attempt was being made, so far as I could see, to repair the shell-torn
buildings, to clean the refuse-littered streets, or to afford the
inhabitants even the most nominal police protection. The crack of rifles
and revolvers is as frequent in the streets of Monastir as the bang of
bursting tires on Fifth Avenue. A Serbian sentry, on duty outside the
house in which I was sleeping, suddenly loosed off a clip of cartridges
in the street, for no reason in the world, it seemed, than because he
liked to hear the noise! Dead bodies are found nearly every morning.
Murders are so common that they do not provoke even passing comment. In
the night there comes a sharp bark of an automatic or the shattering
roar of a hand-grenade (which, since the war proved its efficacy, has
become the most recherché weapon for private use in these regions), a
clatter of feet, and a "Hello! Another killing." That is all. Life is
the cheapest thing there is in the Balkans.

The only really clean place we found in Monastir was the American Red
Cross Hospital, an extremely well-managed and efficient institution,
which was under the direction of a young American woman, Dr. Frances
Flood, who, with a single woman companion, Miss Jessup, pluckily
remained at her post throughout the greater part of the war. The
officers who during the war achieved rows of ribbons for having acted as
messenger boys between the War Department and the foreign military
missions in Washington, would feel a trifle embarrassed, I imagine, if
they knew what this little American woman did to win _her_ decorations.

It is in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty miles from Monastir
to Salonika across the Macedonian plain and the road is one of the very
worst in Europe. Deep ruts, into which the car sometimes slipped almost
to its hubs, and frequent gullies made driving, save at the most
moderate speed, impossible, while, as many of the bridges were broken,