half the roof was off, and the walls were full of
holes. We stumbled up some black steps and entered a huge dark barn with
four log fires down the centre of the room.

Round these were huddled crowds of men. They pulled some rough planks
out of a hole in the wall to let in the sunset light, and the icy Borra
rushed in, playing with the smoke and setting the