In mid-March the Serbian Relief Fund established a hospital in wooden barracks and under tents five miles from town. Initially twenty-four strong, its members included Flora’s friend Nan MacGlade, who put her formidable organizational skills to work at its secretary. Not only did its members look after two hundred “gaunt skeletons” of patients, they agreed with the Serbian authorities to visit two “colonies” of sick and neglected Serbian boys, all survivors of the retreat.23 One such colony was based at the village of Paiteti, south of Corfu town. The other was two miles west of the town, at Potamos, a picturesque village of two-storey houses dominated by an ancient clock tower.24
By April, the colony in Potamos had finally received its first permanent worker in the form of Emily. Having seen her shipload of refugees to safety, she had returned to work in a French-run cholera camp on the island before transferring to the village at the behest of the Serbian Relief Fund to take care of its three hundred and fifty boys, all of whom were “in a very bad way”. Within days she had established a hospital for them, consisting of “four walls, a roof, a rickety table, a broken chair, two windows and a hole in the wall”.25
Hardly had the boys started to “perk up” under her care when Emily was faced with another emergency. She was horrified to be told that the army were about to send hundreds of men to the village who had been released prematurely from hospital. Most were too old, ill or maimed to remain with the ranks.26 Although the Serbian Relief Fund sent two British Quaker volunteers to help her ahead of their arrival, she had no shelter for the men, no latrines, no adequate kitchen facilities or rationing, no laundry and only her tumbledown hospital to deal with their medical requirements. In the pouring rain on 26th April, thirty ageing, weather-beaten men limped into camp. Thankful that the numbers were manageable and all the men had their own small tents, Emily and the two Quakers, Ernest Gallimore and Anthony Dell, fed them and helped them get settled in a camp outside the village.
At six p.m., just as they were congratulating each other that the crisis had not been as bad as they at first had feared, a further sixty men suddenly arrived. While Dell and Gallimore rushed off through the wind and rain to try to find food for the camp, Emily remained behind to secure what accommodation she could. No sooner had she found space in some empty houses when a further one hundred and forty arrived. Several were seriously ill. She brought the sick to her hospital and scrambled to find space for the others in the village. By nightfall, she had them all sheltered in houses or barns.
The following morning they began work at first light. They obtained straw for the men to sleep on, erected three large tents they had begged from the British military authorities, bought wood and drew rations from the town of Corfu, erected a temporary kitchen with four hastily built fireplaces and transferred the men to the tents from their barns and houses. That afternoon they were sent a further sixty-eight men, all of whom they eventually managed to feed and shelter. By the end of that second day, the Quakers had nothing but admiration for Emily’s work. “We both wish to express our great debt to Miss Simmonds,” wrote Dell and Gallimore in their weekly report to the Serbian Relief Fund, “for the great assistance she gave us during what was for one or two days a rather acute emergency.”27
Day after day, rain and bitter wind continued to whip the island. So great had been the pressure on the French authorities to feed the Serbs that the question of their clothing had at first been entirely neglected, despite the appalling weather. Weeks after they had arrived, many were still dressed in the same ragged, filthy and lice-infested uniforms that they had worn across the mountains of Albania and Montenegro. Others were even worse off. “It’s quite common to find a Serb with nothing under his worn tunic,” wrote Robert Carr Bosanquet in a letter home.28 Although ships had steamed into the harbour carrying bales of clothing, not all of it was appropriate to the needs of men, and one had even brought with it a cargo of women’s garments, although all the female refugees had been taken to Corsica. “We were so badly off for clean clothes for our… men,” wrote one of the Serbian Relief Fund doctors, “that we just had to use the female garments, some of which were garish evening dresses!” It was nothing short of extraordinary, she added, to see six-foot Serbian soldiers “clad in female silks and satins wrapped around them with string”.29
The companies of soldiers assigned to work at the harbour in Corfu town were also insufficiently dressed. “All these poor fellows working down on the quay had had their uniforms taken away from them and burnt, and had been provided with a blue corduroy suit for working in,” recalled Flora. “Their old ones, though dirty, were warm, and their new ones were very thin, and in most cases they had hardly any underclothes.” When she heard that a shipment of British uniforms had arrived for the Serbs but that the French authorities were refusing to distribute them without the underclothes to go with them, she raced into action. In the belief that all she needed to do was secure the underclothes, she went to see the Serbian Relief Fund, who readily promised to supply her with them. “Then my troubles began,” she recalled. “First I had to get a paper signed by the English saying they would give them if the French approved; then another, signed by the French, that they did approve and would give the uniforms; then one signed by the Serbian Minister of War; then back to the French again to be countersigned; then back to the Minister of War; then to the Serbian warehouse, who refused to give them because I hadn’t got somebody else’s signature, and so on and so on.” After three long days of traipsing over the slippery stone streets in the rain to get the necessary papers signed, she proudly took possession of the clothing. Single-handedly she managed to supply over three thousand sets of uniforms and underclothes to her regiment. “We had the proud distinction,” she remembered, “of being the first regiment to be fitted out in new, clean English khaki uniforms.”30
Each weekend, until a severe chill brought on by the inclement weather forced her to stop work at the quay, Flora hitched a lift back to Ipsos to visit the men of her company. Without fail, she carried with her either supplies for the divisional ambulance or small luxuries for the men, who took considerable pride in their Englishwoman corporal. Not only did her presence set them apart from all other companies, to them she was by now their rescuer, champion and saviour. She had bought them food in Albania, prevented them from starving during their first days in Corfu and had fitted them out with new uniforms. Full of gratitude and anxious to do something for her in return, they formed a committee and spent long hours discussing how best to thank her. On Flora’s return one weekend, they shyly presented her with a letter of appreciation. It meant more to her than a “string of medals”, she wrote later.
Esteemed Miss Sandes!
Soldiers of the Fourth Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Inf. Rgmt., “Knjaza Michaila”, Moravian Division, 1st (Call) Reserves; touched with your nobleness, wish with this letter to pay their respects – and thankfulness to you; have chosen a committee to hand you this letter of thankfulness.
Miss Sandes
Serbian soldier is proud because in his midst he sees a noble daughter of England, whose people is an old Serbian friend, and today their armies are arm-in-arm fighting for common idea, and you Miss Sandes should be proud that you are in position to do a good, to help a Serbian soldier – Serbian soldier will always respect acts of your kindness and deep down in his heart will write you kind acts and remember them for ever.
Few months have passed since you came among us, and you shared good and bad with us. During this time you have often helped us to pass through hardships, buying food for us, and financially.
Thanking you in the name of all the soldiers, we are greeting you with exclamation:
Long life to our ally England,
Long life to Serbia,
Long life to their heroic Armies,
Long life to noble Miss Sandes!…
[signed by the men of the company, to which its commander added his sentiments:]
To Miss Sandes, Corporal, volunteer
of this Comp.
Please receive this little, but from heart of my soldiers, declaration of thankfulness for all (for help) that you have done for them until now, and in time, when they are far away from dear ones and loving ones at home.
To their wishes and declaration I am adding mine…
Commander of the Company,
Janachko A. Jovitch31
For two weeks groups of discharged soldiers continued to hobble into Potamos. As the men arrived they were stripped, washed and given new clothing, while Emily took charge of the sick. Dell in turn ensured the men were occupied. By June several were engaged in laying out gardens in the camp while others were busy sewing clothes, weaving baskets and making straw hats, hammocks and artificial flowers. The project was a great commercial success. The goods were “being sold as fast as they could be turned out,” he reported to the Serbian Relief Fund, proudly adding that the health of the men was beginning to improve.32
Once the health of the boys and discharged soldiers had stabilized sufficiently, the French authorities began shipping them to the southern French coast around Marseilles. That summer Emily took charge of two shiploads. First she accompanied the anxious, forlorn men on the long voyage. Then she returned to accompany the boys, many of whom had been under her care for months. “Before parting with them they gave me a dear letter of thanks to which they had affixed their 700 signatures,” she recollected. When her transport sailed for Corfu, five hundred Serbians came down to the dock to see her off.33 From the crowd, four brothers stepped forward to present her with a rug made by their mother, whom they had last seen months ago when they fled Valjevo to join the retreat. It was their only possession from home. “She declined and they insisted,” recorded the Red Cross. “Finally she offered to buy it. No money could buy it, they declared. They had slept under it and gone hungry rather than sell it, but now it was hers. The boys were firm; she had to take it. She had cared for them on the ship and in the camp; that was all.” Emily choked a thank you as they placed it in her hands. To the shouts of “Spogum!” (“Farewell!”) from the hundreds at the harbour, she wiped her eyes, said her goodbyes and boarded her ship.34
With the onset of spring the problems that had besieged the Serbs’ first weeks on the island – inadequate food, clothing, shelter and medical facilities – receded. As the cold and rain gave way to clear blue skies and warm sun, men who had been hardly more than skeletons began to regain their strength and morale. Those based in Corfu town filled the cafés and restaurants.35 Each division set up its own theatre. Regimental bands began to reform, supplied with instruments donated to them by the islanders to replace those lost during the retreat. In April, the first edition of the Serbian News was printed and distributed while the Serbian government-in-exile began feuding with renewed vigour in premises on the island.
French plans were also well under way to reorganize, re-equip and retrain the army. The weapons the men had lost, sold or discarded during the retreat were replaced. Military discipline was reintroduced and the men were drilled, exercised, paraded and marched in their new British khaki uniforms, blue French overcoats, American boots and traditional Serbian field caps of thick khaki.36 Within weeks, under the oversight of the French, six new strong divisions had been formed from the twelve shattered ones that had arrived on the island in February.37 At the start of April, the men were overjoyed to hear that they were to be taken one step closer to home, to Salonika to join their French and British Allies at the front. Over six weeks one hundred and twelve thousand soldiers were gradually transported by sea to their new camps around the Greek harbour, where they continued their rigorous training and rehabilitation.38
On 22nd April, while they waited to be taken by ship to Salonika, Flora and the men of her regiment celebrated their annual “Slava” in honour of their regimental patron saint. Part religious ceremony, part feast and gala, this time the festivities also marked a transformation that was nothing short of astonishing given the mere eleven weeks they had spent on the island. “You would never have guessed that they were the same men who had gone through that terrible retreat in the Albanian mountains and arrived at Corfu in such deplorable condition two months before,” remarked Flora in wonder.
Flora’s old friend Colonel Milić was in attendance. He too wished to honour the near-miraculous transformation of the men of his regiment, but he also wanted to commend Flora publicly for her work and devotion to them. “Where’s the Fourth?” he asked her as he gestured towards the assembled companies. “Just behind the Third,” she responded, pointing to the rows of immaculately uniformed men. “Well, come over there with me, I want to speak to them,” he told her. As they approached, the men sprung to attention. While Flora looked on with a mixture of embarrassment, pride and uncharacteristic shyness, he launched into a long speech. “On this great Regimental Slava Day, I take great pleasure in promoting Miss Sandes to sergeant,” he finished by telling them. “Zivio! Zivio! Zivio!” (“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!”) shouted the men at the end of the speech. “I have never in my life had so much handshaking and patting on the back,” she remembered proudly.
Early the next morning, Flora and her regiment sailed from Corfu. On a balmy Easter Sunday, when their ship moored safely at Salonika harbour, they were one step closer to rejoining the fight to liberate their homeland.39
The Serbian forces who arrived in Salonika were a world away from the disordered group of men who had stumbled and straggled across the mountains to the Adriatic coast a few months before. But instead of seeing an army of hardy survivors, their British and French Allies looked askance at the ageing, weather-worn veterans who marched slowly, slouching as they walked, armed with rifles handed down by the French and dressed in a mishmash of uniforms.40 It was with considerable scepticism that they heard the news that they were being sent for further training in camps around Salonika. It would take more than that, they thought, to make the Serbs fit to fight alongside them.
The men of Flora’s Morava Division were sent to a camp about seventeen miles from the harbour, in the hills. “It was a lovely place,” recalled Flora.41 She spent the rest of April and May with them, in increasingly uncomfortable heat, before she was granted two months’ leave to return home. She spent the rest of the summer in England on a mad rush of social visits, all the while trying to find the time to write her first book, the hastily penned An English Woman Sergeant in the Serbian Army, by which she hoped to raise awareness and sympathy for the Serbian cause. After one final rushed holiday to Ireland, she returned to Salonika at the start of August to rejoin her company.
Flora’s autobiography was published that autumn, one of many such books relaying personal experiences to be printed during the war years. Although its publication received both positive and relatively widespread press coverage – all of which she clipped, saved and pasted into a scrapbook – it failed to catapult her into the public eye as Britain’s only serving woman soldier.42 After two years of war, it took far more to grab the attention, let alone imagination, of the public. Flora’s adventures over the following months would do just that.
Chapter 9
Monastir
1916
In the heavy, still heat of a late summer afternoon, Flora advanced warily with the Fourth Company on the plain below the windswept Macedonian village of Gornicevo. Their orders were to seize and hold a small, wooded hollow that had only just been evacuated hurriedly by the Bulgarians after days of determined Serbian shelling. As they stepped quietly into the shade of the trees, all was silent over the soft tread of their boots and the lazy buzzing of flies. Suddenly the putrid, sweet stench of death hit the back of their throats. Scattered all around them, between the ruins of several rough stone huts, were decomposing corpses, body parts and scraps of brown Bulgarian uniform. “The Bulgars had been there for 25 days,” Flora scribbled in her diary in disgust. “They had never troubled to build dugouts, nor even to bury their dead.”1
Her company had left for the mountain village th
at morning, 12th September, to join the other companies of the Morava Division ahead of the impending assault on the ridge on which it lay. Flora was pleased to be on the move, having spent much of the preceding month some distance from the fighting “messing about” and gambling over cards with Jović and the men of her company. But while other companies hurried to take their positions ahead of the attack, the Fourth were ordered to remain in the hollow in reserve. Flora sat down heavily in disappointment beside Jović behind the shelter of a wall and did her best to shut out the smell of the bodies. She waited impatiently for the order to advance, eager for what she termed “sport”.2
Gornicevo ridge marked the southernmost point of the crescent of mountains and foothills that circled the town of Monastir to its east. Near the top was the village. The strike was to be the test of a new Allied military strategy, to attack the Bulgarians on these heights. If the Allies could succeed in driving them back, they would be able to bypass the heavily defended enemy trenches south of Monastir, which they had previously failed to take in a series of near-suicidal attacks. The battle was also a test of Serbian resolve. The Serbs, with French artillery in support, had been chosen to lead the attack. It was an open question how an army of the survivors of the retreat would perform. All Allied eyes in the Balkans were upon them.
A Fine Brother: The Life of Captain Flora Sandes Page 15
