Every night the Old Colonel, Natasan, and Marko joined the medical unit at its campsite in the orchard. Dafoe enjoyed these gatherings, for their convivial atmosphere and the fascinating stories he heard. Such evenings greatly appealed to him, too, as an outdoorsman. Sitting in the firelight under a starry sky, Dafoe would smoke his pipe and listen as Miki translated anecdotes and conversation. The Partisans were respectful of the Canadian surgeon, though they scolded him good-naturedly on occasion, and his fondness for tobacco often drew a well-meaning gibe.
    "Pusite kao Turcin, gospodine majore," someone ventured the first time the subject surfaced. Miki chuckled.
    "He says, 'You smoke like a Turk, Sir Major.' It is a small joke."
    While such things lightened everyone's mood, there were also accounts of atrocities committed by Cetniks, Ustasi, Zeleni Kadar, and SS troops in the area and elsewhere. The enemy was determined to exhaust the Partisan army's will to resist and, as a result, were inflicting more and more barbaric reprisals — schoolchildren herded into buildings which were then torched; citizens arbitrarily rounded up and hanged from lamp standards; mass executions. Such incidents would be related in grisly detail.
    And there were heroic accounts of the many narrow escapes the Partisans had effected since the war began — proud moments for a still-nascent guerrilla army. The epic of Durmitor was widely known. Just as incredible was the drama that had unfolded in the deep gorge of the river Neretva in southern Bosnia. There, Tito destroyed the only bridge to convince the enemy he would not cross it, then did exactly that — with thousands of wounded, hundreds of them ravaged by typhoid.
    Dafoe's memories of these nights would last a lifetime.
    He maintained a steady rate of fifteen surgical cases a day as the medical unit worked from dawn to dusk. The death rate at the hospital averaged six per day at this time. Yet Dafoe noticed a marked change in the patients since his arrival. Now, with their wounds encased in plaster, and their suffering alleviated by drugs, and with sanitary conditions improving gradually, the patients smiled more often and brightened perceptibly whenever Dafoe entered the hospital.
    Still, he was surprised the first time someone called him "tata" ("father" or "daddy"). It was strange enough to be called "Sir Major Dafoe" or "Sir Colin."
    Sometimes at night he would quietly pull up a chair and sit next to a patient in one of the wards, where he pondered ways of improving the hospital. He still considered it an uphill battle to put across the need for cleanliness. Units of Partisans regularly swept the grounds with brush brooms, and a ditch had been dug to control the rivulets of water that created pools of mud. But one afternoon as Dafoe returned to the hospital, he was alarmed to see a pig calmly sauntering into the main surgical theatre. It struck him as a fitting metaphor, and must have amused him as well, for he took a snapshot of the Partisans fearfully chasing the old sow back outside.
    Still, the constant need to remind the nurses to wash the patients left him frustrated. There were several matters he felt needed attention — enough, in fact, that he found time to hike to Korpus HQ in Dukici, where he called on Kosta Nadj and Vladimir Popovic.
    As usual, Nadj greeted Dafoe by his middle name, setting everyone at ease. He listened carefully to Dafoe's complaints, then promised to help achieve further improvements to the hospital in Mihajlovici. Blankets and food from Allied supply drops would in future be forwarded almost at once, he said. Nadj expressed his appreciation for Dafoe's efforts in his regular wireless schedules to SOE in Bari, requesting additional aid and equipment. Dafoe left the meeting in high spirits, relieved to know that Korpus HQ — and particularly Kosta Nadj — was fully behind him.
    Dafoe raised the subject of improvements with Marko and the Old Colonel that night at the campsite. He had an idea, he said, and he wanted a reaction.
    Dafoe proposed erecting an outdoor ward built of wood and parachute silk. He had in mind an ingenious arrangement resembling a series of hammocks inside a circus canopy. This involved a camouflaged parachute at the top, with two more beneath it and one thick canvas parachute to waterproof those, then another tightly stretched canvas to be suspended several inches from the ground. Marko and the Old Colonel nodded approvingly, their enthusiasm so great that they suggested setting out at once in search of a site. They all settled on a clearing in an orchard not far from the stream where Dafoe washed every morning. He could already imagine the patients sitting in the warm sunshine, growing healthier each day. At the same time, he hit upon the idea of constructing a new surgical theatre in a similar way.
    Before lunch the next day Dafoe inspected Marko's progress with the concept for the parachute ward. The arrangement seemed as though it might work, the only concern being whether the lower parachute would hold the weight of the patients. Dafoe no sooner mentioned this to Marko than sixteen volunteers were found and positioned in the lower canvas. It sagged, but held. Still, Dafoe worried that patients with fractured femurs and plastered limbs might find it uncomfortable. He suggested bracing it underneath, provided the arrangement would remain waterproof and not collect pools of water.
    Dafoe took several snapshots of the prototype with his Leica and then stood back to admire Marko's handiwork. Several of the ambulatory patients crowded around, leaning on their crutches or on someone's shoulder. To a man they approved and thanked tata profusely for his idea.
    The afternoon was occupied by the arrival of new patients and by others who needed dressings changed. Dafoe was pushing himself to treat everyone — so much so that Miki worried the Canadian was working too hard. When Dafoe refused Miki's suggestion of an afternoon siesta, he slowed the rate at which patients were admitted to the surgical theatre. Dafoe soon caught on to his guard's manoeuvring and put an end to it.
    "Every minute counted," he said. "A day's delay in treatment may have meant an amputation, so I kept pushing everybody."
    Frank and Chris worked well as a team, and the young nurse named Jordy, or "Judy" — the girl with vivid colouring, dark hair, and velvety eyes — was improving her skills rapidly.
    Her real name was Jordana Herlinger. Born in Osijek, Croatia, she was the daughter of an esteemed Jewish surgeon, Dr Ivo Herlinger, who had fled to Bosnia with his young family in 1941 when the Germans arrived. He worked in a small town until the Partisans came, enduring the enemy's Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth offensives while becoming attached to the Third Korpus which made its way to Mihajlovici. Here Dr Herlinger had established the foundations of the No 1 Hospital.
    Jordy, at sixteen, was a valuable asset to the surgical theatre. She had the ability to anticipate the Canadian surgeon's needs as he operated. Forty years later, Jordy remembered clearly the effect Dafoe had on the Partisans.
    "Major Dafoe transformed this hospital into something which really looked like a hospital," she said. Jordy's command of English was limited to only a few words when she met Dafoe. But communication was seldom a problem:
    "At that time I was very young. I didn't have any particular training as a nurse. I was more a kind of orderly. Sometimes I was thinking: 'Why did Major Dafoe choose me for the operating room, and not the other so-called nurses?' Then I thought, 'Maybe when two people work together they have an understanding of each other.' Probably this was the reason he judged I could be a good worker in the operating room. I remember vividly an operation, an amputation. He had no need to tell me how to hold the leg. From his behaviour, I knew. Or some other operation: he didn't have the need to talk to me much. Almost nothing, because I knew in advance how he would like to have it."
    Jordy marvelled at how serious and dedicated Dafoe seemed in the surgical theatre. Moreover, it was widely felt that tata — "our doctor from Canada" — had adopted the Partisan struggle as his own: "I realized he had a tremendous...understanding for us. And in the meantime, he had a lot of humour in his observations."
    Still, Dafoe could be angered easily, "if someone didn't care, did his work because he must do it, if he didn't love...what he works for. There were a few young girls — nurses, so-called — who really...were not interested. They didn't try hard. And this made him extremely angry."
    The rapport between Dafoe and Jordy grew so quickly that he asked Marko to assign the young girl to the theatre permanently and schedule a second nurse only. Marko consented to his request.
    That night, the discussion in the campsite focused again on the sanitary conditions in the hospital. Dafoe wanted proper latrines and washstands constructed — even hot-water baths, if possible. He had heard that it was sometimes difficult to persuade the Partisans to use latrines. He laughed when Miki translated someone's remark that everyone preferred to "piss on Ottawa." This was a play on words combining English and Serbo-Croat and the Yugoslav word for "grass" which sounded like the name of the Canadian capital.
    Within days, Marko succeeded in getting construction of the new wards underway. He attacked the project with inspired enthusiasm. His normal duties — managing morale, scrounging food and supplies, organizing hospital details — were wearing him down already, Dafoe feared. He knew Marko had asked Korpus HQ to give him another assignment — as a mechanic, preferably. Still, the measure of his contribution to the new wards was that he persevered without complaint. Perhaps the opportunity to work again with his hands had helped.
    Marko had also given some attention to the medical unit's personal needs. He appointed several young girls to fetch water, wash, and tidy the campsite. Two of them endeared themselves to Dafoe and his assistants with their precocious motherly instincts and exuberance. One, named Vera, Dafoe described as "very efficient" and "interesting." She worked hard without a word.
    The other girl, not more than fourteen, was named "Zaida" or "Zada." Dafoe and the others took an immediate and almost paternal liking to this shy waif-child and called her "Susy."
    Susy was especially fond of flowers, often decorating Dafoe's tent with garlands of wild blooms. Both girls worked with imagination to anticipate the needs of the men in the medical unit. The food was excellent as a result, with plenty of meat, and tea with powdered milk. "They always asked us what we liked and would try to get it for us," Dafoe recalled wistfully.
    Whenever they managed to find a free hour, Dafoe, Frank, and Chris would go into the woods for target practice. They all carried Lama pistols, but Dafoe was also armed with his prized Marlin, a lightweight American-made sniper's gun equipped with special sights and four 25-round magazines. He had a Mauser, too, that he had collected in Cairo. "It was a dream — a big, wicked-looking thing in a wooden case, built like a fine watch," he wrote.
    Firing valuable ammunition into the woods made Dafoe reflect on his proximity to the fighting. Miki assured him that the enemy was lurking about the area; and occasionally Dafoe might see armoured vehicles and columns in a valley below the village. But that was all.
    Still, Dafoe acknowledged that the fighting and the war were not far away. For one thing, the number of casualties arriving at the hospital maintained a steady rate. Some had improved and were moved out to a divisional hospital. But with the new arrivals, the number of beds in use always remained at close to 150. Dafoe was concerned by the growing number of amputations required, a result of the length of time it took to get wounded transported to the hospital. As for serious head and abdominal wounds, these were rarely seen at all at this time. Field care was inadequate and Partisans so wounded usually died before reaching hospital.

The medical unit was hard at work in the surgical theatre early one morning when the sound of an approaching aeroplane silenced everyone at once. Its defeated, raw-edged rumbling passed directly overhead. Then came the sound of a loud crash from the direction of a wooded hillside several hundred metres away.
    In a moment, Miki burst into the theatre and pressed Dafoe to let him investigate. Dafoe, in the middle of an operation, gave his young guard permission to go.
    Miki reappeared some forty minutes later, triumphantly clasping a large rubber sheet, a first-aid kit, a pilot's battered forage cap, and several odds and ends from the wreckage of the downed aeroplane. Inside the cap was a name in ink that looked like "Lt Georgalis." There were no other signs of the aircrew — and no parachutes. The men had obviously baled out and abandoned the aeroplane to its violent fate on the mountainside.
    Miki said it was a Flying Fortress and that it had torn a deep gash in the earth and scattered bits of wreckage everywhere. Dafoe sent Chris back to the site with Miki and when they got there they found a mob of Partisans and peasants crawling over the wreckage. Miki wasted a little time in trying to effect law and order by firing several warning shots overhead. But eventually even he surrendered somewhat to the mood, sorting through the tangled wreckage to salvage a Very pistol and a supply of rockets as well as some packets of concentrated food.
    When Dafoe finally inspected the crash site personally, he realized that a number of items might be useful in constructing the new hospital wards. The rubber fuel tanks in the wings could be used to cover cracks in the theatre flooring. Water tanks, taps and basins, even a few windows might come in handy. "There wasn't much else," he remarked sadly, "as everything was a mass of wreckage."
    Dafoe returned to the hospital and resumed work. There he considered his good fortune. The Flying Fortress had missed the hospital, but had landed virtually on his doorstep. Once it was properly cannibalized, it would help speed progress on the new accommodations.
    It was not until the next day that Dafoe learned the fate of the airmen who had baled out of the aircraft. Captain Wilson, who came to visit the hospital, told him they had landed in enemy territory where they were rounded up by Cetniks. Wilson joined the medical unit for lunch and chatted away with an unusual lack of reserve. Dafoe suspected the man was lonely.
    Wilson informed Dafoe that Korpus HQ was very impressed by the work he and his assistants were doing in Mihajlovici. He added that somehow the General Staff had the idea they were working "continuously, from morning to night." The remark did not go unnoticed. He went on to relate the General Staff's enthusiasm for Dafoe's plan to move patients into the new wards in the plum orchard. Later he promised to send as much materiel as could be spared from incoming supply drops.
    Fortunately, night sorties of aeroplanes were now arriving regularly again, dropping abundant supplies of food, clothing, and arms to the hospital site. According to Dafoe's estimate, the sorties in May totalled more than eighty, "and June promised to be almost as good if not better." The improved food and good supply of cigarettes lifted everyone's spirits. Frank and Chris had a seemingly unlimited store of tea, powdered milk, and sugar to make life at the campsite more comfortable.
    Meanwhile, Marko's work crew strove to finish the showers and ablution stands. An isolation ward for patients with dysentery was also erected, while separate latrines were under construction. Dafoe felt pleased, proud, and optimistic.
    Then one day Commissar Vladimir Popovic arrived and assembled a conference.
    "There were a lot of compliments flying about," Dafoe noted, assuming at first that it was just another morale-boosting visit.
    But when coffee was served after lunch, Dafoe learned that Marko was to be replaced. Popovic went on to assure Dafoe that everything would be done to effect a smooth transition while maintaining the excellent rate of progress on construction of the new wards. Two commissars would fill Marko's position, he said. Dafoe was disappointed, even though he knew Marko had requested a new assignment. He liked Marko a lot and appreciated his dedication to his work. For that reason, he asked if Marko could at least stay until the new site was finished. Popovic agreed to the proposal. Sensing that the time was opportune for a few additional requests, he asked for more nurses and extra carpenters. Popovic nodded.
    Then, after "more back-slapping" and remarks like "Canadians are the best soldiers in the world, etc" — as Dafoe recalled in his laconic way — everyone returned to work.
    The next day brought the new commissars. One — Milutin Djuraskovic, but called "Djuras" — was a spare and timid man "with rather a worried look on his face." Miki said he was highly regarded among the Partisans for having done "some very good work."
    The other commissar was a female major — Dafoe did not catch her name — who arrived "well dressed in men's britches and Partisan tunic." He felt slightly uneasy around this woman who seemed unaccountably eager to come down hard on his female staff.
    Djuras visited the campsite that night to discuss several matters with Dafoe. He listened carefully as the Canadian brought him up to date with the ambitious scheme for new facilities, and even made a few suggestions. Dafoe was satisfied they had made a good start.
    At about this time, another newcomer was introduced to Dafoe. His name was Ismet Mujezinovic and Miki explained, reverentially, that he was a respected and much-loved artist. At thirty-seven, he was a handsome man with fine features, appraising eyes, and longish hair.
    Ismet's stature as an artist and his long-standing association with Tito after the war were cemented during his days as a guerrilla with the Partisans. An impressive, unforgettable character, he had studied abroad and worked for a time on the Adriatic coast.
    More recently he had been an officer in the Royal Yugoslav Army and was reportedly a good shot. One day, shortly after Ismet's arrival, someone asked a group of men sitting in the sun, "Who's the best shot here?"
    "I am," the artist boasted.
    "What can you do with a Schmeisser?" someone else asked, handing him the captured weapon. Ismet took it and stood up.
    "You see the crows?" he asked, aiming a delicate finger at a tree several hundred metres away. "Only one will fall."
    Ismet raised the Schmeisser and squeezed the trigger. Sure enough, one bird fell in the distant tree as the others swiftly flew away. It was a brilliant feat of marksmanship — or so it seemed. When Ismet attempted it again after everyone had left, he was unable to repeat it.
    Ismet was fond of pinning a piece of paper on a tree as a target and then, with a quick draw, shooting at it from the hip, so waking everyone in the immediate vicinity. His unpredictable sense of humour also found a target in members of the British Mission with whom he sometimes travelled.
    "You English," he challenged, "you are ruling half the world but you can't make good coffee and you can't shoot as I do."
    In his memoirs, Moni Levi remembered the artist as "slender and pale," always carrying a sketch pad. He had much to draw, Dr Levi said, as the Partisans followed "the trail of horror left by the occupiers." Ismet had joined the Third Korpus in Vlasenica sometime in the fall of 1943. He was housed at first with the British Mission led by Captain Wilson, then he took a studio in a fine building near the great sweeping valley which dominates that village.
    Dafoe was immediately drawn to the Yugoslav artist's intensity and wit. He enjoyed Ismet's active, inquiring mind and sensed in him a kindred spirit. It helped, too, that they could converse in French.

Soon after the artist's visit, an ambulance convoy carrying close to a hundred wounded Partisans arrived in the village one day at noon. It was a sight Dafoe would never forget. Thirty-odd primitive ox-carts, with no visible means of suspension, rolled into the hospital compound. Each carried two or three seriously wounded Partisans returning from a battle fought almost a week earlier in Tuzla, several hundred kilometres away. The wounded had bumped along rugged mountain trails in the carts or on horseback, or had hobbled along on foot, determined to reach the famed No 1 Hospital of the Third Korpus. Many were unconscious, others merely exhausted on their beds of straw in the carts.
    "I couldn't resist taking several pictures of this weird spectacle," Dafoe confessed. "The Partisans crowded around the occupants of the carts, watching them and questioning them. It was a most pathetic sight."
    Dr Levi arrived at almost the same time as the convoy. He, at least, had had advance warning that it was imminent and had come to assist the medical unit with triage. They would send the convalescent and less serious hospital cases to mobile units or divisional and brigade hospitals in the area to make room for the new arrivals. As Dafoe wrote:
    "We saw our removal-of-eye cases, the fractured humeruses [sic] in their thoracic brachial plasters, the minor fractures and wounds of the extremities encased in POP so that they could ride a horse and not have to be carried, move off — most of them looking a bit sad about it all. We hated to see them go, for most were doing well and we had become attached to them, knowing them all by their wounds and not their names. But such is always the case in medicine."
    The days that followed were exceptionally hectic as the new patients were treated and installed in the wards. Dafoe judged from the number of wounded that the attack in Tuzla had miscarried tragically, although he had no details. The Partisans insisted that the attack had been a resounding success. He heard that they had captured a large amount of war materiel, including weapons and ammunition along with some medical supplies. But most of it was lost during the retreat from the enemy's counterattack.
    "The Partisans usually never told you of their losses and reverses," Dafoe grumbled, "only the successes — and they, I believe, were often exaggerated." He was chafing somewhat at the difficulty in obtaining advance information from the Partisans. "They trusted nobody, not even themselves," he said. But he acknowledged as well that the Partisans had an enormous security problem because they comprised a number of nationalities — including Germans and Italians who had deserted or elected to join the Partisans when taken prisoner.
    The arrival of the convoy gave rise to yet another project in Dafoe's mind, and with some assistance from Djuras and several carpenters who had arrived after the conference with Vladimir Popovic, he contrived a stretcher-bed for use in transporting wounded.
    The design was simple and appropriate to guerrilla warfare. Dafoe, finally realizing the true character of the conflict around him, predicted it would see more than its share of use in the future. Constructed from sturdy wood planks, it resembled a narrow box frame with four handles — two on each side — and a "cradle" made from parachute webbing. Djuras scoured the area around the hospital until he found enough wood to allow a production rate of five or six beds per day.
    It was suggested also that a magazine should be constructed within easy reach of the hospital so that equipment hidden at the top of the mountain could be moved down to Mihajlovici. Frank, Chris, and Miki had complained of the time and energy wasted in hauling medical canisters when replenishing supplies. Dafoe's proposal was not allowed to pass without the usual comment about the quantity of materiel the medical unit insisted on carrying, but he argued again that it was the least he could get by with. The Partisans bowed to his request.
    Several nights later, Dafoe was having a discussion with Marko when Djuras appeared at the campsite. He interrupted them and spoke at some length. While Dafoe was unable to understand a word of it, he sensed its grave undercurrent.
    "Commissar Djuraskovic says we must get ready to move immediately," Miki translated.
    Dafoe was stunned. "It was all so casual, and I thought they were joking," he recalled afterwards.
    Djuras assured him that enemy units were moving into the vicinity of Mihajlovici. He told everyone they should be safe for the night, but the following morning might prove a different story. Already several nurses had been selected to go underground with the patients. Djuras asked Dafoe to go to the theatre at once and pack only the most important items, no more than could be carried on several horses. Still shocked by it all, Dafoe reluctantly agreed.
    Jordy and two other nurses assisted with the packing and soon had several canisters loaded. Dafoe was saddened to hear that Jordy was to remain with the patients in one of the underground shelters. Not only an unpleasant prospect, it also involved considerable risk. Moreover, he would miss his favourite nurse. He gave Jordy whatever supplies she wanted and wished her good luck.
    Next morning the ox-carts were assembled again and loaded with Dafoe's medical supplies. They were almost ready to depart when Djuras appeared and nervously asked Dafoe and his assistants to unload enough equipment to permit a larger-than-anticipated surgical theatre that day. This caused a small uproar, but after much throwing of hands in the air, Dafoe unloaded several canisters to select instruments and supplies. Marko, for one, seemed amused by the confusion Djuras had created. Dafoe noted the other commissar, the female major, was nowhere in sight. She tended to spend a lot of time in conference.
    Now the medical unit found it had nothing to do. Hurry up and wait, as the saying went. The Partisans did not seem particularly worried by the danger which apparently surrounded the village. They lingered, chatting idly and smoking if they had tobacco. The medical unit stood and waited for several hours at least, until Djuras returned and informed everyone that the "danger" had passed. Dafoe and his team could resume work provided they used only the equipment and supplies they had unpacked. Dafoe roundly cursed the great merry-go-round the commissar was running. But he went to work.
    Whether or not any real danger existed during the night is not on record, though Miki's persistent claim that Cetnik and German units surrounded the area cannot be discounted. Dafoe again complained about the lack of information he and his assistants received. It soured his mood that morning as he went from patient to patient, examining and dressing wounds. Many of the patients were complaining of maggots, a result of the flies and filth Dafoe had sought repeatedly to eliminate. He decided to leave the plasters intact, despite the discomfort, for he knew the maggots would do less harm than frequent changing of the casts. In some instances they might even speed a patient's recovery as they devoured rotten flesh.
    The day wore on, long and sultry. Dafoe grew increasingly irritated, urging Djuras to do something. The commissar seemed determined to stand firm until word arrived from Korpus HQ. Dafoe tried another tack, telling Djuras it was his responsibility if he wanted to neglect the patients. The man weakened perceptibly at this, and allowed Dafoe to send Miki and Chris for supplies from the magazine.
    Much later in the day the "all clear" signal finally came from Korpus HQ and the medical unit was allowed to unpack its equipment. If the incident was resolved to everyone's satisfaction, in the aftermath of the false alarm the medical unit may still not have realized it had just taken one giant step closer to the real war.