On me he
stared cynically, then sneered frankly.
With a little tooty shriek the funny train tottered in. My captors had
taken pains to place themselves at the wrong end of the platform. Now
they encouraged me to HurryHurryHurry.
I managed to get under the load and tottered the length of the train to a
car especially reserved. There was one other criminal, a
beautifully-smiling, shortish man, with a very fine blanket wrapped in a
water-proof oilskin cover. We grinned at each other (the most cordial
salutation, by the way, that I have ever exchanged with a human being)
and sat down opposite one another--he, plus my baggage which he helped me
lift in, occupying one seat; the _gendarme_-sandwich, of which I formed
the _piece de resistance_, the other.
The engine got under way after several feints; which pleased the Germans
so that they sent several scout planes right over the station, train, us
_et tout_. All the French anticraft guns went off together for the sake
of sympathy; the guardians of the peace squinted cautiously from their
respective windows, and then began a debate on the number of the enemy
while their prisoners smiled at each other appreciatively.
"_Il fait chaud_," said this divine man, prisoner, criminal, or what not,
as he offered me a glass of wine in the form of a huge tin cup overflowed
from the canteen in his slightly unsteady and delicately made hand.
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