was instantly in an uproar. The lines of
civilians were driven helter-skelter to cover--where, I don't know. The
stands of arms in the freight yard were snatched up, and in less time
than it takes to tell it, several hundred men were scattered behind any
sort of shelter that offered, ready for the fray.

I took one quick look about and decided that the substantial freight
station was the most attractive thing in sight. In no time I was inside,
closely followed by my own crowd and a handful of soldiers. First, we
lay down upon the platform, and then, when we got our bearings, rolled
over on to the track among a lot of artillery horses that were tethered
there.

Apparently a number of civilians, goaded to desperation by what they had
seen, had banded together, knowing that they were as good as dead, and
had determined to sell their lives as dearly as they could. They had
gathered in the ruins of the houses fronting on the station and had
opened up on us. There was a brisk interchange of shots, with an
occasional tinkle of broken glass and a good deal of indiscriminate
cursing by the soldiers, who had taken refuge with us.

The artillery horses did not welcome us very cordially and began to get
restive in a way that made us debate whether we preferred staying up on
the platform with a chance of being potted or staying under cover and
being ingloriously trampled to death. A joint debate on this important
question kept us occupied for several minutes. We finally compromised by
fishing down a few boxes from the platform and erecting a barricade of
sorts to protect us against any stray kicks.

As we sat in the undignified position imposed on us by circumstances, we
exchanged various frivolous remarks, not because we felt particularly
gay, but because we had to do something to keep ourselves interested and
to keep our courage up. Bulle resented this, and raised his head to look
at me reproachfully over the barricade, and say: "Don't talk like that;
it is nothing short of tempting Providence."

After a time Blount and I decided to make a reconnaissance in force and
see how the car was getting on. We crawled along the floor to a place
from which we could see out into the square. The soldiers were flat on
their stomachs behind a low wall that extended around the small circular
park in the centre of the square, and behind any odd shelter they could
find. The car lay in the line of fire but had not been struck. We were
suffici