The young man took the hint, and when he climbed upon a bench outside the wine-shop door his voice was much milder as he admonished the prisoners that they would be treated with due honors of war if they obeyed their warders promptly during the coming journey, but that the least sign of rebellion among them would mean but one thing—­immediate death.  Since he spoke in German, a young French lieutenant translated the warning for the benefit of the Frenchmen and the Belgians, and a British noncom. did the same for his fellow countrymen, speaking with a strong Scottish burr.  He wound up with an improvisation of his own, which I thought was typically British.  “Now, then, boys,” he sang out, “buck up, all of you!  It might be worse, you know, and some of these German chaps don’t seem a bad lot at all.”

So, with that, Lieutenant Mittendorfer blew out his big chest and barked an order into the night, and away we all swung off at a double quick, with our feet slipping and sliding upon the travel-worn granite boulders underfoot.  In addition to being rounded and unevenly laid, the stones were now coated with a layer of slimy mud.  It was a hard job to stay upright on them.

I don’t think I shall ever forget that march.  I know I shall never forget that smell, or the sound of all our feet clumping over those slick cobbles.  Nor shall I forget, either, the appealing calls of Gerbeaux’ black chauffeur, who was being left behind in the now empty guardhouse, and who, to judge from his tones, did not expect ever to see any of us again.  As a matter of fact, I ran across him two weeks later in Liege.  He had just been released and was trying to make his way back to Brussels.

The way ahead of us was inky black.  The outlines of the tall Belgian houses on either side of the narrow street were barely visible, for there were no lights in the windows at all and only dim candles or oil lamps in the lower floors.  No natives showed themselves.  I do not recollect that in all that mile-long tramp I saw a single Belgian civilian—­only soldiers, shoving forward curiously as we passed and pressing the files closer in together.

Through one street we went and into another which if anything was even narrower and blacker than the first, and presently we could tell by the feel of things under our feet that we had quit the paved road and were traversing soft earth.  We entered railway sidings, stumbling over the tracks, and at the far end of the yard emerged into a sudden glare of brightness and drew up alongside a string of cars.

After the darkness the flaring brilliancy made us blink and then it made us wonder there should be any lights at all, seeing that the French troops, in retiring from Beaumont four days before, had done their hurried best to cripple the transportation facilities and had certainly put the local gas plant out of commission.  Yet here was illumination in plenty and to spare.  At once the phenomenon stood explained.  Two