t after a glass of Dubonnet and the arsenic pill which lifted
him out of the gulfs of the black devil doubt to heights of splendid
optimism based upon unerring logic--I was able to send a dispatch to
England which cheered it after a day of anguish.

12

Because I also was eager to reach the coast--not to escape from the
advancing Germans, for I had determined that I would do desperate
things to get back for the siege of Paris, if history had to be written
that way--but because I must find a boat to carry a dispatch across
the Channel, I waited with the crowd of fugitives, struggled with them
for a seat in the train which left at dawn and endured another of those
journeys when discomfort mocked at sleep, until sheer exhaustion
made one doze for a minute of unconsciousness from which one
awakened with a cricked neck and cramped limbs, to a reality of
tragic things.

We went by a tortuous route, round Paris towards the west, and at
every station the carriages were besieged by people trying to escape.

"Pour l'amour de Dieu, laissez-moi entrer!"

"J'ai trois enfants, messieurs! Ayez un peu de pitie!" "Cre nom de
Dieu, c'est le dernier train! Et j'ai peur pour les petits. Nous sommes
tous dans le meme cas, n'est-ce-pas?"

But entreaties, piteous words, the exhibition of frightened children and
wailing babes could not make a place in carriages already packed to
bursting-point. It was impossible to get one more human being inside.

"C'est impossible! C'est absolument impossible! Regardez! On ne
peut pas faire plus de place, Madame!"

I was tempted sometimes to yield up my place. It seemed a coward
thing to sit there jammed between two peasants while a white-faced
woman with a child in her arms begged for a little pity and--a little
room. But I had a message for the English people. They, too, were in
anguish because the enemy had come so close to Paris in pursuit of
a little army which seemed to have been wiped out behind the screen
of secrecy through which only vague and awful rumours came. I sat
still, shamefaced, scribbling my message hour after hour, not daring
to look in the face of those women who turned away in a kind of
sullen sadness after their pitiful entreaties.

Enormous herds of cattle were being driven into Paris. For miles the
roads were thronged with them, and down other roads away from
Paris families were trekking to far fields, with their household goods
piled into bullock carts, pony carts, an