The train ran into the station on time, but you never saw such a sight.
It was packed as the Brookline street-cars used to be on the days of a
baseball game. Men were absolutely hanging on the roof; women were
packed on the steps that led up to the imperials to the third-class
coaches. It was a perilous-looking sight. I opened a dozen
coaches--all packed, standing room as well as seats, which is ordinarily
against the law. I was about to give it up when a man said to me,
"Madame, there are some coaches at the rear that look as if they were
empty."
I made a dash down the long platform, yanked open a door, and was about
to ask if I might get in, when I saw that the coach was full of wounded
soldiers in khaki, lying about on the floor as well as the seats. I was
so shocked that if the station master, who had run after me, had not
caught me I should have fallen backward.
"Sh! madame," he whispered, "I'll find you a place"; and in another
moment I found myself, with Amelie, in a compartment where there were
already eight women, a young man, two children, and heaps of
hand-luggage--bundles in sheets, twine bags just bulging, paper parcels,
and valises. Almost as soon as we were in, the train pulled slowly out
of the station.
I learned from the women that Meaux was being evacuated. No one was
remaining but the soldiers in the barracks and the archbishop. They had
been ordered out by the army the night before, and the railroad was
taking them free. They were escaping with what they could carry in
bundles, as they could take no baggage. Their calm was remarkable-not a
complaint from any one. They were of all classes, but the barriers were
down.
The young man had come from farther up the line-a newspaper chap, who
had given me his seat, and was sitting on a bundle. I asked him if he
knew where the Germans were, and he replied that on this wing they were
at Compiegne, that the center was advancing on Coulommier, but he did
not know where the Crown Prince's division was.
I was glad I had made the effort to get to town, for this began to look
as if they might succeed in arriving before the circle of steel that
surrounds Paris, and God knows what good that seventy-five miles of
fortifications will be against the long-range cannon that battered down
Liege. I had only one wish--to get back to my hut on the hill; I did
not seem to want anything else.
Just before the train ran into Lagny--our first stop--I was surprised to
see British soldiers washing their horses in the river, so I was not
surprised to find the station full of men in khaki. They were sleeping
on the benches along the wall, and standing about, in groups. As to
many of the French on the train this was their first sight of the men in
khaki, and as there were Scotch there in their kilts, there was a good
deal of excitement.
The train made a long stop in the effort to put more people into the
already overcrowded coaches. I leaned forward, wishing to get some
news, and the funny thing was that I could not think how to speak to
those boys in English. You may think that an affectation. It wasn't.
Finally I desperately sang out:--
"Hulloa, boys."
You should have seen them dash for the window. I suppose that their
native tongue sounded good to them so far from home.
"Where did you come from?" I asked.
"From up yonder--a place called La Fere," one of them replied.
"What regiment?" I asked.
"Any one else here speak English?" he questioned, running his eyes along
the faces thrust out of the windows.