tell you what time you are to move out, and you have
to be ready to the minute. If you have not finished loading, the train
moves just the same. There is no fussing among the French, but a
deadly efficiency in all things.

CHAPTER XII

"SOMEWHERE IN FLANDERS"

Bah! Ba! Ba! Ba-a-a! Moo! Mo! Moo! M-o-o-o! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ba-a-a-a!

I was taking a stroll along the railway platform of a station in
Northern France where the engine stopped to coal and water when this
chorus of barnyard calls burst from the men packed in the box cars,
reminding me of a cattle train. When they saw me halt and turn in
astonishment there was a roar of laughter.

"I'm very sorry men, that you are so crowded."

"That's all right, Sir," came back the cheery answer, "that's what we
are here for."

No wonder they thus amused themselves, for they had been travelling
two nights and a day on the way to the front, and the accommodation;
Well! only those who have been there can tell about or realize it.

The French do move troops in a wonderful manner. Each train is made up
of a certain number of box cars, flat cars and passenger cars. Into a
passenger car of the compartment kind the officers and staff are
jammed, eight in a compartment. On the flat cars the waggons, guns and
vehicles are run and lashed, and into the box cars the men and horses
are crowded. On each box car there is painted the legend "Cheveaux 8,
Hommes 40," which being translated means that the capacity of the car
is eight horses or forty men, and we had to put 40 men into each box
car which crowded them so that only eight men could lie down at a time
while the rest stood up. It was thus a very trying journey, but the
men did not grumble. They had to stand 48 hours of this and did it
without a murmur.

They expected greater hardships than this when they got to the front,
and as a poor shattered warrior said to me later on when I clasped his
hand and regretted his terrible wounds, "Don't you mind, Colonel.
That's what we came over here for."

When we landed we were told to march for the train at seven in the
evening, and we were ready to the minute. We marched silently through
the streets of Nazaire, and in a quarter of an hour we were at the
station. We found the train all ready, but no crew, no conductor, no
engine. An official at a water tank told us that the crew and
transport officer were at the cafe dining. They came along presently
and we started loading. Barnum