They were mining the bridges to blow them up at a
given signal. As I went further I saw that the streets were strewn with
broken bottles and littered with wire entanglements, very artfully and
carefully made.
It was a queer experience. It was obvious that there was a very grim
business being done in Beauvais, and that the soldiers were waiting
for something to happen. At the railway station I quickly learnt the
truth. The Germans were only a few miles away in great force. At any
moment they might come down, smashing everything in their way,
and killing every human being along that road. The station master, a
brave old type, and one or two porters, had determined to stay on to
the last. "Nous sommes ici," he said, as though the Germans would
have to reckon with him. But he was emphatic in his request for me to
leave Beauvais if another train could be got away, which was very
uncertain. As a matter of fact, after a mauvais quart d'heure, I was
put into a train which had been shunted into a siding and left
Beauvais with the sound of the German guns in my ears.
Sitting in darkness and shaken like peas in a pod because of
defective brakes, we skirted the German army, and by a twist in the
line almost ran into the enemy's country; but we rushed through the
night, and the engine-driver laughed and put his oily hand up to the
salute when I stepped out to the platform of an unknown station.
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