"My God!" said Draycott, as they went down the steps. "I didn't
realise before what war meant to a woman. And we shall never realise
what it means to our own women. We only see them before we go. Never
after."

IV

Half an hour later he encountered Monsieur le Colonel once again, and
suggested that they should split a bottle of wine together if he could
spare the time. It was then nine o'clock, and the three hours till
midnight loomed uninviting. His only hope, as he told him, was that
the train at present standing at the platform was not going to be
typical of the one he was to embark on. It seemed to be of endless
length, and presented a most enticing spectacle. Four fortunates in
each compartment had got the racks, otherwise the passengers stood: on
the footboards, in the corridors, on the seats. If any one opened a
door the pressure was such that at least six people fell on to the
platform, and in one carriage a small _poilu_ was being squeezed
through the open window. In the end he went--suddenly like a cork out
of a bottle, and the human mass closed up behind him.

Draycott laughed, the Colonel laughed, and went on laughing. He
laughed unrestrainedly, even as a man who enjoys a secret jest. At
last, with some difficulty, he controlled his mirth.

"Monsieur," he remarked gravely, but with twinkling eyes, "I fear your
hopes are ill-founded. This is the midnight train."

"Under those circumstances," Draycott murmured, with a ghastly attempt
at mirth, "the wine is off. I must go and secure my sleeping-berth."

Have you ever seen a fly-paper which has come "to the end of a perfect
day"? Lumps of glutinous flies drop off on one's head, and still it
seems as full as ever. It was the same with that train. Lumps of
Frenchmen, permanently welded together, fell out periodically, unstuck
themselves, and departed, only to return in a few moments with the long
thin loaves of France and bottles of wine. Sometimes they got in
again, sometimes they didn't--but they were happy, those poilus. What
matter anything, bar killing the Boche? And that was the only thing in
the air that night. . . .

In every carriage it was the same, until suddenly there came salvation.
A horse-box, with two horses in it and some grooms singing the
Marseillaise, loomed out of the darkness, and into it the fed-up
wanderer hurled his bag. Yet again did he embrace every one, including
the horses; and then, overcome with his