THE SERBS CHOOSE WAR

BY RUTH MITCHELL

GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK, 1943 DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.

1. MOMENT OF DESTINY

AT TEN-FIFTEEN on the morning of March 25, 1941, the news flashed: "Yugoslavia has signed the Axis pact." It was a moment of destiny for Europe, for the world. It was a moment when the flame of freedom guttered so perilously low that many of the bravest spirits of our time averted their eyes, sure that it was now finally to be extinguished. Yugoslavia had apparently fallen an easy victim to Germany. Everyone with any knowledge of Balkan affairs was amazed. For Yugoslavia was the land of the Serbs, the leading race of the South Slavs, the Fighting Serbs who through the centuries had battled ceaselessly, uncompromisingly for unconditional liberty and at last had won their independence alone and unaided. But prudent- and craven-policy had apparently prevailed. Two Serbs had actually used their fingers to sign away Serbian liberty: the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia. The country of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes had signed the Axis pact. Then an almost incredible thing happened, a thing so important to the history of the world that freedom-loving men will speak of it with admiration and with gratitude down through the centuries. The Serbs rose. A little race of not more than eight million souls deliberately, sternly decided to die rather than to submit to Axis vassalage. They were the only small race of Europe to come in openly on the side of the Allies before they were themselves attacked and while they still had promises of complete security of frontiers, of lives, and of property; the first and only small race themselves to declare war- a war they knew to be absolutely hopeless- against the invincible German war machine. And today, in 1943, the Serbs, alone in Europe west of Russia, are fighting with an organized army the greatest war machine in history. With terrain no more suitable for guerrilla fighting than the French Alps and the Carpathians in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, they are still fighting indomitably.

Why did they do it? What caused their decision? What has enabled them to succeed when other, larger, much better equipped peoples failed or didn't even try? These are important questions, important to our own present war effort, important to the future of Europe, very important to future world peace. I was there and had been there for over three years. I watched what led up to it and what took place. I had made it my business to try to understand. Those two days after the signing of the pact will never be erased from my memory. The people of Belgrade, the Serb capital of Yugoslavia, behaved as if stunned by incredible calamity. I had friends of all classes in the city. On the day the pact was signed several of them telephoned briefly but none came near me that first day until late in the afternoon. Then one after another slipped in, furtively, crushed. Their expressions, their very words, had an extraordinary similarity. Their faces were distorted with an inexpressible, breathless fury. "I shall tear up my passport," they muttered in bitter shame. "I shall never go out of the country again. I can never look another foreigner in the face. We- we to let them through to stab the Greeks, our allies, in the back!" For that was part of the treaty, and to this race loyalty to a friend is a password, a touchstone. No charge of treachery has ever been brought against the Serbs as a race, the only Balkan race with such a record. "But other, bigger nations have given way to German might and have done the same," I said, terribly grieved for them. "What does it matter to us what other nations do?" they flared up fiercely. "We are the Serbs!" Into this atmosphere of strained gloom and misery arrived Yanko. A Chetnik, like myself, of the purely Serb organization of guerrilla fighters, Yanko was in a different group with a different leader. He appeared about four o'clock, bright and cheerful, obviously quite pleased with life. He came in humming the great Chetnik marching song: "Ready, now ready, Chetnik brothers! Mighty the coming battle-" Yanko broke off the song in the middle and smiled at me. He was in a hurry. "Listen," he said, "it's for tomorrow night." I knew very well what he meant. "Not

to kill them, Yanko? You don't mean to kill them?" I said, feeling absolutely helpless before an elemental force, like a chicken before a tidal wave. "Why not?" His face hardened. "Don't they deserve it? Who ever deserved it better?" he ground out. This small wiry, inconspicuous fellow didn't loot dramatic or particularly violent. He did not even look especially grim. He just was utterly grim. He didn't look a murderer. He just would be a murderer, and without any hesitation, where his country was concerned. But no one ever had a more severe sense of honor than Yanko. I said what I knew I ought to say. I argued that it would make a very bad impression abroad; that there had been too many political murders in Balkan history; that we should set a new precedent. I felt -well, just feeble and silly. He hardly heard me. He started out. "What time?" I asked most anxiously. He hesitated. But we were old friends. "Three o'clock in the morning," he answered, and was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief it happened that I knew of other plans in the making. These plans called, not just for another political murder, but for a wellorganized revolution to abolish the Regency, to place the young King Peter on the throne, and to repudiate the detested pact, throwing defiance into Hitler's teeth. The organizer of this plan was the Serbian general Boro Mirkovich, with General Simovich and General Zivkovich. Their trusted associates were certain Serbs of the High Command of the Flying Corps in the Belgrade district. It was to be executed by Montenegrin-Serb flying officers. And it was timed, I believed, though I had no absolute certainty on that point, for midnight that night. So I was greatly relieved when Yanko said, "Three o'clock." For Chetnik action, if it came before the other, might throw this whole plan out of gear, might even make it abortive. I was thus in a very nasty situation, for I had been made the confidant of both sides, and I could not properly disclose to either side what I knew of the other's plans. Was it possible that I could be the only person in the country who knew both? It seems certain now that I was. M.P., my stanch Serbian adviser in all problems and in all times of trouble (so many there had been!), was under house-arrest, suspect by the Prince Paul

government which had signed the pact. Never had I been in greater need of his advice than on this torturing question of principle. I could trust no one else, and he too knew well that he could trust me. Frantically I telephoned to his house. A soldier answered curtly that he was incommunicado. So there was nothing I could do. Events must take their course. At eight that night I dined with some of the British newspapermen at the Hotel Bristol. That dinner was a strangely ironic episode. At the time it seemed utterly unreal. I had the curious feeling that I was watching a play, that I was looking at us sitting there calmly, politely eating, while world-shaking events were brewing, all unknown to these clever fellows. These men and more than a dozen like them had come at vast expense from America and England to find out what was happening or likely to happen in the Balkans. They ran around eagerly, tirelessly, all day and most of the night. They entertained, they haunted offices, hotels, clubs, and night cafes. They sat at the end of wires that spanned the earth. They spent great sums on a small army of local newshounds. They had the cars of prominent men watched to discover their movements and deduce their contacts. They were endlessly ingenious in ferreting out the facts. Nothing was too much trouble or too difficult for them. Yet not one of these newspapermen asked me a single political question. I knew the foreign diplomatic people only very slightly: they were aware of that. They were in close touch with them all. I lived quietly in my little house and called no cabinet minister by his first name: they were quite aware of that. They knew so much, they knew everything-everything except the most important thing of all, the key to the whole situation. These busy, conscientious, expert gatherers of news, they knew all there was to know-except one thing: they didn't know the Serbs. They could understand and predict every probability. But they couldn't understand or predict the Serbs. I looked at my watch. It was ten o'clock. I yielded to temptation. "Let me tell you something," I said gently. "Within twenty-nine hours Prince Paul, Cvetkovich, Cincar-Markovich, and the whole Cabinet will be either prisoners or dead." I knew I was taking no chances. I knew they wouldn't believe me.

Politely, indulgently they smiled. Terence Atherton was there, the Daily Mail correspondent long resident in Belgrade who had run a whole set of Yugoslav weeklies in English. He certainly ought to know. He smiled too, but not so confidently. "They'll have to settle down to it," said Mr. Seagrave, the charming correspondent of the News Chronicle. "They'll give up now that they see there's nothing else to do. They'll have to take peace even at the German price. They have no choice. It would be hopeless, utterly useless! All the other little countries have had to do it. They'll have to do it too." I leaned forward. "Telegraph your paper," I said softly. "Tell England that the Serbian peasants don't want peace at any price the Germans could ever offer. No matter if it is hopeless, utterly useless. They're used to hopeless struggles. Tell England that the Serbs choose war when their unconditional liberty is at stake." They laughed at me then, polite no longer. Thirty-six hours later Mr. Seagrave telephoned exactly eight words: "You were right: the Serbs choose war. Incredible!" That morning, March 27, 1941 my telephone began ringing at six o'clock, but my servants wouldn't wake me. At a quarter to seven I was up and heard Yanko yodeling on the phone: "They got in ahead of us! It's all right. Revolutionbloodless as you hoped!" At half past seven, M.P. arrived, gray, tired, his great frame looking shrunken, drawn with strain and his days of arrest. But happy, so happy-speechless with happiness. I got out a little bottle of my finest wine. The radio was playing over and over the Serbian national songs, Oi-Serbiya, and most of all: "Ready, now ready, Chetnik brothers! Mighty the coming battle, And on our glorious victory Will rise the sun of Liberty." The Serbs had risen. Said a commentator over the London radio that morning: "The action that the Serbs have taken this day will prove to be the turning point of the war." It did so prove. From that day onwards, and because of the action of the little race of Serbs, everything went wrong for Germany. Her aim was spoiled, her timing destroyed.

Before he could attack Russia, Hitler had to secure his rear in the Balkans to preclude an Allied landing. It took him three months to do what he had expected would be done, by his ordinary routine of penetration and terrorization, in no time at all. (He hasn't completely finished the task yet!) He had to detach an army intended for Russia and send it down into the Balkans, with all that went with it. He not only had to send an army there but he had to keep an army there, by far the largest army of occupation in any of the overrun countries. He has had to keep in Yugoslavia to this day not less than half a million Axis troops. And still he hasn't beaten down the Serbs. The Serbs chose war. They chose to die. They died. They are dying today-not by hundreds, not by thousands, but by hundreds of thousands, men, women, and small children. They died under the deluge of bombs that fell for four days upon the "open," undefended town of Belgrade. They died, tight-lipped and defiant, in the torture chambers of the Gestapo and by the hangman's rope. They died riddled by the bullets of Hitler's execution squads, whole schools of little boys and girls facing the machine guns, crying with their last breath: "Long live Serbia-we are Serbian children!" The Germans hate them most of all the small peoples, except the Jews, because they have resisted best. Hitler's order is for the extermination of the Serbs. But whatever the Germans have done to them is as nothing in horror to what their fellow South Slavs have done. For what those "brothers" did was so appalling that the Germans themselves reeled back in horror from Croat berserk ferocity. Whole villages of Serbs, resident for generations in Croatia-men, women, and children-were packed tight into their churches, where, night after night, the Croat Ustashi butchers slew them with knives, standing knee-deep in blood and in floating corpses. They pitched the bodies into the Sava, Drava, and Danube rivers. They have killed so far more than 600,000. The Serbs expected horror from the Germans. Themselves foreign to treachery, this they did not expect from their "brothers."

The Serbs chose war. In spite of all the horrors they expected, this small race almost unanimously decided to oppose themselves against the greatest war machine of history. And in spite of the unexpected, unpredictable horrors that have befallen them, they still choose war. Why ? It took me over three years to find out.

2. ALBANIAN PRELUDE

STRANGE TO REMEMBER NOW how nearly I missed it all. In February 1938 I was planning a trip round the world to study youth questions -always my greatest interest-when I was offered a good fee to go to Albania to photograph the wedding of its King Zog. I went-very grudgingly. "Ten days-that will be enough, quite enough," I told the editor of the London weekly Illustrated. "I'm not interested in the Balkans. The East is what draws mefirst the Near East, then the Far East; by boat to Constantinople, then Syria, Persia, Afghanistan, India. But ten days-yes, I'll take ten days out and no more, for the Balkans, if you insist." This was a year before Albania became news with the Italian occupation. Except that it was "somewhere in the Balkans," no one seemed to know where the little country lay. Even Cook's, the tourist agency, was quite uncertain as to how one could get there. It is curious how much stranger the Balkans appeared to us than even the leastknown parts of Asia. This is still true. We take the strangeness of Asia for granted, but the Balkans tease us with their mystery. They are just across a little sea, no larger than one of our American Great Lakes, from tourist-haunted Italy. They constitute the narrow land bridge from Europe to the Near East, and so to Africa and Asia, which has been fought over by uncounted races and powers. They are closely bound to us by trade. Yet to most of us the Balkans still remain unreal as a mirage. And of all the Balkan countries, Albania was the most unknown of all. Even how to get there was a problem. At last over the telephone the cultivated voice of the First Secretary of the Albanian Legation in London provided the answer. So off I went, with an irreducible minimum of luggage and a maximum of light photographic equipment: train to Rome and Bari, by boat across the narrow sea to Durazzo.

Well I remember the rosy dawn when I came up on the deck of that fussy little tub that had bounced me across the stormy Adriatic. Perhaps it is a good thing that we can't foresee the future. If I had known then what was coming, if I had had an inkling of the mad world, the outrageously absurd, the thrillingly splendid world I was stepping into, if I had guessed the discomforts and the miseries, the meannesses and the incredible cruelties that were lying in wait for me-would I have turned back? Would I have run down again into my "royal cabin" and sailed away, far away, to safer, saner, cleaner, quieter, more comfortable lands? The answer is a completely certain: No! For with the discomforts were to come unforgettable beauty; with the absurdities, Homeric laughter; and despite the horrors, a splendid satisfaction. If I had not seen with my own eyes and myself experienced the cruelties, I might never have known the simple glory to which men's hearts and women's strength can rise. For that experience almost no price could be too heavy. The tall minaret of Durazzo Harbor was the first note of that swelling symphony, with all its delicate and its grand motifs, its clashing discords, its rumbling undertones and laughing trebles, that was soon to catch me up and sweep me away to-well, to brotherhood with the toughest men in Europe and then to eleven agonizing prisons; to that and to so much more. The minaret, slim as a lady's finger against the rose-red dawn-why did not that white finger shake in solemn warning? To me it seemed, that morning, only to beckon in welcoming beauty. Close at hand, Durazzo looked like almost any other small Mediterranean harbor. But over toward the far eastern horizon lay what I thought at first was a bank of heavy white clouds flushed by the rising sun. But they were not clouds. There, suspended as by invisible chains from heaven, hung the fabled mountains of Albania. I felt a momentary pang of regret. Too bad, I thought, that I would not have time in my ten days to make their close acquaintance. Ten days! How funny that sounds now! I stayed in the Balkans for three and a half years. And I came to know those mountains as perhaps no foreign woman has known them before.

I seem to have inherited my American pioneer grandmother's zest for simple, primitive living. To me sleeping on a sheepskin on the floor, washing in a snowfed brook, eating with fingers from a central dish, trailing for days on horseback across almost pathless mountains are not hardship. That is my idea of a good way to live. I like heroic songs and minds fed on ancestral deeds of glory. Tenacious love of old tradition, of custom and dress handed down by forebears arouse my respect and admiration. I believe, as these people do-as my own ancestors believed-that liberty and personal and national honor are worth all one's possessions and one's life: that the life of a slave is not worth living. Better, far better, to fight even a hopeless battle and, if one must, to die. Everywhere among these mountain peoples I found these values to be the unconscious mainsprings of action, motivating men, women, and children of all classes. The more I saw of them the more they filled me with affection and admiration . . . I forgot the Far East. I never got to Constantinople.

3. JOURNALIST'S PARADISE

ALBANIA, a country about the size of Switzerland, can be simply described as a long, rolling, littoral plain almost entirely shut off from the rest of the world by a lofty wall of mountain ranges in the shape of a crescent with both horns on the Adriatic. It has about a million inhabitants, sharply divided into plainsmen and mountaineers. The latter possess what is probably the purest blood in Europe. They are lineal descendants, without any admixture or infiltration whatever, of those old Illyrian tribes who retired before the Ancient Greeks advancing from the interior of Asia. Turkey held the plain and foothills in her ruinous grip for five hundred years but never succeeded in subduing the mountaineers. Not during recorded history have they ever been completely conquered. Tirana, the capital, lies in almost the exact center of the country. Until recently only a small foothill village, it has been quickly enlarged and become almost characterless. Albania has the good fortune to possess an exceedingly beautiful style of architecture of its own. But King Zog, the mountain chieftain become king, despised and tried to make his people despise everything typically Albanian. So he built up his little capital in nondescript imitation of alien culture. It is hideous, and for the lack of national pride it indicates, pathetic. I was expected and well received by the Government. But I was regarded with mixed feelings. Not being professionally a journalist, I was now to discover the uncertain attitude of the officials of the smaller European states towards the members of that busy guild. They receive them eagerly and they hate them-oh, how they hate them! The sensitiveness of these small countries to even the most evanescent publicity is beyond belief. Many a young man of sufficient aplomb has been able to subsist handsomely for years on the sadly grudged, yet anxiously lavish, hospitality extended to anyone who flourishes the magic credentials of the press. So with every facility courteously placed at my disposal, off I went to photograph Albania! The handsome horsemen in their dress as beautiful and costly

as that of any eighteenth-century courtier; the wild nomads, with their flocks and herds; the dances, the weddings far in the mountains. There was and is, believe it or not, no guidebook to Albania in English. Hence, seeing my growing interest, the Albanian Ministry of Information invited me to write one. They placed at my disposal a car, a chauffeur, and an interpreter. I went over every road where it was possible to pass in a car, and then on horseback through the mountains. Everywhere I was met by the local notables. Everything was opened for me, everyone thought up all that could be remembered of ancient tales and curious remains. Almost everywhere I had what I like best of all, a bodyguard of children. I filled notebook after notebook. There is some hope that those notes may have been saved, though the place where they were hidden, in the Serbian mountains, has been much fought over. If they have been lost-well, then I hope I may have the chance to do it all over again. Everywhere I was charmed by the shy but friendly women in bright national dress, always with either a gaily painted wooden cradle or bag of produce on their backs and children at their feet. I was a woman and alone. Surprisingly this was a great advantage, here as in Serbia. Everywhere I was treated with friendly cordiality by both women and men. These are the lands of die-hard suspicion among men, who may approach only members of their own sex and then only with reassuring circumlocutions. But women, although their social and political rights are limited, are absolutely free from molestation: they pass, trusted, where men could never tread.

4. THE ROYAL NONESUCH TAKES A WIFE

ALBANIA is the land of unconditional hospitality. Literally I was never allowed to pay for a meal in a public restaurant when I was by myself. It is an intolerable disgrace to these proud men to let a woman pay for her own food. Once I stopped my car and, looking carefully round to make sure, as I thought, that only the simplest countrymen were present, ordered a solid meal, costing about eighteen cents. Just as I war counting out my change, crowing to myself that I had success fully circumvented this unwritten law, up sprang an attractive young man who bowed and said in French: "I am the government official in charge of bookkeeping. I, of course, have the honor to pay for you lunch." I took a house, an old rambling Turkish vizier's home, in Scutari on the banks of the majestic lake, and there I settled down to produce my guidebook. Came and went the marriage of King Zog and his little Hungarian bride, the Countess Geraldine Apponyi. I photographed it for the London Illustrated. Whenever a writer of musical comedy wants to prepare his audience for something utterly improbable and absurd, he sets his scene in "a kingdom in the Balkans." But no extravaganza could surpass the improbability, the absurdity of this real wedding. It exhibited every stock character, every stock comic situation, besides special phantasia of its own. Behold the little Cinderella bride, chosen from a row of photo graphs of aristocratic girls of neighboring countries with whose families it would be possible and politic for an insecure self-mad king to become allied. A brave girl comes to a land she does not care to understand. She falls sincerely in love with her intended and refers to him with awe as "His Majesty." Behold the groom, once a wild feudal chieftain of the mountain fastnesses, with great natural aptitude. For a while, under the guiding hand of a strong-willed mother, he was a conscientious monarch who tried with some success to serve his people. Now he is spoiled by luxury, though still handsome enough across the footlights. He covers his bride with huge diamonds and Paris gowns paid for E the

taxes wrung from his million half-starved subjects and from foreign governments by all sorts of chicanery. Such a coward he has become-assuming he was ever anything else-so afraid of a shot that he cannot endure the flash of a photographer's bulb but has to have special lighting arranged months before the event. So cowardly is he that not once does he appear at a window to greet his subjects during the ten days' commanded rejoicing. The groom's proverbial three sisters would be rather good-looking if they had the courage just to be natural. Once they were barefooted girls, busy in their snowtopped mountains making goat's cheese. They might have married handsome mountaineers of their race. Then they would have had love, homes, and children. Now, alas, they are princesses, and weird and wonderful is their idea of how princesses of the Great World dress and comport themselves. Behold, too, the entourage that soon descends upon the little Cinderella, now that she is to become a queen. There is the fat, good-natured nobleman, her uncle, the perfect stock character, who loves to pinch the girls behind the door and gets hauled out and scolded by his stern wife. There is the little chambermaid, once a Viennese guttersnipe, who profits handsomely by making herself the lonely little bride's only confidant. Now she gives herself airs and is false to the bone-what German musical comedy calls a "Kammerkatze." Best of the characters in this farce, hilarious yet ominous, is the "best man," an emissary of one of the only two governments, Italy and Germany, which officially recognize the affair.-Naturally, this personage represents the one to which the groom has been busily selling his country down the river. It is Italy, which has a complete strangle hold on the little land and is squeezing the breath out of it. King Zog's "best friend" and "best man" is that international clown, Count Ciano. He is sent by Mussolini to present as a wedding gift the lovely yacht which, in less than a year, he will snatch back. He will also try his best to catch and kill the "dear friend" who for his part is even at that moment trying to sell him out to another power. To see the arrival by air of Count Ciano was one of those once-in-a-lifetime things. The guards alone were unforgettable. Zog had been interned in Vienna during the last war and had admiringly noted all the fancy fixings of the various

gaudy Austrian uniforms. He meant to put on the perfect show. So his guards were decorated with all the elaborate trappings of all the Austrian regiments. Such a plethora of feathers, stripes, buttons, epaulettes, cords, swords, boots, spurs, and gold embroidery was never seen on earth. Ciano, rosy, hearty, and well jowled, was rushed from the airfield to a largish house called a palace, where he burst, exactly like a clown jumping through a hoop, out upon the indispensable balcony. The great gates below opened wide-and there stood The Bodyguard! We were stunned, speechless with admiration. All the Italian nationals in the country had been carefully grouped below to cheer, as it was more than an Albanian's life was worth to do such a thing for a loathed Italian. One Albanian, carried away by the excitement, clapped his hands. He was severely beaten up afterward by his fellow countrymen. Ciano, of course, was serenely unaware of all this-or was he? Such fat self-satisfaction, such warm benignity, such love for the "dear" Albanians! Who that saw it could ever forget the expression on the face of the little freelance English writer (he was supposed to be doing a "life" of King Zog and therefore had to be handled with care) as he gazed into his plate at a royal reception: "I, even I, am eating off gold plate, by Jove," he murmured ecstatically to himself. But really magnificent were the bride's horde of Hungarian relatives who descended upon the poor little country like a pack of hungry wolves. Their clothes, especially those of the men, were ancient family heirlooms, blazing from head to foot with jewels, velvet, and gold. They were really the finest things I ever saw in Europe for richness. The old noblemen, upright, proud, and firm, were straight out of a book of fairy tales. But the effect of the young men was spoiled by their uncertain, baffled look of discontent-and hopelessness. Hungary ever since the last war had been trying to build a constructive national policy on a purely negative principle- "Nem nem, soha [No, no, never]"-a hopeless, an impossible task. Hungary was in a very bad way. No one thought of the unfortunate Albanian peasants. It was they who had to pay the price of this disgusting extravagance. The royal tables groaned under rich

meats and fine wines, and the poor, humble people groaned under whipped-up taxes. Like a swarm of locusts, the relatives came, ate, and departed. And immediately all amelioration work, all government social services, oldage pittances, fruit-tree planting, stopped: the king of a population, say, one seventh of the population of New York City, had brought home his bride.

5. OIL TURNS TO DYNAMITE

FROM SCUTARI I made daily and sometimes week-long excursions up into mountains that have never even been completely explored. Once I left the path to eat my lunch in the wilderness. And there, where there had been a recent landslide, I found, exuding from narrow strata of rock, a thick ooze of oil. I waited for two months, so that my movements could be traced only with the greatest difficulty, and then notified the British minister (the British held oil concessions in Albania) that I would like an engineer to consult with me on what could be done about it. His reply was simple and neat: the British oil wells had proved unsatisfactory and had been closed down, and so nothing could be done about it. I then very cautiously got in touch with a member of the Albanian Cabinet in Tirana who had expressed warm feelings for me. His excitement was intense. It had always been suspected that the Rumanian oil fields might have a continuation in Albania: I had probably discovered it. "We must at all costs circumvent the Italians," he said. He would find the right way to handle the business (of course, on a fifty-fifty basis), and we would both grow exceedingly rich. We arranged a code, since he said his letters were opened and read. This alone shows the state of the country. When I should receive a card saying: "Kind regards to all," I would know that he had fixed everything and I was to come at once to Tirana. Now the Italians had carefully surveyed the country and had so tied it up with concessions that they thought it impossible that anyone could find anything they didn't know about. But as they had little capital with which to exploit natural resources, the concessions remained mostly unused. In a fortnight came the message: "Kind regards to all." I hurried to Tirana and to the consultation with the expert he was to have waiting for me. And so, the expert who was to find means of preventing the Italians from seizing my find was-

the Italian government engineer in charge of all Italian mining interests in the country. My "friend" had been unable to resist selling me out. I had, of course, been much too cautious to give my would-be partner any inkling of the position of my find. The Italian engineer was now in a nasty spot: he had himself done the countrywide survey and had advised his Government that he had covered every conceivable possibility. The famous Italian charm was therefore turned on full blast. Slowly, with a poker face, I took him over a map as he detailed the terms of concessions in the different parts. He passed my section with the curt information: "Only mineral rights here." (Mineral rights do not include oil.) After we had reached a far-distant part, I said: "All right, the oil concession of my find is not covered by your claims." He turned very white. And, believe it or not, he and my friend then produced a previously prepared agreement stating that I would disclose the position to him and "accept whatever the Italian Government considered the find was worth." I was to sign on the spot. I smiled. Now came, as I expected, the threats: I would be forced to leave the country; his government would see to it that I was hounded out of the Balkans. He hinted even more unpleasant consequences. I glanced at my friend. He did not raise his eyes. "I'm sorry. The proposition does not interest me. I will keep my secret." I rose and, bowing politely, departed. They followed me to my hotel, desperate with eagerness. Here was something inconceivable to them: a woman alone in a foreign land, impervious either to charm, to promises, or to threats. It must be just a trick to raise my price. The Italian began to compromise, even threw himself on my mercy. It was no use. I had made up my mind rather to lose entirely than to give way to Italy.

6. ENTER A CONQUEROR, EXIT MYSELF

ALL THIS WAS AMUSING ENOUGH, but the results were not so funny. From that day onward I became, understandably, "persona non grata" to the Italian Government. The hold of Italy on Albania was saddening. The Albanians are primitive, yes; they are savage, yes. But how could they possibly be anything else under the treatment they have received? What chance has this proud, liberty-loving, virile race ever had? Who has ever in all the centuries bothered about them except to exploit them? Who has ever held out a hand to help them except to help himself ? No one, not even their own king. The neglect of this small, helpless little brother must stop. Surely the cost to us in lives alone has demonstrated the crime of our neglect. For it was the presence of Italy in Albania which helped to make the quick success of Germany in the Balkans possible. In I938 Italy had a strangle hold on every phase of Albanian life. Simply by bribing the King and ten members of his Cabinet, she succeeded in blocking every kind of development by citizens of other countries. Someday, so ran her dream, the drain of her expensive military enterprises elsewhere would end. Then she would thoroughly exploit Albania. This made for a degree of chaos and insecurity in the little land that can be only briefly sketched here. Practically every third man in the country was a paid spy. Italy, of course, had her complete espionage system; so also did the jittery king; the police had their own close-meshed spy network; every member of the Cabinet had his separate espionage service. It was fantastic, especially for me, since all of them wanted to find out what the devil I was really up to. They simply could not believe that anyone, especially a woman who "might be in Paris," would actually stay in Albania because she happened to like it. Nor was I the only suspect. Scientists, artists, writers passing through, all were marked down as "spies." But because I remained, I was the prize mystery. As I settled in Scutari to write my guidebook, every effort was made to make things uncomfortable for me and

squeeze me out. Fortunately I had a "friend at court." My soi-disant partner wasn't going to let the goose, which was capable of laying for him a golden egg, escape from the farmyard. So, at the same moment that I was being subjected to all kinds of police unpleasantness, it was unofficially but authoritatively suggested to me that I become a member of the Albanian Cabinet in the capacity of Minister of Culture. My means and my interest in antiquities aroused the hope that I would undertake surveys and excavations without adding another grabbing hand to those already deep in the national treasury. I refused this invitation. But I then worked out a plan for the complete reorganization of the country under "advisory control." My plan was, of course, for the record only. I knew what was already clear to the least observant person (except, unfortunately, to the representatives of the three leading powers), that a sudden alteration of the status of the little country was imminent. We now know that the occupation of Albania by Italy was a prelude to the German plan for subduing the Serbs. It was to provide an Axis bridgehead in the Balkans for the purpose of driving a wedge across Macedonia, thus cutting the Fighting Serbs off from any help from outside. There was something to be said for Italy. She had given college educations to hundreds of Albanian boys. She had even tried to finance improvements as far as it was safe. To show how unsafe Albanian investment was under the Zog government, I heard and have reason to believe that Italy paid three separate times for hard-surfacing the road from Durazzo to Tirana. Each time the money went into government pockets. The most-used highway in the country, it was still a rutted dirt road when I was there. Italy, tired of financing the private extravagances of the King, had tightened up on grants. So Zog was now gaily trying to sell out to any other bidder. After the annexation of Austria by Germany, with its attendant uproars, I decided that I had had about enough excitement. In December I938 I returned to America.

But here the smug, self-satisfied blindness and carelessness of my countrymen horrified me, especially as there was nothing I could do about it. Back in the Balkans, I would at least be in it-not just reading about it in the papers. So after just three weeks I engaged my return passage. I reached Scutari again on March 12, I939. Then things really began to happen. During my absence some enthusiastic and patriotic college boys had tried to stage a coup against the Government. They had even set up a secret printing press in the mountains. They had all been caught and labeled, like all those who opposed the corrupt Government, simply "Communists." One of the boys, probably under wicked torture, had stated that I had financed the rising. I was therefore now "unmasked" as a Russian agent, a Communist. Two weeks after my arrival I received an order of expulsion from the country. This, I learned, was an order from Italy through her tools in the Government. It was evident now what was coming. It happens that I am both an American citizen and, by marriage, a British subject. In traveling I always used my British passport to facilitate my entry into British territories. I therefore appealed to the British minister in Durazzo, and after considerable effort he got the expulsion order suspended. I was determined to remain, although now every other foreign woman and most foreign men precipitately fled the country. In Durazzo I asked Sir Andrew Ryan, the minister, what he personally would wish me to do, as the revocation of my expulsion was something of a diplomatic victory for him. He replied: "If you want to be on the safe side, go up to Dubrovnik until this little unpleasantness blows over. But if you wish to please me you will return to Scutari." He would not believe that Italy meant business. I did return and calmly took my hunting dogs for a walk through the town. The stupefied faces of my persecutors gave me some amusement. On Good Friday, I939, Italy attacked Albania without the Axis discarded formality of declaring war.

I watched the panic flight of all the prominent people who had not bought their peace with Italy; also the pathetic scramble to mobilize the half-armed little Albanian Army. The money which should have paid for its equipment had gone instead into corrupt pockets and into-gold plate. The King posted proclamations calling upon his dear subjects to fight till death for their country and their king. He then gathered up the gold plate, the jewels, and all the available government cash and departed. The Italians tried to foment religious hatred in order to disunite the country. They failed signally. On Easter Sunday the Christian women brought colored Easter eggs to their Mohammedan acquaintances as a gesture of warm good will. The young men of Scutari were frantic. Madly they dashed from one end of the town to the other as rumors spread that secret hoards of weapons had been found. I was staying with the mother of my interpreter, a grand old lady of whom I was very fond. Her three sons, like all the other men, were beside themselves with hatred of the Italians. "Weapons, weapons," they cried, "any sort of weapons with which to fight the loathed enemy!" Appeals for help to the Great Powers all went unheeded, and I watched strong men go almost mad with grief and shame. Then came the march of the mountain men. I think it was the most thrilling and the most pitiable sight I have ever seen. Down they came from the hidden valleys, from the pathless snowcapped mountains, down through the towering virgin forests, springing down the steep paths, converging on the roads. Then, in columns led by their chieftains in full regalia, they marched into the town: tall, lithe, broad-shouldered fighters, in scarlet gold-embroidered jackets and skin-tight white trousers, their brilliant silk headscarves and sashes blowing in the breeze, their gold buttons and silver chains glinting and swinging: surely the most romantically gallant figures to be seen in Europe. But in their strong hands were such guns as made me weep to see: -ancient rifles polished bright; muzzle-loaders; long, thin Arab muskets inlaid with mother-

of-pearl. And for ammunition they had only the few bullets each man carried in his belt. Grimly they passed, these proudly martial, hopeless men, and grimly the hopeless townspeople watched them go. There was no sound, for their feet were clad in rawhide sandals. So they went, in scarlet and white, to oppose on the gray foothills the khaki-clad conquerors armed with deadly machine guns. In came the pressmen of the world to see "the show," among them Mr. Maitland of the London Times. He was quite worried about me. "You are the only foreign woman left in the whole country. You must leave," he urged. "You must leave at once. Do you realize what it means, the entry of a conquering army? Loot, murder, rape! You positively must leave. I have to go on to Tirana-I can't stay to look after you." That day my interpreter discovered a fantastic plot amongst the frantic townspeople to murder Maitland and myself. Not, if you please, because they didn't like us-but because of the old, long-since-discarded rule that "England revenges her nationals." It was to be made to appear that we had been killed by the Italians. Then England must interfere, they believed, and her fleet would come to the help of Albania! . . . Yes, they were naive, if you like, but these poor people were desperate. Maitland got the very last car for me. A Yugoslav aviator was to drive me to the frontier, where his plane waited to fly me to Belgrade. They were determined to get me out, and they almost succeeded in frightening me. I put my foot on the running board-I took it down-I put it on-I took it down. I simply couldn't leave; I just had to see it through. When the three sons of my hostess, Hussein, Shucho, and Halil, gave Maitland their Albanian oath (besa) that they would never let me out of their sight, that they would guard me with their lives, that I would be injured only over their dead bodies, he gave way. They watched me from then on like hawks. I was literally not a second out of their sight. They took their oath so seriously that even when I was dressing I had to hold up my hand behind a screen so that they could see me!

What fun we had! Strange how in the midst of such terrible grief we could still laugh. We even made a little song something to this effect: "We brothers three, We're here to see The lady's not Put on the spot." I watched the entrance of the Italians. When the South had been overrun, the Albanians saw that to defend Scutari would be merely to sacrifice good men senselessly. The mountaineers were persuaded to slip away home-to fight again when the time was ripe. Then the prefect of Scutari went to meet the invaders and capitulate. Promptly the surrounding heights burst out into a rash of little soldiers and big guns. And the Italians gently filtered into the town. A group of officers took over the Prefecture, and the Italian flag was run up only to the same height as the Albanian. This in no way placated the Albanians. They hated the Italians, but even more bitterly they now hated the Great Powers who had deserted them in their hour of need. Ten days after the occupation was completed, Count Ciano, the beautiful and loyal "best friend" of the now ex-King Zog, was to pinch-hit for a cautious Mussolini and make his triumphal entry into Tirana, the capital. He was to be accompanied by a batch of foreign journalists to see for themselves the "delight" of the conquered. It was, therefore, considered indispensable to have one genuine Albanian mountain chieftain present who might be regarded as representing his joyful tribe. For, alas, in spite of every conceivable lure and bribe, it had been found impossible to get even one responsible mountain chief to offer his allegiance. There happened at that moment to be one of the smallest and least important of these chieftains in Tirana on family business. He had a few tribesmen with him. He was unsuspiciously got hold of, was tempted to drink and, being a Mohammedan unused to alcohol, was easily reduced to a state of confusion. The henchmen refused to drink.

When in a completely fuddled state, he was offered the to him enormous sum of fifty napoleons (about $200) simply to stand somewhere next day holding an Italian flag-nothing more. He agreed. Next morning, having given his Albanian word, the sad figure in genuine Malissori dress stood holding the drooping flag at the reception of Ciano and was photographed from all angles. His tribesmen had disappeared. With the money in his pocket (it was paper of course, the Italians having instantly drained the country of all gold, the usual currency) he set out for home. It took him four days of walking to get there. Near his village his whole tribe, including his own family, came out to meet him. Without a word they shot him dead. They took the money, which to those bitterly poor people represented many months of easier living, and made a bonfire and burned it. They then sent messengers to all the surrounding tribes, apologizing for having had such a contemptible traitor for their chief and announcing what they had done about it. I listened to Mussolini's proclamation in which he promised that Albania would "soon be three times as large" as it was then and that the Albanian flag would be flown level with the Italian flag on all ships-of-war: Mussolini promises, never kept. Now the literally crowning insult to the conquered people was perpetrated. Their great national hero is Skanderbeg, who for twenty-five years succeeded in keeping his country free, fighting the Turks against enormous odds. His crown was the national emblem of Albania. It had found its way long ago into a museum in Vienna. Hitler now sent it to Mussolini, and this crown of the doughty old fighter for Albanian liberty was placed by the Italian king upon his own head. Could insulting cynicism go further? A shudder of fury, of hopeless despair swept through a humbled, liberty-loving race. The Great Powers filed a formal "no recognition"-and forgot.

While the Italian Army, with its regular officers, was in control, some sincerity of good will was apparent. But now the Fascist party took over, and the instant difference was very striking and ominous. Fascism began to be clamped down on a beaten people, and one saw whole flocks and herds being driven off to be shipped to Italy. Then Flavel Barnes of Pratt, Kansas, joined me. The Italian attitude toward me had begun to be very strained. When, deciding to remain longer than she had planned, Flavel applied for permission to make a trip back to Yugoslavia for clothes, suspicion flared into certainty: she was obviously my courier and I was now certainly an agent of the British Intelligence Service. Instantly came the order to leave the country within four hours. Expostulation proving useless, I got a quick visa from the Yugoslav consul who had often most courteously extended his government's invitation to me to visit his country. I then notified the commandant that I would leave via Durazzo. A minor Albanian clerk got word to me that I was to be searched at the port and all notes and photographs taken from me. We started on the road to Durazzo but turned off suddenly and sped all-out for a small frontier post toward Antivari. The frontier guards had, of course, received no notice. I flourished all sorts of irrelevant but important-looking documents and, before they had collected their wits, we had shot across the frontier, their yells dying away in the distance. I was in Yugoslavia.

7. A BOW TO AN OLD BALKAN CUSTOM

AFTER THE HEAVY GLOOM of oppression in Albania, the very sunlight of Yugoslavia seemed more golden, the air more buoyant. Children ran out gaily in greeting and threw leaves into the car: children hid in Albania. The women waved and laughed: women veiled or wept in Albania. My heart felt crushed with pity for the tragic and guiltless people I had left behind. As we passed along the indescribably magnificent littoral of Montenegro, through Budva of the Beautiful Beaches, and on along the Dalmatian coast to Dubrovnik (Ragusa), it seemed to me that that scarlet sunset, glowing across the rocky islets set in a silver sea, could not be real, that I had never in my life seen such loveliness. Dubrovnik, with its great, white, crenellated walls set boldly out into the sea, was lit with a spangle of lights, a dream city taken from some medieval illuminated missal. Almost one expected oversize saints and angels to flutter above the battlements. In May I939 Dubrovnik was gay, eager, prosperous, crowded with foreigners with money to spend. Flavel and I began to explore some of the world's finest scenery. One evening, tired from an excursion and not expecting to go out again, I slipped into a long black silk "hostess" gown with flowered sleeves. After dinner, however, the moon shone so bright, the air was so mellow, and the music from the near-by square so alluring that we strolled down there. We stood in a quiet corner to enjoy the charming scene: the palm trees, little tables crowded with cheerful humanity, the music softly accompanied by the moonlit waves breaking under the towering age-old walls. We noticed that the people began passing us closely and staring at me. "A slinky black dress and flowers, a serpentine figure and red hair"-so, I heard later, ran the gossip. "What else can she be but a spy?" From that night on, I was called the "femme fatale of Dubrovnik."

Busybodies got busy, and now I began to appear in the suspicion books of the Yugoslav Government: "In her quiet way, she observes everything" is a quotation from a letter my lawyer later saw in my dossier. Flavel and I decided to make a complete tour of the Balkans by car. We wrote to Shucho, my Albanian interpreter, who spoke all the necessary languages and drove well, asking him to come and drive us. He arrived. We made every possible effort to buy a car in Yugoslavia. But tourist business was very brisk and we could not find one for sale. Shucho knew of a suitable one in Scutari, and though he was warned, urged, and begged not to return into Italian territory, he decided to risk it. He went, bought the car, and started back. He had almost reached the frontier again when he was arrested and thrown into prison, together with his younger brother, Halil. They were charged with acting as my agents, as "spies." They were the breadwinners of a large family, and I received a frantic message from their mother, imploring me to secure their release. I was, of course, extremely upset and felt responsible for the lives of these boys who had unquestionably been prepared to give their own lives for my safety only a few weeks before. Flavel engaged another chauffeur and at last secured a car. She set off without me, begging me to the last moment to come too. I simply could not do it: I had to get those boys out of prison. So now I settled down in Budva, on the Montenegrin coast of the Adriatic near the Albanian frontier, and began pulling every conceivable string to secure their release. Everyone who might have any influence was approached, including the Queen of Italy, a Montenegrin princess. In vain. I arranged means of getting in touch with the boys inside the prison and supplied them and their family with money. Soon I became involved with an extraordinary cast of characters: spies, blackmailers, street women known to be sleeping with high Italian officers in Scutari, corrupt officials. The hero of my thriller was a brave little man, a Jew, who also loved the boys and who three times risked his life by slipping across the frontier to help them.

Among others I had written to Herr von Pannwitz, the German minister to Albania, the last diplomat left in Tirana, who also had liked the boys. His reply was as follows: "In spite of every effort, I have been unsuccessful in securing their release. I therefore strongly advise you to go yourself to Scutari and address your request personally to the authorities, since Italians, as you know, always dislike refusing a request from a lady." I had some reason to think this might be a trap. Nevertheless I decided to go. Any hope of my getting a visa for Albania was, of course, out of the question. But parties of Germans were being taken by bus for a few hours in Scutari to observe the delights of the Italian occupation. My name was smuggled onto one of these "omnibus passes." My friend the Yugoslav director of the bus company was so alarmed that he decided to accompany me on the pretext of road inspection, and Imre Gal, another friend of great influence in the Balkans, drove in his own car to the frontier, determined to plunge across if the bus came out again without me. After a night in Podgoritsa and a start at 4 A.M., we arrived in Scutari at eight in the morning. The instant the bus stopped I asked the director to wait one hour for me at the hotel and then take whatever action he thought best. Then I ran at top speed to the prefecture to get there before the news of my arrival. Imagine my surprise: the town was gaily decorated for the arrival next day-again, yes, again- of the busy and charming Count Cianol. I was instantly shown into the office of the acting commandant of Scutari, Captain Marolli of the Carabinieri. Though he had never seen me he knew at once who I was. "How did you get here?" he screamed. "By bus, of course. How else?" "You are under arrest!"

He seized my British pass, which I had with me, and ran out into the corridor. Ensued a banging of doors, furious shouts, and a buzz as of angry bees. Marolli returned and sat down glaring at me. I began quietly explaining the situation to him from the very beginning. The telephone rang-I could hear an excited voice squealing the news. "Yes, yes. She is here"-an informer on the job. Again and again the phone rang. "Dash the thing," I laughed. "I want you to listen to me, sir, and I have to start from the beginning each time!" I felt that the boys' lives depended on my getting him into a good humor. He forgot himself and smiled. "I am listening, madam, with full attention. Please proceed. I will get rid of these interruptions." He switched the phone to a secretary next door. Slowly he began to relax, his high color returned. Everyone who came into the room, I began to notice, was sent out again more and more peremptorily. I finished my story. "Will you please, sir, let the boys go, now that you know how absurd it all is?" He sat looking at me without answering. He had unbuttoned his jacket. Suddenly he got up and locked the corridor door. So this sort of thing did really happen outside of novels! When I looked down I saw my knees visibly trembling like those of a character in the comics. But this was anything but funny. Nothing was more certain than that if I antagonized him now he would take it out on the boys. "Madam," said this fat, disgusting bloodhound in the gentlest voice, "there is such a thing as love at first sight. If I asked you if you had ever kissed a man the first time you saw him, what would your answer be?" "My answer, I'm afraid, sir [all this was mostly in French, my Italian being inadequate for subtleties] would be 'No'." I don't know what gods I called upon, but I kept on smiling.

"The boys will be released," he said, "instantly released if you will agree to remain here in Scutari with me. See, I will give you proof of my profound sincerity." He went to the side door and gave his secretary an order for the immediate release of the younger boy, Halil. I collected my wits and became even more politely formal. "I am sure, mon capitaine, that it is simply because you have not seen a European woman for some months that I make such an impression on you. Much as I appreciate the compliment you pay me, I have my own family to think of. I regret exceedingly that it is impossible." He made the most astonishing fool of himself. He wept. Even more astonishing, however, he continued to behave with courtesy and respect. The performance lasted for another hour. When he saw that it was useless, his good manners-and I consider this no second-rate victory-did not desert him. He decided that I must be put across the frontier immediately. Meanwhile the director, alarmed at my non-appearance, had sped away to the Yugoslav consul who, dressing formally, hurried to the prefecture and announced: "This lady is here under the direct protection of the Yugoslav Government. I must warn you that if she is molested, my government will take a very serious view of the matter." This far exceeded his authority, of course, and was a great responsibility for him to take. Captain Marolli now ordered "the best car in Scutari" and an elaborate lunch; he put me into the car himself with many bows and hand-kissings and, with a young Carabiniere lieutenant and two armed soldiers, I was driven to the frontier, the same post where I had escaped before. Arrived at the post, the lunch, including wine, was carefully laid out and punctiliously served by the guards. The lieutenant gave himself infinite pains to entertain me. He bewailed the advantages of Abyssinia, where he had just been

stationed, compared with Albania, which he believed would always be a liability rather than an asset to Italy. The bus hove in sight, came up, and stopped. And now occurred a curious and ominous incident. As I prepared to mount, at a sharp word of command the platoon of soldiers, drawn up like a guard of honor, presented arms. The attractive lieutenant bowed over my hand, handed me in, and stood at the salute as the bus moved off-the Germans, of course, all agog with excitement and curiosity. I made no explanations-but they did. Immediately on arrival in Dubrovnik they spread the information that I was an Italian emissary: had I not received the most distinguished military send-off? The official finger wrote and, having writ, moved on, and-Italy was now the third country for which I had been proved a spy! I had failed again, and this had seemed the last hope. Soon came the news that Shucho had been transferred to a malarial island off Valona. I felt miserable and desperate. Then Vaso appeared. He was a huge, intelligent Montenegrin frontier policeman who had hidden my messengers on the little lake steamer and been otherwise helpful. "Why all these complicated schemes?" he asked me calmly. "They've been fun, but I'm getting tired of them. Why not go at the thing simply and straightforwardly now and finish it?" "How?" I breathed, amazed. He explained what he meant. And so it was done: we bribed everybody from the prison governor down to the smallest turnkey-quite possibly even Marolli himself. It took time and cost me about 150,000 dinars (about $3,ooo at the then current exchange), but the boy arrived at last in Yugoslavia.

The war broke out soon afterwards, and Shucho returned to fight in the abortive revolt of the Albanian mountaineers. My last information was that he had been killed in action. Vaso, who remained my trusty and dependable henchman, later joined General Mihailovich.

8. I MEET KING'S SON MARKO

So THE SUMMER OF I939 passed in Budva of the Beautiful Beaches. Once a nest of the notorious Adriatic pirates, it was a sort of miniature Dubrovnik, even to the island lying, like Lokrum, out in the bay. But its surrounding mountain scenery was far more magnificent. Cockily its little medieval walls stood out into the waves; snug was its tiny harbor for the snub-nosed Turkish sailing ships with wooden turbans on their prows and huge eyes painted on their bows. Through the mellow nights the local boys wandered up and down the rosehung streets or drifted in little boats, strumming their guitars and singing the lovely Dalmatian, Serbian, and Macedonian songs- and never, never once a strain of jazz. "Tamo daleko... [So far, so far, my love...]" Ineffable the sweetness of this, my favorite Balkan melody, as it floated across the calm, moonlit waters. Budva was very primitive, with no electricity and with streets too narrow and winding for wheeled traffic. During the residence of the King at his near-by summer palace, the smart, white-uniformed naval officers passing with their pretty lassies at night through dim-lit arches gave the town an unreal, theatrical effect. All day I either bathed in the warm, sunny Adriatic or sometimes, guided by my friend Rado Zambalich, hunted for ancient Greek remains washed up by the sea: pieces of pottery or statuettes more than two thousand years old. And every day I worked, and worked hard. For in the intervals of my prisonbreaking plots, I had discovered what I consider to be one of the great literary treasures of humanity, far too little known by the outside world: the national epics of Serbia. I studied them with absorption, and I discovered that Goethe had considered the Serbian epics to be the finest in the world, even surpassing the German Niebelungenlied. The Serbs are a very small race; there were before the war not more than eight million of them. But it is a race of strikingly individual character, of extraordinary

tenacity of purpose and ideal. That ideal can be expressed in a single word: Freedom. "It is not glory, it is not riches, neither is it honor, but it is liberty alone that we fight and contend for, which no honest man will lose but with his life." Thus have spoken the Serbs throughout their history. So they are speaking and acting now, at this moment. For them freedom means not only national but individual freedom for each man: every man a little king. For centuries, since before America was even discovered, they have defended their and our own ideal of democracy with their blood. Their whole history is simply the epic of the struggle of humanity for liberty. And through the long centuries until today, as in a heroic opera, the same motif returns. For see how strangely, almost word for word, the events chronicled in their epics of five hundred years ago have repeated themselves in the present war. On the eve of the battle of Kossovo in I389, SO sing those ancient songs, Prince Lazar, the leader of the Serbs, was offered "an earthly kingdom"-that is, vassalage to the Turks, with security of frontiers, life, and property-or "a heavenly kingdom": death in a hopeless cause. He and his men deliberately chose the latter, went out against a numerically superior and better-armed Turkish army, and-died. They died, but, even as today, their choice that day profoundly influenced the destiny of nations. If they had not fought as they did fight then and unceasingly afterwards, the Turks would almost certainly have overrun the whole of Europe. In that event our history, yours and mine and America's, might have been very different: our culture might have been Ottomanized. (What a splendid historical compensation it would be if the Turks, as seems today not unlikely, should be the ones to help the Serbs to save their liberty!) Could there be a more perfect parallel in present history than the German offers and promises to the Serbs? In 1941, as in I389, this tiny race on the narrow road between Europe and Asia stood, like Horatio on the bridge, holding back singlehanded the conquering horde, so that those behind could prepare. They stood and they died. Today they stand as no other race is standing and they are dying as no other race is dying.

Only this time the name is not Prince Lazar, but General Draja Mihailovich. I'll never forget how I got my first inkling of those great Serbian epics. It was in Scutari, in Albania, in the ancient, tangled garden of my lovely vizier's house. The grapevines were in flower, huge vines that threw their gnarled old branches over trellised arbors. Have you ever smelled the scent of the Oriental grape in flower? It is exquisite and intoxicating, so intoxicating that thick swarms of bees and enormous butterflies are apt to fall drunk with an orgy of grape nectar into one's lap and down one's neck. Some boys from the high school who wanted to practice their English used to come to tea. Over us spread, above the grapevines, an enormous mulberry tree, and the white squashy fruits kept dropping round us. We picked them up and sucked them while we chattered and laughed in the hot Albanian afternoon. One boy said something about Kraljevich Marko (King's Son Marko) . "And who," said I, "is he?" Startled looks passed from eye to eye: Had this unfortunate foreigner had no education at all? "You don't know about Kraljevich Marko?" It seemed impossible, but I didn't. So one of them, a black-eyed, curly-headed boy, lying on the ground amongst the white mulberries and the drunk butterflies, put his hands behind his head-and let me have it. Tale after tale he told about the great Serbian hero, Marko, and his almost equally heroic horse, Sharats or Shahrin. I was amazed and delighted. I have a passion for legendary tales. So, soon after reaching Montenegro, I plunged into a study of Kraljevich Marko. Before I had finished I was able to offer a prize of five dollars to anyone who could tell me a detail about him I did not know or could start a story about him which I could not finish- and there were dozens. Several connoisseurs gaily tried but had to admit themselves defeated.

Later, in the prisons, this store of tales proved a strange blessing. Night after night I told stories, drawn out with fanciful elaboration, to lure the minds of my wretched fellow prisoners away into another world, away from the horrors of the present and the dread of a dark future. It is related that King's Son Marko was just too young to take part in the fatal battle of Kossovo, when the Serbs became vassals to the Turks. But he grew up to be the indomitable champion of his downtrodden race, fighting without ceasing for justice to his people. He was so adored by his people for his courage, his self-reliance, his loyalty to word and oath, his faithfulness to his friends in whatever situation, that the Turks could not risk a great Serbian revolt by an overt murder. Hence much of this cycle of songs concerns the attempts of the Sultan to have him killed in fight or by "accident." The cycle expresses the heartrending yet heartening cry of the hopelessly defeated who yet never lose courage, pride, and hope. Not he the conquering hero who, as in the epics of all other nations, emerges crowned with victory. He fights and he wins, but always with the bitter consciousness that his successes are only a part of a larger struggle which can only be hopeless because of the odds against his race. Yet he never cries for help. He is Serbia. King's Son Marko is Serbia today. He never loses his enthusiasm. He is always ready to try again at the drop of the hat, with a great laugh at the sheer thrill of the fight He is the Serbian peasant, he is Mihailovich and the Chetniks, he is all the nameless men and women-don't forget the women-who have sacrificed all they possessed, who are laboring and resisting from dawn to dawn. Foodless, shelterless, with only the poorest of poor equipment, absurdly outnumbered, they continue to fight. King's Son Marko himself, the deathless champion of human justice and liberty, is our ally today in the Balkans, an ally whose real value we have only begun to realize.

9. MY BROTHER VUKOSAVA

IN BUDVA OF THE BEAUTIFUL BEACHES my room was built in the ancient, massive city walls. Its balcony (now destroyed by the explosion of an Italian mine) directly overhung the blue Adriatic. Across a small bay lay a hill of silvery, twisted olive trees. Beside me was a miniature monastery like a toy, with a tiny Orthodox church at least seven hundred years old. It was like something off a wedding cake, built up in layers of pink and white marble, with a graceful little threefold open-arch bell tower where the bells hung free to the winds. At the proper times the schoolboys used to take turns at jumping madly up and down on the bell ropes. In front of the church drooped a few palm trees; beside it stood a cocky little fortress with a huge flag blowing bravely out to sea. And behind all this rose the towering Montenegrin mountains, usually crowned with snow. The winter after the war broke out in Europe I was absolutely alone in the hotel. My room was furnished with colorful Serbian rugs, bright as stained-glass windows, and with some fine antique weapons and brocades I had gathered. Each day the children would bring me some little gift: a shell, a special fruit, a half-dead starfish, a turtle, or something they had made, so that I should not feel lonely. How happily I used to run along the hall to see what it would be today! To my room came also their old teacher, Professor Milosavljevich. He came every day for almost a year, and we translated together seventeen volumes of ancient songs and epics, bought, borrowed and even stolen by well-wishers. This is how we worked. Besides his own language the old gentle man had only a faint and evanescent knowledge of German, which I speak as easily as English. Into this German, which he almost invented as he went along, the professor rendered the resounding phrases of his country's wonderful tales. These he loved so well that he could not resist booming them out first in the original, his large foot beating time to the heroic rhythm. Then they were turned into what he happily believed was German, and after that I wrote it all down in English, profoundly thankful that the epic language of all countries has much similarity.

The firelight shone on his eager, rosy face and silver hair; the wintry sea boomed and clashed under the window; the bells of the little church, where the very men of whom I was hearing had perhaps once prayed for victory, sang to the merry hopping of small boys. And I- I listened with inexpressible delight to the splendid deeds of heroes of long ago. To Professor Milosavljevich I am profoundly indebted for sharing with me the epic lore of his race; to him and to my good friend, M.P. In Belgrade, when I was convalescing after a bout with pneumonia, there came day after day to read to me a man who was himself a reincarnation of the greatest of those ancient heroes. Serbs of breeding all know their pedigrees for many generations, and my friend M.P. was a direct descendant of the old Nemanye kings. He so exactly reproduced the type of the old fighters that his features were used by Mestrovich, the Slav sculptor, as the model for his own conception of King's Son Marko. This huge man, holding an equally outsize volume, translated those beautiful epics fluently hour after hour into the most exquisite French, his expressive face reflecting dramatically the emotions of his own ancestors about whom he was reading. It was magnificent; it was unique. Unlike those of other Western countries, these Serbian heroic songs are not dead, entombed in books for the pleasure of the few, an echo of remote unreality. They are as alive, as real to living men today as ever they were in the past. Now, at this moment, they are being sung by Mihailovich's fighters in the high mountain passes of Montenegro, in the deep Bosnian forests, in the little hidden cabins lost in the drifting snow. As I write, rough skillful fingers are touching the strings there in wild lands where no German dares to tread. First a song of Serbian heroes-and then: "Tamo daleko . . . [So far, so far, my love . . .]" And in spite of all the comfort, all the safety here, how bitterly I wish that I were there with them! One evening I was visiting the family of M.P. in one of the most savage parts of Montenegro, now the very heart of Chetnik resistance, the Sanjak of Novi Pazar.

There were in our party several high officials of the Yugoslav Government, of whom my friend was one. We were sitting on rough benches in the great beamed and smoke-darkened kitchen with a group of beautifully costumed retainers and peasants. Their dark, fierce faces showed, now bright, now shadowy, in the flickering light from the open central fire. Our host, M.P.'s older brother, was a perfect Viking of a fellow, the leader of the Sanjak Chetniks. He was famous as a great fighter, years ago, against the Turks. As a matter of course he called for his gusle (a sort of two-stringed guitar), whose head formed a roughly carved horseman. Then in his deep, harsh voice he began to sing. He sang one of his own family songs. He sang of how his great-uncle killed a notorious, bloody tyrant, Suleiman Pasha. He sang of deeds that were as natural to himself as breathing. The circle of eyes, including those of my fine educated gentlemen from Belgrade, gleamed with pride. The firelight flashed on the jeweled royal decorations hanging at M.P.'s throat and on his breast and on his magnificent goldembroidered Montenegrin dress. He had that afternoon made a great speech to about 40,000 of his countrymen concerning-of all anachronisms-a railroad at last to Montenegro. Huge, handsome, accustomed to the ceremonies of royal courts, his eyes were almost wet, were humble with admiration of his great wild elder brother who was voicing the deepest instinct of their race: unflinching resistance to oppression. What, I thought, could the cultured, civilized countries, with their rich cities, their artificial theaters and delicate, emasculated concerts, their everlasting bars, offer in exchange for this vivid, fierce, primitively human reality? You may be certain that this singer of great songs has gone out into the mountains to take his German and Italian heads. And with him went his two sons, one a professor. At the age of sixty he is out in the great snows of the Sanjak, fighting again for freedom, as his ancestors before him have fought. I can think of nothing I wish more than to grasp again one day the tough hand of this, my Chetnik brother.

I say "my brother," for it was not long before he became just that. We had a long talk as we marched over his rough uncultivated lands, chasing his wild sheepVukosava, the old chief of the Sanjak Chetniks, and I. He explained to me the history and purpose of the organization. Knowing of my life in the Albanian mountains and seeing my pleasure and ease in the "discomforts" of his own wild territory, he laughingly said: "You yourself would make a good Chetnik-a real Chetnik if ever I saw one. Why don't you join us ?" I replied soberly that I would think it over but that I was doubtful if I could measure up to the necessary standard. He stopped laughing and looked at me for some time thoughtfully. I can see him now, gray, tall as a totem pole, with eagle eye and eagle nose, incredibly gaunt against the gray mountainside. "If Serbia needed you-would you fight?" he asked suddenly. "My father was a fighter in the American Civil War," I said. "He gave me his sword before he died. It has always hung above my bed. My two brothers fought in the last war for America. One died fighting. The other is known to my countrymen as 'Fighting General Billy.' My son fights in this war for England. I will fight," I said; "I will fight gladly for Serbia if Serbia should ever need my services." He clapped me on the back with a blow that almost sent me reeling. "You'll do," he shouted, making the very rocks re-echo. "Boga mi [By God], you'll do for us. I'll stand your toom [sponsor] myself," said the old chief, Vukosava. Shoulder to shoulder-though my shoulder only came to his elbow -we tramped back singing, as sings every marching Chetnik: "Spremte, se spremte, Chetnitsi, silna che borba da bude Iz ove nase pobede, radja se sunce slobode . . ."

10. THE CHETNIKS ARE SERBS

RADIO COMMENTATORS, newspaper and magazine editors, and writers have made many weird and ill-informed statements about the Chetniks. They are often referred to as "Yugoslav Chetniks." This is absurd and a contradiction in terms. The Chetniks are Serbs. Nothing else. They are the Serbian Chetniks; just that. And although now many Slovenes and some Albanians, Bulgarians, and even a few Croats have been received into their ranks, they remain what they always have been, the Serbian Chetniks. To explain this now internationally famous and to the United Nations increasingly important organization of guerrilla fighters, I cannot do better than quote Mr. L. M. Peyovich, a well-known Serb writer and historian, with whom I fully agree. This is what Mr. Peyovich says: "The Chetniks are just as much Serbian as is, for instance, the Serbian Church, the Serbian language, or the Serbian epics. The Chetniks have nothing in common with the Yugoslav idea-they are the Serbian idea. "The Serbian Chetniks existed many centuries before the Yugoslav idea was ever born. The word 'Yugoslavia' conveys only a geographical idea, a political ideology, and a political setup. On the other hand, the word 'Serbia' denotes definitely a race of people, a nation with a language, a religion, and a culture entirely its own. "The Serbian Chetniks are the product of a purely Serbian tradition, a Serbian way of life and ideal, just as much as the American frontiersmen were the product of purely American conditions and American pioneering ideals. The American and the Serbian ideals are the same: the great ideal of liberty. "To understand the meaning of the word 'Chetnik' we must go back almost six hundred years to the Turks. In I389 the Serbs lost their national independence in the great Battle of Kossovo Field. According to tradition, the Serbian leader, Prince Lazar was at that time confronted with two alternatives: either to accept the

Kingdom of God, which meant to die in battle for liberty, or to accept an earthly kingdom, which meant to rule Serbia under the Turks as a vassal state. "Prince Lazar for himself and his people chose the former. So his army was slaughtered, his brave knights slain, and he himself was killed in battle. But his noble example started a tradition among the Serbian people: the passionate belief that it is better to die the death of a hero than to live the life of a slave. "This tradition has been observed throughout the centuries to the present day. It created a high sense of duty toward the country, and established standards of 'heirs to heroism.' It made heroes out of simple peasants. "After Serbia was subdued by the Turks, many people fled the country, across the rivers Sava and Danube into the then deserted Hungarian borderlands where they continued their fight against the Crescent. But those fighters who remained in Serbia went to the mountains and were called 'haiduks.' Later they formed companies- 'Chete,' from which comes the word 'Chetnik.' A Chetnik therefore means one of the company, or brotherhood of fighters. "From that time onward the very same mountains and forests where Draja Mihailovich fights the enemy today became the home of the Serbian Chetniks. 'Planino moja starino [Mountain, my old mountain],' says the Chetnik song. These brave and determined men kept the torch of liberty burning in Serbia for five long centuries. One generation after another withstood the most terrible punishment, but kept on fighting, unrelenting, 'for holy cross and golden liberty [za Krst casni i slobodu zlatnu].' "At last, after centuries, their ceaseless struggles were successful, and the free kingdom of Serbia began to be established in 1804 The Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 and the present guerrilla warfare in the mountains of Serbia are nothing else but a continuation of the old, old struggle of the Serbian Chetniks for the free way of life as the Serbs love it. "Draja Mihailovich has not started anything new. He, as a true, brave, and worthy son of his people, has just followed the tradition of Kossovo. Much less has he borrowed any Chetnik idea from any other national group in Yugoslavia. On the contrary, the Chetnik idea is just as strange and as foreign to those other groups

who are now attempting to follow his lead as they are misunderstood by many American commentators. "Mihailovich has combined the Serbian idea and the instinctive national heroism with his genius for leadership, which has astounded the whole world. But there were many Chetnik leaders in the Serbian mountains before him. Uncounted legions of Chetniks died for the very same cause for which the Chetniks are dying today. Such names as Yovan Babunski of World War I, Djordje Skopljanats, Vuk Popovich, Bogdan Zimonjich, and many others stud the brilliant pages of Serbian history and will live forever in the memory of Serbs. "So when you hear the great and gripping marching song, 'Spremte se spremte Chetnitsi,' remember that you are hearing the hymn of the Serbian Chetniks and not a Yugoslav song. It is a war song, perhaps the greatest on earth, which has inspired uncountable thousands to their death for the cause of liberty. "This song is now echoing through the hidden mountain passes of Serbia, America's stanch ally, as a herald of happier days to come for the Serbian people. It is the anthem of the only free spot in the Balkans, the 'Island of Freedom,' where Draja Mihailovich and his brave men are making new history."

11. AGAIN EXPULSION?

September 4 1939 England and France at war with Germany. In Budva, all the night before, a group of friends and I sat or walked up and down the avenue of gigantic mulberry trees in front of the row of small restaurants which possessed the only radios in the town. Each of us was absorbed in trying to guess what was in store for our countries and to decide what he or she ought to do. Should I return to England or America? If I did, how useful could I be there? I remembered Lord Beaverbrook's dictum: "Make yourself master of one single subject and the time must come when your knowledge will be valuable." I decided to make Serbia, the Balkans, my subject. I liked these people and they seemed to like me. I really loved them. I admired their stern struggle for the barest existence, their pride and dignity. Soon I began to feel as if Serbia were my real home, the place where I was meant to be. I traveled all over Montenegro and talked, probably, with every man or woman who spoke a word of English. I collected groups of peasants and told them clearly what the Allies were fighting for: for liberty for the small nations, for freedom for every man to walk upright, his own master, in the traditions and ways of life which each thought best. I studied the history and customs of the different regions and races of the Balkans. I began to study the Serbian language-and I can tell you that to master one's first Slav language is a fearful task. No matter how many Latin languages one speaks they are of no use at all in learning a Slav language. Carefully I watched the trend of events in Yugoslavia and the reactions of the people that made up that uneasy state. I tramped across the landscape and watched the steep mountain roads being mined in preparation for a possible Italian attack. I even had my own German prisoner: a husky youth who was trying to return home to join his army and whom,

by various machinations, I prevented from leaving, though I only once spoke to him in passing. And again I became suspect. Again-"Why should a woman who might be in the gay whirl of the world wish to remain in a little Montenegrin coast town?" The commandant of Budva actually wrote to the central government (my lawyer later saw the letter) as follows: "This lady is dangerous: she writes on her typewriter all day long." I discovered an exquisite, completely forgotten old monastery in a lovely valley opening to the sea. It had in its cellar a tiny windowless chapel, whose walls were completely covered with original Byzantine frescoes at least seven hundred years old. It had a red marble terrace about a hundred feet long, overhung with orange and lemon trees. I decided to buy it and made happy plans about my Montenegrin monastery with its rose-red terrace on the Adriatic. There was a new law that no foreigner could buy property within fifty miles of the coast, so I had to petition the Government for permission to purchase it. The Town Council of Budva, hearing of my wish, held a meeting. These serious men, indignantly differing from the suspicious military authorities, drew up a document so flattering to me that I would hesitate to repeat the wording. They begged the Government at Belgrade to make an exception in my favor and to grant me every facility. As each man had to affix his signature over a twenty-dinar tax stamp, this was no light compliment. One of the counselors ran around quickly to show it to me before posting it, and I laid it on the floor and photographed it. The permission to buy arrived shortly, but not the permission to remain there! Instead there came an order that I must be removed inland to Cetinje, the capital of Montenegro, and that I must not move about without a detective always in attendance. When I was to leave I ordered my car brought to a side gate, hoping to depart unobserved. But the news got round and the whole back of my car was filled with

flowers, wine, and honey. And the children with their parents stood round dismally, none of us dry-eyed. I had the curious and perhaps unique experience of seeing a proclamation of mine posted up on the great city gates, more than a thousand years old, in which I thanked the people for their kindness to me-especially the market women who had brought me as gifts flowers they could easily have sold me. I promised to return when the day of liberty had dawned again upon a sorrowful world. And that I propose to do. Cetinje was so beautiful that I could not long regret the change. The police treated me with the most thoughtful consideration. They had to obey their orders, but they did it in form only, laughing: "What fools they are up in Belgradesomebody's made a silly mistake!" I climbed the grim Montenegrin peaks, now covered with such a wealth of wildflowers that it took one's breath away. The little old town of Cetinje, hardly more than a village although it is the capital of Montenegro, lies in the huge crater of an extinct volcano surrounded by its wreath of mountains. To the south one descends to the lovely Lake of Scutari, to the west to Budva of the Beaches, northward to the Boka Kotorska (Bocca di Cattaro), that inlet of the Adriatic considered by many travelers (and by me) to be the most magnificent fiord in all Europe. The scenery was so wonderful, the air so wine like, I felt so well, that I came to the conclusion that of all the places in the world this would be the most satisfactory one in which to spend my life. Dunkirk and the fall of France.... I was almost beside myself with anxiety for England . . . England, solitary, the hope of the world. The attitude of the Serbs was typical of their character. Serbs as a race had a very strong feeling of admiration, of affection and gratitude toward France for the help that country had given them in the last war. Many Serbs had finished their education there, and many more of them spoke French than English. England seemed farther away, colder, less understood. The defection of France was received by the Serbs like a violent blow on the chin. They were stupefied with surprise and disbelief. It simply could not be true:

respectable people couldn't do a thing so disloyal. It simply passed their ability to grasp that the last, the very last, Frenchman would not prefer to die before thus deserting an ally. Slowly the truth came home. England, little England-always now it was "little England," like an endearment-England stood all alone. This was right in their own tradition. The Serbs too had stood alone -how often in their history! The days passed, the weeks. England showed not the slightest sign of dismay. In those days something was born, a passion which England should know about and would do well never to forget. The sympathy which swept like a tidal wave across Serbia, the admiration which rose to a sort of fever heat, the feeling of comradeship of one brave race for a splendid brother, was unforgettable. When the British national anthem was played, people rose, weeping. All the old affection for France was transferred to England and increased a thousandfold. France was no more spoken of. France to the Serbs was dead. I must mention a funny incident. One evening I saw a German "commercial traveler" sitting in front of the hotel, no doubt planning, as they all did, how Germany would suck this Yugoslavia dry when she had seized it. Suddenly all the doors down the main street opened. The people rushed out and began running madly toward the hotel. The German jumped up. "What is it?" he asked, terrified, of the hotel-keeper standing near. "Is it a revolution?" The innkeeper calmly looked at his watch. "It's seven-forty, of course. That's all." "What do you mean?" asked the German blankly. "What's seven-forty?" "Time for the English radio, of course, and mine is the only instrument in working order." The Nazi vanished, furious: no one stirred a foot to listen to the Nazi radio! A very curious thing happened to me at this time. I was on a little mountain path, hardly noticing where I was going, so absorbed I was in miserable

speculation about the war. Could all the eager, proud little countries already gobbled up be lost forever? How would it all turn out? "If I could only have some sign from heaven," I groaned desperately, "some sign of hope!" I remembered how, not far south of here in Ancient Greece, soothsayers foretold the future by the flight of birds. Now this incident sounds most improbable, but I put it down because it happens to be true. At that moment I looked down at the path, and this is what I saw (owing to my being under suspicion, I now never carried a camera; otherwise, of course, I would have photographed it): A snake, about eighteen inches long and very slim, had swallowed a lizard. The lizard was large, too large for the snake's capacity, and it had only been able to swallow its prey up to the hind legs and tail, which stuck out. In dying, the lizard had bitten the snake in the stomach, a large hole. They both lay there dead. Such a sight has probably very seldom been seen even by a naturalist, but for me to see it at that moment was certainly strange. Suddenly, without warning, came an order from Belgrade that I was to be put over the Greek frontier within twelve hours, and that there positively would be no appeal. I could, however, still stand on my right, the right of every citizen of a foreign country, to see my country's representative. I insisted on my right to proceed to the capital. The police were horrified by the order and only too anxious to assist me. The wires hummed; but only to bring a stern confirmation of the order. I also telegraphed at once to my friend M.P., who, among his other distinguished activities, had helped to organize the police force of Yugoslavia and had abolished the frightful old Turkish foot-beating. The police throughout the country remained his devoted admirers. The chief of detectives of Montenegro was assigned to accompany me to Belgrade with the single purpose of explaining to the authorities there that they not only had nothing against me but only wanted me to come back.

I decided to fly. After a three-hour car journey, we arrived at the Podgoritsa airfield, near the Albanian frontier. The news spread like wildfire that "a famous spy and a terrible enemy of the country" had been caught and was being transported under arrest. A mob collected, worked itself into a fury, picked up stones and, pressing closer and closer, showed signs of becoming violent. My detective stood in front of me. I can see him now, how the back of his neck grew slowly dark red with anger. He put his hand on his hip (no doubt he was armed) and: "This lady is no spy," he barked. "One step nearer, let one man raise his hand and he will be shot on the spot. This lady is a friend, a good friend, of Yugoslavia. Disperse!" Slowly they pushed back and melted away. I gave that good fellow an inscribed cigarette case and never was more pleased to acknowledge a real service. At the Belgrade airfield I was met by M.P. And then it was, of course, unnecessary to trouble the minister with my little problems.

12. READY, MY CHETNIK BROTHERS

It WAS NOW obviously advisable to remain in Belgrade. After a few months in the Srbski Kralj Hotel I found a very attractive home in the Slavija Hill district. It was an L-shaped corner house and, like most old Serbian houses, one-storied, and right on the pavement. Through the double windows and net curtains I could see out perfectly, but no one could look in. It was a curious sensation to have people passing within three feet quite unconscious of my close observation. Now I had a perfect setting for all my lovely antiques. I added to them busily by haunting not only the little shops but also, my best source, the open markets, of which I knew seven. I spread out soft gold brocades on which I laid or hung the things I treasured most: old silver trays showing ancient heroes slicing off the heads of foes; a rusty spearhead, dating probably from 1389 dug up on the battlefield of Kossovo; old swords and knives, their silver hilts and sheaths studded with coral and cornelian, and their steel as sharp today as on the last time they were plunged into a heart by chieftains in the far Black Mountains of Illyria. On the walls, in a curious butterfly shape, were hung rare purple and blue velvet cloaks, so stiff with fine gold embroidery they could stand alone, left from the days when Serbian pride and power showed itself in dress; with them went heavy silver belts set with many-colored stones. For contrast with the swords I had the traditional woman's weapon, scissors. My collection, made up of specimens some two hundred years old, was unique, I believe. Their golden handles spelled a prayer for victory to Allah. All these things were dear to me both for their intrinsic beauty and because they expressed a living tradition. Best, most valued of all my treasures were my thirteen fine old icons of St. George, the patron saint both of Serbia and of England from the time when the Crusaders brought him back, their prototype, as they returned home across the Balkans from the Holy Land. Lovingly enameled, set with silver, gold, and pearl,

and dim with the incense of a thousand candles long burnt out before him, in thirteen attitudes he sat his prancing steed and swung his spear to slay the writhing dragon: St. George, the Fighting Saint of Serbia. Sitting at my window one morning in November I940, I saw a column of marching men passing down my street to the near-by Orthodox church. They were dressed in the handsome black-embroidered brown costume of the Shumadiya peasant. On their heads the black astrakhan cap, the shubara; on their feet the rawhide, upturned opanche, the soundless sandals. Before them they carried black banners, silver fringed, bearing in white and silver the device of a grinning skull above crossed bones. They wore the same device in metal on their breasts, together with, in some cases, rows of decorations. They were bearing their somberly fierce banners to church to be blessed by the priest, and so they were that day unarmed. To call these big men tough-looking is to make an extreme understatement. There was something in the carriage of their heads, the calm yet burning look in their narrow eyes, the slightly stealthy, slightly sinister loose movement of the knees, in the reckless, devil-may-care yet unostentatious, supremely self-reliant swing of the shoulders, which marked them the toughest set of men I had ever laid eyes on. They had no musical instrument of any sort, not even a drum. Little they cared about straight ranks or even about keeping step. No officers marched before or beside them: discipline was obviously a matter for each man himself. The elder men with the largest number of medals seemed a shade tougher and grimmer than the others. They were in the forward ranks. The only honor seemed to be the bearing of the heavy flags. They were all officers, they were all privates-they were brothers. They were the Chetniks, marching. And low, monotonous, hardly more than a mutter-not for these stern men to open their mouths and yell!-like rumble of distant thunder came the song that is to me the greatest marching song on earth:

"Ready, now ready, Chetnik brothers! Mighty the coming battle, And on our glorious victory Will rise the sun of Liberty . . ." The song of the Chetniks on the job-the soul of Serbia on the march! When violins are playing, another one Iying aside will sometimes answer, vibrate on a note. Just so my heart sang its answer to those marching men. I remembered that old eagle, Vukosava of the Sanjak mountains, and his blow upon my back. Was this at last what I had been waiting for, unconsciously seeking for? I had no doubt that it was so. Nothing else mattered. I made up my mind. It is interesting to compare the Chetniks with the Nazis and their everlasting squawking, their robot parades, the blatantly staged mass ceremonies with which they have to keep up their morale. (It is an actual fact that when German soldiers are marching and the order is given to sing, if a man does not shout loud enough he is severely punished!) Chetniks seldom march-almost never when on the job. They drift, as a fox drifts through the brush. Soundless, like the tigers in India, they will make their attack perhaps at fall of night, and next morning be far across the mountains and away. They are the Invisible Army. They are the Silent Front. They have no big "rah-rah" meetings, and no social life in the sense of parties. A man becomes a Chetnik for the single purpose of killing enemies of Serbian freedom with gun and knife. The simple peasants who constitute nine tenths of the force do not need elaborate training. It is bred in their very bones by centuries of inheritance. Alertness, quickness of decision, cunning and speed are theirs by the long process of natural selection-by the fact that men lacking those qualities did not live long enough to propagate, to water down the race. In emergency each man thinks for himself what is best to do and does it. It has to be right, or he isn't a Chetnik-at least not for long!

Every peasant born in the heart of Serbia is born a candidate for membership in the brotherhood. Today I have no hesitation in saying that every peasant still alive in certain areas of Serbia is a Chetnik. They have no reserves: every man is all-out. They have no transport: every man is his own means of locomotion, and the distances they can cover on foot are stupendous. For artillery, they have only the guns and ammunition each man can carry on himself. They have no field kitchens: every man carries ten days' rations of hard bread, cheese, and onions done up in a handkerchief. If he comes across something else-corn, a sheep-he is lucky and is, by the law of the land, entitled to take whatever he needs. Every Chetnik must be a whole army in himself. There are many Serbian women in the organization, and they are true Chetniks. They fulfill innumerable vital functions. They forage for food, they look after the weapons, they creep through the army lines and gather information. They are doing it now as I write. And they fight-make no mistake, they fight-and they kill. Some have received high decorations. They turn a sentry's head at the right moment, they poison enemy food, they lay time bombs. And when they must, they use a sharp knife or a gun. Draja Mihailovich, who is today holding open the back door of Europe for the Allies, has been able to do it not least because of the courage and the resourcefulness, the cunning and the strength of Serbian Chetnik women. It happens that I can walk twenty miles a day, day after day, and thirty at a pinch. I proved it. I can ride most things on four legs for longer than the animal can stand it. I proved it. Also I happen to like hard bread and cheese and onions. I was invited to join the Serbian Cavalry. I was also asked to act as observer in the Flying Corps (I had flown my own plane). I preferred to be a Chetnik. A noted member of the force presented me to that old Chetnik leader Voivoda Kosta Pechanats (translated, the Duke Kosta of Pech, spoken of by the foreign correspondents by his family name of Pavlovich). Great and valorous he had been in his past as a fighter in all the recent Balkan wars. Thus I shall always remember the old man, however sad his later fate.

Typical of the whole organization were his headquarters. You entered a narrow door into a little courtyard and walked up rickety wooden stairs into a two-room office. What had been sufficient for a hundred years was sufficient now. There, behind a large desk, sat the great old fighter, his left breast covered with row upon row of ribbons, recognitions from his own and many foreign governments of services in war. Voivoda Kosta Pechanats was just a little too old for active fighting, just a little too large from recent years of ease. He was dramatically handsome with the years of adulation he had received. Three walls of the low room were completely covered with pictures and photographs of Serbian fighters old and recent, of Chetnik groups in mountain and field, of crowned heads who were the Voivoda's friends, of lesser men of desperate deeds, among them Princip, who murdered the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and started World War I. These mementos were interspersed with an arsenal of pistols, guns, swords, daggers, and knives. In one corner hung an icon of Saint Sava, an everlasting lamp glimmering before it; in the opposite corner, on a little shelf, the most conspicuous thing in the room: a skull, a real skull, lying on crossed shinbones. These were the actual bones of a seventeen-year-old Chetnik who died in action against the Bulgarian I.M.R.O. Often this boy's mother came to see the old man, never guessing that the bones she saw were those of her own son. My name was written in a big and well-worn book and I was taken in hand, M.P. serving as my surety and sponsor. (I must remind my readers that the Balkans are still under the German heel. Hence, though I should like to give full names and it seems ungrateful not to do so, it would endanger the lives of my friends and their relatives. Even the initials are incorrect.) Being already a fair shot with a revolver, I was now taught how to use a dagger: not from above the shoulder, as one would expect, but upward under the ribs to reach the heart. Like the western two-gun men, one had to be as quick as lightning, with the balance just right. I practiced, of course, on a hanging bag of sawdust. This was just for unexpected emergencies, as it was soon decided that for my intended function I should have to depend on brain, not brawn.

I must also say a word about the poison, concerning which American papers have made elaborate misstatements. It has been widely printed that I gave an oath never to be taken alive, since "all Chetniks commit suicide if captured." That is, of course, simply absurd. No Chetnik is ever taken prisoner if he is known to be a Chetnik. Chetniks neither give nor receive quarter: they are shot on sight. If, however, one is taken alive and is known to be a Chetnik, it can only be for the purpose of forcing information from him, which is always done-not least by the Germans-by torture. If therefore he is captured, certain of his fate, he takes poison to avoid any danger of giving away his comrades as he is mangled to death. To commit suicide when his captors do not know him to be a Chetnik would, of course, be idiotic, would in fact be contrary to his oath, since he might still escape or somehow be useful to his force. I knew one Chetnik personally in Belgrade prison, and there may have been and quite probably were others like him, not known by their captors to be members of the organization. As an American woman I did not seriously fear torture by the Germans and Italians-little did I then know the Nazis! Nevertheless I sewed the poison in the collar of my coat in the usual position, where it can be chewed when the hands are bound. When engaged in intelligence work behind the enemy lines, a Chetnik, needless to say (I am sometimes asked such weird questions), gets rid of his uniform. It has been said by enemies of the Serbs in America that Kosta Pechanats was pro-Axis, that he was then in German pay. This, I know-no one could know betteris absolutely false. His later action, and that of others associated with him, was the result of a tragic paradox: they loved their people more than they loved their country. But Serbia is Serbia because of Serb tradition, and the true bearers of Serb tradition, the Chetniks, loved Serbia more than their own lives. Pechanats erred in that he hoped to save the lives of his people -the lives which they themselves held worthless if preserved only at the price of surrendering their national honor. At last, on the third of March, a cold gloomy day with the first damp but exciting breath of spring blowing gustily through the snowy streets, I stood in that strange little room presided over by a hero's skull. Only four people were present. The Voivoda took down a dagger and drew it from its worn sheath. A pale sun shone on its bright blade as he laid it on the desk. He took down a revolver, not bright but

dark and well oiled. He broke it to make sure it was fully loaded. He laid it crosswise on the dagger. I faced the icon and, putting my right hand on the crossed weapons and looking the old Chetnik leader firmly in the eye, repeated after him: "Do smrti za Srbiju, tako mi Bog pomogao [Till death for Serbia, by the help of God]." That was all. There was a murmur of "Amens." We all shook hands warmly, without smiling. Then he took the big old book and drew a line through my name. "Your life," he said, "is now no longer your own: it is given to Serbia." This is the only organization in the world, I think, in which, when you become a member, your name is not put down but crossed out. You must consider yourself as good as dead. How proud I was that day to be admitted to the company of that brotherhood and sisterhood! There have been women Chetniks of Serbian birth but foreign citizenship (married to foreigners) and women of foreign birth but Serb citizenship (married to Serbs), but I am, I was told, the only woman of both foreign birth and foreign nationality ever to be admitted. That evening we had a little celebration. In a small, obscure restaurant where Chetniks foregathered, we had a frugal, quiet meal. There were several of our men, mostly alone, scattered in the room. Once you are a member, you somehow can't mistake them. Though they must have guessed why I was there, not a flicker of greeting passed over their faces. It was correct to have it so. My face was, I hope, as wooden as theirs. I was a Chetnik until death.

13. "WELL AND WHY NOT?"

MY HOUSE had a delightful little garden in which standard roses marched in battalions, fastened to white-painted staves. It also possessed that boon in Balkan summers, a wide-spreading tree. Here I sat and studied when not riding or tramping to keep fit-no easy thing in a large city. After one or two diplomatic parties, I became bored with the attitude of most of the English and Americans toward the Serbs. They looked upon them as "museum pieces" and apparently made no effort to understand them. I withdrew almost entirely from that social treadmill. I must confess that after a year alone in Montenegro, in the heart of that vivid struggle for existence, it was the foreigners, "superior" to the country, who seemed to me the unreal curiosities, the anachronisms. As one local would-be-cynic poet said to me: "They seem like moles blindly shoveling away at their pointless little courses, quite unaware of the contending forces of nature, the beauty, the triumphs, the tragedies and-the general mess above them." My house became instead a center of Montenegrin interests. It must be clearly remembered that those Black Mountain people are pure Serbs. If anything they are more stubbornly tenacious of the common tradition than any other Serbian people, because Montenegro has never in its history been completely conquered. Hence the tradition has never been broken. Few were the Montenegrins of high or of simple degree who came to Belgrade and did not make their welcome appearance at my house. I also saw something of that sad phenomenon, the foreign-educated, denatured Serb. When I first arrived there were acrid arguments in government offices as to whether I was or was not a British secret service agent. It was apparently the thing fiercely to take sides. At last the arguments became so violent that they led to actual fisticuffs. My leading champion, tired of it all, had a brilliant inspiration. "Well," he said suddenly one day, "well-and why not?"

All looked at each other, amazed: no one had thought of that! "Well-and why not?" went whispering across the angry waves of suspicion. Softly they subsided"England, little England!"-and all was peace and benediction. "Well-and why not?" became my household joke. Long and deep were our discussions there in the warm evenings over a bottle of fine Smederevo or Zemun wine and the ubiquitous slivovits (plum brandy) under my pleasant tree in my rose-filled garden, overlooked from not a single neighbor's window. I had a collection of stringed instruments ready for accustomed fingers; and though my neighbors could not see us, often they must have listened, charmed, to the strains of the well-loved nostalgic Balkan songs, in mellow close harmony, carried by the gentle breeze across my garden. "Tamo daleko . . . [So far, so far, my love . . .]" But soon a more martial note began to creep into my little gatherings. The whirlpool of horror in Europe was spinning ever faster. And slowly, slowly, but with fateful inevitability, Yugoslavia was being sucked toward the evil maelstrom. How could a little country of only sixteen million inhabitants, undeveloped, poor in resources and equipment, hope to resist this all-engulfing force? To the home-bred Serb, especially the little fellows, it appeared to present no problem at all. "We will fight, of course," they said, with a simple lightness that might have been deceptive to the casual eye. They would fight-and that seemed to settle it, that seemed to be answer enough for them. But for me it didn't seem quite so self-evidently sufficient. Looking at my merry and so polite singers (Montenegrins especially are instinctive courtiers, but with the taint of servility left out), I could not help wondering, suspecting, if this might not be just a stock answer handed down by history, its real force lost in more than twenty years of prosperous peace and spreading education. The bigger fellows "in the know" began to look serious, worried, distrait. This German war machine was something never before seen on earth! The Croats, the second partners in the Yugoslav combination, were openly admiring. Croatia was the most industrialized portion of Yugoslavia with an

effective hold on the commerce of the country. For centuries the Croats had been the agitating-rather than actively rebellious-subjects of Austria and Hungary, from whom they had acquired a coloring of "Western civilization." In his heart every Croat considered himself vastly superior to the Serbs, who by ceaseless fighting, unaided, alone in the Balkans, had made themselves free. The Croats were impressed by German success, lured by German promises of material prosperity. Nothing impressed the Serbs, nothing at all, which threatened their dearest possession-their liberty.

14. THE SAINTS FIGHT TOO

I BEGAN TO TRAVEL WIDELY about the country, by train, by air, by bus. I photographed, sometimes at the request of the Government, special ceremonies and mass gatherings, where I saw local customs and costumes beautifully shown. National costume is a sign of self-respect in a race with pride in the achievements of its forefathers. It signifies a proper appreciation of racial history, an admirable self-confidence. Unfortunately most national costumes, beautified with laborious handwork, are exceedingly expensive. It is mainly for that reason that they are slowly disappearing in the Balkans before the shoddy, cheap, massproduced "Western" clothes. A serious effort must be made to keep them in constant use: they have a very significant effect on public morale. I went to Bulgaria to make special inquiries. My conclusions were that the Bulgarians as a people felt themselves drawn more and more sympathetically toward the Serbs, partly because of their fast-growing contempt for their own king, Boris. I felt justified in seeing a not too distant possibility of union. Later that belief was confirmed when learned that the Germans, when they attacked Yugoslavia, had to withdraw the Bulgarian troops from the Serbian to the Greek and Turkish frontiers, because they refused to fight the Serbs. But the Germans, by deliberately fomenting Bulgarian atrocities in Macedonia when they handed it over to Bulgaria, have weakened the hope of a political union. Again and again in Serbian village restaurants I witnessed a significant scene. Groups of men engaged in friendly chat would suddenly raise their voices in impassioned argument. Red faces, glaring eyes banging of tables, seemed to presage the flashing of knives. "What is it?" I would ask in alarm. "What are they so furious about? " "The same old thing," would come the calm answer. "They're only arguing which family gave the most men in the last war." Not "lost," you notice, but "gave"-still, twenty years after, a cause for passionate pride.

Serbian memory is exceedingly tenacious. The Powers will be making a serious mistake if later they ignore this fact. When Germany entered Serbia I could not help thinking with some relief that at least the Serbs would have something new to argue about. I do not feel so relieved now. We could not then envisage quite the extent of Croat treachery and the Croat massacres of defenseless Serb peasants in Croatia. The memory which those crimes will leave is more damaging to the hope of world peace than the bitter Serb hatred of the Germans. It is useless-worse than useless ignore these facts. They must be faced and remembered. In Macedonia I visited Prilep, its houses garlanded with drying tobacco leaves, its land, because of the fine quality of the tobacco, among the most valuable in the Balkans. The possibilities of this almost depopulated land are insufficiently appreciated. I climbed to the top of King's Son Marko's old fortress (no traveler I have ever met has done it, as it is really dangerous) and gazed out across the rolling plains of Macedonia, which during the past centuries since before the time of Alexander the Great has been the battleground of so many nations. There, in World War I the Serbs, then as now our firm allies, were the first decisively to defeat the German armies and to free their country from the invader. (Will history repeat itself?) After the Italians dropped the first bombs on Bitolj (Monastery) I went along almost the whole Yugoslav-Albanian frontier and saw the Serb troops ready, eager to attack the Italians. General Nedich, then Yugoslav Minister of War, advised, pressed, urged, that Yugoslavia should instantly declare war on Italy. If his advice had been followed he would unquestionably have had the whole country behind him. And with the Greeks hounding their rear, the pathetic Italians would have been quickly disposed of. How different would have been the history of this war-how many lives, how much treasure saved to the Allies if Nedich's counsel had prevailed!

Instead Prince Paul's government removed General Nedich from office disgraced him, and "sent him to the country." An incompetent nonentity, persona grata to Germany, was put in his place. (A recent book purporting to give a picture of the Belgrade situation at the outbreak of war makes General Nedich, as Minister of War, play a prominent and disgraceful part in the coup dtat of March 27 1941 There was no truth whatever in this allegation. Nedich was out of office and not even in Belgrade at the time.) Ochrid on its exquisite lake was, after Montenegro, my favorite place in the whole country. Once a Mohammedan town of considerable importance, its tall, quaint wooden houses now lean awry in slow decay. Few indeed are the foreigners who come to see its ancient fortress, its almond groves, its mosques, its strange, secret water grotto painted with old frescoes. Among Ochrid's many churches is one dedicated to Saint Clement. An elderly, intelligent custodian showed us its lovely Byzantine frescoes and its other humble treasures. At the end I said thoughtfully, "I hope the Germans will not get all this." "Of course not," said the man. Surprised at his conviction, I hazarded: "They do, you know. They steal everything." "Not this, they won't. The Turks tried that for hundreds of years. They never succeeded. The Saint would not let them. He won't let them now!" "But he has been dead for such a long, long time." "Dead?" cried the man, now really angry. "Dead! He is as alive today as ever he was. Every night he walks round his church to see that it is safe. No enemy will ever set foot in it. Our Saint will fight." Good God, I thought, if even her long-dead saints stand ready to do battle, who then shall hope to down Serbia?

15. THE PLOT THAT FAILED

ON MY TRAVELS I was constantly being arrested. So often that I actually lost count. It would happen like this: news would precede me that I was coming to a town, and the German consul (they had "consuls" everywhere!), apparently under orders and with the single purpose of annoying me and discouraging me from traveling, would lay some silly charge, or get the local police excited about their chance of catching a "notorious spy." And I would be brought in. One telephone message to Belgrade, if my papers were insufficient for suspicious souls, and I would be released again with many apologies. In Belgrade itself German attention to me was much more, shall we say, tiresome. Many Serbs-sixty-seven, to be exact-came to me, begging my assistance to get them down into Greece in order to join the British Army. Upon consulting the British Legation I was told that no recruits were wanted unless every man came "with a machine gun in each pocket," equipment being far more of a problem than man power. One day there appeared a young man of whom my old Cossack houseman, Michael, was at once fiercely suspicious. He gave his name as Helmuth Wuppert. He proved to me by his papers (forged, as turned out later) that he was a Jewish refugee from Austria, escaped just after the annexation. He professed bitter and undying hatred of the Germans because his father, he said, had been seized by the Gestapo and had died in prison. He was very nice-looking, and though he was fair and blue-eyed, I believed him to be a Jew, as was later confirmed. I grew sincerely fond of this unfortunate fellow and he, I know, of me. The struggle in his heart was strangely pitiful to watch. He immediately became my most devoted attendant. Soon he begged permission to bring in his best friend, Igon, of German descent but Yugoslav birth, also ostensibly fiercely anti-Nazi. This amusing, attractive youth, a "medical

student" notably vague in medical interest, could talk more and say less than anyone I ever met. He too became indefatigable in my service. I was notified almost immediately (it was unnecessary) that they were German agents set to watch me. Their business was soon confirmed when, by a slip of the tongue, Helmuth revealed his knowledge of my interest in the Chetniks. "Ha-ha, those Chetniks," I laughed heartily. "Aren't they the funniest thing in the world? I wonder how they can think anyone could take them seriously! How useless, how absurd in these days of mechanized warfare, are their daggers and skull-and-crossbones! But their history is interesting. They will supply me with a good chapter for my book." Now every American in southeastern Europe is presumed to be writing a book. (I had at that time, and also later, not the faintest intention of doing so.) "To lead them on to talk," I continued confidentially, "I must pretend admiration for them. They are such simple peasants, poor things...." Being Germans, my two watchdogs were readily induced to underestimate the importance and ability of others. By constant repetition of this line of chatter I was able to build up a reputation for frivolity which afterwards saved my life. It was not easy to decide how to handle these men. Should I play safe by dropping them or take the more difficult and dangerous course of keeping them in attendance, at the cost of unrelaxing vigilance? I decided that while they were with me they would certainly be out of other mischief-their next victim might not be as quickly warned as I was. Moreover, with them on the job the German espionage service would not find it necessary to assign someone else, someone perhaps much more skillful and intelligent and whom I might not recognize so easily. I decided to keep them. And they gave me endless fun. I used to think up the most tantalizing errands for them. For instance, I would send them to the photographers with rolls of "very important" films to develop-and call next day myself for the finished negatives and prints. Then, when they were panting with

anxiety to find out what "valuable" photographs I had taken, I showed them snaps of Montenegrin folk dances, "very important for my book." I kept them stiff and sore for days trying impossible horses for me (how I enjoyed that!) and made them search in the dirtiest parts of the Gypsy quarter for imaginary antiques. They stuck to it like heroes, but I am sure they often wished bitterly they had been given some easier job. Then I let a few friends in on the farce, and with careful preparation and "precautions" we slowly filled them up with all sorts of misleading "confidential information." All this, no doubt, was relayed to Berlin, where it caused, I hope, some confusion. They, of course, were playing a similar game with me and once, at least, they were the agents provocateurs in an attempt that, if it had succeeded, might have cost me my life. About March IO, when negotiations between Germany and Yugoslavia were not going quickly enough to suit Hitler, they arrived, apparently in great excitement, to invite me to co-operate with them in a plot. They had information, source carefully given, that the German consul general Neuhausen had received documents containing precise orders for all Nazi fifth-column agents. These orders were to take effect on the date-also given in the documents-on which Germany had already decided treacherously to attack Yugoslavia. We were by a brilliant move to confront the world with irrefutable proof of Germany's intended perfidy. They had precise details of the consul's house, knew exactly in which pocket he kept the papers, and that he "never left them off his person night or day." The plan was that Helmuth was to arrive at the consul's house in an exhausted condition, supported by Igon. Ostensibly they were to have come from Slovenia with urgent news of a massacre there of local Germans. Helmuth was to insist upon seeing the consul general instantly. When the latter came down to answer the cry for help of his own countrymen, they would shoot him dead, seize the papers, run out and hand them to me, whose role was to be that of an innocent lady accidentally passing by. The timetable and all details were worked out, even to the names of the guards likely to be on duty and how they were to be dealt with by confederates, whom they assured me they had already sworn in.

The plan was interesting. It was so finished that I was inclined to believe and still think it was actually intended to be carried out. I asked for time to think it over and immediately consulted with M.P. We came to the conclusion that the plan could not have originated with these two agents but almost certainly was an order from the German secret police. It even seemed more than likely that the plan had been made by Neuhausen himself and that the intention was to murder someone in place of him. By laying the crime to Yugoslavia, Germany would have another strong lever for threatening the Yugoslavs and hurrying them into signing the treaty, thus leaving Germany free for her attack on Russia. The lure to me was, of course, that the documents (which would have been blank) were to pass into my own hands. And there is little doubt that I would have been shot on the spot "by accident." Steps were therefore taken at once, but quietly, to discover the hotheads who had been misled by these agents provocateurs. Additional safety measures were taken also to protect the fat, repulsive consul himself. How strange and disgusting for me to be the means of saving the life of this sinister fellow who not only would gladly have seen me dead but had been long and cunningly planning the ruin of Serbia! Yet it had to be done. My two youths soon knew of the increased alertness and the doubled guards and the plan was called off Yet at my court-martial later I was accused, among other absurdities, of having plotted to murder the German consul general. Apparently Helmuth and Igon had felt obliged to turn in something to justify their pay.

16. VAIN WARNINGS

I CANNOT SAY I liked living in Belgrade: big cities were never my milieu. I need too much strenuous exercise. I hated the icy winds that suddenly howled down upon this rock at the confluence of the majestic Danube and the lovely Sava, facing the illimitable plains like a great ship at sea. So I stupidly caught pneumonia just for Christmas. Being ill had its compensations in the kindness of friends and in the fact that, lying in bed at ground level, I could watch the busy life of my street without myself being seen through the double windows and the fishnet curtains. It was like a non-stop variety show. Just as we by fixed custom eat turkey for Christmas dinner, so the Serbs eat suckling pigs. They buy them alive, mostly a few days beforehand so as to give them a last fattening. My house was near one of the largest markets. For ten days before Christmas, therefore, in the early mornings tiny pigs in uncounted numbers and all sorts of color combinations were herded squealing, bouncing, rushing, balking, down the street. And all day long almost everyone passing by-men, women, messenger boys, young maids, old maids-was carrying, in every conceivable style and position, a tiny live pig. To them it was the most natural thing in the world. But to me the sight of ladies in fine fur coats and big handsome businessmen in formal clothes, struggling desperately with wriggling, screeching pink or spotted baby porkers or tearing madly after them when they escaped, kept me in a riot of laughter. Soon I was well again and the pleasant meetings round my fireside could be resumed. One of my favorite visitors was a doughty old Chetnik of about eighty. Men live to a great age in the Balkans-if they're quick or lucky -and this delightful old man, Zaria M., made no concessions whatever to the passing years. He stood as straight as ever and weighed not a pound more than in his active youth. Endless

were the tales told about him and his unceasing warfare with the Turks. Perhaps the mildest one was this: A pasha in a south Serb village had made himself fiercely hated by the peasants for his merciless tax grinding, beatings, and theft. He took whatever he pleased, including, worst of all, any pretty girl who caught his fancy. To murder him outright would have called down the Turkish soldiers in a general massacre of the village. What to do to teach the tyrant a sharp lesson? Zaria thought of a plan. The pasha had a wife, young, beautiful, carefully hidden, whom he loved as the proverbial apple of his eye. One evening the Turk was called away on "urgent business." Zaria and his men surrounded the house and overpowered the guards. Then he violated the pasha's darling-without, they say, removing the knife from his mouth. That done, a whistle, the guards were released, and Zaria and his men faded away into the night. There could not be a worse punishment for a Turkish pasha: this one is reported to have become a model of probity. Nothing more gentle and courtly than my old Chetnik Zaria could be imaginedexcept when old tales lit fires in his eyes. They brightened, too, for pretty girls. His latest exploit in that line was cause for endless teasing. One day when an airliner he was in reached four thousand feet, he went forward to a lovely but perfectly strange lady and asked courteously if he might be allowed to kiss her, because "it was the first time he had ever flown." She agreed graciously, even with enthusiasm, and the salute was, they say, heard above the engine's roar. He proudly felt he held a record. The political atmosphere was getting steadily more gloomy. The state of Yugoslavia, being a marriage of geographical and political convenience rather than a really fundamental union of ideals, was a perfect breeding ground for cynical opportunism. Prince Paul, the regent during the minority of the young king, had obviously only a single thought: to hand the country over to the new ruler, when his regency ended, as unchanged as possible. He forgot that nothing can stand still; it must go

forward or it goes back. Yugoslavia was drifting back, bogging down so fast in rapacious self-seeking by the "ascendancy" class that to me it seemed certain that soon a crisis must come, when the country would be either saved or ruined by a rising of the exasperated people. Men of good will with ideals of public service desperately comforted themselves with the hope that when the boy Peter became king in the following September, everything would change at once for the better. I saw him several times and was convinced that he had character and the most sincere intentions. Nevertheless I found little cause for hope. Could a boy of eighteen who had been kept lonely for years-so lonely, with not even his mother to lean on-could he be expected to see through and control those practiced intriguers? Prince Paul disliked the business of ruling; he knew himself unfitted for it. Those who suspected him of designs upon the throne were certainly wrong. The "ins" in government ran things with a high hand. Since in this strangling bureaucracy there was no appeal against the whims and fancies of a government bureau, and since nobody could start a private enterprise without a government license, peasant and businessman alike had to use the only instrument that proved effective in getting action: bribery. The feeling of insecurity within the country was so great, the future so doubtful, that officials preferred to grab while the grabbing was good rather than build up a solid reputation for honesty. Corruption became an unbelievable, incurable scandal. After Machek secured autonomy for Croatia and became vice premier of the new government, Parliament was dissolved and was never reconvened. The country was ruled by decree. Anyone who criticized or rebelled against this state of affairs was simply labeled "communist" and persecuted. There were exceedingly few real Communists in Serbia, but there were many despairing critics who, for lack of any other hope, drifted toward communism. Honest Serbs of noted family, after a humiliating struggle, withdrew into disgusted retirement, and public life took on a more and more shady character. Machek was the strong man of Yugoslavia. There can be no doubt that it was he and no other who blew the state of Yugoslavia to the winds-never again to be put together.

He was a Croat first and a Yugoslav second, if at all. He actually opposed the use of the word "Yugoslavia," even going so far as to change the name of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences to the "Croat Academy of Sciences." Croatia must as usual have the best of every world. Croatia, with its Western commercial training, had a firm hold on the industry of Yugoslavia. It was the most prosperous part of the country and drew its greater wealth largely from Serbian trade. It shared the strength and had the protection of a common state, of Serb prestige and Serbian solid international reputation. Yet: "Croatian taxes, Croatian superior education and brains," cried the Croats, "must be used only for the benefit of Croatia." They did not wish to help to improve the country as a whole. Machek worked for Croat autonomy with might and main. He wanted a "Great Croatia," or, failing that, complete Croat control of Yugoslavia. He went too far. He worked up the ill feeling of the Croats against the Serbs to an absolutely vicious degree. Like many another politician who fell short of being a statesman, he thought to conjure up a breeze, and, by the whirlwind he roused, was blown away. He did not foresee, when he pointed the hatred of his compatriots toward the Serbs, what it would mean to release the repression engendered by hundreds of years of foreign vassalage. For when, as they thought, their moment of triumph had arrived, the Croats went berserk. There is no question at all that Machek himself is guilty equally with the actual perpetrators of the murder of not less than 600,000 Serbs. Machek was too strong. He wanted a weak central government which would permit him to exercise more power. He had it, since the Prince was afraid of him. This weak government fell easily into the clutching, terrifying German hand, and thereby the very thing Machek wished for-Croat control of Yugoslavia-was destroyed. Koroshets died, the Slovene leader. He was a wiser man than Machek but less dynamic. And because he worked with gentler means, the Slovenes, their democratic ideal similar to the Serbian, have been much more loyal, much more steady than the Croats.

Prince Paul and his government were not bought with money by Germany. Being weak and spoiled by luxury, they were bought with promises of safety of lives and possessions. Alas, they too meant well enough, I suppose. (I must in fairness mention that three months after Germany overran Yugoslavia the German governor of the Belgrade prison where I was an inmate said to me: "Don't think we have ever looked upon Premier Cvetkovich as a friend of Germany!") Everywhere I talked with the simple people in trains, in little country restaurants, in bookshops. I began to get a pretty clear picture of the Croat attitude. I became more and more convinced that, at best, their loyalty could not be relied upon; at worst, they would go over completely to Germany. But I did not then suspect that the basest treachery had been long and systematically prepared. I begged and pressed in various quarters, I urged and urged again that all Croat soldiers be drafted into separate regiments. I was assured: "It will be done." "We have begun to do it." "Hurry!" "Well, it's being done." But it wasn't done. Shall we blame the Serbs for inability to see what was coming? They were like ourselves-they judged others by themselves. We in America and England could not bring ourselves to believe that Germany was planning war, world conquest, though we were warned with solemn words and even with conclusive figures. Just so the Serbs, themselves loyal and forthright, could not believe in Croat treachery. They clung to the union ideal of King Alexander for which he himself was murdered by a Croat organization.

17. "WATCHMAN, WHAT OF AMERICA?"

AT NEW YEAR'S the British Legation as usual gave a reception. General Nedich, the only strong Serb in the Government, had been dismissed and had left town. An ancient general, once minister to Brussels, had succeeded him as Minister of War. General Boro Mirkovich was in command of aviation in the Belgrade district. Eager to give public and emphatic expression to the Serbian admiration for England, the general planned to attend the British reception with his whole staff in uniform. In high spirits he even went so far as to demonstrate how they all would bow low and say: "Your Excellency, we represent the real heart of our country." And "Long live our dear and admired friend, England!" The Minister of War got wind of his intention, and he received positive orders forbidding him to go. I was asked to explain to the British minister what had been intended. I did so. Only one member of the general's staff M.P., a reserve officer in a strong position, could brave the order. He received a very cordial and hilarious reception. This indicates the feeling in the country when the German negotiations with Yugoslavia for signing the Axis pact began. To the Serbs in general the thing was simply inconceivable: it couldn't be, it mustn't be-surely, surely it would not be done! But Machek and all the other Croat politicians were using every conceivable pressure and the threat of immediate German intervention to force the signature of the pact. Some of us knew that Cvetkovich, the Prime Minister, intended to do it. Yet, in the strangest way, even those most in the know couldn't bring themselves to believe it was going to be done. The strain was terrific. Almost hourly I received telephone messages. "He still means to do it." . . . "Yes, he is going to sign."

Could he be in doubt about the feelings of the country? That seemed impossible. The Patriarch Gavrilo, head of the Serb National Church, a grand old man whose sister I knew in the Sanjak, warned the Regent and the Prime Minister that the Church and the people were solidly against it. Kosta Pechanats warned them that the Chetniks would certainly rise. Serbs of all stations begged Cvetkovich: "Delay, delay at least-until the British can come to our help." M.P., an old friend of his, in a surge of anxiety, fell on one knee before him: "I beg you, Dragisha, do anything, anything-break your leg-do anything to put it off even a few more days!" Cvetkovich brought his finger down in an imperious gesture: "If anyone so much as dares to move, he will be shot on the sport!" M.P. was immediately arrested and confined to his house under guard. Did Cvetkovich suspect? Already I knew, but only in outline, that there was a great plan for revolution. I was deeply alarmed for M.P. The place was seething with plots of all sorts. Unless you had lived yourself in that feverish atmosphere of threatening, subterranean violence, you would find it hard to imagine. At the instance of the same group of patriots who later carried out the coup dtat, I approached the British minister with a plan for blowing up and blocking the Iron Gates on the Danube to halt, if only for a few days, German transport of munitions and oil to and from Rumania and Bulgaria. The plan was declined. I gave up the half-dead British Legation in despair. (America was not yet in the war.) Mihailovich has since carried out this plan with great success. The minister, Sir Ronald Campbell, was very well liked by the few people who ever succeeded in seeing him. Men of real knowledge and ability came to me in amazement and deep alarm at being unable to do so. And those who did succeed in getting through to him spoke, in this hour of desperate crisis for their country, with gentle yet bitter irony of the fact that a well-worn golf bag was the first object that met the eye on entering the Legation door. It must be said that the British representatives moved only within the narrowest circle connected with the Court. The Serbs are the most democratic people in

Europe, not excepting the Swiss. As among our own grandfathers, there is no aristocracy in the sense of special privilege or a snobbish superiority based on titles or on great possessions. (And, as with our grandparents, there are also no Serb servants, there are only friends who come to help you: servants in Belgrade were almost without exception of German or Croat extraction.) Serbia is a land of self-respecting smallholders, and there are no castles in which to entertain with impressments. But in Croatia, with its Austrian culture and class distinctions, and so little ravaged by struggles for freedom, there are handsome castles. Foreign diplomatic circles therefore naturally made Croatia their playground and were unavoidably influenced by the more luxurious comfort there. And if moments of pleasant leisure were used by the eagerly planning Croats to instill in their guests a bias against the socially less adroit Serbs, who can be surprised? And who can wonder too that the best Serbs, notably lacking in a "keeping up with his lordship" complex, withdrew themselves in pride? Personally if I were King of Serbia, instead of trying to adopt alien usage, I would return to the dignified simplicity of my own tradition, with a Serbian house instead of a characterless palace, and with my proudest Serbs in their extremely handsome and dignified national dress around me: I would demand-and receive-respect instead of condescension. Self-respecting pride in our own inheritance, without either contempt or envy for that of others-that, I am convinced, must become the axiomatic basis of world co-operation and peace. The American representatives were much better mixers than the British, but far less influential on public feeling, since America, by her lack of participation in the war, seemed coldly unconcerned with the fate of small nations. I tried to spread the conviction that America, slow to move because of its huge size, was firm as ever in its great democratic principles and ideals. I said, as I believed, that as our own forefathers too had not hesitated to make every conceivable sacrifice for the attainment of that ideal, so the present generation of Americans, profiting by and enjoying the splendid fruits of those sacrifices, would in turn be willing, proud, and eager to make every sacrifice in defense of them.

But there were those, thoughtful men, who saw in the burning fanaticism of the totalitarian converts, German and Russian (then still allies), inevitable defeat for democracy grown fat and slack with ease and success. "Everything we value," said Imre Gal, a wise old Czech, at one of my Sundayevening gatherings, "everything we treasure must be paid for without ceasing-or it is lost. The totalitarian states are ready to sacrifice everything for their creed of loss of liberty for the common man, for government by terror of the few over the many, for dictatorship. Will Americans still be content to pay to the uttermost for their treasure of liberty? Are you sure democracy has not grown stale and uninspiring to them with use? Americans across the broad seas have forgotten what loss of liberty means. Can they understand that loss of freedom anywhere means greater danger to their own? They think themselves safe. The seas are their Maginot Line. Useless, useless! A new art has come into war. Secret penetration, like ants, can eat away at the heart, leaving only a still strong-looking surface, a hollow shell which-as in France-can crumble at a blow. Tells us, does the American heart still beat strong, alert, and eager for democracy? " There was a silence. My friends looked at me agonized, holding their breath with anxiety. At that moment I felt humble and proud to be looked upon with such confidence as the interpreter of my country. I said: "It does. Yes. Be sure. It does." "Then," said my dear friend Imre Gal, "then and only then will America save the great ideal of human freedom. Then and only then will America save-herself." Imre, with his wife and girl and boy whom I loved, did not live to see my word made good: all four were among the more than 20,000 who died only a few days later in the fiendish Belgrade bombardment. I hope he knows that America now fights, stronger than ever in her history, for government "of the people, for the people, by the people" not only for herself but for all the smaller democracies of the world, including the Czech and the Serb.

18. "WE ARE SERBIAN CHILDREN"

ON MARCH 23 I gave a poetry reading in a local club. Suddenly there was a great trampling of feet and shouting in the street below. We ran out onto the balcony to watch one of the many demonstration marches of the Belgrade school children. "Bolje rat nego pact," the young voices shouted-"Better war than the pact!" The remarkable behavior of the children of Belgrade has been mentioned by correspondents in their books with something akin to contempt as a "diaper revolution." Little did these men grasp what it really meant. It was the voice of Serbia authentic old spirit of Serbia-breaking its slowly tightening chains. The Serbs are a hardy race; their genius flowers best in hardship. After the last war a mild prosperity had resulted from the sudden exploitation of Serbia's rich resources. Men sent their sons abroad to study, to become "cosmopolitan." Coming from a comparatively backward land, they had been unduly impressed with the wealth and success of other countries. Their Serbian self-confidence and ideals sometimes weakened, resulting in a complete and shocking decay of every moral fiber: they became denatured Serbs. Some of these men, through their foreign training, mostly in Paris and Vienna, had risen to the top in government. They were the "ascendancy class." But their children still were sharp-eyed Serbs, fed by the strong roots of Serbian tradition. They saw well and clearly, and they were disgusted. They despised their un-Serbian fathers. This gave them a fierce, pitiful maturity. The children, in this hour of fateful choice for their beloved homeland, marched the streets of Belgrade, not as children but as Serbs, as standard-bearers of the old Serbian passion for "liberty at any cost whatever." Is there anything more inspiring, more hopeful for the future, in all recent European history? In no other country in Europe did the rising generation take the lead and repudiate the compromising weakness of its elders. If there were nothing else in

the record, this behavior of her children alone would be a sufficient star-sign of the destiny of Serbia. Outside of Belgrade, in the provinces, the children did not march. It was unnecessary. There the children and their parents were heart and soul together: the flawed national product had tended to gravitate to Belgrade. I say that after this war nothing in Europe will be more worth doing than to save and build up again the pitiful remnants that will be left of Serbian youth. I say, and my countrymen surely will say with me, that as the children of Serbia were the first and only children in Europe to rise and fearlessly to face the German horror, the Serbian children shall come first. Because they stood most bravely for their national principle the Serbian children have been most murdered, most pitilessly butchered of all in Europe, not excepting the Poles or even the Jews. Don't think they didn't know what they were doing. They knew well not only their own history of massacres under Ottoman rule, but also the much more terrible record of German mass murders in Poland and Czechoslovakia. They knew. But they did not hesitate or waver. For Serbian youth it was: Serbia free or nothing. For thousands upon uncounted thousands of them it has been-nothing. But the rest, undaunted march on. "We are Serbian children. Long live Serbia!"

19. THE SERBS CHOOSE WAR

ALREADY, BY THE MIDDLE OF MARCH, all British nationals had been first advised, then urged, and at last peremptorily ordered by the British consul to leave the country. Most of them had gone and most Americans too, feeling the Nazis creeping close upon their heels. A steady infiltration of German "businessmen" had been going on for some time. They were so sure-so cocky and so sure: "The Gestapo will soon be in charge of everything. It will be Bulgaria over again!" So they thought, and even said loudly. At this time I gave a lecture at the Anglo-American Club on "The Serbian Character as Shown in the National Epics." It was embarrassing to face an audience which probably knew more about it than I did; for they were all Serbs, the Anglo-Americans having gone. That evening I was able to give an almost exact prediction of the course events would take. The day came when Cvetkovich, the Prime Minister, and Cincar Markovich the Foreign Minister, left for Germany in a steel train. And still the people didn't believe. Up to the very last moment no Serb, not even those who knew positively that it was going to be done, could bring himself to believe it. Most of them went about in a sort of daze of disbelief, of stubborn, blind, mute inability to envisage the possibility of Serbs tamely handing over the independence for which they had paid such a frightful price. At ten-fifteen on the morning of March 25 the news was flashed: "Yugoslavia has signed the Axis pact." Immediately the streets became empty. For an hour or so Belgrade lay silent in a paralysis of horror, of shame, of slowly kindling fury. Then the storm broke. Toward evening I sent Michael, my houseman, into town. He reported that the university students were demonstrating fiercely, defying the soldiers, who with fixed bayonets broke up the meetings and processions.

Dispersed in one place, they hurried round the corner and re-formed, shouting: "Down with the traitors! Better war than the pact!" In Serbia the voice of the students, expressing the real feelings of the people, had often proved ominous. It was not least the students who in 1928 had forced King Alexander to drop the humiliating Concordat which would have bound the country in spiritual vassalage to Italy. In 1903 the students had voiced the revolt of the people against King Alexander Obrenovic, who was selling them out to Austria. This revolt resulted in the death of the King and of Draga his wife and put on the throne King Peter I, the Karageorgivich grandfather of the present King Peter II. Did these determined demonstrations of the students now portend another bloodbath? That night, as related in Chapter I, I dined with the British correspondents, including Terence Atherton. I was so absent-minded that I felt I was hardly there. Next day, hating the thought of watching curiously the humiliation of a proud small race, I stayed quietly at home, trying vainly to read. I couldn't seem to sit still for five minutes. Knowing, as I described in my first chapter, of plans for revolution, my anxiety was intense. What would be the outcome? Whichever way it went, the result was bound to be catastrophic for my friends. One by one I picked up the charming things I had gathered that spoke so eloquently of a splendid history. How absurd it seemed to try to read, no matter what, when here I had the fortune to be myself living in a greater drama, a greater tragedy than could ever be adequately written! In the afternoon four leading Montenegrin men came to see me. The drawing room was chilly, so we sat round the fire in my small library. They were so huge they seemed to fill the whole room. In spite of their modern clothes, their strongly cut faces, heavy eyebrows, and warm color gave a curious kind of authenticity to the beautiful antiques surrounding them, relics of the brave days of their own ancestors: they went well together, were somehow undeniably akin. Montenegrins age very slowly. Although they were middle-aged they showed hardly a gray hair. They had mellowed with time, but not grown weak-only stronger and more patient.

They were neither Chetniks nor fliers. They had come in charming compliment to me to decide on policy affecting the future of the state of Montenegro. In these small countries, so easily shaken, so at the mercy of political storms raised by the greater Powers, it is an inspiring feeling to be vividly living history. Because they are so small you seem always to be at the beating heart of their problems. These men were facing a cataclysmic crisis in the affairs of their country. On what they decided would depend, not just their own lives-that did not worry thembut the lives and the future of all their people. I cannot tell (in fact I have been anxiously begged not to say) who these men were and what they decided that day. Only this: they came to a certain remarkable decision. Although I could not see altogether eye to eye with them, could not entirely approve, I was full of admiration for the spirit that prompted it. I mention the incident only to put it on record for the future. Balkan history will one day explain the significance of it. That night, you can imagine, I dozed fitfully, one ear open for the telephone, though I knew, and hoped, it would be cut off. Toward morning I must at last have fallen into a heavy sleep. March 27 1941. A fateful day in the history of the world. A commentator on the London radio that morning said: "The action that the Serbs have taken this day will prove to be the turning point of the war." He was a good prophet. The Serbs had risen, had overthrown their timid pro-Axis government, had put their boy-king on the throne, and defied the oppressors of mankind to do their worst. A new star had arisen on the dark night of war, the first real sign that Hitler was doomed to failure. As related in Chapter I, early on the morning of that day my friend M.P., freed from his house-arrest, came to see me. Listening to the pandemonium of rejoicing that poured out of the radio, we filled our glasses and drank a toast: "Zivio, King Peter II."

"If only Alexander, his father, could see us now," said M.P. "His son on the throne, with us, his Serbs, round him, as we were round himself on the Great Retreat in the last war, defeated but unbeaten, only asking to fight again! If he can see us now he must be proud and happy." We emptied our glasses again to the memory of the dead king who had been his close friend. He, like most Serbs with their passionate loyalty, could never speak without tears of his soldier-king murdered by an organization of Croats, the Ustashi. Soon we were on our way downtown-I with my faithful camera. And what a town it was: flags everywhere, the Yugoslav flag. As yet there were few, if any, Serbian flags. The Serbs as a whole were still firmly loyal to Yugoslavia, to the South Slav union. In every square, at every main crossing, were guns, large or small, or tanks. It was curious and somehow comforting to see them commanded entirely by flyingcorps officers. M.P. was, as usual, acclaimed on all sides. We stopped every two steps. We met, I think, everyone I knew, and not one but several men said to me softly: "Well, this is the end of Yugoslavia. Now it's Serbia again at last!" For already the news was spreading that Croatia was not taking part in the great defiance of Hitler. (I am reminded of what an old woman said to an acquaintance of mine in Dover when the English troops were being brought back, worn out, minus everything but their lives, from Dunkirk: "Well," said this old Englishwoman grimly, "thank God, England is on her own again!") Processions slowly pushed their way down the packed streets, carrying pictures of King Peter and hastily scrawled banners, and shouting "Bolje rat nego pact!Bolje rat nego pact!" Every kind of organization was represented in these processions, including business houses and factories. There was no hysteria: only joy, a sort of solemn, grim joy. For every Serbian man, woman, and child knew that by repudiating the Prime Minister's signature

they were declaring war on a Power that must certainly overwhelm them. Every man-more, every woman- knew that they would in all likelihood lose everything they held most dear, even life-even the lives of those they loved best. Yet the happiness, the joy, the relief of the people that they were at last "themselves again" was as genuine as it was unbelievable. How could these people welcome destruction, I asked myself, as the price of an age-old dream? I felt an enormous admiration for such clear, unmodern integrity of heart and mind: the only small nation to whom the old values were, without any sophistry, still the only possible right values. I saw one very funny thing which I think no other foreigner saw. It happens that Cvetkovich, like Laval, had a very Gypsy cast of face, giving rise to the contemptuous gibe that he wasn't a real Serb. So now the Gypsies, who inhabit a special district in Belgrade, had to have a procession too. The little, undersized people, all in their finest, brightest rags and tatters, bunched together in a gaudy crowd, trotted proudly, crying at the tops of their shrill voices: "Cvetkovich is no Gypsy-no, no, Cvetkovich is not one of us!" Thus was the signer of the disgraceful pact cast out, disowned, even by the homeless Gypsies. We arrived before the Albaniya Building, the largest and newest in Belgrade, standing, rather like the Flatiron Building, directly into the main central square. An old Montenegrin appeared on the balcony to hang out the symbolic bunting that expressed Serbia's choice in the crisis. Spreading out his arms in joy, unconsciously he made the gesture of crucifixion before the American and British flags. Other books have mentioned this episode. I was lucky enough to photograph it (though my films were later all lost in the great Belgrade bombardment). I also photographed the Nazi Information Center, already completely wrecked by the populace. When I started to do the same before the small Italian Travel Bureau, a policeman put his hand heavily on my shoulder and tried to turn me away. I slipped my Chetnik pass just a little from my breast pocket, and the hand fell away and saluted.

20. SOMETHING NEW AND SOMETHING OLD

GENERAL BORO MIRKOVICH's carefully laid plans had been perfectly carried out. Attention to detail made it a completely successful bloodless revolution, something new in Balkan history. All government buildings, the post office, police, telephone, telegraph, radio, and newspaper offices were put under heavy guard. All the ministers of the Prince Paul government were taken into custody. The manner of their arrest as described to me by M.P. was interesting. CincarMarkovich, the Foreign Minister, was the only one to resist. His barricaded door had to be broken open. The others, the weaklings, had been merely terrified, especially Cvetkovich, who was offered a cup of coffee to give him some semblance of self-control, but whose hand had shaken so wildly that he could not hold the cup. A certain captain who shall be nameless was wakened at midnight, told to dress and, a revolver shoved into his hand, ordered to go and arrest General Peshich. "I to arrest-the Minister of War?" he stammered, horrified. However, he did it tactfully. Prince Paul, to avoid what he thought would be merely a passing unpleasantness, had left for his country seat in Slovenia. His train was stopped by telegram and forced to return to Belgrade. General Simovich, the new Prime Minister, at first intended to meet him, accompanied by the whole new Cabinet, and some discussion of suitable raiment took place. It suddenly struck him that the once-powerful regent was now ex. Only the general and one other minister met the train. The Prince was politely given the opportunity to depart to Greece, the country he had agreed to stab in the back. There he was taken charge of by the British and with his family was transported to the hospitable land of Kenya. I was told a charming tale of how General Simovich broke the news to the new boy-king. When he arrived at the palace on Dedinje Hill, and ordered the servants,

"Wake the King!" they were terrified. Well they remembered the fate of other kings in Balkan history. But he convinced them that he came as the King's friend. The handsome boy, still confused with sleep, came out of his bedroom in his dressing gown. "Your Majesty," said General Simovich, "I salute you as King of Yugoslavia. From this moment you will exercise your full sovereign power." He bowed low, and then the two warmly grasped hands. With perfect courage and calmness the boy assumed the great responsibility. That morning I saw him as he drove back from his coronation slowly through Belgrade alone in an open car, a significantly courageous thing to do in such a crisis, and one which few if any other Balkan rulers would have dared to risk. Never has a boy more radiantly expressed joy, pride of his people, eager determination to be worthy of their loyalty. It should be noted that the democratic tradition of Serbia is that their kings shall be elected. King Peter I submitted himself to election and urgently enjoined upon his son, King Alexander, to do the same. Alexander, however, as King of Yugoslavia, did not follow his father's wish. He was never crowned. Although young King Peter II in the crisis was crowned in haste, I have no doubt he will revert to sound Serb democratic tradition and submit himself to election for the satisfaction of his people and himself. General Simovich had tried to make his Cabinet representative of every side of public opinion but the pro-Axis groups (excepting, of course, Machek). Many of the new ministers were men popular and respected, who had retired from public life for years because of the un-Serbian, undemocratic, dictatorial, and unscrupulous form of government that had recently prevailed. Simovich himself, less a statesman than a soldier, had fought with distinction in all the Balkan wars and in World War I, and had become in 1928 Chief of Air Staff. Since then he had struggled to build up the Yugoslav Air Force despite French, American, and British refusal to grant Yugoslavia credits for armaments. Lacking cash, these, Serbia's allies, refused to accept payment in Yugoslav produce, thus not only proving themselves ungrateful but also depriving

themselves of orders for their factories. In spite of this glaring stupidity on the part of the great democracies, he had remained staunchly pro-Ally Professor Yovanovich, the leading Serb authority on international and constitutional law, took office as First Vice-Premier, with Machek Second VicePremier. The Third Vice-Premier, Kulovec, was later killed in the Belgrade bombardment, and Miha Krek, a Slovene took his place. Dr. Ninchich, who as Foreign Minister had for years tried to come to some fair working agreement with Italy, returned to the same office. Bogolyub Yevtich who had accompanied King Alexander on his last fatal journey to Marseilles and discussed with him the plans which the King was then working out to reintroduce a democratic constitution for Yugoslavia, joined the Cabinet, as did also Milan Gavrilovich, who had for years worked for better relations with Russia. He was at that moment in Moscow and in the next few days received and transmitted to Belgrade Russia's promise of help if Yugoslavia should be attacked. As it turned out, it was not Russia that helped Serbia, but little Serbia that helped to save Russia. There were representatives of Montenegro and Bosnia, as well as of the Slovene People's Party, the Serbian Peasant Party, and other smaller groups. Dr. Machek, leader of the Croatian peasants, accepted office under General Simovich after staying in Croatia for three days, grudgingly negotiating guarantees of the continuance of Croat autonomy. He had his own military organization called the Croat Peasant Guard. Though he half-heartedly called upon the Croats to join the colors, he had privately ordered his guards to prevent mobilization. This order was carried out. (When Germany attacked, Dr. Machek's Peasant Guards shot down from the rear those Serb units which tried to defend the country. There is complete proof of these facts.) After the bombardment Machek still urged a humiliating peace with Germany. Instead of remaining with the King and Government: he returned to Croatia "to stay with his people," and on the radio in Zagreb ordered the Croats to follow Pavelich, the new Croat leader put in by the Axis. But he sent two of his own

representatives to remain with and to put pressure upon the Yugoslav Government in-Exile so as to be sure to be on the winning side, whichever it turned out to be. Incredible as it sounds, it is a fact that the night before the King was removed to safety Machek secured the Government's signature to an agreement by which the Serbs would after the war ask for no change of frontiers to which the Croats had not agreed. The Serbs are still "primitive" enough to believe that their word is binding upon them: Machek had the Government-in-Exile by the throat. And within only a few hours practically the whole of the autonomous government Machek himself had set up, including the police, immediately went over complete to the Axis, took service under Ante Pavelich, the ex-patriate thug-organizer of the Ustashi, responsible for the murder of the Yugoslav king. Machek's own most trusted henchmen are now, at this moment, in charge of and carrying out the massacres and expulsion of not less than 1,200,000 Serbs long resident in Croatia. Soon most of the intelligentsia of Croatia, who had only a few years ago hailed the Serbs as their "dear brothers," avowed their pro-Axis sympathies, and the peasants upon Machek's own advice rushed to join or co-operate with the Ustashi. As the photos and films of the Axis entry into Croatia show, the populace received the Germans with wholehearted enthusiasm and bearing large signs: "The Croats and Germans Always Together." Hysterical women jumped on the tanks and kissed the soldiers while the Germans looked on with-amused contempt. Even their latest "dear brothers" despised the traitors.

21. THE PATRIARCH GOES TO HIS GOLGOTHA

GERMANY, BY THE TREATY OF March 27, had promised Yugoslavia complete self-government. To prove how sincere were her intentions, there had arrived in Belgrade the night before the coup almost 150 Gestapo agents to take over control of the police, radio, post office, newspapers, etc. These men had been lodged mainly in the Hotel Astoria. Jubilant crowds that morning came to see where doors had been broken down to arrest them. After hours of happy milling round and snatching a sandwich where we could in the seething restaurants, I went home to wait for the summons which I knew would come. It came. Chetnik Headquarters telephoned. "Five o'clock. We fall in at the Slaviya. Will you march beside the Voivoda on his staff, or do you think it advisable not to do so? He leaves it to your discretion." I had already made up my mind. "Tell the Chief, please, that I will certainly be there but not in uniform. He will know why I consider it best." "Very well." I was strongly tempted to take my proper place publicly. But if the reasons for secrecy had been good before, they were now at least equally good. Every German spy in Belgrade-and there were hundreds-would be there watching. I had never been out in uniform, though I had once or twice worn the comfortable cap when riding. (Statements that I was seen in it are incorrect. As my riding clothes were also brown, people in retrospect may have the impression that I wore the uniform itself.) If I had worn it that day, it is unlikely that I should be here today to write this. At five o'clock the Chetnik march started from the Slaviya Square. First came the banners, the black, silver-fringed flags bearing the silver skull and crossed bones. Then the Voivoda Kosta Pechanats and the other leaders with their staffs. Then all the uniformed Chetniks that happened to be in town; then the women in uniform; then hundreds upon hundreds of men and women who were not in

uniform. There must have been about two thousand altogether. Those hundreds of others who wished to keep their membership secret, including Yanko, did not march. With broad-brimmed hat well down over my face and my fur collar turned up, I took my place directly behind the women in uniform. I was taken for granted by the women, and in the chaffing that flew back and forth I said as little as possible so that my accent should not attract attention. There were about ninety of these women, and they were a good complement to the men. All were country women, tanned and tough with hard work on the land. Some of them had a slightly stooping, pressing-forward carriage, as if accustomed to mountain paths or to bearing heavy burdens. All were very strong. Almost all, very thin and wiry, had that sharp, quick turn of the eye that betokens habitual alertness. Their joy was intense but controlled. Even when they clapped each other hard on the back, there was something restrained, even secretive, about it. These women were the real thing; they knew what they were about. They were ready for anything. And they were glad. Anything less exhibitionist could not be imagined. I noted two husky, managing souls who felt called upon to take charge and push the others about a little. No one paid them much attention. We marched informally, more or less in fours, more or less in line. In front marched the women with decorations. One, a little dried-up old woman, was like nothing so much as a weasel. Her breast was so loaded with medals won in the last World War as almost to pull her stooped figure forward. How happy I felt to be among these women! They were primitive if you likeprimitive as were our own great-grandmothers who went West with their men and fought the Indians. They were fierce too, being the product of a fierce history which taught them that only ferocity and cunning could enable them to survive the attacks of cunning and ferocious enemies. They were the unique product of a unique history-the ultimate in that ultimate question of human survival: "Your life or mine!"

At the Milosha Velikog corner there was a barrier of soldiers, and we had to show our passes. Some, I noticed, were quite worn. I was ashamed mine looked so new. They were not opened. The crowds on the pavement pressed in so close that it was hard to pass. But there was very little cheering. Even for the Serbs a Chetnik march causes a certain chill of the spine. There was no band, not even a whistle. One sound alone was heard: issuing from half-open mouths, keeping time to our almost soundless tramp, the low mutter of the Chetnik marching song: . . . "Ready, now ready . . ." Before the palace we halted and sang the national anthem while the new king took the salute. A splendidly happy, eager boy he looked. I expected noisy cheering, but there was practically none from the Chetniks-just a few shouts of: "Zivio, Kralja Petra Drug II [Long live King Peter II!]." Then we moved on, if anything more quietly than before . We made a swing round the main streets and drew up before the residence of the Patriarch of the Serb Orthodox Church, a very fine example of the Byzantine art to which the Serbs are heir. It was now getting dark, and the light shining out through the low rounded arches upon the group of stern, dark-browed fighters in their picturesque Chetnik dress was like an illustration straight out of some old book of legendary tales. Through a deep lighted arch above the doorway, the Patriarch Gavrilo stepped out upon a small carved-stone balcony. Gray-bearded, large and heavy, his expression was benign yet stern. This was a Serb of Montenegro, the supreme head of the Serbian Church, a man of their own stock and after their own heart. His words were few and simple. He said that what Serbia had stood for through the ages and what Serbia stood for now liberty to rule themselves and to worship God as they chose-was well worth dying for. They must expect to die for it. That was all. There was a low murmur of complete assent.

Standing under the heavy Byzantine arch, the gentle old priest raised his hand in blessing while the light shone on his white hair and beard, on the great jeweled ring, sign of his high authority, and on the jeweled cross upon his breast. Again a murmur of "Ameris" and a movement as all devoutly crossed themselves. M.P. was with the Patriarch as he blessed my brothers and sisters the Chetniks for death. He caught sight of me and hurried down. He threw his arms round me (he was so large, his overcoat so vast, that I was simply engulfed) and, feeling much moved, as we all were, he cried to the women: "This lady is English and American. She is a Chetnik. She is one with us!" After a moment of great surprise the women surrounded me, shouting with happiness. They hugged me, kissed me-everyone, it seemed, had to pat me. They almost tore me to pieces. These people of iron self-control shed tears of joy at what they thought a splendid omen. "England and America will be with us," they cried. "England and America, our brothers!" "England and America," I said soberly but very happy too, "England and America will stand by Serbia-they will stand by Serbia's side." My God, I still believed it. I believed I spoke the truth. We went home at last after a crowd of us in a near-by restaurant had raised our glasses of slivovits to "England, America, and Serbia together!" That was on March 27. Within ten days we were dispersed, most of us never to meet again. And exactly six weeks later the old priest set out on his own Road to Golgotha. This was the way of it. On May 9, after most of Serbia had been overrun by the Axis, the Germans seized the Patriarch Gavrilo, who had withdrawn to the monastery of Podostrog, in Montenegro. Remote in the mountains, this ancient monastery was built in front of

a cave to commemorate the time when the Serbs had put up a desperate defense there against the Turks. Because the head of the Church had taken with him for safekeeping the Serbian crown jewels, the Germans had brought against him the preposterous charge of stealing state property. So they transferred him from Podostrog to a monastery about thirty miles from Belgrade. This is how they did it. They took from the old man everything, even his shoes. They left him naked except for his shirt. And over the rough roads, over the mountains and through the deep valleys, they made him walk, at the point of a bayonet, two hundred miles, hatless in the burning Balkan summer. Thus, thought the Nazis, they would humiliate the Church of the Serbs, the unconquerables, by making it appear ridiculous in the person of its Patriarch. Did they succeed? It seems that their most cunning schemes are invariably selfdefeating. As he passed, mile upon painful mile, leaving, no doubt, footprints of blood upon the stony road, through Montenegro, Bosnia, and Serbia, the Patriarch's children of all ages knelt down by the roadside, praying and weeping. He blessed them as he passed. And be sure they rose again immeasurably strengthened in courage and resolution by the dignity of the latest martyr of the Serbian Church. Never while there lives a Serb will that passing of their old Patriarch Gavrilo be forgotten.

22. PROMISES INSTEAD OF PLANES

ENGLAND AND AMERICA had certainly promised to send effective help. Colonel William J. Donovan, personal emissary of President Roosevelt, had been in Belgrade (I was in Sofia at the time). How much had been promised would not be for me to say, even if I knew positively, which I don't. I can say this, however: that the public impression was of promises both large and definite. I believe-anyone who knew the people well believes-that the Serbs would have done what they did if we had given them no promises at all. By the people as a whole those promises were not much considered; they did not weigh heavily in causing them to resist domination at any cost. The leaders took a more pragmatic view. For them those promises by England, America, and also Russia were the decisive consideration. They believed them. There was no misunderstanding-it does us no good to hedge at this date. Promises were made. They were not kept. If the Serbs had bargained for their resistance, they could have got almost any price. But no, it was a "gentlemen's agreement." And the Serbs carried out their part. In a war aimed just as much at America as at Europe, the Serbs gave us without price the three most vital months in the annals of civilization. Serbia at the end would present no bill-that I knew- because the Serbs are like that. But history would write down her figures and add them up. Would the final sum in America's account with little Serbia be written in black or-red? I wondered. A gentlemen's agreement is so agreeable gently to forget! Anxiously, in the following days, we weighed the situation. And slowly my hopes of effective help began to sink. The campaign in Syria had come just at the wrong moment. Would the British be able to disengage a sufficient force to be effective in the Balkans? It seemed to me desperately unlikely. We knew there were at least thirty Axis divisions besides columns of tanks and a vastly superior air force massing on the Austrian, Italian, Hungarian, Rumanian,

Bulgarian, and Albanian frontiers of Yugoslavia. To these we could hope to oppose only fourteen complete divisions, almost none of which was wholly reliable because of the admixture of Croatian troops. I was sure that the Croats meant treachery. But I could not prove it. And the Serbs could or would not believe it. They have a curious tender streak in term, narrow but stubborn. Treachery is foreign to their own natures; hence they cannot predict it in others. At such times the onlooker sees more than the participants. I was not alone in fearing that the Croats would change sides. But I did not dream-nor did anybody else, so far as I know-that they would go completely berserk. We knew only that the Serbs would fight, and we knew that Serbia was in a frightful position with small hope of effective help. Would America at least send us planes? How often in that time I thought of my brother General Billy! If only he had been alive, how well that good fighter would have understood and loved the Fighting Serbs! I looked at my St. George sitting on his battle charger, and his face seemed to change to that of my brother. And the horse changed to a plane. I saw him leading a great flight of American planes across the seas to help the Serbs.... But-my brother was dead. He died, fighting for his dream of air power to which America had turned a deaf ear. Must the Serbs now die fighting, also ignored? There was little, so very little, that I could do. But if there was truth in the belief, held by men through the ages, in survival after death, then my brother would help me to help the Serbs. And who can say that he has not done so? We believed that the Army could hold for fourteen days-with great good luck for twenty days. Then, when the Army fell, we, the Chetniks, would go into action.

Arms and munitions were hidden in caves and buried in the forests in places where of old the Serbs had known how to stand. We had our secret airfields in the mountains. We could not guess that the Croat Colonel Kren, of the Royal Yugoslav Army, chief of the Fourth District of Aviation, would on April 3 fly to Germany and disclose to the enemy the position of every one of these airfields, which were, of course, immediately bombed out of existence. (This man is now a general of the army of the Independent State of Croatia and chief of Croat aviation, which has made such a brilliant record against the Russians. Fliers can't be "coerced.") My own role was to be this: if the British succeeded in landing in force on the Greek coast and coming up through Macedonia, I was to act as liaison officer on the Chetnik staff. Though my Serbian was certainly weak, I spoke sufficient of the other necessary languages, i.e., German, French, and Italian. \ If the British did not succeed in getting through, my job would be to act as intelligence officer, spy, in the most important place I could get to. America was not yet in the war, and my American passport would be invaluable. We calculated that the flying field at Podgoritsa, on the Montenegrin-Albanian frontier, would be the very last to fall. I was to make for that point and proceed from there to wherever my services would be most useful. We believed that the Montenegrins would give the best account of themselves: partly because of their eagerness for the fray and their pride in never having been conquered, partly because they would be fighting the Italians. But mainly because of their lack of admixture with Croats. We were proved right. The Montenegrins were sweeping the Italians into the sea when Yugoslavia collapsed behind them. Everything turned out much worse and also better than we thought we could expect. The army of Yugoslavia collapsed in eight days, and the army of Serbia is fighting still, today, almost two years later. The Chetniks fought splendidly from the beginning, and the Chetniks are fighting splendidly today. What we had no means of foreseeing was that a great leader would arise with a brain and a personality capable of reorganizing, combining, inspiring, and leading the shattered remnants of a defeated army and an undefeated organization of

guerrilla fighters. We could not guess that, faced with an impossible situation, the single-minded will to liberty of the Serbs would produce one of the most brilliant military figures of the war, General Draja Mihailovich.

23. A TORCH IS LIT WHICH SHALL NEVER GO OUT

AT SIX-FORTY* on Sunday morning, April 6, my Cossack houseman Michael placed my breakfast tray as usual in front of the radio in the sitting room of my house on the Slaviya hill of Belgrade. I came from my bedroom through my little library. In that slanting early light it was like the inside of a jewel case, rich with the antique treasures I loved so much. Outside my windows, level with the ground, the dark-browed Serbian peasants, the men in somber dark, the women in their bright embroidered clothes, passed unhurried but more silently, more grimly than usual, to the early Sunday market. I watched them thoughtfully as I began to pour my tea and turned the short-wave radio knob. Suddenly from the small brown instrument there burst a bellowing, raucous German voice, screaming, shrieking with that hysterical fervor with which the Nazis bemuse their own people but which long since has left the rest of the world contemptuously cold. I steadied on the wave length, and there flowed into my lovely room words which I knew meant that in a matter of minutes my little house with all the age-old beauty it contained would almost certainly be wiped forever from the earth. These were the words as I remember: "Die Bomben fallen und jetzt in diesem Augenblick steht schon ganz Belgrad in Flammen. [The bombs fall and already now this instant all Belgrade is in flames.]" The voice was Ribbentrop's, the words were Hitler's message to [*Correspondents dealing with the Belgrade bombardment give various tunes agreeing neither with each other nor with this. I am confident that this is correct, as my household followed invariable custom. That "master race" reduced by him to a savagery worse than any ever known in the savage old Balkans. It was a lie, as usual. Belgrade was absolutely quiet. I listened: no sound but the jingling of milk carts in the streets and the shuffling of unhurried peasant feet.

But it was coming, this raucously heralded doom. At any moment now immeasurable horror would descend on these humble people from the blue morning sky. Should I rush out and cry to them to hide? No use. They would only think it panic, those grim men who, after all, must be expecting it. Yes, we all knew it must come. But it had come a little sooner than we had expected. It was war-the war in which I had already enlisted, and in which my role had been assigned. I ran into my bedroom to pull on my Chetnik uniform. Just as I buckled on my dagger the first bomb fell. My mind seemed to act quite mechanically. First I tipped over the cage of my pet magpie to give it at least a chance of life. Then I filled the bathtub, as I knew the water mains would be smashed at once. (Useless, for the bath was almost immediately filled with collapsed ceiling.) The ominous, dull explosions multiplied-came nearer . . . nearer. . . . The screams of Stukas diving on the town were at first far off, like yells of fiends from the inferno. As they came closer they were like no sound ever heard in all the universe. I had planned what to do. My cellar was deep, but vaulted with bricks which would be sure to shake down on us. Stairs, it appears, usually stand up longest when houses collapse. So when my cook Sultana began to scream, I pushed her under the stairs. I tried to push Michael too, but that little gray-haired Cossack wasn't to be moved from his matter-of-fact calmness: "If God intends that I shall die," he said, "no walls can protect me." (He walked out into the garden to see what there was to see, was knocked over several times and simply got up again!) Now the real fun started. Bomb after bomb exploded all round us, some not more than twenty yards away. The effect was almost inconceivable. It wasn't the noise or even so much the concussion. It was the perfectly appalling wind that was most terrifying. It drove like something solid through the house: every door that was latched simply burst off its hinges, every pane of glass flew into splinters, the

curtains stood straight out into the room and fell back in ribbons. Everything that stood loose hit the opposite wall and was smashed. The ceilings fell with hardly a noticeable sound in the earth-shaking uproar. Then, with a weird, smooth sound like the tearing of heavy silk the neighboring houses began to collapse. At every crash I would cry out to my poor Sultana, now reduced to gibbering prayer: "Once you hear it, you're safe, it's over!" She merely sobbed frantically, "If God wills it-if God wills it-if God wills it...." Each time there was a really big explosion we were knocked- crash!-against the wall, and no muscular control could prevent a dizzying blow on the back of the head. The heart stopped, and one had a frantic flash of thought that it might not start again. Soon the cordite fumes, thick, yellow, strangling, rolled in to obliterate' the scene. There came a moment of comparative lull. Sultana, silent, held her breath, and I had time to wonder what had happened to those men and women who just a few minutes ago were tramping so calmly past my windows. Was their near-by market just a deep hole lined with crushed bodies and stalls? How had they reacted? That question was of pressing interest, indeed of immediate vital importance, to me. I believed in these people, this peasant race of Serbs, so little considered or understood by the outside world. I admired them greatly-so much so that I had taken the serious step of throwing in my lot with them and pledging my own life to help them. Had I been wrong? On how they reacted, now that they were getting what they had been asking for, depended the answer. Again the bombs were falling, thick and fast, and on and on. Now far, then near, the Stukas shrieked and stooped like hawks upon our very chimney pots.

I ran to a smashed window. There in the street among piles of stones men and women lay still in strange, contorted attitudes. I had a surge of uncontrollable wild fury as these ferocious birds with their ear-splitting noise swooped down to lay their eggs of death, so low I felt I could almost strike the pilots in the face. The thunder of their engines seemed like hellish laughter: "Down, up, and away-what fun! Belgrade an open, undefended city? What's that to us, to us, the splendid Masterfolk? We are the bearers of -all the world's culture, and this is itha-ha!" . . . The crashing of the bombs faded to dull booms and died away. We had been left alive. I ran out into the street. My house was a corner one, and both streets now were blocked with rubble. The view both ways was weirdly unrecognizable, a nightmare of bulging, slanting ruin. There were two unexploded incendiary bombs imbedded in the pavement just outside my windows. The bodies were already being carried across the piles of masonry by people, many of whom were themselves covered with blood. Michael was calmly helping. The people were silent, absolutely silent and grim. I heard not a single sound. No one ran screaming, shouting for help. A few children stumbled, dazed and dizzy, beside their parents. Very few people even had come out. The town lay stunned, breathless-waiting, in an eerie silence. Hardly had we got the wounded down the street to the near-by hospital, when it came again. This time I saw the swarm of planes high in the sky darting down toward us. I didn't count them. I went back into my house-that seemed the only thing to do. Again we went through what seemed hours but was perhaps only twenty minutes of hellish noise, of struggling for breath- just standing it. This time? No. This time? No. Still alive. Still alive. How was it possible! "Be quiet, Sultana, it must pass, it will pass...." She clung, gasping, to my hand. Now Michael, his short gray hair on end, ambled in and stood looking thoughtfully at the floor as if bored. Every time we reeled and steadied again he looked up at me with his quizzical little smile: "Well, well, that was a close one, that one."

A lull, and a policeman stuck his head through a smashed window, calling loudly, "Everybody here leave at once! The house next door is going to fall on this one." We jumped out to look. The four-story wall next door looked pretty steady to me. Nevertheless I ordered the two servants to take what they valued most and make for a cottage they had in a village outside Belgrade. Sultana threw her arms round my neck and kissed me, her tears wet on my cheeks. "Come with us, madam, come-come with us!" Michael also begged me to go. Although my business was to get as quickly as possible to my post on the Montenegrin-Albanian frontier, I decided to remain a little longer. For there was something I felt it was my duty to do. Sultana consulted with her husband, grabbed a few things, kissed him, and ran down the street. I spoke to Michael sharply: "You go tool" He shook his old head: "I remain with you, madam." No use standing to argue with this stubborn fellow. I was pleased, of course, and showed it. Now I had work to do. When you have taken into your care some small fraction of the beauty of past centuries, you are the guardian of it for just your little instant in the long roll of time. If I had deserted my lovely things at this moment I should have been ashamed all the rest of my life. My plans had long been made. My collections were to have gone out of town to be buried in the garden of friends in a cement cellar prepared for them. We knew well from friends in Poland and Czechoslovakia that the Germans, especially the reserve officers, were ruthless looters and thieves, particularly of antiques. If now the house next door was going to fall on mine it would be lucky, because anything I could get into the cellar would almost surely be protected both from the elements and from greedy German eyes. I calculated too that the neighboring wall couldn't fall as far as the library.

Boxes and bags stood ready. With flying haste I began to pull down exquisite brocades and mantles, to drag from teak and mother-of-pearl chests fragile silk bedspreads heavy with gold embroidery. Back came those murderous bombers. It's extraordinary how hard it is just to pick things up and put them into a box when the house is staggering and you are wondering how many seconds you are still going to be alive. Again the choking cordite fumes. I was blown off my feet, scrambled up, and threw things in with frantic haste. Lovely icons, wrought candlesticks, swords, guitars, trays, little golden mules, bracelets, snuffboxes, scissors... At last it was done. The bombers again drew away. A breathing space. Now to get the things into the cellar. I called for Michael. But Michael wasn't there. Could he have deserted me after all? I sat down for the first time since my early tea. The silence round me was uncanny, as if every mouse in the town were holding its breath or was dead. It is best to say here what happened to old Michael the Cossack from the Don. That faithful soul decided that it was his duty to get me out of Belgrade-by fair means if possible, if not, then by foul. He knew that if anything could tempt me to flight it would be a horse. He therefore ran as fast as his legs could go out of town to a friend who still had an ancient nag not taken for the Army. He seized the beast, despite the protesting cries of its owner, and rode post-haste directly into the terrible rain of bombs. The horse was killed under him (I later passed the body), and he was violently thrown. He wandered, shell-shocked, back to his village and his wife. So I had to be my own porter. I dragged the bags and trunks to the top of the cellar stairs, gave them a shove, and let them bump down by themselves. And in the deathly stillness I was startled by the noise they made! Now to find the quickest means of getting down to Montenegro. The railway? Surely that would be destroyed, but I would see. All our plans had been made for

Thursday. M.P., a flier, had left for Skoplye, and my chief was not to be back in town until Tuesday. I ran out into the street. At the corner, beside an overturned cart from which milk had flowed in long white streams, lay the mangled body of a beautiful horse. I knew that horse. Tears came to my eyes, for I remembered a little scene I had witnessed so often from my windows in the early mornings of that snowy winter. A particularly handsome peasant boy used to stop his small milk cart at my corner, get down, take off his long sheepskin coat and put it over this very horse. He had no doubt bred it himself, since it was obviously the pride of his heart. Taking the horse's head between his hands, he would quickly look up and down the street to make sure he was not observed. Then, to the evident delight of the horse, he would kiss it quickly on the nose. Now the well-loved animal was just torn meat, and its kindly master's body had been carried away. Looking down the next street, I saw a wonderfully impressive proof of the instability of power. The most imposing building in all Belgrade was the great frowning gendarmerie headquarters. It had always annoyed me, and I had avoided passing it. I don't like architectural terrorization any better than any other kind-to me it always seems a confession of weakness. And now? In one small second those heavy granite walls had been blown about the neighborhood in fragments. All the interior lay wrecked and naked to the eye, and the elevator, halfway up, hung loose, ridiculously helpless. Cars lay overturned and flattened, and blood was everywhere. I heard afterwards that three hundred and sixty policemen waiting there in reserve had been killed by one of the first bombs. It was not more than two hundred yards across the roofs from my house. Hurrying through a narrow choked passage, I came upon a sight I wish I might never have seen, for it will haunt me while I live. The Germans, with their careful maps, had gone especially for the air-raid shelters (very few in this "open" city)-and especially for those meant for school

children. Here in a little park one of these had received a direct hit. The hole was enormously deep. Trees uprooted lay tumbled as in the old game of spillikins. And in their branches were parts of human bodies, arms, legs, heads-so small, so small-which other humans, their mothers and fathers, dazedly heavy and fumbling of movement, were slowly trying to collect. Most horror photographs-though none, even in color, could reproduce the gory shambles of this scene-showed weeping, despairing relatives. Here there were none-no tears and no despair. Only stunned movement, pitifully hopeless, slow. Street corners, where small boys had just had time to set up their humble baskets, were now strewn with treasured oranges and flowers. How eagerly, eyes and teeth gleaming with bright smiles, these boys used to bargain! Many of them had been my friends, making a morning's walk gay with the chaff we exchanged. For them no more shivering in the chilly mornings, no more joyous success with the first customer, no more the pennies anxiously garnered for their mothers. Little, merry flames-blown out! I stooped to pick up a narcissus, but received such a shocked look from a passer-by that I dropped it again. Refugees were beginning to move up the street out of the town. Most carried bundles, but few were heavily loaded. The carts and prams piled high with awkward goods that one saw in the pictures of French refugees were noticeably absent. Was it because these people, through long tragic history, were inured to losing their possessions? The order and absolute silence of the crowd were striking. They weren't even hurrying particularly-they looked just calmly prepared for a long, long march. Children trotted busily, quietly beside their parents, clinging to hands or skirts as if perhaps going to church but with no sign of fright. On the principal shopping street, the "Fifth Avenue" of Belgrade, fine furniture, silk stockings, jewelry, radio apparatus, shoes, china, books, cases of cigarettes lay flung on the sidewalk. In places one's boots literally crunched on candy and costume jewelry. Yet not one person stooped to pick up anything.

In the interior of the shops the greedy flames were already licking with their red-white tongues. Soon I had to walk in the middle of the street, the heat too great on each side. Not a soul was doing anything to stop it, no one even turned to look. There was nothing that could be done. The water works had been the first German target: "Burn, Belgrade, burn!" Chetniks stood at the corners with drawn guns to keep order. They were not needed until that night, when the Gypsies moved in and began looting. A number were shot. Chetniks who are strangers to each other never salute or speak, and even those acquainted only acknowledge this with a quick lift of the eyebrow. I now met an acquaintance in the force who stopped just long enough to inform me that our headquarters had ceased to exist. It did not matter: we knew what we had to do. The airfield, of course, would be the first thing completely smashed up. I ran down to the station. The whole neighborhood was just a shambles, the building itself burning fiercely. It would be many a day before a train left from there. I hurried back to my house on the off chance that some friend might have turned up with a car. The next wave of bombers arrived just as I got home. What was my surprise to see, sitting politely on two chairs they had turned right side up, Mrs. C. and her daughter, B., very dear Serbian friends of mine, the elder the wife of a Serbian general at the front, the younger the widow of a well-known novelist. The sight of these fashionably smart ladies sitting in the midst of all the wreckage quite formally, but in their night clothes, each with a white, beady-eyed lapdog in her arms, was too much for me: I burst into shouts of laughter, in which they soon joined. They had been fast asleep when the first bombs fell, had sprung up, seized their dogs and a packet of money, and run down into the cellar of their apartment house. Not long afterwards a policeman came in and yelled: "Get out quickly, the house above you is burning!" Everything they possessed in town was gone.

Ever since then they had been dodging here and there under whatever cover they could find but headed towards my house. They were grimly undismayed, not even tired. We sat on my cellar stairs, nibbling sausages and, to the accompaniment of screaming Stukas, discussing ways and means. They had a country place in the direction I must take: we would proceed together. When there came another lull I ran out to settle the transport business, leaving them to rummage round my wrecked bedroom for whatever clothes they could find to wear. First I went to the American Legation. There a press car stood with the newspapermen ready to move off. The car obviously would be filled to extreme capacity. After snapshots had been taken I hurried on to the British Legation, which was entirely deserted. I saw several acquaintances with cars overflowing with humanity. There was no use hunting vaguely through the town. I made up my mind we would walk until we could meet other transportation. I hurried back, passing the Ministry of War, which was burning sullenly, with heavy, billowing black smoke, while army clerks stood helpless round the doors. One of the first three bombs had blasted it. This explained in part the extreme confusion of military orders later. Upon my return to my house I found there my two young "guardians," the German agents, Helmuth and Igon, whom I had expected, indeed hoped, never to see again. But here they were, eager to know what I was going to do and intending, if possible, to stop me from doing it. I told them that I proposed to make for the coast and "try to get out of the country." They were pop-eyed at seeing me in uniform, and the old book excuse, I could see, now had worn pretty thin. They went into an anxious huddle and immediately began making determined efforts to persuade me to remain in Belgrade.

"Stay here-we will hide and look after you. The Germans are sure to be here soon, and you will be the only American behind the lines. Only think what wonderful work you could do!" etc. I was not sure to what lengths they would go to prevent my leaving, and it was necessary to find out if they were armed. So I took them down into the cellar and begged them to help me to pile up logs and all sorts of heavy articles on top of my treasures, to protect them in case the house fell. For this they had to take off their coats. After searching those I took occasion, while carrying things, to bump into them from all sides and made sure they had no guns. I myself had an automatic, so I could afford to be amused at their baffled, undecided behavior. My two women friends had clothed themselves bizarrely in odds and ends of my belongings. B. was very petite and graceful, and under my raincoat, which hung in folds almost to the ground, my extra riding boots looked huge. Her mother had found no shoes big enough and had decided to stick to her bedroom slippers. But a bright peasant shawl on her white curls made her look more beautiful than ever. Yanko and three other men friends of mine now arrived to see if I was still alive. They were in a hilarious state, for, having decided that it would be a shame to leave good bottles for bad Germans, they had stowed the contents in the most convenient place. My last remains of fine ten-year-old Zemun wine, of rakiya and mastic, they offered, with great protestations of chivalry, to save from the enemy in the same way. But I thought that in the next few hours we should need what wits we had. So we had one more glass each. Then, amidst funereal lamentations, I poured the rest down the drain. I wonder if there is any other race in the world that has such a nonchalant attitude towards death as the Serbs. Their old saying, "We are accustomed to die," has been so much quoted that one begins to suspect that there is something theatrical, insincere about it; until the test comes. Then one realizes that death is really the least of their worries. "If you are to die, why-too bad, if it is for nothing," is their attitude, "but if it's in a good cause, up, then, up and at 'em-we are lucky ever to have been alive at all."

That is the old natural unspoiled Serb. But among those who have been educated abroad a sort of nervous compensation sometimes sets in that produces completely unashamed, contemptible cowards. Fortunately there are very, very few of these, and most of them fled the country in good time. I decided that we would make for my cook's cottage outside Belgrade and there look for a conveyance. The two German agents took turns carrying my sleeping bag. They were completely at a loss except for their obvious determination to cling to me as long as possible. No sooner were we outside my gate than we discovered to our horror that Yanko was proudly bearing an enormous Yugoslav flag on a long pole. I begged him to leave it behind, but he only laughed. At the first large street crossing an officer jumped out of a car and angrily ordered him to get rid of it, pointing to the German planes which were again approaching low down and reminding him that he was endangering not only himself but everyone in his vicinity. This made Yanko angry. Addressing a crowd of refugees that quickly collected around us, he began a grandiloquent harangue: "I am a Serb. My country is Yugoslavia. This is the flag of my country-I am not ashamed of it. Are you, my countrymen, ashamed of it?" Stern barks from the crowd: "No, no!" "I will carry my country's flag wherever and whenever I blankety-blank well please. Wouldn't YOU, my countrymen. do likewise?" Less numerous answers-since the planes were nearer-of, "Yes, yes! " "Yes, I am a Serb, and no blankety-blank-blank German or anyone else [glaring at the officer, who laughed, shrugged his shoulders, sprang into his car, and drove off] is going to scare me out of carrying it. Am I right?" Since everyone had now hastily taken shelter in surrounding ruins, the answer, if there was one, was inaudible in the crashing explosions.

He stood there stubbornly, alone, legs apart, the great flag in hand, gazing up undismayed and absolutely helpless at the flying devils in the sky. At that instant he exactly represented the whole spirit and situation of the Serbs. On we went, climbing over wreckage and skirting deep bomb holes, crouching beside fences or trees to let the planes pass by. Near the outskirts of town we saw a dead white horse. It turned out to be the one on which Michael had tried to rescue me. The planes were now flying low, machine-gunning anything that moved-except cows or geese: that would have been wasting future German food. The safest thing to do in a German air raid is to go and lean against a cow! It was amusing to see with what wholehearted terror the two Germans, Helmuth and Igon, threw themselves into dirty corners- always down first, always up last-while Yanko walked peacefully on with his flag. As we emerged into open country this bright bunting became a really serious danger: people were fleeing from us as much as from the Germans. Something had to be done. I had an inspiration. I stumbled and cried out that I had twisted my ankle. Yanko, the dear fellow, greatly concerned, ran up. Limping painfully, I put my arm across his shoulder and, without his being aware of it, slowly wound up the flag. Soon he was walking proudly as ever with what was no more conspicuous than a painted pole. I stayed beside him, needing assistance every time the damned thing got loose again. Now a curious thing happened. A stray horse, a handsome black animal, beautifully saddled and bridled, ran from a side street and stopped right in front of me. My almost uncontrollable instinct was to jump on its back and ride away south to the mountains. My friends, instantly guessing my thought, surrounded me and begged me not to do it: it was an officer's horse, he too had his duties to perform, probably more immediately important than mine, I had no right to steal his mount, etc. And sure enough a soldier was already madly tearing down the street after the animal. I turned my back, bitterly disappointed, and walked on.

Often later, in the endless days and nights of prison, I used to think of how differently things might have turned out if I had obeyed my instinct. Perhaps I might now be with General Mihailovich and my Chetniks. We passed through a village almost entirely inhabited by Gypsies, and here the noisy panic was in striking contrast to the silent grimness of the steadily tramping Serbs. Soon we reached Michael's village and his tiny cottage. The two small rooms and the chicken-filled garden were crowded with friends, mostly Russian women and children, and a few old men. And here my dear old Michael, evidently much loved, was king. He was still dizzy and a little vague from the shock of his dashing failure; even so, he did the honors of his home in the royal manner. Everything was put at our disposal: carefully hoarded provisions were brought out, chickens killed. As darkness began to fall, fourteen of us disposed ourselves on the two beds and on the floor. We were without lights, but the house was on a little hillside with a free view over Belgrade. And Belgrade was burning. As night came down the sight was weird and terrible. The great city along the Danube seemed to be one blazing bonfire. Great tongues of flame would burst up suddenly, glare fiercely for a while, and slowly sink away. Sullenly the heavy clouds of smoke rolled upwards, billowing, writhing, twisting away into the sky, reflecting on their black bellies the angry glare that must have been visible for hundreds of miles across the huge river and the limitless flat plain. Germany had lit the great beacon of her "civilizing mission" in the Balkans. Watching the winged fiends of this holocaust. it seemed to me that they had burst up from the infernal regions of ancient myth. Through and above the clouds of fire they darted unceasingly, those messengers from hell, swooping and diving, skimming away and back again. And still with demonic diligence and glee they rained destruction on destruction upon the pitifully supine city. The Serbs had dared to dream of liberty. Now their murdered capital flamed, a dying signal to the liberty-loving peoples of the earth. But none could raise a hand

to help. There was grandeur in the great city's loneliness, grandeur in the unchecked flaming of its heart, grandeur even in its utter helplessness. I walked up and down, up and down the little bricked path of the garden, alone in the darkness and silence-dark but for the glare from the burning capital, silent but for the sound of bursting bombs. I was full to the brim and running over with fury. I swore to myself that while there was breath in my body I would fight to save what those monsters of cruelty would leave of a people whose dream they could never understand.

24. GOOD-BY, HELMUTH!

TOWARDS DAWN it became impossible to sleep even by snatches. For now an anti-aircraft battery, hastily brought back from the south, was placed in the shelter of a little grove of trees not fifty yards behind the cottage. Soon the German planes would be attracted to our village, seeking out the battery. It was time therefore to move. But which way? People began running in with the strangest rumors. "The British are sending a whole fleet of river boats up the Danube to defend Belgrade." Too absurd for contradiction, of course, since Germany held the whole Bulgarian and Rumanian sections of the river leading to the Black Sea. "German tanks have already crossed the frontier and are nearing Belgrade." "German parachute troops have landed all along the railway line to the south." Igon seized upon this last, which seemed to me not altogether unlikely, to urge upon me that if I tried to proceed I should certainly be caught between the two lines of converging Germans. He and Helmuth got me into a corner of the garden and acted a kind of Greek tragedy of desperate strophe and antistrophe, each confirming the other's eager reasoning and prophecies of doom, the purpose being to persuade me to return to Belgrade. But Helmuth was noticeably weakening. I decided to proceed at once but did not like to take the responsibility of leading my friends into danger. I went in to put the alternatives before them, and there I saw a charming scene. The older lady, looking very fresh and bright, was sitting on the bed, both little dogs beside her. Her daughter was arranging her mother's white curls as elaborately as she had every morning for years, the while they placidly discussed the weather! They listened to all my arguments pro and con, and without a moment's hesitation decided to come with me.

I ran out and around the village to see if I could get some sort of farm cart. At last I found a grizzled old fellow who was planning to remove his family southward. He agreed to make room for us and to come to fetch us. We wasted two hours waiting for him. I suppose too many women relatives made it impossible for him to keep his promise. For at last when I went to find him he had gone. We decided to walk round the city toward the southwest in order to reach the railway at some miles down the line where it might still be working. Little, slow, obsolete Yugoslav fighting planes had now arrived to engage the great bombers. There were a large number of Montenegrins in the Flying Corps. I knew that sixty of them, knowing how inferior were their planes and guns, had formed a suicide squadron and had sworn to try to ram the enemy planes. I couldn't stand watching it. As for my two German heroes, they stood by themselves so that I shouldn't see how delighted they were, though I noticed that Helmuth stood like a stone. It wasn't until much later that I heard what had happened at Zemun, the Belgrade airfield. The pro-German Prince Paul government had left only seven fighter planes there, under the command of a Croat. Major Romel Adum. At seven-thirtv on April 6, when the German bombers arrived, the major ordered the seven Serb fighters to remain grounded, saying it was hopeless. Captain Todor Gogich and the six other Serb officers thereupon informed him that he was relieved of his command, and immediately took the air. They were all killed except Gogich himself, who was badly wounded, but not before they had brought down a number of German planes. As Belgrade had been declared "open," they were careful to fight only in the environs. Major Adum immediately left for Zagreb and is now in the Croat Air Force fighting Russia. Yanko and the three other men decided to return at once to Belgrade. I knew he had a job to do: this time I asked no questions. With daylight the bombing had reached a new intensity. But, believe it or not, Yanko now began frantically to hunt for his flag! Just to be on the safe side, we had placed it as a perch in the chicken

house. When he looked even there, the hens were peacefully roosting on it and he didn't find it. A warm grasp of the hand and the dear fellow left. Later, when I was in Belgrade prison, I heard by grapevine telegraph that he was at his old job, quite unsuspected by the Germans. I somehow have the conviction that Yanko and I shall meet again, and will there be a celebration! Bidding Michael and Sultana an affectionate farewell, the five of us now took a small supply of food and set out, the two Germans again carrying my bag, while the two ladies had only a little dog each. I arranged with them to engage Igon in conversation while I went ahead with Helmuth. I could see that the frightful treatment of Belgrade, an open, undefended city, had lowered his morale. Whatever his reasons for working for the Germans, his belief in the superiority of their honor and ideals had received a fearful jolt. He was a Jew, and I knew what must inevitably be his fate. I sincerely liked him. He had been misled by his deep love for Igon. But, after all, the latter belonged to a people who had treated his race more bestially than any race has been treated in recorded history. I begged him to come with me, to throw in his lot with the fellow victims of his race: if he had to die, let it be in a great cause, the cause of justice and freedom. I talked to him almost all day. To take him with me would be a serious risk for me, of course, but he spoke perfect Serbian, and my Chetnik pass, I was pretty sure, would enable me to get him through to where he too could join the fighters. We walked about twenty kilometers (about twelve miles) over the roughest going, often having to throw ourselves down as the planes crossed low, machinegunning anything that moved. Mrs. C.'s bedroom slippers began to lose their soles, and she grew terribly tired. But she uttered not a word of complaint, and I could hardly persuade her to let me carry her little dog. At last we reached the Avala road. Just before it we saw a whole line of bomb holes exactly following the line of the road and about a hundred yards from it: German bombsights had fortunately gone wrong.

Just where we reached the road we were delighted to see a row of four busses standing. They were waiting to evacuate children from the city and were stacked high with mattresses. We were told that if there was room after the children had been loaded we could ride too. We waited. Night was falling, and again the sullen glow from the burning city threw its ghastly reflection round us. The children began arriving in all sorts of conveyances: some in cars, their roofs torn off or hanging loose, their mudguards crushed as they had been dragged out of the wreckage; some in farm carts, in prams, on old men's backs. Some were well dressed; many were in rags. None were with relatives; they had just been picked up by passers-by. They were absolutely silent, some dazed and dizzy, but most of them self-contained and strangely businesslike as they were jammed into the busses. The bigger ones took the tinies on their laps as a matter of course and cradled the little strange, sleepy heads in their arms. There must have been two hundred children and no more noise than in a doll shop at night! Now the busses were full, and as no more children seemed to be coming, we three women were allowed to squeeze ourselves into a corner. Meanwhile Igon had taken Helmuth for a walk down the road. When they returned I saw by Helmuth's face that all my work had been undone. I made a last try. "Come with me, Helmuth, come-we will fight together for liberty and justice." He took my hand and held it a moment in both of his, but did not raise his eyes to mine. "I must die," he said, "in any case. I will go back. I truly loved you." Igon said not one word as they turned and disappeared into the flickering night. Helmuth was almost immediately caught by the Serbs and executed. Certainly he was not denounced by me, as Igon later is said to have declared. Igon himself was guilty of his friend's death.

25. NIGHTMARE JOURNEY

Now BEGAN A MOST EERIE RIDE, unreal as a nightmare. The busses, of course completely unlighted, tore madly through the night. Bomb holes ahead? No one seemed to give it a thought: the children must be taken as far and as quickly as possible away from the horror. Soon we discovered that our chauffeur had himself that morning lost his wife and three small babies in the bombardment. Imagine the bitterness in his heart to be saving only other people's children! Huge-eyed, stiff in their seats, the children seemed concerned only with protecting the sleeping tidies in their laps from the bumps. They showed no sign of either fear or excitement. Rain had begun to fall heavily. And now in the starless, stormy night we began to pass dim, black silhouettes, an endless column of troops on the march; artillery, wagons piled high with munitions and hay; cavalry, the men humped in their saddles against the rain. They were moving up toward Belgrade-but too late, too late. Now and then a Chetnik, belt heavy with bunches of hand grenades, coolly intent upon his business, would jump on the step of the bus, ride a few miles, and be gone again. They noted my uniform but made no sign. At last we arrived in Mladenovats and alighted in the midst of a huge crowd of refugees. It was now pouring very heavily. The children were quickly led away. How often afterwards I thought of the rows of small white faces with their huge black eyes and wondered what had become of them! We had stopped near the railroad station in a crowd packed almost solid. Every hour or so a train would come in and the whole mass of us would sway forward in a desperate scramble, so solid that if one had fallen there would be no chance of getting up. Yet that vast crowd, too, was absolutely silent. We three held on tightly to each other, the little dogs well hidden. At last we arrived on the platform. It was now about two o'clock in the morning, and my friends could hardly stand with exhaustion. I managed to shove them on top of

someone's bundles under an overhanging roof and seated myself on the steps just outside, almost on their feet. The trains had stopped coming. There we stayed until dawn, I in the happy position of having not only the pelting rain but also the heavy gush from the roof going down the back of my neck. Towards six o'clock the rain let up, then stopped. In the gray and ghostly light of a somber dawn we saw each other clearly for the first time: women still in their nightclothes as they had jumped from bed the morning before; hair still in curlers or in straggling wisps; no make-up; all tired, harassed, and half-drowned. Thus stripped of artifice, we looked at each other-and burst into roars of laughter! After that it was haute mode to look like nothing ever seen before, and no one lifted a hand to beautify. As our railway line appeared to have stopped operating, the station master urged us to cross the fields toward a near-by branch line where trains were running. But in the growing light I had seen a row of boxcars drawn up on a siding. And now, as I watched, the doors opened and strings of horses were unloaded. Would not these horse vans have to return south? Sure enough: hardly had the horses been unloaded when a little engine came puffing up. Quickly I signaled to my friends to return. The crowd from the fields and more crowds from the town made a mad dash to fill them. We three were first in, but the van became so jammed that, at risk of missing my place, I decided to scout around. I ran along the line and found better luck than I could have hoped for. The door of one van had jammed. Then I blessed the heavy dagger I wore, for with it I succeeded in prying the doors apart. Just as the train began to move I hoisted my friends in and clambered after them. We had a whole van entirely to ourselves. How lovely, how dreamlike was that day-long journey! Most of the straw was wet, but some in the corners was dry and sweet. This we piled under and over us. The little white curly dogs hopped merrily about for a while and then snuggled down, content.

Hour after peaceful hour we lay, sometimes chatting and sometimes dozing when the bumps of the springless truck allowed. The train moved so slowly we could almost have run beside it. It made countless stops. Two men jumped in, both elderly, to ride awhile and share with us their food and their news: only the wildest rumors, of course, always with the one refrain: "The British are coming-America will send help." Like an endless exquisite ribbon the sweet spring scenery moved slowly by. We might have been across the world from the rage and agony of war. Between the delicate gold-green shimmer of new herbage the patient oxen turned the deep brown soil as they had done these thousand years. Few men were to be seen, and these were old. All the young ones had gone to kill; to kill men whose deepest wish too, perhaps, was to return again to their plows in other, northern valleys. In their bright headshawls the women plodded stoically behind the oxen. Soon they would be frantically herding their children up into the mountains; soon the snug, pleasant villages among their groves of fruit trees would be gone-scattered, burned, wiped from this fruitful earth, at once so blessed and so bitterly cursed. In the twilight we arrived at Chachak, that little town one day to be famous as the birthplace of Draja Mihailovich. Again we descended into the solidly packed crowd of refugees. Again it was almost a shock to see no demonstrations of despair or even great regret, no terror of the future. Just patient grimness. Suddenly a voice in my ear: "Ha, here you are. I have lost my mother in the crowd. Please hold this while I try to find her." I turned and saw the fat and usually urbane but now very worried face of a journalist friend, V., from Belgrade. He thrust into my hands a large parcel loosely wrapped in newspaper. It was heavy, it was slippery, and it was hot, so burning hot that soon I could hardly hold it. Boiling grease began to trickle down my fingers. An enticing fragrance stole upon the breeze. Those nearest me began to sniff excitedly; they crowded closer till I was hemmed in by a tight ring of eager noses, greedy eyes, and watering mouths. That delicious odor was unmistakable: I was holding, oh joy, oh miracle-a freshly roasted suckling pig!

A train came in. V. fought his way back to me, defeated-no mother! We ran for the train, room was made for us in a freight car; and promptly the little pig fulfilled its glorious destiny by vanishing into twenty famished mouths. Never on that journey of many days did I see anyone open a package of food and eat alone: everything was shared. There was nothing to buy, of course, and no food except what newcomers brought with them, mostly the peasants' usual fare of whole-meal bread, cheese, and onions, with sometimes a piece of fat sausage or that ghastly delicacy, a sheep's head. As we slowly chugged our bumpy way up into the mountains it became very cold. There was no room to lie down, and the doors were tightly closed. The air in the packed freight car became unendurably foul. Just when I thought we must all surely faint, the train would stop with a crash and, with a rush of fresh air, more people would pile in on top of us until we seemed to be three deep. Endless were those creeping night hours, while V. muttered anxiously about his mother-until at last, when again we stopped and the doors were opened, we saw that dawn had come. Snow was falling heavily, and in the gray, wan light V. found his mother in the same car with us, where she had been all night. They had escaped the fate of so many other families: to be separated in the crush of uprooted humanity, perhaps for years, perhaps forever. We all piled out. We were in Ujitse.

26. SOME TO FLIGHT AND SOME TO FIGHT

UJITSE is a little sleepy upland town, with sawmills surrounded by gigantic stacks of golden boards cut from logs felled in the near-by mountain forests. There many Belgrade families, like that of my friend Mrs. C., had summer homes. Because of its spreading orchards and the fine grass of neighboring valleys, Ujitse was famous for the quality of its plum brandy and for its delicate jerked, dried mutton. To our surprise we found the one street of the town crowded with handsome cars. The few small inns were packed. Among the refugees who had arrived was young King Peter II, for almost two weeks now the ruler of Yugoslavia, with his court, his ministers, and most of the foreign diplomats from Belgrade. I met many acquaintances and was able to replenish my finances by the kindness of the popular and efficient American consul general, Mr. Robert T. Macattee, and of Count Stenbock, the British consul general. Although I was ravenous, I almost forgot the food when lunching with Mr. Murphy, of the British Legation, for the funny tale this tall, red-headed, humorous Irishman had to unfold. Was he a secretary of the British Legation at Belgrade-or was he? Following his appointment, it had taken him sixty-five days to reach Yugoslavia via South Africa from London. He arrived within ten miles of Belgrade on Sunday morning in the midst of the bombardment. There his train stopped, to proceed no farther. Now what? He was accompanied by a King's Messenger, Mr. Rutherford, who afterwards behaved with thoughtful circumspection when in prison with me in Belgrade. Mr. Murphy decided to proceed on foot but had walked barely a mile when he was arrested and marched to a village police station. Not knowing a word of the language, he had to convince the excited gendarme, who threatened to shoot him on the spot as a fifth columnist, that he was an English diplomat lost in the wilds.

At last an interpreter was dug up, and he was told: "All right, you can go!" Wisely Mr. Murphy refused to go further without a police escort. Just then troops were passing on their hurried march to regarrison the city. So he was put into the front rank and thus marched into Belgrade. Arrived that night at the Legation, he found it deserted. He managed to get in, went down into the cellar, chose a nice bottle of wine and, using a sofa in the drawing room, snatched what sleep he could between bombs. Next morning he found someone to take him south and soon caught up with the retiring legation staff. I remember that luncheon gratefully, as it was the last time for many months that I laughed really heartily. Suddenly the news came that the German radio had sent out a broadcast to this effect: "The so-called King of Yugoslavia has cravenly fled. But our brave airmen will pursue him and find him, even if he is hiding in Ujitse." Within half an hour the town was completely deserted by all its birds of passage. Every car was gone. The trains stopped too. Two young Red Cross nurses, the Misses M., sisters, who in the general mixup had become separated from their unit, came up to me and asked what they should do. Their father and brother were both Chetniks away on active duty, and they turned to me apparently as a matter of course to take charge of them. I came to the conclusion that it was hopeless to try to find out what had become of their unit, much less try to follow it. I decided to take them with me, since there would certainly be great need for their services in Montenegro. For their part they felt themselves dedicated and eager to go wherever they could be most useful. These calm, capable and handsome girls were representative of a particularly fine type of Jew to be found in the Balkans, descendants of those Jews who had been hounded out of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. After many generations they had come to feel themselves heart and soul as Serbs. Few in number, they were loved and respected by their fellow countrymen, and thus there had come about here a spiritual fusion of races such as I personally have not observed elsewhere, with the possible exception of England.

As the trains had stopped I was forced to spend the night there. Next morning my dear friends, B. and her mother, Mrs. C., departed for their country house after earnestly entreating me to come with them. Many times afterwards I wished that I had done so. I could certainly have ridden or walked across the mountains to Vukosava in the Sanjak and I would now be with General Mihailovich. Mrs. C. took for safekeeping certain notebooks of mine and all my portable valuables. I kept no jewelry, not even my favorite ring, an emerald which my brother, General Billy Mitchell, had given me years before with certain unforgettable words of affection and which I had never taken off since. I knew the Germans robbed not only the living but also the dead. If a bullet should find me, they should not be richer by even a little circlet of gold. At seven that morning the two nurses and I were waiting on the station platform. A train came in. It consisted of great Pullmans such as I had almost forgotten existed. They were filled, but only sparsely so, with beautifully dressed gentlemen, some noticeably of military age. There, just beyond clean sheets of glass, they were enjoying a luxurious breakfast in the society of their alluringly dressed and carefully made-up wives, lady friends, and secretaries. They gazed out with palpable disgust upon us lesser rabble. I signaled that I wished to board the train but was curtly given to understand that it could not be opened. These orchidaceous people were the heads of certain government departments and banking houses of Belgrade with their ladies. This was the fine flower of Western culture as it blossomed in Yugoslavia. Unhappily, many foreign-educated Serbs in government office exhibit an attitude of snobbish superiority toward the selyaks, the peasants, who represent the real heart and meaning of the country and who, of course, pay their salaries. Attached to this train in Ujitse station I saw something that might interest a Chicago gangster: two ordinary wooden freight cars containing the state treasure of Yugoslavia and all the cash assets of its banks. There were no gunslits or armed guards. The cars were "sealed" with two small lead seals and fastened with two little pieces of string.

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.

28. KNIVES AGAINST TANKS

TRAIN FOR MOSTAR. MY two nurses and I climbed into the last car, the baggage car, just as it pulled out. Now the pace of events began ominously to quicken. The car was not crowded, and we were the only women. There were groups of men dozing in the corners, reserves who were still trying to rejoin their units, of whose whereabouts they had only the vaguest idea. The train stopped incessantly. At almost every halt at least one man would jump aboard. Instantly everyone sprang up and surrounded the newcomer to listen eagerly to anything he had to tell. Then, when his news was exhausted, he too would collapse, to jump up again to greet the next arrival. Always the same sort of rumors: "Fleets of Allied planes have arrived to the rescue" . . . "Berlin, Budapest, Sofia have been laid flat, burning like Belgrade" . . . "The British are marching up through Macedonia in great force" . . . "Bulgaria is defeated," etc. Early in the morning the tales were all inspiring and the voices loud. But as day drew on and we got deeper into Bosnia, the voices dropped to muttered whispers. At last there were only hunted flashes of dark eyes. Then silence. Disconcerted gloom, like a visible cloud, descended upon us. The eyes of my two girls grew larger, rounder; they kept lifting them to me with a heartbreaking appeal, as if to them I represented in my person the whole power of the Allied arms. So almost exactly two years earlier, during the Italian occupation of Albania, the youth of Scutari had believed that by some magic, with a single word or a twist of my ring, I could call up the whole British Fleet. I squeezed the girl's hands, repeating: "Wait, don't get worried, this is only the beginning. This is only what we must expect." They returned the pressure and tried to smile. Suddenly, in this murk of doubt and fear, there occurred one of those incidents which, because of its pictorial effect and because of its infinitely tragic meaning, etched itself as with burning acid on my memory.

A man-or was it a specter ?-stood in the center of the car. He was so tall he seemed to reach the low roof. He stood with heavy shoulders slightly stooped, as go the men who are forever scaling mountains. Gaunt as a scarecrow, his clothes hung in tatters, and his shoeless feet were wrapped in bloody rags. His matted hair, blue-black, hung low into his haggard eyes that glowed with a sort of tigerish light. One look at his broad black eyebrows, curved in a particular manner, and at his eagle nose proved him a pure-blooded Serb of the Black Mountains. On his head the little Montenegrin cap, which is black for mourning, scarlet for blood, and gold for undying hope and loyalty. The apparition was so startling, so fraught with evil omen, that for once no one jumped up: we sat like stone and watched his every movement and expression. He stood a moment looking round into our anxious faces. In a strained voice, yet curiously low, as if speaking more to himself than to us, and panting slightly, he began: "We went out, even those who were not called, like me. We went out although we had no guns. We had knives-most of us-only knives. Our sisters said: 'Stay, you have not been called. Let the Army fight! You have no gun,' they said. 'Stay here!' They hung upon our necks-some of themand tried to hold us." (Only those who know the extraordinarily close bond between brother and sister in these lands can realize what that plea of a sister meant.) "But our mothers-they rose up and they said: 'We have borne you below our hearts, we have suckled you at our breasts. We have raised you to fight, as your fathers before you fought, for Montenegro.' They said: 'Go out, now, and fight. Fight,' they said, 'as your fathers fought -to keep Tserna Gora free. Go out,' our mothers said, 'go out now and fight, and return as victors-return as victors-or never return again. Death,' our mothers said, 'death is better than slavery."' He actually said those words. And remembering those proud and stern old Serbian women of the Black Mountain Kingdom, I knew he spoke the truth. He paused and drew a deep breath:

"We ran with our knives. We jumped on trucks, and ran again southward, to fight the Bulgarians" (he must have gone about a hundred miles southeast toward the Bulgarian frontier). "We came up with our army. They had shot away all their bullets-every one- and they did not know what to do. Our sandals were gone and our feet were bleeding with running. The officers on horseback took the shoes from their own feet and gave them to us. Those officers were good men. There were no more bullets-none. But we Tsernagorci ran on to fight the Bulgarians." A pause and his eyes glittered feverishly. "But there were no Bulgarians. No-there were only big iron monsters-tanks in long rows coming down upon us. And what use-what use are knives against tanks? "What use are knives against tanks?" he repeated and, his voice rising, slightly thinner, seemed to wait, desperately strained, for an answer-not from us, we didn't exist for him-but from some spirit guide. "So now," he cried, "I cannot say to my mother, 'What use are knives against tanks?'-she will not listen, she will never listen- never! What use are knives against tanks?" he demanded eerily again. "What use-are knives-against tanks?-A gun! A gun! A gun!" he cried desperately. And with a tigerishly liquid movement he sprang forward into the train and was gone. That man, if he is still alive, and hundreds, thousands like him are now, at this moment, fighting under General Mihailovich. They could not return home defeated, for their mothers would have shut the doors in their faces, would not have recognized them any longer as their sons-as did actually happen in a few cases. They are fighting now, as I write, with an inconceivable minimum of equipment, of medical supplies, of shelter, of clothes, of food. Yet they will fight on-be sure they will fight on and on-and on and on- until Serbia is free again, or until they all are dead. But when they return at last to the homes they have suffered such indescribable hardships to free, they will find only little piles of blackened rubble. When they descend again into the once busy, prosperous valleys, they will gaze upon a deathly still, depopulated land. For murderers, robbers, and the pestilence that creeps upon

starvation will have been there before them: not one soul left in their humble homes. Through the walls of their desolate dwellings green grass and wild weeds will be growing. Now I knew, or thought I knew, that Allied co-operation had failed, that any hope of help from British troops in the south was definitely gone. I calculated that this man must have gone halfway across Macedonia. But if the tanks were already there, then the Germans had succeeded in their attempt to drive a wedge between Serbia and Greece. So now Serbia was completely cut off from the rest of the world.

29. TREASON AND AMBUSH

OTHER TRAINS began to meet and pass us with all sorts of war material. And then one to which there clung first one or two, then groups, of careless, disheveled soldiers, laughing, skylarking, some evidently drunk. As we passed at snail's pace they cried out to us tauntingly, triumphantly, waving their arms. The men in our car crowded to the windows and replied sharply. Sneers and raucous laughter answered and rude motions were made. At first I couldn't understand, couldn't believe. But quickly it became certain: those soldiers were Croatians-they were going home. "Go home," they yelled, "you Serbs, you something-something Serbs. Go home, the war is over. The Germans have won-hurrah, hurrah! Croatia is free, we are going home. The blankety-blank Serbs are beaten, beaten, beaten, the war is over. We are going home!" There were a number of Croats in our car, simple men. The Serbs came from the windows and sat down, amazed, thinking they could hardly be awake. The Croats remained standing. Their chests began to swell. They gave each other sly, triumphant looks, exchanged muttered words. They turned and regarded us with bold impertinence. "Ha, the English," they chuckled contemptuously, staring at me. They began to look really ugly. After this had happened three times and the passing trains were crowded with these obvious deserters, the atmosphere in our car became electrical. The Serbs began to mutter and look ugly too. I regretted that I had put my bulky automatic in my bag, but I thought it best to sit quietly as if unconcerned. My girls seemed hardly to breathe. With a crash we stopped again, this time in the middle of a small town. The prefecture or town hall directly opposite and all the surrounding houses were gaily decorated with flags: but they were Yugoslav flags turned upside-down to become Croatian flags.

Just as we stopped, the mayor of the town, with a large document in his hand, stepped out onto the beflagged balcony and began to read a proclamation to a crowd below. We three sat still, but everyone else jumped out of our car and ran over to listen. Wild cheers broke out, and they came pelting back. Great chatter now ensued, and I heard the dumfounding news that Ante Pavelich, the well-known Croatian thug and international intriguer who had been paid by Mussolini to arrange the murder of King Alexander-that Ante Pavelich had proclaimed Croatia an Independent Kingdom, an ally of the Axis, and himself as king. Pavelich king? I wanted to shout with laughter, not guessing then the chaos of misery and horror that wretched sadist was to bring upon his land. The statement was repeated to me several times. Pavelich may or may not have actually proclaimed himself king: in any case he did not remain a king for more than a week at most. Then the Italians took over. The Croats in the car had managed to secure some bottles, and our position was now becoming really serious. I noted gratefully that in settling down again in sullen silence some of the Serbs got in front of us. Early in the day I had noticed a well-dressed man at the other end of the car. I had expected he would come and speak to me, but he was careful not to do so. I noticed he spoke to no one. Several times, however, he had given me anxious glances and nodded slightly as if to indicate he was a friend. Now I heard a whisper beside me: "You can't stay here. Those men will soon be drunk, and your uniform infuriates them. When we try to protect you and your girls there will be bloodshed." It was the well-dressed man speaking perfect English. "What had we better do?" I whispered. "We are near Mostar, and many people will get out. I'll go forward now and try to push a place for you to stand until we stop. You can trust me. Follow me almost immediately!"

He was gone. I told the girls. Quietly we got up, stooped to take our bundles, and gently edged toward the forward door. Our friend was in the corridor of the next car. By firmly pushing people aside he got us through to the door of a first-class compartment in which three people were preparing to leave. As the train slowed up they grabbed their bags and came out, and quickly we slipped into their places. Just as the train stopped there was a heavy volley of firing near the station. General consternation-and people sprang pell-mell from the train. Our friend said he would try to find out what was going on and left us. Almost at once he was back, sat down very quietly, and said there was no knowing what was happening. Another volley of firing, more scattered and prolonged. Immediately on securing our seats I had undone my sleeping bag, taken out my automatic and put it in my jacket pocket. The train stood as if taking root. Burst after burst of machine-gun firing. Now a soldier with rifle and fixed bayonet went through the car, bawling that no one must leave the train. Two men slipped breathlessly into the compartment and sat down. They were Montenegrin gentlemen of about thirty, tall and healthy-looking, but fat and soft. I knew them both by sight from Cetinje. One was a lawyer, the other a businessman. They looked scared to death. Again and again the rat-tat-tat of machine guns, sometimes nearer, sometimes farther off. It was obvious the town was being fought for. But by whom? Which way was it going? Our lives might depend on the answer. We sat turned, as it were, into ears. An hour pass-it seemed a week. I was terribly thirsty, and so were my girls. How I regret that thirst now! It cost the life of a kindly friend in need. But perhaps-such is the beastliness of warperhaps it was just as well. Still the train stood.

The sun had set and the firing seemed to be dying down. The strain made our throats dry. We got thirstier and thirstier. I mentioned it to our friend. Instantly he said he would try to get us some water. One of the men had an empty bottle. Our friend took it and, in spite of my protests, went out. I watched him anxiously as he ran over the neighboring rails in the gathering darkness between two sheds just opposite. A few minutes later he reappeared, running. There was a volley and he fell, not to move again. Two soldiers came and dragged away the body. Soon two soldiers appeared in the corridor. One came in and asked which was the man's luggage-they seemed to know exactly in which compartment he had been. There were, of course, no lights in the car, and when the one who came in saw me he hesitated as if taken aback and gave me a somber, undecided look. Then he took our dead friend's briefcase and, without speaking to his companion, they both departed. Who was our mysterious friend? The riddle can be answered in two ways, but I fear the weight of evidence is against him. However, he was not a coward. And the thought that an enemy was killed trying to get me a drink of water-even if that was only an excuse-is not a pleasant one. Still the train stood immovable. We had now been there more than two hours. It was completely dark. There were sporadic explosions of firing in the town. Suddenly there came a gentle tap-tap on the window. I peered out. Dimly a face in Flying Corps cap looked up-who but our sergeant friend of yesterday! I got the window down. "Listen," he said, speaking very quickly, "this train is likely to be attacked by the Croats towards the border of Herzegovina. There is a mutiny of Croats here, and we have orders to remain. Do you wish to stay with us?" I said I for one had to go on, but I left the girls free to do as they liked. They decided to stick with me.

"Very well then," he replied coolly, "I advise you to pile your baggage in the window. When firing starts lie down on the floor. Good luck!" And, after squeezing our hands affectionately, he faded into the night. Our two fine gentlemen now began feverishly to pull down their bags to pile them in the window. But this was too much. If something was going to happen I was at least going to see what it was and where we were. I spoke sharply and the bags went back on the racks. But one man actually tried with shaking fingers to draw the thin silk curtains to hide us-in a completely unlighted train! Two more men had softly insinuated themselves into our compartment. All now began silently to pray and to cross themselves. Suddenly there was heavy trampling in the corridor as a line of soldiers took their places; we could hear the dull thud of grounded rifles. Towards midnight we suddenly discovered that we were softly moving. My two acquaintances, more at ease, began to tell me what news they had heard. It was all bad-they were like that-but the worst for me was about Skoplye. Skoplye, the half-Mohammedan old capital of Macedonia, sitting grandly on both banks of the beautiful Vardar River and almost equidistant from the Bulgarian, the Albanian, and the Greek borders, was the chief Serbian air base. It had drawn, of course, the full weight of the German attack. It was, they said, completely smashed and blasted, and as the inhabitants fled from their crowded, narrow streets, not less than ten thousand of them had been machine-gunned from the air. I thought of the lovely times I had had in Skoplye, of the beauty of its mosques and minarets, its fine museums and its antique treasures -never again to be replaced, since the town would surely be completely looted. But most of all I thought of M.P.-of all my friends, the airmen. So many, almost all of them, I knew. When we fore gathered before they left for Skoplye, they had begged me to come with them to act as aerial observer. I could well imagine their frantic, wild despair at the pitiful uselessness of their own little obsolete planes against the crushing force of the huge German bombers.

Most of them now were dead, my acquaintances whispered, many buried alive on the airfield. As we passed in darkness through the starlit night, my bitterest tears fell slowly, unquenchably, for a grief I knew would never be assuaged. Suddenly a sharp burst of firing. The train jerked to a stop. Our soldiers, yelling raucous curses at the Croats, trampled down the corridor, jumped out and down the embankment. Violent firing continued for ten or fifteen minutes. I could watch the flashes of the guns as our Serbs hunted the traitors among the trees and shrubs along the riverbank. I felt ridiculously baffled and helpless, realizing that with my wretched automatic I should be more in the way than useful out there. The ambushers dispersed, our soldiers jumped back into the train and it started up again. These attackers were Croat soldiers of the Yugoslav Army. They were certainly not members of the Ustashi, Pavelich's Italian-paid organization of thugs who had entered Croatia with him far to the north four days before. These ambushers were members of the armed forces of the Yugoslav Crown, traitors to their oath of allegiance, who had deliberately planned and were now executing, not passive, but active treachery upon their brother soldiers. I was soon to hear that such attacks had taken place all over Yugoslavia. Without question they were carefully planned beforehand and directed by Croat officers of the Yugoslav Army. It is a sad fact that Yugoslavia, of all the small nations of Europe, is the only one in which a large portion of her army with its regular officers turned traitor to their oaths and, going over to the enemy, deliberately set out to kill those who remained loyal. To say, as Croat propagandists in America have said, that the Ustashi were alone responsible for the horrors that broke out immediately in Yugoslavia is, quite simply, a falsehood. Pavelich's force of terrorists consisted at the very outside of one thousand men when he arrived on April 7 in Croatia, the northwest province of Yugoslavia. It is absurd to suggest that in four days he had been able to spread his

men, even thinly, over the whole country and to organize and carry out these attacks. Serbs abroad felt bitterly ashamed at the quick collapse of Yugoslavia. But the explanation is clear, and it is not discreditable-to the Serbs. That many Croats, both educated and simple, were revolted by the action of their countrymen, I know. That I was twice indebted to Croats for acts of kindness if not the saving of my life, I acknowledge with gratitude. But facts are facts, and it is both unjust and dangerous to conceal them, since the truth is the only sound guide of action. The principal reason why Yugoslavia collapsed so quickly is that every Serbian officer had momentarily to expect to be shot in the back by his Croatian soldiers, and hundreds were so shot. A total of I,679 officers representing 95 per cent of the Croat officers in the Yugoslav Army, who had sworn to protect their king and country, proved traitors to their oath and went over to the enemy. The detailed figures, as given by the official gazette of the Independent State of Croatia, include II generals, 4 admirals, 52 colonels, 73 lieutenant colonels, 68 captains, and 72 naval captains and officers; also I,342 non-commissioned officers, aviation specialists, and mechanics. Letters have been published in Croat papers in which Croat officers of high rank with the most cynical brutality bragged that they had married Serbian girls of influential family with the single purpose of getting themselves into key positions for more effective treachery: so long and so well had the thing been planned. Of the 224,000 Yugoslav prisoners of war taken into Germany, less than 2 per cent were Croats, and to them honor, for they only had to announce that they were Croats to be released at once. Of the 14,000 Serb officers who, if they agreed to submit to Germany, were offered their freedom to return home to their families, only 800 accepted, and most of them have been retaken and killed. Three times in two hours our train was attacked by the traitors in the same way and with the same result. And each time, while the two girls sat immovable as little mushrooms, the behavior of our two foreign-educated, denatured Montenegrins was a sight to see.

They fell down flat, like overripe stalks of wheat crushed by a storm. Their faces blanched, their breath stopped with fear. The third man, a simple fellow, remained quite stolid, but the fourth had disappeared. He was discovered lying across the door of the compartment, his head under one seat, his feet under the other, where he apparently had lain all the time in the dirt! Between the attacks, we were given the strange and beautiful experience of passing silently, in an unlit train, down the famous Neretva Valley. The foaming river, its rapids dancing as they caught the slowly rising glow of the moonlight, curved now near, now far, from our course. Soft, unreal silhouettes of darkened villages, of mosques and graceful minarets, of gnarled old fig trees, were printed for a moment black against a sky thick-sown with glorious southern stars. Far in the background towered a long shoulder of snow-capped mountains. And over all there sailed, calm above man's fury, a delicate young moon. I dozed to wake with a violent start as the train stopped with a crash. This time there was very heavy close firing along the whole train. The put-put-put of machine guns hammered while loud voices outside yelled that everyone was to get out or the train would be blown up. Crashing of glass and deafening explosions followed as our men fired from the corridor. Two soldiers ran into our compartment and, lying on top of me, struggled to pull the window down. This time I might get into action-there would be wounded men unable to use their rifles. Could I get one) I reached the door, and just as I stepped heavily on our human earthworm, the train started up with a terrific jar, throwing us all across the compartment. Away it tore through the night, a thick shower of sparks flying past the window. Firing and yells died away behind us. A few minutes more of wondering if we should cross a mine and fly into the air. Then the train gradually slowed down to its old pace. I settled back and fell into a heavy sleep. When I awoke it was bright day and we were amidst wild and savage scenery, totally uninhabited. Tumbling, soaring mountains were reflected in the wide lakes into which the Neretva spreads before it rushes out into the Adriatic. This was

Illyria. It seemed as untouched by man as the foothills of the Rocky Mountains were before the trappers came. Our soldiers were gone. At Gabela, it appeared, having received reinforcements, they had returned to deal with the ambushers and to help crush the revolt in Mostar. The airfield of Mostar, it appeared, was under the command of Colonel Yakov Makiedo, a Croat. Immediately the revolt started he ordered all Yugoslav insignia removed from the uniforms of the officers under his command, whom he ordered to return home. This officer is now Master of Ceremonies at the Court of Ante Pavelich, the leader of the Independent State of Croatia, who keeps up a regal style!

30. BETWEEN THE ENEMY LINES

TOWARDS EIGHT O'CLOCK we arrived at Hum, a small railway junction; I was ready to gnaw my boots. Imagine our delight when the colonel in command came up to us and, realizing our condition, led us around to the back of the station, through the kitchen, and into a little room where members of his staff were swallowing a hasty meal. Eagerly we ordered-of course, bacon and eggs, washed down with a large glass of wine. For that good deed alone I could never have forgotten Colonel Barbich. This Serb, a Herzegovinian surely by his typical long thin nose and narrow eyes, was the outstanding figure I met during this journey. If ever a man was marked out as likely to emerge a leader, a hero of his people, it was this officer. Slim, handsome, and tall, but not unusually so among his tall and handsome countrymen, there was a quickness yet restraint of movement and decision, combined with a careful concentration of thought in his small bright eyes, that inspired great confidence. His straightforward frankness and the graceful courtesy of his manner to all alike was matched by the grim ferocity of his determination to meet and deal with a savage catastrophe. His job now was to collect from all directions here in Herzegovina, near the Croatian-Dalmatian coast, whatever troops could be spared and trusted, and send them to Mostar to try to subdue the revolt there. I conferred with Colonel Barbich upon my best course of action, and he advised us toe go to Trebinye. Barbich, if still alive, is certainly now in the Bosnian mountains with Mihailovich. While the Serbs have ten men such as he, or five, or even one, the fight will go on remorselessly. We arrived at Trebinye in the evening and managed to get a room in the crowded hotel. Hardly had we ordered some food when the commandant of the town arrived personally to inspect my Chetnik pass. It was the first time it had been examined. He was satisfied but unfriendly, and when I mentioned my hope of transport to Montenegro he became actively negative. I never discovered the cause of his hostility.

Next morning early a visitor was announced: Mr. L., brother of a teacher in the British Institute at Belgrade. Hearing I had arrived, he very kindly came to place himself at my disposal. He was exceedingly helpful. At breakfast I was approached by one of the strangest figures I ever met. He was a German, but with Swedish papers, called Schacht. He assured me he was a nephew and had long been secretary to the famous German Finance Minister, Schacht. This great, hulking, even handsome fellow was for sheer unadulterated cowardice the worst specimen I have ever come across. He professed himself a well-known anti-Nazi. The Nazis were approaching, and his terror was ludicrous. He shook, he wept, he cringed, and, his damp, fat hands clutching mine, he implored me to save him- save him-save him! To gain my pity he actually showed me a hypodermic needle containing, he sobbed, poison which he intended to plunge into his veins and die a "fearful" death rather than be taken alive. I said to him as I always do to these idiotic soi-disant suiciders who never have the guts to really bring it off (I have met not a few): "So you are going to kill yourself because you are afraid you might die!" Sometimes that cuts off their dramatics, but not with him; his self-pity rose to howls. I went to consult the commandant. The wretched Schacht followed me like a beaten spaniel, and when I found the officer in the street he frantically elbowed me aside and said he was speaking for both of us in demanding transportation. The commandant, already in a very gloomy state, was understandably furious, and any hope of his assistance was spoiled. Schacht at that moment came much nearer to death than he probably has since. I told him in carefully explicit and concise terms what I thought of him and ordered him to keep away from me, as I did not wish even to be seen in the street with such a worm. I left him standing there pathetically wringing his hands and sniffling: "You don't understand, you don't understand . . ." I like to think of him as hiding till the end of the war in some mountain cave (these cowards never die!) and living on roots while fondly hugging his hypodermic, now no doubt well rusted.

I went to see the (civil) prefect, and to my surprise and annoyance found an old would-be admirer from Cetinje now installed as jackin-office. He informed me that I would not be permitted to leave Trebinye without a written order from him. And he assured me, with many leers, that I would certainly not get it unless I accepted his visit at the hotel. Here was a nice situation! I insisted upon telephoning to Dubrovnik (Ragusa) to the British consul. Mr. Harcourt informed me that several Americans and British were gathered there . . . then the line went dead. All that day air alarms. Italian reconnaissance planes kept sailing busily over the circle of mountains on which I had once counted twenty-two ancient and newer forts testifying to the restless history of the province. That night my two girls told me they had discovered that the hospital was full of wounded but had almost no nurses. I now felt very uncertain of being able to get them through to Montenegro, and it seemed to me pretty sure that, given defeat, Trebinye would eventually fall to the share of the Italians, who are conspicuously superior to the Germans in their treatment of the Jews. Dubrovnik's fate was not so certain. I therefore felt forced to advise the girls to remain here. Next morning they joined the staff of the hospital, and we parted in sorrow and anxiety. What I anticipated did occur, and though there has been much Chetnik activity and fighting round Trebinye I hope to see them when I return to Serbia. After again failing to get a laisser-passer from the disgusting prefect, I decided to try to leave without the permit. I would make for Herzegnovi, a small town on the Boka Kotorska, southward of Dubrovnik and between it and Montenegro. There I might conceivably get a sailboat to put me across onto the Montenegrin coast. So Mr. L. and I planned how to outmaneuver the prefect. Aware that I was probably being watched and that the removal of my bag might be reported, I sent it out of the back door by a half-witted boy to the station. Mr. L. and I then wandered as if bored round the town, visiting the quaint old Moslem quarter, and at last arrived as if by chance near enough to the station to see

if a train came in. None, it appeared, had gone or come that morning. People had been waiting since dawn. There were no air alarms that golden afternoon. So we sat on the wall beside the murmuring river, dangling our feet and talking about poetry, about the old Serbian heroes, about everything except the war. As darkness fell it seemed certain there would be no train until the following morning. Both hotels being jammed, I spent the night on a mattress in the hallway of a friendly sergeant's house; he had cordially and quite innocently offered to make room for me in the large bed which he occupied with his wife. Next morning Mr. L. and I again went to the station. A train was just coming in. Firmly I shouldered my way through the crowd, and when the guard stopped me to demand my permit to leave I pulled out my Chetnik pass, giving him a glare as fiercely Chetnik as I could produce. He instantly stepped back and saluted. We were in the tram m passenger seats, and soon away. The atmosphere now was entirely different-full of a furtive, strained suspicion. We were now going into Dalmatia, which had recently thrown in its lot with Croatia. The Dalmatians are a particularly charming race. I had been saddened to see them bedeviled, less than a year before, by the unnatural anti-Serb political and religious agitation worked up by the Croat politicians. Opposite me, his head bandaged, sat a wounded sailor of the Yugoslav Fleet, obviously a Dalmatian, as are most of the maritime men of Yugoslavia. His bearded face was the very mold of a puzzled, a hopeless despair. He spoke not one word on the whole six-hour trip, and I wondered what conflict of loyalties was now tearing his heart. Fortunately many of these Dalmatian sailors chose honor before specious promises of profit and escaped to service in the Allied cause. The car had open benches without compartments. A fat little nondescript man kept turning up beside me and muttering. At first I thought him just a nuisance. But soon his mysterious manner became more insistent, and his words, sliding out of the side of his mouth in the reputed style of ex-convicts, were English. I pretended to prick up my ears and replied with equal caution.

Sure enough, the fellow, hoping to draw me, was trying to let me know that he "too" was an agent and a British one. Nothing is so hateful to me as this counterespionage game. Usually I won't play but merely study faces for report and identification later. In view of Germany's subterranean methods it is not surprising how many of these little would-be spies or meddlers there were creeping round Europe. A fellow silly enough to give himself away so easily was too stupid to worry about. I flattered his self-importance with signals of camaraderie and kept him busy hopping out at every stop for something to eat or drink. We arrived at Herzegnovi in the afternoon. For the first time my Chetnik pass was challenged with aggressive unfriendliness by two gendarmes. This was technically Montenegro and under Serb jurisdiction, for although Dalmatian (the Boka people too considered themselves distinct) it had not gone into Autonomous Croatia. But there had been the usual undermining and hate-rousing by the Croat politicians: Croatia must have all the harbors. Serbia was to be practically cut off from the Adriatic. The little picturesque town was in the jitters. It had been slightly bombed, and most shops were boarded up. Rumors were thick: "The Montenegrin campaign in Albania has collapsed." . . . "The Montenegrins are making splendid headway, they are pushing back the Italians victoriously and have reached Lesh [Alessio]." . . . "The Italians are already in Montenegro and are proceeding up the coast road to the Boka." I thought the first two items probably correct, and so they proved to be, only in reverse order. If the first and third were true, my plans would have to be reconsidered and drastically changed; I must wait for something more definite. I had lunched the day before in Trebinye with a noted Croat diplomat who happened to own a large hotel a few miles out of Herzegnovi. He told me his family had gathered there and begged me to go and see them and if possible cheer them up. He himself had heard that his only son was wounded, and he was trying to find him. I set out with my bag on foot and was accosted by an ancient, battered seafaring man speaking perfect American slang. Cheerfully we chatted, he carrying

my bag in sailor fashion on his shoulder, while he detailed to me in salty language his experiences of years in America. The lovely gardens we passed were just breaking into their first spring riot of subtropical flowers. The sky was Mediterranean blue; the Adriatic, murmurously calm, broke languidly beside our road. Would submarines soon be sticking up their ugly snouts in that dreamy bay and gray ships of hatred spurting fire and death into the graceful marble villas? Arrived at the hotel, I found a state of shuddering gloom and dread. The lower windows had all been boarded up, and in a somber twilight the family had been gathered for days, moaning about what terrible things might be happening to their male relations. If this was typical of her upper class, then-God help Croatia! That evening I went out into the garden to get a breath of good fresh air. A man ran in hurriedly and peered at me. "Are you Ruth Mitchell?" "Yes:' "I am P. You will remember me from the British Legation." He was one of the Serb staff. "The harbor commandant has received a telegram. It says that the Army has asked for an armistice. Generals have flown to Germany to negotiate surrender. You must flee at once. The British and other nationals are gathering at Rizan [farther on, deep in the Boka], where seaplanes and submarines are expected to come and get them out. Will you go now? Tomorrow may be too late." I said I would think it over. I did think it over all that night. On one side beckoned England and America, my family, safety, comfort. Greatest temptation of all, if the planes made for Egypt, I might be able to see my son again, my only son, a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force. My last letter from him had reached me the previous February, three months before, and he was then in Africa. And on the other side, what? To fight in the mountains with the tough fellows I liked so much and to suffer such hardships as Americans can hardly even envisage: cold rocks for a bed, with hard black bread, cheese, and an onion for food. Hiding

most days, on the run most nights; the broiling suns of a Balkan summer, the deep engulfing snows of winter; howling wind and soaking rain. And at the end perhaps wounds or hanging (how the Germans love to hang!) or, with luck, quick deathobscure death, so obscure that my relatives would never even be able to trace the place of it. I thought of these things. But, of course, my choice had been made long ago, when I became a Chetnik. The only question now was, which way was it my business to go? Where could I do the most damage ? If the Yugoslav Army's resistance had ceased, the Italians must really be advancing up from the south, and either the Italians or Germans down from the north. (It turned out that Italians and Germans were both coming up from the south and both down from the north.) I was therefore quite certainly between two advancing enemy lines. The law of the Chetniks is that if one is caught behind the lines he stays there in hiding and gets the information that is most useful for his type of warfare. Having got it, he passes through the lines of the enemy to report. It was certain that the military and administrative headquarters of all this part of the coast would be its largest city Dubrovnik (Ragusa). It was there I must go and do my job. There I would "go into hiding." I had the best possible hiding place: behind my American passport. This passport was out of date, having expired in 1936 I had arranged to have it renewed at the Belgrade Consulate on Monday, April 7. But the great bombardment had come on Sunday, April 6. The passport was therefore not really valid. Nevertheless it had the nice fat American eagle stamped in bright gold on the cover. His wings looked comfortingly solid and broad, and I was pretty sure the Italians, at least, would be properly afraid of him. Never was the American eagle looked at with more affection and hope than it was that night before I fell asleep. Next morning I shoved my uniform into my bag, put on a dress and head scarf, and walked early into Herzegnovi. Large cars with foreign diplomatic flags and

filled to the roof with luggage kept whizzing by me, bound obviously for Rizan and escape. Nothing was going in the other direction, toward Dubrovnik. P. was at the appointed place to hear my decision. "What's the news?" I asked anxiously. "Bad-it couldn't be worse. Croatia has gone over complete, the blankety-blank traitors! The Independent State of Croatia," he said with bitter, elaborate irony, "is declaring war on England! . . . And you? . . ." He gave me a long, searching look, which I returned. "All right," he said, "if you must, you must. I'll help you, of course. Where to?" He was startled. "Dubrovnik? Impossible; nothing is going that way." At that moment two gendarmes ran up and in very ugly voices demanded my passport. They began to shout menacingly, and an angry crowd collected. Just as they were about to haul me off to the police station, which might have meant quick finis, a battered little two-seater drew up from the direction of Zelenika, the naval base. Two Yugoslav naval reserve officers jumped out, pushed their way through to me, and demanded an explanation. I said pathetically that I only wanted to join American friends in Dubrovnik and didn't know what all this was about. The two officers took me between them and quickly pushed me into the car, ignoring the fierce arguments of the gendarmes. P., terribly alarmed, spoke to them on the other side of the car. "Can you get her into Dubrovnik?" "Yes," said the elder quietly, "we know she is English. We will do it. We will get her in, and"-he hesitated, looking at me speculatively -"if necessary we will get her out again. We are returning at dawn tomorrow." "Get her out," whispered P. urgently. "Force her to come back, make her come back-if it's not too late." We drove off, stopped at the hotel for my bag, and then proceeded toward Dubrovnik at the most hair-raising speed it has ever been my lot to survive. We

hardly spoke; we were much too intent on what might be round the next curve of that corkscrew road. Once we slowed down. We were approaching a crossing of important military roads. The elder officer (about forty) said quietly: "If the Germans are already there we will turn back at once. We will positively not be taken." I said: "You are both Croats. I will never forget this." He turned to me a face of the most bitter and hopeless despair-a face that might now be called the face of all that was decent in Croatia. "Not all of us," he said almost with entreaty, "not all of us are fools or-knaves. Remember, remember-it was the politicians," and he muttered a fearful curse.

31. A MYTH DIES UNMOURNED

AT DUBROVNIK we found the large hotels closed, and my Croat sailor friends put me down at a smaller one, the Gradats, in which I was lucky to get a room. This part of the town had been slightly bombed. It was packed with Jewish refugees fleeing before the Germans into what was hoped would be Italian and therefore more humanly decent administration. At once I took a streetcar out to Gruzh, the harbor of Dubrovnik, to see the British consul, M}. Harcourt. (There was no American consul.) From him I hoped to get some clear facts of the situation. He either knew or would tell none. He was hurriedly closing the consulate. I had known his cousin, the late Lord "Lulu" Harcourt, and as we made for the return streetcar, I listened with speechless admiration while he explained to me, at acidulous length, how superior and older was his own branch of the family and the reasons why he himself was no nobleman! Back in town, I called on Laura McCullaugh at the Pension Ivy. (I give complete names only when I am certain that no injury to the person or to relatives still there can possibly result.) She was an American with friends of much influence both there and at home and, with quiet confidence in her nationality, was awaiting the issue of events. We listened to various radio stations and had our worst fears confirmed: the Germans were already well into Greece; the few British troops that had landed were departing in haste. Mr. Harcourt came in to say that he was leaving at once for Rizan with a British consul from farther north. To amuse myself and to try the effect, I reminded him that I was, as was well known, certain at least of imprisonment by the Germans. Could he not therefore please take me too, as his would probably be the last car with any chance of getting through? He replied that he was sorry but the car was already overfull: he had too much luggage. Well, he got only a few miles out of town when he was caught by the Italians. Among the soldiers who got him was an Italian waiter from the Hotel Imperial, just

next door, a particularly obliging fellow who had taken pains to teach me some of my first Serbian words. A fifth-column Eyetee teaching me Serbian was an amusing thought. In striking contrast to Mr. Harcourt's was the behavior of the British Legation staff from Belgrade. When the British seaplane came in to rescue British nationals, it was found that there was room for only twenty-two persons. The British minister, Sir Ronald Campbell, and his staff had priority, of course, and in view of the treatment of ministers in, say, Bulgaria (under the Germans), there was urgency in their removal. Sir Ronald, however, and his whole staff stood aside and sent in their own places those civilians of Balkan nationality who were in danger of their lives if captured by the enemy. This gesture greatly enhanced England's prestige in Serbia and will not be forgotten. Sir Ronald, his staff and about two hundred British nationals were taken by the Italians, kept confined for some weeks at Herzegnovi, transported to Italy, and at last exchanged to England. In Dubrovnik I dined that night with my two Croat naval friends in the huge dark kitchen of the Gradats Hotel. It was a strained and silent meal. I am pretty sure they guessed what I was there for. They informed me that they would be leaving just before dawn in the morning. They would have tried to return that night, they said, but in the completely disorganized state of the country armed highway robbers were already infesting the roads, attacking motorists and stealing their cars. They said they would knock on my door just before they left to see if I would come. I said I should at least be glad to say good-by to them. They looked at me and sighed. We all had a dim prescience of what was to come. If there was a knock on my door that night I did not hear it. But in the morning the hotel porter told me in a whisper that they had been called for and taken away at midnight-by whom, it was impossible to say. Good luck to two loyal fellows! But I'm afraid . . . Good, loyal fellows had little chance in Croatia in those black days.

At exactly a quarter to ten that morning the first Italian detachment entered Dubrovnik. The town was gaily decorated with flags, the Yugoslav flag hung upside down to become the Croatian flag. I felt bitterly sad for all that had once been hoped for Yugoslavia, all that King Alexander and other idealists had died for. Where there had been no spiritual union, blood had turned to poison. The faces of the townspeople were cheerful. There was only one worry: how soon would the Italians pass on and the Germans move in? It was the Germans these people eagerly hoped for and wanted. I went over to see if Laura McCullaugh had heard any radio news and found the great gates of the Ivy locked. This pension was well known as the favorite haunt of British and American visitors and was the first place to be put under enemy surveillance. Laura came to the high iron-grilled gate, and as we stood talking, we looked down the street and saw that everyone was being stopped and searched. I had a valuable small camera with special attachments on me and, of course, my Chetnik pass. Something had to be done, and Laura, with great pluck, did it. I pushed my camera and the pass through the gate. If the pass had been found in her possession she would have suffered extremely serious consequences. Nevertheless she took it. She put it into a sponge bag and buried it in the garden while pretending to play with her Scotty dog. The camera she unfortunately laid on Mr. Harcourt's abandoned books (he did abandon some of his possessions) and it was seized by the Germans. Now began the great entry of the Imperial Italian Army. And for forty-eight hours it was hell. In that narrow street the noise and concussion of the motorized transport, going for the sake of "invincible" effect at dashing speed, was maddening. Most of the hundreds of motor lorries were decorated with palm leaves and flowers, and some were crudely scrawled with the usual fascist mottoes. One or two carried huge pictures of Mussolini hung on the radiators. The common soldiers were morose, with now and then an inexpensive sort of pleasantness as they ogled the girls in the windows and balconies. But the officers-

they were a curious study. Martial and even aristocratic in bearing, many of them, they yet had a glum, uncertain, amateurish ineffectiveness about them which could inspire only an amused contempt. That contempt was not unmixed with pity. For the majority of these attractive little officers quite obviously, in spite of some pleasure at success, had no joy in what they were doing, no respect for themselves in doing it. Some German detachments came through, and the behavior of the "dear allies" to each other was uproariously funny. It was a surprise too. For lot, it was the Germans who meticulously saluted and it was the Italians, privates and officers, who turned their backs or with staring rudeness refused to reply. And this not just sometimes but invariably. It was worth hanging over the terrace for hours in the noise, dust, and smell to watch the absurd performance: it was like a bantam cock getting fresh with a turkey. Whispered jokes about Italian courage were heard everywhere. We heard, for instance, that they were so terrified of the Chetniks that they shot on sight anyone wearing the typical and almost universal Serbian black lambskin cap because it happened to be also the Chetnik uniform cap. I had already disposed of mine. Removing the insignia, I pushed it under some bomb wreckage in the garden of the hotel to look as if it had been tossed over the wall by a passer-by: there would be plenty more when I got up into the mountains. When would my investigation come, I wondered? I destroyed my British passport, mainly because I did not wish to reveal the dates on which I had visited Bulgaria. (Useless precaution; the Germans later knew quite well.) I put my uniform into safekeeping where I hope to find it again-it was actually a Croat who very courageously took it for me. And after considerable thought I decided to leave my gun for the present with another friend, a Serb. Immediately behind the Italian troops, their wives and relatives poured in from Albania and even from Italy itself. The shops were cleared as if a mighty swarm of locusts had settled on the town and neighborhood. Food, clothes, and even tourist trinkets disappeared as if by magic. But the Italians paid with money, however worthless their paper, while the Germans mostly gave "promissory" notes-and those only in compliment to their new "dear allies" the Croats. Elsewhere in

Yugoslavia the looting, the barefaced stealing of every usable article, including even floors, to be carted off to Germany in trainload after heavy trainload, had already commenced. Dubrovnik has always been the greatest center in the Balkans for local and Near East antiques. The shops were to me a never-ending delight, and I had spent many happy hours and many thousands of dinars in buying treasures. Several of the shopkeepers were Jews, some were Serbs, and both were my good friends. Their kindness to me and their anxiety about my safety now were so remarkable as to justify one's good opinion of humanity. They notified me that if I needed anything, all they had was at my disposal. Seeing how things were vanishing, I hurried to try to grab a bathing suit and cloth for a beach gown to play my role of the harmless summer visitor. Returning to the hotel, I found the place in an uproar. Italian police had found in my room English books (borrowed from Laura) and photographs of a flier they thought English and had raised a hue and cry for "the British spy." But behold, in the usual Pleasant or half hearted Italian manner, instead of a cordon of bayonets and trample of heavy boots, there fluttered a little slip of paper bearing the name of the officer to whom the "suspicious character" should at once report. After lunch, accompanied by the nervous hotel porter I walked down to the Hotel Imperial, my old-time roost, now the Imperial Italian Military Headquarters. I showed my slip to an officer just coming out, and it happened that he was the man himself. As he was about to lunch at the Gradats, he courteously suggested our walking over together. Arrived there, he asked where we could talk and, as the hall was occupied, he suggested my room. Now I had far and away the pleasantest corner room in the hotel. The sun shone in through green foliage, and to a man just arrived from the Greek mountain campaign it must have looked like paradise. I judge that it made him slightly absent-minded. "You are British?" he began stiffly in awkward French.

"But no, mon colonel, you are quite mistaken. I am an American caught here by events and with nowhere to travel safely. The great Italian nation are our friends of long standing." He bowed. I drew my American pass from my pocket and held it in my hand. I talked on gaily. "Where could one find a place more beautiful to pass this terrible time of war, which will soon, I am sure, be over!" He saw my nice, fat American eagle. If he should take the pass to look at, his suspicion would be aroused at once, as it was completely blank, without a single visa. Quickly I picked up a cigarette to offer him and, to strike a match, laid the pass on a table beside me. Busily I talked on, and, as if the matter were now settled, took up the pass and slipped it back into my pocket. He was looking round my pretty room. "This room," he said, slightly embarrassed, "this room, I'm afraid- I regret to say this room has been requisitioned." "Indeed?" "Yes, I'm afraid you will have to move," and with the usual Italian gallantry: "Perhaps you would be kind enough to take the room next door." I bowed noncommittally. "Perhaps by four o'clock?" He made a few agreeable remarks, bowed low and departed. I had surmounted my first hazard. What they had not found in my room-what I had taken care they should not find-was a large photograph of the old Chetnik chief, Pechanats. On it was written a dedication in very flattering terms calling me "the best and most valued friend Serbia possessed, at heart a true Chetnik." I was anxious not to destroy this but meant to save it somehow for a future time. How to do it? I had considered numberless ways and at last hit upon the perfect place. Balkan carpentry is not very precise, and the floor of my closet, built into the wall, had a crack at the bottom. I managed to slip the picture in, followed by my Chetnik skull-and-crossbones badge and the cap insignia. I was content that,

unless the hotel burned or the walls were torn down, these mementos would await me at the end of the war. The thought that, throughout the later frantic effort to find a single positive piece of evidence of my Chetnik connection, one of the highest officers of the Italian Occupation was and is now sleeping every night, with his nose almost directly over that evidence, has given me unending pleasure. Now began in Dubrovnik the wholesale removal and destruction by the inhabitants of any signs that they, a branch of the same South Slav stock, had ever had any connection with their fellow South Slavs, the Serbs. The beautiful basrelief by Mestrovich of King Peter I, the founder of Yugoslavia, grandfather of the present King Peter II, is considered his finest work. I watched it being torn down, together with other inscriptions and memorials of a Yugoslavia vanished now into the past. The myth of a brotherhood based on blood was exploded-irrevocably as regards the Serbs. The Croats, when they see themselves again on the losing side and their frightful crimes coming home to them, can be confidently expected to try to revive it. The Fighting Serbs will positively have none of it. Yugoslavia has gone, and the fact that now, as I write (May 1943) the American and British governments still use the word officially is merely, and quite properly, to save themselves the work of dealing with a problem which will solve itself. The Serbs love their Karageorgivich king as loyally as ever. They want him back. They know him to be in the hands of old and inept Serbian and intriguing Goat advisers. He is very young; they do not blame him for his helplessness. But nothing is more certain than that any official who has compromised with the Croats can consider his career closed. The Croats believed the Germans would win. But should the impossible occur and the hated democracies after all prevail and pursue their "stupid" policy of allowing the peoples to decide their own destiny, then they would see to it that they kept the rich lands bought from Germany with their treachery: there should be no more Serbs there to vote.

Let those cunning butchers take this word of warning: when that day of voting comes, one million Serbian graves will cast their ballots too.

32. SHOPPING FOR GUN EMPLACEMENTS

THE JOY OF THE INHABITANTS of Dubrovnik at the arrival of their dear "saviors," the Axis, quickly waned. They had hoped and expected to see the Germans march in, if not first, then immediately after the Italians, and take over the protection of the newly created "Independent State of Croatia," which had been proclaimed amidst general rejoicing on April 10. But, alas, it turned out differently. The Germans came in, it is true; there was a sharp dispute between the two loving allies, and for a day or two we breathlessly awaited the decision. Then the Germans moved out and the Italians-for centuries the hereditary hated foe of Dalmatia-the despised little Eyetees were allowed by the Big Boss to remain. Dubrovnik became Ragusa, and intense was the disappointment of its people, heirs of the proud tradition of the once rich and powerful Republic of Ragusa, which in its great days had been second only to the Republic of Venice. The Italians were noticeably embarrassed but imperturbably good-natured and patient as they watched the noisy demonstrations of the populace yelling: "UP, UP, HITLER-down, down, Mussolini!" (groans). By expert maneuvering they quietly arrested the worst shouters but quickly released them again. They tried various expedients to flatter the people. They even went to the length of again proclaiming a new Independent Republic of Ragusa ("Independence" now being scattered about this part of the world like so much poisoned cat's meat.) In the charming old central place of the crowded town, a hollow square of Alpini buglers blew a fanfare and hoisted a scarlet fish-tail banner with Patron Saint Blasius embroidered in the center. I examined it. The hand embroidery was fine and the likeness almost man-sized. Could it have been produced in just those few days ? No-and not by Italian needles: someone here must have known what was coming months in advance! Mr. Macatee, the American consul general, and members of his staff with their families passed through on that day on their way back to their posts at Belgrade.

He told me he would have renewed my American passport there and then, but all his seals had been lost in the bombardment. Old Mrs. Oonah Ball, widow of an Oxford don and for decades one of the landmarks of Dubrovnik, died peacefully at this time, and her famous English library was sealed up. During her long illness news of the World War had been kept from her, and she passed away knowing nothing about it. I should also mention the bizarre and faintly sinister American who called himself Captain Kahn. He had a small auxiliary yawl lying in Gruzh harbor, which he kept in an appalling mess. He was violently pro-German and had little swastika flags stuck all over his boat. He spent his time gathering herbs and making weird ointments and hellish brews. With these he hoped to bewitch us, especially Laura McCullaugh, whose stern rejection of his impassioned advances gave us much merriment. He was determined that she and I should flee with him, and he promised to remove enough herbs from the furniture for us at least to sit down. At her steady refusal to listen I detected a speculative gleam in his eye, as if I might take her place in his heart. In between these pursuits he spent his time cultivating the Germans. He succeeded in paying for the dinner of one of the highest passing officers. Apparently this got him oil and other favors. One morning he was gone, complete with boat, perhaps to the wars in the service of his dear Nazis. If so I wish them joy of him. For, though possibly useful in some obscure way, he was certainly quite mad. The experiment of the Republic didn't work as well as had been hoped. The inhabitants remained hostile. But the Italians just went on smiling. The remarkable thing was that it wasn't just a victorious or artificial grin. They smiled as if they meant it, as if they just liked smiling. So that after a time the people began to melt. They just couldn't help it. You can't stay angry when your despised conqueror, whom you have invited to come in, hops out of the road for your comfort, salutes you with smiling eagerness, and offers to carry the parcels of every woman he sees, old or young, but especially old.

Before many days had passed, the prettiest, most well-bred and sheltered girls of the Dubrovnik aristocracy were discreetly accompanied by faultless Italian cavaliers. Who should blame them? I confess I myself often felt a pig at what I was doing, though I certainly didn't let it stop me. It seemed like stealing money from a blind beggar. The little Italians seemed so guileless and good-natured. Yet I knew well that if I made the slightest slip all their good nature would vanish. It only needed a sight of the occasional groups of wooden, contemptuous, surly German airmen to recall me to caution. It was now my business to get certain information. It was not the same information as that required by an invading army, not even exactly the same as required for a commando raid. It was strictly for guerrilla work. For obvious reasons I cannot particularize here. I had to get it. I used for the purpose a large-scale map of the town and neighborhood on fairly thin paper. I seldom carried it with me, preferring to leave it in a safe place and to work on it in the evening. The sun was now bright enough to justify sun glasses, which are very useful. They permit one to face one way and look another without one's eyes being visible. A market basket, since all housewives here and in Italy go to open market, and a large straw hat gave me the bona-fide look of a good housekeeper intent on economy. I decided it would be best to move to some place outside the town, so that I should have a good excuse for coming into town by different roads and paths. I found a small hotel on the extreme edge of a well-wooded peninsula near the harbor of Gruzh, within two miles of Dubrovnik. I was lucky enough to get a room that hung almost over the sea. My windows gave me an exquisite view across the calm Adriatic, with its scattered rocky islets and its broken mountainous shore line. I had little time to look at it, however, as I was ceaselessly strolling now in this direction, now in that, either "shopping" or "seeking secluded beaches to bathe." There had once been plenty of these. Now they were all filled with lively little Italian soldiers, laughing and singing, and being altogether too friendly.

The thing one had to fear from these brown fellows was not their suspicion but, alas, their amorousness. Anything in a skirt, especially, of course, if alone, was fair game. When I envisaged this business I had not expected that the affection of my enemy would be my greatest danger. But so it was, and the difficulty of steering a middle course was very tiring. A too abrupt repulse turned these tough soldiers, just off a long campaign, very nasty, and I was in a quandary more than once. Of course, I could "not understand one word of Italian"; "non capisco!" I was always just an American stranger; always just "taking a short cut and anxious to get back on the main road," as I followed the rocky paths. I got by, but not always pleasantly. There were very disagreeable as well as funny and even delightful incidents. I cannot resist telling the funniest of all. The promontory near my hotel was covered with tall, thick, prickly bush. Troops were encamped all over it, and the dirty little devils found the path which ran all the way round it the most convenient place for certain morning and evening physical routines. One morning I descended midway onto this path from above, where I had suspected and found two batteries of mountain guns. To my horror I saw the path both ways lined with squatting figures in dishabille, while other eager ones were coming down behind me. And their peaceful occupation was being made joyous with song- Italian love songs in charming harmony. Far from being perturbed by my sudden appearance, they raised their voices to bright delight: right and left I was saluted con amore! Fortunately I knew of an old ruined fortress nearby, and I fled to its far recesses-chuckling to myself, I must admit. I lodged a complaint about this disgusting habit with the major in command. And it was actually stopped-for my pleasure and convenience! The Alpini in their green uniforms, their smartly cocked hunters' caps, each with perky feather, moving or lounging round their bivouac fires in the terraced groves of gnarled, silvery olive trees under the hot blue sky, and singing the lovely old arias from Carmen, Il Trovatore, or Il Barbiere, often made the whole thing seem unreal to me. This, surely, must be just a stage play and soon we would come to the happy ending!

In contrast, when a regimental dinner was given in my hotel directly under my room and the officers afterwards dutifully sang their fascist war songs composed on German models, even their mellow Italian voices seemed to have grown thin and strained and the famous end bark sounded ridiculous. Now came a grim interlude: the return of the victorious German troops from Greece. In three days something like 60,000 men passed through in fast motor transport whose efficiency, solidity, weight of guns, and care for the finest detail was staggeringly impressive. How childishly pathetic were the few Italian armored cars that got mixed in the procession! After such a sight one could well understand the hopelessness, the defeatism of some of the conquered peoples. It seemed suicidal to oppose such power, such scientific perfection. Yet all the time my heart kept singing: "They can't get up our mountains. However fast and powerful, they can't pierce our pathless forests. There it will be man to man, and man for man, our men are better!" So it has proved. For the Nazi soldiers themselves were not impressive. Their extreme youth was a surprise. Some looked not more than fifteen. In spite of their victorious, excited air, in spite of their big frames (compared with the Italians but not compared with our own men), in spite of their pink northern cheeks, they looked softened, dwarfed by their dependence on their machines. The eternal German tourist came out in them too. I stood watching on the road just where the beautiful Gruzh harbor came into view. In every car, as it reached that point, every man rose, every single one sighted a camera, and a volley of clicks ran down the lines. Most of those cameras had been stolen, of course; no camera is ever left behind where Germans pass. Cameras are "requisitioned" without payment. I wonder how many of those victorious films will be treasured in the bitterly humbled years to come!

33. THE CHAMPIONS

To GET THE INFORMATION I wanted was not as difficult as I had expected. The noise these lively Italians made, their continuous chatter about the job in hand, and their gallantry towards women left little insurmountable secrecy. Also, one got the impression that their hearts weren't in it: their hearts were at home with their women, their vineyards, their fields, and their children. Their curiously baffled, unprofessional air seemed to say to the Germans: "You're the supermen, aren't you? You've shouted it often enough! It's your show; you seem to know all about it. Get on with it, then, and be damned to you!" Every evening on the crowded terrace the Italian officers would turn on the radio and calmly listen to the English news! Two reservists, Lieutenant A. and Dr. L. (I have no wish to injure them), professors of English at Italian schools, heard I was there, called punctiliously, and invited me to go for picnics and sight-seeing trips. Sitting on the warm sea wall and talking with these naive men of Fascist Italy, it was difficult not to bite my tongue when I heard such statements as: "Those miserable Serbs have no literature, absolutely no epics, or folklore even, of their own. They have stolen them all from the Croats." "Oh yes? Where did you learn this?" I asked politely, with some effort, the exact opposite being the truth. "I read it in a book translated from the Croatian which has been supplied to us." It reminded me of when my boy was twelve. I had promised to let him choose the make of our next motorcar. After careful study he decided on a certain quite unknown brand. Surprised, I asked why that particular one. "It is the best car made," he said positively. "Really? Where did you get that information?" "I read it in their advertisement!" Now a strange thing happened, a thing so strange that I hesitate to mention it. Yet I feel constrained to do so, whatever its interpretation.

On the afternoon of May 18 I was sitting in my room hastily doing some muchneeded mending. I remember the exact date because there had been a birthday in the hotel and I had picked flowers as a gift. As I sewed busily the large window beside me was wide open on the limitless, lovely view. The swifts, the fastest fliers of the bird world, were coming north along the Adriatic coast from their winter quarters far to the south in Libya. Intent upon my sewing, I cast few glances at the groups of birds, as they surged past, strong on their slim wings. Suddenly a flutter and one bird braked sharply in front of my window. It made an uncertain turn or two, then darted straight and purposefully at me and clung tightly to my shoulder. I had a violent spasm of the heart which mothers only know. My breath stopped, my breast constricted, and for no reason that I could conceive at that instant my sobs seemed to strangle me. I took the bird into my hands. It was neither frightened nor tired; its heart did not beat wildly. It just looked at me with its bright and gentle little eyes. I tried to give it water: it wanted none. Weeping, I went downstairs, where kind friends tried to comfort me. I raised the bird in my hand. It sat a moment. Then it sprang up, circled once around, and strongly flew away. In England there is an age-old belief-superstition, if you like- that the dying sometimes send messages by birds and that a bird entering the house signifies the death of a dear one. It takes about eight days for the swifts to reach the middle Adriatic from the African coast. My only son, John Lendrum van Breda, was killed flying at Merza Matruh in Libya on May 10. But I did not know it; fortunately I did not know it then. I soon composed myself so as not further to distress my friends. For they had plenty already to distress them. The hotel was full of Serbian Jewish refugees, including one large family with its in-laws, a particularly nice group of young people and children. Their aged parents had chosen to remain behind in the old family home, and their anxiety

about the old couple as well as about their own future was desperate. All the hotels were full of such harassed Jewish people, most of whom had lost relatives, brothers or sisters or children, in their flight from German barbarity. And now an interesting secret traffic began. There was a regular system of searchers, fetchers, messengers who slipped away and, after anxious days, smilingly turned up again, like spaniels out of a marsh, with the game-relatives, valuables, or letters-in their mouths. They got, and earned, enormous pay, since the danger, once they were out of Italian jurisdiction, was great. The most successful as well as the most amusing of these gallant blockade runners was a buxom, blond Aryan who made no secret of the fact that she "carried on" with conductors, porters, etc., who hid her and expedited her on her way. She brought out the most amazing masses of luggage for my friends and also a letter from their parents. Then she plunged back again, this time set upon fetching the old folks out bodily. She was never heard of again. No doubt she had "carried on" just a little too far. The name of the family at my hotel was Farhi. Among them was a handsome, quiet woman with two nice children, a boy of seventeen and a girl of fifteen. She told me a remarkable and significant experience. When her first child was born she had her confinement in a small, primitive hospital in the heart of Serbia. The night after the boy was born she heard much hurrying about in the corridor and on inquiry learned that the expectant mother in the next room was causing the doctor serious alarm. Next morning the feeblest of feeble baby cries announced that the new life had arrived. She was told that the baby, also a boy, was well made but was so weak as to be unlikely to live, and that the mother, in a high fever, was despaired of. Artificial feeding being there unknown, she asked if there was not a foster mother. Being told that none could be found, she gladly offered to feed the child herself: she had abundant milk. The poor little half-dead baby was brought in and laid beside her own son at her other breast. And thus five times a day she fed it. Her husband had been called away and, to avoid housekeeping, she had arranged to remain three weeks at the hospital. The

little strange boy throve wonderfully. He was beautiful, with blue eyes and golden curls. She told me that she loved him, with his little pushing fists and eager sucking lips, as if he had been her own. At the end of three weeks he was as bonny as any normal child,. and the mother too was saved and recovering. On the day before she was to leave a message was brought asking if the mother, who, it appeared, was a Russian princess, might visit her. (She gave me the name of the princess, which I unfortunately did not write down and have forgotten.) She agreed, and there appeared at her door the most beautiful creature she had ever seen: fragile, dressed in lace, and heavily jeweled. The princess was hardly able to express her thanks to my friend for saving the life of her baby, the heir to her title. He was all she had now in the world, said the Russian woman, since she had been driven from her home and great estates, her parents killed by the Bolsheviks. Soon she launched into a violently bitter tirade against "that scourge of the earth, the Jews." She lived, she said, only for revenge upon the evil Jews. My friend looked at her with wide-eyed horror and pity for the blow about to fall. "Perhaps," she said diffidently, "perhaps you won't feel that way now any more-now that your boy has become the milk brother of my boy, nurtured at the same breast." "You," said the Russian princess, hardly able to speak, "you are a Serb ---" "No," said my friend gently, "I am a pure-blooded Jewess." That night the child was not brought in and cried inconsolably, his cry a good hearty yell now. Next morning he returned, accompanied by the gift of a handsome set of emerald earrings and bracelet; my friend, not being wealthy, thought them magnificent. She refused them and left the hospital. For another three weeks after that the baby was brought to her three times a day by a liveried chauffeur, and she bathed and fed him. Then he was gone and she missed him sadly. For ten years,

always at Christmas, she received a card from the mother from different parts of the world. Then the cards ceased. That boy must now be nineteen. I wonder where he is. Preparing to fight on the side of his foster mother, I hope. If he sucked in character with that mother's milk he will be a kindly and brave fellow. After a time the outlook for the Jewish refugees in Dubrovnik became threatening: we heard the Gestapo were coming. My friends, including Mr. A., whose wife was afterwards in prison with me, and the Farhis, got permits to proceed northwards to Italy en route for Spain. Angelo Farhi and O.S., a friend of his from Belgrade, anxiously urged me to come too. They drew attractive pictures of how we three should slowly travel up the coast, away from all the horror. It was a very alluring thought but, of course, impossible just because of those horrors. For now I began to get news from Croatia that told of a slowly rising tide of murders, of atrocities unrepeatable, of massacres of defenseless Serbs by berserkmad Croatians and by Moslems in Bosnian Croatia. In the little back parlors of trusty men the tales were whispered. I could not believe a quarter of them. Unfortunately, I was soon to know that they were a weak understatement of the truth. Men were soon to arrive in Dubrovnik itself, hung with strings of Serbian tongues and with bowls of Serbian eyes for sale. There were more volunteer recruits to the sinister Croat murder organization, the Ustashi, than they could accept. The Dalmatians as a whole were horrified by the appalling developments and only cheered up when occasional bits of news came through that seemed to counterbalance the horrors. Thus we heard (in these early days before the massacres got well under way) that all Serbs in Zagreb, the capital of the new Independent State, had been ordered to wear a white armband, as the Jews in Dubrovnik, as everywhere under the Germans, had to wear yellow. But so many decent-minded Croats had immediately also donned the white armbands in protest that the order had to be hastily rescinded. Unhappily, as the violence increased those loyal Croats were killed too.

We heard that Orthodox Serbs-hundreds of thousands of them- had been given the choice of changing their religion or of losing all their possessions or their lives; that a frantic exodus of starving Serbs was choking the roads to Belgrade, their children dying by the roadside. The news grew steadily more fiendish. But Machek, I thought, the vaunted "enlightened" Croat leader, with unquestioned power over all his people-surely he could exert that power now to stop these fearful crimes. What was Machek doing? Machek, we heard to our bitter amazement, was doing absolutely nothing-not even faintly protesting. Quite the reverse, he had on the radio ordered his followers to "co-operate."

34. I PREPARE TO JOIN GENERAL MIHAILOVICH

I HAD BEEN WAITING ANXIOUSLY for news of the Chetnik plans. At last, on May 17, it came. There were certain people I saw almost daily, if only from a distance. They would signal if there was anything important and then meet me in prearranged places, most often behind a certain food shop. This day at about ten o'clock I entered the shop and was signaled to wait until some Italian soldiers had bought and departed. Then I slipped out through the back door. There, in the dappled shadow of a grape trellis, stood a large dark man upon whose neck I could have fallen: Vaso, my Montenegrin frontier policeman. Quickly he told me that June 28, the great and sacred Serb festival, anniversary of the Battle of Kossovo, would be the date for the Chetnik rising. I was to make for Nikshich (in Montenegro), where he himself would meet me and guide me to Draja Mihailovich, the leader. Mihailovich? The name meant absolutely nothing to me that day. It was not uncommon-I knew several men of that name. But Draja Mihailovich? I did not remember ever having met him. He was a regular army pukovnik (colonel), it appeared, who was now taking chief command of both the remains of the Army and of the Chetniks. But where was my old chief, the Duke Kosta Pechanats? Vaso's mien darkened; he shut up like a clam. Pechanats was nowhere; he didn't matter anymore. For those who have never had to hear that their own commander was suspected of being a traitor, I will say that it is an extremely nasty experience. After a last quick drink of slivovits, we had to part-Vaso to slip away on another job, I to plan how I could get to Nikshich. Clearly it had better be soon. For I had heard ominous news from another source. I had a dependable friend in the town, a plucky Serb to whom I had often had occasion to be grateful. He had warned me urgently that a Moslem called Mustafa

Hasanovich had got hold of a photograph of me in uniform, snapped, it appeared, on the platform at Sarajevo. My friend had heard that Hasanovich intended to denounce me to the Gestapo. This man Hasanovich was a notorious character, thin-haired, utterly brainless, but still graceful, a vieu flaneur with melting, long-lashed eyes which he used to fascinate visiting ladies into his antique shop to buy at fancy prices. I bought antiques, but not from him: his charm tax seemed to me too high. It may have been his first complete feminine failure, and the reactions of this pet of the foreign women can be imagined. I interpreted his threats to denounce me as blackmail to force me to buy in his shop. I ignored them-unfortunately for me. For now the dreaded Gestapo was to take over the same strangle hold on this Italian-occupied territory of Dalmatia that it had on Italy itself. The last Jewish refugee departed on May 20, the very last night. The ships for the north were packed to suffocation. Angelo Farhi, so kindly, so intelligent, so helpful, and so utterly unconscious of what I was doing, presented me with two badly needed shirts and, still begging me to come, went away. And not dry-eyed. The millstones of trouble, anxiety, and sorrow seemed to grind away the artificial husks of society, leaving only the fine flower of sincerity. One really must give credit to the Italians. They tried to be decent in every way they could: anyone could get permission to go north toward Italy. (They later tried hard to protect unarmed Serbs against the Croat butchers, and often succeeded.) But southward-that was something quite different. That meant toward the Bocca di Cattaro, the inland bay for centuries most eagerly desired by Italy as a perfect naval base. In that direction was only war, to be anxiously avoided by any innocent tourist. For an English-speaking foreigner to want to go south could only mean mischief. Yet south I must go, right into this Bocca, to the very inmost corner, to Cattaro (Kotor) itself if at all possible. In that way my mountain climbing would be shortened by many days and my danger of capture correspondingly reduced.

This little old town, lying on the water as if it had slipped down off the steep mountainside, had only one road running through it. This of course would be heavily guarded. But I knew a little donkey track which, winding northeast, skirted the Cetinje plateau where the Italian troops were concentrated and would take me toward Nikshich. But any chance of getting a permit for Cattaro, even if I found some means of transport, seemed out of the question. Nevertheless I got both. My good friend discovered that a sailing ship would be leaving at 4 A.M. on May 23 from Gruzh for Cattaro with food supplies for the Occupation troops. The captain was "persuaded" at a very fancy price to take me, but only on condition that I possessed an official permit for the journey. How was I to get one? An order had been issued that all country people who had fled into Dubrovnik were to return to their homes and farms. Food was getting scarce: as many mouths as possible must be got rid of and food production raised. As I passed through the town early on May 21 I saw a line of peasants, mainly women, waiting in front of the Hotel Posta, where an office had been opened to issue the necessary permits. Should I try for it, or should I only be drawing dangerous attention to myself? I decided to try with caution. I joined the line behind a fat and chatty old girl whose ample skirts and bosom provided good cover. At a long row of desks Italian army clerks were distractedly struggling to understand a babel of requests in a strange tongue. When in due course we moved to the front my old lady launched into a loud and matey explanation of her wish to visit her children and grandchildren, all named. The none-too-bright clerk, baffled and hopeless, lapsed into dull despair and at last wrote down what he thought was the name of a village, the only one he could catch- perhaps that of a grandchild-and languidly pushed over the pass. Her thanks were profuse but left him despondent. Now came my turn. Bored stiff, he hardly looked up. I had decided to try northward first and, if that worked, to risk southward. My American pass did not startle him-all strange papers were alike to him. He took my particulars mechanically, as if only half awake. I quietly said, "Spalato" (Split); he wrote it

down. Coming southward, I said, "Korcula"; he wrote it down. Gently I said, "Bocca di Cattaro" and then quickly "Return." Slowly, so slowly, he wrote it down. Silently he handed over the paper as the next person crowded up. I seized it and fled. (This pass was found by the Gestapo, used against me at my court-martial and, perhaps by an oversight, left in my passport. I have it here before me.) At dawn on the 23d I should be away to join Draja Mihailovich! I remained quietly at the hotel that day. Until the last possible moment I must arouse no suspicion that I was planning to leave. On the morning of the 22d I arranged with a near-by youth to carry my bag next morning across the intervening hill to the harbor. I myself would go openly with my basket as if to buy fish, which was quite usual. I have always found that for jobs of this sort boys of about fourteen are ideal. Always eager for anything with a touch of mystery about it, they pass almost unnoticed, either by older men or by women. A parcel is in Europe the natural appendage of boys, and should they excite remark they always have a cheeky answer to allay suspicions: men instinctively avoid back-chat with young smart alecks. They often get by where much cleverer people would stick. I knew a bright-eyed little devil who had run several useful errands for me-but this time he was to be disappointed.

35. "WE ARE THE GESTAPO!"

ON THE AFTERNOON of the 22d, thinking it might be long before I saw the sea again (it was!), I decided to have a nice long swim. I was as healthy as it is humanly possible to be, and as I plunged about I remember thinking how fit I was for any hardship. When I came out I took off my bathing suit behind a rock, as was usual, and on drawing on my shirt and gray flannel slacks I noticed to my surprise that I had put my marked map into the back pocket instead of hiding it, as I usually did. I mention these details because they saved my life. I lay awhile in the hot sun. Then, my bathing suit dry, I went slowly back. The hotel was now completely empty, all the guests having fled. I went straight into the large dining room, which was simply a glassed terrace overlooking the lovely bay. The sun, setting behind the islands, threw a bright rosy golden glow upon the opposite white wall. Very fond of dancing and feeling exuberantly cheerful, I began to cut some capers to throw funny shadows against the wall, softly whistling to myself the while. Suddenly, on each side of my shadow, there was another shadow- one long and thin, the other smaller. I turned and faced two rubber-shod men in plain clothes. I knew at once, of course, who they were. "Ruth Mitchell?" from the smaller man. I bowed. "We are the Gestapo. You will come with us at once," he said haughtily and rudely in German, which I speak as easily as English. "May I see your credentials?" I said, sparring desperately for time. He was slightly taken aback by my polite formality, being no doubt used to terrorizing women. "Unnecessary! I told you. I am the Gestapo. That is enough."

Mildly I said: "I am an American. This is Independent Croatia. I am in Italian jurisdiction." "Madam [gnadige Frau]," he said much less rudely, "it makes no difference whatever. In any case this is an officer of the Croatian police," and he indicated the other man. I looked at him. He did not look at me. I knew the man quite well. He was a Croatian detective who had been assigned to watch me here in Dubrovnik when I was suspected of espionage-on behalf of Italy! He didn't believe it, and we had often laughed together about it. He hated the Italians. Now you never saw a more ashamed-looking man. I was to see a good deal of him during the next few days, and he never once looked me in the face. Poor devilpoor Croatia! "May I take some things with me?" "Yes, but hurry." Just then the waiter appeared with my supper on a tray. It was trout and strawberries-and-cream. "May I eat my supper? Perhaps you will join me and have some too ?" "Thank you," he bowed stiffly, "but certainly not." How many nights for more than a year I was to dream of that meal of trout and strawberries-and-cream-uneaten! Close on each side of me they marched me up to my room, while my mind frantically made and discarded plan after plan for destroying the map. We reached my door. I put my hand on the handle. "Gentlemen," I said softly, "you will at least allow me time to change into a skirt." Now trousers, by the grace of God, are still sufficiently rare on Balkan women to leave males slightly abashed. My manner had reminded these men that there was such a thing as politeness. They hesitated. I opened the door, slipped in, and closed it gently.

Like lightning I jerked out the map, wrapped it around a little antique brass ink-pot and cast it far out into the sea. How bitter was that moment! All my work wasted! And my life...? "My son, my son," my heart cried out, "I have failed-I have failed! You must carry on!" But my son, his duty done, was lying still forever under the drifting desert sand. Not half a minute and those men had already realized their carelessness. As they tore open the door I was peacefully pulling a skirt over my head. Then they began to search. And they knew their business. But I knew mine better. In spite of tearing apart everything that could possibly hide it, they did not find what they were looking for: my Chetnik pass. If they had I shouldn't be writing this today. It was never found, despite their most determined efforts. Unless there has been some very unlikely cataclysm it is now where I put it and I shall go back and get it. I am very anxious to have it as it is a unique document. I was handed a few necessaries to pack into my sleeping bag. That was significant: Chetniks when caught as such do not require anything for long. I began to feel warily cheerful. Each article was closely examined by the Gestapo agent Herr Blum-that being his name, as he informed me. He later told me that he was a German resident of Zagreb (Croatia)-in other words, another little fifth columnist. He sealed the room for further search, and a few things, including my Italian permit, my dagger, and a photograph, turned up at my trial. The hotel staff had gathered in consternation and, I am sure, sincere distress to bid me good-by. I was surprised to be allowed to shake them all by the hand. They showed they thought this was a very long farewell. It was getting dark. I was put into an open car next to Herr Blum, who drove. We sped round the town, in at the Ploche gate, and stopped before the Gradska Kafana. Herr Blum ran in and came out with a tall officer.

"Aha, Miss Mitchell," the latter greeted me in perfect English with a kind of joyous, victorious sneer, "I am delighted to see you! You remember me, no doubt, from the Srbski Kralj." (Belgrade's best hotel. More tourist-spy stuff, of course.) It was hard to see him clearly, but: "How could I forget such a handsome man?" I said with only faint sarcasm. "Since you knew me there you know I am an American." "You are British," he replied with smug satisfaction. "We have all the necessary proofs." "I am both, but American nevertheless," I said without heat. "It is possible, yes, I know there are such cases." His tone was worried and more gentle (he was the only German who ever admitted to me such elementary knowledge). "But I regret it can make no difference. I will see you tomorrow." ..._ Weak He waved his hand and we drove off, turned, passed through the archway by which we had entered, and stopped in front of a large door in the huge city wall, on the right about halfway between the arch and the Ploche gate. How often I had gaily passed that doorway, little suspecting what it hid! The heavy door swung back. We went down some steps into a dimly lit courtyard and into a small office opposite. Here were "Independent" Croatian policemen. They all knew me. My particulars were written into a huge tome. "American and British." I made them write both. I mentioned I had had nothing to eat. Blum at once gave an order, and in a few moments an ample hot meal was brought and a bottle of wine. I could eat and drink little, but the policemen enjoyed the rest, the bottle passing from mouth to mouth. Blum, who had really tried to be formally decent, departed. The atmosphere changed at once. I was ordered to turn out my pockets, which revealed a handkerchief, a small comb and a little paper money. The policemen relaxed and swelled up. "Ha, the English," one sneered proudly, "we'll soon get them now-us and the Germans." I couldn't repress a twinkle, which annoyed him.

He barked: "Out you go!" "May I take some necessaries from my bag?" No, nothing at all, not even a toothbrush.

36. PRISON

ONE OF THE CROAT POLICEMEN took my elbow and hurried me across a dimly lit courtyard. An iron door was unlocked. Roughly he pushed me in. The door clanged shut, and iron bolts scraped noisily. The guard's steps retreated . . . were gone. Silence. I was in prison. Black silence-with only the sucking moan of sad sea waves breaking softly, sobbingly, right under the cell. I stood holding my breath. I had never in my life before been really frightened. I was frightened. Were there others there in the dark? Or was I all alone? I listened intently. No sound of breathing. Only the sough of a lonely, inhuman sea. Well, I might as well try to find out what sort of a place I was in. If I went forward I might trip over something, but if I followed the wall I should at least get back to the door again sometime. With my foot I felt along the skirting board. I found I was alone in a fairly large cell (about ten by ten) with only a pail and a narrow bench. So that was that. Now nothing more could happen to me-until the next thing. The bench was about nine inches wide, splintery and wobbly. The cell was hot and stuffy. I took off my jacket and rolled it up. Then, afraid only of what might crawl up onto me, I balanced myself on my erratic bench and went to sleep. The crashing of heavy bolts awoke me. The door was thrown open and a surly guard motioned me out: "Wash,"- he grunted. Bright sunlight revealed men and women standing in line in the courtyard, waiting their turn at a very slightly screened tap, evidently the only water supply. I stood in line and did the best I could with my handkerchief and little comb.

No prisoner spoke to me. Almost all, I thought, were Jewish. They looked very scared. They were returned to crowded cells and locked up. I stood waiting. No one paid any attention to me. I asked for some food but was given only a rude, blank stare. There was an overturned rowboat in the yard. The sun shone warmly upon it. I hitched myself up and sat there practically all day watching people being brought in, tearful, terrified, and quickly pushed into every cell but mine. An old man, evidently an old lag (habitual criminal), was puttering about with a broom. I gave him ten dinars to sweep out my very filthy cell. Then he settled himself in a shady corner, opened a dirty handkerchief, and munched a crust of bread. We looked at each other with friendly speculation. He would have shared with me, but I wasn't that hungry-yet. A Croatian detective, whose bushy head of hair I had long known by sight, began walking up and down, coming ever nearer. Quite close, he threw me a pitying glance and, from the side of his mouth, whispered in English: "This is not yet known in the town. Can I tell anyone you are here?" I thanked him, mentioned an American by name, and said I would like some food. He nodded and soon went out. Nothing further was heard about that. About six o'clock I was ordered back into my cell. The door was bolted. There was nothing to do in the dark but go to sleep again. (I happen to be one of the world's most expert sleepers!) Next day I went through exactly the same routine except that twice I was given some dry bread. But about seven o'clock that evening the door opened noisily. I was ordered out and led over to the office. Had they found the Chetnik pass? The sunlight, the sky seemed strangely beautiful to me. In a little guardroom, containing a desk, a bed, and a large mirror, were Blum and the officer of the evening before, who introduced himself as Major von Nassenstein, chief of the Gestapo for the district. Instantly I knew by their expression that nothing had been found. I relaxed.

The major was very good-looking and evidently quite a gay cavalier. For the first time in many years I heard the inimitable accent, the short, clipped sentences of the old-time Prussian officer, the sort of thing one used to read about in old German light novels. It was a wonder and, yes, a pleasure to hear. I said so, knowing he must be proud of his military family traditions. He asked me this and that. I insisted I was an American "writing a book" and smiled at "absurd" suspicion. I did the lone and artless little woman, depending on "the well-known chivalry of the Germans," amazed at such inconsiderate treatment. "But, of course, war is war, I can permit myself no resentment at a mistake." Et cetera. Practice has made me pretty good at this, except the artificial tears, which I can't seem to squeeze out. I mentioned my long years of effort, well known in Germany, to bring about better understanding between the youth of England and Germany before the Nazis came into power. (When Hitler took over, he instantly banned the organization and confiscated our property without compensation. It was Nazi policy to suppress all international links.) I mentioned this to the chief of the Gestapo. There was a pause. He looked at me somberly and gave a curious sigh. He told me he had been born in London and went to school there. I could detect a touch of nostalgia. The man had once unquestionably been all that we mean by a "gentleman," and one could sense the effort he was making to keep from admitting to himself-even in the small dark yours he no longer merited that title. Blum went out, and the major showed that he could not be alone with a woman without reverting to gallant habits. Suddenly he asked: "Do you know who informed against you?" I told him I suspected it was Hasanovich. He nodded and said with haughty disgust: "Diese Mohammedaner-grassliche Leute!! [These Moslems-disgusting people!]" That was a curious admission for a member of the Gestapo to make, since they deliberately train even their own small children to be informers! The major said his orders were to send me to Belgrade for examination, that I should have to travel with a detective to Sarajevo, where a personal friend of his

would look after me, and that he himself would call for me with a car and drive me up to the capital. Blum returned and we went out into the office. Von Nassenstein, putting his arm over my shoulders in a protecting way, ordered the now very respectful police to treat me with every kindness. The same Croatian detective who helped arrest me was told to escort me to Sarajevo and ordered to supply me with everything I required. Von Nassenstein took out his pocketbook and gave the detective a handful of thousand-dinar notes. The two Germans then left with much politeness. A meal with wine was ordered, again finished off by the police, and I was again, but more gently, shoved into my cell. Next morning very early a car took the detective and me to the railroad station at Gruzh, and we got into an ordinary passenger train. I had a window seat in a crowded first-class compartment, he opposite me. I noticed he carried with great care a thick envelope of papers which also contained my dagger. Neither he nor I spoke to anyone, and no one suspected I was a prisoner. Three times he took me into station restaurants and ordered anything I wanted, but kept close beside me. He was silent and never looked straight at me. I made no attempt to escape either by quickness or by bribing. It is hard to explain why, but it is a fact that from now on throughout the whole business, except for one terrible moment in Belgrade prison, I had the absolutely firm and sustaining certainty that I should come through alive. Not only that, but immediately after the first shock of arrest I had the strong conviction that this was what had been intended from the beginning; that this was meant, that this, in some way still unguessed, was my real job, much more important than the other-and much, much harder. What would it be? I must wait now, and be ready. As I gazed, unseeing, at the passing scenery that had so thrilled me when I was free, I hummed inaudibly: "Ready, now ready, Chetniks brothers . . ."

37. "NEITHER QUICKLY FREE NOR QUITE DEAD"

ARRIVED THAT EVENING in Sarajevo, the detective took me in a taxi to the address given by Von Nassenstein. The place was closed, the friend away. Perturbed, the detective sent for a Gestapo officer While we waited I sat down on the stone steps of the drive-in, and he asked if I should like anything. I said tea. "With rum?" Amused, I answered, "Certainly," and, sure enough, a runner was dispatched and brought it: it was the last time I tasted spirits for thirteen months. A Gestapo officer arrived and angrily ordered me back into the taxi. Against my protests he drove me to the prison and handed me over to the Goat prison warders. This prison was a huge old gloomy place obviously ex-Turkish. But the atmosphere was peculiar. It was paternal in a curious way. The big, fat policemen were tough but good-natured. They were obviously anything but delighted at the sudden rush of business that always follows German triumphs. The place was packed with people who never before could have been thought of as criminals: respectable businessmen and simple housewives, mixed with ladies of light morals. To the large, red-faced turnkey who took me upstairs to my cell I said: "I will be alone?" I hoped so, but he, thinking I was frightened, said soothingly, "No, no, certainly not!" He called a nice-looking woman from another cell, put us together into a small cell, and locked the door. This was the real thing in prisons. There was a small barred window high up, and under it some sloping boards: evidently the common bed. Not even a bench or stool. And in the corner by the door a stinking, open drain of a toilet, not cleaned for days or ever. My cell mate told me in good German that her husband, a Jew, was also in the prison. She described how every Jewish shop, even the humblest, had been instantly closed by the Germans and labeled with their usual idiotic signs such as "bloodsucker" etc. Here they were safe, at least for the present.

By standing on the slanting bed-board I could catch a glimpse of the huddled roofs of the lovely old town, from which rose numbers of slim white minarets. These, now rosy with sunset, were slowly being engulfed by the shadows of the high surrounding mountains. A few lights sprang up, and the bright southern stars swung low. I thought sadly how I had looked forward to visiting Sarajevo with good and merry friends: in all my travels I had kept this very interesting and beautiful place as a sort of bonne-bouche, hoping to give it at least ten days of happy exploration. It was strange, after all my eager anticipation, to see it at last as a little picture framed by heavy prison bars. "Oh dear," said my cellmate, "we shall be dull here alone. Wouldn't you like your fortune told?" Surprised, I said I should be delighted. She went to the little peephole in the door and yelled for the guard until at last he lumbered up, unlocked the door, and stood there smiling. "Look," she said confidentially, "we're awfully bored. Can't we have the girls from my old cell in here for a bit?" "Well, all right," said he, "why not?" And soon in trooped fifteen women of the sort usually labeled "street walkers," some obviously suffering from a certain disease but all extremely cheerful. Here was indeed something new. But I soon forgot my perhaps excessive hygienic alarm in the general jollity. After formal introductions we laughed, we sang and told stories. We sat on the floor played clapping games, and otherwise enjoyed ourselves with childlike simplicity and sincerity. They were all quite ordinary, small-time prostitutes except one, a girl of less than fifteen, a pure-blooded Gypsy. She was a wild creature, all fire, all passion, all hate. Her large melting eyes with their sweeping lashes gazed out as from the ambush of her long, unkempt, blue-black hair. The wild-rose color came and went in her little heart-shaped, dusky face. She danced and sang for us, and the movements of her delicate yet hard hands and bare feet were exquisite.

Some chunks of bread were brought in by the guard. As I had eaten well all day, I was not hungry. So my bread was eagerly seized upon, and with part of it we rolled little balls about the size of beans. With these Maroosia, the Gypsy, told my fortune. It was the first time I had seen this method, which I believe is strictly Balkan. Later I learned to do it myself, as did all the women in those interminable prison days. There were forty-two beans. You divided them into three haphazard piles, counted them in fours, and arranged the leftovers in a certain way. It was pitiful to see how eagerly the women searched for and clung to any hopeful indications. Maroosia, now cross-legged on the floor, went into a kind of trance. She made solemn cabalistic signs. Then, in a singsong voice she said: "You are on a long journey-a long, long journey. You think that either you will die quickly or quickly be free. You will be neither: neither quickly free nor quite dead. Pain and sorrow, great sorrow. But at the end-the sea. Wide is the sea, wide, very wide. But it is far away-and bitter the road to the sea." That was all; more she could not or would not say. As it was now about ten o'clock my first cellmate again shouted for the guard and, when he came, suggested that the others should return to their cell. But, no, he told us, their places had already been filled up. They must remain here. We settled down as best we could, seventeen on the rough floor of that small, stinking cell. There were no blankets, though it grew cold. Of that hideous night I will only say that, as soon as the light went out, bugs in hordes crept from the wide, filthy cracks, and as I was not yet hardened to them, I spent the whole night in frantic, squashing slaughter. Do you know what crushed bedbugs smell like? The mingling of aromas was indescribable. My companions slept serenely if noisily.

38. A THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR BED

NEXT MORNING, after saying good-by to my cellmates, now quite affectionate, I was taken to Gestapo headquarters. There I was given a vague examination, soon over. Three officers, very brusque and busy, had orders only to send me on and were not interested. When I said I was American one elderly one unbent enough to mention that he had been some years in South America. I asked when Major von Nassenstein would be coming to take me to Belgrade. They said he had been delayed and that I must proceed next day by train. I told them he had provided money to put me into a hotel, but nothing was known about this: apparently the Croat detective had simply gone off with the cash. One of the officers nodded dismissal to the detectives. "Where are you taking me?" I asked. "Back to the prison, of course." I was determined not to go. "Please listen to me," I said earnestly. "You probably cannot even conceive what it was like last night in that old Turkish prison." I described the conditions there. Then: "You each surely have a wife or a mother or a daughter. They too might have happened to be in a foreign country when war broke out. If they had been placed in such a miserable situation, how would you have felt?" They looked slightly ashamed. "Well, we can't help it, can we?" "You can," I answered, turning to the elderly officer. "If you know South America you know what palabra ingles means. No political propaganda can change the fact that an Englishman's private word is accepted as absolutely dependable the world over. I am both American and British. You can take my parole. There must be an empty room somewhere. Put me there: I give you my word of honor not to try to escape." They consulted a moment, much annoyed.

"There is an empty room in this office," said the elderly man. "You can sit there all day." He took me into an empty room, put my bag on the floor and went out, locking the door. How lovely and clean, how palatial that room seemed! Two large windows opened on the street, and I could watch the people passing. I took out my mending kit and sewed happily all day. They let me have a good wash in a clean toilet, with clean towels-how wonderful they seemed!-and even a nailbrush. At six the elderly officer came in. "You can't stay here," he said. "There is nothing to sleep on but the floor." I laughed. "What do you think I have been sleeping on for four nights? This is clean at least." He thought a moment, then dragged in an iron chest from the next room. From it he took four large tapestries, evidently recently acquired loot. I happen to be something of a connoisseur of such hangings. They were magnificent Gobelins, some of the finest I ever saw, dating from about 1770. Even the original brocade linings, though shredded, were untouched. They would be worth in America not less than $300,000, probably more. With obviously no understanding of what they were, he folded them on the floor for a bed, rolled up a dirty old mailbag as a pillow, and clicked his heels: "Good night," and went out. I crept inside those royal blankets, chuckling to think that no emperor's mistress ever had such an expensive bed, but horrified to think of what was happening to the irreplaceable art treasures of Europe which these greedy and ignorant looters are carting away to their robbers' dens. Every art gallery and every private home is being picked clean. Everything beautiful, everything valuable to local history as well as to humanity as a whole, is being lugged away to Germany. Will these things ever be recovered? How can it be done? A house-to-house search will be necessary. One fears too that the sour meanness of a defeated people will make them prefer to destroy all ancient beauty rather than give it up.

Our own ideals forbid us to destroy great works of architecture in Germany. The Germans, in contrast, destroy everything they cannot cart away. Serbia had a wonderful Byzantine heritage. Her old monasteries and churches, with their superb frescoes, were little known to the outside world, mainly because of the poor roads. These treasures of Christianity had been admired and preserved even by the Mohemmedan Turks. Yet the "Christian" Germans, we hear, after trying vainly by the latest scientific methods to remove the frescoes for transport to Germany, have set dynamite and carefully blown them forever from the eyes of men. All the Serb intensity of love and loyalty to their traditions was centered in their ancient churches. Thousands of Serbs without hesitation would have given their lives to preserve them. No crime the Germans have committed toward the Serbs is worse than this that they have done to their beautiful old churches. Next morning very early, before the rest of the office had opened, a detective came to take me to Belgrade. He was a Bosnian Moslem in red fez and behaved throughout in the most disgusting manner. He was much too haughty to carry my bag-though I succeeded in forcing him to do so. He said he had no money for food for me, but he himself ate and drank at every opportunity. In the third-class carriage he announced proudly that he was the Gestapo and was taking "a famous spy to be shot." The effect was quite different from what he had hoped. Instead of admiring him everyone plied me with so much food, bread, cheese and sausage that I could not eat it all. Two Montenegrin acquaintances of mine got in and turned pale with anxiety. The detective, full of food and drink, fell asleep, and my friends whispered that I might jump. The man lay so idiotically helpless that they motioned that they could throw him out of the window. As we were passing close along the course of a rushing river he would have been dead in an instant. I played with the idea -it had its points. But something seemed to urge me, to command me, to wait. We were in Bosnia, now a part of the "Independent State of Croatia" but populated chiefly by Serbs who were already fleeing for their lives. The new

Croatian Government had been making a great fuss Over the large Moslem faction and calling them "the very flower of Croatia." One of my acquaintances, pointing to the hideously sleeping detective, mouth open, fez on one ear, said thoughtfully: "A flower!" There was a shout of laughter which woke the man up, confused and alarmed. A man got into the crowded carriage with a guitar. He sang some lovely Bosnian songs. Then I took the instrument and sang for them the only American songs which are really loved and eagerly listened to in this part of the world: Swannee River, Old Black Joe, and The Cowboy's Lament. Several hands pressed mine with emotion. We reached Belgrade at eight o'clock. The German-imposed curfew was at that time six o'clock, and anyone seen on the street after that was shot. So we had to spend the night in the train-without water.

39. COURT MARTIAL

NEXT MORNING AT SIX O' CLOCK I was marched out into the new Belgrade. The station was a complete wreck, and no effort had been made to repair it. The buildings around it had more or less collapsed, and the rubble was just sufficiently cleared from the streets to give room for traffic. There had been rain the night before, and I was at first puzzled, then horrified, by the insidious stink. Suddenly the truth struck me: the Germans had not allowed the bodies under the ruins to be removed, and the decomposing flesh still, six weeks after the bombardment, gave off after rain its ominous stench. Passing up through ruined streets, we reached the Gestapo headquarters on the Terrazie just opposite some little restaurants where I had spent many happy evenings. The few people I saw and even somehow the buildings seemed to have a furtive, unfamiliar air. For two hours I stood about, foodless, of course, not even allowed to sit down. Then German officers arrived with much "Heiling," and I was put into the lockup with an iron door. The heavily barred windows overlooked a large courtyard. Sadly I watched Serb soldier prisoners wielding brooms under raucous German orders. They were quiet and calmly obedient but grim. Handsome cars kept driving in to park, and S.S. officers got out with an air of lofty self-satisfaction. From a beautiful racing car with a Yugoslav number there stepped out a notably well-made young man, tall, very broad and straight, with a mass of bright gold hair. But the hatless head looked almost deformed by its complete lack of curve at the back. He turned and showed a brutally arrogant face. "The blond beast himself," I thought, "lost to every human feeling." He ran into the building. And behold, he reappeared with a huge bunch of roses, which he held under a tap, careful to see that each one received water! He looked up at me. The sun was shining directly into my cell and no doubt glinted on my red hair. His expression changed to a smile of the gayest, the

warmest flirtation and, breaking off a rose, he made to throw it up to me. Suddenly he realized that I was gazing down through prison bars: I was an enemy. Instantly, with a glare of bestial, almost moronic fury and hate, he turned his back and stalked away. Unbelievable, this German combination of sentimentality and brutality. Toward noon my door opened and two detectives appeared. Close beside me they marched me (these people never seem just to walk) along a corridor and up a long flight of stairs, and I was shown into a large room with two officers at desks and a pretty girl with long, fair pigtails at a typewriter. One officer rose, mentioned his name-Major Seidl-and motioned me to a chair. The major was built on narrow, skimpy lines-like a tall house with one room on each floor. His mind proved to match his body. His gray-green uniform, with the two s letters "S.S." drawn to resemble streaks of lightning, was particularly unbecoming to his sallow complexion. "Aha," said Major Seidl, urbanity itself, "Miss Mitchell! Sit down, please, and make yourself comfortable. We will just have a little friendly chat, you and I." He offered me a cigarette. I said that I wished immediately to get in touch with my representative, the American minister or the consul, as I had that right. He waved my demand aside. "Unnecessary, quite unnecessary! Just a little chat, only a few questions.... Tell me, Miss Mitchell-I understand you were born in America but are now British." "I was born American and have remained American, though through my marriage I also have British citizenship." For an instant his mask of urbanity cracked: "You are British," he growled. "We have all the evidence." I bowed. Now the questioning began, starting with my most distant ancestry, passing through my childhood, and including every school even kindergarten, I had ever been to-quite a list, as I was educate in many countries. And then, of course, every month, almost every day of my years in the Balkans. When it came to names I had

a complete lapse of memory. Unless he mentioned them in exasperation himself ] had quite forgotten everyone I knew. But he knew them. He knew the smallest, the most insignificant facts, and he tried to make them darkly significant. He knew that my father was for many years a United States senator from Wisconsin- a "liberal"-that my grandfather had been a pioneer and builder of railroads. He knew that I had exchanged thousands of English and German students in my years of effort to promote better understanding between the nations. "Liberal!" he kept saying with almost spitting disgust. It was like looking into a contorting mirror. Anything that was broad-minded, international in outlook, or for the good of humanity as a whole was contemptible, disgusting to him. It was "liberal!" He knew it all, with only two strange omissions: to my very great surprise he did not know that my brother had been General "Billy" Mitchell or that my son was in the Royal Air Force! I enlightened him about neither point. It was a strange performance. The man had obviously been a lawyer in civil life. Every answer I gave was reworded by him and dictated to the secretary, who was not allowed to take down anything except what he himself told her. As my command of German was quite as good as his, a strange battle developed, he trying subtly to turn my smallest utterance into something sinister. Of course I wasn't going to have it. We sat sometimes for as much as a whole half-hour battling over one sentence. He became exasperated. It happens that the madder I get the more softly and calmly I speak. Not so he: his charm and urbanity soon began to wear very thin and then disappeared altogether. He frowned more and more darkly, furious that his browbeating did not seem to be as effective as it usually was with unprotected women. The corners of his mouth drew down until now he looked like one of those wooden human-faced nutcrackers with a moving jaw. I could not help thinking of that charming Irish blessing, the best a humorous race can bestow: "May the corners of your mouth never turn down!" Toward noon, having had absolutely nothing to eat or drink since about noon the day before, and after my night on a wooden train bench, I began to feel

exhausted. Afraid I might make a slip, I pretended to feel faint and to be unable to answer him. Harshly he ordered me to be taken out.

40. THE VERDICT IS GUILTY

MY COURT-MARTIAL was conducted during parts of four widely separated days. On the second day Seidl changed his tactics. He had before him my dossier, a huge pile almost a foot high, my dagger lying on top. Beside it lay a book about the size of a dictionary closely printed with names and addresses. It was open at "M," and, upside down, I could see my name and that of a good friend on the Black List of Germany: her enemies who were to be exterminated. It heartened me to know that I was in such goodly company. When I asked again for the American consul, he simply barked: "Unerhort! [Unheard-of!]" "Chetnik," he said slowly, with an indescribable narrow-eyed leer of triumph, "Chetnik, eh?" "Chetniks?" I asked with puzzled surprise. "Yes, they are quite interesting." He evidently expected I would deny all knowledge of them. On the contrary I launched into an elaborate description of the Chetniks and their methods. "I should think," I said seriously, "that you might be quite interested in them as fighters. They are unique, but entirely outmoded, of course, and useless nowadays in scientific warfare. But you might learn something from their experience on this Balkan terrain: you are always so ready to learn!" The irony quite passed him by. But with indulgent condescension he explained how impossible it would be for these primitive cave men" to damage the great German war machine. ("Three weeks, thought, "three weeks more, you woodenheaded braggart, and you are likely really to learn something.") It was now easy to unpack my old tale of "the book," and it seem to go down plausibly. But he had the photo of me in uniform c with badge. So I told him a touching tale of "that poor old dotard," Pechanats; of how I had flattered him in order to persuade him relate to me his dramatic life story; of how, after wine, he

had taken the badge from his own cap and pressed it into my hand, saying: "Here, take this memento of me. If ever you are traveling in Yugoslavia just show this badge and you can pass anywhere." When I had "fled" from Belgrade during the bombardment I had happened to see the badge lying there and, remembering his words, had thought might be useful in getting through the crowds of refugees. The c itself, of course, was only my riding cap, "Why, everybody wears the here in the winter!" As for my jacket, that, as he must know, was "just a warm Shumadiya peasant coat I had collected in my study national costumes." Well, it seemed to work. I was a "lady," he said, and could not have been seriously connected with such "riffraff." He started to dictate my story. He was so polite that I became very much on the ale Sure enough, when he came to telling why I saw the Duke, he said ". . . and I was interested in his life and politics." "Not politics," I corrected gently, "but past." "Same thing," he said sharply. "Not at all the same thing. Very different. The word that will into the statement is 'past."' His patience snapped: this arguing had gone far enough. Now must stop! Glaring furiously at me, he rose and, leaning forward, banged the table with his fist-his ring, I noticed, making a dent. "Es wird geschrieben wie es mir gefallt," he billowed. "Das Wort ist 'Politik.' [It shall be written as I wish. The word is 'politics.' I too rose. I too leaned forward. I too banged the table, though not quite so hard. And in a voice even lower than ever, I said: "This statement is my statement, and if a word goes in which I have express denied I will not sign it. I will speak and sign only the truth." He looked at me a moment, the very picture of amazement. Then he burst into a mocking laugh. "What do you think-do you believe it matters whether you sign it or not?" It sounds much nastier in German: "Was glauben Sie? Bilden Sie sich ein es ware nicht ganz egal ob Sie unterschreiben oder nicht?"

So now I knew that this was all just a farce, only a pumping expedition, and that the result could only be-a foregone conclusion. On the third day the atmosphere had entirely changed. There were three officers present, one quite young. Again I asked, demanded to see my consul. They didn't even bother to answer. They asked me a few days of my visits to different parts of the country, which I had "forgotten," and tried to make me admit having seen certain people. I "could not remember." They consulted and again began to dictate to the girl, who looked very frightened. I had always smiled in a friendly way at her-she was obviously a Yugoslav of German extraction. She now threw me a pitying glance. Once in visiting a monastery that was under repair I had been so struck by the beautiful stonework that I had put in a corner of my notebook the name of the architect in charge, meaning to employ him if I built a house there. Throughout the whole of the proceedings this name had been shot at me over and over againshowing what frightful mistakes can occur. They would not believe the true answer. Apparently the whole country had been searched for this unfortunate man. I pray to heaven that his life was not sacrificed by my carelessness in overlooking his name. All others had been carefully erased. In dictating, they now so completely garbled my words that it was absurd. It was obviously useless to argue any more. Suddenly, therefore, I rose and, crossing the room to the window, stood looking out. They evidently thought I intended to jump, and the young officer made a movement to spring up and seize me. "Don't worry, please," I said quietly. "I see you don't need my assistance: you obviously know much more about all this than I do. Proceed, please, without me!" There was a pause of uncertainty and a clearing of throats. I walked back slowly and sat down again. Hardly anything more was said. And they all rose as I went out. On the fourth day, about ten days later, as I was waiting to be taken in, I knew that now would come the decision: today my fate would be decided.

Suddenly to my own surprise I heard myself humming quite audibly: "Ready, now ready . . ." Sharply a detective looked up. I could not have done anything more stupid and dangerous: these men were of local birth-they knew that song! As nonchalantly as I could I let it run into the slightly similar German tune, "Oh, Tannenbaum." Again the same three officers. The girl did not look at me. The dossier was again before them, fatter than ever. But this time the dagger lay on my side of the desk. Whether by design or accident I do not know, but I noticed instantly that the point was toward me. I cannot help thinking it was intended as a compliment. Every military man will know what it meant. They let me stand for some minutes without paying any attention to me. Then, without preliminaries, Major Seidl barked shortly: "Fur Schuldig erklart [Guilty]." "I have not yet been informed of what I am accused," I said. "We have complete proof that you are an agent of the British Intelligence Service." (He said "Geheim Polizei [Secret Police]," then corrected himself.) "Now, my girl," thought I, "if you have wits, prepare to use them now! Not many more hours to live." Was there nothing, nothing I could find to say that could affect their fatal resolution? Suddenly it seemed just as if something sitting on my left shoulder whispered in my ear, quite actual and real. "I will say this," I said slowly: "If I die-it is certain that many German women will weep." They looked up, attentive. "You were not aware, I think, or you would have mentioned it, that Admiral Richard Byrd and United States Senator Byrd are my brothers-in-law." (That was not quite true; they were the brothers-in-law of my sister-in-law. I did not know these two gentlemen nor had they even passed through my thoughts for years. Why had they suddenly, at this most critical moment of my life, come into my head?)

"One is a world figure [they nodded in acknowledgment], and both are very powerful in America. Germany is straining every nerve and is pouring out millions upon millions of marks trying to keep America out of the war. If you shoot me when I am not guilty, you may be sure my relatives will throw themselves with energy into working against Germany. If you know Americans you know that they are greatly moved by principles. [All three made sounds of disgust.] My death might even be the actual small first cause of America entering the war against you." The youngest officer had scribbled a quick note which he passed along and the other two glanced at. They tried not to show that they were alarmed at this perhaps important news. They looked at each other silently, then darkly at me. There was a pause. "The charge is considered proved," said Seidl woodenly. "When will it be carried out?" A hesitation, just the faintest hesitation, then: "You will know in due course." I knew then that I had saved my life at least for a few days: it was obvious they could not risk a perhaps serious reprimand-I knew the case would now have to be referred to Berlin. I thought of the Serbs, my friends, so firmly facing death in the prison. "Gentlemen," I said softly, "it is sometimes an honor to die [Meine Herren, zu sterben ist manchmal eine Ehre]." I walked out between my two guards, and I tried not to show how wobbly I felt. I mention those details because of puzzling developments. Before long the news was spread over Serbia that I had been shot. The clothes I was alleged to have worn were described, and my "last words" I did say as above. Only four people were present, all Germans. The report must therefore have been put about by the Germans themselves.

Why ? Did they think it would have a lowering effect on the morale of the Fighting Serbs? If anything, I hope and believe it had the opposite effect. The Serbs know, they knew well then, that I would gladly die if that could in any way cause them to fight harder.

41. WOMEN AGAINST THE GESTAPO

ON THE DAY of my arrival in Belgrade, after four hours' severe questioning, having been given nothing at all to eat or drink since the previous afternoon, I was so tired that I was afraid I might make . slip. I therefore became silent and pretended to be fainting. Two Gestapo detectives were ordered to take me to prison. I was allowed to take absolutely nothing with me. I realized that it was considered a waste of trouble even to transport my small bag I was not expected to need anything for long. The detectives close against my shoulders, I was hurried down the Terrazie, across the street, under a deep archway, through a small court and to an iron door in a high blank wall. A group of anxious women stood there, some weeping. The detectives roughly elbowed them aside and knocked loudly A key rattled, bolts were drawn, and the door swung narrowly open I was pushed through, the detectives following. The women surged forward and made desperate efforts to peep inside. The guard, revolver on hip, rifle on shoulder, barked at them angrily, slammed and relocked the door. I was in the infamous Gestapo prison of Belgrade. We hurried across the narrow, roughly cobbled yard where prisoners were languidly working in the hot sun. Some looked up from their desultory sweeping to give me little secret nods of courage. Through a large door, up some stone steps, along a short stone passage, through another iron door and into a small office. It contained two beds against one wall, some steel filing cabinets, a wash basin, and in the middle a desk at which sat the chief warder, Richter One of the detectives signed the huge book. Then both departed.

Surlily businesslike while the detectives were there, the instant the) were gone the chief began screaming at me, to spell my name, to empty my pockets. "English, heh? English, the miserable cowards," etc. "American too, please remember, and entitled to be treated as al internee," I said peacefully. This drove him into a frenzy. "Americans and English-the b s, what did they think they could ever accomplish against Germany!" he yelled. It is hard to believe, but never was an opportunity allowed to pass without such a screaming denunciation. It was designed, apparently, to condition prisoners for the horrors of that prison. It was obvious to me at once that the man was a psychopathic case-as proved to be true. His assistant, a wretched degenerate boy called Honig, sycophantically applauded his clever cracks. The show proving a flop, Honig led me out, unlocked a door between the office and the front door of the prison, and put me into the cell which I was to occupy-but for one interval in the condemned cell-for over two months. It was about fifteen feet by twenty and had two small windows high up, heavily barred, with wooden screens fastened outside in such a way that little light or air could enter. On one side there were two narrow slatted cots (later removed) and on the other loose straw covered with blankets in all colors and conditions of raggedness. A string stretched across a corner was hung with gray towels. There were a few crooked nails for coats, a very large pail with a lid. That was all. This cell was the only one between the office and the entrance to the prison. Everyone entering or leaving had to pass our door. Through a space below the wooden screens we had a small but clear view of the yard and the single gate. There was a stovepipe hole in the wall between our cell and the office. Hence we could see or hear everything that went on in that prison except in the cellar and on the upper floors. All the other cells in the prison were remote and calm by comparison. In the heat and the foul air it was our constant fight to keep the door open to prevent the women from fainting wholesale. When we were not to see or be seen

by new arrivals, the guard would slam the door. But there was still a peephole with a tin slide. I found a way of closing this from the inside upon occasion, and snapping it open again when it was noticed by the bellowing guard. When I was shoved in that day, fourteen women, almost all Serbs, were sitting about in utter dejection, some crying softly. In a dark corner crouched Tatiana Alboff, a Russian woman of aristocratic connections whom I had known as secretary to the Daily Mail correspondent, Terence Atherton. She made signs to me not to recognize her. A charming elderly woman rose and welcomed me. She was Lidia, well known and popular in Belgrade. Her husband was also in the prison; they had no idea why. They had been there, like several others, for almost three months without the slightest explanation and without once being questioned. All the women were introduced to me with ceremony but by their first names since, for understandable reasons, they were reluctant to have their last names known. I heard the life story of each in turn. The thing that struck me first was the careful standard of good manners that was maintained in the cell. It reminded me of the old tales about Queen Marie Antoinette in the Bastille during the French Revolution. However debased the behavior of the "masterfolk" guards, however horrible the conditions of the prison, the women never once indulged in any loud quarreling, not one scene of violence. This in spite of the mixture of classes and types. Often I wondered how anyone could call the Serbs "primitive" or "uncouth." The Serbian women were very much the opposite: calm, intensely warmhearted, uncowed and firm in the face of death. We had weaklings, we had cowards, we had the most contemptible informers. But they were Russians-"White" Russians who eagerly proclaimed themselves to all who would listen as haters of the present Russian regime and devoted friends of the Nazis.

The trial-by-fire of the prison experience tested every fiber of racial and personal character. Through this trial the Serbian women, among whom must be included the Sephardic Jewesses of long local descent, emerged magnificently. There were only two exceptions: one the wife of a leading Belgrade banker, a one-time great beauty so spoiled by wealth that she was actually unable to comb her own hair. She was in prison for only ten days, her offense being her "impertinence" in asking at her town house, requisitioned by the Germans, for some linen to take to her country house. She wept solidly for those ten days at the "disgrace" of being in prison. The rest of us considered it, as it was, a great honor. The second exception was a Belgrade widow of thirty whose husband had fought for the Communists in Spain. Her daughter of thirteen, we heard, in the absence of her mother had become unmanageable and was running wild in the streets. This handsome woman, looking little more than a girl, had to be carried to her execution screaming the name of her child-the wayward child she was leaving alone in a terrible world. The other women who died walked firmly and silently to their death before the guns.

42. GUESTS OF THE GESTAPO

IT IS UNLIKELY that many of my readers have been in a prison, very few indeed in a Gestapo prison, and no other American woman, I believe, has been in the Gestapo prison of Belgrade. So I shall describe the routine. There are no women wardresses, and never for an instant are we certain of being out of sight of the men guards. At seven in the morning a guard, rifle on shoulder, gun on hip, stamps into the cell and yells: "Aufstehen!" (In most Gestapo prisons it is much earlier; in Vienna, four-thirty.) We jump up from the moldy straw and hurry to stand in line at the door. Two by two the guard allows us to pass through the chain across the door and to run along the passage to the wash place. Sometimes discipline is lax and we all run together and even meet women from other cells. If there has been much sniping in the town we can tell at once by the excitement and fury of the guards. (They were local boys of German descent, and some of whom meant well enough at first. But the rabid Nazi poison was injected into their blood, and the weaker they were, the nastier they became.) The wash place, with two taps, cold water only, of course, and no bowls, is in a narrow passage leading to the one toilet and one urinal that serve both the office and thirty to forty women. The cement floor is always running with splashed water, and we stand with wet feet. (In the end I got severe rheumatism in one knee.) Now relatives begin to collect at the gate. All day long there is a group of these desperate people hoping against hope to catch a glimpse of some loved one when the gate opens a crack. The women in the prison used to try to hang a hand out of the window, hoping it would be recognized. Those whose relatives have brought them breakfast share with the rest of us. In the weeks before the American consul got word of my being in prison I received no food, with the ironical result that I had to eat much too much. We had rich women in the cell whose cooks sent in beautifully prepared food-eaten, of course,

on the floor. Each of them insisted on my sharing with her, and to refuse meant hurt feelings. We take our blankets out into the yard to shake, and energetically we bang them up and down to get rid of bugs. The men are washing at the tap in the yard. I had a very ragged bright red blanket which, after Russia entered the war, I used to wave madly up and down every morning. The men would wink and nod; they knew what I meant. It cheered us all up. Now the "housework": the straw is aired, the floor washed with so much water that it too is always damp. We sweep the office, the guardroom, the corridor, and then we get down and scrub the cement. After the first few days even the most fragile women are eager for the work: it is the only chance of exercise. Katitsa and I polish the riding boots of Hahn, the second warder. I got a lot of fun out of this-and so did he: he used to sneer delightedly as he passed. So one day I said to him: "You can't imagine how glad I am to have learned so much about housekeeping. It will be very useful when I am outside again." He was taken aback. "That will be never," he grunted. But after that he passed by without looking. We carry out into the yard and dump into an outside urinal the night pails, standing in line with the men. Now comes the long day's drag. There is no occupation except endless talk: "My house is like this . . ." "My little girl said . . ." "Here is a good recipe for . . ." etc., etc. The bitter, hopeless homesickness is expressed in one corner in Serbian, in another in French, in another in German. There was no one else who spoke Once a week there is laundry: if you have pull with a warder it means a whole day out of doors, by the garbage cans above which the clotheslines are stretched. There are a long wooden trough and a little fire on a few bricks, with a pail to heat water. Katitsa was the expert at this as at everything useful. I was so hopeless at the washing that I could only carry water and did it gladly to keep my muscles in order. Back and forth I walked to the tap in the yard. One day I counted fifty-six full pails of fresh water carried about fifty yards in the broiling sun; then I carried the dirty water back to a near-by drain. The clothes were sometimes exceedingly

dirty and often-how often! -covered with blood. Yet those washdays were our pleasantest times in that prison. The guards out of sight, we chatted and laughed under the bright sky between the narrow high walls. We are eager for any excuse to get outside. Being appointed "head woman" by the prison governor, I am tempted to take advantage of my position always to carry out the dust to the garbage cans. They are round the corner of the building, out of sight of the gate guard. At this blessed, smelly spot, we can hesitate a moment, pass a quick word with men on the same errand, hear the latest news brought in by last night's prisoners, take a quick pull at a cigarette or, if two are in love, even exchange a kiss. Risque behavior, however, is almost completely absent. How well those women, some of them very beautiful girls, conducted themselves! How gentle were the men! Passionate surges of feeling were, of course, only natural in that hothouse atmosphere of repressed emotion. Most were meaningless. But we had one really charming love affair.

43. TRUDI

TRUDI WAS A RICH Little GIRL who came into the prison wearing exquisite underwear which the women loved to examine. She had big blue eyes and golden hair which we took turns combing. Trudi fell quite desperately in love with the most attractive boy in the prison. He was a dark, handsome Czech student who was lodged on the third floor. Since he was considered likely to attempt to escape, he was never allowed down into the yard except to wash in the morning under guard. They fell in love at first sight, and both were so nice that we all took a thrilled interest in encouraging the affair. So by a system of watchers, as we swept or scrubbed the corridor, we used to arrange that Trudi would emerge with blankets to shake just as he was coming down the stairs. They walked the few steps into the yard "by accident" side by side. And in her pile of blankets notes slipped back and forth while long looks of passion were exchanged, and little muttered words of love. For a few minutes while she shook the blankets (ordinarily we did it in twos and made them crack to shoot out the bugs) and he brushed his teeth, they would continue to gaze with passion. If that sounds very unromantic to you, you don't understand the magic of romance. Her days were filled with composing long, gracefully worded letters in the smallest writing on scraps of any kind of paper I could steal from the guardroom. She used my pathetic stub of a pencil- the same pencil with which, each evening at dusk, I stood in the gathering gloom below the window and wrote my notes. (Sewed up in the pleats of my skirt, although in Germany I was several times searched to the skin, I got them all out, every one. They were on smooth toilet paper, carefully saved from before my arrest. There was none in the Belgrade prison.) Sometimes Trudi read parts of his letters to her special intimates, among whom I was lucky to be included. They were in French. He told how he was caught trying to find his mother in Serbia. He had failed. He dreamed of what someday they two would do together.

"Libres," he wrote, "nous serons libres, libres et ensemble, nous deux. If it is in the summer, we will go to one of the little islands on the Adriatic coast and all day long, alone, we two, we'll swim and talk on the golden sands. And in the warm nights . . . If it is in winter that we are free again, we'll go to the mountains and on our skis we'll whiz down the snowy slopes-when we are free again...." Always he ended: "Je vous admire, je vous respecte, je vous aime, je vous adore!" Little Trudi lived in a world apart, a rosy dream, wrapped away from our common miseries. A spy became suspicious, perhaps because the boy looked so happy. Though her letters were not found and she was not suspected, the boy was beaten until his eyes were black and blue. His fine head of hair was shaved. Trudi was dissolved in misery. It did not stop them; but we were all even more careful than before. One day a "trusty," an opera singer who sometimes worked in the office, whispered to her quite innocently that he had seen the boy's name on a list for execution. Trudi fainted. It was a genuine heart attack. At once I put every signal system in motion-you may be sure we had plenty-and got hold of the man near the garbage cans. I was simply furious at his thoughtlessness. Even a minute of misery saved was worth any trouble. Time enough to endure disaster when it had really happened! I told him he had to tell her he had seen the list again and found he had mistaken the first name: that it was a different man altogether. I told him he had to make it sound convincing. He did it well, and our lovely little Trudi was all tremulous relief and hope and smiles again. But the information proved only too true. That gentle, fiery lover now molders under a brown blanket which all Trudi's love can never shake. And she, the little beauty-she was transported to Germany- to what infamous fate . . .

44. IS IT THE END?

AT NOON lunches are handed in at the gate and we are ordered back into the cells. The table on which the lunches are examined by the warders is directly outside the windows. We try to watch, and we see how the best of things, especially fruit and cigarettes, are stolen by the warders and the guards. After he discovered I was there-of which more later-the American consul, Mr. Rankin (to whom and to Mrs. Rankin, for all their trouble, eternal thanks!) used to send me, in my daily basket of food, four cigarettes in a noticeable little box marked "For the Use of His Majesty's Navy." They were stolen so regularly that at last I risked, in spite of the sternest orders, writing on the basket label: "Hide cigsstealing!" Suddenly about midnight one night when we were fitfully asleep, with great noise the door was thrown open. In the bright light outside stood a glittering array of officers. "Mitchell Ruth!" a voice bellowed. The women were paralyzed with fright: "So your time too has come!" I got up dizzily, fumbled for my coat and shoes. Steady now-l am an American. I must not be less firm than my Serbs. So I had been wrong, after all, in my absolutely unshakable belief that I should come through alive. False, false, all these intuitions. One glance round, one smile at my special friends-dear Katitsa, her face pinched with horror-to try to show how much I love them. Like lightning thoughts dart through my head: Disgusting way to be shot, in my nightie.... My daughter ... her husband's a doctor, she'll be all right.... My son ... my son ... good luck, happy marriage, many children-whom I shall never see.... I am in the corridor, facing the "big noise" himself, chief of the Gestapo for Serbia, Colonel Krauss, a large, extremely imposing man, with two glittering aides and surrounded by the head warders and guards.

Instead of marching straight out, they stand and glare at me. I feel very small and lonely-and cold, very cold. Why don't they move? We stand-it seems to me for years. Then Krauss thunders: "You have had the incredible impertinence [unerhorte Frechheit] to complain that something was stolen from food sent to you." I am stupefied. I can hardly hear as he goes on: "That, of course, is impossible. This is a German prison. In a German prison stealing is absolutely unknown, unheard of. Germans do not steal. What have you to say ?" I was prepared for anything-for tragedy, if you like-but this, this is farce! It takes me a moment to readjust my mind. I look around at the head warders, the men who had done the wholesale stealing, had fed on the best sent in for the starving prisoners. White with fear and fury, they stare at me: I hold them in the hollow of my hand. The glaring eyes seem to fill the whole air as in a nightmare. I try to think: if I tell the truth, what will happen, not just to me but to all of us? Dimly I grasp only one thought: if I accuse these vicious bullies, tell the truth, our general misery will only increase, all food will certainly be stopped. Stammering, I say: "No doubt-no doubt the cigarettes were only taken for distribution to-" "What?" shouts Krauss, turning slowly toward the warders. "Cigarettes? Cigarettes? CIGARETTES? What does this mean?" "Well-well," stammers Richter, the chief warder, cringing, "sometimes in the yard the guards-that is, the best prisoners-that is-" "No cigarettes!" thunders Krauss. "Not one cigarette is to enter this prison or any other German prison. Unheard of I UNHEARD OF!" He stamps off towards the office. The hangdog warders slink after him, no doubt to be put through a grilling.

I return to my bed of straw. How nice and homelike it feels! How pleased I am to see the look of delight on the faces of the women as they relax with a sigh and a muttered prayer! The door is slammed and locked. I hold Katitsa's warm and gentle hand and dream . . . of woods and long roads winding and the wind blowing-free-on the mountainside.... For a few days, alas, cigarette-starvation and discipline are severe, and the men prisoners look at me as if at last we had a real criminal among us. I feel terribly sorry and ashamed: I have joined the great majority, those who "only meant well." But in three days discipline breaks down again, and the stealing is worse than ever. Cigarettes reappear.

45. SMILYA LEAVES ME A SON

THIS PARTICULAR PRISON was exceptional, perhaps unique, in that it was an amateur affair hastily organized. It was staffed by half-witted local scum, who were ludicrously unsure of themselves and who therefore vacillated violently between needless ferocity and lazy apathy. Almost no rules held for more than a day; nothing was a precedent for any thing else. The food and water we received, the very air we breathed, depended on the sour vengefulness or temporary satiation of the guards; upon the momentary moods of overbearing brutes. It was necessary that the three heads-governor, chief, and second warder-as well as the guards, of course, be able to speak Serbian. They were therefore chosen for their merciless ferocity from the Volksdeutsche, people of German descent living in Yugoslavia. The governor was seldom in evidence. We had two while I was there. First, a man called Wieser. He was a healthy-looking sportsman always bragging about his skiing. He made a habit of yodeling gaily across all the horror, so that we knew just what point he had reached on his rounds. When he struck, like lightning, it scarcely interrupted his singing. He was a great dandy. It was he who called Katitsa and me out in the middle of the night to wash blood from his new pale-green jacket: blood which had spurted on him from the freedom-loving victims he was torturing-our own friends.... We were unable to remove the stains. I had to change the black lapel squares on this jacket, and I have the removed ones here now before me, as silent witnesses of hideous cruelty. Gaily yodeling, he went off to his wedding. Was one to pity the woman, or did she hope to produce a brood of just such criminals? Wieser was temporarily replaced by a reservist who in civil life had obviously been the kind of shopkeeper for whom "the customer is always right." He forgot himself to the extent of being polite to some of the older ladies. He was soon removed, and Wieser, the yodeler, returned, in no way softened by happiness-in-love. You can't soften a stone: you can only grind it to powder-and blow it away.

The chief warder, Richter, had been a carpenter, a furniture maker. Evidently he had been a good one, for he had been employed by the richest women in Belgrade, among them our own little Trudi. It was interesting to watch his behavior to her, how old habits of respect warred with viciousness. For though he eagerly desired-we could see him screwing up his courage-to scream and rave at her as at the rest of us, he couldn't quite manage it. He never succeeded in looking this small, proud girl in the face. For that very reason he hated her all the more. He was a sadist of the worst description. His face was literally like a death'shead. His eyes blazed in moments of fury with a really insane glare. It was he who taught the young recruits, mostly once small artisans or grocery boys, to scream. "Louder, louder!" he yelled (through the stovepipe hole in the wall between the cell and our office we could listen). "Put the fear of the devil himself into the b---s! Louder! Louder! LOUDER!" He was a pervert of the kind so common among the Germans that one almost expects it. The English-speaking peoples are, I believe, unaware of the prevalence of this perversion in Germany. Nazism has bred in them an almost unbelievable cynicism and contempt for their women, who in these days of subservient manfawning, plus female perversion, well deserve it. Nothing is either sacred or ideal to them. There are no standards of right or wrong.-The Germans are in fact so identified with this vice in the Balkans that, in Albania especially, it is simply called "the German vice." Richter's pet among the boy guards was the creature called Honig, who traded on his position to wreak on us every sort of mean cruelty. Once he put heavy leg chains on Katitsa, the most loved girl in the cell. She took it with stern calm. When some of the other girls began to weep, he laughed heartily. He was constantly telling women that their husbands or sons were to be shot that night and then eagerly watching for a twitch of agony. He seemed to be always a member of the firing squads. I myself heard him delightedly tell other guards how a little Jew we all knew had fallen unwounded in the split second before the volley. When they piled up the

corpses, however, he had opened one eye. Laughing, Honig described how he had put three bullets into his stomach. "Just to teach him," he said. He sometimes brought back last messages with a sneer. My friend Smilya V.'s husband, the finest-looking, most charming man in the prison, guilty of no other crime than being a patriot Serb, cried out to him just before the death volley: "Honig, give my love to my wife and my son!" "Ho, you Smilya," Honig shouted next morning, "your husband sent you his love." And Smilya, my dear Smilya, looked at him sternly-as God will someday look at him. We were at that moment on our way in single file to take our exercise in the yard, and I was just behind her. We were at the top of the stone steps leading to the door. Would she fall? I ran forward and took her arm. Her thin body was strained as if with wires. Stiffly, as in a trance, she went down the stairs. She took her place in the line. The guard yelled at me to walk alone. I walked behind her in terrible anxiety. It was wasted: she was absolutely calm, as if her spirit had flown, leaving only a mechanical body behind in a faded blue dress. Round and round and round in the hot sun we walked. A loud knock on the great prison gate. Yawning lazily, the guard looked through the peephole. He laughed. He undid the chains and the lock. He opened the gate and stood holding it with one foot while, with hand negligently under his rifle strap, he conversed with someone outside, evidently a friend. The women outside surged forward as usual to try to look in. He barked at them to get back, then continued his conversation. Suddenly a small face peered round his body. Good God, we knew those little bright eyes, that curly head: it was Nenad, Smilya's boy, who had several times come to look at his parents from a distance.

There was a half-circle painted in white about ten feet round the gate. Not one step dared we take over that line or we were yelled at by the guard. As on our round we came up to the line, Smilya caught sight of the little face. She stopped. I too stood still. Slowly she sank to her knees, just looking at him. Like lightning the boy jumped over the guard's leg and shot into the yard. With a light, shrill cry of "Mother!" he threw himself round Smilya's neck. Without a word or a tear she held him to her as in a vise, while his eyes darted eagerly about, searching, searching for a sight of his father. "Father-where is Father?" he whispered. Not a muscle moved in Smilya's face. She just clutched him tightly while she glared like a tiger at the guard-who turned with a curse, seized the child by the collar, dragged him, struggling desperately, away, threw him out of the gate and slammed it. I raised Smilya to her feet and, rules or no rules, I took her arm and walked on. The guard, perhaps slightly ashamed, surly turned his back. The frightful tension was broken. "So good," she breathed, "so good he was! So good! The best father, the best husband in the world. The best son to his mother. So good, so good!" she kept repeating while sobs seemed to run all up and down her thin body. "Smilya, dear Smilya, darling Smilya," I said, almost frantic with despair, "you have only one thing to think of now: your boy. Nenad -only think of your beautiful Nenad. Think what a fine man he will one day be...." She looked at me strangely, her eyes huge, the tears at last running down her face. "What chance of that," she whispered, "what chance? His father is gone-and I too will soon be dead. What chance for Nenad?" "Listen, Smilya, dearest Smilya, you will live, you must live for Nenad now." A shuddering sigh. "I-I do not care to live-now he is dead," she muttered.

"All wrong, Smilya, all wrong! You have a great duty now: to bring up your boy as your husband would have wished to have you bring him up." And desperately I launched into a description of how well the boy would do at school, how he would study hard to become a splendid man like his father-anything I could think of. Slowly she shook her head. "No one to look after us-now he is- gone." "Don't you know that you can count on me, Smilya, depend on me absolutely ? Don't you know I will be happy, proud, to help you with Nenad's education? You know it. I have money. [By the standards of these poorer countries I was, of course, wealthy.] Nenad shall have the best education, I promise you that. He shall have everything that " Suddenly I hesitated. She looked at me strangely. I was in a terrible quandary: the dreadful thought struck me that she might commit suicide. If I painted too brightly what I would do for the boy (I meant every word of it) she might think she was leaving him in good hands and to a better future than she herself could provide. She might feel that there was no longer any reason for her to remain alive. It was for me actually the most difficult situation I faced in the prison. I too really believed, as she did, that the Germans would kill her. If she died I wanted to have the boy. He was now with an aged great-aunt, and Serbian families are very clannish; they hold onto related children with great family pride. I was extremely anxious for her to sign the boy over to me. But I simply did not dare to suggest it for fear such a transfer document would break her last hold on life. I therefore, perhaps foolishly, hesitated to write the transfer of Nenad to me; hesitated until it was-too late. For my gentle Smilya was dangerous to the mighty German Reich. She was dangerous to the greedy dreams of a brutal race for possession of the earth. How? Why, she might be tainted by her husband's love of liberty, she might be filled with an "unnatural" hatred for his murderers.

So this quiet woman, who never in her life had had any other interest or thought but of her home, her husband, and her child, had to die. Smilya went out to her death, serene, content-oh, happy and eager -to rejoin, as she truly believed, the husband she loved so dearly. But in her heart she gave me her boy. He is mine. He is now my son Nenad. If he lives until I can find him he will be brought up in the pride of such parents. I managed to send out of the prison to a dependable lawyer a check for a considerable sum to be used for my son Nenad. Though he would not be able to cash the check until the end of the war, I hoped the lawyer would trust me sufficiently-although I actually did not know him personally-to furnish the funds himself and follow my instructions. He evidently did so trust me, for my last news, November 1942, from Mary P., through special channels, was: "The boy is in the country, well looked after."

46. HAHN

THE SECOND-IN-CHARGE of the prison was a reserve officer named Hahn, a German of local birth and therefore only slowly becoming thoroughly permeated with the Nazi poison. He was perhaps the most interesting study in the prison. A typical, fair, blueeyed Teuton, he had obviously been born with decent instincts, and it was strange to watch him slowly deteriorate. In the fight between decency and beastliness, the former was slowly but thoroughly wiped out. At first he was really friendly toward me. To the end these jacks-in-office were curiously uncertain how they ought to treat me, fawning and browbeating by turns. Their attitude toward me was expressed by Hahn when, with a puzzled look in his eye, he said: "You are either a great lady or a great spy-or both." I assured him I was neither. He had a sort of boisterous affection for me. "Mitchell Ruth!" would ring out over the noise, and I had to go to the office to see what he wanted. It was always something silly: "You are an educated woman: is it true that men are descended from monkeys? Will the monkeys go to heaven too? Ha ha!" He used to go in for such absurdities as trying to see which of us could jump up the most steps. I beat him, but he blamed it on his stiff Prussian boots. He taught me a good jujitsu trick or two. Several times he did small kindnesses to the women but was furious if thanked. His behavior was so good at first that one day I said to him: "After the war is over you will be wanting a job. I will give you a job with my horses. "In America?" he asked eagerly. Among the prisoners was an old friend of his, whose charming wife and children had been allowed to visit him. Came the order that this man was to be shot for alleged complicity in sabotage. I knew that Hahn himself knew well that his

friend could not possibly have been even cognizant of the affair. It was horrible to watch the struggle in that officer's soul-to see what the fiendish Nazi doctrine has done to a once self-respecting race. Hahn made his friend drink two bottles of brandy, so that he was taken out almost unconscious to execution. That night the Nazis shot 128 Serbs, not all from our prison. And for four days Hahn drank steadily and could not eat a mouthful. I knew, because I had to place and remove his meals. As conditions in the prison became steadily more frightful, Hahn drank more and more. At last, one day with icy cynicism he told Lidia, who cleaned the office (I wasn't allowed in, because they couldn't trust me not to look at the papers!), that they had decided it was a waste of time to take those to be executed out to the park. That night, he announced, they would start shooting in the cellar. When the radio went very loud she would know it was going to start. The office radio blared practically without ceasing from early morning until late at night. News (only interesting for what it did not say), military bands, and worst of all an everlasting tinkle of little dance tunes went on and on maddeningly. I tried to prevent word of the expected cellar butchering from getting round among the women-in vain. I hoped that it had been said only with the never-ending intention of cowing us. But no-this time it was true. Towards midnight the radio suddenly rose to a fearful roar. The door of our cell, the only one between the office and the steps to the cellar, was wide open because of the suffocating heat. In the dim reflection from the brightly lit corridor my women-there were twenty of us now packed tightly in the cell-sat up on the straw, their eyes wide, their faces drawn with indescribable agony and dread. You see, almost all the men in the cellar were our relatives, husbands, sons, fathers, or our friends. Then, past the lighted wide, low doorway in the three-foot-thick wall, there came an unforgettable sight: springing, crouching like a hunting beast, his fair hair hanging over his glittering eyes, came Hahn, half drunk. Swinging in his hand was a rifle with a silencer attached to it. Before the door he hesitated for a fraction of a second-as if some small, longburied bell had struck in his brain. He threw in a wolfish glare and then sprang on. The radio did not drown the shots. Slowly we counted as if each one were exploding in our hearts. No other sound, no cry; just-dance music and thirteen muffled shots.

Soon there came the trample of heavy-booted feet in the yard, and grunts as the corpses were removed. An engine started noisily and drew away. Then the endless slow stamp of the guards began again-up and down, up and down the corridors. The radio stopped. There was silence in that hell house. There was no sleep for us that night; only strangled, dry sobs and frantic, whispered prayers. Hahn did not return. Towards morning I climbed to the window and peered out through the crack under the wooden shutter. There, in the wan moonlight of the dimly lit yard, on a bench by the gate sat Hahn in an attitude of utter despair. Yet next morning the fellow sneeringly announced: "Oh, it was too much trouble to haul out the bodies. Easier after all to take them out on the hoof!" There were many Germans, like Hahn, in whose souls native decency fought with Nazi viciousness. Sometimes decency won; this alone can explain the great number of desertions from the German Army. The Serbian forests were said to be full of these deserters, almost all young men who arrived as Nazi idealists, to be soul sickened by the horror to which their cynical doctrine must logically and inevitably lead. At one time it was said that there was an organized unit of German soldiers fighting on the side of the Chetniks against the Nazis. Certain it is that the number of desertions was so large that printed notices were posted on lampposts throughout the country, announcing: "Anyone who supplies a German soldier or officer with civilian clothes will be shot." The Serb peasants hung coats on their fences and clotheslines. In the morning these would be gone; in their place a few pennies and a German soldier's jacket to be quickly burned.

47. ORPHANS OF THE GUNS

WE WOMEN were never out of sight of the male guards who could see us either through the peep-hole or through the opened door. We had never a moment's privacy while dressing, or sleeping. These men were always in and out of the cell, sometimes bullying, sometimes brutally skylarking or joking. Often very pretty girls were brought in; many were Jewesses who at first were given only ten days in prison for not wearing the yellow armband. Then the guards would stand teasing for hours in the cell at night. Complaining only made them worse. But Flora Sandes knew how to handle them. She possessed a wonderful fund of Serbian swear words which she launched at the guards with such devastating effect that while she was there they behaved almost respectfully. This really magnificent old lady of sixty-seven, stocky, weather-beaten, with short-cropped white hair, was one of the two Englishwomen who had been officers in the Serbian Army in the last World War. She wrote two books about her experiences. She was an officer still, and when this war came to Serbia, she went out again in spite of a recent operation. With her regiment of infantry she marched ten days until they were surrounded and captured and her feet gave out. She was taken in an ambulance to a German military prison hospital. A few days later a friend visited her, bringing women's clothes. She went into the lavatory, changed, and calmly walked out of the prison. She was free for a few weeks and was then brought into our cell. We spent pleasant hours, misery forgotten, discussing our experiences among the Serbs. Her husband, a White Russian, was also in the prison, desperately ill. Her anxiety about him, her efforts to catch any smallest glimpse of him, were agonizing. At last we heard that he was considered too ill even for that hole where illness was paid attention to only if it was a nuisance, and that he was to be removed to a hospital. She expected him to die: she must be allowed to speak to him before he went. As head woman it was my business to make any necessary requests. So, in spite of the forbidding yells of the guards, I went to the office and found Hahn

fortunately alone. I said to him: "This woman is an army officer as you are an officer. She has only been loyal to her oath as you are loyal to your oath. She is old-as old perhaps as your own mother. Her husband, whom she loves as your mother loved your father, is going to die. For the sake of the mother who bore you and the principles she once taught you, you must allow this old lady to speak once more to her dying husband. Will you permit her to be in the yard as he passes through?" At that time he was still friendly to me. He did not look up. He hesitated as if about to say something sharp, then surly he agreed. I got Flora into the yard. Out stumbled her thin, dying husband, supported by a stick. He fell on the bench; his head bowed as he coughed. She sat beside him. She put her hand on his arm, and the strength of a beautiful love that flowed from her and seemed to envelop him was almost a visible aura in the dingy court. They looked at each other speechless with old and well-worn love. Roughly he was removed. He died a few days later. She was released as an overage officer. She sent me back into the prison some wool, with which I knittedwith love in every stitch-two pullovers. I have them still and shall always treasure them. "Moj muz" (pronounced "moy mooj")-"my man, my husband." Like a soft undercurrent, a never-ending refrain, the words ran through the days and the endless nights. "Moj muz" . . . in the morning when the women climbed to the window (someone had to be on watch at the peephole and hiss sharply if the guard approached our door) to see if he was still among the men let out, cell by cell, to walk in single file round the little yard. Their figures made dim reflected shadows, forever turning, forever wheeling slowly round on our ceiling. Always, when I think of the prison, I still see those shadows endlessly wheeling on the ceiling. "Moj muz" . . . as, frantic with anxiety, they climbed at two o'clock every night up to the crack, their trembling bodies pressed together to watch the gate, the exit which meant-the end. So dim was the light that only by some characteristic shape or movement could a man be recognized.

Night after night, sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes in herds, fathers, brothers, sons, mothers, sisters, daughters would go out, their warm hearts to be chilled in the cold, blood-saturated earth. The guards were usually grimly silent on these occasions as they prodded the silent men to their death. Straight and quietly those Serbs of all walks of life marched out with the firing squads: there was never a cry; never once did a Serb break down. But in the cell the stillness was so complete I could actually hear the pounding heartbeats of the trembling women I was holding up. "Moj muz," a woman would breathe and sink down, and I would lay her on the straw. In a few minutes now-a volley, too far, thank God, for us to hear it. And she would be a widow. When would her turn come? Soon. And she would go-silent, dazed, upheld like her husband by the knowledge that her only crime was her love of Serbia, of liberty. A name is barked into the dark cell. A woman-N., or D., or F., or one of the many others-rises without a word, fumbles for her coat, and while the other women lie speechless with grief, she goes to the door. One moment she staggers against the wall as the light strikes down on her from the corridor where the guard stands impatiently glowering, rifle on shoulder. She raises her head sternly. One moment more we see the silhouette of our companion, a Serbian woman going out to execution. Then she is gone-forever. "Moj muz"-she will rejoin him. If there is another existence it must surely be more kindly, more merciful than this German hell on earth. May you receive the only reward for love and courage you would ever ask for, dear Serbian wives-to meet again, and for eternity, "moj muz." There was something worse, even worse than this. Something so agonizing I hesitate to try to tell about it, knowing my words cannot convey the pain, the unfathomable grief of it. That was the visits of the children.

About once a fortnight the children of the prisoners were allowed to come to the gate just to look at their parents. If the prisoner had somehow managed to get cigarettes with which to bribe the guard, the children could run in for a little hug, while the relative who brought them remained outside. The mothers and fathers would stoop to catch and raise their children in their arms. Their faces transfigured by the most fundamental, most enduring passion with which nature has endowed us, they touched, with hands trembling with love and despair, every part of the little bodies. They mumbled broken, age-old words of sweet endearment, the children laughing as they patted their fathers' and their mothers' hair, kissed them and pulled their ears, wondering at the running tears. For the last time these men and women had what they loved more than their own lives in their arms. These, the very heart of their hearts, must stay behind-to what dark fate in a devastated, ruined land ? It was just-unendurable. One could steel oneself to any other suffering, but this pierced every armor of pride, of strength, of resolution. I gave my promise to these so unjustly suffering Serbs that if I came through alive I would return and spend the rest of my life looking after these, their children. I told them that not I alone, but my countrymen too, and all the freedom-loving nations of the earth, with America and Britain in the lead, would stand with hearts warm and strong behind me. That promise passed not only through the prison, but throughout Serbia-where my word is good. A strong belief in American generosity was the last thought of hundreds, of thousands of dying men and women: it eased in some measure the death pangs of a glorious army of martyrs. It will be for us now to justify their faith, to cherish and bring up their children in freedom to worship the memory of those who died for their love of liberty. I pledged my word and the honor of my country. I am sure, I know well, I shall be justified.

48. THE FIELD THAT GROANED

WHO that lived through it could ever forget those terrible forty-eight hours when, without pause, the heavy German tanks rumbled through Belgrade, shaking even the three-foot-thick walls of our prison ? They were bound southwards to where, on June 28, the Chetniks had risen, as Vaso had predicted, and thrown off the conquerors. The Chetniks, after a period of deceptive humility, had dug up their buried guns again and had risen. And so, almost three quarters of Serbia was free once more. None of the other overrun countries had succeeded in doing a thing like that. And the Germans, who had sneered at the Serbs as overrated slaves, from that day sneered no more. Their hatred of the Serbs became a veritable passion-an obsession. Against the mechanized might of a Nazi punitive expedition the Chetniks could oppose only their bodies and their rifles. So the Germans surrounded each town and each village. They seized all law courts and all schools. They took every judge, every lawyer, every leading man, every school teacher, men and women. They took the upper classes of every school of whatever grade, boys and girls. The Germans made these men, women, and little children dig trenches. The Germans stood them up facing the trenches, their backs to the machine guns. Then, the brave German officers giving the order, the brave German soldiers mowed them down, so that they fell forward into the trenches. Many have described how the children died crying: "Long live Serbia-we are Serbian children!" Then on the dead and on the half-dead alike the butchers shoveled back a little earth. And drove their tanks over the shallow graves. Dead and half-dead alike: you don't believe it? Let me tell you that I myself spoke to a man, his soul frozen in a horror that would never wholly melt, who told me-and I know he spoke the truth-that as he passed by a German execution field near Belgrade, he had heard that field groaning.

People will come after the war whining that "the German soldiers, poor things, only had to obey their orders." I say that if such an order could have been given to our soldiers, not one, not one man in our army, navy, or air force, could have been found to carry it out. Any man who had made a move to obey such an order would have been killed on the spot by his fellow soldiers. It was a national ideal and national wholehearted support that produced this German fiendishness. Hitler himself was a man of the people, produced by the people. I say that every German in Germany is guilty of every atrocity. Nothing was too contemptible, too brutal, too petty, or too mean for the Germans by way of demonstrating their "master superiority." We had in the prison for a few days a stern old Scotch spinster, Miss Jane Allison, who afterwards in internment was my dear friend. She had for years run a small kindergarten in Belgrade. She was released and then rearrested and taken to internment. She could endure her own suffering quietly, but the thing that made her really ill with fury was the German treatment of the Serb peasants, small farmers. They were mostly very young boys or quite old men, since all the strong men were away in the mountains to fight. These boys and aged men were drawn up, chained in long rows in the corridors, their faces to the wall. Then the German officers went along the corridors with loaded clubs, pounding them, with the full strength of their arms, on the neck and shoulders: utterly pointless, since they were in any case to be killed. There was endless screaming, screaming: the prison was filled with screams. But it was not the Serbs. No Serb, not even the smallest boy, ever screamed. It was the Germans themselves, their faces devilishly distorted, who did the screaming. The Serbs stood without cringing and with no sign of fear. They feared only being less than Serbs. Finally the Germans, amazed and beside themselves with frustration and fury, herded them out to the barking guns-the final confession of failure. Calm courage and dignity invariably confused and defeated them.

Two fine-looking Orthodox priests were brought in. Quietly imposing, with their thick gray beards, long, black soutanes, and tall hats, they gazed straight into the eyes of their captors. The warders were eager to humiliate them, to kick them, hit them in the face, knock off their hats. I watched Hahn-I knew him so well by now- trying to work up his courage to strike them before us all in the yard. He would scream and run up to them with his arm drawn back. Then, as they waited calmly for the blow, his arm would fall and I could hear him curse as he turned away. How gently, how steadfastly they must have looked at the pitiless guns which soon took their lives tool Only when they were not present could Hahn give rein to his spitefulness. A Bible was sent in for one of the priests. Hahn pounced upon it with glee. "What's this?" he shouted as guards gathered round for the fun. "Ha," he snarled, "Ha ha! Hebrew folklore, fairy tales for idiots!" He opened the Bible, spat upon it like a monkey, and tore it ostentatiously into pieces. "Into the garbage can, where such stuff belongs!" he screamed. A young guard, holding his nose to the raucous merriment of the rest, ran and threw it into the garbage. At our next round in the yard, L. and I slipped aside to the cans, got it out and carefully cleaned it. It was in three pieces but only torn down the back. We hid it under our clothes and later succeeded in smuggling it to the priest, who used it, I hope, to comfort all in his cell. About this time another Orthodox priest came into the prison. He was blind and could only move about under the guidance of a friend, who was a Jew-the Orthodox Church is admirably tolerant. Under the Germans all Jews had to wear yellow armbands as well as great yellow stars front and back, and I don't know what other "decorations." Among other restrictions, they were not allowed to use the streetcars.

The blind priest, walking one day with his guide to a distant call, met a high German officer acquaintance who asked where he was going. Upon being told, the officer said: "But that is far. Why do you not take a streetcar?" "I cannot do so," replied the priest gently, "for I have a friend with me, and he is a Jew." "So," shouted the German, "because of your dear friend, a Jew, you must walk?" "Yes," said the priest, "because of my friend who may not use the cars, I prefer to walk." "Ha ha," laughed the officer. "If you love him so much, this Jew, it's a wonder you wouldn't want to kiss him publicly!" "Certainly," said the priest. "Gladly will I kiss my friend!" So there, in the crowded main street, he embraced the Jew and kissed him. Strange to say-one likes to tell even a fairly human thing about a Nazi-the next day an order came out that the Jews could ride at the back of the streetcar trailers. But soon the Jews were all hounded away to the ghettos-to death. Now I must mention what became of Igon, once the chatty partner in the twoman business of keeping a watch on me. When the Germans arrived in Belgrade he immediately rose to high position: he became, in fact, Gestapo Commissar for Jew Control. Probably he still remembered how he had led a Jew to his death. At any rate Igon distinguished himself by his leniency and so earned the gratitude of the wretched Jews. His own servant was a Jewish boy. Igon used to lock him in his apartment, taking the key with him when he went to his office, so that nothing could happen to him while he was away. Nevertheless, one morning Igon went off to his work as usual and -was never heard of again. He simply vanished as other Germans vanished and will continue to vanish from Serbia. After his disappearance, the treatment of the Jews became much more inhuman.

The Serbs loathed the German persecutions of Jews, against whom there had never been the slightest feeling or prejudice in Serbia. At first, when they saw their Jewish friends forced to do street work beyond their strength, they joined them and helped them. When they were forbidden to do so, the Serb women shouted curses at the German soldiers and had to be driven away with gun butts. At last they were so severely punished that they had to think of their own families. Then, in winter, when rows of Jews were made to lie down and make ridges in the snow with their noses for the amusement of the Germans, all Serbs immediately withdrew. Many Jews are at this moment being hidden by Serbian families at the risk of their own lives. I hope the Jews of the world are aware how loyally the Serbs tried to stand by their countrymen of the Jewish race. Here again the Serbian record is, I think, remarkable. I may be accused of exaggeration in constantly reverting to the heroism of the Serbs. But it was all of a piece with a national character that showed most brightly in the blackest time of misery. There is that steady fortitude about them as of men long inured to war. There is no braggadocio, which is usually a sign of secret uncertainty. Indeed they are curiously humble, knowing themselves to be lacking in sophistication; simple, if you like, but impervious to subtly reasoned side issues. It has been often noted by trained observers that of all Europeans the Serbs were least affected by the nervous and cloudy isms of the postwar period. They know with undeviating, unquestionable certainty what they want. They have known it for a thousand years. It is settled. They want freedom. They are satisfied to be just Serbs. And to them the word "Serb" is only another word for courage.

49. UNCLE LUKE

OF ALL THOSE BRUTES, we women decided, the prison doctor deserved the severest punishment that can be meted out to men. A fellow named Jung, he was a reserve officer, pale and slight, looking to be the kind of general practitioner mothers would call in when a baby had a sore throat. He too was a flagrant pervert, tender and coy with the men, cynical and cruel to the women. We had to rise when he entered. If some sick or fainting pregnant woman did not spring up fast enough he just turned haughtily and walked out. When I first saw him with revolver on hip and whispered too loudly: "See, a horse doctor," he screamed at me and loathed me thereafter. It was this run-of-the-mill German medical man who in the prison yard gentlyoh, so gently-tore the bandages of the feet of a bestially tortured man so that we women taking our exercise-in single file, two steps apart-might see and be terrified. This prisoner was named Luka Golubich. I think he was the greatest hero I ever saw. I never heard him speak a word. A big, striking looking man, about sixty, he was a Communist, a real one-and there are few real Communists in Serbia. (Although the Russo-German pact was then in force, the Gestapo jailed every Communist it could hunt down and simply called every patriot a "Communist.") Luka-"Uncle Luke" we called him-had been stood on red-hot coals until his feet were just charred, bleeding stumps. His torturers had done this in the hopelessly vain effort to force him to betray his companions. I see him now being carried down by two strong cellmates and set in a chair in the yard, where the doctor savagely displayed what once had been his feet. Slowly, one by one, two steps apart, we walked by. Calmly he looked at us, one by one, and calmly we looked back at him, and not a muscle moved in his face or in ours. For Death-a gloating, German Death-was watching us, like a visible presence, and we would not give our torturers the pleasure of a single twitch of fear.

When at last they gave up hope of breaking him, they shot him. They carried him to the place of execution. From the narrow crack beneath our window I watched him being carried out in the starlight just before dawn. Next day we heard that he had stood up on those bleeding stumps to die. Beside him, tightly clutching his hand, stood a girl of fourteen who had fired a German garage. And she sang until her little voice was broken by the crash of guns. Faithful unto death, brave age, brave youth, they lie together in a common grave. How can one express the pride one feels to have been associated in the bond of suffering with such as these!

50. THE MINUET OF DEATH

MANY OLD ACQUAINTANCES OF MINE were in the prison, but we were careful to give no sign of recognition. Can you imagine what it felt like to see charming friends, who in days of happiness had sent you flowers, taken you out to little merry, intimate dinners, now walking slowly round the prison yard, in lock step, sometimes chained, thin, dirty, looking a nameless death in the face? Your own kindly friends, whose only crime was love of their country or of God! (The finding of any Masonic symbol in a house was a sentence of death.) I can only say that often I would feel my very soul hardening to a stone of grim determination: somehow I must stick it out and live- for the one purpose of someday helping to bring retribution. First and always our one thought was: "No sign-no sign of breaking down! That is what they want-we must not give the beasts that satisfaction." One day I felt faint and sat down on a bench over a cellar air hole. The women, as usual, quickly gathered round, and the guard, shrugging his shoulders disgustedly, walked up the yard. Suddenly something-it may have been a broom handle-struck me on the leg. I bent and looked down the cellar hole. There, in the dim light looking up at me from the condemned cell, I could just see the gaunt, drawn face of Simonovich. I had known him and his charming English wife, who had managed the Anglo-American Club, a long time. I knew that she had managed to escape to England. "Tell her," he whispered frantically, as loud as he dared without drawing the attention of the guard at his door, "tell Mary I held her in my heart to the end. Tell her I died with her name on my lips." I felt as if a hand had reached into my breast and squeezed my heart. Try as I could to control myself, the tears gushed from my eyes. There was a single water tap in the yard where the condemned men were allowed to wet their heads sometimes in the heat. Just then a man, with leg chains so heavy he had to hold them up with his hands, was bending down under the tap.

He caught sight of my face. Quick as a flash he shuffled over and seized my hands, balled in my effort at control. "Ruhe, Ruhe [Calm, calm]," he hissed fiercely in German. "Sie mussen Sich zusammen nehmen [You must control yourself]. Only no sign, no breakdown. The others depend on you." It was the right word. Slowly I raised my eyes from his rusty chains. Then I saw, tattooed on his breast, the most extraordinary scene: mountains with the sun rising behind them, pine trees, and in the foreground an antlered deer poking out its head, all in bright colors. I was so startled by this vision that the surprise steadied me. I squeezed his hand. He sprang back just before the guard turned. Somehow resolution came back. I rose, and slowly we went again upon our rounds, calmly looking the guard in the eye. At the turn near the garbage cans we slipped aside, quickly lit a cigarette, and on the next round flipped it down to Simonovich. It was all that we could do for him. Tony, the dear boy who carried, painted on his breast, the mountain scene, all he loved best in life, was a forest ranger who loved freedom as the eagle loves the high crags. He was a marvelous fellow, impertinent, always laughing into the face of certain death, a pet even of the guards. He boasted openly that no prison bars could hold him. And, sure enough, he did actually get away-the only one, I believe, who ever did escape from our prison. But he was shot dead before he reached safety in the forests he loved so dearly. That cellar dungeon! An icy trickle still goes down my back when I think of it, for I too was in it for a time. It was exactly like what you read about in the old stories: the sweating walls, the little pile of damp straw on which you lie-alone -while slowly the dim ray of light from the far, high air hole in the thick wall passes round the ceiling to mark the passage of interminable hours. Everlasting twilight, everlasting silence, except for the dull, eerie clank-clank-clank of heavily chained feet slowly stumbling past

the door. No sternest resolution can quite prevent a chill of terror from creeping into the marrow of one's bones. Soon the cellar was overcrowded, packed with "hostages," men of high position, cabinet ministers, judges, lawyers, professors, businessmen, taken from all parts of Serbia with the threat that they would be slaughtered if the people of their homes should dare to resist the invader. Each day they grew gaunter, grayer, and, yes, grimmer- praying, as we knew well they did in their hearts, that their friends would not for a moment consider them. All in turn, those good men died. There was a prison across the town-we heard many reports of it- filled with nothing but such "hostages." But these were all women- women whose husbands, brothers, fathers, or sons had "gone to the mountains" to join Draja Mihailovich and my Chetniks. The helpless women were taken by the German kidnapers in the hope of forcing their men to give themselves up. The conditions in that prison were fearful beyond belief. Packed in so tight that there was hardly room to sit, none at all to lie down, they leaned against the walls and against each other-starving. And so they died, praying to an outraged God that their menfolk would not be weak enough or loving enough to deliver themselves into German hands to save them. Serbian mothers, Serbian wives, gentle Serbian girls, they died. In hundreds they died. From the memory of their martyrdom into the youth of Serbia for uncounted generations will flow strength. Among our own hostages was the old, dignified, and much admired Judge Stokich. Very ceremonious in his manners, with always a cheerful, whispered word in passing, he always had a twinkle in his eye for the ladies. His sweeping mustachios in the old Serbian style were to Us an invigorating sight. In his calmly humorous way he did much to put steadiness into us. His job was to pour disinfectant each morning into the toilets and night pails in the cells. Giving him this assignment was the German idea of fun.

One morning, when Lidia and I were scrubbing the floor of the toilet, he came in. Just at that moment the office radio was playing a Mozart minuet. They met, the exquisite society woman and the courtly judge: in her hand a scrubbing brush, in his a battered can of stink stuff. Then, to the tinkle of that old familiar tune blaring across all the prison noise, they silently clasped hands. And sweetly, with an Old World grace, they tripped a little minuet. Upon the very verge of a darkly yawning grave, they curtseyed, bowed a pirouette, and gently danced a last-a long-last-minuet. Not many days after he too was among the thousands that sank before the "culture-bringing" guns into a nameless trench. He was the hostage for Smederevo, a huge ancient fortress on the Danube sixty miles from Belgrade, which the Germans had made into their biggest ammunition dump. It blew up, and the effect was so terrific that the whole German garrison was killed and most of the town destroyed. And so our dear old Judge Stokich had to die. Young and old, great and small, they died and died and died.

51. PRIDE AND SHAME

HOW SPLENDID were those Serbian women! As head woman I made a rule, and tried desperately hard to uphold it, that there should be no weeping in the cell. But sometimes, especially when they first came in, the relief of tears was necessary. Then I hurried them to the toilet. There they were allowed to weep on my shoulder. Sometimes my blouse grew wet with those searing tears of agony. When I saw a Serbian woman's hands begin to clasp and twitch, her eyes to roll, I knew the symptoms. I would sit down beside her on the straw and firmly take her hand. I reminded her that she was the descendant of a great race. Heroes now were watching from their graves, sure she could never be less than a Serb. It always worked. By the way a new woman entered the prison we could predict infallibly her behavior. The simpler Jewesses, at this time brought in usually because of failure to wear the yellow armband, always arrived humble, frightened, obsessed with anxiety about their large families. There would be storms of tears, then extreme loquacity. Their own discomfort really meant little to them compared with their anxiety for those whom they had left behind: "Who will fix Ikey's food?" . . . "My husband, he suffers with his stomach, you know. Oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear," etc. But they soon became pretty sharp at making themselves comfortable. The Jewesses of education behaved quite differently. These Sephardic Jews of Serbia seem to me to be in a class by themselves. Resident here for many centuries, there are very few of these families, and they are greatly liked and admired by the Serbs. Attractive., subtly artistic, they have succeeded in combining with a broad and careful education the sturdy Serbian qualities of courage, self-reliance, and dependability. The two most capable, sound, and greathearted women I had the privilege of meeting in all the prisons were two of these Jewesses, Katitsa and Bianca. To think of their fate is one of the horrors of my wakeful night hours.

The women of this type always came in quietly, unobtrusively, prepared to face anything. They fitted in efficiently at once. They knew it would be bad, very bad, but-it was their racial fate. They bowed to it, not exactly with resignation but with a firm, hopeless fatalism. I admired them every minute more than I can say. Only two Croatian women were brought in, separately. When each hesitatingly told me her name I said gently: "You are a Croat?" Their reaction was strikingly similar. Shrinking and raising their hands as if warding off a horror, their eyes wide with agony, they each whispered: "No, no, I never want to hear the word 'Croat' again -never-not after what they have done-never-never . . ." and they fell to weeping bitterly, hopelessly. I pitied them with all my heart. Although I tried to be especially nice to them, they sat in corners, oppressed by a dreadful racial shame, shy, with downcast eyes before the Serbian women, who were in no way unkind to them. They were quickly released again and left without saying good-by. The Serbian women came in grimly, sternly, as if somehow listening to an inner voice from long ago. They neither trembled nor would they, for a long time, smile: horror of what they had already seen, horror of much worse which they knew was coming, pride of race, and a racial tradition of courage made them almost indifferent to their fate. But rage and hatred of their ruthless enemies, repressed, boiled up in them to a point which sometimes threatened hysteria. They had to be made to laugh if we were all to preserve our sanity. Fortunately I have a very good memory for risqu stories. But among our best jokes were the occasional arrivals of what are called "society" women. Haughty, disdainful, beautifully dressed, they would stand looking round at us with shocked disgust. Although it was the habit of some of us always to rise and warmly greet a newcomer, with these it was different. We sat in stony silence, waiting. And sure as death and taxes it would come: "I-I have never been in prison before-I am not used to this-I am . . ." The woman's voice would trail away. Then politely I would get up and say:

"Oh well, you'll find prison not so bad. We, of course, are used to it, for we are all habitual criminals. Let me introduce you. This," pointing to some pretty child, "is a forger. This is a thief, but in a big way, of course. This lady murdered her husband. My own line is murdering children." A moment's incredulous silence and she usually had the grace to burst into laughter, in which we all joined. Then all was amity. Crude, you'll say, crude and fearful; but we were living in crude and fearful circumstances, and teamwork was absolutely necessary for morale. Invariably at first those hothouse flowers refused to work. "I never did . . ." "I couldn't . . ." etc. We had a cure for that. They weren't required to lift a hand, but neither were they allowed to go outside the cell or to participate in all our eager activities and plots. They just sat and sweltered, idle, alone. At the end of at most three days no one was so pathetically eager to scrub cement floors and carry night pails as these spoiled society darlings! The so-called White Russian women were an almost hopeless problem. Without the slightest thought for others, they moaned all day, they sobbed, they howled: "Will it never end, never?" How we despised these women, cringing, fawning to the Germans! They had only one thought: the saving of their own miserable skins. They had only one fear: that the Communists might be victorious, and then they might have to die. I thought how fortunate were the democracies not to need the violent and bloody reaction of Communism to throw off such as these. After the last war Serbia with the warmest generosity had received not less than 60,000 of these "aristocrats" fleeing from Bolshevism and had supported and found work for them regardless of her own labor problems. Now, when Serbia was fighting for her life, many of these same people turned upon their kindly hosts and became German-paid spies and informers. We had one notable exception. When all the world was momentarily expecting the collapse of Russia and the office radio announced it almost every hour, one of

these women stubbornly repeated: "Whatever else is possible on earth, an antiCommunist revolution is impossible. Never! They will stand firm." She cheered us all up. One White Russian, the most beastly creature I came across in all these days, spent her whole time in thinking up people to denounce to the Gestapo. There were four men actually in the prison on her denunciation. She fondly hoped this would get her out. Little did she understand German methods: the longer she went on denouncing, the longer she was kept in, to force her to go on denouncing. Large, handsome, once a beauty, she went all to pieces. Like a dropped jelly she spread herself, sticky and quaking, all over the place. She set our teeth on edge with her interminable mumbled or howled prayers. She-she to be praying to a just God! However little sympathy one had for these sobbing whiners, they had to be quieted for the sake of the others. "Look," I tried, "this is noon: the morning passed, didn't it? Yesterday passed, didn't it? It passed. Today will pass, tomorrow will pass-it must pass. Each day you are one day nearer freedom. Be still, be still, and let the days just pass." When this didn't work I got hold of a piece of old newspaper and cut out rows of dancing paper dolls. These we stuck on the wall. Each doll represented one day, and every evening, with laughing ceremony (while the Serbs looked on in disdain), we fiercely tore off one head. Those childish "aristocrats" were comforted!

52. THE INFORMER

TANYA had been secretary to the Belgrade correspondent of a London paper. A White Russian refugee with, she said, extremely aristocratic connections, this tiny, dried-up body and soul was the trickiest and most selfish woman in the prison. In spite of her extreme caution I soon discovered that she hated England and America with whatever passion she was capable of. She believed-wishfully-that Germany would win. And she hated Serbia that had treated her so well. All she loved was herself and her brother who had worked for the Associated Press and who also was in the prison. One day two soldiers came to take him away. I happened to be at the peephole. As he was brought down from above, he tried to break away from the guards to shout a word to his sister through the hole. He was struck violently in the face with the yell, "Zuruck! [Back!]." He was marched out. Should I tell Tanya? At that time we still pitied her. I decided that she might go mad with grief-better to say nothing. That night Hahn told Katitsa that the brother had been taken away to be shot as an English spy. Now ensued a remarkable exhibition of loyalty and kindness on the part of the women. Tanya must not know, must not guess. Infinite were the pains we took, the stories we thought up, to keep her especially cheerful. There was something macabre, ghoulish, in seeing this tiny creature, her head too big for her wizened body, so merry that she actually danced the steps of a Russian folk dance for us. Then one day came the news that the brother had been seen in a German prison camp: he had not been shot after all. Still we did not regret our efforts-then. A woman came to call on her, marching in grandly, guards saluting, and took her out to lunch! Imagine our excitement at this unheard-of event. We could hardly wait for her return.

When she returned (without, of course, bringing us anything to eat) she was a different Tanya, haughty, condescending, but more cagey than ever. The woman came again next day and took Tanya out for good. But not before I had discovered who the powerful deity was for whom all German prison doors flew open. She was the infamous Frau von Akten, born Banderer, who had for years been the chief German woman spy in Yugoslavia, who now has the blood of hundreds if not thousands of Serbian patriots on her hands. For years she had on weekdays acted as a humble school teacher in Novi Sad. At week ends she entertained lavishly in her luxurious Belgrade apartment. Is it necessary to say what Tanya became? She was an expert on foreigners in Yugoslavia. It was not long before two Englishwomen married to Serbs were brought in, first fruits of a new career. Spies pretending to be prisoners-we had plenty of them, of course, but they were not nearly so much of a nuisance as you would expect. In fact, they added a grimly humorous note. They appeared to be men in German service who had made a slip and had chosen this in lieu of other punishment. To make themselves convincing they told tales of hair-raising courage with themselves as heroes. They led dreary lives. For within a few hours of their entry we knew, by some sure extra prison sense, what they were. Thereafter they moved in a sort of vacuum, everything dead around them. They were despised even by the guards and were treated by us with just a bare minimum of politeness to avoid trouble. They were the only lonely people in the prison: cold, outside our warm and pulsing life of love and dread and cunning. One morning, coming out with a dustpan, I saw a new man, rather nicelooking, talking to one of these spies while the two swept the yard. He must be warned! I stumbled, bumped into him, and dropped my pan. He turned, and as we both bent for it I whispered: "Careful -informer!"

He gave me a startled half-smile. Behold, by evening we knew that he himself was a new spy! I later saw one of these fellows in one of my endless series of prison trains. It was the same man who had informed against Trudi's boy. No longer sleek and slimy, he was bedraggled, desperate, hopeless. It was obvious that he was now himself in serious trouble and was going down the drain. I wished my dearest Trudi could have known, although it would have given her small comfort: she was where no comfort could ever again mean much to her.

53. "THIS IS GERMAN CULTURE"

THOSE PRISON GUARDS: a whole book could be written about them alone and the conflict in their little souls. There was Karl Feth, who had a Russian mother. He was the tallest and far the handsomest. Everything went smoothly for him, without a single ugly word. He soon was drafted to the Russian front. A tear on your Eastern grave, Karl, for a puzzled, decent fellow! Slowly they all went off and were replaced by worse. All of them by now are probably dead. Most of them were merely stupid, some moronic. They grew steadily meaner, more morose and fierce. And yet . . . There was one fellow, piglike in his ugliness, who looked and often was the most brutal of them all. He fancied himself for his thin but sweet singing voice. "Edelweiss" we called him for his favorite song and for the irony of the nickname. That brute, not once but often, stood in our door after light-out, a black, strange silhouette, with his loaded rifle poking up behind his back, gently singing us women to sleep. Next morning he would be screaming, red in the face as usual, the hopeless beast. Do you wonder I found myself beginning to pity almost everybody? We were all caught together, helpless, in a horror there was no escaping and no understanding-an elemental, inevitable doom. As I watched the systematic debasing and vitiation of German youth I had an inspiring thought: If Hitler could in eight years so thoroughly shape German youth for evil, then in the same length of time what wonderful things could be done with Serbian youth! As I watched the young guards getting meaner and meaner, this thought kept returning. As I am writing this, December 17, 1942, a great bell-like siren is playing across Washington that most beloved of all Christmas songs: "Silent night, holy

night"-a German song. How can it be that a people who produced such a song, which has brought happiness and the kindliest emotions to millions throughout the world, should now be so bestialized? Surely the message of this Christmas hymn must be a message of hope for humanity-of hope even for the Germans. Good as well as evil must remain latent, to be revivified, renewed, strengthened, until it again becomes victorious. May the "silent night" of defeat and humiliation which now lies before the Germans become, in truth, the "holy night" in which they reshape their souls. One morning there was a yell and counter-yell at the gate. With a crashing of bolts, it was thrown open. There entered, on his hands and knees, what was left of a man, prodded and pricked from behind by a bayonet in the hands of a furiously bawling German. His face was a pulp, and he was so beaten, from his head right down to the flayed soles of his feet, that he could hardly move or breathe. This man, like hundreds of other Serbs, had taken his young sons to see the bodies of the men, young boys, and women hanging down the middle of the main street of Belgrade. And as they watched the corpses slowly, slowly twisting in the breeze, he said to his sons, as hundreds of other Serbs said to their sons: "Look-look, and never while you live forget: this is German culture!" This unfortunate man, however, had been overheard. He was seized, beaten almost to death, kept in prison for a fortnight, beaten again, and thrown out onto the street to die. The children were never seen again. But other Serbian children will survive in spite of every decree of extermination, their hearts beaten into hard flint from which will be struck a flame of undying hatred. That flame shall be struck and it must burn-but the hate with which it shall be fed must be the hatred of all cruelty, all conscienceless greed, all merciless oppression. As their land was the most cruelly oppressed of all, their pride after the

war must be to make it the land freest in the world of all hatreds, excepting only the hatred of oppression.

54. LEKA SAVES HER MAN

NOT ALL THE MEMORIES of those terrible two months are tragic. There were the cases where sheer women's wit brought high success. There was, for instance, Leka, an ordinary little woman in a gray dress and with tousled hair, looking in no way super heroic or brilliant. Hear how she saved the lives of her husband, her four children, and herself. She and her husband were brought in, accused of being concerned in the killing of two German soldiers. The family was to die en masse and immediately. The husband was in the condemned cellar, incommunicado. He had done it. He was a Chetnik, which the Germans, of course, did not know or they would not have taken him even as far as the prison. Leka and I went to the toilet (the only place where one might whisper a few words alone) and held a consultation. There was not a sign of faltering or even of fear in Leka, though she was sure she would be tortured to betray accomplices. She had a scheme, a story. It had to do with a jealous aunt who wished her ill and had spread lies about her. As we went over it and tested it for catches, she looked at me, as I knew she would at her German judges, with such wide-eyed, limpid simplicity and honesty, such gentle worry proper to the situation, as to be irresistibly convincing. We grasped each other's hands and, hardly above a whisper, there in the lavatory, we sang the Chetnik song from the beginning to the end. We kissed as sisters kiss. The examination came. She returned neither elated nor depressed, just vividly alert, grimly concentrated on success. She had brought it off. It had worked. But there was more to do. The story must be conveyed to her husband. I had a tiny stub of pencil (which I held in my mouth when the ever-recurring wild pencil hunts were on), and we wrote the story on a scrap of wrapping paper I stole from the guardroom. I had become an expert thief. At exercise that afternoon we arranged for one of the girls to grow faint just by the air hole leading down to the cellar, the cell containing her husband. This trick was infallible as the guards,

helpless in women's collapse, let us flutter round the patient. The plan was perfectly carried out. Quick as lightning she threw the note down the hole. Her story and manner had been so convincing, her assertions of loyalty to "dear Germany" so powerful, that he too was brought up for examination. Their stories exactly tallied, though "they could, of course, have had no communication"-and they both were released. It was, I believe, the only case in which a man once in the cellar got away alive. (One woman, myself, was there, too, and got out alive.) Leka went out just as she came in, neither elated nor frightened, just grimly determined. There was the case of my dear Katitsa, in many ways the grandest woman in the prison. How I should like to give her whole name for the roll of honor! She was a Serbian Jewess of fine stock, so simply, sincerely benevolent, so helpful to all, so trustworthy that she was the most loved person there. Even the guards treated her with grudging respect. While the Germans were, for special reasons, making a determined hunt for her parents, she got an oxcart, dressed as a peasant woman, and, whip in hand, walked right into Belgrade beside the slowly plodding beasts. She put the old couple in the bottom of the cart, and placed straw and household utensils on top of them. Then slowly, step by interminable step, she passed the soldiers, often challenged, always laughing and somehow escaping search-away to hide her old parents safely in the south. Later she was taken, and had already been in prison for months. Her health was sinking rapidly. If she would tell where her very wealthy father was she would be freed. There was, of course, not the slightest chance of her telling. It was Katitsa who got the first communication for me from outside. At that time the prisoners were allowed to have food sent in from home, the only sustenance provided by the management being thin bean soup twice a day and some raw unleavened stone-hard corn bread. As every precaution had been taken that the American consul should not know that I was there, for the first few weeks I received nothing.

The result, as I have already mentioned, was that I ate more than anyone else, as every woman insisted on sharing her food with me and to refuse caused hurt feelings. The food got scarcer and scarcer. Women with influence were bought out or otherwise removed, and soon only six women of the twenty in our cell were receiving food. But Katitsa always received hers. I began to notice that she only pretended to eat, and gave almost everything away. Our tricks for getting messages in and out were innumerable. For one of us to be caught meant fearful scenes, and food for all was stopped for at least a day. It was a ticklish business. Yet hardly a day passed without some word getting in or out. After I had been there for more than three weeks without a sign that anyone outside knew I was alive, Katitsa, carefully wiping off the first layer of soot from a cooking pan, found this inscription written on the second layer: "Is it true Ruth Mitchell there? We heard she was dead. Answer immediatelyurgent." Dear Katitsa was almost as excited and thrilled as I. Eagerly we wrote: "R.M. alive and well, hopes to fight again for Serbia. Who asks?" And we patted back the soot. Next day the message was very blurred. We made it out to be: "C. and all thank God." But who C. was, whether Chetniks, Mrs. C., Yanko, or several others, I could not guess. I shall know someday, I hope. Soon afterwards, by a method which, I am sorry to say, I cannot disclose, because it might bring great misfortune on a family, the American consul, Mr. Rankin, heard I was in the prison. A few days later another man, not knowing that the consul had already been informed, also succeeded in notifying him. This man was Iliya Gregovich, a Montenegrin from Petrovats and an American citizen. His friendship for me brought him great misfortune, which came about in this way:

On the third day of my court-martial, as I was being hurried back to prison, a plain-clothes detective close at each shoulder, a tall, dark man came toward me, lifted his hat and said, in English: "How do you do, Miss Mitchell. How are you?" In my year in Montenegro I had spoken to probably every man in the country who spoke English. This was evidently one of them. I frowned, trying to signal to him to get away. But he insisted, still in English: "Don't you remember me? I met you in Budva." Instantly one of the detectives turned, seized him by the shoulder, and shoved him behind me into the prison. He was there three weeks while they questioned him constantly about me. He was clever enough to know nothing at all except "what everyone knows, that she is an American." He behaved with great dignity in the prison, but my feelings can be imagined when I saw him week after week, working in the yard. How grateful I was that he showed no resentment! On the contrary, he kept an eye on me, helping me in any way he could. He got cigarettes for me, hiding them behind the big garbage cans, which was the only place where, crouching low, we could sometimes steal a smoke out of sight of the guards. I in turn gladly went without food to leave it where he could find it. I dropped the last of my money beside him where he sat breaking stones. At last, since he was an American citizen with nothing against him (America was not yet in the war), they had to release him. Sternly they warned him, however, that if the consul heard I was there, he and any other person released meanwhile from the prison would be rearrested and transported to Germany. He did notify Mr. Rankin and then, in company with the consul himself, started for Lisbon. (The consul gone, my food, which he had sent in generous measure, stopped again.) At Frankfurt, Iliya was seized, and he went through twenty-one prisons before he succeeded in escaping into Switzerland. When I arrived on the

transport train many months later in Lisbon, what was my delight to see him waiting on the platform for me! That was a joyous reunion. I must add another word of gratitude. Throughout his terrible vicissitudes Iliya had managed to save $54 in the heel of his shoe. In Lisbon, thinking I was penniless, he sent me by messenger-he was too delicate to face me-$30 of it! I shall not forget this thoughtfulness.

55. PRISON BERNHARDT

PIGEONS USED TO FLY down into the prison yard, seeking-sad irony! food. (Now the poor birds are probably themselves all dead and eaten.) How yearningly we used to watch them, winging free toward the drifting free clouds! Hahn used to practice his bad revolver marksmanship on them, and there were many wounded birds. I remarked on the prettiness of a brown one, asking that he should at least not shoot at that one. As he was at that time being very cordial to me, he decided I was to have it. Without my knowledge he fixed up an elaborate trap with a box and string and caught it. I was horrified, and when he was cutting its wings I could not help saying bitterly: "You have forgotten something." "What?" he asked, eager to please. "A yellow armband and a yellow star." He looked at me, nonplussed. "You have captured and imprisoned a perfectly innocent tame creature: it must obviously be a Jew." Soon, as he grew more and more darkly morose, such frank remarks became impossible. This little brown pigeon gave us great satisfaction. A swastika, picked out in red; black, and white pebbles, had been made in the yard, and the Jews were forced to keep it in order. Our mouths watered to spit on it, but we knew that if anyone did so all prisoners would be paraded and every third one shot. My dear little brown pigeon relieved the strain. Regularly, as if trained, it sat on that swastika and did its business. Yes, there was comedy, even in that hellhole. Bedbugs were not quite as bad here as in some prisons in Germany, notably in the Salzburg prison and in the huge Promenade prison in Vienna, where the straw sacks were black with ancient grease.

Sometimes in our Belgrade cell these night prowlers, dizzy with blood, would start crawling up the wall in the daytime. Lidia's eagle eye was on the watch for them. Suddenly she would start up with a fierce cry: "Lyubitsa, bugs!" (It was so beautifully like Betsy Trotwood with her famous "Janet, donkeys!" that it gave me endless delight.) Instantly a pretty peasant girl in bright head-shawl would spring up. Lidia, the slim, fastidious, elderly lady, her nose wrinkling in disgust, would knock down the nauseous insect with a broom. Lyubitsa would pounce upon it with cries of joy and extinguish it in the night pail. Lidia and I were "lice wardens." Any woman brought in who looked less than absolutely clean was taken to the toilet, stripped and carefully examined. We never once found a single louse: the women's cells at least were completely free of them. The flies buzzed in thick, crawling swarms. In the office they had flypapers, but my request for one had met only with pleased sneers. I hit upon a scheme which solved the problem. The walls were painted dark brown up to six feet high and above that were white. Whatever loots clean to a German is clean. On inspection day everything had to look spotless. I had an inspiration With towels we instituted a great hunt. We killed flies in hundreds But we squashed them only above the brown line, and they made nasty splotches on the pure-white wall. At the next inspection the chief was horrified. We got our flypapers. Cica (pronounced Tseetsa) was tall, ugly, and absolutely fascinating. She was a born actress, really a genius if ever I saw one, but she had never been on the stage. She was incapable of telling or even seeing the truth. So she lived in a world of extravagant make-believe, impervious to pain or even facts. Possessed of unfathomable reserves of gaiety, she went through the days, working harder than anyone else, laughing, full of lightning sharp repartee. We were enormously grateful to her, and though she bickered perpetually and was struck violently in the face by Hahn for a pert answer, everything was forgiven our Cica. She was in prison because high German officers had "fallen" for her, and

higher ones, therefore, believed her dangerous. She didn't seem to know that there was a war on. This all was just a great adventure! She could bewitch the women too. When she was in the mood- and how we tried to work her up to it!-she could carry us away to faerie, away to realms of happiness where bestiality and Germans never had been known. I can see her now, after light-out, standing in her transparent nightie (borrowed; she had absolutely nothing of her own), the reflected light from the corridor behind her, in the narrow space between our converging feet. Very slim, very supple, she would tell in a husky whisper and dramatize something she said had happened to her. Soon we would be rolling, sobbing in smothered hysterics, everything else forgotten. She was mad for cigarettes. Half our days were taken up with plots for getting Cica cigarettes. She smoked up the stovepipe in the wall while we stood guard at the door. One night every trick had been fruitless. She was desperate: she must have a cigarette. So she got up to the window and simply called the guard. Afraid she was going to make a rumpus and get him into trouble (no guessing what Cica was capable of 1), the fellow came over from the gate. But no barking or hissed threats could down Cica. Her back-chat was excruciating, and soon he too was laughing. But he was adamant: no cigarette. Suddenly she saw my belt on a nail. She snatched it, put one end round her neck, the other round a window bar and, in violent despair, pretended to hang herself-with horribly realistic groans and gurgles. The guard was beaten. She let down the belt, and a cigarette, lighted, came up. Dear Cica! She got out and gaily came back to the prison several times. She brought us fruit-bought, I fear, with "the wages of sin," but none the less gratefully received.

56. ROSE

SOMETIMES OF AN EVENING, safe-too safe-at home in comfortable- too comfortable-America, there passes before me a procession of faces, vivid as if this instant the prison gate had closed behind me: the ones I loved with agonizing pity, the ones I hated with a whole-souled contempt. Of those I loved, perhaps the most touchingly pitiful was Ruza (Rooja, Rose), eighteen years old, just six months married and four months with child. Rose her name, but she was more like a little snowdrop, for there was not a thorn about her. She was pale, blond, and blue-eyed, with irresistible long, sweeping lashes. We all caught our breath when she was thrown into the cell. This delicate, modest beauty was the very embodiment of spring. At once every woman, mother instinct aroused, was eager to sit beside her, to hold her small, work-hardened hand, to pat her. We quarreled as to who should give her the best blanket. How glad we were to go without food that she might eat! I thought how much she would look like a Botticelli Madonna when once she had her baby in her arms. Soon we knew her story. She told it without tears or even any signs of terror. She didn't seem to know what fear was: never before in her short life had anyone been unkind to her. She literally had never thought of intentional cruelty. This wasn't courage in the face of evil: it was unconsciousness that there could be fierce and intentional evil loose in the world. Her husband, aged twenty-one, an engineer, was Montenegrin. The Germans, at the instance of Italy, had issued an order that all Montenegrins in Belgrade should surrender themselves as "hostages for the good behavior of Montenegro to the Italians." As none came in, they were being hunted ferociously through the town. Came the Gestapo to Rose's third-floor apartment. They broke down the door. Her husband was there. Frantically he locked the | door of the bedroom. They banged and the boy jumped from the | third-floor window. |

Ruza leaned out and saw her husband for the last time. He was being dragged away by the legs, still twitching. Blessedly, she did not believe that he was dead. Calmly the pregnant girl awaited events. But in that foul air she soon began to droop. She had fainting spells. I knew that it was worse than waste of time to appeal to our sneering pansy prison doctor. The girl had to be taken out into the air. Determined, although the guard yelled forbiddingly behind me, I ran to the office Hahn was there and he had been drinking. I described the case to him and told him: "The girl must be allowed to sit in the yard." Morosely he flared up: "Do you expect us to love our enemies? Nothingnothing at all shall be done for her." "War on children, war on little girls," I said, beside myself with anxiety, "-is that great Germany's pride?" His eyes flashed up, ugly and bloodshot, and sank again. A pause. "Take her out," he muttered at last. I took her out past the surly guard and stayed beside her. That evening Hahn sent in, a unique surprise, two watermelons. I went to thank him. He was sitting on the office bed flirting with Honig's sister, a typical, mousecolored Fraulein with earphone braids. I thanked him sincerely for the melons. He was perfectly furious. "Don't think I did it out of kindness," he shouted. "They were going The Fraulein gave me a narrow, spiteful, vindictive stare. Every day our little Rose sat in the courtyard for an hour. She sat placidlywaiting, a faraway look on her pale sweet face. Every day she was a little paler. When I was taken away she was still-waiting, waiting for something that will never come for her again on earth. She was as guiltless of injuring Germany as the babe she certainly did not live to bear.

57. "PREPARE TO SHOOT THE HOSTAGES"

Toward THE END OF JULY great nervousness was apparent among the Germans. There was much sabotage in the town, and one heard constant explosions. Whenever there was the slightest anti-German indication, the armored cars rushed through the street and bombs were thrown into buildings, regardless of who was in them. We could hear the houses come crashing down. Discipline became increasingly severe. Past now were the comparatively pleasant scenes in the hot sunny yard that had made our lives such a strange mixture of the humdrum and the cruel. In the early days the scene had often been like this: at one end, in the shadow of the high wall, a barber lathers a fellow prisoner while the next in line, perhaps a fat jolly man keeping up his courage, tells with many gestures some funny tale. At the other end the sadist chief warder, Richter, unbends over a game of chess, his opponent a man in heavy leg chains-and when I say heavy I mean medievally heavy, like anchor chains. Interestedly watching and discussing each move is a group of other chained men. (Tony the forest ranger always won.) Here and there crushed little Jews are endlessly sweeping the rough cobblestones, the pigeons hurrying out of their way. The heavily armed sentry yawns and leans against the iron gate. In the center of the yard a crowd of guards surrounds our only colored fellow prisoner, old Jimmy White, a noted saxophone player, white-haired and over seventy. One guard is pointing a revolver at his feet while they all yell: "Tanz, Neger, Tanz! [Dance, nigger, dance!]" Smiling gently, the dignified old fellow shuffles painfully around, the young brutes doubling up with laughter. That is how it was during the first weeks. But that was all past Now there was much hurrying in and out of extra guard troops. There were rumors that the prison was to be attacked-that an attempt was going to be made to rescue us.

All the hostages-ministers, judges, bankers, professors, doctors- were put in the cellar. Machine guns, searchlights, and a loud-speaker were mounted, and we heard that when an attack started, the governor would announce that if it did not instantly cease all hostages would be murdered on the spot. One evening there was a sudden frantic pounding on the gate. A stark-naked German ran in, screaming that the attack was about to begin. There was an ominous, deathly stillness in the prison. The radio for once was silent, and we all heard the shouted order: "Prepare to shoot the hostages!" Our door was slammed, locked, and bolted. The air in the crowded cell became suffocating. Would my women be in greater danger from outside or inside? I had instructed them when shooting began to lie down under the windows. I had also stolen a piece of strong wire clothesline with which I could fasten the door from the inside and hang the lid of our night pail over the peephole. This would give us a few seconds, possibly minutes, to move over to the inside walls if the guards began shooting at us from inside. Would it be the Communists or the Chetniks? Whichever it was, we would be ready. The Serbian women, their eyes bright, began quite loudly to hum our Chetnik song. Suddenly a wild explosion of shots in the cellar. The governor rushed out, yelling, and we heard the trample of running feet. "Who shot him? I gave no order," bellowed the governor. "Who did it?" "I had to," screamed a guard. "He was asking for it." Confused arguments and shouts; then silence again, ominous silence, and trampling the everlasting heavy-booted trampling. The night passed in strain. We couldn't sleep. We had forgotten what it was to sleep a night through.

Toward dawn we heard again a banging on the gate, and running feet. Richter hurried out into the corridor. I ran to the peephole. A woman, her clothes torn, lay on the ground before that glaring brute. "It was not my husband, not my son! Oh God, he's only twelve. Spare them, spare them, for the love of God! They didn't do it- spare them!" She clasped him frantically round the knees. He shook her off without a word; made a gesture; turned round and stamped back into the office. She was dragged, moaning, through the gate. Nothing further happened that night.... Silent, breathless waiting. No sound in the town. Next morning a large number of men were taken out for transport -whither, none knew-but none of the hostages. These transports were the cause of more terror among the women than death itself. To be transported to Germany to forced labor, to sexual infamy, to slow starvation, seemed a far worse horror than to die outright. About once a fortnight, at the news that there would be a transport, the women ran an actual fever of dread. The ones selected took leave of us as if going to something unimaginably evil. Brothel, farm labor at the mercy of German farm hands, the ghetto, or the pit of the unspeakable concentration camps-who would rather die quickly here at home? You women in America, have you any real conception what would be your fate if the German heel were on your neck? Nothing in your experience, in your reading, nothing in your films, could give: any basis for understanding. It would mean the loss of everything: your homes destroyed, your husbands dead, your children dragged away to an unspeakable fate. Every goodness, every decency you lived by-gone, hopelessly lost forever. A student of history said to me the other day: "Even in the worst days of Genghis Khan victorious troops were allowed to rape, ml murder and loot for three days, and then it had to stop. But the German have gone beneath the low-water mark of ancient savagery-they never stop at all."

58. MY SISTER ZORA

ON JULY 26 Zora B. was brought in. Zora was a Serbian girl not quite seventeen, delicately bred, a skilled violinist, dainty and really beautiful, with a heart-shaped face and curly brown hair. Her large, gray-brown eyes had that confiding, modest, open look that brings out all the protective instincts, all the chivalry, in decent men. She and the young man to whom she was engaged were trusted members of the Serbian Underground. From a window in the town she had watched the German Headquarters' mail car arrive each day. Carefully she had observed the habits of the drivers and armed guards. They always got out and went into the building, coming out again with the men who unlocked the car and unloaded the bags. While her lover was away organizing sabotage, she received the information that on a certain day orders for mass executions of Serbs were to arrive with lists of certain men to he killer nil over Serbia. If there could be a delay of just a few days these men could be warned to get away. On that morning, the 24th of July, with market basket on her arm, she passed at exactly the right instant. In the minute while the men went inside, she took from her basket a large bottle and, walking round the car, splashed it with gasoline. Quickly and calmly she set matches to it. The truck blazed up and burned to the frame. Yells and a wild volley of firing pursued her as she ran down the street. The heavy Prussian boots were no match for her fleet young legs. She darted round a corner. The cook of one of the ladies then in our cell was coming out of the back gate of a house. Seeing the fleeing girl, whom she had known from childhood, she seized her, dragged her in, and slammed the gate. The uproar of pursuit passed and died away in the distance. The bloodhounds would soon be back, however, and

would certainly search the whole district. Rather than forfeit the lives of people in the house, Zora insisted on going over another back fence and creeping away. Calmly she started out of town, hoping-only hoping-to see her lover just once again. Towards morning, on the outskirts, she was caught. She could and did expect nothing better than to be shot. But, a mere shooting of a young girl-patriot was much too kindly for the Germans. They determined to force her to tell where her lover had gone and with whom he was working. That should be easy, they thought, with such a delicate, gentle little girl. So first they tried every sort of mental pressure, working on her fear for herself and for her family. She looked at them gently and smiled. Then they began knocking her about and, when still not one word could be forced out of her, they resorted to whipping; then fierce beating. They were systematic about it. Every night, in those dark hours when the human spirit is at its lowest ebb, they took her out, stripped and beat and questioned, beat and questioned her. Two hours every night for eight nights she was taken out from our prison to be beaten. In vain: Zora, her face black and blue, her eyes wide with agony, was silent. Her whole back swelled up and burst into a jellied mass of blood. She could not sit or lie down except on her face. She had high wound fever. But calmly every day she walked, each day more painfully, round the yard with us at daily exercise or lay quietly, silently, holding the hand of one of us. We too were silent, stunned with helpless agony. One day Richter came while I was out of the cell. There were now three Englishwomen there on their way to internment. He struck Zora savagely across the ear to break the eardrum. Olga Pearson, a very brave Serbian woman once married to an Englishman, instantly sprang between them and cried fiercely: "You can't do that in our presence-we're British!"

Richter screamed at her: "Do you think we like beating little girls? It's England that's forcing us to do it. John Bull sits back and smokes his pipe and lets children do his dirty work for him." They dragged Zora out to beat her. All this proving useless, one day they took little Zora back to her home. They let her stand in her own dining room amid her dear familiar things which spoke of love, of childhood happiness, of her mother, her father, and her little sister, who had fled. "See," they said, these monsters, "see, you shall be free, back again in your beautiful home, safe and free. No more beatings, no more pain: you will have freedom and safety with your family. Your friends cannot help you now-and they will die in any case, be sure of that. But you shall live to be happy, to marry and have children of your own. Only tell us what we want to know." Zora smiled her gentle smile. Conditions in the prison and in the country were getting steadily more fearful. As an American, I was seeing too much for the comfort of my jailers. In any case, at seven-thirty on the morning of August 3, I was told that I would be transported within an hour to Germany. As I was herded out with other prisoners Zora broke through the guards. She threw her arms round my neck with a frantic, convulsive hug of love-the only moment in all those eight days when her emotion was too strong for her. She whispered in my ear: "My sister." Whether she meant to express the warm love between us or to remind me that she was leaving her small sister to my care, I do not know. To me she remains-my sister, Zora. They seized her roughly and dragged her away, not back to her cell, but towards the gate. That should have warned me. Never shall I forget the faces of the women, each one of whom I had kissed farewell, as they crowded together at the crack under the wooden screen on the

windows, trying to give me a last signal of courage and affection. Tears, tears-the tears I had forbidden and always tried to dry when I was there.... Who now would tell them the endless stories of ancient heroes with which, as in the Thousand and One Nights, I had tried to help them pass the dark, miserable hours? Where are you now, my splendid Serbian women? Where are you, my dear, dear Katitsa? Your long, slim fingers were the last thing I saw before the great prison gate shut behind me and I set my face towards whatever fate was now to bring. We were put into a covered truck without seats. A quick glance round gave me my last view of ruined Belgrade. Men gathered across the street to watch us being carted off. I could tell, from the stern, steady way in which they tried to catch my eye, how they felt. They stood without movement as we drove off. At the wrecked station we were marched to the train and put into an ordinary third-class carriage. (Not until we crossed the frontier into Germany did we meet the famous black, suffocating German prison trains, so common there as hardly to draw notice. Such Kultur necessities were still unknown in the "primitive" Balkans.) The Gestapo transport officer was a nice-looking fellow, the kind of man one would have invited to dinner in the old days, whose children would have played with one's own. We conversed a little, and I tried to sound him out on some of the milder German phenomena. As he showed faint signs of reasonableness I thought it might conceivably be possible to arouse some shame in him, to persuade him to use some influence in favor of Zora on his return to Belgrade. "Just a little girl," I said, "only sixteen, really lovely and gently bred, who loves her country as your own daughter would love hers. Yet she is being systematically tortured to death. Can one helpless child be so dangerous to the great German Reich as to justify-that?" "Oh," he said calmly but with a kind of leering cynicism impossible to describe. "You mean the pretty Zora." He looked at his gold wrist watch. "Well,

you needn't worry any more. She won't be beaten again. You see, just-yes, just an hour and a half ago-she was hanged." My little sister Zora, so simply unafraid of all that the most evil men could do, who feared only one thing: disloyalty! Sleep sweetly in your nameless grave, my lovely sister Zora. In our hearts remains your everlasting epitaph: Heroine of Serbia.

59. A DREAM STRONGER THAN TANKS

So, ON AUGUST 3, 1941, I passed in the German prison train via Zagreb through almost the whole breadth of what now calls itself the Independent State of Croatia. The carriage had wide windows which we were allowed to have open. I watched carefully. To my surprise, all the innumerable small stations at which the slow train stopped were crowded with soldiers, laughing, skylarking, waiting for trains to take them away. They were fully armed. They all wore the Yugoslav army uniform, unmistakably different both in color and cut from the German. I saw not a single German soldier among them: they were commanded by their own officers who looked quite as cheerful as their troops. These were Croat soldiers who by thousands were mobilizing to fight for the Axis. Our Gestapo guards spoke of it as if it were so well known as hardly to be worth comment. Said one of them with satisfaction: "Nicht nur gegen die verfluchten Kommunisten sondern gegen die verdammten Serben-Schweine couch. [Not only against the cursed Communists but against the damned Serb swine too.]" Nothing less coerced than these Croat soldiers could be imagined. If ever men were doing what they were willing and glad to do, it was these. When I say that I was surprised I mean that, though I should have known that this would happen, I had subconsciously tried to put away the thought. Though I myself when with the Serbian troops had been repeatedly ambushed by Croat soldiers on the sixth night of the war, yet I had tried to think of it as something sporadic, due to local ill feeling of small disaffected groups. Here was the proof that when the Croats went over to the Germans it was the real expression of a people as a people, forced upon them neither from outside their own frontiers nor from inside by new rulers of their own race. These Goats were

going willingly to give their lives fighting against our allies, the Russians, and against our allies and their "brothers," the Serbs. And now what now lay ahead for the Serbs? After all their splendid history were they now at last doomed to extermination? I knew that Germany, in her hatred and fury, would this time stop at nothing less. And these traitors to their one-time "brothers" would be a tool ready to her hand. Only twenty-three years ago the Serbs, at a heavy cost of blood, had freed these very Croats from hated Austrian oppression and had been thanked with fervid protestations of "undying" gratitude and love. But Croats have short memories. Like weathercocks, they turn to every wind that blows. This Croat army would now be equipped with the finest weapons of the great German war factories to turn upon the pitifully ill equipped remnant of Serb troops-the few left outside German prison camps-and upon my relatively unarmed Chetniks. Enclosed as Serbia was by a tightening steel band of German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian armies, could not these Croats, as they certainly meant to do, give her the last fatal stab in the back? They knew the terrain almost as well as the Serbs. They spoke almost the same language. That should make it easy for them to work their way in behind our lines. They would be directed by the highest trained military minds of Europe. They would be given every help, every incentive to kill. They would have food-when ours was gone; the textile factories of all Europe to draw upon for clothing, when in the fearful Balkan winter we had-rags. They would have transport with an inexhaustible supply of bullets-when ours would be all shot away. They would have bombers, fighters, gas, the heaviest blasting and incendiary bombs, they would have tanks and armored trains and heavy guns of every caliber, while we had-none. How could the Serbs withstand, what could they oppose to all this crushing strength?

Those were my miserable thoughts that night as I was carried off into the silence of long months in German prisons. I could not foresee the future. I could not know what has since been proved: that the Serbs did have something, something that their enemies had not taken into account; something they could never be prepared for, never understand-and never overcome. The Serbs had this: they had a dream. They had a dream which through the centuries had crystallized into a great tradition, into a national purpose and a national will. That dream had turned into an armor which no plots, mass murders, or atrocities, no bombs, planes, guns, or tanks could ever pierce or conquer or destroy. The Serbs had a dream of liberty. That dream, now as ever in their history, would lead my Chetniks, would teach them all that they needed, to survive and hold. That dream, that passionate love of freedom, gave them strength and wisdom. As it had made them tough, the toughest men in Europe, it gave them speed, alertness, cunning, an indomitable valor. It gave them power, superhuman power, to endure. Mihailovich, a young and untried leader, surrounded by a world of bloodhounds, with a price of a million dollars on his head, Mihailovich, the embodiment of a race's fighting spirit, Draja Mihailovich and his Serbs would stand alone-but STAND. Ready, my Chetnik brothers? They were ready! And from the thousand nameless deeds of unsung heroes, men and women, and not the least of children, an age-old dream of freedom will surely soon, yes, soon again be fact.

EPILOGUE

AFTER BEING TAKEN from Belgrade I spent longer or shorter periods in the following prisons: Graz, Vienna, Munich, Salzburg and Ulm, and, later, the police barracks in Spandau. I became very weak from under nourishment, lack of vitamins and exercise, and from the sedatives which were administered to us in the so-called coffee (a thin liquid made probably from burnt acorns). I contracted scurvy, fortunately only slightly, and all organs, including sight and hearing, began to give out. When I hear women complaining about a lack of luxuries in America, it is hard for me to feel very sympathetic. We had to keep body and soul together on thin potato soup and two chunks of bread per day; bread so slimy and repulsive that, starved though we were, it was almost impossible to swallow it without some added taste. I forced myself to swallow it by covering it with the taste of lemon peel. When I was lucky enough to get hold of the peel of one half of a lemon (I was never lucky enough to get the inside) sent in to some prisoner by relatives, I could, by taking the tiniest nibbles, make it last for four days. One lump of sugar could be made to last two days. Let me add that the experience of such hardships makes life seem good to me now-a thousand fold more splendid and beautiful even than it was before. Each of the hundreds of women I met had her different, interesting, and almost always tragic story. In Vienna I saw the notable Frau Neumann (though I only saw her naked!), who possesses and had managed to send to America three of the only seven paintings by Hitler known to be extant. The Nazis are determined to force her to hand them over and so cannot let her die. Her behavior during her imprisonment, which has already lasted two and a half years, has been admirableand funny. In Munich I occupied for ten days a cell with a red-hot Nazi concert singer imprisoned because, living only for her music, she had refused to obey an order to become a schoolteacher in Poland. Her uncle had just returned from the Russian front. His stories, as repeated by her, were unprintable, and she gloried in them.

We talked all day and most of the night. And when I was moved on again, a blazing Nazi fire had been reduced to cold, gray ashes. The prisons of Germany bulge with suffering humanity. There are four major types, each with variations, of German prisons: the regular prisons, the concentration camps, the prison camps, and the internment camps. There are also the ghettos, brothels, farms, and factories. Each is a distinct form of prison. There are not less than ten million foreigners at slave labor in Germany. When the hour strikes there will be action by those fiendishly treated millions- action such as imagination boggles at. There were special groups of prisoners which one came to recognize at sight. There were the real Communists, especially in Austria, whose strong faith upheld them in a sort of shining brightness, strengthening to all who came in contact with them, whatever one thought about communism. There was the already famous Viktoria, a brilliant girl of only nineteen, already over two years in the prison without a single sight of the sky. She led physical-training exercises every morning, and her courage marched like a banner. There were the fortunetellers, prophets, palmists, numerologists, and astrologers, who all, because they foretell the fall of Hitler, must be incarcerated. Strangest of all are the members of a very widespread and fast-growing organization called the "Bible Searchers." These are mostly people in humble walks of life, and the Nazis are hounding them ferociously. Their gentle, firm, and dedicated mien is unmistakable, reminding one of the early Christian martyrs. Everywhere I was transported in the black, almost airtight, and entirely viewless prison trains which shuttle ceaselessly across the German landscape. Their rough walls are scrawled with despairing or brave messages from their previous occupants on their way to ghettos, to the even more fearful concentration camps, to indescribable degradation or to death. In those black prison trains I met specimens of the wild, utterly depraved German youth, a terrible phenomenon of which little is yet known in America. They represent a violent reaction to the Nazi regimentation and are a dreadful portent to the German race.

I met Polish girls, well-bred university students who, returning from lectures, had been seized on Warsaw streets, thrown into trucks and, without a word to their parents, carried off to Germany and put on farms at the mercy of the lowest German farm hands. Their clothes in ribbons, shoes gone, they are escaping in hundreds, marching the German roads by night, hiding by day, determined to return home. When caught they are returned to the same farms from which they fled and to treatment which one does not dare think of. Yet their calm, grim courage remains absolutely unshaken. They are spiritually inviolate. Always I was marched in and out, often the only woman, with lines of chained men. It is possibly significant that in Munich, high seat of Nazi Kultur, I was more spat at than elsewhere. At last, to my great surprise, I was put into internment with the British women internees at the Liebenau Internment Camp in Wurttemberg, near the Lake of Constance, with the snowcapped mountains of free Switzerland on the horizon. This is a great lunatic asylum run by German Roman Catholic nuns. Five hundred lunatics had been murdered to make room for the internees. But there were still about five hundred gibbering lunatics left to add to the misery of the British women, some of whom have already been there for three years. Seventeen children are being brought up under these circumstances. One was born there in internment. Her father was murdered when, on shipboard, a German sailor fired wildly, without provocation, into a group of unarmed prisoners. The patient, steady good nature of these British women was remarkable. But nerves were strained, and heart disease was spreading swiftly, owing to the complete lack of any sports. At the end fifty American citizens arrived, mostly Polish Jewesses quickly exchanged with America. When I arrived at Liebenau (translated "Field of Leve") after months in prison, I was very weak. When I first saw there the garden of flowers with nuns walking gently in pairs back and forth, the thought flashed that I must really be dead and gone to paradise after all! Paradise it seemed to me then, after what I had been through, and paradise it continued to seem to me in spite of all its sorrows. I was allowed to work in the great and beautiful convent library, a very rare privilege, and I spent every waking

moment happily studying. I was able to follow the significant developments in Germany by reading the local newspapers and talking to people who came in. I quickly and fully recovered, thanks entirely to the Red Cross, but for which I should not be alive today to write this book. I can never sufficiently express my thanks, and the thanks of all of us internees, to the British, the American, the Swiss, and the International Red Cross for the regular weekly parcels of one week's food and the occasional supply of dress materials and underclothes. These parcels, carefully worked out for calories and vitamins and for maximum warmth, fed and clothed us well. They are unquestionably keeping alive the women and children I sorrowfully left behind there and are saving the older women from madness. On everyone who reads this I want to impress the fact that Germans are scrupulously observing the Red Cross agreements for the sole and sufficient reason that England holds more German civilian internees than the Germans hold British. German policy is directed by two principles, greed and fear. They fear British reprisals. Through the efforts of my relatives and friends, especially of my daughter, Ruth Norna van Breda Yohn, of Zetta Carveth Wells, and of my sister, Harriet Mitchell Fladoes, to whom I can never be sufficiently grateful, I was exchanged to America. In the train through the heart of Germany to Berlin and again in the sealed train from Berlin to Lisbon I watched carefully and was able to draw certain conclusions. In Berlin on June 14, 1942, I was strangely enough free without shadowing for five hours and I met a group of Germans and two Irish broadcasters working for the Nazis. I also got in touch with a British agent still calmly working there. He had just viewed the results of the first great block-busting attack on Cologne. I returned to America with nine hundred other American citizens on the last exchange ship arriving in New York, on June 30, 1942. As we approached the harbor we were all on deck, eagerly straining our eyes to see the great statue that beacons the entrance of New York Harbor. I expected that when we saw it we would all burst into songs and cheers. But as slowly it emerged

from the early mist there was not a sound. Instead we all simply burst into tears: we had come from the lands where even to say the word "liberty" put men and women and children in danger of instant death. I was back home after four years of great happiness, great inspiration, indescribable pain. I wrote this book to help the United Nations realize what the Balkans mean directly to us; especially, what an immeasurable debt each one of us owes to the small yet great race of Serbs. Serbia was the only small country in Europe to come in openly on our side before she was herself attacked. The Serbs did not bargain with us for their help: they gave it, leaving our recognition of it to American honor, which they believe to be not inferior to their own. I gave the dying men and women of Serbia my promise that I would spend the rest of my life looking after their children. I promised them that America would never forget the bond and the debt. I pledged American honor that the thousands upon thousands of orphans left in a ruined land would be cherished by their American brothers and sisters. In view of all that the Serbs have done-for us; in view of all they have lost in fighting-for us; in view of all they have saved-to us- in money and in lives, I propose that for the rebuilding and the future of Serbia we appropriate the cost to us of one day of war. Knowing that nothing could have been nearer to the fighting heart of my brother than the Fighting Serbs, I have established in his memory the General Billy Mitchell Memorial Foundation for Balkan Youth. I pledged the honor of my country. I rely upon my countrymen with complete trust to help me to keep that pledge.

YUGOSLAVIA: A VERSAILLES FAILURE

SINCE JUNE 1942, when I returned to America, startling events, the seeds of which I saw planted both before the German invasion and afterward, have profoundly affected the political and military situation in the Balkans. I feel obliged, therefore, to supplement my narrative of personal experience by a more systematic account of what happened to the doomed kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. On December I, 1918, a new state was created: the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Officially proclaimed in Belgrade, it was immediately recognized by the United States. It was composed of the three countries previously known as Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia and soon changed its name for convenience to Yugoslavia, i.e., the country of the southern Slavs. The Serbs live mainly in the eastern, the Croats in the western, and the Slovenes in the northwestern part of the kingdom and, as is often the case in mountainous countries, the characteristics of these different races are strikingly distinct. Although small, the Balkans have played an important role in European history, not so much because of natural resources, but because they form the ageold corridor from Asia to Europe. The shortest route from northern Europe to the Near East follows the river valleys of the Danube, Morava, and Nishava as they flow through Yugoslavia. One of the shortest routes to Germany for a land army invading Europe leads from Salonika in Greece, one of the two best harbors in the Balkans, up the Vardar and Morava river valleys of Serbia to Vienna. The fact that the Serbs stand astride this strategic highway largely explains the troubled history of these people. Kipling's famous war correspondent who used to go around muttering "Mark my words, there'll be trouble in the Balkans in the spring" often saw his predictions fulfilled. But Balkan trouble was caused, not by an essential instability of the inhabitants themselves, but by the "divide and rule" policy which the would-be masters of the world have always used to further their ends. This policy was applied first by the Turks, then with great astuteness by Italy, and last by Germany during the period between World War I and World War II.

The chief industry of Yugoslavia was agriculture. Serbia proper is predominantly devoted to farming and the average landholding is about twenty acres. There are almost no large landed proprietors and no near-feudal agricultural serfs, as in many other parts of Europe. Ancient laws forbid the breaking up of these family farms. The care of the soil is well understood, nutritional standards are high, and the people are extraordinarily hardy. Only Slovenia and the northern part of Croatia are industrialized. In blood and language the people of Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia are homogeneous. But in historical conditioning and religion the races are very different. When in the seventh century the great schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Constantinople split the Mediterranean world into halves, the territory now called Yugoslavia lay on the border line of the two religious faiths. The Serbs developed their own church with a Patriarch independent of Constantinople. But whenever a great power considered it profitable to intrigue in the Balkans, religious rivalry was there, ready to be fanned into hot flame. A further fact of importance is that the province of Croatia adjoins AustroHungary and that the ties between the cultural life of Croatia and of Austria have always been close. For over a thousand years the province of Croatia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Students from Croatia finished their education in the universities of Vienna and Prague, and there were heavy settlements of Germans in Croatian territory, deliberately fostered by Austro-Hungary for her own ends. These Germanic immigrants displaced Serbs, who retired to the mountains and became the ancestors of the Chetniks who are now battling dauntlessly under Mihailovich. In contrast to the Croats, the Serbs, never a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, have been relatively unaffected by German culture. They are the heirs of a Byzantine civilization. From 1166 to 1389 Serbia was an independent state. In 1389 the Serbs were conquered by the Turks and after many struggles regained their freedom in 1814 The Croats, on the other hand, had always been a subject

people, fighting only on the side of their overlords, agitating always for their own advantage. Therefore, while the Serbs became adepts with the sword, the Croats became experts at intrigue. In the nineteenth century the independence and demonstrated military ability of the Serbs was, of course, viewed with disfavor and anxiety by Austro-Hungary. In 1879 she occupied Bosnia, a Serbian province lying west of Serbia proper, and in 1908 she annexed both the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an incident which almost provoked a world war. Not feeling herself safe even after the acquisition of all these territories in her empire, Austria decided in 1914 to attack the Serbs. Says Leon Dominian, the geographer: "The presentation of an ultimatum to Serbia by Austria on July I, 1914, was the preliminary step toward opening a pathway for Germany and Austria to Salonica and Constantinople. Then, as soon as Austro-German power should be solidly established athwart the Bosphorus, the intention was to secure control of the land routes to Egypt, the Persian Gulf, and India." The Serbs determined to defend their dearly bought liberty against any odds, and-World War I started.

THE RELATIONS OF THE SERBS AND THE CROATS

In view of the basic historical differences between the Croats and the Serbs it was hardly to be expected that the kingdom of Yugoslavia, hastily put together in 1918, would work out smoothly. In fact, dissension between the Croats and the Serbs began almost immediately. The new state was composed as follows: Population of Yugoslavia in 1940 Serbs . . . . . -. . 8,000,000 Croats . . . . . . . 3,000,000 Slovenes . . . . . .1,500,000 #Mixed Elements . . 3,500,000 6,000,000 *Mixed elements include approximately: 1,250,000 Mohammedan Serbs and Turks, 500,000 Germans, 500,000 Hungarians, 500,000 Albanians, 300,000 Rumanians, 75,000 Jews. Yugoslavia was patched together out of Serbia and Montenegro, a Serb principality which had achieved its independence from Turkey in the nineteenth century; Croatia and Voivodina, taken from Hungary; Dalmatia and Slovenia, taken from Austria; and Bosnia and Herzegovina, taken from the AustroHungarian condominium. A union of all the South Slavs had long been a dream in the Balkans, and the idealistic Serbs shared this dream. In November 1914 the Serbian Parliament had passed a declaration asking for the unity of all Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes into an independent state. In 1917 a Yugoslav Committee was formed in London and, aided by the Dalmatian Croats, also asked for a national state, to consist of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. An agreement to this effect was concluded between the Serbian Government and the Yugoslav Committee in London and promulgated in the famous Corfu Declaration of July 1917. Because the Croats of the province of Dalmatia, which lies on the Adriatic, and also France and the other Allies feared that Italy would claim Dalmatia in the peace settlement, a Declaration of Unity was hastily rushed through on December I, 1918, placing authority over the new state in the hands of the Serbian prince regent, later King Alexander. Thus the members of this new state, especially the Croats, were given no time to consider and decide

the terms on which they were to be included or what the form of government should be. Hardly was the new kingdom a month old when some of the Croats were already loudly voicing their dissatisfaction with their new political status. The dream of a South Slav union had not originated either in Serbia or Croatia, but among the Slav students in the University of Prague in Czechoslovakia. It is true that most Croats had wanted to belong to a Slav state, but the state they had envisaged was one in which they themselves would be the dominant element, and in which they would form, together with Austria and Hungary, a third and coequal part of an Austro-Hungarian-Slav Empire. When this aspiration showed itself a mirage, their desire to belong to a Slavic state led them during the last war to seek union with the Serbs. They were also influenced by the fact that Germany was clearly losing the war and that Austro-Hungary would obviously be dismembered. They preferred union with the Serbs to the possibility of being gobbled up by Italy. However, the Croats soon found, greatly to their displeasure, that as citizens of the new kingdom they were no longer the most important and coddled group of South Slavs, a position which they had occupied in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Because of their expertness in agitation, the Croats had long been a focus of Austro-Hungarian intrigues. In the new kingdom, however, they found themselves second to the Serbs, who-outnumbered them by almost three to one. This was a comedown, especially for the Croat intellectuals, who considered themselves to be much more "enlightened" than the Serb intellectuals, because of their familiarity with German culture. It is difficult for Americans to appreciate how important is the role of the so-called intellectual, especially in the smaller states of Europe. In Serbia and Croatia, for instance, there were in 1918 only two classes, the educated men or intellectuals, the class from which all government officials were drawn, and the relatively uneducated farmers. Politics were controlled and political opinion colored by these intellectuals to a much greater degree than here. Because about 98 per cent of the educated classes in Yugoslavia made their living by holding government positions and only 2 per cent entered business or the professions, the competition for government jobs was intense. Since the Serbs were in the majority, they held at least half of the government jobs, a situation the Croat

intellectuals found irksome. Just how the- Croats felt about their own abilities as compared with those of the Serbs is indicated in an article which appeared in a Croatian paper of Zagreb in December 1942: "The Croats composed, with the exception of a few Slovenes, the most intelligent, cultured, and humane part of the former Yugoslav Army. Owing to this the Croats handled the greater share of responsibility in maintaining the Serbian Army.... In the technical troops also the Croats were in the majority, since they were the most cultured, polite, experienced, and adaptable element of the former army." Interesting is the fact that the majority of Croatian intellectuals in Zagreb, the largest city of Croatia, were not Croatians by birth, but of German, Hungarian, or non-Slavic extraction. The relations of the Serbs and Croats were complicated not only by the rivalries of intellectuals, but by financial considerations. There was, first of all, the matter of the war debts. Although the Croats, as citizens of Austro-Hungary, fought the Serbs in World War I, and did great damage to Serbia, they never paid Serbia a penny in reparations. On the contrary, Croatia, as part of the new kingdom, shared in the reparations which Germany paid to Serbia. There was, secondly, the question of taxes. A uniform tax law for the new state was worked out in 1926, by which-without protest- Voivodina, by far the richest agricultural area in the kingdom, paid almost 50 per cent of the country's taxes. But Croatia, while a poor province agriculturally compared with Voivodina or Serbia, was rich in industries, especially in the area centering around the city of Zagreb. Because Vienna had lost much of its former charm and Gemutichkeit when World War I ended, the nexus of retired businessmen and officials who had used Vienna as a center moved on to Zagreb, which became known as the Little Vienna of Europe. Foreign capital, mostly from Vienna and Budapest, was suddenly available in abundance. Between 1918 and 1940 the population of Zagreb increased from 80,000 to 350,000. Since income taxes had been introduced by the state considerable sums were collected from the prosperous and in some cases extremely wealthy citizens of Croatia.

The policy of the new state was to spend part of the national taxes on developing the poorer and more backward sections of the kingdom. At this the Croatians balked. They wanted all the taxes collected in Croatia to be spent on Croatia. They refused to subscribe to state loans and opposed the construction of railroads in any part of the kingdom except Croatia itself. They also did their best to prevent the reconstruction of highways and railroads outside of Croatia, which had been destroyed, partly by Croats themselves, in World War I.

THE CROATIANS DEMAND AN INDEPENDENT CROATIA

From the beginning there were many individuals and political parties in Croatia that wanted to secede from the kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Their goal was complete independence for the Goats. But Croatia, which had only 3,000,000 people, was obviously too small to achieve or hold political independence without selling out to one of the great European powers. A Yugoslav constitutional assembly was held in 1920 and a Parliament was established, deputies being elected from the old historic provinces out of which the kingdom had been composed. In 1930, in an attempt to promote national unity and to forget old rivalries, these provinces were divided into nine administrative districts named after the rivers of Yugoslavia. The Croats were, therefore, able to elect deputies from districts where they constituted the majority of the population. There were twelve political parties in the kingdom, three of them purely Croatian: the Croat Peasant Party, to which about 80 per cent of the Croats belonged, the Croat Clerical Party, and the Croat Frankist Party. Stepan Radich, leader of the Croat Peasant Party, at first refused to participate in the Yugoslav Parliament. This meant that during the early years of the kingdom the representation of Croats in Parliament was small. This was unfortunate and made the task of the new state much more difficult than it might otherwise have been. In 1928 a Montenegrin deputy killed two Croatian deputies during a session of Parliament. While the deputy, Punisha Rachich, was advocating the necessity of developing a backward section of the kingdom, Ivan Pernar, a member of the Croat Peasant Party, in a violent diatribe threw doubt upon the honesty of his intentions. Rachich, a hardy mountaineer, could not tamely submit to attacks upon his honor, and demanded that Pernar retract his insults. Pernar appearing reluctant, Rachich, stung beyond bearing, drew a gun and shot him. Matters were made much worse by the fact that while Pernar was only lightly wounded, two other Croatian deputies were accidentally killed, one of whom was Stepan Radich, president of the Croat Peasant Party.

The uproar can be imagined. The situation quickly became so impossible that on January 6, 1929, King Alexander dissolved Parliament and announced his own dictatorship. This dictatorship was disliked not only by the Croats but even more by the Serbs, who are justifiably proud of their great democratic tradition. Alexander realized that he was acting contrary to popular feeling, but he considered that no other step could prevent the complete dissolution of his country. He believed, as did Abraham Lincoln when the southern states wished to secede from the Union, that the unity of the state must be upheld by force. He therefore tried to suppress disruptive elements by imprisonment. (It should, however, be noted that no political prisoner ever died in a Yugoslav prison.) The Croats now shrieked that the whole world must see how they were being suppressed by a dictatorial government. The sincerity of the King's intentions is shown by the fact that he again reconstituted Parliament in 1931, after giving much thought to improving the constitution and voting practices of the country. One great difficulty had been that there were too many political parties and that consequently the ministry in power frequently did not have a sufficient majority to act effectively. The King devoted himself to trying to resolve this difficulty.

ENTER THE CROAT USTASHI

In January 1939, shortly after the shooting of Stepan Radich, Dr. Ante Pavelich, a Croat lawyer of Zagreb, Croatia, organized a secret terrorist organization known as the Ustashi, or Rebels. Pavelich was ambitious to become ruler of an independent Croatia. Since adequate funds for a revolt of the Croats against the Serbs could not be obtained from Vienna or Budapest, Pavelich turned to Rome and immediately found an enthusiastic patron in Mussolini. Pavelich recruited his Ustashi army from Croats living in Croatia and Dalmatia and from those living in Belgium and South America. These men were sent to Italy and Hungary and drilled in terrorist tactics. Italy paid the bill but for some time got nothing in return. A few trains, police stations, and barracks in Yugoslavia were blown up. But an actual invasion of the province of Lika in 1932 proved a fiasco. An attempt by his henchmen to assassinate King Alexander in Zagreb in 1933 failed. Mussolini began to put pressure on Pavelich, and the Croatian Ustashi succeeded in murdering King Alexander in Marseilles on October 10, 1934. By accident, they also killed the French Foreign Minister, Barthou. A judicial investigation of the murder by the International Tribunal at Geneva was actually by-passed by Laval, but the French courts condemned the assassins in absentia. However, when Mussolini refused to extradite Dr. Ante Pavelich or any of the other Croatian Ustashi implicated in the killing, the French did not press him. (The relations between Laval and Pavelich still require clarification.) The Croats of the United States, who were afire with the hope of political independence for Croatia to be guaranteed by the Great contained the provision that German troops were not to pass through Yugoslav territory, this was, of course, purely hypocritical, since the right of passage to Greece was what Germany wanted. As is now known, secret clauses in the Vienna pact granted this and other concessions to the Germans. It is certain that about 8o per cent of the Croats were strongly pro-German, while 8o per cent of the Serbs were strongly anti-German. The Vienna pact came as a great shock to most Serbs, who had not realized that Yugoslavia had already moved so far Axisward.

Two days after the signing of the Vienna pact, on March 27, 1941, the Serbs acted. The Serbian general Simovich, with the help of almost all the political leaders of Serbia, carried out a coup d'etat, forced the resignation of the proGerman ministry, sent the regent Prince Paul into exile, and put the young King Peter on the throne. This was equivalent to declaring war on the Axis. From a common-sense point of view, it was a suicidal step. The Serbs, however, were determined not to become German subjects, but to sacrifice their lives and all they possessed rather than to lose the liberty which they had achieved after centuries of bitter struggle. On March 27 the Serbs began desperately arming. They needed fifteen days to mobilize and would have been ready April 12. Well aware of that fact, Germany attacked Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941. On April 10 the German troops marched into the city of Zagreb, in Croatia proper, and were greeted by the wildly enthusiastic cheers of a people who only twenty-three years before had received their Serb "brothers" and "liberators" in exactly the same way. Dr. Machek, who had carried on the intrigues with Germany, gave orders on the radio to all his followers to co-operate with the Axis.

HOW CROATIA FOUGHT AGAINST SERBIA

On the same day that the Germans entered Zagreb, Croatia was proclaimed an independent state, "forever free" of the kingdom of Yugoslavia. When Dr. Pavelich arrived with his Ustashi, he was proclaimed its leader. Simultaneously, the Independent State of Croatia joined the war on the side of the Axis, declared war on the Allies, and later on America. As part of the price for her "independence," Croatia was to fight on Germany's side, not only against Russia, but especially against the Serbs. On April 3, three days before Germany declared war on Yugoslavia, a Croatian officer of the Yugoslav Army, Colonel Kren, flew to Graz and handed over to the Nazis the war plans of the Serbian Army, as well as maps of the carefully hidden mountain landing fields of Serbia to be used by the Yugoslav air forces. Result: Belgrade, though declared an "open city," was bombed on April 6 and the Serbian landing fields were all destroyed. The help given by the Croats to the German armies in their attack on the Serbs has been often and proudly described by Croat writers. We give here a typical example from the Croatian newspaper, Nova Hrvatska (New Croatia), in its Christmas issue of 1942. The article is titled "The Croat Soldier in the Present War": "It is now clear," says the Croat author, "that the German Army, in its victorious swing, with its tremendous technical equipment, its indescribable moral enthusiasm, its knowledge, and its adeptness, was the main factor which caused the defeat of the enemy at the Balkan front and smashed Greece.... "However, the internal role, the revolutionary, destructive role, that which caused the breakdown inside, so that there was nothing in order, nothing in its proper place, nothing prepared or dispatched at the right moment, nothing fired or aimed correctly, nothing running as it should-that was the important role of the Croats in the collapse of the Balkan front. In such roles, the Croats worked splendidly. Just as they proved themselves in peacetime in their fight against the Serbian megalomania and hegemony, against terror and exploitation -so now in the war all Croats acted as a unit in refusing obedience, in ignoring orders, in

preventing liaisons, in creating panics, in firing incorrectly, in disabling tanks and guns, and in destroying all sorts of military equipment, in disarming the disbanded Serb soldiers and people. In a word, in all those battles the Croats acted according to an issued order, destroyed the resistance deep inside enemy (Serbian) lines on the Balkan front as the Germans did outside. "Even before the beginning of the war, the joining the colors of the Croats in the infantry was reduced to about 30 to 40 per cent; all others remained at home or fled to the woods, went to places other than the ones designated, or visited relatives. During the war there were many indescribable cases of sabotage and defeatism done by the Croats while in the service of the former (Yugoslav) army. For instance, according to the statement of a soldier, when the Supreme Command at Belgrade ordered him to identify aircraft flying toward Belgrade, this Croat telephonist replied that he had seen some planes flying but they appeared to be 'ours,' although not far from him these same planes (enemy) were bombarding military objects. "At another place some Croat soldiers (telephonists), instead of dispatching the orders issued to various commands, were listening to the Ustashi radio station 'Velebit' (the Croat Ustashi radio in Italy). One very confidential courier (Croat) carrying important military messages from one army to another, simply departed to his home with all the confidential material. At a very important railroad junction the commanding officer-a Croat first lieutenant-threw into the stove all his orders and instructions and, in his 'alertness' for the maintenance of order in dispatching military transports, managed to bring into the station ten trainloads of soldiers who did not know where to proceed, and who finally, not knowing what to do, left for their homes, together with their prompt and heroic commander. "What happened in the airdromes is generally known now. On Palm Sunday the situation was normal, but on Tuesday everything was disrupted. The Croat technicians, mechanics, as well as other air service crews, left the airdromes; the Serb officers were deserted and left without any crews; they were unable to use their planes and so to attack the enemy from the air. There was sabotage even among the anti-aircraft units which turned out to be even a little comical. The 'old

gunners' of the last war found means to fire shots in all but the right direction-at German planes. "The artillery, too, thanks to the Croats, was rendered useless on the whole Balkan front-on the Nishava, Kolubara, Bregalnica, Struma, and Vardar. Five or six weeks before the war, experienced, competent, and excellent soldiers chiefly Croats were sent there to insure this important flank at the cost of their lives, in case the great and powerful, indivisible and unconquerable former (Yugoslav) army became impotent, conquered, and inclined to flee through the valley of the Vardar toward Salonica and from there to any place which the great, mighty, and unconquerable democrats and allies of Albion might determine. "In the great German offensive toward Nish, Pirot, Skoplye, when the hour came for Serbia to fight, Croat hands, to the last Croat artilleryman, stuffed the gun barrels, and all went wrong on the Nishava, Struma, Bregalnica, and Vardar front. Thanks to the Croats, all firing was into empty space, the guns that did fire were damaged, the instruments for aiming and the mechanical implements were ruined. Finally the Croats either deserted or surrendered. The Serbs, seeing the destruction of their most important, most decisive, and strongest line, were paralyzed, stunned by this Croatian sabotage. "Although a small nation, the Croats played indeed a great role that brought about the collapse of the Balkan front, which cost them heavy and bloody casualties. They were instrumental in destroying, in co-operation with the Germans, first the former state (Yugoslavia) and with it the eventual collapse of the Balkan front, although this had been denied them when they (Croats and Germans) fought shoulder to shoulder in the last war. The Germans and Croats performed these great acts, because by the collapse of the former state (Yugoslavia) they smashed after the English the most stubborn, most resisting, and most bloodthirsty Versailleist in the Balkans, and thus was created the Independent Croatian State." Thus a Croat describes one of Croatia's proud achievements in the military history of World War II. The fact that the Croats made themselves so eagerly the tools of a foreign power proves that peoples dissimilar in political experience, character, and aims must never again be so closely bound together. The price

which the Serbs, through the Cain-like treachery of the Croats, had to pay for the dream of a great South Slav state, is one which no Serbs or any other sensible people would ever let themselves in for a second time. The Croat betrayal was not only an aid to Germany and an almost deadly blow to the Serbs, but also a very great misfortune to the United Nations. Only by the miracle of a centuries old fighting tradition, by the stanchness of their hearts and the military brilliance of their leader did the Serbs turn the military defeat of the spring of 1941 into a resistance which the Germans, in spite of every force and trickery, have never been able to shatter. But from the Croats even worse was to come.

THE SERBS' DARKEST HOUR

On April 12, 1941, two days after Croatia became an independent state and joined the Axis, an order was published in the Zagreb newspapers requiring all Serbs not natives to the town to leave within twenty-four hours and threatening that anyone hiding Serbs would be shot. This order, by Dr. Ante Pavelich, head of the Independent State of Croatia, was a prelude to a massacre of Serbs not surpassed for brutality and atrocity in the whole sorrowful history of the human race. Even the German massacres of the Jews, incredible as this sounds, pale by comparison. More than 600,000 defenseless Serbs, long resident in Croatia-men, women, and small children-died in literally unprintable circumstances and another half-million were driven from their homes, penniless and dying of starvation by the wayside. Excerpts from four out of many documents describing these massacres are presented here. One is by a Mohammedan resident of Croatia, another by a Jewish physician of Belgrade, and two by Croats themselves. It need hardly be said that many Croats are filled with horror at the fiendish crimes committed by their fellow countrymen. A note on how such massacres were feasible is necessary. As all students of race, language, and nationality know, Europe does not consist of homogeneous populations, but of a series of race, language, or nationality islands. This was true of Yugoslavia. The Serbs did not live exclusively in Serbia nor the Croats in Croatia. Like Americans who move freely from state to state, they settled now here, now there, and some of these settlements were of very ancient date. Thus in the fifteenth century, when hard pressed by the Turks, many Serbs had moved northward, and about a million had settled in Croatia, so that in the Independent State of Croatia one third of the population of Croatia proper was actually Serb. From 1918 onward, Croat politicians like Pavelich and Machek had been deliberately teaching their people to hate the Serbs. One of the clever stratagems which the Croats, as a minority group, found effective was never to oppose the government or a particular ministry or party. Instead they opposed a people. For

twenty-three years prior to the massacres the Croat leaders had been persuading the Croat peasants and workers that all their troubles were due to the Serb "oppressors," just as the Germans were taught that all their troubles were due to the Jews. In thus instilling hatred in the Croats against their brothers, the Serbs, they may have failed to realize that the repression of centuries of vassalage when released would make the Croats run berserk. At any rate, Pavelich decided to secure his position by not only ridding himself of the large Serbian element in Croatia proper, but also eliminating the Serbs in Bosnia, where the majority of the population is Serbian, but which had been given to Croatia in payment for her deal with Germany. Bosnia has always been considered by historians, geographers, and ethnologists to be a Serbian province, since it is predominantly Serb. The population statistics of Bosnia compiled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914 (prior to the outbreak of World War I), when Bosnia was an Austro-Hungarian province, may be considered to be impartial, since Austro-Hungary never liked or was likely to favor the Serbs. Austro-Hungarian Statistics on the Population of Bosnia: 1914 Orthodox 930,000 Moslem 620,000 Catholic 420,000 1,970,000 The 930,000 Orthodox believers of Bosnia were Serbs. The 620,000 Moslems were Serbians who had adopted the Mohammedan faith in the fifteenth century, at a time when this province was ruled by the Turks. The 420,000 Catholics were Croatian Roman Catholics. It is a fact that there are no Croat Orthodox Catholics and no Serbian Roman Catholics. Adding the Orthodox Serbs and the Moslem Serbs together, it will be seen that there were 1,550,000 Serbs in Bosnia in 1914. That is, three fourths of the population was Serbian. Croatia's extermination of the Serbs of Bosnia was therefore as much a violation of the ethics of race and nationality which Europe has evolved during the centuries as anything ever done by the Nazis. It is another return to the barbarism which is the black stigma of our century. The massacres were carried out by the three branches of the Croatian forces, the Ustashi, the Home Defense, and the regular army. Local Croat officials often

participated in the shooting of prominent Serbian citizens belonging to their locality. Most of these officials were men who had been put in by Dr. Machek himself when he set up his autonomous government. They went over, with almost no resignations, to the Axis and continued their functions under Pavelich. The object of the massacres was deliberate and political: it was to make Croatia a Greater Croatia by annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina, so that, if the Allies should by any chance win and allow the population to vote on their choice of country, there should be no Serbs alive to cast their ballots. The history of the massacres is as follows: Between April 12 and 15 and on the night of May 31, 1941, mass arrests were made in Zagreb, Sarajevo, Mostar, Banja-Luka, Travnik, Dubrovnik, Livno, and other towns. The first large massacres occurred the night of May 31, when groups of prominent Serb citizens were seized and taken to the outskirts of the towns and shot. These spring killings in Croatia proper are generally referred to as the Glina massacres. Among the Serbs who died in the spring massacres were the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop of Zagreb, who was seventy-five years old; Dr. Dushan Jeftanovic, president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry; the patriot, Dr. Vojislav Besarovic; and a famous leader of the Sokol youth movement, Bogdan Vivodvic. It should be noted that the Italians again and again tried to intervene to save the defenseless Serbs and often succeeded. Thus about 350 Serbians imprisoned by the Croats in Mostar, Livno, Trebinye, and Dubrovnik were released by the Italians. There were many other instances where the horrors revolted not only the Italians but even the Germans. The great massacres of 1941 did not take place until June 24 to 28. They continued intermittently until November 1942, by which time practically all the I,250,000 Serbs and Jews had been either exterminated or driven out. The later massacres were characterized by the truly Hitlerite trickiness of Dr. Ante Pavelich. On June 22 he issued an order stating that anyone using force against citizens of the country would be severely punished. This notice, designed to put the Serbs off their guard, was broadcast on the radio, read in churches, and published in newspapers. But simultaneously he sent a coded telegram to the Ustashi ordering

them to proceed with the massacres. What happened can best be told by eyewitnesses:

DOCUMENT 1 GRIZOGONO LETTER

Source: Letter written by Privislav Grizogono, a Croat and a Roman Catholic, member of the Yugoslav Diplomatic Corps, Minister to Czechoslovakia, Minister to Poland, addressed to Dr. Aloisius Stepinac, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Zagreb, Croatia, February 8, 1942. Published in translation by the American Srbobran, a Serbian paper of Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.A., February 24, 1943: "These atrocities do not amount to killings alone. They aim at extermination of everything Serbian: women, children, and aged men, and in terribly wild tortures of the victims. These innocent Serbs were stuck on poles alive, and fires were built on their bare chests. Literally they were roasted alive, burned to death in their homes and churches. Boiling water was poured on live victims before mutilation; their flesh was salted. Eyes were dug out of live victims, ears amputated, noses and tongues lobbed off. The beards and mustaches of priests, together with their skin, were ripped off rudely by knives. They were tied to trucks and dragged behind them. The arms and legs of the victims were broken and their heads were spiked. "They were thrown into the deep cisterns and caves, then literally bombed to pieces. Crowbars smashed their heads. Their children were thrown into fire, scalding water, and fed to the fired lime furnaces. Other children were parted by their legs; their heads crushed against walls and their spines dashed against rocks. These and many other methods of torture were employed against the Serbs-tortures which normal people cannot conceive. Thousands of Serbian bodies floated down the Sava, Drava, and Danube rivers and their tributaries. Many of these bodies bore tags: 'Direction-Belgrade, to King Peter.' In one boat on the Sava there was a pile of children's heads, with a woman's head (presumably the mother of the children) labeled: "Meat for John's Market-Belgrade" (meaning meat for the Serbian market). "The case of Milenka Bozinich from Stapandza is a particularly gruesome one: they dug her unborn child out of her with a knife. Then, in Bosnia, a huge pile of

roasted heads was found. Utensils full of Serbian blood were also discovered; this was the hot blood of their murdered brothers that other Serbs were forced to drink. "Countless women, girls, and children were raped, mothers before daughters and daughters before mothers, while many women, girls, and female children were ushered off to Ustashi garrisons to be used as prostitutes. Rapes were committed even before the altars of the Orthodox Church. About 3,000 Serbs were murdered in the Serbian Orthodox Church at Glina, and the massacre of Serbians before the altar at Kladusha with sledge hammers is something never mentioned in history.... "There are detailed and official minutes (reports) about these unheard-of crimes. They are so terrible they have shocked even the Germans and Italians. Many pictures were taken of these massacres and torture orgies. The Germans claim the Croats did these same things during the Thirty-Year War and that, since then, there is a proverb in Germany: 'God save us from cholera, hunger, and the Goats.' Even the Germans from Srem [Syrmia] hate us and act more or less humanely toward the Serbs. The Italians have photographed a vessel holding 31.5 kilograms of Serbian eyes, and one Croat decorated with a wreath of Serbian eyes came to Dubrovnik with two wreaths of Serbian tongues. "Though we Croatians shall never be able to erase this shamefulness which we brought upon ourselves with these crimes, we can at least lessen our responsibility before the world and our consciences if we raise our voices in protest against all these crimes. "This is the last hour for us to do so. After all the great crimes in history, punishments follow. What will happen to us Croats if the impression is formed that we participated in all these crimes to the finish!?"# PRIVISLAV GRIZOGONO At Zemun, Feb. 8, 1942 # There are passages in this document relating to Croatian atrocities which are unprintable.

DOCUMENT 2 LUKAC REPORT

Source: Handwritten report sent by underground channels through Cairo, written by Dr. Theodore Lukac, a Croatian, director of the District Hospital at Mostar, Yugoslavia: . . . "Meanwhile, 24 days after the first pogrom, that is on June 24, 1942, the real massacre began. Vidovdan [the Serb national holiday] was approaching, and the Ustashis openly said that the Serbs would remember this Vidovdan. We now come to the most treacherous crime committed by the Ustashis. On June 22 Pavelich published an order in the official newspapers, on the wireless, and even through church sermons, that whoever used force against the citizens of the state would be most severely punished. At the same time he sent a coded telegram to each Ustashi group, directing them to carry out by whatever means they wished precisely during the days before Vidovdan the massacre and extermination of the Serbs. "From June 24th to the 28th over 100,000 Serbs were murdered in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Lika, Croatia, and Srem [Syrmia]. All of them were innocent men. On this occasion they were carried off, not under cover of night, but in full daylight. The Serbs were caught as if they were wild beasts, in the streets, in official buildings, and in their offices. The peasants were caught in their fields. They were thrown into lorries and carried outside the towns, where they were massacred. Many of them were subjected to the most brutal tortures before they were killed.... "Out of 2,000 Serbs in Livno, over I,900 were murdered. A few old men and women and some small children got away. At Ljuboski all the Serbs were killed and not one was spared. There perished with them a very popular doctor of the town, Dr. Alexander Lukac. "In Stolac, all the Serbs, except three old men of over eighty, were put to death. At Ljubinje and in the valley of Popovo polje, more than 8,000 peasants were killed and all the Serbian villagers were completely exterminated.

"Twelve hundred people were killed in Mostar, among them some of the most prominent persons: seven priests, Dr. Valjko Jelashic, the medical officer, the most prominent businessmen such as the brothers Cerekovic, Ljuba Sain, Jovo Oborin, Tosa Mjunic, and his brother, Dr. Veljko Mjunic, schoolmasters, engineers, judges, and railway officials. "The remainder of the Serbs were saved either by flight into the forests or else by going into Serbia. For a great deal of money permits to travel to Serbia could be bought from the Gestapo.... "In Bihac and the neighborhood not one Serb remained alive. On the eve of Vidovdan they rounded up the peasants in the neighborhood of Bihac and 9,000 men were killed in only four days. The executioners were the gypsy-moslem scum, and they were paid by the Ustashis fifty dinars. a kilogram of mutton, and a kilogram of rakija per hour of murdering. "But the worst murder occurred in Glina. Each night Serbs were bound and taken (from the concentration camps) to the Orthodox Church, where they were killed with knives. The corpses floated on the blood, and the murderers boasted that they walked in Serbian blood up to their knees. "In the valley of the Neretva, from Mostar towards Metkovic, all were exterminated; in Capljina only one Serbian remained alive. In the villages of Klepce and Pribilovci, near Capljina, they took away 300 peasants, deceiving them by telling them that they were being taken to work. Then they shut them up in great sheds, which they set alight so that they died of the most terrible suffering.... "The concentration camps were not barracks, but merely open places which had been enclosed or else roofless sheds, with no floors to lie down upon and where people were shut in as if they were animals. For food they were given once a day a kind of soup, which was in fact merely lukewarm water with five or six beans in it. In the course of three weeks, most of them died of acute dysentery. The most infamous of the camps was the one at Jasenica on the Sava, where over 60,000 people succumbed. "The worst of the women's camps was at Loborgrad. It is impossible to describe the conditions which women had to endure. They could not wash, and they had to lie down on the filth. All the young ones were raped, and girls of fourteen were found to be pregnant. The camp on the island of Pag was the

scene of the most terrible bloodshed. There were about 4,500 Serbs there, 2,500 Jews, and about I,500 Great Nationalists, Communists, and so-called Freemasons. They also lived in the open, and they were murdered under particularly brutal circumstances. When the Ustashis heard that Pag would again be taken over by the Italians, they killed all the persons in the camp at the last moment, merely in order to prevent their being set free by the Italians.... "The turn of some towns, Sarajevo for instance, came as late as October and November 1941 At that time punitive expeditions were sent to the villages around Sarajevo, Palo, Blasuj, Romania, Semozovac, Railevac, all of them purely Serbian villages. They always proceeded in the same way: they either caught the peasants through trickery, or else during night attacks with the help of the regular troops. "The district where the Serbian population was the most compact offered the strongest resistance to the Ustashis: that is, Bosanska, Krcina, E. Bosnia, and Herzegovina. "This terrible catastrophe at the hands of their 'brothers,' according to quite certain information simultaneously collected by two committees, the one on Split and the other, a secret one, in Belgrade, cost the Serbs not less than 700,000 lives."

DOCUMENT 3 HERBEROVIC AFFIDAVIT

Source: A legal affidavit, signed and sworn to by Herberovic Hilmija, a Mohammedan resident of Croatia, in regard to the Glina massacres: "I came to Belgrade in 1938 and lived there until the war. At first I made my livelihood by selling various trifles on the street; later, I was employed as office servant by the Centralno Transportno Drustvo of Kolarceva, Belgrade. "On the day of the bombing I was in Belgrade, and I left on the same day to report to my command in Susak in accordance with my mobilization orders.... I cannot remember the date, but I think it must have been the 17th or 18th of April 1941. The company commander on that date called all the soldiers together and informed us that the war was over and everyone should proceed home.... I arrived home in Bosanski Novi about the 24th of April, 1941.... Then I received an order from the military command in Petrinja to report there.... At the beginning of June my company was ordered to Glina to establish order and peace in that district and to collect all the arms and ammunition from the people.... "On our arrival in Glina we searched the houses of that town and then went to the neighboring villages. When the searching was over, the Ustashis arrived from Zagreb and Petrinja and we were then ordered to round up from the villages all men from twenty to forty five years of age.... At the beginning we arrested only the men. We collected them from the villages and shut them in the Court gaol. There they remained several days, until the gaols were filled, and they were then put to death. The killing was done in several ways. Some were locked up in the Orthodox Church in Glina, which could contain 1,000 men. Then the company officer chose about fifteen men to do the killing. They were then sent into the church with knives. During the butchering, sentries were placed before the church. This was necessary because some of the Orthodox Serbs climbed up the bell tower and jumped into the porch. All these were killed by the sentries in the porch. I was three times chosen to do the killing. Each time we were accompanied by some officers, Dobric Josip and Cvitkovic Mihailo, and some Ustashi officers.

"When we entered the church the officers remained at the door and watched while we did the killing. Some we struck in the heart and some in the neck. Some we struck haphazard. During the killings there were no lights in the church, except that some soldiers were specially appointed to light our way with electric torches. It happened on several occasions that some Serb rushed us with his fists or kicked us in the stomach, but he was butchered immediately. There was always much noise during the killing. The Serbs used to shout 'Long live Serbia,' 'Long live the Serbs,' 'Down with Pavelich,' 'Down with the Ustashis,' 'Down with the Croatian State,' etc. "The killing usually began at about ten o'clock in the evening and lasted until two o'clock in the morning, and the cries were continued until the last Serb was killed. These killings in the church took place seven-eight times, and I took part in them three times. Every time we were so bespattered with blood that our uniforms could not be cleaned. We therefore changed them in the magazine and washed them later. The church was washed after every killing, after the corpses were taken away in motor trucks. Usually they were thrown into the river Glina. Sometimes they were buried. "Some Orthodox Serbs were taken from the gaol to the river Glina and machine-gunned. Usually three to four hundred persons were machine-gunned at a time. They were stood up in two ranks on the bank, tied arm to arm with ropes, and then shot with machine guns which were placed a few yards away. The machinegunning was done by the Ustashis while we stood guard around. The corpses of these persons were thrown into the Glina.... "My company's task was to round up the Serbs in Glina and in the Glina district, but orders were also given that all Serbs in the districts of Topusko and Vrgin Most as well as Glina should be rounded up and killed. I do not know exactly how many Serbs were killed, but I have heard it said that about 120 thousand Serbs from the above mentioned districts have been killed.... "I have nothing more to add. These notes have been read out to me, and all my statements have been correctly written down. "I can read and write." HERBEROVIC HILMIJA

DOCUMENT 4 ANONYMOUS

Source: Letter written by a Jewish physician, professor in the Department of Medicine in the University of Belgrade, to a friend in London on his escape from Yugoslavia in 1942. As the writer is a Jew, for the sake of relatives who remain in Yugoslavia his name cannot be used: "In Yugoslavia there were 85,000 Jews, including Jewish emigrees from Germany, Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Thanks to the Serbs, the Yugoslav Jews had succeeded in saving and rescuing many of their compatriots from Germany and German-occupied countries. Service rendered and assistance given to Jews by Yugoslav consular officials in Austria and Czechoslovakia has specially to be recognized. Of the total number of Jews in Yugoslavia about 7,500 were refugees. "The Jews in Yugoslavia were divided into Sephards, and Eskenasis [Ashkenazis]. The Sephards lived principally in Belgrade and Serbia, also in south Serbia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. The Eskenasis principally settled in Croatia, Slavonia, and the Voivodina. After the partition of Yugoslavia the Jews came under the rule of various regimes, including Pavelich's 'Independent Croatian State.' "The 'solution' of the Jewish question in the Independent Croatia devolved upon the Croatian Ustashis. In Serbia, however, the Jewish problem was not dealt with by the Serbs themselves. This the Germans reserved for themselves. There are special reasons for this. When they occupied Serbia, the Germans did not find any anti-Semitic feeling in the country. They could not persuade either the local population or the local authorities to take any anti-Semitic measures. "The fact that Nedich twice demanded from the German commanding officer in Serbia and the Banat that he and his government should be given the right to settle the Jewish problem, against whom no drastic measures should and could be taken in Serbia, shows the feeling of the Serbian people toward the Jews. The following reasons were given by Nedich to the Germans for this demand. If the

Germans wanted the Serbs to calm down, it would be of first importance to stop the terrible persecution of the Serbian Jews. The Serbian people could not and would not accept such treatment of 'their compatriots of the Jewish religion.' The Serbs consider Jews as their brothers, only of a different religion. The answer which Nedich received from the Germans regarding this demand was 'that the Serbs have not attained a culture to the degree necessary to enable them to deal with the Jews. We ourselves shall settle the Jewish question in Serbia.' "With regard to anti-Semitism, Yugoslavia can be divided into two parts, i.e., districts where this feeling was latent, and Serbia, where, it can be said without any exaggeration, anti-Semitic feeling has never had any root. "During Yugoslavia's twenty-three years of existence, Serbia has always professed the free democratic tradition existing in the former kingdom of Serbia. There in the nineteenth century, and later in the twentieth, the Jews always had full civic rights and complete equality with their Serbian compatriots. This equality was not only granted in various constitutions of the kingdom of Serbia and later of the kingdom of Yugoslavia, but it was also a true expression of the relationship between the Orthodox Serbs and the Jews in their everyday contact. This friendly and amicable relationship also existed in the economic, financial, and political life in Serbia. The small group of Jews living in Serbia gave their contribution towards the cultural and political life in Serbia's struggle for the formation of a state of South Slavs. The Jews had in Serbia members of Parliament. In Serbia's struggle for liberation, the Jews gave their contribution. Several were awarded the Karadgeorge Star for bravery in the battlefield-equivalent to the British V.C. "About a year before Yugoslavia was attacked by Germany, by pressure from the Reich and in their attempt to suit their policy to the dictators, the TsvetkovichMachek Government passed the first anti-Semitic measure in Yugoslavia. The Government was not unanimous on this point. Dr. Koroshets, leader of the Slovenes, upheld the measure as Minister of Education. Serbian cabinet ministers, however, including the Minister of War, refused to apply the act. The application of it was confined to the Ministry of Education, under the Slovene Dr. Koroshets, and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, under the Croat Dr. Andres.

"In all the schools and universities, numerous restrictions were applied by circular, but in Serbia Serb teachers and professors succeeded in avoiding or sabotaging the regulations. "In this regard Serbia completely differed from Croatia under Dr. Machek and the district governor or ban, Shubashich. In Croatia anti Semitism was inherited from Austria-Hungary. Anti-Semitic centers had always existed. Dr. Shubashich's Croatia had even prepared elaborate laws and regulations just before the war broke out in Yugoslavia in 1941. A large part of the industries in Jewish hands in Croatia was to be confiscated and nationalized. Anti-Semitism was particularly stressed in Croatia by the right wing of Dr. Machek's Croatian Peasant Party. "This report could be divided into two parts-the first beginning with the entry of German troops into Belgrade in April 1941 to the beginning of August 1941; the second from the middle of August 1941 until the closing down of the office of the 'Jewish section' late in 1942. The section was closed because there were no longer any Jews in occupied Serbia. During the first stage the Jews were tortured, persecuted, maltreated, taken for forced labor. Well-known Jews and Serbs were taken to German concentration camps. Women of the intelligentsia class were forced to clean latrines in the German barracks, to clean floors and sweep streets under the supervision of the S.S. troops. They were made to clean the windows of high houses from the outside, and several of them lost their lives through falling down. Jewish girls were violated and taken to 'Militar-Medi.' Already during the first stage the Jews were deprived of all their property and most of them were evicted from their homes. "In the second period male Jews were sent to concentration camps. But quite a number of men and young Jews succeeded in escaping to the villages, where they lived with Serbian peasant families. A number later joined the guerrillas. A considerable number of youths from the Jewish Zionist organization, which cooperated with the Serbian organizations for the preparation of resistance, actively helped the guerrilla fighters. Many collected hospital material for the guerrillas or posted anti-German posters in Belgrade streets. The name of Almozlino, a schoolboy of ten, the son of a well-known Belgrade dispensing chemist in King Peter Street, should be mentioned. He threw bombs at two armored German cars and a tank in Grobljanska Street in Belgrade and blew them up. His elder brother, a

medical student, is still fighting in Bosnia, in spite of the order that the mayor and members of the rural councils would be shot if such cases were discovered in their villages. "Some forty of my relatives were shot in Belgrade by the Germans. I am, however, very proud to say that today two small relatives of mine, one of five and one of seven years of age, whose parents were shot by the Gestapo, are being hidden by two Serbian mothers. "No German measures in Belgrade were able to upset the friendly relations between the Serbs and Jews. During the forced-labor period Serbs talked to their Jewish friends in the streets even in front of the German soldiers and police. During the period when over 300,000 Serbs were massacred by the Croat Ustashi in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Lika and some 60,000 shot by the Germans in Serbia, during the period when Serbian students and peasants were hung in the main square in Belgrade, the Serbs of the capital had sufficient courage to protest publicly their indignation at the treatment of the Jews. "When Jewish women were transported in lorries to the concentration camps, Serb shopkeepers in the streets through which these processions passed closed their shops and their houses, thus expressing not only their protest, but also emphasizing the fact that the entire population of Serbia, yesterday and today, does not and cannot participate in the extermination of their Jewish neighbors. "The example of the Serbian people with regard to the Jews is unique in Europe, particularly in the southern part of the continent. In spite of intensive German propaganda in writing and through the wireless, the Serbs remained unaffected. When we consider what happened to the Jews in neighboring countries, in the 'Independent State of Croatia,' Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria, the Serbian example shines out. "Today there are no more Jews left in Serbia, except some children hidden by the Serbs and those fighting along with the Serbs in the forests. I saved my own life thanks to my Serbian friends. I was saved from certain death. Serbian peasants and my other friends also saved from death my only son, who was on several occasions sought by the Gestapo in Belgrade.

"It is my desire as a Jew and as a Serb that in free democratic countries where Jews are still enjoying full freedom and equality they should show gratitude to the Serbian people, pointing out their noble acts, their humane feelings, and their high civic consciousness and culture.... "I cannot conclude this report without mentioning how the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch Gavrilo, and his clergy tried to save Serbian Jews and Gypsies. Up to the present day the Germans have massacred 170,000 Gypsies, men, women, and children, in Serbia and the Banat. Serbian Orthodox priests and the Serbian peasantry risked their lives not only to save ordinary Jews and their children but also to save those Gypsies and their children. Today the chief rabbi of Yugoslav Jews lives in America. He was saved from the Gestapo, being smuggled out from Serbia from monastery to monastery by the Serbian clergy. He was handed over by one Serbian church to another, by one Serbian priest to another until he was passed on to Bulgarian territory. There, with the assistance of the Orthodox Bulgarian clergy, some of whom were his personal friends, he arrived at the Turkish frontier." The preceding documents, only a few of many, give some indication of the extent and ferocity of the Croat crime against their utterly defenseless fellow countrymen and also of the really magnificent spirit of our allies and brothers, the Serbs. The thought of what the result will be is truly terrifying. There is not a Serb alive who has not lost some relative dear to him, murdered, with unimaginable torture, by a race whom the Serbs themselves rescued from what the Croats then called their "oppressor," Austria-by those same Croats, even the identical men, who only twenty-three years ago received their "dear deliverers," their "dear brother-Slavs," with fervent acclamation and expressions of "undying gratitude and love." If ever revenge massacres were justified they are justified in this case. But in the interests of world peace and of the remaining Serbs themselves, our splendid allies, every one of whom we value and want to save alive, we must prevent a postwar war of revenge in the Balkans.

THE SERBS CHOSE WAR

Excerpts from "The Serbs Chose War" by Ruth Mitchell published in 1943 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-7242 AT TEN-FIFTEEN on the morning of March 25, 1941, the news flashed: "Yugoslavia has signed the Axis pact." It was a moment of destiny for Europe, for the world. It was a moment when the flame of freedom guttered so perilously low that many of the bravest spirits of our time averted their eyes, sure that it was now finally to be extinguished. Then an almost incredible thing happened, a thing so important to the history of the world that freedom-loving men will speak of it with admiration and with gratitude down through the centuries. The Serbs rose. A little race of not more than eight million souls deliberately, sternly decided to die rather than to submit to Axis vassalage. They were the only small race of Europe to come in openly on the side of the Allies before they were themselves attacked and while they still had promises of complete security of frontiers, of lives, and of property; the first and only small race themselves to declare war- a war they knew to be absolutely hopeless- against the invincible German war machine. Why did they do it? What caused their decision? What has enabled them to succeed when other, larger, much better equipped peoples failed or didn't even try? These are important questions, important to our own present war effort, important to the future of Europe, very important to future world peace. The Serbs chose war. They chose to die. They died. They are dying today-not by hundreds, not by thousands, but by hundreds of thousands, men, women, and small children. The Serbs chose war. In spite of all the horrors they expected, this small race almost unanimously decided to oppose themselves against the greatest war machine of history. And in spite of the unexpected, unpredictable horrors that have befallen them, they still choose war. Why?

It took me over three years to find out. I gave the dying men and women of Serbia my promise that I would spend the rest of my life looking after their children. I promised them that America would never forget the bond and the debt. I pledged American honor that the thousands upon thousands of orphans left in a ruined land would be cherished by their American brothers and sisters. In view of all that the Serbs have done-for us; in view of all they have lost in fighting-for us; in view of all they have saved-to us- in money and in lives, I propose that for the rebuilding and the future of Serbia we appropriate the cost to us of one day of war. Knowing that nothing could have been nearer to the fighting heart of my brother than the Fighting Serbs, I have established in his memory the General Billy Mitchell Memorial Foundation for Balkan Youth. I pledged the honor of my country. I rely upon my countrymen with complete trust to help me to keep that pledge.

CONTENT:

1.Moment of Destiny 2.Albanian Prelude 3.Journalists Paradise 4.The Royal Nonesuch Takes a Wife 5.Oil Turns to Dynamite 6.Enter a Conqueror, Exit Myself 7.A Bow to an Old Balkan Custom 8.I Meet Kings Son Marko 9.My Brother Vukosava 10.The Chetniks Are Serbs 11.Again Expulsion? 12.Ready, My Chetnik Brothers 13.Well-And Why Not? 14.The Saints Fight Too 15.The Plot That Failed 16.Vain Warnings 17.Watchman, What of America? 18.We Are Serbian Children 19.The Serbs Choose War 20.Something New and Something Old 21.The Patriarch Goes to His Golgotha

22.Promises Instead of Planes 23.A Torch Is Lit Which Shall Never Go Out 24.Good-by Helmuthl 25.Nightmare Journey 26.Some to Flight and Some to Flight 27.Forever Undefeated 28.Knives Against Tanks 29.Treason and Ambush 30.Between the Enemy Lines 31.A Myth Dies Unmourned 32.Shopping for Gun Emplacements 33.The Champions 34. I Prepare to join General Mihailovich 35.We Are Gestapo! 36.Prison 37.Neither Quickly Free nor Quite Dead 38.A Three-Hun dred-Thous and-Dollar Bed 39.Court-martial 40.The Verdict Is Guilty 41.Women Against the Gestapo 42.Guests of the Gestapo 43.Trudi 44.Is It the End?

45.Smilya Leaves Me a Son 46.Hahn 47.Orphans of the Guns 48.The Field That Groaned 49.Uncle Luke 50.The Minuet of Death 51.Pride and Shame 52.The Informer 53.This Is German Culture 54.Leka Saves Her Man 55.Prison Bernhardt 56.Rose 57.Prepare to Shoot the Hostages 58.My Sister Zora 59.A Dream Stronger than Tanks 60.Epilogue 61.Yugoslavia: A Versailles Failure 62.The Serbs Darkest Hour