rs. High-pressure engines were whistling, impatient to be off.
Groups of soldiers were hesitating before the different trains, making
mistakes, getting out of one coach to enter others. The employees, calm
but weary-looking, were going from side to side, giving explanations
about mountains of all sorts of freight and arranging them for
transport. In the convoy in which Desnoyers was placed the Territorials
were sleeping, accustomed to the monotony of acting as guard. Those in
charge of the horses had opened the sliding doors, seating themselves
on the floor with their legs hanging over the edge. The train went very
slowly during the night, across shadowy fields, stopping here and there
before red lanterns and announcing its presence by prolonged whistling.

In some stations appeared young girls clad in white with cockades and
pennants on their breasts. Day and night they were there, in relays,
so that no train should pass through without a visit. They offered, in
baskets and trays, their gifts to the soldiers--bread, chocolate, fruit.
Many, already surfeited, tried to resist, but had to yield eventually
before the pleading countenance of the maidens. Even Desnoyers was laden
down with these gifts of patriotic enthusiasm.

He passed a great part of the night talking with his travelling
companions. Only the officers had vague directions as to where they were
to meet their regiments, for the operations of war were daily changing
the situation. Faithful to duty, they were passing on, hoping to arrive
in time for the decisive combat. The Chief of the Guard had been
over the ground, and was the only one able to give any account of
the retreat. After each stop the train made less progress. Everybody
appeared confused. Why the retreat? . . . The army had undoubtedly
suffered reverses, but it was still united and, in his opinion, ought to
seek an engagement where it was. The retreat was leaving the advance
of the enemy unopposed. To what point were they going to retreat? . . .
They who two weeks before were discussing in their garrisons the place
in Belgium where their adversaries were going to receive their death
blow and through what places their victorious troops would invade
Germany! . . .

Their admission of the change of tactics did not reveal the slightest
discouragement. An indefinite but firm hope was hovering triumphantly
above their vacillations. The Generalissimo was the only one who
possessed the secret of events.