urday, the first of August, at four o'clock in the
afternoon. We saw mounds of grain that had been cut and was still
scattered on the ground, with the scythe glistening nearby. We saw
pitchforks resting alongside the hay they had just finished tossing.
We saw sheaves lying on the ground with no one to take them away. The
very villages were deserted; not a human being appeared in them. You
would have said that this train that was passing through in the wake
of hundreds of other trains had blotted out all the inhabitants of the
region.

We detrained at Alencon, arriving there about mid-day. Alencon is a
tiny Norman village that is habitually calm and peaceful, but on that
day it was crowded with people. An enormous wave, the wave of the men
who were mobilizing, rushed through the main street of the little town
in the direction of the two barracks. I went with the current. My
captain, whom I found in the middle of a part of the barracks, had not
even had time to put on his uniform. He explained the situation to me
with military brevity:

"It's very simple.... It's now three o'clock in the afternoon. The day
after tomorrow, at six o'clock in the morning, we entrain for Paris.
We have one day to clothe, equip and arm our company."

It is no small matter to clothe, equip and arm two hundred and fifty
men in twenty-four hours. You have to find in the enormous pile, which
is in a corner of a shed, two hundred and fifty coats, pairs of
trousers and hats which will fit two hundred and fifty entirely
separate and distinct chests, legs and heads. You have to find five
hundred pairs of shoes for two hundred and fifty pairs of feet. You
have to arrange the men in rank according to their heights, form the
sections and the squads. You have to have soup prepared and transport
provisions. You have to go and get rifles and cartridges. You have to
get funds advanced for the company accounts from the very beginning of
the campaign. You have to get your duties organized, make up accounts
and prepare statements. You have to breathe the breath of life into
the little machine which is going to take its place in the big
machine.

And there was not a person there to help us to do this--not a line
officer, not a second lieutenant. The captain had to act on his own,
to think on his own, to decide everything on his own. He had to do
all by himself the work that yesterday twenty-five department store
heads, twenty-five shoe makers and twenty-fiv