I sighed and was about to turn away. "Then where's the nearest bridge across?"
"Meaux."
"But that's thirty kilometres west! I'm only fifteen from home here!"
"I wish I could help you, but there's no use trying to leave here unless you go that way."
Then Meaux it must be, and though our trip was considerably lengthened, anything was better than inaction.
VIII
It was with much reluctance that we turned our backs on La Ferte the following morning and headed our horses westward.
Naturally the right of way was reserved for the army, and the roads bordering the Marne were now lined with soldiers, guns, ambulances and supply vans rushing to the front. After being side-tracked and halted no less than two score times, we finally reached Trilport, where the invaders had done but little material damage. The terrified civil population was even exultant, for two nights previously an automobile containing four German officers sped through the town, in the direction of Paris, and ignorant of the fact that the English had destroyed the bridge, had been precipitated into the river. The affair seemed to be considered as a huge joke, and the chief amusement now consisted in hanging over the broken side and contemplating the gruesome spectacle of a half-submerged motor, and four human bodies lying inanimate on some rocks, rapidly swelling, thanks to heat and the current.
"When we're sure they're good and dead, we'll bury 'em," explained a man whom I questioned.
As I write this phrase, now that more than a year has elapsed, it seems cruel and heartless, but on the spur of the moment, and after all that each one had endured, it was but justice.