, a brave old type, and one or two porters had
determined to stay on to the last. "We are here," he said, as though the
Germans would have to reckon with him; but he was emphatic in his
request for me to leave at once if another train could be got away,
which was very uncertain. As a matter of fact, after a bad quarter of an
hour I was put on the last train to escape from this threatened town,
and left it with the sound of German guns in my ears, followed by a dull
explosion when the bridge behind me was blown up.

My train, in which there were only four other men, skirted the German
army, and by a twist in the line almost ran into the enemy's country,
but we rushed through the night, and the engine driver laughed and put
his oily hand up to salute when I stepped out to the platform of an
unknown station. "The Germans won't get us, after all," he said. It was
a little risky, all the same.

The station was crowded with French soldiers, and they were soon telling
me their experience of the hard fighting in which they had been engaged.
They were dirty, unshaven, dusty from head to foot, scorched by the
August sun, in tattered uniforms and broken boots; but they were
beautiful men for all their dirt, and the laughing courage, quiet
confidence, and unbragging simplicity with which they assured me that
the Germans would soon be caught in a death trap and sent to their
destruction filled me with admiration which I cannot express in words.
All the odds were against them; they had fought the hardest of all
actions--the retirement from the fighting line--but they had absolute
faith in the ultimate success of their allied arms.

I managed to get to Paris. It was in the middle of the night, but
extraordinary scenes were taking place. It had become known during the
day that Paris was no longer the seat of the Government, which has
moved to Bordeaux. The Parisians had had notice of four days in which to
destroy their houses within the zone of fortifications, and, to add to
the cold fear occasioned by this news, aeroplanes had dropped bombs upon
the Gare de l'Est that afternoon.

There was a rush last night to get away from the capital, and the
railway stations were great camps of fugitives, in which the richest and
poorest citizens were mingled with their women and children. But the
tragedy deepened when it was heard that most of the lines to the east
had been cut, and that the only line remaining open to Dieppe would
probably be