ined, they were bedded down for the night upon
straw.

The civilians composing our party were bidden to climb aboard the
passenger coach, where the eight of us, two of the number being of
augmented super-adult size, took possession of a compartment meant to
hold six. The other compartments were occupied by wounded Germans,
except one compartment, which was set aside for the captive French
lieutenant and two British subalterns. Top-Sergeant Rosenthal was in
charge of the train with headquarters aboard our coach. With him, as
aides, he had three Red Cross men.

The lighting apparatus of the car did not operate. On the ledge of our
window sat a small oil lamp, sending out a rich smell and a pale, puny
illumination. Just before we pulled out Rosenthal came and blew out the
lamp, leaving the wick to smoke abominably. He explained that he did
this for our own well-being. Belgian snipers just outside the town had
been firing into the passing trains, he said, and a light in a car
window was but an added temptation. He advised us that if shooting
started we should drop upon the floor. We assured him in chorus that we
would, and then after adding that we must not be surprised if the
Belgians derailed the train during the night he went away, leaving us
packed snugly in together in the dark. This incident had a tendency to
discourage light conversation among us for some minutes.

Possibly it was because daylight travel would be safer travel, or it may
have been for some other good and sufficient reason, that after
traveling some six or eight miles joltingly we stopped in the edge of a
small village and stayed there until after sun-up. That was a hard night
for sleeping purposes. One of our party, who was a small man, climbed
up into the baggage net above one row of seats and stretched himself
stiffly in the narrow hammock-like arrangement, fearing to move lest he
tumble down on the heads of his fellow-sufferers. Another laid him down
in the little aisle flanking the compartment, where at least he might
spraddle his limbs and where also, persons passing the length of the car
stepped upon his face and figure from time to time. This interfered
with his rest. The remaining six of us mortised ourselves into the seats
in neck-cricking attitudes, with our legs so intertwined and mingled
that when one man got up to stretch himself he had to use great care in
picking out his own legs. Sometimes he could only tell that it was