* * * *

You will get quite a serviceable impression of what the highlands and
highlanders of Serbia and Montenegro were like in war, behind the lines
when the lines still held, from _The Luck of Thirteen_ (SMITH, ELDER),
by JAN GORDON (colourist) and CORA his wife, if you are not blinded by
the perpetual flashes of brightness--such flashes as "somebody had
gnawed a piece from one of the wheels" as an explanation of jolting;
"the twistiest stream, which seemed as though it had been designed by a
lump of mercury on a wobbling plate;" the trees in the mist "seemed to
stand about with their hands in their pockets, like vegetable
Charlie----" But no! I am hanged if I will write the accursed name. This
plucky pair of souls had put in some stiff months of typhus-fighting
with a medical mission in the early months of the war, and these are
impressions of the holiday which they took thereafter among those
fateful hills, with a little carrying of despatches, retrieving of
stores and a good deal of parasite-hunting thrown in, until they were
finally caught up in the tragic Serbian retreat; still remaining, of
course, incurably "bright." I think I detect a certain amount of the
too-British attitude that contemns what is strange and is more than a
little scornful of poverty, official and private. And I suppose the
artist's wife will scoff if I tell her that I was shocked that she
should have taken some shots at the Austrians with a Montenegrin machine
gun, as if war was just a cock-shy for tourists. But I was. If Mr. JAN
GORDON found a good deal more colour in his subjects than we other
fellows would have been able to see, that's what an artist's for.

* * * * *

[Illustration: SALVE.

_Returning Soldier._ "'ULLO, MOTHER!"

_His Wife (with stoic self-control)._ "'ULLO, FRED. BETTER WIPE YER
BOOTS BEFORE YOU COME IN--AFTER THEM MUDDY TRENCHES."]

* * * * *

In _Jitny and the Boys_ (SMITH, ELDER) there are those elements of
patriotism, humour and pathos which I find so desirable in War-time
books. _Jitny_ was neither man nor woman, but a motor-car, and without
disparaging those who drove her and rode in her I am bound to say that
she was as much alive as any one of them. She certainly talked--or was
responsible for--a lot of motor-shop, and I took it all in with the
greatest ease and comfort. _Jitny_ indeed is a great car, but she is not
exactly