It was in the last train that by a stroke of
luck I escaped from Amiens. Shortly afterwards the tunnel leading to
the junction was blown up by the French engineers, and the beautiful
city of Amiens was cut off from all communication with the outer
world.
It was on the last train that I realized to the full of its bitterness the
brutality of war as it bludgeons the heart of the non-combatant. In the
carriage with me were French ladies and children who had been
hunted about the country in the endeavour to escape the zone of
military operations. Their husbands were fighting for France, and they
could not tell whether they were alive or dead. They had been without
any solid food for several days, and the nerves of those poor women
were tried to the uttermost, not by any fear for their own sakes, but for
the sake of the little ones who were all they could save from the
wreckage of their lives, all yet enough if they could save them to the
end. One lady whose house had been burnt by the Germans had
walked over twenty miles with a small boy and girl.
For a little while, when she told me her story she wept passionately,
yet only for a few minutes. For the sake of her handsome boy, who
had a hero's courage, and for the tiny girl who clung to her, she
resisted this breakdown and conquered herself.
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