The Luck of Thirteen

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The Luck of Thirteen

Project Gutenberg's The Luck of Thirteen, by Jan Gordon Cora J. Gordon
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Title: The Luck of Thirteen Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia
Author: Jan Gordon Cora J. Gordon
Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17291]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital Libraries.)

[Illustration: JO AT THE MACHINE GUN.]

THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN
WANDERINGS AND FLIGHT THROUGH MONTENEGRO AND SERBIA
BY
MR. AND MRS. JAN GORDON
WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND A MAP TAIL PIECES BY CORA J. GORDON COLOUR PLATES BY JAN GORDON
NEW YORK E.P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE 1916
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
II. NISH AND SALONIKA 10
III. OFF TO MONTENEGRO 20
IV. ACROSS THE FRONTIER 31
V. THE MONTENEGRIN FRONT ON THE DRINA 47
VI. NORTHERN MONTENEGRO 66
VII. TO CETTINJE 85
VIII. THE LAKE OF SCUTARI 99
IX. SCUTARI 105
X. THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO 122
XI. IPEK, DECHANI AND A HAREM 145
XII. THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO--II 169
XIII. USKUB 182
XIV. MAINLY RETROSPECTIVE 198
XV. SOME PAGES FROM MR. GORDON'S DIARY 213
XVI. LAST DAYS AT VRNTZE 227
XVII. KRALIEVO 244
XVIII. THE FLIGHT OF SERBIA 263
XIX. NOVI BAZAR 284
XX. THE UNKNOWN ROAD 299
XXI. THE FLEA-PIT 315
XXII. ANDRIEVITZA TO POD 328
XXIII. INTO ALBANIA 341
XXIV. "ONE MORE RIBBER TO CROSS" 359
INDEX 377

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
COLOURED PLATES
FACING PAGE
Jo at the Machine Gun Frontispiece The Ipek Pass in Winter 140
Retreating Ammunition Train 276
Albanian Mule-drivers Camping 354
HALF-TONE PLATES
Out-patients 4
Shoeing Bullocks 4
Peasant Women in Gala Costume, Nish 20
Serb Convalescents at Uzhitze 28
Serb and Montenegrin Officers on the Drina 58
A Concealed Gun Emplacement on the Drina 58
Peasant Women of the Mountains 76
A Village of North Montenegro 76
Jo and Mr. Suma in the Scutari Bazaar 110
Christian Women hiding from the Photographer 112
Scutari--Bazaar and Old Venetian Fortress 112
Disembarkation of a Turkish Bride 114
Governor Petrovitch and his Daughter in their State Barge 114
In the Bazaar of Ipek 162
Street Coffee Seller in Ipek 162
A Wine Market in Uskub 184
Big Gun passing through Krusevatz 194
In-patients 202
Broken Aeroplane in the Arsenal at Krag 220
Where the "Plane" fell 220
House near the Arsenal damaged by Bombs 220
Peasant Women leaving their Village 260
Serb Family by the Roadside 260
The Flight of Serbia 266
Unloading the Benedetto, San Giovanni di Medua 364
Route Map of the Authors' Wanderings At end of text

THE LUCK OF THIRTEEN

INTRODUCTION
It is curious to follow anything right back to its inception, and to discover from what extraordinary causes results are due. It is strange, for instance, to find that the luck of the thirteen began right back at the time when Jan, motoring back from Uzhitze down the valley of the Morava, coming fastish round a corner, plumped right up to the axle in a slough of clinging wet sandy mud. The car almost shrugged its shoulders as it settled down, and would have said, if cars could speak, "Well, what are you going to do about that, eh?" It was about the 264th mud hole in which Jan's motor had stuck, and we sat down to wait for the inevitable bullocks. But it was a Sunday and bullocks were few; the wait became tedious, and in the intervals of thought which alternated with the intervals of exasperation, Jan realized that he needed a holiday.
To be explicit. Jan was acting as engineer to Dr. Berry's Serbian Mission from the Royal Free Hospital:--Jan Gordon, and Jo is his wife, Cora Josephine Gordon, artist, and V.A.D.
We had a six months of work behind us. We had seen the typhus, and had dodged the dreaded louse who carries the infection, we had seen the typhus dwindle and die with the onrush of summer. We had helped to clean and prepare six hospitals at Vrntze or Vrnjatchka Banja--whichever you prefer. We had helped Mr. Berry, the great surgeon, to ventilate his hospitals by smashing the windows--one had been a child again for a moment. Jo had learned Serbian and was assisting Dr. Helen Boyle, the Brighton mind specialist, to run a large and flourishing out-patient department to which tuberculosis and diphtheria--two scourges of Serbia--came in their shoals. We had endeavoured to ward off typhoid by initiating a sort of sanitary vigilance committee, having first sacked the chief of police: we had laid drains, which the chief Serbian engineer said he would pull up as soon as we had gone away. We had helped in the plans of a very necessary slaughter-house, which Mr. Berry was going to present to