Passions of War by Hilary Green Page B

no, Miss Leo. Don’t you fret.’ She could hear that he had himself under control now. ‘I just wanted to let you know. As you say, there’s nowt we can do except pray the war doesn’t last too long.’
    â€˜Amen to that!’ Leo said.
    When she had put the phone down tears welled up in her eyes. She had maintained a stoic attitude to her manager, but the thought of her beautiful little mare, her father’s last gift, being caught up in the chaos of the battlefield was almost unbearable. She bit her lips. First Sasha, then Ralph and Tom, and now her beloved horse had been swallowed up in this pointless war and it was quite possible that she would never see any of them again.
    Acute as her anxiety was for Tom and Ralph, it was doubled by the news from Serbia. Max, who was still at his post as a correspondent for an American newspaper in Belgrade, wrote to her every week and in this way she had learned that for two weeks the city had been bombarded by the Austrian’s heavy Krupp’s guns from across the Danube and Sava Rivers, while the main element of the Serbian army, short of supplies and ammunition, had struggled back from the south where they had been guarding the borders of Macedonia. Then had come the news of the battle of Cer Mountain, at which the Austrians had been driven back by the Serbs under General Putnik and it seemed Belgrade had been delivered from the immediate threat. Max wrote, however, that the Austrians were still massed on the borders and he expected a renewed attack at any time. Sasha, he had found out, had survived that battle, but Leo could only wonder how much longer his luck would hold.
    After a long silence, which stretched her nerves almost to breaking point, she received a letter from Tom.
    17 Sept
    My Dear Leo,
    Please forgive me for not writing sooner. There really has not been a spare moment in the last few weeks. I can’t go into details about places and dates but I think you will have read in the papers about the fighting around Mons. That was followed by a ‘strategic withdrawal’ which involved marching for twenty hours out of every twenty-four, until we were almost on the outskirts of Paris. How the men did it I shall never know. It was hard enough on horseback. Now, thank God, we have stopped retreating and the German advance has been halted at the Marne. Everyone is exhausted and we seem to have reached a kind of stalemate, so there’s no knowing where we might go next.
    I’ve seen things that have filled me with admiration, and others that have made me despair. For those of us, like you and me, who have some experience of modern warfare the positively medieval ideas of some of our commanders are almost unbelievable. Would you believe that the French cavalry charge machine guns, wearing their polished cuirasses and plumed helmets, as if they were going on parade? And the ordinary French soldier wears a red coat and blue trousers, as if the intention is to make him a perfect target for enemy fire. I have seen them shot down like a flock of pheasants.
    Enough of this! I am well – surprisingly so, in fact – and so is Ralph. He would write but he spends all his spare time going round his men, listening to their troubles and cheering them along. He is a very popular officer, justifiably. I will write again when I can and meanwhile I enclose a few of my more light-hearted sketches.
    With my love,
    Tom
    Two days later Leo learned from the papers that the Austrians had successfully invaded Serbia and were besieging Belgrade.
    One day Leo and Victoria arrived at FANY HQ with the rest of the Corps to discover Ashley-Smith awaiting them with her second-in-command, Lilian Franklin. In response to the chorus of delighted greetings she said, ‘Well, the good news is, on the boat home I met a M. Louis Franck, who is the Belgian Minister for the Colonies. When I told him what we were hoping to do he said that the Belgian army would