Impatient at the delay, I got down and walked along the line to the engine.  It had stopped at a level crossing.  At the side of the closed barrier, on the doorstep of her hut, with the light shining upon her, sat the wife of the gatekeeper, a child in her arms.  She was a young woman, fair and pale.  She seemed somewhat uneasy, and yet had no idea of quitting her post.  She was talking in a low voice to the engine driver and stoker of our train.  I tried to get some information from her. “Mon Dieu, monsieur,” she said, “I know nothing, except that the guns have been firing all day long since yesterday, and even at times during the night.  The sound comes chiefly from the direction of G. Some soldiers, who went by just now with carts, told me the Prussians got into the town yesterday, but that it was to be retaken to-day; and that there were a great many dead and wounded.”

My hopes revived a little.  I saw at once in my mind the German attack stopped on the river Oise, our armies recovering, drawing together and driving the enemy back across the frontier.  Our engine-driver explained to me that we had come quite close to the terminus, but that we should have to wait some time before we could get in.  Other trains had to be unloaded and shunted to make room.

I went back to my van.  Night had fallen, and it must have been about nine o’clock.  The guns had suddenly ceased firing.  Our lantern had burnt itself out, and the rest of our wait was made more tedious by darkness.  An empty train passed us, and then silence fell once more upon the spot where we waited anxiously to be allowed to go forward towards our brothers-in-arms.  Oh! how I longed to join them, even if it were only in the middle of a bloody and difficult retreat; how I longed to be delivered from my solitude!

At last, at about eleven o’clock, the train set off again without whistling, and very slowly.  It went along timidly, so to speak, and as though it was afraid of coming into some unknown region which might be full of mysteries and ambuscades.  In the distance I saw some signal lamps waved, and suddenly we stopped.  What I then saw astounded me.  I had thought we should draw up at a large platform where gangs of men would be waiting, in perfect order, to unload the train, sort out the packages, and pile them up in their appointed places for the carts to take them quietly away.

Instead of this the train stopped at some little distance from a small station standing by itself in the open country.  I could make out some buildings, badly lighted, and around them a crowd of shadowy forms moving about.  And drawn up alongside of our train were countless vehicles of all sorts and kinds in indescribable disorder, made all the more confusing by the darkness.  Some of them were drawn up in some sort of a line.  Others tried to edge themselves in and get a vacant place among the entanglement of wheels and horses.  The drivers were abusing each other in forcible language.  Every now and again there was an outburst of laughter interspersed with oaths.