"The tracks from now are either repaired or laid new by our engineers. As they retreated, the French blew up everything. In some cases we had to run our line through houses."
The engineers had cut away the half of the house which was in their way and left the remainder to be boarded up.
A gray castle, that crowned a hill, had been the vortex of the terrific fighting that raged around Montmédy. It seemed tranquil enough now. I saw the front door open, and down the terrace there shuffled a squad of baggy red-trousered French prisoners with their watchful guards.
When we passed through Sedan it was almost dark, swarming with the Germans as in 1870. One after another we tarried at the stations of these captured towns. Finally we pulled up to a larger station where the shadowy forms of houses were closer together. I was awakened from my speculations by the Ober-Lieutenant saying: "We are in Charleville, the Great Headquarters."
As I left the train I felt a thrill of anticipation that grew apace during the long explanation that Herrmann was giving the station guards. Outside loomed the vague tops of trees, and the whiteness of a house accentuated against the dark night. Here and there a solitary light burned, but Charleville was a place of darkness.
Herrmann had expected an automobile to be waiting, but when to the saluting click of sentries' heels, we had gone the length of the station front, he said to me: "You please get Mr. Dawson and Mr. Theyer and wait in the dining-room. I shall walk to Headquarters and see what we are to do."
Of course, I suggested going with him. There might be a chance of seeing Falkenheim, who now is responsible for the movements of more than a million men on the West front; perhaps I might even see the Emperor. Perhaps Herrmann guessed why I insisted so strongly on keeping him company on his walk to the Great Headquarters.
"The roads are muddy," he said, in a way that blended consideration with decision. "Remain in there," and he pointed to the door of the station dining-room, "until I return."
Then he showed us into a typical way station restaurant that would have reminded you of any dirty American railroad lunchroom, had not the principal object of furniture been a large buffet, shining with bottled French wines and liqueurs. As I sat down at one of the marble-topped tables, I realized that we were the only civilians in the room, except the three men with white aprons and the pretty low-class French girl who was waiting to take our order.
"Diner," I said briefly, not attempting to remember French after struggling for weeks with German, and fell to studying the room. It apparently was an officers' mess of the General Staff. The clean field-green jackets and the dashing gray capes gave a touch of romance to that dingy dining-room.