So we crossed the canal, and in order to get to Cappy on our right, we have to go round by Bray-sur-Somme.
But this road has its distractions.
The road is absolutely torn up and it is not five yards wide anywhere, in fact it is an infernal mixture of automobiles, artillery, caissons and batteries.
No one will slow up. They cross over, go around, hang on, shout, bellow, insult, and get past as best they can. Our mules are obstinate and stubborn and go on their way placidly in the midst of this uproar.
Once we lean so far to the right that the hubs of the wheels on the lower side stick in the mud.
We doubtless go ahead slowly, but we go ahead all the same. The drivers have to go in front of their beasts. It would be madness for them to stay on the seats of the ammunition wagons, and the certain ruin for man and beast, for exhausted by fatigue, they would fall asleep and get in the way of the enormous meteors which rush by without seeing anything.
As we approach Bray, the crowding is beyond anything one could imagine.
It is one compact mass of wagons, trucks, caissons, guns, forage wagons, all entangled, mixed up, wedged together, trying to get through a street scarcely wide enough to let two wagons by and where ten insist on going together.
If we mix with this crowd, we will condemn ourselves to several hours in one place without moving. Once in the crush it is impossible to get free and go back.
Roudon suggests that we twist around the village. Our wagons have the advantage of being able to go anywhere. They were made expressly for this work and have wide wheels and no frames.