urcharged with men and with all things,
lights begin everywhere to appear. These are the flash-lamps of
officers and detachment leaders, and the cyclists' acetylene lamps,
whose intensely white points zigzag hither and thither and reveal an
outer zone of pallid resurrection.

An acetylene searchlight blazes blindingly out and depicts a dome of
daylight. Other beams pierce and rend the universal gray.

Then does the station assume a fantastic air. Mysterious shapes spring
up and adhere to the sky's dark blue. Mountains come into view,
rough-modeled, and vast as the ruins of a town. One can see the
beginning of unending rows of objects, finally plunged in night. One
guesses what the great bulks may be whose outermost outlines flash
forth from a black abyss of the unknown.

On our left, detachments of cavalry and infantry move ever forward like
a ponderous flood. We hear the diffused obscurity of voices. We see
some ranks delineated by a flash of phosphorescent light or a ruddy
glimmering, and we listen to long-drawn trails of noise.

Up the gangways of the vans whose gray trunks and black mouths one sees
by the dancing and smoking flame of torches, artillerymen are leading
horses. There are appeals and shouts, a frantic trampling of conflict,
and the angry kicking of some restive animal--insulted by its
guide--against the panels of the van where he is cloistered.

Not far away, they are putting wagons on to railway trucks. Swarming
humanity surrounds a hill of trusses of fodder. A scattered multitude
furiously attacks great strata of bales.

"That's three hours we've been on our pins," sighs Paradis.

"And those, there, what are they?" In some snatches of light we see a
group of goblins, surrounded by glowworms and carrying strange
instruments, come out and then disappear.

"That's the searchlight section," says Cocon.

"You've got your considering cap on, camarade; what's it about?"

"There are four Divisions, at present, in an Army Corps," replies
Cocon; "the number changes, sometimes it is three, sometimes five. Just
now, it's four. And each of our Divisions," continues the mathematical
one, whom our squad glories in owning, "includes three R.I.--regiments
of infantry; two B.C.P.--battalions of chasseurs pied; one
R.T.I.--regiment of territorial infantry--without counting the special
regiments, Artillery, Engineers, Transport, etc., and not counting
either Headquarters of the D.I. and the departments not bri