Photograph by Herbert Corey 

 ORDERS HAD JUST BEEN RECEIVED TO MOVE THE BATTERY ON, AS THE BULGARIANS 



WERE RETREATING 

 Twelve horses were needed to tear the gun out of the reluctant mud 



away. At night the tapping of the mi- 

 trailleuse seemed in the very edge of 

 town. 



It was too large a town to be hurriedly 

 evacuated. There are few asylums for 

 refugees in this land of ruined villages 

 and minute farms. So that only the very 

 poor — perhaps ten thousand in all — who 

 had no food and no money and no hope, 

 were sent away to Saloniki and elsewhere 

 at the start. The richer ones trembled at 

 home. 



One by one they were permitted to 

 leave ; but when I saw Monastir for the 

 last time, in January, fully one-half of 

 its population were still hiding in the 

 cellars and hoping that the Bulgarians 

 might be driven on. The streets were 

 empty. The one cafe that remained open 



was tenanted only by French soldiers, 

 singing a rousing Gallic chorus ; and in 

 the single restaurant the only guests be- 

 side myself were the Italian officers. At 

 night there is never a light in the city. 



I have never felt so absolutely alone as 

 in wandering through these broad, white, 

 moonlighted streets. When a regiment 

 of tired men shuffled by, their hobnails 

 scraping on the cobbles, I sat down on 

 the curb to watch them. They took the 

 curse of emptiness off the town. 



Then an English officer came up and 

 asked the sort of a question one learns to 

 expect from an Englishman and from no 

 other man on earth. 



"Where," said he, "can I find a piano? 

 We want to have a sort of a sing-song 

 tonisrht." 



412 



