of faith, rang out a little raggedly, but
bravely all the same. The lads--"poor children" they were called by a
white-haired man who watched them--were keeping up the valour of
their hearts by noisy demonstrations; but having seen the death-carts
pass through the darkness between lines of silent and dejected
onlookers, I could not bear to look into the faces of those little ones of
France who were following their fathers to the guns. Once again I had
to turn away to blot out the pictures of war in the velvety darkness of
the night.

Early next morning there was a thrill of anxiety in Amiens itself.
Reports had come through that the railway line had been cut between
Boulogne and Abbeville. There had been mysterious movements of
regiments from the town barracks. They had moved out of Amiens,
and there was a strange quietude in the streets, hardly a man in
uniform to be seen in places which had been filled with soldiers the
day before. I think only a few people realized the actual significance
of all this. Only a few--the friends of officers or the friends of
officers' friends--had heard that Amiens itself was to be evacuated.

To these people it seemed incredible and horrible--an admission that
France was being beaten to her knees. How could they believe the
theory of an optimist among them that it was a part of a great plan to
secure the safety of France? How could they realize that the town
itself would be saved from possible bombardment by this withdrawal
of the troops to positions which would draw the Germans into the
open? They only knew that they were undefended, and presently they
found that the civilian trains were being suspended, and that there
would be no way of escape. It was in the last train that by a stroke of
luck I escaped from Amiens. Shortly afterwards the tunnel leading to
the junction was blown up by the French engineers, and the beautiful
city of Amiens was cut off from all communication with the outer
world.

It was on the last train that I realized to the full of its bitterness the
brutality of war as it bludgeons the heart of the non-combatant. In the
carriage with me were French ladies and children who had been
hunted about the country in the endeavour to escape the zone of
military operations. Their husbands were fighting for France, and they
could not tell whether they were alive or dead. They had been without
any solid food for several days, and the nerves of those poor women
were tried to