ust out of town we were blocked by a train of
about a dozen big horse trucks and two passenger carriages, carrying
wounded and prisoners to Paris from the fighting lines in the north. It
had been a gloomy morning, and the rain now fell in torrents.
Nevertheless the townsfolk crowded up, and for half an hour managed to
conduct a satisfactory combination of profit and pity by supplying big
flat loaves, bottles of wine, fruit, cigarettes, and jugs of water to
those in the train who had money and some who had none. One very old
woman in white, with a little red cross on her forehead, turned up to
take advantage of the only opportunity ever likely to fall in her way. A
great Turco in fez, blouse, and short, baggy breeches was very active in
this commissariat work.

Some of the Frenchmen on board were not wounded seriously enough to
prevent their getting down on the roadway; and you may be sure they were
not ashamed of their plaster patches and bandaged arms.

There were about 300 German prisoners in the train. We got glimpses of
them lying in the straw on the floor in the dark interior of the big
trucks. I got on the footboard and looked into the open door of one car.
Fifteen men were stretched upon straw, and two soldiers stood guard over
them, rifle in hand. They all seemed in a state of extreme exhaustion.
Some were asleep, others were eating large chunks of bread.

In the middle of the car a young soldier who spoke French fairly well
told me that the German losses during the last three days had been
enormous; and then, stopping suddenly, he said:

"Would it be possible, Sir, to get a little water for my fellows and
myself?"

"Certainly," I replied; and a man belonging to the station, who was
passing with a jug, said at once that he would run and get some. The
prisoner thanked me and added with a sigh:

"They are very good fellows here."

One jocular French guard had put on a spiked helmet which he was keeping
as a trophy, and, so much does the habit make the man, he now looked
uncannily like a German himself.

As we passed through the villages to the northeast the contrast between
abandoned houses and gardens rioting with the color of roses and dahlias
and fruit-laden trees struck us like a blow.

In Gourchamp a number of houses had been burned, and the neighboring
fields showed that there had been fighting there; but it was Courtacon
which presented the most grievous spectacle. Eighteen of its two dozen
house