"Seventeen francs," said the woman without moving an eyelash.
This frenzy cooled, their pockets lighter, they walked for pleasure in the town. The narrow streets streamed with people—French soldiers and officers, Lorraine women in the costumes of pageantry, and German children who cried shrilly: "Amerikanerin, Amerikanerin!"
An English major passed them. They recognised his flawless boots before they realised his nationality. And, following his, the worst boots in the world—worn by a couple of sauntering Italian officers, gay in olive and silver uniform. German men in black slouch hats hurried along the streets.
It had been arranged that they should eat their meals in a room overlooking the canal, at the foot of the Cathedral—and there at eleven o'clock they went, to be a little dashed in spirit by the reappearance of the Bar-le-Duc crockery.
The same yellow dish carried what seemed the same rationed jam; the square blocks of meat might have been cooked in the Bar cook-hut, and brought with them over the desert; two heavy loaves stood as usual on the wooden table. The French Army ration was the same in every town.
"Mesdames," said the orderly assigned to them, "there are two sous-officers without who wish to speak with you."
"Let them come in."
Two blue figures appeared in the doorway and saluted. The first brought a card of invitation from the Commandant Dormans. The second was the brigadier from the garage with a list of the cars assigned to the drivers.
"Perhaps these ladies would come down and try their cars after lunch?" he suggested, and lunch being over they walked with him through the winding streets. At the gates of a great yard he paused and a sentry swung them open. Behind the gates lay a sandy plain as large as a parade ground, which, except for gulleys or gangways crossing it at intervals, was packed from end to end with row after row of cars; cars in the worst possible condition, torn, twisted, wheelless, cars with less dramatic and yet fatal injuries; some squatting backwards upon their haunches, some inclined forwards upon their knees—one, lately fished up from a river, had slabs and crusts of ice still upon its seats—one, the last dragged in at the tail of a breakdown lorry, hung, fore-wheels in the air, helpless upon a crane. Here, in the yard, was nothing but broken iron and mouldering carriage work—the cemetery of the Transport of the Grand Quartier.
Lining all one side of the yard ran a shed, closed and warmed and lighted, where living cars slept in long rows mudguard to mudguard, and bright lamps facing outward.