I got up and looked out. As far as could be seen along any street, and all over the square, was a faintly mobile sea of black on which danced the glow of the cigarette (damnable, how the cigarette has put out the pipe!). Detachments were still marching from the train to the halting-places, and detachments were moving out momentarily on the night march.
"Hark, I hear the tramp of thousands,
And of arméd men the hum."
They moved off—some to drum and fife band; some to the regimental song; some to the regimental whistle; some to the unrhythmic accompaniment of random conversation. The general impression they gave, at two in the morning, was of an abnormal cheerfulness.
A French ambulance-train came in this afternoon crowded with slightly wounded—sitting cases. They were immensely cheerful, though there was not by any means sitting accommodation for all. These were all nice light "Blighty" wounds; they meant respite from the dam'd trenches without dishonour. The fellows were immensely cheered by this. They were more like a train-load of excursionists than a body of wounded warriors from a hell like the Somme. They had hundredweights of German souvenirs. Most of it was being worn—helmets, tunics, arms, and the like. I bought several pieces. They were not expensive. A French Poilu's pay is cinq sous (twopence ha'penny) per day: fifteen or twenty francs means about three months' pay for him. He'll part with a lot of souvenir for that. And he has such a bulk of it that a few casques, trench daggers, rifles, and telescopic sights, more or less, are neither here nor there.
The English girls who administer the gare canteen move up and down with jugs of coffee. They are thanked (embraced, if they'd stand it) with embarrassing profusion.
Saturday, —st.—Bombs were dropped in the Citadelle moat to-day. The Citadelle is now a casualty clearing station. This is not incongruous with its history. It was besieged in the fifteenth century. No doubt there were casualties within it then—though, judging its defensive properties at this distance of time, there were more without: many more. It's tremendously strong still—an incredible depth of dry moat, thickness of wall, and height of rampart surmounting it: outer ramparts on three sides from which the defenders retired across the bridges—still standing—after they had done their worst. And there are bowels in the place from which galleries set out to neighbouring villages whence reinforcements used to be brought up. You can walk miles in these galleries beneath the Citadelle itself, without journeying beneath the surrounding country; for the ground-plan of the Citadelle is not small. A walk round the walls will lead you a mile and a half, traversing buttresses and all: the buttresses bulge hugely into the moat-bed.
The whole area is terraced, originally for strategic purposes. The buildings are many and strong and roomy.
A fine hospital it happens to have made. The multiplicity of buildings offers all a C.O. could ask in the way of distribution of wards and facilities for segregation, and isolated buildings for stores, messes, Sisters' quarters, officers' quarters, operating-theatres, laboratories.