eptember 2nd. It was quite dark
and bitterly cold. Very sleepily indeed we rode along an exiguous path
by the side of the cobbles. The sun had risen, but it was still cold
when we rattled into that diabolical city of lost souls, Dammartin.

Nobody spoke as we entered. Indeed there were only a few haggard, ugly
old women, each with a bit of a beard and a large goitre. One came up to
me and chattered at me. Then suddenly she stopped and rushed away, still
gibbering. We asked for a restaurant. A stark, silent old man, with a
goitre, pointed out an _estaminet_. There we found four motionless men,
who looked up at us with expressionless eyes. Chilled, we withdrew into
the street. Silent, melancholy soldiers--the H.Q. of some army or
division--were marching miserably out. We battered at the door of a
hotel for twenty minutes. We stamped and cursed and swore, but no one
would open. Only a hideous and filthy crowd stood round, and not one of
them moved a muscle. Finally, we burst into a bare little inn, and had
such a desolate breakfast of sour wine, bread, and bully. We finished as
soon as we could to leave the nightmare place. Even the houses were
gaunt and ill-favoured.

On our way out we came across a deserted motor-cycle. Some one suggested
sending it on by train, until some one else remarked that there were no
trains, and this was fifteen miles from Paris.

We cut across country, rejoined the column, and rode with it to
Vinantes, passing on the way a lost motor-lorry. The driver was tearing
his hair in an absolute panic. We told him the Germans were just a few
miles along the road; but we wished we hadn't when, in hurriedly
reversing to escape, he sent a couple of us into the ditch.

At Vinantes we "requisitioned" a car, some chickens, and a pair of
boots. There was a fusty little tavern down the street, full of laughing
soldiers. In the corner a fat, middle-aged woman sat weeping quietly on
a sack. The host, sullen and phlegmatic, answered every question with a
shake of the head and a muttered "N'importe." The money he threw
contemptuously on the counter. The soldiers thought they were spies. "As
speaking the langwidge," I asked him what the matter was.

"They say, sir, that this village will be shelled by the
cursed Germans, and the order has gone out to evacuate."

Then, suddenly his face became animated, and he told me volubly how he
had been born in the village, how he had been married there, how he ha